“You’re going to make us go on alone?” Zanna said.
She and Deeba stared at each other, aghast.
“You can’t!” said Deeba. “We don’t know anything about where we’re going!”
“We don’t know where we are…”
“We just can’t…”
“I know,” Jones said gently. “Believe me, I wouldn’t if I had any choice. We don’t have much time. There are two gangs of skyjackers on the way, and we have to get them off your trail. They know where you’re trying to get, but we can mislead them as to how you’ll get there.”
“Please…” said Zanna.
“You’re the Shwazzy,” he said, silencing her. “You can do this.”
“What about me?” said Deeba. “I’m not.”
“Look to your friend,” Jones told her. “Together, you’ll be okay.”
“Obaday,” Zanna said. She squeezed the unconscious man’s hand. He muttered, “I wish you could come…”
“Can you…?” said Jones to Skool, who slumped in dejection and pointed at the heavy diving boots, miming I am too slow.
“You can do this, Shwazzy,” Jones repeated.
The bus plunged. Passengers screamed. The grossbottles homed in.
“We have one go at this,” Jones said. “We’ll only lose them for a few seconds. We’ll drop you at the edge of Slaterunner territory, then lead them away. Slaterunner hunting grounds lead almost all the way to the Pons Absconditus.
“Tell them if they give you safe passage they’ll have earned the gratitude of the UnLondon conductors. Now hold on. Rosa’s going to do her stuff.”
UnLondon came so fast all Zanna and Deeba could see was a rush of colors. The aerobus hurtled down. It sped below roof-level, lurching left and right along streets. Crouched on the platform, the girls glimpsed the astonished stares of UnLondoners, saw hats yanked off heads by the bus’s passing. Rosa took them under a bridge so low that the top of the balloon scraped on its arch.
“Now, Rosa!” Jones shouted.
Instantly the bus zigzagged and, so suddenly that the shock sent them lurching forward, stopped.
“Now! Now!” hissed Jones, bundling Zanna and Deeba to the edge of the platform. Deeba held Curdle. The terrified little carton tried to burrow into her hands. The bus dangled a few feet above acres of roof, over a valley between ridges.
“Jump,” said Jones. They hesitated a second, then thought of the flies close behind them. First Zanna, then Deeba, jumped.
They landed in the bottom of the V, and the air was knocked out of them.
The bus was hovering. “Are you okay?” Jones hissed, Skool peering over his shoulder. The girls nodded. “That way to the bridge. Stay high and find Chief Badladder. Tell her I sent you. Show her the pass. Tell her I’ll owe her. Stay safe.” He blew them a kiss, and shouted at Rosa to go.
The bus soared, something pale seemed to drop from it, and it shot away. The two grossbottles droned into view, buccaneers on their backs, and scudded in the bus’s wake.
“What was that?” said Zanna. “Did you see something…falling? From the bus?”
“I dunno,” whispered Deeba.
Wind chilled Zanna and Deeba. The noise of the flies ebbed away.
The two girls sat in the cold. Silence settled on them like damp. They shivered. They were tired and overwhelmed, and suddenly very, very alone.
16. Stuck
“Come on,” said Zanna eventually. “We can’t just sit and feel sorry for ourselves.”
“I bet I could,” Deeba said, but she stood, holding Curdle.
“We deserve to,” Zanna said. “We just can’t.”
The UnSun was getting lower, and the sky darker.
“We have to find somewhere to shelter,” Zanna said.
“And food,” said Deeba.
They clambered laboriously up the slope, hauled themselves onto the ridge, and stared.
They were in the middle of undulating roofs, a slatescape in red and gray and the color of rust. It rose and fell like mountainside, steep, shallow, deep, flat, interrupted by trenches where streets must run, unlit alleys between houses. The angles were broken by dormer windows, by squat chimneys like patches of mushrooms, by tangles of antennae, wire fingers pointing in all directions.
They stared for a long time in the direction Zanna thought she had seen something fall. They could see nothing moving over the up-and-down of the tiles.
“What do we do?” said Deeba. “How do we get anywhere?”
“I don’t know,” said Zanna. “Let’s try this…” She began to shuffle along the ridge. Deeba stared.
“You’re kidding,” she said. Sighing, she put Curdle in her bag, and— slowly— followed her friend.
They stopped, suddenly, as an awful bleating cry sounded nearby, and was answered from a long way off.
“What was that?” whispered Deeba.
“How should I know?” Zanna whispered back.
“Well I’m not Shwazzed. You know everything, Shwazzy. Shwa me what you can do.”
“Shut up,” said Zanna.
“Shwat up yourself.” Zanna couldn’t help laughing at the ridiculous riposte.
They gripped a chimney stack and waited for their hearts to slow down. Far off, they could see the rise of tower blocks and the odd shell or vegetable or typewriter-and-fridge roof of UnLondon, but for a long way, it was just foreboding hillocks of slate.
The air was darkening. Deeba leaned into the chimney. Curdle nuzzled her forlornly.
“Oh man,” Deeba said. She couldn’t stop herself saying, “I want my mum and dad. How do we get down?”
“Why in the name of Unstible,” a loud voice said, “would you want to get down?”
Zanna and Deeba whirled around. Curdle squeaked.
They were surrounded.
There were men and women on the ledges. They wore tough-looking furs and padded boots.
They trotted carelessly on brick ledges, somersaulted like gymnasts, and landed poised on slopes. One man had a baby strapped to him in a harness on his chest. It gurgled happily as he scampered up and down giddying slopes.
“ ‘Get down’ indeed,” the same voice said.
On a roof overlooking them was a tall, athletic, imperious-looking woman. She strode casually, reached a gap between buildings, jumped calmly over it, and landed on her toes. She took hold of an antenna and swung around it.
“You, young grubs, are in the territory of the Slaterunners. So might I ask just what exactly groundlubbers like you are doing in the Roofdom? Because we prefer guests ask before they come in.”
Zanna and Deeba swallowed.
“We’re looking for someone called Badladder,” Zanna said.
“Oh are you?” the woman said, and the Slaterunners laughed. “And what might you want with Badladder?”
“Conductor Jones dropped us here,” Zanna said.
“He had to go,” said Deeba. “He wanted to stay but—”
“We were being chased by grossbottles,” Zanna said. “He said Badladder’d help us. He said he’d owe her one.” The Slaterunners were blinking, surprise breaking through their arrogance.
“What help is it you need?” the woman said.
“People want to stop me,” Zanna said hesitantly. “I don’t know why. It’s because of…this.” She held up the travelcard.
“Shwazzy!” The whisper went through the Slaterunners. “Shwazzy!” “Shwazzy!”
“You’re here?” someone said. “It’s happened!” And: “At last!” “Is Unstible with you?” “Did you bring the Klinneract?”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” Zanna said. “Jones said the Propheseers would explain.”