Six Days (11 page)

“Hey, wait!” I call after him. “Where you going?”

He stumbles as he turns round. “Where do you think? Come on! We have to get to the dinghy before he does!”

E
ven as we hare off, I feel somehow it’s the wrong thing to do, but I’m caught up in the dash. I suppose the thought of getting stranded this side of the river spurs us on. Still, it bugs me that we ain’t thinking things through. Anyway, after charging through the woods, we’re all strung out and it dawns on everyone that there’s a long way to go. So we try and pace it, saving our breath, going at the rate of the slowest, which is Wilbur. I might be a plodder but I can keep going for ages, so I end up chivying everyone along, making sure we stick together.

It must be five miles and then some along dirt tracks from Battersea Woods to the Jubilee tunnel entrance, and we’re all done in when we get there at last. But it’s a proper relief to see that the dinghy’s still there. The water’s much higher – just like Wilbur said it would be during daylight – but there’s still a pretty wide gap up to the tunnel roof.

“Man, them Underground pumps ain’t working so great now, eh?” I go. “Let’s hope they don’t pack up while we’re paddling across, or we’re kippered.”

“Let’s hurry up, then,” goes Peyto. “In case it rises any higher and we have to wait till it gets dark.”

“How come the dinghy’s still here?” I go. “Gramps didn’t have that much of a head start – and let’s face it, he ain’t exactly built for speed, is he? It’s like he’s just left us the boat.”

Peyto’s already up on the platform, lowering the dinghy into the water. “Not necessarily. You said yourself he can’t move very fast. We may have left him behind already. And what does it matter? Let’s just be glad the boat’s here. Maybe your gramps has got another way across.”

“But that’s what worries me! If he don’t need the dinghy, then how’s he crossing the river?”

I hang back, trying to picture what Gramps would do with the same facts we’ve got.

“What’s the matter, Cass?” Peyto snaps. “Let’s just go! We know where the missing flinder is and so does he – it’s a race!”

Peyto glares at me, and I know he’s thinking about his mother, about how this museum might hold the answers for him. And he’s got to be desperate to get there, to know one way or another. But this time we’re going out on a proper limb.

“If we cross the river this time in broad daylight, then
we ain’t coming back any time soon. You know that, right? It’s all or nothing. On a kid’s comic from a hundred years ago.”

And no one’s got an answer to that.

Peyto finishes lowering the dinghy in silence. Wilbur’s keeping it zipped, too, probably hoping that if he keeps his head down, I won’t send him back home.

I touch Peyto’s arm while he’s fussing with the winch ropes, busy avoiding my eye.

“Look, I never said I’m bailing out. I know it looks like we’re onto something here, but I just want us to figure stuff through.”

Wilbur gets in the dinghy then and fishes out the maps. He’s made his stand clear, and I know he’s testing me. And it’s probably safer if Wilbur’s with me where I can keep an eye out for him. Probably. But the truth is, I ain’t got the heart for a scrap. We’re in this together now and there ain’t no pulling out.

“All right,” I go. “Fair enough, I’m with you; this museum hunch has to be worth a go. But it’s proper dangerous north of the river, so we’re doing things my way. Agreed?”

Peyto grins as he hands me a paddle. “Agreed.”

And so we set off, but I ain’t feeling that good about it. There’s something about the whole business with Gramps that’s still nagging at me, though I can’t nail it down. Plus I keep thinking about Dad grafting through his lonely shift.
And I think about what he’ll do when he finds out we’re gone. I ain’t scared of the fallout – things are way beyond that. I just wish there’d been some way to let him know we’re all right, but that can’t be helped now.

As we get closer to the north bank, the drone of the crushers gets louder and louder, another day of London getting chewed to brick dust. Wilbur shows me the route he’s sussed out from the maps. The museum is just north of where Shaftesbury Avenue crosses Oxford Street.

After tying up the dinghy, we get up on a slag heap near the tunnel mouth to spy out any patrols. And we’re in for a shock.

Out on the water toward Hungerford Bridge is a Vlad ship.

It’s way bigger than the usual launches, its bows lifting maybe thirty feet from the surface, its decks bristling with gun turrets and missile launchers. Some other dinghies are bobbing about nearby, and I can make out the heads of divers and yellow marker buoys. Troops on the ship deck are using some serious lifting gear to pull something up from the river.

Then we watch in horror as the sleek black shape of the shuttle rises clear of the water.

“Can’t we summon it?” whispers Erin. “You know, get it away from them?”

“What, and let them know we’re here?” goes Peyto.
“Anyway, if we summon it, we’ll end up back at the
Aeolus
and then what?”

Erin’s starting to get all jittery. “We should never have brought the shuttle back to the same place! The whole army would’ve seen us launch from this exact spot when we were with Cass. Of course they’d go searching for it here when they saw us splash back down into the river! Why didn’t we
think
?”

“Calm down. It’s done now,” goes Peyto.

“But we have to do something! What if they use it to get to the other sleepers?”

“They might be able to dredge it up, but they won’t get inside. Not without a flinder,” says Peyto.

“You sound pretty sure about that,” I go.

“It’s practically indestructible in lockdown mode. It’s for scouting planets, so it’s stronger even than the
Aeolus
. They won’t be able to breach that hull. Not without destroying it. Maybe it’s a good thing they’ve found it – it’ll keep them occupied for a while.”

“I should have sent it deeper, into the riverbed,” groans Erin.

“No, it takes too long to summon. It only came in the nick of time last night, remember? Look, it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s worry about retrieving it when we have to.”

So we crack on. The crushers are going full pelt all the way up Whitehall. We pinch some spare bins, load up
with rubble, and wander between crusher queues. Around Trafalgar Square it’s just rammed, but we slip through OK cos all the attention’s on old Nelson, who’s nose-down in a crater of his own making. Scavs are swarming all over him with metal cutters, and it looks like he’s spurting sparks of fiery blood.

Finally we sneak away from the action one by one into Charing Cross Road. And that’s where we hit the first piled-up skeletons in the street.

“Scav prep teams have been here. We’ve got to go easy, case there’s Vlads about,” I whisper.

“What?” Erin’s just gawping at the heaps of bones.

“All these stiffs piled up means the area’s getting prepped. They clear the streets so crushers can get in. Look, we can’t hang around; it’s too dodgy.”

Peyto takes Erin by the hand to move her on. Wilbur’s just staring at his feet – he gets upset when a horse cops it, let alone a person. I chivy him along, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for troops, but the farther north we head, the quieter it gets, till the scav zone’s just a distant buzz. This is where we’ve got to go careful, cos there ain’t no excuse for us to be here.

Up by Oxford Street we come to the limit of the prep-ping area, where my know-how of the streets drops off. All the way down every road are bushes growing out of drains, and rotting cars, and people lying where they’ve snuffed it – unscavved territory. It’s the kids that get to me. I spot a
bunch of them huddled together in the back of a car. Paper skin, hollow faces, falling into their own ribs … The driver is facedown over the steering wheel – Mum or Dad maybe? Where was they going? Wilbur’s gone all still and he’s staring at them with tears in his eyes.

“Hey, Wilbur – don’t look at them. Come with me, mate.”

It takes a little while to get through to him, but finally he comes to his senses.

“Let’s go. Hold my hand and look at the sky, all right?”

Following the map, we skirt round this overgrown square and find ourselves at last at the open gates of the British Museum. The courtyard up to the steps is clear – no bodies, which is a bit weird. Maybe the museum had been closed on Doomsday. It’s a creepy old gaff all right – just these dark windows and columns gone black with ivy. A couple of pigeons break for cover as we hurry across the paving.

I’m counting on having to break in, which ain’t that easy for museums what have precious stuff inside, but the front door is all busted in already. And I don’t like it, cos that means we ain’t the first here. Still, things look quiet as we step into the main chamber with its white marble floors and curved walls. The ceiling’s made of these glass panels that probably looked beautiful in their day but now they’re plastered with bird crap, and they cast shadows over the place that make it look more like a clearing in a
wood. It stinks of cats, and there’s a fair bit of bird crap on the inside, too, piling up from a bunch of nests near the roof. There ain’t no sign of Gramps, though, or anyone. It’s deathly quiet.

But across the marble floor, straight ahead, is the entrance to the circular library room. Wilbur whips out his comic and scurries off.

“Wilbur! Wait!”

I charge in after him. And stop dead. We’re too late.

Every single book has been ripped down from the shelves. They lie scattered about, covers open, all over the place. Whoever’s been here ransacked the place in a real hurry. Wilbur’s hunched over his comic, trying to work out where the fake chart would have been mounted. But it’s a waste of time. All the shelves are bare and there ain’t no hidden gap.

“Seems like a dumb place to hide the flinder anyhow,” I go.

Everyone just stares at me. Peyto and Erin both look heartbroken.

“Stands to reason. I mean, soon as someone fancies a read and pulls a book down, then, hey presto, there it is. As hiding places go, it’s rubbish.”

“Now what?” goes Erin.

“Well, someone’s got it – maybe Gramps,” I go.

“No one’s got it,” says Wilbur.

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“Look,
all
the books have been pulled down. Every last one. Look how many there are. What’s the chances of finding it behind the very last book? It was never hidden here.”

I gawp at him then. Cos this window into the workings of Wilbur’s mind is making me dizzy.

“OK, if it ain’t here, then where is it, genius?”

“Maybe we’re in the right building,” says Erin. “It’s just not in this room, that’s all.”

And if Wilbur was already in love, he’s died and gone to heaven now. Cos Erin’s right on song with this clue business. And I have to admit, now we’re here, it only makes sense to keep looking.

“Wouldn’t whoever pulled the books down still be in the building, especially if they didn’t find the artifact?” goes Peyto, snatching glances over his shoulder to the main chamber.

He’s right. I creep to the edge of the library and peer out, straining to listen. But there ain’t nothing except the faint scuffling of cat claws.

“OK, it seems quiet enough, but let’s scout around first, make sure the place is empty.”

The museum rooms all lead off the main chamber. Wilbur reads them out to me – “Ancient Egypt and Assyria,” “Oriental,” “African,” “European.” They’re even dingier than the main chamber and they swarm with
movement when we poke our heads in – troops of cats, skittering over statues and glass cases, mewling in the shadows.

There’s a gift shop full of dusty souvenirs and postcards, some loos in the basement, and a sweeping staircase that leads up to another level. There ain’t no sign of anyone else. If Gramps was here earlier, looks like he’s legged it now. My hopes take a nosedive, though, cos this place is huge. If it turns into a straight search for Halina’s missing flinder, it could take us weeks. Weeks we ain’t got.

As the afternoon shadows draw in, I glance round and everyone’s all in. Except Wilbur – running off to read yet another plaque.

“So whoever was here – looks like they ain’t around no more. And even if they’re lying low, there ain’t no use in us pretending we ain’t here – it’s too late for that.”

“You reckon it was your gramps that ransacked the library?” goes Erin.

“I don’t know – I can’t see how he’d have got here before us. It don’t make sense … Anyhow, we need to rest and get some chow down us pretty soon or we’re gonna fall asleep in our boots here.”

“No,” mumbles Peyto. “We’ve got to keep looking.”

“Hey, sunshine – remember your one and only day’s scavving, how you practically crashed before lunchtime? There ain’t nothing more important right now than
sorting out a camp and some grub; otherwise we’re gonna be too knackered to do anything.”

“We haven’t got time!” cries Peyto, holding his countdown cuff up to me.

As he says it, I get another little nip from mine, like a fleabite – and it’s like the ship egging us on. Another hour lost …

“Let’s not panic. Look, we done well. We’re onto something here, I reckon. But it’s getting dark now – we’ll have to call it a day.” I trace the bands on my cuff. “We still got five and a bit days.”

Peyto sighs, fed up from arguing.

“We have to rest sometime,” says Erin gently.

“What about food and water?” he mumbles. “We didn’t bring much.”

“There’s always water in these places,” I go. “Check out the gift shop – the plastic bottles last forever. And food – well, that’s everywhere, running around on four legs.”

“Eh?”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to catch a couple of cats …,” I add, trying to chivy everyone along.

They both look at me like I’ve just gobbed on the good book.

T
errific. Two kids from outer space and my little brother with his fear of death. Not exactly what you need for hunting duty.

“If you’re hunting, I suppose I should do that with you,” pipes up Peyto.

“You sure? It could get messy.”

“I want to learn,” he goes. “If we get all the sleepers down here, we won’t have the ship giving us food anymore, will we?”

Erin’s gawping at him big-time. “But killing is –”

“It’s different now. We’ve got no choice.”

“So you’re planning to butcher a living animal?” She looks at Peyto. “We can choose not to.”

“And we can choose to do it, too. We’ll go hungry otherwise,” says Peyto.

For a moment she looks like she’s gonna lose her rag, but then she stares up at the glass roof and takes a deep breath.

“I can’t stop you,” she goes. “But I’m not eating it.”

She heads off toward the library alone, leaving the rest of us standing there.

“Hunting ain’t murder,” I go.

“It is, where we come from,” Peyto mumbles.

“God, you’re as bad as Wilbur. Look, it’s probably best I do this alone.”

“No,” he says firmly. “I said I want to learn. Show me.”

I send Wilbur off to set up camp and get fuel for a fire. And seeing as Peyto’s so keen, I take him with me to look for a weapon. I settle for a piece of polished stone from one of the museum displays. I got no idea what it is, but it’s just right for a throwing club.

I set myself up at the corner of one of the exhibit rooms and wait for Peyto to flush the cats out. About ten of them come haring into the main chamber. I take aim and let fly with the club. It smacks one fat tom square in the bonce and whips out the hind legs of another. I snatch up the club, run up to the injured one and finish it off, then wring both their necks to make sure.

Peyto watches me as I wipe the stone with a rag, and it’s impossible to know what he’s thinking. After about half an hour, we’ve racked up three full-growns and four little ‘uns.

We take the kills into the gift shop and I show Peyto how to do the skinning and gutting. He’s so careful with the carcasses, as if the cats are just asleep and he don’t want
to wake them, but he takes it all on, asking the odd question as I prep them up.

“So I take it, back at Homefleet, animals just die of old age,” I go at last.

“There’s so few of us, so few native creatures,” he says. “Everything’s … so precious – water, food, people, animals. We don’t kill to eat meat. It wouldn’t make sense because it’s so hard to keep things alive.”

“But that ship of yours is alive, ain’t it? It don’t seem to have that much trouble surviving.”

“That’s different. It’s artificial – it would never have existed without the ancients designing it to thrive in deep space. Real creatures need a natural environment – gravity, light, the right food. That’s why we study them, nurture them.”

“Bit different to here, then.”

“You’ve got a whole planet to roam around.”

“It’s your planet, too, now,” I remind him. “I mean, this is what you was looking for all that time, eh?”

“True, but I didn’t imagine it would be like this.”

He looks at the blood on his fingers.

“But you must’ve come from a planet like this once?”

“That was thousands of years before we left Homefleet. There’s nothing left of that world.”

“So how come you ended up being a sleeper on the ship?”

“You take a test – to see if you’re a good match for a flinder. I passed, just.”

“So you
had
to take the test?”

“Yes, everyone does. Most people want to go, to breathe
real
air, to walk on
real
ground. But in any case, if you pass the flinder test, then you don’t get a choice, because a strong match is so rare. It usually runs in the blood, so there’s a good chance families get to stay together. Well, it was always just me and my mother … Anyway, she was a near perfect match for her flinder.”

“What was the test?”

“If a flinder can project your dreams while you sleep, then you’re a match. When we sleep, especially in the deep sleep of stasis, we catch scraps of each other’s dreams.”

“How do you know they’re other people’s dreams, not your own?”

He smiles. “You just do. It’s like … you go somewhere to dream in the same place.”

The idea of this is so lovely I don’t speak for a bit. Sharing dreams …

“But you wanted to come, right?” I go at last. “On the ship, I mean, as a sleeper?”

He shakes his head. “That’s just it, Cass. I wanted to stay, on Homefleet. I’m not a pioneer, I guess. I was interested in other things – the ancients, all their technology, what’s left of it, their libraries and history. Homefleet is the last link with that age.”

“So you’d’ve spent time in museums like this, then, if you’d stayed home?”

He smiles at that. “I suppose. Well, I ended up a pioneer, and
this
is my home now.”

And I can see how bittersweet this is for him. He’s made it to a new world, but he’s lost his mum. He’s busy breathing that
real
air, walking on that
real
ground, but his people are stranded on a doomed ship. I want to ask him loads more, but I figure he’s had enough of talking cos he gently gathers up all the cat meat and heads back to the others.

Wilbur and Erin have been busy setting up camp in Ancient Civilizations. There are robes for our beds, and a roaring fire stoked with books and carvings. Wilbur’s even rigged up a spit out of bits of old armor and a sword.

While the cats are cooking, Erin walks to the edge of the main hall. I watch her tossing a pebble into the air and trying to catch it. She’s rubbish, like a nipper, snatching at it too late. I go over to her with some biscuits from my pack.

“Hey, let’s not fall out,” I go.

She tilts her head to look at me, puzzled almost. “I’m not falling out with you. I’m just not going to eat those animals, that’s all.”

She nods toward the edge of the firelight where some cats are straining forward, drawn by the smell of meat. “It’s so strange for us down here. Even
walking
is new. But then you see the things that live here and they’re so
balanced
.”

She turns to me again. “We’re strangers, Cass.” Her voice wobbles. “My parents are on that ship, my brothers,
all my friends. And they don’t even know we’ve arrived. They might not ever see this.”

“Don’t say that. They will.”

“But don’t you see? Even if they do, this might never be home.”

And as she nibbles at the biscuits, trying to catch the crumbs in her mouth, I
do
see. Cos she’s a lubber to this life, but there ain’t no going back for her, not now.

The rest of us eat in silence. Even though the meat’s a bit stringy and sour, it’s
heaven
to get some hot food down our necks. Afterward, Erin joins us and we all get togged up in the robes round the fire.

Light from the flames throws shadows against the great statue towering above us. It’s a right mishmash of creatures, as daft as a kid’s doodle, but somehow it manages to be all dignified and mysterious. It’s got a man’s head with a square-cut beard, the body and legs of a giant bull, and the fanned wings of a bird. Wilbur catches me looking at it.

“It’s from Nineveh, a city in Assyria.”

He closes his eyes as he speaks, remembering the words he’s read. And that amazes me cos he’s spent all afternoon reading. He’s probably leafed through them books on the fire for all I know.

“Go on, then, clever clogs, what is it?” I go.

“It’s a lamassu, like a spirit. They put them up to guard doorways and temples.”

“So it’ll guard over us tonight,” says Erin.

“Well, just in case it’s forgotten how, we’d better take turns to keep watch,” I go. “Nobody’ll see the fire from outside, but still, we can’t be too careful.”

Peyto and me take the first stint. We nudge up next to each other, and for a long while we just watch the fire eat up another carving. The elephant god goes slowly, burning first at the ears and trunk, splitting in the heat and sending sprays of sparks over our heads. Wilbur’s crashed out next to Erin, both of them dead to the world. And she’s got one arm cradled over him, holding him close.

“Tell me some more about Homefleet, then,” I go at last, to break the silence.

And so he does. He tells me about the coil habitats, miles-long strips of crops and water, all tethered up to each other, fanning out into space, turning to face whatever sun they’re sailing past. He tells me about what animals they saved from their home planet and how they’re different to ours, but not that different, so you got things like horses and rabbits and dogs. But they don’t do so good in the weightless stakes, cos they’ve got to live pampered lives all trussed up, ready to breed when they find a new home.

Then I ask about the people.

And he tells me about how his ancestors, the first ancients, had to leave their worlds cos of war and how they set out to live their lives without killing. Homefleet got built along the way as they went from star to star, but
they couldn’t find the right kinds of planets to settle down on, which is how come they sent off ships like the
Aeolus
in all different directions, hoping that’d stack up their chances of surviving. There’s another nine ships out there somewhere with sleepers and flinders inside, searching for planets. And who knows, maybe they got lucky.

It gives me a strange tingling, to know that there’s all these men and women on the other side of the universe having adventures and seeing all kinds of stuff I can’t even imagine.

We don’t speak for a while after that, cos my head’s spinning with all these stories.

Another flea nip, another hour gone. I’ve got used to these little reminders – when they’re gone, we’ll either have saved the ship or not. I stare at my watch and countdown cuff together – one ticking, one pulsing.

“That time when you held up your flinder and summoned the shuttle. What was you saying?”

“I wasn’t saying anything, I was singing – no words. It’s something we learn before we leave Homefleet. Actually, it’s not the sound the shuttle picks up – you have to send it through the flinder as a thought, but it’s hard to do unless you sing it at the same time.”

He hums the tune, teaching it to me. Seven notes, lilting and hanging, like the start of a hymn.

“We ain’t gonna bring the shuttle here now, are we?”

He grins. “No, we’re too far away. Anyway, I’m not
projecting the song as a thought. I’m just singing it. There’s a difference.”

He sees me gazing again at the chink of light at his throat, then he hands me his flinder. Echoes again. I shiver, but just at the beauty of them. Cos there ain’t nothing bad about the flinder. I
know
it. And I wonder if it’d send my dreams off to them sleepers in the sky, if I’d be a true match for it. I hand it back, and feel its voices slip away into silence.

At last Peyto goes, “Cass, can I ask you something?”

“Fire away.”

“Your mother – you don’t talk about her. What was she like?”

I look at him, not answering straightaway. There was a time when I would bite back if anyone ever asked me about my mum. I didn’t want no one stirring up my memories of her, forcing me to put them into words. But I can tell he’s only thinking about his own mum, trying to make sense of what’s happened to her.

“I don’t talk about her much,” I go at last. “Sometimes to Wilbur. He don’t remember a lot about her, so I try and fill in the gaps. She died five years ago.”

He don’t say sorry, which is what most people say, like it’s their fault. A picture of her jumps into my head then – I see her laughing at Wilbur toddling along the floor of our hut, and she reaches down to scoop him up and bury her long red hair into his face.

“She was … strong. She made scavving, anything, like a game for us. She made out like our life was fine, that we was lucky somehow. Well, it wasn’t no bed of roses, but she made a joke out of stuff that went wrong, you know? Nothing was ever that bad with her around. Leaks in the roof, flies in the summer, same food for days on end. She’d make it a laugh.”

“You do that.”

“What?”

“Making the best of it, turning it into a game.”

I don’t say nothing to that cos it seems to me I don’t crack jokes in the same way. Mum
really was
happy-go-lucky. I just pretend most of the time.

“She never came back from this one scav shift. A chimney stack fell in as she was chipping away at it. Things just dropped down a hole after that. Wilbur’s too young to remember her, but still, she ain’t there for him. Dad, well, he never got over it. Days are black for him now. No amount of chivying will ever snap him out of it.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know. I try and remember her, try and be like her, look out for everyone. Being like that, it makes me feel she ain’t that far away somehow.”

That’s more than I’ve ever told anyone about how I feel, and for now there ain’t nothing left to say. After a little while, he takes my hand and holds it. Which sends my ticker galloping off into the sunset. My face has got to be
on red alert. I look at him, all flustered, but he don’t look back, and I can see him mulling over what I’ve told him, keeping it to himself. I like that, the way he listens without pushing it, the way he don’t just talk for the sake of it. And slowly my face goes back to normal – well, pink alert, probably. But by now the old elephant god is just a glowing ember, and the scent of the burning wood makes me ache for sleep. Which is just when my resident spiders decide to get all lively, running up and down the inside of my collar and abseiling off my hair, like they’re trying to keep me awake. But I’m all in and pretty soon my eyes keep drooping. And I don’t know how Peyto’s keeping going, but he’s still wide awake, gazing at the fire …

And it only seems like I’ve dropped off for five minutes when someone rocks my shoulder. It’s Wilbur. The others are up and about, yawning and stretching, and from the main chamber comes the milky light of a new dawn.

Five days to go.