She took a deep breath, gripped the cylinder firmly in her left hand and prepared to twist the top with her right.
She couldn’t.
She tried to. She kept trying to. Tears mingled with the sweat running down her cheeks but she just couldn’t make her hand do her bidding. She couldn’t twist the end of the cylinder. She couldn’t be responsible for the deaths of all the people on board the Lord Pangloth, no matter how much she hated them. Oh yes, she had no qualms about helping to fire rockets at the Sky Lord from the roof of the tavern but that had been different. That had been war; a fight for survival. And she hadn’t been alone.
There was Milo to consider as well. Jan didn’t like him, and he was quite possibly a sorcerer, but she did owe him her life. It wasn’t fair to him that she had given him no warning of what she’d planned to do. She had thought of doing so but, of course, if she had he would have stopped her.
And then there was herself. She didn’t want to die.
Jan bowed her head and began to sob. She had betrayed her mother. Alsa. Minerva. …
Finally she stood and dressed and put the bomb in her pocket. She would have to dispose of it somehow. Flush it out of the latrine, perhaps. As Jan made her way back to the entry-point she tried to think up a story that would explain her disappearance. Maybe she could say she went back to fetch a piece of forgotten equipment and got lost. …
She climbed out through the entry-hatch. Now what, she wondered bleakly. Go and give herself up to the Warriors by the hatchway? No, she wasn’t ready to see anyone just yet. She wanted to be by herself. She would head towards the cage shaft and wait until the others arrived to start the next day’s shift. She had no idea how many hours away that would be but she was too depressed to care.
A flicker of red light in the darkness ahead distracted her from her pain. Jan frowned, wondering what it was. Engineers doing repair work? But surely, if that was so, the whole area where they were working would be well-illuminated. She went closer, not caring if she made a noise or was spotted. It didn’t matter now.
The nearer she got to the source of the flickering red glow the more puzzled she became. It seemed to be at floor level. She also got colder. There was a stiff breeze coming from somewhere. An open hatchway? But there wasn’t one in this part of the hull.
The red light was making a sizzling sound. Then she saw sparks fly out. Sparks. The significance of this suddenly hit her. Someone was using naked flames in the forbidden area. If there was a leak of hydrogen. …
The light flared and in the expanded red glow she got a glimpse of a figure crouched beside the light. The figure wasn’t human.
Jan was now less than twenty feet away from the flickering light. She started to back away, once again trying not to make a sound.
Clang.
She had collided with a support strut. It reverberated with appalling loudness. The red light abruptly winked out. She turned and ran. And almost immediately collided with another obstacle, bounced off it and fell. She lay there, listening for any sound of approaching footsteps. She heard none, but there was a strange rustling sound that was growing louder. And it was coming from the ceiling.
She got up and started running again, one hand held out in front of her for protection. She had a good idea now what was pursuing her. A Hazzini. And maybe more than one. The brief glimpse she’d received of the thing was more than enough to convince her that Hazzini were definitely bad news.
There was light ahead of her. Jan was approaching the narrow illuminated section again. She made a decision. When she reached the pathway she would turn left towards the hatchway where the Warriors were waiting.
Something dropped down from the ceiling in front of her. She skidded to a stop. It was about nine feet long. Its body was segmented. Folded, transparent wings hung down its sides. It had six limbs. It was using the two rear ones to stand on. One of the forelimbs held a bulky object that was glowing slightly. Two of the other forelimbs shot forward. One grabbed her by the upper arm; the other seized her by the ankle. She screamed as the razor-sharp claws dug into her. She was jerked off-balance and fell on her back. The thing loomed over her, still holding her firmly. She could feel blood pouring from her arm and ankle. She screamed again as the Hazzini dipped its head towards her and she got a clearer look at it. It was as if the head of a horse had been crossed with that of a mosquito. Instead of ears, hairy antennae sprouted from behind the eyes, which were far too intelligent to belong to any insect. Its colour was a mottled black and grey and there were tufts of spiky black hair protruding in a random pattern all over it.
Jan struggled, but she was held fast. The head came still lower and she gagged as the odour of the creature washed over her. Then, through watering eyes, she saw the ‘mouth’ of the thing split into three segments and a tube appear out of it. What looked like the teeth of a saw extended from the tip of the tube. The whole tube was slowly rotating.
I’m dead, thought Jan, though she still struggled frantically. This is my punishment from the Mother God for failing to avenge Minerva. …
The rotating tube continued to emerge from the mouth. The teeth on the tip glistened with fluid. Jan guessed it was poison, or some sort of digestive chemical. But whatever the thing was about to do to her, the outcome would be the same.
Then she remembered the bomb.
With her free hand she plucked it out of her pocket, gripped the end between her teeth and twisted it sharply. It made a satisfying click! Then, with all the force she could muster, she jammed it up the end of the descending tube. The Hazzini’s head flinched back, then shook from side to side, trying to dislodge the blockage. Thirty seconds! was the silent scream that echoed in Jan’s mind.
The creature’s efforts to dislodge the bomb became more frenzied. It gripped its feeding tube with its free hand, or claw. At the same time it dropped the device it had been holding. Then it released Jan’s shoulder, so that three of its four front limbs were engaged in the task of trying to clear the blockage. But the fourth claw maintained its grip on her ankle.
Jan rolled on to her stomach, grabbed hold of a strut and tried to pull herself free, but the thing tightened its grip until she could feel the bones crunching under the pressure. She screamed and almost blacked out from the pain.
How many seconds left?
The creature flipped her over on to her back again and pulled her closer to it, even as it continued simultaneously to shake its head and claw at its mouth. She saw that the end of the bomb was no longer visible in the tube and guessed that the Hazzini had involuntarily sucked it in. But would it explode in time to save her? Then came a sound like a massive, muffled fart. The Hazzini’s entire body gave a convulsive shudder then went rigid. Smoke began to pour out of its mouth and then from other, hitherto hidden, orifices. Skreeeeeeee! screamed the dying, perhaps already dead, Hazzini in a pitch so high it was barely audible.
The pressure went from Jan’s ankle. She began to scramble backwards away from the thing. She wasn’t fast enough. The claw that had held her ankle lashed out, opening up her body all the way from the base of her throat to her lower belly. Then, with black smoke pouring out of it, the Hazzini toppled over with a loud crash.