‘I won’t catch anything, will I?’ asked Leaf.
‘Go back down!’ ordered the guard.
Leaf stepped back in and pressed the button. Clearly something had changed in the time she’d been away. The fact that this whole quarantine level had now been locked off did not sound good. But the Sleepy Plague had gone …
The elevator doors opened on the ground floor. Leaf stepped out, into pandemonium. There were people everywhere, filling the lobby, the corridors, and the waiting areas. Most of the people sitting looked like hospital workers, not visitors, and as far as Leaf could tell from a quick scan, there were no patients.
She started walking through the crowd, her mind busy trying to work out what to do. The first thing would be to establish exactly what day it was and what was going on. Then she’d have to work out how to get to the linen storeroom where the Skinless Boy had supposedly hidden Arthur’s pocket. Then get that out of the hospital and find the manifestation of the House, which Arthur had told her ages ago had appeared near his house, taking up several blocks …
Getting there was going to be very difficult, Leaf realised as she looked out the main doors. They were shut and taped with black-and-yellow biohazard tape. The windows were pasted with posters that even from a distance Leaf could see were headed with the words Creighton Act, the legal authority that allowed the government to establish a quarantine area and use lethal force to make sure everyone stayed in it.
Beyond the windows, out in the hospital parking lot, there were four or five armoured vehicles and lots and lots of soldiers in biohazard suits. Mixing with them were orange-suited figures with three bright fluoro-yellow letters on their backs: FBA, which stood for the Federal Biocontrol Authority.
Leaf looked around to see if she could see anyone she knew. But there were no familiar faces, until she finally spotted one of the male nurses who she’d talked to when Ed and the rest of her family were first taken away. He was sitting with his back to the wall, wearily sipping a cup of coffee, while two other nurses dozed on either side of him, heads slumped forward, abandoned coffee cups and half-eaten sandwiches on the floor.
Leaf threaded her way through the crowd and stood in front of the nurse.
‘Hi,’ she said. She couldn’t remember his name, and the nameplate on his shirt was tilted down.
The nurse looked up. His eyes didn’t focus for a second. He shook his head, wiped a palm across his face, and smiled.
‘Oh, hi. You get caught here when we got Q-zoned?’
‘Yeah,’ said Leaf. ‘Only I was asleep in the waiting room … uh … over there, and I just woke up and I don’t know what’s happened. Is it the Sleepy Plague back again?’
‘No, it’s something else,’ said the nurse. He straightened up a little and Leaf saw his nameplate. Senior Nurse Adam Jamale. ‘Maybe nothing, even, but you know, no one wants to take a chance.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Beats me.’ Jamale shook his head. ‘It all came down an hour ago. I heard a rumour that they found signs of a bioweapon attack on one of the staff.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said one of the other nurses with a yawn. ‘Dr Penhaligon herself, which kind of makes sense. I mean, if you’re going to take out someone, you take out the best, right?’
‘But who would do that?’ asked Leaf, immediately worried for Arthur’s mother. ‘And what kind of bioweapon?’
‘Maybe terrorists,’ said the other nurse. ‘We didn’t get any details. Just that Dr Penhaligon noticed some symptom and reported herself right away. She’ll be in total exclusion on Level Twenty now.’
‘I sure hope she beats whatever it is,’ said Jamale. ‘You know, she invented half the stuff we use to pinpoint viruses? Way back, from the Rapid-Lyse I to the new DNA deep-scanning PAG we got last month.’
‘Yeah? I didn’t know she was behind the Rapid-Lyse. She never mentioned it in that course we did on antiviral –’
Leaf tuned out. The bioweapon attack Arthur’s mum had noticed had to be the grey spores of the mould from the Skinless Boy. Since it was sorcerously created from some alien thing, it was extremely unlikely that human medical science would be able to do anything about it. But perhaps they might be able to slow it down.
‘Oh, yeah, I forgot,’ Leaf said, interrupting the two nurses. ‘What day is it?’
‘Thursday,’ said Jamale. ‘Maybe you should get some more sleep.’
‘Not after seeing my family with the Sleepy Plague,’ said Leaf. ‘Sleep isn’t so attractive now. But I have to go. Thanks!’
‘No problem,’ said Jamale. ‘Take care now.’
‘I’ll try.’ Leaf waved and headed back through the crowds, thinking furiously. What would the Skinless Boy be doing? Did it have some objective other than to simply replace Arthur? The quarantine would make it harder for it to infect people with the mind-reading mould, but it was still a Nithling. There was nothing and no one on Earth who could stop it from doing whatever it wanted.
No one except her. She had to find Arthur’s pocket fast, somehow break out of the quarantine around the hospital, and find the House.
She changed direction and headed to the cafeteria. According to the Atlas, the Skinless Boy had made a lair in a linen storeroom. Presumably there would be some way of getting towels and tablecloths and so on from the linen storeroom to the cafeteria and back again. Maybe a laundry chute or something. All Leaf had to do was find it and trace it backwards.
Leaf was weaving her way through the crowd, and nearly at the cafeteria entrance, when she caught a glimpse of a familiar face.
Arthur’s face.
The Skinless Boy was just ahead of her, hobbling along with the help of a single crutch. As it passed through the crowd, it accepted hands to help it, and often almost slipped, grabbing the nearest shoulder or elbow to steady itself.
It smiled and whispered ‘thank you’ with each touch and helping hand.
Seven
LIEUTENANT CROSSHAW DIDN’T talk to Arthur in the elevator, at least not after issuing instructions on how Arthur was to stand at attention. They were in a very narrow, military-issue elevator not much larger than a phone box. There was a red line painted on the floor about two feet back from the doors. Arthur had to stand at attention with the toes of his new boots on the line.
Arthur had been only mildly surprised to find the elevator was behind one of the doors in the corridor outside the big meeting room. He knew there were elevators all over the place, belonging to different demesnes of the House or designated for particular uses or passengers. He imagined it was a bit like all the tunnels and conduits for water, power, and transport under a modern city, crisscrossing all over one another, clustering close together in parts and very spread out in others. Somewhere there must be a map or a guide to all the House’s elevator networks. The Atlas would have such a thing, of course …
Arthur’s musings on elevators were interrupted as he and Crosshaw arrived at their destination. Unlike the other elevators Arthur had been in, this one had neither operator nor bell. It had a horn, which blew a single sharp note as the doors sprang open.
Beyond the doors was a windswept plain of very short, very brown grass. The wind was hot, and Arthur saw a sun, or at least the kind of artificial sun that parts of the House had, high in the sky. Perhaps half a mile away, across the plain, he could see a very planned, orderly-looking town of twenty to thirty houses and other larger buildings. Beyond the town, looking to what was notionally west, he was rather surprised to see a tropical jungle. To the north there was an area of sharp granite hills, stark and yellow, and to the east there was a high ridge, covered in a forest of cold-climate firs and pines, complete with scatterings of snow.
‘Ten paces forward, quick march!’ shouted Lieutenant Crosshaw.
Surprised by the command, Arthur stepped forward and was immediately unsure of how many steps he’d taken. Was it one or two? Anxiety rose as he counted out the remaining steps. What would happen if he got it wrong?
>
‘That’s ten paces! Can’t you count, Recruit?’ bellowed a new and highly unpleasant voice behind him. Even though he’d only counted nine, Arthur stopped and started to turn around.
‘Face front!’ screamed the voice, from what felt like two inches behind Arthur’s left ear. ‘Don’t move!’
‘Ah, Sergeant Helve, if I may have a word,’ interrupted Crosshaw tentatively, as Arthur felt an intake of breath behind his neck, indicating another vocal explosion was about to take place.
‘Yes, sir!’ bellowed the voice, which Arthur presumed belonged to Sergeant Helve. He didn’t dare look around or move, though he badly needed to scratch his nose, as the heat had already sent a bead of perspiration sliding down towards his left nostril.
Lieutenant Crosshaw and Sergeant Helve spoke quietly behind Arthur for about thirty seconds. He couldn’t hear what Crosshaw said, but even Helve’s whisper was louder than a normal voice, so he caught the sergeant’s half of the conversation.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t give a raised rat’s whisker who he is.’
‘Bad for morale, sir. Can’t be done. Is that all, sir?’
‘I accept delivery of one Recruit Penhaligon, sir. With medical advice.’
Arthur heard footsteps, then the sound of the elevator doors closing. But he still didn’t dare to move, though now the itching sensation on the bridge of his nose was almost unbearable.
‘Stand at ease, Recruit!’ barked Helve.
Arthur relaxed, but he still didn’t scratch his nose. He had a vague memory of his much older brother Erazmuz – who was a major in the Army – talking about the things that movies always got wrong about military service. One of them was the difference between ‘stand at ease’ and ‘stand easy’. Unfortunately Arthur couldn’t remember exactly what the difference was. Staying still seemed to be the best option.
‘Feet this far apart, hands behind your back, thumbs crossed, head straight, eyes straight ahead!’ shouted Helve. He suddenly marched in front of Arthur and stood at ease himself. ‘Say, “Yes, Sergeant!” ’
‘Yes, Sergeant!’ shouted Arthur, putting all his strength into his voice. He knew about the need to yell ridiculously loudly from Erazmuz as well.
‘Good!’ shouted Helve. He stood at attention and leaned in towards Arthur. He wasn’t the tallest Denizen Arthur had seen – no more than six-and-a-half feet high – but he had the broadest shoulders the boy had seen outside of one of Grim Tuesday’s Grotesques. His face was not handsome, as was usual for Denizens, but it might once have been. Now it was marred by a Nothing-burn that stretched from his left ear to his chin. If he had ever had any hair, it had been shaved off.
Like the lieutenant, Helve was wearing a scarlet tunic, but his had three broad gold stripes on each sleeve. He also had three medals pinned on his left breast, all of dull gunmetal, with multicoloured ribbons attached. One of the medals had five small clasps attached to the ribbon, and another had a score of tiny silver star pins on its ribbon arranged in a pattern that left space for several more.
‘Lieutenant Crosshaw says you are a special case!’ bellowed Helve. ‘I do not like special cases! Special cases do not make good soldiers! Special cases do not help other recruits become good soldiers! Therefore, you will not be a special case! You understand me!’
‘I think so –’
‘Shut up! That was not a question!’
Sergeant Helve suddenly leaned back, then scratched the back of his head and looked around. Arthur didn’t dare follow his gaze, but whatever he saw or didn’t see reassured the sergeant.
‘Stand easy, Recruit. For the next two minutes I’m going to talk to you Denizen to Piper’s child, not sergeant to recruit. But you will never mention it to me and you will not ever speak of it to anyone else. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ said Arthur cautiously.
Sergeant Helve reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a flat tin, from which he took a cigarillo, which he didn’t light. Instead he bit the end off and started chewing. He held out the soggy end to Arthur, who shook his head and then took the opportunity to rapidly scratch his nose.
‘It’s like this, Penhaligon. You shouldn’t be here. There’s something political going on, isn’t there?’
Arthur nodded.
‘I hate politics!’ said Helve. He spat out a disgusting gob of chewed tobacco for emphasis. ‘So here’s what I want to do. It’s not strictly legal, so you’ll have to agree. I want to change your name. Just while you’re here. That way, you can get on with the course, the other recruits won’t be distracted, and we won’t have any trouble. It’ll only be on the local record here, nothing permanent. You’ll graduate under your own name. If you make it.’
‘Okay,’ said Arthur. If he had to be here, it would make sense to hide under another name. ‘I mean, yes, Sergeant.’
‘What’ll we call you?’ Helve took another bite of his cigarillo and chewed thoughtfully. Arthur tried not to breathe in. The smell of chewed tobacco was revolting, worse than he’d have imagined. If it was tobacco, and not some close equivalent from another world out in the Secondary Realms.
‘How about Ruhtra?’ Helve suggested. ‘That’s Arthur backwards.’
‘Roottra … ah … maybe something that sounds better … or less obvious,’ suggested Arthur. He looked across at the horizon, wrinkling his eyes against the harsh sunlight, so much in contrast to the lush green jungle to the west. ‘How about Ray? Ray … um … Green? I could be an Ink Filler from the Lower House.’
Helve nodded and spat again. He carefully restored the half-masticated cigarillo to the tin and slid it back into his belt pouch. Then he drew out a clipboard that was five times larger than the pouch, took a pencil from behind his ear, though one had not been there before, and made some quick amendments to the papers on the board.
‘Hide that ring,’ Helve said as he wrote. ‘The crab-armour can be explained for a hurt Piper’s child, but no recruit has a personal item like that ring.’
Arthur twisted off the crocodile ring and slipped it into his own belt pouch. As far as his questing fingers could tell, it was the same size inside as out, though the sergeant’s pouch was obviously trans-dimensional.
‘Recruit Ray Green, we never had this conversation,’ said Helve, quietly for once, as he stuffed the clipboard back in the pouch, both board and papers twisting bizarrely as they went in.
‘No, Sergeant,’ agreed Arthur.
‘Atten-hut!’ screamed Helve. The sudden intensity and volume of his voice made Arthur leap into the air. He came down quivering at attention.
‘You see those buildings, Recruit! That is Fort Transformation, where we take Denizens and make them into soldiers. We are going to march there and you are going to do me proud! Back straight! Fists clenched, thumbs down, by the left, quick march!’
Arthur started marching towards the buildings. Helve followed a few steps to the left and behind him, bellowing corrections to his posture, his step, how he swung his arms, and his timing. In between these practical comments, Helve lamented what he had done to deserve such a sickly-looking specimen, even for one of the Piper’s children.
By the time he got to the buildings, Arthur was wondering whether he would ever learn how to march properly, or at least up to Helve’s standards. He was also wondering where everybody else was. As far as he could tell from the position of the rather rickety but extremely hot sun that was crossing the horizon, it was late afternoon, so he would have expected lots of recruits and training staff to be out doing … military stuff.
‘Halt!’ yelled Sergeant Helve, once Arthur had passed the first row of buildings and was about to step onto a large area of beaten earth ringed with white-painted rocks that was clearly the parade ground. ‘When I give the command “Recruit, dismiss”, you will smartly pivot on your left foot, raise your right foot and bring it crashing down next to your left foot, stand at attention for precisely one second, and then you will march briskly to Barracks Block
A, which you will see in front of you unless you are Nothing-rotted blind as well as stupid! You will report there to Corporal Axeforth. Recruit! Waaaait foooor it! Dismiss!’
Arthur pivoted on his left foot, brought his right down, and then marched clumsily rather than briskly forward. There was only one building directly in front of him, so he headed straight for that. It was a long single-storey whitewashed wooden building, raised on stilts about four feet high. Steps led up to a door, which had a red plaque on it with black-stenciled type that said: BARRACKS BLOCK A, SECOND RECRUIT PLATOON, CORPORAL AXEFORTH.
Arthur marched up the steps, pushed the door open, and marched in.
The room was bigger inside than it should have been, but Arthur hardly even noticed this sort of thing anymore. It was common in the House. It was about the size of a football field, with a ceiling twenty feet up. What light there was was provided by about twenty large hurricane lamps that swung from the rafters. There were windows on each side, but they were all shuttered.
In the pools of light from the hurricane lamps, Arthur saw that one side of the huge room was entirely lined with stretcher beds and large wooden wardrobes, rather like Captain Catapillow’s aboard the Moth. There had to be a hundred beds, each with a wardrobe next to it.
The other side of the room was more open, with thirty or so racks arranged in rows of three. The racks were ten feet high and thirty feet long, and they were hung with all kinds of weapons and armour, all of it to Arthur’s eye very old and some of it very strange. The rack closest to him held a variety of straight and curved swords, small round shields, large kite-shaped shields, blue uniform coats, large unwieldy-looking pistols, and grappling irons and rope. The next one along was entirely given over to fifty or sixty muskets, with strange stovepipe hats of stretched white cloth arranged above the weapons.
At first Arthur thought no one was there, but as he marched farther into the room, he saw a group of Denizens in blue recruit uniforms standing down at the other end. As he drew closer, he saw a scarlet-uniformed instructor in front of them, demonstrating some kind of weapon. From the two gold stripes on the instructor’s scarlet sleeve, Arthur guessed he was Corporal Axeforth.