Terminal World (66 page)

Then he was inside the envelope, descending the metal staircase, his hands shaking so hard he could barely grasp the rail. Something was different, and it took him a moment to realise what it was. The once gloomy vault was now a cathedral of wintery light, the envelope punctured in so many places that it was almost like being outdoors again. One of the gas cells was gone, the deflated bag lying in folds, and a handful of airmen were struggling to effect some emergency repair on a second cell. One man lay dead on the floor; from his broken-limbed posture Quillon judged that he must have fallen from one of the over-arching scaffolds of the airship’s rigid frame. Of the battle going on above him he could hear almost nothing save the drumming of booted feet on the walkway, and the occasional muffled boom of a raider’s belly-cannon. He was nearly down when a shot tore through the envelope, missing the gas cells but wrenching part of the staircase away right under him. He had to squeeze past the gap, trusting that lightning would not strike twice. By the time he reached the gondola, he was shaking more than ever.

He didn’t need to be told where to go. The most severely injured airmen had been brought to the infirmary room, while those who were merely wounded were stationed in the chart room. There were no dead in the gondola, which surprised him until he realised that Curtana would have no compunctions about disposing of useless weight if it meant the continued survival of the airship.

The preliminaries of surgery steadied his nerve. He assessed his patients, moved one man from the infirmary to the chart room and another back in his place, and set to work. The injuries were many and various, but almost all had been occasioned by belly-cannon shots ripping through the envelope or the less well protected parts of the gondola. Only one airman had survived a direct strike, but he would lose the remains of one leg below the thigh: even with the best medicine in Neon Heights it couldn’t be saved now. Others had been hit by splinters of wood, metal and glass, resulting in deep cuts, lacerations, simple and compound fractures and profuse bleeding. Few of the injuries would have been troubling under normal circumstances. But these airmen were all suffering from the combined ailments of altitude, residual zone sickness and the side effects of the antizonal medicine they were supposed to have taken. Some of the most effective drugs in Quillon’s arsenal would have killed them instantly, so he was forced to make do with less potent medicines, falling back on the wisdom he had gleaned from Gambeson’s notebooks.

As always when he was working, the outside world shrank to a tiny, buzzing distraction, a fly trapped between windowpanes. He was intermittently aware of the ongoing battle; he processed the shudders and lurches of the airship’s continuous descent; he was conscious of other wounded being brought down from above; but at no point did these matters impinge on his ability to heal, or where healing was not an option, to provide comfort to the dying. Not all of the injured could be saved, even with an angel at their bedside.

It was only during a lull, when one patient was being moved off the table and another prepared, that he found the time to ask, ‘What about Kalis and Nimcha? Are they all right?’

‘They’re safe,’ Agraffe said.

‘And Meroka?’

‘Fine. We pulled her out of the turret screaming and kicking, but there was nothing else she could do down there once the guns seized. We’ve got her on signals now.’

‘And Curtana?’

‘She’ll die at the wheel rather than let someone relieve her. I feel I should force her to take a rest: it would, technically, be within my rights as another captain. Then again, I’m not sure who else I’d trust to bring us in.’

‘You?’

‘I know my limitations, Doctor.’

Quillon nodded: there was no point flattering the man when they both knew Curtana was the better pilot. ‘We’re still on target for Spearpoint?’

‘We’ve just seen off the last of the fifth wave - we should break through the zone before much longer. The Skullboys are still taking pot-shots at us from the ground, but they don’t have any more balloons left now. We haven’t lost too much altitude, as far as I understand.’ Agraffe hesitated, the strain written on his face. ‘You did well up there, Doctor. It wasn’t expected of you, but we’re all grateful.’

‘You didn’t think I could kill as well as heal.’

‘Now we know. And so do you. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with what we’re capable of when push comes to shove.’

‘Perhaps,’ Quillon said, turning away before Agraffe could press him on the matter.

He delved into the work again, cleaning and cutting, sewing and sawing, doing his best with the limited tools at his disposal. The sounds of battle had faded some time ago; he could not say exactly when he had heard the last shot or the last scream or had the last injured man delivered to his care. Occasionally there was a rumble from below, as of distant thunder, but
Painted Lady
sailed on oblivious. The zone had cost her much - stripped her of the very essence of what she had once been - and the battle had cost her even more in terms of her living crew. But she had endured, and the winds were still guiding her to her destination.

When he had done all he could, he disposed of his bloodied apron, washed his hands and returned to the bridge. He supposed that it had been no more than an hour and a half since he had last stood here, but such a span of time now seemed ludicrously short for the events it was required to contain.

Before he had said a word, or had his presence acknowledged, he saw Spearpoint. Curtana had the armoured shutters flung wide for maximum forward view. The sun had shifted, and now the light falling on his city had the lambent, beaten-gold quality of late afternoon. It was so huge, so stupefyingly tall, so hypnotically dense with teeming human potential that it stole his breath away. He had never seen it like this. Even when he was an angel he had never strayed far from the friendly thermals of the Celestial Levels, and when he had fled the city with Meroka he had not allowed himself to look back until they had set up camp, by which point Spearpoint had been much more distant. But now it filled half the sky, and it was drawing nearer by the second, and he knew he would never be able to leave it again.

‘I think that’s the ledge where Tulwar wants us,’ Curtana said. ‘Right, Meroka?’

Meroka nodded. ‘Dead ahead, almost level? That’s your landing spot.’ She was grubby-faced from the turret’s fumes, except around her eyes, where she had been wearing goggles. ‘Hey, Cutter. Heard they’ve been keeping you busy in the operating theatre.’

‘I did what I could.’

‘Did anyone else die on you back there?’ Curtana asked.

He grimaced at her tone. ‘I’m afraid you might have to wait a little longer for more ballast to shed.’

‘Thermals should start picking us up as soon as we reach the base.’ Into the speaking tube she said, ‘I want everything that isn’t breathing overboard now. Even if it’s still working. Guns, instruments, clocks, maps and almanacs, they all go. No matter how ancient and valuable.’

‘Will that do?’ Quillon asked, as she hung the tube back on its hook.

‘It’s all we’ve got left. If I could get everyone up in the envelope and cut the gondola loose, I’d do it. Hell, if I thought I was surplus mass I’d throw myself off first.’

‘I believe you.’

He felt the change from one breath to the next, the first hint of the slow unclenching of the fist that had been locked around his skull since they had entered the zone. Curtana looked at him, waiting for his acknowledgement that he had felt the same thing she had, and that it was not merely wishful thinking. He nodded once.

‘It lasted longer than I expected.’

‘Tulwar did the best he could,’ Curtana said. ‘If we hadn’t been forewarned, the Skullboys would be picking through our bones about now. Is there anything you need to do?’

‘There’s no point making any medical decisions until we know we’re completely through the boundary. But if the conditions on the other side are similar to those we were experiencing before, the crew should be able to carry on without any additional medication from me.’

‘That’s good. You’ll have your hands full with the injured.’ She hesitated, and something of her usual humanity - the Curtana who existed when she was not fighting wars - broke through the facade of military callousness. ‘What I said earlier, about any of them dying—’

‘You didn’t mean it. I know.’

‘Actually, I
did
mean it, more or less. But it was the wrong thing to say to you, and I’m sorry for that.’ She angled her head to sight through the window, judging their approach vector and gradient. ‘Gas crews - five-second vent from aft cell,’ she said into the speaking tube, then to Quillon, ‘One second we’re too high, the next we’re too low. If we don’t hit that ledge square on, we’ve had it.’

‘You’ve done well to get us this far.’

Curtana sneered. ‘As if that counts.’

‘How are the other ships?’

‘Cinnabar’s
down with all hands.
Iron Prominent
is with us, but they’re still mopping up Skullboys. The rest of Swarm’s hanging back on the other side of the zone. They won’t cross until we’ve taken the sting out of the enemy.’ She let out a small, astonished laugh. ‘Fear and panic, I never thought I’d see this day. Spearpoint looming out of the ground like God’s own hard-on and I’m actually
hoping we get there
. Not long ago I’d have thrown myself into a propeller for thinking this way.’

‘You had your reasons. But whatever that thing is, it’s not the Spearpoint you used to hate. It’s something else, something different.’

‘Nimcha couldn’t have known what she was starting.’

‘I think she knew a lot more than she’s ever likely to admit - to us, at least,’ Quillon said.

‘You’d better go back and see how they’re doing.’

‘Is there anything more I can do for the ship?’

‘Keep some of those wounded men alive and you’ll have more than earned your keep. We’re not out of the woods yet, though, just so you know.’

‘I appreciate the dangers.’

‘Tulwar’s been in touch. They’re ready and waiting for us, and doing what they can to keep the Skulls occupied on the lower ledges. But we can still expect some resistance.’

‘We’ll get through it.’

Without warning the gondola nosed up. ‘Thermals starting to kick in,’ Curtana said. ‘We’re over ... what’s that squalid-looking place below?’

‘Horsetown. And it’s not nearly as bad as it looks from up here.’

‘Actually,’ Meroka said, ‘it’s worse.’

‘It’s going to get bumpy from now on - prevailing winds hit the updraught and you get some interesting turbulence. A big ship like this, you wouldn’t think the air could toss it around like a ball, but it will.’

‘Is there anything you can do?’

‘Pray really hard.’

He left her to her work, certain that Curtana still had some control over their destiny and that no one was better equipped to make use of that control. Nimcha and Kalis were waiting where he had left them, both of them unhurt, although visibly rattled by what they had been through. He told them that they were very close to Spearpoint now, and - without wishing to cause them further distress - that all would hinge on what happened in the next hour. The thermals continued to buffet the ship, lurching her up and down, the nausea of motion sickness beginning to push aside the last, drowsy remnants of zone sickness. The mother and child had adjusted well to the transition, and despite their apprehension and discomfort it was at least a blessing that they were no longer required to breathe bottled air.

‘You must feel glad,’ Kalis said. ‘To be returning to your city, when you must have thought that would never happen.’

‘I left the city because certain people were planning to murder me,’ Quillon explained gently. ‘The same people who did murder - or at least sanctioned the killing of - someone very close to me. None of that’s changed. My enemies are still there. I may or may not still be of the same interest to them, but you can be sure they haven’t suddenly decided to let bygones be bygones.’

‘Will they kill you?’ Nimcha asked guilelessly.

‘Hopefully they’ll accept me for what I am, not what I was. That’s all we can ever hope for, isn’t it?’ He tried to raise a smile from Nimcha, but the effort was wasted. ‘Anyway, I don’t feel the same way I did when I left. I had very few friends then. Now I feel like I have an army at my side.’

Something pinged against the bottom of the gondola, making them all start. It sounded as if the shot had struck immediately under their feet, but Quillon knew how easily noises could carry from one part of the metal frame to another. ‘It’s to be expected,’ he said. ‘The Skullboys have control of the lower parts of the city and they don’t want us to land. But they won’t stop us.’

It was easy to sound that confident; less easy to believe it in his heart. That they had got this far did not give them an automatic guarantee of success. The world did not work like that. It took pleasure in punishing the cocksure.

‘I’d best see to the wounded,’ Quillon said, standing unsteadily as another thermal pitched the floor.

‘Did many die?’ Kalis asked.

He nodded. ‘We’re lucky to be alive.
Cinnabar
didn’t make it, and
Iron Prominent
took even heavier losses than we did.’

‘She brings luck and death,’ Kalis said. ‘That is what they always said of the tectomancer.’

‘They were foolish and ignorant,’ Quillon replied. ‘She’s just a girl with some unusual inheritance factors, that’s all.’

He visited the patients, made a cursory inspection, adjusted a dressing here or a splint there, but their status was the same as before. The men were all on stretchers, ready to be lifted down to safety. He already had his suspicions about who would live and who would die, but even his most optimistic forecasts were contingent on conveying the wounded to Neon Heights. Here there were too many sick men in too small a place, the air itself beginning to thicken with disease and corruption.