Predator's gold

31

A few hundred feet below the Jenny Haniver ’s gondola, vast rough pans of sea-ice were sliding by, criss-crossed with dykes and jagged, shattered ridges. Tom and Hester, looking down from the flight-deck windows at the never-ending whiteness, felt as if they had been flying for ever over this armoured ocean.

The day after their escape from Rogues’ Roost they had set down at a tiny Snowmad whaling station, and bought fuel with the last of Pennyroyal’s sovereigns. Since then they had just been flying, north and west in search of Anchorage. They had not slept much, for fear of the fallen aviatrix who stalked their dreams. They stayed on the flight deck, nibbling stale biscuits, drinking coffee, telling each other in awkward little bursts of the things they had each seen since they parted.

They did not speak of Hester’s flight from Anchorage, or of what caused it. They had not mentioned it since that first night, when they lay all breathless and shivery and tangled together on the hard deck, and Hester in a small voice had said, “There’s something I haven’t explained. After I left you, I did something terrible…”

“You got upset and flew off,” Tom said, misunderstanding. He was so glad to have her back that he didn’t want to risk an argument, so he tried to make it sound as if it had been a small thing, and easy to forgive.

Hester shook her head. “I don’t mean — ” But she could not explain.

So they had flown on, day after day over rippled sea-ice and deep-frozen land, until today, when Tom said suddenly, “I didn’t mean what happened, with me and Freya. When we get to Anchorage it won’t be like last time, I promise. We’ll just warn them about Arkangel coming, and then we’ll take off again. Head for the Hundred Islands or somewhere, just the two of us, like it used to be.”

Hester just shook her head. “It’s too dangerous, Tom. There’s a war coming. Maybe not this year or next, but soon, and bad, and it’s too late to do anything about it. And the League still believe we burned their Northern Air-Fleet, and the Green Storm will blame us for the attack on Rogues’ Roost, and that Stalker won’t always be around to protect us.”

“Then where can we go that will be safe?”

“Anchorage,” said Hester. “We’ll find a way to keep Anchorage safe, and lie low there for a few years, and then, maybe…”

But even if there was some way to save the city, she knew that there was no place aboard it for her. She would leave Tom there safe with Freya, and fly on alone. Anchorage was good and kind and peaceful; no place for Valentine’s daughter.

That night, as the lights of the Aurora danced above him, Tom looked down through a gap in the clouds and saw a great scar drawn across the ice below, hundreds of deep, parallel grooves stretching eastward into clouded uplands and vanishing west into the empty night.

“City tracks!” he shouted, hurrying to wake Hester.

“Arkangel,” said Hester. She felt sick and frightened. The wide wake of the predator city brought back to her just how immense it was. How could she hope to stop something like that?

They swung the Jenny on to Arkangel’s course. An hour later Tom picked up the harsh scream of the predator’s homing beacon slicing through the static on the radio, and soon they saw its lights twinkling in the mist ahead of them.

The city was moving at quarter speed, with a screen of survey-vehicles and stripped-down drone-suburbs spread out ahead of it to test the ice. Airships hung about it, mostly traders leaving the air-harbour and turning east, reluctant to let Arkangel carry them so far off the edges of all maps. Tom wanted to talk to them, but Hester warned him off. “You can’t trust the sort of ships that deal with Arkangel,” she said. She was afraid one of the traders might recognize her, and let Tom know what she had done. She said, “Let’s stay well clear of the place and keep moving.”

They stayed clear and kept moving, and the glow of Arkangel dwindled into the dark behind them as snow began blowing in from the north. But as the signal of its beacon began to fade it was replaced by another, very faint at first but growing louder, coming from somewhere on the ice ahead. They stared into the dark, while the wind boomed against the Jenny ’s envelope and snowflakes padded at her windows. Faint and far away a cluster of lights sparkled, and the long, sombre note of the homing beacon curled up out of the static, lonely as the cry of wolves.

“It’s Anchorage.”

“It’s not moving!”

“Something’s wrong…”

“We’re too late!” cried Tom. “Don’t you remember? Arkangel sends its Huntsmen to capture the towns it wants to eat. That brute we met at Airhaven! He turns them round and steers them into its jaws… We’ll have to turn back. If we land there the Huntsmen will hold us until Arkangel arrives, and the Jenny will be eaten along with the city…”

“No,” said Hester. “We’ve got to land. We’ve got to do something.” She looked at Tom, longing to tell him why this was so important to her. She knew now that if she was to redeem herself she would have to fight the Huntsmen, and that she would very probably be killed. She wanted to explain to Tom about her deal with Masgard, and have him forgive her. But what if he couldn’t forgive? What if he just pushed her away, horrified? The words crouched in her mouth, but she dared not let them out.

Tom cut the Jenny ’s engines and let the wind carry her silently closer. He was touched by Hester’s sudden, surprising concern for the ice city. He had not quite realized, until he saw it again, how much he’d missed it. His eyes filled with tears, making the lights of the Wheelhouse and the Winter Palace flare into spidery patterns. “Everything’s lit up like a Quirkemas tree…”

“That’s so Arkangel can see it,” Hester said. “Masgard and his Huntsmen must’ve stopped the engines and switched on all the lights and the homing beacon. They’re probably waiting in Freya’s palace right now for their city to arrive.”

“And what about Freya?” asked Tom. “What about all the people?”

Hester had no answer to that.

The air-harbour looked unusually well-lit and welcoming, but there was no question of landing there. Hester doused the Jenny ’s running lights and left the flying to Tom, who had always been so much better at it than her. He took the Jenny so low that the keel of the gondola was almost scraping the ice before he jerked her suddenly upward again, slipping her through a narrow gap between two warehouses on the larboard edge of the lower tier. The clang of the docking-clamps sounded horribly loud on the flight deck, but no one came running to see what had happened, and when they ventured outside they found nothing moving in the silent, snow-deep streets.

They climbed quickly and quietly to the air-harbour, not speaking, wrapped in their different memories of this city. The Clear Air Turbulence was docked on an open pan near the middle of the harbour, the wolf-mark of Arkangel shining red on her envelope. A fur-clad guard stood watch beside her, and there was light and movement behind the windows of the gondola.

Tom looked at Hester. “What are we going to do?”

She shook her head, not yet sure. Tom followed her through the spills of thick shadow behind the fuel-tanks, and they let themselves in at the back door of the harbour master’s house. Here there was darkness, broken only by the glow of the harbour lights seeping in through frosty windows. A tornado seemed to have swept the once tidy parlour and kitchen, smashing the collection of commemorative plates, shattering crockery, dashing the portraits of the Aakiuqs’ children from the household shrine. The antique wolf-rifle which used to hang on the parlour wall was gone, and the stove was cold. Hester crunched over the broken fragments of beaming Rasmussen faces to the dresser, and opened the knife drawer.

Behind her, a loose stair creaked. Tom, who was closest to the staircase, whirled round in time to see the grey smudge of a face peering down at him between the banisters. It was gone almost at once, as whoever was hiding there went scrambling up towards the first floor. Tom shouted in surprise and quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, remembering the man outside. Hester shoved roughly past him, Mrs Aakiuq’s sharpest kitchen knife a dull gleam in her hand. There was a confused tussle in the tigerish shadows behind the banisters, a voice gasping, “Mercy! Spare me!” and the slithering thuds of a heavy body dragged back down the stairs by the seat of its trousers. Hester stood back, panting, the knife still ready, and Tom looked down at her captive.

It was Pennyroyal. Filthy and straggle-haired, white bristles thick in the hollows of his face, the explorer seemed to have aged ten years while they’d been away, as though time had passed faster aboard Anchorage than in the outside world. He whimpered slightly, his bulging eyes darting between their faces. “Tom? Hester? Gods and goddesses, I thought you were more of those damned Huntsmen. But how did you come here? Have you got the Jenny with you? Oh, thank heavens! We must leave at once!”

“What’s been happening here, Professor?” asked Tom. “Where is everybody?”

Pennyroyal, still keeping a wary eye on Hester’s knife-hand, dragged himself into a more comfortable position, leaning back against the knewel post. “The Huntsmen of Arkangel, Tom. Aero-hooligans, led by that scoundrel Masgard. They arrived about ten hours ago, smashed the drive-wheel and took charge of the city.”

“Anyone dead?” asked Hester.

Pennyroyal shook his head. “Don’t think so. They wanted to keep everyone in good shape for their beastly slave-holds, so they just rounded them all up and imprisoned them in the Winter Palace while they wait for their city to catch up. A few of Scabious’s brave fellows tried to argue, and got roughed up pretty badly, but otherwise I don’t think anyone’s been hurt.”

“And you?” Hester leaned forward into the light and let him feel her gorgon stare. “How come you’re not locked up with the others?”

Pennyroyal flicked a narrow, watery smile at her. “Oh, you know the motto of the Pennyroyals, Miss Shaw: ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Sensible Conceal Themselves Beneath Large Items of Furniture.’ I happened to be at the air-harbour when they landed. With typical quick thinking I nipped in here and hid under the bed. Didn’t emerge until it was all over. I’ve thought of presenting myself to young Masgard, of course, and claiming the finder’s fee, but frankly I don’t think he can be trusted, so I’ve been lying low ever since.”

“What finder’s fee?” asked Tom.

“Oh, ah…” Pennyroyal looked a little shamefaced, and tried to hide it with his old, roguish smile. “Thing is, Tom, I think it was me who brought the Huntsmen here.”

For no reason that Tom could understand, Hester started to laugh.

“I only sent a couple of harmless distress calls!” the explorer complained. “I never imagined Arkangel would pick them up! Who ever heard of a radio signal travelling that far? Some freak of these Boreal climes, no doubt… Anyway, it’s done me no good, as you can see. I’ve been holed up here for hours, hoping to sneak aboard that Huntsman airship and make a break for it, but there’s a dirty great sentry guarding it, and a couple more inside…”

“We saw,” said Tom.

“Still,” the explorer went on, brightening, “now you’re back with your Jenny Haniver, it doesn’t matter, does it? When do we leave?”

“We don’t,” said Hester. Tom turned to look at her, still unsettled by her talk of taking on the Huntsmen, and she went on quickly, “How can we? We owe it to the Aakiuqs, and Freya and everybody. We’ve got to rescue them.”

She left them staring at her and went to the kitchen window, peering out through the prisms of the frost. Aimless snowflakes eddied in the cones of light beneath the harbour lamps. She imagined the guards aboard their ship, their comrade out on the docking-pan stamping the cold from his toes, the rest of Masgard’s crew up in the Winter Palace, warming themselves with the contents of the Rasmussens’ wine cellar. They would be dozy and confident and not expecting trouble. They would have been no match for Valentine. Perhaps, if she had inherited enough of his strength and cruelty and cunning, they would be no match for her.

“Hester?” Tom stood close behind her, frightened by her icy mood. It was usually he who came up with rash plans to help the helpless. Hearing Hester suggest such a thing made him feel as if the world had come off its bearings. He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and felt her stiffen and start to flinch away. “Hester, there are loads of them, and only three of us…”

“Make that two,” Pennyroyal chipped in. “I don’t want any part in your suicidal scheme…”

Hester had the knife at his throat in one swift movement. Her hand trembled slightly, setting the reflections shivering on the blade’s bright edge.

“You’ll do what I tell you,” said Valentine’s daughter, “or I’ll kill you myself.”