“It’ll be a little while till we set off,” he murmured to Moa. She shrugged. It would still take the whole day and night to get to the centre of Orokos on a barge. Another day gone. Time was slipping from her.
Rail glanced about as he waited for the boatman to count the money he handed over. He hadn’t forgotten about Finch, but he was fairly sure that Anya-Jacana’s thief-boy would have given up and moved on by now. Finch couldn’t be everywhere.
But right at that moment, a boy was watching them from behind a pile of crates, a boy who had heard a rumour. A rumour that someone was paying good money for information about a dreadlocked, dark-skinned boy with a respirator and a pale girl wearing dungarees. He watched them get on to the barge, noted its name, and then ran away.
Finch couldn’t be everywhere, it was true. But it was amazing what the promise of a little money could do.
Darkness claimed Orokos once again, and the barge moved slowly onward, its engines labouring against the current. It was a large passenger craft with a dozen cabins, heavy and ugly, hung with chains and cables that clanked softly as it rocked in the sway of the West Artery. Tonight the moon was clouded and a fine rain fell, making the night unfriendly and impenetrable. Houses and buildings on the canal bank were invisible. The barge ploughed through the water, towards the heart of the city. The crew steered half-awake, watching for the lights of other craft on the massive canal.
None of them noticed the slender figure that attached itself to a trailing cable, nor did they hear when he scampered up it like a rat and slipped over the gunwale. Finch scanned the deck for crewmen and then slid into the shadow of the cabins, the rain erasing the drips he left in his wake. Stealthily, he tried the door next to him, and it opened without a sound. Within, metal stairs led down into the noisy core of the barge. He took them.
The boy who sold him this information had better have been telling the truth, Finch thought. If not, he’d find himself with his throat cut before long.
The whole day had been a race to overtake the barge. He had hired a swift craft to take him upstream, and only as night drew in had he passed the boat he was looking for. He got out several stops upstream and waited, and when he saw its lights approaching in the rain he swam out to meet it. He had expended a lot of money and effort to get here, and he had used up most of the chits gained from selling Moa’s abandoned glimmer visor already. But if it worked, it would be worth it. He wanted that artefact. And he wanted to kill Rail and Moa, just for the trouble they’d put him to.
But he couldn’t kill them. Not yet. Bane wanted them alive, and while he was wearing the Persuader he was still Bane’s man.
He found himself now in a short corridor of riveted iron. Hanging lanterns cast a green-tinted light, swinging with the movement of the barge. Several oval doors with portholes set into them were on either side. All were dark. It was late, and the passengers had settled in for the night.
Finch peered in through the portholes. The faint moonlight coming through the small, square windows on the opposite wall was enough to outline the sleeping forms within, cradled in net hammocks. He passed along the corridor, looking through each door, until finally he set eyes on Moa.
She was curled up in her hammock, wrapped tight in a blanket like a caterpillar in a cocoon. But the hammock above her was empty. Rail wasn’t there.
Finch glanced either way up the corridor, concern crossing his features. Then where was he? Out on the deck?
No matter, he thought, as he slid his dagger from its leather sheath. If he came back, Finch would deal with him. Time to get this done.
He turned the handle, pushed open the door, and stepped into the cabin, closing the door behind him. The rattle and drone of the barge’s engine covered what slight noises he made. Moa didn’t wake.
Finch crept towards her, his sodden clothes sticking to him. The rain pattered against the window outside. She murmured and stirred, some dream-sense warning her of danger; but it wasn’t enough to make her open her eyes. Not until she felt the cold edge of Finch’s blade against her throat.
“Hello, pretty,” Finch crooned, grinning his terrifying grin. “You have something I want.”
Moa froze. Instinctively she looked about for Rail, but he wasn’t there. There was only Finch.
“I hear you have a trinket,” he murmured, leaning over her so close that drips from his hood fell on to her cheek. “Something very precious. Why don’t you tell me exactly what it does, Moa? I’m very curious.”
“It doesn’t do anyth—” she began, but stopped as he pressed the dagger harder against her neck, hard enough to hurt.
He made a soft tutting sound. “Let’s not lie to each other, hmm?”
She wanted to swallow, for her mouth had gone dry, but she didn’t dare. Where was Rail? Why had he abandoned her like this? Frightened out of her wits, she had little choice but to answer.
“It opens doors,” she murmured. “It makes things . . . so you can pass through them.”
“That’s what I thought,” Finch replied. “Otherwise you’d never have got away from me the first time.” He shifted the blade so that the point of it was under Moa’s chin. She whimpered softly, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
“Give it to me.”
She reached inside her blanket. She had slept fully clothed, for the cabin was cold. After a moment, she drew out the Fade-Science device. Finch snatched it from her. He examined it from every angle.
“How does it work?”
“You put it on . . . you put it on your hand,” Moa managed. A tear of pure fear was sliding down her sallow cheek now, but Finch didn’t notice. He looked at her, eyes narrow in suspicion.
“Don’t move,” he said. “And don’t make a sound. Or I’ll cut you really bad.”
He retreated a little and lowered the dagger, freeing up both his hands so that he could try and put the artefact on. Moa entertained wild plans of making a dash for the door, but she knew she wouldn’t get that far. She wished desperately that Rail were here; but then, part of her hoped that he would stay away. She wouldn’t want him to get hurt.
Take it, she thought. Take it and go.
“It doesn’t fit,” Finch muttered. He looked up again at her and said again, angrily: “It doesn’t fit!”
He tossed it at her and she caught it automatically. “Put it on,” he hissed. “I want to see.”
Moa did as she was told. She moved so that she was sitting at the edge of her hammock, and slipped it on to her hand. It went on easily, the amber disc nestling in her palm, a perfect fit. And then the colours came: the strange, swirling veils of colour, like the drifting hems of a probability storm. They danced slowly around her forearm, lighting the cabin with a soft radiance. Finch stared, amazed. Suddenly, he tore open his wet shirt and shucked it off one arm. His body was scrawny, white and scarred. Around his upper arm was the dull grey band of the Persuader.
“You told me it makes things so you can pass through them,” he said. “What about this?”
Moa looked bewildered. She had no idea what it was, nor why he simply couldn’t get it off himself. “I don’t know, I. . .”
“Try!” he hissed. He still held the dagger in one hand.
She was about to warn him that she had no idea what harm it might do if she touched it to him, but she stopped herself. She didn’t care if he got hurt.
She reached towards him. “No tricks, now,” he warned. He had the dagger ready in his free hand.
“No tricks,” she murmured. And she clasped her hand to the Persuader.
The colours flowed from her arm, gliding around the metal band. The Persuader and the surrounding arm faded until it was ghostly. Finch gave a yelp at the sight and pulled his arm back; and as he did so, it slid through the transparent ring of metal, which fell to the floor with a thump.
He gave a breathless laugh. He was massagin
g his arm, which had become solid again. The Persuader was on the floor next to where Moa sat in her hammock.
“Throw it to me,” he said. She picked it up and tossed it across the cabin. He caught it and slipped it into his pocket, then got his shirt back on. “Now then,” he grinned. “I suppose I should thank you for helping me out of that little bind, but all you’ve done is remove the only reason why I shouldn’t kill you.” He smiled nastily as he took a step towards her, his blade sheening in the dim light from outside. “Without that Persuader, Bane’s got no hold on me any more. I can take that Fade-Science trinket and disappear. I wonder if it would still work if I just cut your hand off?”
But Moa had no intention of letting him near her. She slapped her palm down on the floor of the cabin, and the colours flowed. Finch had time for an instant of surprise before the ground beneath his feet became transparent, and then with a cry he fell through the floor and into the cargo hold of the barge. Moa, suspended in her hammock, pulled her hand away and the floor became solid once again.
For a short time, she just gazed at the empty room. She was unable to believe it had actually worked. But here she was, alone, in the cabin. Finch was gone.
Then she was moving. She tugged the artefact off and stuffed it back in the pocket of her dungarees. All she wanted to do now was to be away from this place, off this barge. Finch was down, but he wasn’t out. She got out of the hammock, wrenched open the door . . .
. . .and came face-to-face with Rail.
The sight of him brought all the terror of the last few minutes boiling to the surface. “What were you doing?” she shrieked. “Where the freck were you when I needed you?”
Rail grabbed her arms, shushing her; and there was something in his glare that withered her anger. He was frightened too.
“The Secret Police are here,” he said.
“What? What are they—”
“We have to go!” he hissed.
She didn’t argue any further. The two of them hurried down the corridor, and Rail sped up the metal stairs to the door which led onto the deck.
“I was up top,” he muttered as they went. “Thinking. Didn’t care about the rain. I saw their boat pull up. They’re searching for something. I think they’re searching for us.”
He grasped the handle of the door and looked back at her, his dreadlocks dripping and his respirator wet. “Are you ready?”
“Rail,” she said. “Finch is here. He nearly got me.”
Rail’s eyes tightened. “We have to go,” he said again, and he opened the door a crack.
Outside, he could see trenchcoated shadows moving along the sides of the barge. They moved quietly and with purpose, and they had thumper guns in their hands.
“We make a break for the water,” he said. “If we can get to the side of the barge, we might be able to—”
“You go,” Moa interrupted him.
“This isn’t a time for—” he began to protest, but she cut him off again.
“I can’t swim,” she said.
“What?”
“I can’t swim.”
“You grew up next to a lake, your father was a fisherman and you can’t swim?”
“I was stung by something . . . when I was very young. They could never get me back in the water after that. . .” She trailed away, realizing how pathetic it sounded now. “Freck, Rail, we live in the middle of a city. I never thought it was important.”
Rail’s heart sank. “We’re caught,” he said.
“No! You can run. You can swim.”
He turned away from the door, shook his head. “I’m not going. Not without you,” he said.
There was a long silence as they looked at each other.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, fresh tears spilling from her. “I’m sorry for all of this.”
He walked down to the bottom of the stairs where she stood. “Come on, Moa. We got into this together.” And he embraced her gently. “I’d rather be here with you than anywhere.”
She slipped her arms round him in response, feeling the hard metal of the respirator pack beneath his jacket. She was still holding him when the door at the top of the stairs opened and the Secret Police came for them.
The cells of the Null Spire were like the corridors that had led to them: grey, featureless and sterile. As they were marched to their confinement, Rail and Moa had glimpsed rooms full of filing cabinets, dreary chambers packed with typing secretaries, and desks, desks, desks. It was a sombre place where echoes seemed hollow, and the atmosphere was that of soulless and clinical efficiency.
The Secret Police took Rail and Moa without a word as to why. Finch came with them too. Though he wasn’t under arrest, the Secret Police watched him closely nevertheless. He glared at Moa, still sore after being humiliated by her.
The first thing they had done was to take the Fade-Science artefact from Moa. They even knew which pocket she kept it in. That was what they were after. They knew all about it.
Rail and Moa had been betrayed. And Rail had a good idea who had betrayed them.
At first he thought it might have been Finch, but after what Moa had told him, he ruled the thief-boy out. Finch wanted the artefact for himself, and he had wanted to kill Moa and Rail into the bargain. That left only one other possibility. Vago.
He didn’t say anything to Moa about his suspicions. She was smart; she would reach the same conclusion eventually. In the meantime, they languished in their cell and wondered what would happen to them.
At least they had been put together. That was one small mercy. Though everything else had fallen to pieces, they shared the same cell. Moa was hunkered on the thin, hard bench that served as a bed. Rail sat against the wall, his head tipped back and resting against the cool grey metal. Their cell was one of a curving corridor of many cells, but all the doors were solid and without windows, and they had no way of knowing if they were the only prisoners or if there were others like them.
Why hadn’t they been separated? Surely that was the most sensible thing to do. Pull them apart, break their spirit, let them stew in their own thoughts. Unless, of course, it simply didn’t matter. They had nothing the Secret Police needed to know, and any interrogation would be short. They had no reason to hold out. Whether they were together or not made no difference.
That made Rail depressed, and he sank into a mire of hopelessness.
He could tell Moa was feeling worse than he was. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak much. He felt flattened and unable to pick himself up. Suddenly, all that had happened since finding the artefact – the flight from the Mozgas, Anya-Jacana’s wrath, the journey through the Revenant district, Moa’s brush with death, Kilatas, their pursuit of Vago – all of it seemed ridiculous. They had been living a fantasy, struggling towards some imaginary goal where things would be different, where they could break out of the straitjackets they were born into. But now, Rail wondered if they had ever really had a chance. Like the city itself, life offered a certain amount of leeway, but it was apt to pull you back with a sharp yank if you tried to go too far, like a dog on a leash. The illusion of freedom was important, but in reality they were not free at all.
Rail tried to console himself with the thought that at least they tried, but it was cold comfort now. The artefact was gone. They could never return to their ghetto with Anya-Jacana after them. They couldn’t go back to Kilatas. In a stroke, they had been reduced to nothing.
It was like Moa said: why bother to struggle, when all your best efforts could be obliterated by a sweep of chance? Better to let the current take you than to swim against it. You would only exhaust yourself and the current would take you anyway.
She was marking time. He could tell. Three days left. In her heart, she still held out for the possibility that the Secret Police would release them in time to return to Kilatas. They mi
ght throw themselves on Kittiwake’s mercy and join her in her futile attempt at escaping Orokos. Rail felt fatalistic enough that he might have even been tempted to join her. But they would not be released. The Secret Police didn’t release ghetto folk.
It was over.
The Secret Police came for them the next day. They had been given basic food and water, suffered the embarrassment of having the use the cell toilet in each other’s presence, and passed a strange night. There was only one bed and Rail let Moa take it while he tried to sleep on the floor, but after some time she had invited him to share the bed with her. They lay together in each other’s arms, and Moa, exhausted, had fallen instantly asleep; but Rail had been kept awake by the warmth of her body, the feel of her bony frame and the faint pressure of her breath against his throat. How casual she could be sometimes, not knowing what she was doing to him by letting him hold her this way.
For a time, he resented her for it. He had lost all hope, and he had accepted that. But now she had reminded him of something he had all but forgotten these past days: that he had one thing worth clinging to and fighting for, and she lay in his arms that night.
They were taken from the cell at midday by four burly, shaven-headed guards. They were escorted down corridors and up stairs, passing nothing of interest but doors, all closed and marked with some incoherent coding system which Rail didn’t understand. There wasn’t a sound except for the squeak of the guards’ boots and the tiny hum of Rail’s respirator pack. They passed nobody else in the corridor. The Null Spire might have been deserted for all they knew.
Eventually, they came to the office of Lysander Bane, Chief of the Protectorate Secret Police. It wasn’t in any way special, merely another door. It opened into a grey room with one curved wall at the back, in which was set a window looking out on to the Fulcrum. They had never seen it this close and from this high up before: an immense frozen whirlwind of glass shards, dwarfing the Null Spire. In front of the window was a grey desk, and grey metal cabinets stood along one side of the room. It was a fine day outside, but the window had a tint which dampened the sunlight and make the office seem drab. The only concessions to ornamentation were three paintings that were placed about the room. Two depicted scenes of troops marching, and one was a portrait of the Patrician in his black surgeon’s-smock coat and his faceless mask. On the wall was a bronze plaque, and engraved on it was the legend: WE WILL MAKE THIS WORLD RIGHT AGAIN – BENEJES FRINE. It was a quote from someone neither Rail nor Moa had ever heard of.