“He can’t,” said Deeba. “If people saw them going off all over the place, and didn’t know why, they’d get suspicious. Brokk blatantly needs everyone to trust them. Right till the last moment.”
When the morning came the skies didn’t lighten as much as they should.
“What’s that?” Hemi sniffed. The air was acrid, with a smell that wasn’t quite burning.
“It’s exhaust,” said Deeba. “Like car fumes. I bet you it’s from London. Murgatroyd must’ve got out of that house, back to his boss…They’ve turned up those chimneys. To bulk up the Smog. They know something’s going to kick off.”
“Today they hand out the last unbrellas,” Hemi said.
“And the Smog’ll make its final attack,” said Deeba. “With only unbrellas to protect them people’ll do whatever Brokkenbroll says. Which means what the Smog says.”
“If we don’t get in the way,” said Hemi.
“So,” said Deeba. “Let’s make sure we get in the way.”
They had to stop when it was light, but of course they couldn’t sleep. They listened to the panicked UnLondoners beyond the safe-house walls.
“Bling, Cauldron.” Jones beckoned. “Would you go on ahead, and pass on a note? Get things ready?”
Deeba watched them go. She squinted— there was something strange about the two utterlings, she thought, something shifting in their look, something not quite all there. She shook her head. It must be nerves. She was mad with impatience. She checked and rechecked what was in her bag, pointlessly. She whispered to her parents, and imagined their responses, until Jones came and told her it was time.
The top of the UnSun had only just sunk below the horizon when Jones motioned the travelers down, behind a clutch of dustbins. He pointed into the sky.
Way above them, a man was visible in a rowing boat, dangling from a balloon. He held a rod, on the end of which was metal cord thirty or forty feet long, and a burning tire.
“The crazy fool’s fishing!” hissed Obaday.
“Smog!” They could just hear the man’s voice. “Smog! Come and get it! I have a proposition!”
“What’s he trying to do?” whispered Hemi.
“A deal,” said the book.
“I’d like to discuss options with you,” the man shouted. “I’m with the Concern, but I’m…not entirely happy with the way things are going.”
From a smogmire a few streets away, a pillar of cloud rose. It hungrily engulfed the wisps of smoke pouring off the tire, followed the trail along the sky. A fat blob of Smog engulfed the burning rubber.
“Good, you enjoy that,” the man said. He was peering over the edge of his boat, and his voice was trembling. “And, and I’d like you to consider the following options. I’m willing to set up, and run on your terms, at least two rubbish-fired plants, on the understanding that you and I are partners…”
Two stalks of smoke rose out of the mass, to the level of the boat, and eyed the fisherman. Deeba could almost hear his gulp from there.
“Oh no,” she breathed.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Jones grimly. “Stay still. We can’t let it see us.”
“So…” the man said. “What do you say?”
The Smog yanked the tire, the fishing rod, and the man out of the boat. He wailed as he fell. The Smog swallowed him. Deeba didn’t hear him land. Perhaps the Smog bore him with it, in a grip of airborne dirt, as it disappeared back into its stronghold.
“We’re doomed,” whispered Deeba to Hemi as they trudged along. “We can’t fight that.”
“You don’t mean that,” he whispered back. “You don’t.”
Deeba said nothing. We might as well just give in, she thought. She looked at the UnGun and almost laughed. What good is this?
Slowly, Deeba became aware of a noise. A whispered hubbub.
Jones led them through a district of warehouses and moil buildings, and the bizarre one-offs of UnLondon— buildings like bottles, and radiators, by fences like upturned nails.
They made one last turn, and there was the river. Deeba gasped.
It wasn’t the sight of its dark water under the lights and crawling stars that took her breath. It wasn’t the extraordinary, bizarre collection of boats that jostled at the edge of the dock. It wasn’t the outlandish silhouettes of the bridges and waterside buildings, which looked cut out and pasted on the sky. It wasn’t even the sight of Bling and Cauldron, standing with obvious pride on either side of a grizzled harborman, waiting.
It was everyone else.
There must have been more than a hundred people on the dock, standing in little groups. All of them were looking at Deeba.
“Told you word would spread,” Hemi said.
There were men and women in uniforms and rags. There were people who weren’t quite human, and a few who weren’t human at all. She saw a man and a woman in the bus-conductor uniform that Jones wore. There was someone wearing the clothes of the extreme librarians. There were animals, and even a couple of other utterlings.
“Joe Jones,” said the man by Bling. He was older than Jones, and big, with long gray hair. He shook Jones’s hand.
“Bartok Flumen,” said Jones.
“I got your note,” said Flumen. He unfolded the piece of paper. Deeba read what Jones had written.
Bartok! it said. Boats please! Many. Joe Jones. That was all.
“Boats,” said Flumen, and indicated the collected vessels by the river-wall. He raised an eyebrow at the gathering around them. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing so many friends,” he said.
“We didn’t know,” said Deeba.
81. A Special Boat Service
Deeba smiled at the UnLondoners waiting. They carried bows and arrows, clubs, a few strange-looking guns. Standing on a roof overlooking them, Deeba saw a little group, one of whom was effortlessly standing on her hands.
“Slaterunners,” Deeba said, delighted. She waved at them. “Isn’t that a bit high for you?” she said. They grinned.
“Took a bit of getting used to,” one said.
“A lot of our friends were against it,” said another. “Said no good would come of leaving the Roofdom. But when we heard the rumors…well, we had to come.”
“You finally did it, then? Came on real roofs?”
“It’s scary up here! But, special times, ain’t it? You’re Deeba. Inessa Badladder thought it must be you she kept hearing about. Well, at first she thought it was the Shwazzy, but then she changed her mind when she heard more. She says hello. We’d like to come…fight by you.”
Deeba had to turn away. She felt a bit choked up by the sight of the little army.
Standing some way from the main body of volunteers, there was a wispy gang of Wraithtown ghosts. They looked ill at ease.
“Oh my gosh,” she said. “Hemi, it’s the man from the council! Maybe he did see what was on the screen.”
“And he’s brought others,” said Hemi.
He walked over purposefully and began to talk to the chubby ghost, and the others. The bureaucrat smiled uncomfortably. Deeba saw their faint, spectral mouths moving inaudibly. She saw Hemi pointing people out, speaking in a voice that wove in and out of audibility for her. He stood and spoke with authority.
“Don’t see what they’re doing,” someone muttered. “They couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to.”
Deeba stared unpleasantly at the woman who’d spoken. She walked ostentatiously to the gathered ghosts, standing by Hemi. He introduced her, and though she could not hear every word he said, she watched his mouth and, at the relevant moments, reached forward and shook as if she could feel the spectral hands they held out.