Living Hell (12 page)

Lais was groaning and shaking. Mum was trying to dust her off. Zennor said, ‘Come
on
. We can’t stop!’ From down in the rear, Dad lifted his voice. ‘Keep moving! Everyone keep moving, we’re nearly there!’

Arkwright was the first to move. He marched across the next junction, while Bam capered around his ankles. I held on tightly to Yestin, and followed. Mum was just behind me, holding Lais. Then came Zennor and Dygall. Dad struggled along in last place, panting and grunting.

Samplers and scent pellets swirled overhead. I tried to keep an eye on them, but it was impossible. There were too many, and the samplers were too fast. Some of them were even sliding along the bottom of the tube.

I kept saying to myself: We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.

Over and over and over again.

‘Hang on, Tuddor.’ It was Zennor speaking. ‘You’ll never keep up.’

Peering behind me, I saw Zennor drop back to help with Haido. He tucked his hands under her arms, and lifted her until she was fully off the ground. Mum said, ‘Don’t touch anything! Mind that stuff . . . watch her middle . . .’

‘It’s all right,’ Dad gasped. ‘We’re nowhere near the wound.’

‘Two more streets,’ Arkwright remarked. ‘Only two more.’

I thought: And then what? It was the first time I’d even stopped to wonder. Suppose we reached BioLab and it was empty? Suppose everyone was dead in there, as well? Acid. Someone had mentioned acid. Hydrochloric acid? Had the Remote Access Repair Units stopped spraying struts, and started spraying people?

I felt a lump rising in my throat, before it hit me: Sloan was in BioLab. Sloan was waiting for us. I was able to swallow the lump when I remembered that, because Sloan couldn’t be dead. Not Sloan.
He
would take care of things; nothing ever fazed Sloan. Together, he and Dad and Arkwright would work out a solution.

And Mum, too, I decided. They would save us. They would.

We passed another junction. Everyone was breathing heavily. Lais had calmed down a bit. Arkwright was lengthening his lead, walking briskly, apparently lost in thought. (I couldn’t
believe
how cool he was.) Yestin sniffed, wiping his nose on his hand. Once he whimpered, ‘My mum,’ and I gave him a squeeze.

‘She’ll be all right,’ I said automatically, without believing a word of it.

No one else said anything. What was there to say? We were dragging a corpse with us – we didn’t want to look back. We could barely open our mouths. Perhaps we were all in shock; I don’t know. Perhaps we were a little sick.
I
certainly was. The smell was getting to me: the sickly, dreadful, burnt-meat and chemical smell that kept wafting past me, from Haido’s direction.

My mouth was dry. My heart was hammering. The blood was pounding in my head.

As we crossed the next junction, I felt dizzy for a moment. I actually stumbled on something that looked almost like one of the limestone rock formations I’d seen in a mimexic caving tour. I think it was called a shawl. On the tour, it had been hard – a very thin and brittle sheet of calcite, almost like a petrified curtain.

The one I tripped over was soft and springy. Like the webbing you have between your toes.

‘Cheney! Are you all right?’ said Mum.

‘I’m fine.’

‘
Cheney?

’ ‘I’m fine, Dad! It’s okay!’

‘Just a few more steps, kids! Not long now!’

It was true. We were close – so close. Arkwright was actually
turning onto twenty-sixth street
. I think we picked up our speed. I’m pretty sure I did.

But it was too late.

We weren’t fast enough.

I never saw it happen. When I heard the screams, and whipped around, it was already over. Zennor was on the ground. Rolling and writhing – bucking – the noise was – I can’t even describe it. I can’t. He had been hit in the face, full on. He was
bubbling
.
Steaming.

I only caught a glimpse. Then I was being hauled backwards. Someone grabbed me – Arkwright. He seized my arm and Yestin’s, and he pulled us along. We ran. We had to. When Yestin fell, Arkwright jerked him up again with the kind of strength that I
never
would have expected. Yestin was screaming. I might have been screaming – I don’t know. I couldn’t understand what was going on.

I saw a familiar face: it belonged to Firminus. He was there suddenly. Arkwright practically threw me at him; I flew straight into his arms with a
thump
, nearly knocking him over. He caught me and shoved me at a hole in the wall. A
door
in the wall. The BioLab door.

Sloan was on the other side of this hole. He was propping it open.

‘Zennor!’ I cried.

‘Quick,’ said Sloan. He reached across. He grabbed a handful of my suit, and yanked me through the hole. I hit the floor inside on my hands and knees. Yestin was so close behind, he nearly fell on top of me.

‘Sloan . . .’ I sobbed.

‘It’s all right.’ Sloan’s voice was perfectly calm. ‘It’s all right, you’re both safe.’

‘Mum!’ I gasped. ‘Dad!’

‘They’re coming.’

‘He’s dead!’

‘Shh.’

Looking around, I saw faces. Scared expressions. I recognised Ottilie; her hair was coming down. I didn’t really know the other three. I would have seen them in the tubes, or at the Health Centre, but I didn’t know who they were.

All at once a roiling mass of limbs seemed to burst through the hole behind me. It was Firminus, holding Dygall. Dygall was shouting and struggling. He was kicking and screaming. ‘
Dad!
’ he shrieked. ‘
Dad!
’ His elbow caught Firminus a great blow on the cheek, but Firminus didn’t let go. Knocked backwards into a slimy bulkhead, he slid to the floor, still holding on tight, his arms locked around Dygall’s chest.

‘Shh,’ he said, desperately. ‘Shh.’

‘
Dad! Da-a-a-ad!

’ Yestin was shocked into silence. I crawled across to Dygall. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to be there. I didn’t even think – I just moved.

‘Dygall . . .’ I croaked.

He kicked out at me. I doubt he even realised who I was. It was so noisy, he probably didn’t even hear me speak. Firminus pressed his cheek against Dygall’s fuzzy scalp, and held on grimly. Yestin began to howl.

‘They’re not here!’ he cried. ‘Mum and Dad! They’re not here! Oh no! Oh
no
!’

‘Shh. Shh.’ I didn’t even know what I was saying. An almighty
thump
made me turn around. It was Zennor.

Arkwright and Tuddor had lost their grip, and he’d hit the floor.

They had rushed him into BioLab.

‘Oh my God . . .’ someone breathed. Everybody was inside now: Mum and Dad, Lais, Arkwright – even Zennor. Only Haido had been left in the street. The door had snapped shut. Lais was in hysterics, screaming at the top of her lungs. Mum was crouching over Zennor, blocking my view. (I’m so grateful that she blocked my view.) She was slicing through his suit with something – something Ottilie had given her. The smell was appalling.

Zennor’s hand was twitching.

‘
DA-AD!
’ Dygall screeched.

With one huge, convulsive movement he jerked out of Firminus’s grasp. He launched himself at his father. I was in his way, though, and I grabbed him. I grabbed his collar.

His fist shot out. It hit my nose.

I saw flashes of light.

‘
Cheney!

’ Dad’s voice cut through all the commotion. He was there suddenly; I felt his bulk at my side. He lifted me up. We moved. He sat me down somewhere.

‘Are you all right? Cheney?’

‘Ow . . . ow . . .’

‘Show me. Let me look.’

I uncovered my nose. He turned my head this way and that, as my vision cleared. Close up, his face was a shock. He looked wild. There were angry red spots on his jaw. His eyes stared. I realised that I was moaning.

‘It’s not broken,’ he wheezed. ‘Quenby? It’s not broken. It’s not even bleeding.’

‘Dygall . . .’ I tried to look around Dad but he wouldn’t let me. I heard someone say, ‘Get those kids out of here.’

‘Yes.’ That was Ottilie. ‘In there. Take them into the Pen.’

The Pen was where Sustainable Services kept all the germinators: the rats, the guinea pigs, the plankton, the racks and racks of moulds and lichen and algae and mosses. The germinator tanks were built into the walls, on all sides.

It was one of my favourite rooms on board Plexus, because it was full of birdseed and hamster wheels and other fun things. Beyond it – through a small door with a First Level clearance lock – lay the Gene Banks. The Gene Banks contained DNA samples from every species on Earth.

There was also a small collection of large living animals (apes, sheep and so forth) but they weren’t kept in BioLab. They were in the Stasis Banks, with B Crew. Animals could be kept in cytopic suspension indefinitely, because it didn’t matter what happened to their brains. They were only needed for breeding purposes.

‘What was it?’ I quavered, allowing myself to be led from the laboratory into the Pen. A sampler flashed past, and I winced. ‘Dad? What happened to Zennor?’

‘Shh.’

‘Tell me! What
did
that? Tell me, Dad!’

‘It was a sampler.’

‘A
sampler
?’

‘It’s all right -’ ‘There are samplers in
here
!’

‘We’ll catch them. We’ll get rid of them.’

‘We haven’t had any problems with the samplers,’ said Ottilie, sounding dazed. ‘Not a thing . . .’

‘It’s all right. Cheney, it’s all right.’

We hugged each other, Dad and I, rocking back and forth. I couldn’t seem to let him go. We were sitting on the floor of the Pen, surrounded by tanks. The glass in these tanks was no longer transparent; it had turned into a cloudy sort of membrane. I could hear someone wailing – Dygall, it was – and I tried to bury my head in my father’s chest. But I couldn’t block out that terrible sound.

‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Shh.’

‘Oh no . . . oh no . . .’

‘We’re okay. We’re okay, now.’

‘Zennor.’

‘I know.’

‘Dygall . . .’

‘I know.’

‘What happened?’ It was Sloan’s voice. Sloan was nearby.

I pulled away from my father. Something about the sound of that gentle question made me feel that I shouldn’t be cringing on the floor. I didn’t want Sloan to see me in such a state.

Looking up, I saw that he was standing over us.

‘What happened?’ he repeated. ‘Zennor was attacked?’

‘It was a sampler,’ Dad replied.

‘A
sampler
?’

‘Out of the blue.’ There was no strength in Dad’s tone. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. ‘It just – sprayed him. This little thing.
Litres
of the stuff.’

‘What stuff, Tuddor?’

‘I – I don’t know . . .’ Dad looked towards the door of the Pen. Ottilie was bringing Yestin through it. She sat him on a stool (a stool that was still a stool, rather than a fleshy nub) and gave him a cup of water. A cup of water and a pill.

‘You take this,’ she murmured. ‘Go on. Take it.’

But Yestin couldn’t take it. He was shaking too much to hold a pill. Ottilie had to pop it into his mouth, and press the cup to his lips. He nearly choked on its contents.

‘Water?’ Dad croaked.

‘We’ve tested it,’ Ottilie replied.

‘You mean your
instruments
are working?’

Ottilie looked up. Wisps of grey hair framed her face.

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Most of them aren’t. We had to use germinators.’

Suddenly, the air was split by an unearthly cry. It was so awful, I had to put my hands over my ears. Ottilie shut her eyes, and Yestin whimpered. Even Sloan bit his lip.

Dygall had been told that his father was dead.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Mum didn’t give Dygall a sedative pill. She gave him a sedative
gel
, which she dabbed under his nose. Within minutes he was quiet – almost groggy – despite the fact that he wiped off most of the gel as soon as Mum’s back was turned.

Her back was turned because she was trying to work out what should be done with Zennor’s body. I could hear her discussing it in the other room. None of the Shifters was allowed in the other room while Zennor was there. Mum didn’t even want any
adults
going near the remains. (That was what she called his body.) She wanted to isolate Zennor, just in case.

‘This stuff on his face might be unstable. The fumes might be dangerous,’ she said.

‘We could analyse it,’ Ottilie responded. ‘We can’t use the spectrometer, and the ion-channel biosensors are out, but we’ve got one or two portables, and all our solutions are intact . . .’

‘Fine,’ said Mum. ‘You can take a sample, but I still want him isolated.
Now
.’

‘But where?’ I didn’t recognise the voice. It was a man’s voice. ‘The germinator tanks aren’t big enough.’

‘Outside? In the street?’ someone else suggested.

‘Not an option.’ It was Firminus speaking. He sounded very tired. ‘We can’t get through the door any more.’

‘What?’ said Mum.

‘The door’s in lockdown mode. We just disabled the pressure pad.’

‘Why – how -?’

‘I stuck a magnetron pole through it.’

‘We can’t afford to let any more samplers in,’ Arkwright declared. Everyone accepted that. There was a brief pause.

‘Could we put Zennor in another pressure suit?’ Ottilie finally suggested. ‘And seal it up?’

‘You saw what happened to the last pressure suit,’ Mum replied. ‘Anyway, it would require too much handling. I don’t want anyone touching that stuff.’

‘Air duct?’ said someone.

‘Contaminate an air duct? Are you kidding?’

‘Precision pipe.’ It was Sloan’s voice. Looking around, I saw that he wasn’t anywhere near me, and realised that he must have slipped back into the lab. ‘What about the precision pipe?’ he suggested. ‘That was built to hold a vacuum – it belongs to the particle accelerator module -’

‘Good idea,’ Ottilie cut in. ‘We’ll put him in there.

Jehanne? Castus? You do it.’

‘No,’ said Dad. ‘
I’ll
do it.’ He had been very quiet. Like Firminus, he sounded exhausted. ‘You people have your own jobs to do. We need to know what we’re dealing with. We need more analysis.’