Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London (42 page)

“They don't want to come back, Johnny,” Clara replied. “I think they love it there—it's perfect for them.”

“It's what?”

“It's perfect—you should see it. They seem at home.”

“What about the krun?”

“They're all gone. I'll show you.” Clara closed her eyes, steadied her breathing and stretched out her hands.

Light flooded into the dinodeck. Johnny shaded his eyes with his hands and stared—it was coming from an artificial sun, placed at the very center of an enormous inside-out world. Johnny looked across at Clara whose eyes were shut, but then to Alf who nodded, so he stepped through the archway and into the insides of Triton. He was standing on springy turf. The gravity felt strong—not like Earth, but he was much heavier than on Nereid. The crust must be very thick or very dense, or probably both. There were some low-lying black buildings scattered around, with the same metallic doors that he'd seen on Nereid, but mostly the world looked as though it consisted of parkland, with strange grasses and giant trees straining upward toward the central sun. No doubt about it—this was a miracle of engineering. A few of the dinosaurs were nearby, gathered around something on the ground. Johnny was pretty sure they knew not to hurt him by now, and walked slowly forward to take a closer look.

One of them, about three meters tall and standing on two legs, raised its horn-crested head toward Johnny as he approached and then bowed. Black blood was dripping from its tooth-filled jaws. Johnny looked down to whatever it was the
dinosaurs were clustered around, and saw them tearing chunks out of a deflated and very dead krun soldier. As he looked, he saw there were other krun, strewn on the ground all across the landscape. He walked away from the dinosaurs and examined a few of the bodies. Clearly some had met a savage end at the claws and teeth of some very hungry dinosaurs, but on the whole he couldn't actually see much wrong with them. They just seemed to have … well, died. Maybe it was simply fright? A hissing noise coming from above distracted him. Johnny turned his face upward and was sprayed by beautifully warm, very fine raindrops, as though someone had turned a sprinkler on. They were falling from the artificial sun at the center of the globe. Johnny laughed out loud. Someone
had
turned a sprinkler on—it was an automated climate control system and the perfect habitat for the dinosaurs.

The next moment the sun and rain were blotted out as Ptery swooped down to meet him. The leather-winged creature reached out his black-blood-spattered talons and plucked Johnny off the ground.

“Hi, Ptery,” Johnny shouted above him.

“We fight well,” screeched Ptery, wheeling around in excitement to be sure Johnny could see the destruction they'd caused.

They flew for about five minutes, Ptery determined to show off the new vista the dinosaurs had won in battle. Nearby was the most built-up area Johnny could see—a mini spaceport. Already Sol's drones had got to work and were replanting the vegetation from the dinodeck to cover it over with a little piece of prehistoric Earth. They crossed a stream, which ran into a small lake, and then they flew away from the buildings altogether and over some purple grassland. A little herd of dinosaurs had already discovered this mini savannah and were grazing below. Johnny watched his and Ptery's combined shadow grow bigger then smaller as it raced above the little undulations in the surface.
Then their silhouette was lost as the winged dinosaur reached the edge of a forest of gigantic trees, with leaves like giant water-lily pads open wide, collecting the rainwater. Soon Ptery was rapidly beating his wings to slow himself down and he dropped Johnny into the uppermost branches of the very tallest tree. Instead of bark and foliage he landed noisily on top of metal and plastic sheets that looked like they'd somehow found their way from the spaceport. Ptery settled down next to him and then there was the sound of more beating wings. Donna landed beside them, carrying a large sheet of metal in her claws. She moved it a little way along the branches, turned her crested head onto one side to look at it from a different angle and then straightened up, apparently satisfied. Johnny understood.

“It's a nest,” he said. “You're building a nest.”

“This home now,” said Donna. “We win it.”

“You sure did,” Johnny replied. “I love it.”

“You keep promise,” said Ptery, looking across at Donna and then back to Johnny. “Much thank you.”

Johnny looked at the pair of unlikely friends and stretched out a hand onto each of their bony faces.

“We bond now,” said Ptery. “We kin. You need us—we help.”

“Thank you,” said Johnny. He knew it was his turn to bow.

“Hello, Johnny,” came Sol's voice in his ear. “I have a Captain Valdour requesting permission to come aboard.”

Johnny straightened, raised his wristcom to his mouth and said, “Tell him, permission granted. I'm on my way.” He held both dinosaurs for a final time as their eyes met, before saying, “I've got to go to my home now. Ptery, can you fly me back to where you found me?”

Johnny and Clara arrived in the shuttle bay just in time to see a pock-marked craft settle between the Piccadilly and the
Bakerloo. It looked very businesslike and not at all as frivolous as the gleaming bus and taxi on either side. A door opened upward with a hydraulic hiss and out stepped a man with a scarred brown face and a patch covering his right eye.

“Captain Mackintosh,” he said, clicking his heels together and saluting Johnny.

“Captain Valdour,” said Johnny, trying to copy the salute but getting halfway through it with his wrong hand before he realized and changed. Clara put her hand to her mouth but managed not to laugh.

“Congratulations, Johnny,” said Valdour, ignoring any lapse in protocol. “You have an impressive ship. I only wish I had time to inspect her properly.”

“You've got to come and see the bridge,” said Johnny. “It's awesome.”

Valdour shook his head. “While we stand here talking, the Andromedans advance. Nymac is encircling a nearby system. If we are to stop him I must return to the front at once.”

“How did you know to come?” Clara asked.

“I do not pretend to understand it,” Valdour replied. “I am a simple soldier. Yesterday I saw you both being carried away to the Imperial Palace—indeed I planned to await your return.”

“I remember,” said Johnny.

“Then today, I received a direct Imperial order to go at full speed to the eighth planet of the Sol system, fight any krun, collect Chancellor Gronack and provide you with a new shield generator.”

“You're taking Gronack? Great,” said Johnny.

“Who is also, so I believe, on Melania,” said Valdour. “I am to keep it incommunicado for at least the next twenty-one days.”

Clara smiled at Johnny and said, “Can you believe we're getting rid of that windbag?”

“In all my years I have never felt so tempted to refuse an
order,” said Valdour, smiling too. The look didn't suit his battered face. “Having just rid myself of the Dauphin, it does seem a poor reward to have another phasmeer forced upon me.”

“I'm sorry,” said Johnny, even though he most definitely wasn't. “Sol—can you tell Chancellor Gronack to come to the shuttle bay straightaway? Tell it it's going home.”

“Chancellor Gronack is not aboard, Johnny,” Sol replied.

“What do you mean ‘not aboard'? Where is it this time?”

“I do not have that information. The Chancellor disembarked 27 hours, 18 minutes and 28.18284 seconds ago.”

“What? How?” Johnny asked.

“It took the shuttle Jubilee—destination was unknown.”

Johnny had assumed the Jubilee was waiting for them in the taxi rank outside the London Gherkin. He knew Gronack was unhappy but surely even it wouldn't have taken a shuttle craft to try to return to Melania.

“It seems,” said Valdour, “that it is my lucky day. If I am able I will return to collect my cargo soon—should you have the misfortune to locate it. There is, though, one more thing.” Valdour turned, walked over to his shuttle craft and reached inside the door. He returned a moment later holding a pulsing crystalline sphere. “Here,” he said to Johnny. “The Emperor must value you greatly to give you this.” Gently he placed the shield generator down on the floor in front of Johnny and Clara.

“Thanks,” said Johnny. “Thanks for everything.”

“Until next time,” said Valdour, saluting again and nodding to Clara.

Johnny saluted back, properly this time and, as Valdour clicked his heels together and climbed back into his shuttle craft, Clara shouted, “Be careful.”

Johnny turned to his sister and said, “Come on—he's being a bit weird, but I want you to meet Dad.”

“Now that's better isn't it?” asked Clara, turning her father's head so he was looking into the mirror facing him. The horror of the last eleven years was plainly etched across his face, but after a couple of hours of forceful scrubbing and grooming, finished off by a severe haircut, Michael Mackintosh looked nearly human again. Even so, Johnny made a mental note never to let Clara cut his hair. Their dad sat on a chair in his new clothes, a plain white top and trousers. He was in front of the mirror that ran along one wall of Johnny's quarters. Clara put the scissors down and came to sit next to Bentley and Johnny on the bed that folded down into the middle of the room. They watched from behind in silence as their gray-haired father turned his head one way then the other, stuck his tongue out at his reflection and then reached his right index finger forward until it met the left index finger of his mirror image. He quickly drew back.

“Don't think I don't know what's going on,” he said to the well-groomed figure in front of him.

“Dad—nothing's going on,” said Johnny from the bed.

His father leaned forward so he was almost nose to nose with his reflection, and said, “You don't think so, do you? You don't think they're here? You don't think I know they're watching?”

“No one's watching,” said Johnny. “It's just us.”

“I'll show you who's watching,” said his dad, who got to his
feet, grabbed hold of the back of the chair and whipped it round in the air so it crashed into the mirror with surprising force. It bounced off across the room, narrowly missing Clara, who ducked just in time. The mirrors on the Spirit of London were pretty much unbreakable, but that didn't stop Michael Mackintosh pointing toward it as though he'd just exposed a secret viewing room behind, saying, “Who's that then? Nobody watching us, eh? Think you could fool me?”

Johnny got to his feet and walked over to his dad, trying to pat him on the arm. “Stop it, Dad. It's me and this is Clara. She's your daughter. Mum must have been pregnant when you were arrested.”

“I don't have a daughter. Get off me. Get off. I told you not to touch. Get off.”

“OK,” said Johnny, holding up both his hands while his dad backed away into the corner of the room, slid down the wall and brought his knees up to his chest. He was holding onto his ankles and started to rock to and fro.

“It's not fair,” said Clara. “At least he knows who you are—even if he thinks you're not real. I'm going to check on Louise.” She got up and walked, head bowed, out of the door.

“I'll come too,” shouted Johnny. Right now there wasn't much point staying. He took a last look at his father, turned away and had almost followed Clara out of the room when a voice called him back.

“Johnny—don't go. Don't leave me here.” Michael Mackintosh was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably in the corner.

“Dad?”

“If you go they'll come back. Please don't let them come back. I might … I might not see you again.”

Johnny ran back to the tearful figure, sat down on the floor next to him and hugged him. “Dad—no one's coming for you. You're
safe now. We're going to get Mum and we'll be together again.”

“I miss her so much, Johnny,” said his father. Together they held each other and rocked backward and forward for a long time.