Un Lun Dun

24. An Interruption in the Process

“That thing came after you,” Deeba said. “Becks…she’s alright, but she might not have been. That was meant for you.”

Deeba stroked Curdle. The girls sat in the middle of the Propheseers’ bridge-office as their hosts scurried around them.

“Put out a message on the walls?” the girls heard someone say. The Propheseers had been debating strategy. They rummaged in files, pulled up information on their strange computers, bickered over how to proceed. “Who do we know who might give us an in?” they heard Mortar say over the tapping of typewriters.

“I thought you might be hungry.” It was Lectern, carrying a plate of strange-looking cakes. The girls eyed and sniffed them, but despite their peculiar colors, they smelt like food. Deeba and Zanna ate.

“Sorry this is taking awhile,” said Lectern. “Normal service. You know. Resumed as soon as possible.” She watched them until they were uncomfortable. “Sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I know this must be hard for you. We’re doing everything we can. This is…a very big time for us. I’ve been Mortar’s second for, well, an embarrassing number of years, and no one knows the book better than me— I’m its bearer, after all— and I still can’t believe it.” She couldn’t stop smiling. It was infectious.

The UnSun was halfway across the sky, but Zanna and Deeba’s body-clocks were totally confused. They fought not to doze. Every so often a Propheseer would bring them cups of tea. “We’ll be with you very shortly,” she or he would say. “Sorry for the delay.” Birds flew overhead, along with bigger, odder-looking things.

From the street under the bridge came a faint whistle.

“Did you hear that?” said Deeba. Curdle skipped back and forward.

“Oy,” someone below shouted. The voice was very faintly audible.

“No,” said Zanna, standing. “But I heard that.” There was a commotion.

“Something’s coming,” Zanna said. A figure was stumbling slowly up the bridge, Propheseers running to help it.

“What’s happened?” Zanna shouted. She ran towards them, Deeba and Curdle on her heels.

Helped up the slope of the Pons Absconditus was a binja. Its metal was cracked, and bleeding a tarry goo.

“We’re under attack!” a Propheseer said. “The binja were ambushed! Thank goodness they heard something.”

From the empty street where the bridge touched down, several other binja were coming. They walked backwards, weapons up, guarding the end of the bridge.

“They’re watching both ends,” Mortar said. “No one should be able to get past us.”

“I thought no one could get on the bridge,” Zanna said.

“Well no one’s supposed to,” he snapped. “But no system’s perfect. That’s what the binja are for. Just in case.”

The binja congregated in front of their injured friend and the cowering Propheseers. They stood with weapons ready. They waited.

And waited.

“So…where are they?” Deeba whispered.

There were tiny whispering noises. The Propheseers and the binja looked frantically around.

“There!” said Zanna.

Meters behind them, in the center of the bridge by the office, grappling hooks were soaring up from below, trailing ropes. They coiled around the girders.

“A trick!” Lectern said.

“They know they can’t get on from either end,” said Mortar, “but now it can’t shake them off…they’ve snared the middle. Quick!”

Tumbling like acrobats, the dozen binja ran to fend off the intruders. But even as they reached the little maze of desks and cupboards, dark and horrifying figures were clambering over the bridge’s side.

The intruders outnumbered the binja. They wore dirty jumpsuits, rubber boots, and gloves. They aimed hoses like guns. What chilled Zanna’s and Deeba’s blood were their masks.

They wore bags of canvas or leather over their entire heads. Their eyes were smoked glass circles. The masks dangled rubber tubes like elephant trunks, stretching to cylinders like divers’ tanks on their backs, covered with oil and dirt, and stenciled with biohazard and danger signs.

“Oh my God!” hissed Zanna. “What are they?”

Lectern had gone pale.

“Lord help us,” she whispered. “Stink-junkies.”