Under the Burning Clouds Page 9

  The carriage moved off again. Forsyth peeped out through the curtain.

  “We’re inside the perimeter of the Fortress. You’ll be getting out in a minute or so.” He turned in the seat and faced Maliha. “Once you leave the carriage I can’t help you any more.”

  She put her hand on his. “Thank you, Inspector. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

  “And there I thought you had it all planned,” he said.

  Maliha frowned. “Had what planned?”

  “Solving the murder on the Macedonia so you would meet me and I’d get promoted and brought to Ceylon, then all the rest of it. Just so I would owe you a favour and deliver you to Sigiriya when you needed it.” He kept his face straight.

  Her frown deepened for a moment and then she laughed. And found she couldn’t stop laughing. She flung her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder, holding him tight. He did not return the gesture. Izak and Lilith laughed too, though they did not understand the joke. Finally she let him go and pulled back.

  “Yes,” she said between heaving breaths. “Yes, I had everything planned right from the very beginning.”

  It took her several moments to compose herself, during which time the carriage came to a final stop.

  The door opened and Sergeant Choudhary peered in. “Miss Anderson, we have arrived at your destination. If you would be so good as to come along?”

  She looked at the inspector; he shook his head. “I’ll stay here. I am not very good at goodbyes.”

  Maliha shooed Izak and Lilith out of the car, then returned her attention to Forsyth.

  “Thank you for your help, Inspector,” she said and placed a kiss on his cheek.

  “You’re not the same woman, Miss Anderson,” he said and held out his hand.

  His words brought her back to reality. “No, Inspector, I am not.”

  He looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he patted her hand and nodded towards the door. She paused for a moment, giving him a little more time, but he closed down.

  “Be off wi’ you.”

  She almost said goodbye but caught herself and smiled once more. Then she climbed from the vehicle and out onto a flagged surface. She reached out and pushed the door shut. It clicked with finality.

  v

  Choudhary stood there holding the hands of Izak and Lilith. She thought he looked very natural like that. She did not even know if he was married—in fact, she realised how little she really knew about the people she had met. People she might think of as friends.

  She took Lilith’s hand—the girl looked very unhappy—and Izak took up a position on Maliha’s other side. Choudhary escorted them across the flat and barely worn surface. In front of them the massive bulk of Sigiriya loomed.

  At its base was a set of doors constructed from iron and big enough to accommodate a small flyer if they had been open. There was a smaller door beside them and soldiers guarded that entrance. The British were bound by their love of commerce to permit the transportation of civilians and goods to and from the Victoria station above, but they also had secrets within Sigiriya they were desperate to protect.

  She scanned upwards, studying the ancient fort and the changes its new imperial owners had imposed upon it. Hammered out of the granite, fifty feet up its side were openings from which protruded the long barrels of powerful artillery. And below those, other gaps with machine gun mounts.

  Other constructions of metal and glass clung to the sheer sides like tumours, defacing what had once been a triumph of the ancient world. This is what the British Empire did to the world. It was a fungal growth creeping across the surface of anything foreign, consuming and transforming it.

  And yet they were not the enemy, though they carried its semblance. There was no us and them, there were only people and their decisions for good or bad.

  “How is your dilemma, Sergeant?” she asked.

  He hesitated and she wondered if he had forgotten their previous conversations. She had not, but that was no surprise.

  “I have decided that order is better than chaos, Miss Anderson.”

  She nodded. “And does that work?”

  “It serves for the time being,” he said. “I need to thank you for your wisdom. It has brought calm to my heart and my soul.”

  “It was only the truth.”

  “That is a rare thing in this world, Miss Anderson. There are few who can see it.”

  “It is a greater skill to see it for what it is and then follow it, Sergeant.”

  They reached a low fence with a gate and guards. One man came forward; he was in uniform but, rather than carrying a gun, he had a clipboard. Choudhary walked up to the guard. “Alice Ganapathy and her charges.”

  The man checked his list. “She’s late.”

  “But not too late.”

  “No.”

  Maliha moved forward with the children. The barrier was raised and she passed through. She turned back.

  “Thank you for your help, Sergeant.”

  “I am pleased to count you as a friend.”

  She noted he had not used her fake name in their exchange. She pressed her palms together and bowed. He saluted in return.

  “This way, Miss Ganapathy,” said the clerk. “The shuttle lifts in ten minutes.”

  He led the way towards the single door.

  Maliha found it an alien notion that she had friends. The years at school, before she returned to India, had been filled with loneliness and abuse. But now she had Barbara, Amita, Inspector Forsyth, Sergeant Choudhary, even Françoise Greaux, and Ray Jennings, as well as her charges: not just Izak and Lilith, but Riette’s baby too—sweet little Barbara who had stolen her heart.

  But no family to speak of, since they blamed her quite thoroughly for the events in Pondicherry. If she had left it alone, things could have been different, but the truth would have come out eventually and been a hundred times worse. But they chose not to see that.

  And there was Valentine.

  Lilith clung to her arm harder as they passed through the passage and into the interior. It was not dark; the electric lights shone hard and bright, banishing any shadow. Maliha did not fail to notice the modern loopholes and ancient sluices from which could issue death if any invader got this far.

  The corridor they passed down was so narrow they could only walk in single file. Lilith still clung to Maliha’s hand even though she walked behind. The temperature dropped significantly and she felt Lilith shiver.

  They passed four metal doors and came out finally into a cave. The walls had been painted by the original occupants, but the British had given the designs no consideration and had drilled into them and chipped them away to build their machines, which included a set of four lifts running up through the ceiling.

  Their escort opened the doors to a lift. Lilith and Izak were reluctant to enter what appeared to be a metal cage, but Maliha stepped inside and encouraged them. Even Izak held her hand tight.

  “Is it a Faraday lift?” she asked the fellow before the doors closed.

  “Of course.”

  “You will feel the lightness like in the air-plane and the atmospheric,” she said quickly, though the words were hardly out of her mouth before it came upon them and they shot upwards.

  Lilith whimpered.

  They traversed the distance to the apex of Sigiriya in less than twenty seconds, with acceleration and deceleration smooth enough to prevent bumps. Maliha glanced at her watch. Five minutes.

  The summit resembled Verne’s City in the Sky, she thought. It was almost unreal with its towering modern buildings built more from steel than stone. The guard ushered them into a small atmospheric designed to take a party of up to twelve. He had them sit in the red leather seats before entering a code. The inner and outer doors closed together and the vehicle shot away.

  The atmospheric came to rest less than a minute later on the far side of Sigiriya. They disembarked onto a wide open space, in the centre o
f which was the shuttle. She had seen them launch and land frequently, and had even employed binoculars to study them more closely.

  This was a vessel that employed the secret complete gravity nullification that Valentine had been horrified to discover she knew about. But, as she had pointed out, it would take a complete fool not to realise what they were seeing when they launched.

  The surface of the launch area was metal and, no doubt, hid the secret of the process. Each panel of metal was one yard square with a metal loop in its centre. The vessel itself had very small wings and large thruster ports at the rear. It did not have a funnel.

  A steward stood at the door and several crew waited around the vessel. They had ropes attached to belts around their middles; the other ends were attached to the loops on the ground. As she got closer Maliha saw that the vessel itself possessed a clamp, which held tightly to one of the loops.

  The complete nullification meant that any person or object in its field would simply float away until they reached the edge, where full gravity would reassert itself and they would fall. Possibly over the edge of Sigiriya itself.

  Their escort gave her name to the steward. He smiled at Maliha with the outside of his face. He must have made this trip so many times any passengers warranted no more attention than an inanimate piece of cargo. Or he took objection to the skin tones of the three latecomers.

  It did not matter one way or the other.

  There were airlock doors both outside and in. Maliha understood their significance and was glad the children did not. Once they had reached sufficient altitude the only breathable air would be what the ship carried.

  It was a terrifying thought.

  The passenger cabin was full. The seats were arranged in rows of four with an aisle along the middle—two on each side. And there were perhaps fifteen rows. These were the second-class seats; the first-class seats were towards the front. There was no third class, at least not on this type of vehicle. The vessels of Terence Timmons were a different matter.

  Maliha and the children had seats halfway down the cabin, so they had to bear the stares both indifferent and malign from the passengers who were already seated. As there were three of them, they had two seats together and one across the aisle. Maliha debated over the best arrangement.

  The fourth seat in their row appeared to be occupied by a middle-aged businessman. He was one of the ones who had watched them with indifference, as if their entrance was simply a distraction that passed the time.

  She had Izak sit next to him and she quickly showed the boy how to operate the seat restraint. She put Lilith by the window and then sat in the aisle seat so she could reach and speak to both of them easily. She tied Lilith into her seat and tightened the belt, although it was not designed for a small child.

  “Going light,” called the steward from the front. He did not appear through the curtain, so Maliha guessed he was already in his seat. A red light went on at the front of the cabin. It flashed three times.

  There was a chance to breathe in before all weight went from her body. Maliha gasped and Lilith cried out in fear, but their sounds were hidden amidst all the voices that expressed their surprise at the sensation in a dozen different ways.

  Someone was weeping loudly.

  Maliha felt as if she were falling, yet she could still feel the seat beneath her and the restraint across her. She reached out to hold Lilith’s hand. Her arm moved normally and she grabbed the girl by the wrist.

  On her other side another hand grabbed hers. She turned to see the face of Izak trying to suppress his terror, and perhaps his lunch. She smiled at him.

  “This is a tremendous experience,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood. She was not sure if she was successful. An unpleasant smell permeated the air. She hoped it was not one of the children.

  She looked back at Lilith, but as her gaze crossed the window she stopped and stared out. All she could see was ocean. They were already at high altitude, though there was no reference to indicate how high.

  “Prepare for thrust,” called the steward.

  Maliha could not think what effect this would have and she had no words of comfort for the children. “Hold on to me,” was all she had a chance to say before a thunderous roar filled the vessel and they were slammed back into their chairs.

  vi

  The pressure lasted for five minutes and in that time the sky went from porcelain blue, through deep purple to complete black, and the stars came out. They did not flicker and jump, as they did when seen from the surface of the Earth, but were hard and sharp like diamonds.

  And there were so many more of them. The firmament was thick with stars. Maliha knew they were not all white, though that was the impression one got on Earth. But here, without the blanket of atmosphere to hide their true colours, they shone red and yellow, blue and orange. The Milky Way became a thick band stretching around them.

  It was breathtaking.

  The vessel rotated slowly as it rose. At no point could she see the Earth itself—they must be flying directly away from it—but she caught sight of the Moon regularly. Its seas (not filled with water, of course) were clear, as were its huge craters.

  Lilith and Izak took their cue from her and, while others continued to suffer and wail, they relaxed, though they did not let go of her hands.

  The steward floated through and tended to those who were in need of it. Some sorts of personal facilities were provided in the rear and Maliha imagined they would have to use them at some point, but not yet. Perhaps they could last until they reached their destination. It would be so embarrassing otherwise.

  The man next to Izak had closed his eyes and gone to sleep. A seasoned traveller, no doubt.

  The Victoria station was located at an altitude of seven thousand miles and the brochures said the travel time was only four hours. They would have to reduce their velocity once they reached the station, but for now they must be travelling in excess of two thousand miles per hour. So fast that their journey from Africa to Ceylon would have taken an hour.

  “Try to sleep,” she said to Lilith.

  “I’m scared.”

  Maliha turned to Izak. “I need to comfort your sister. Can you manage without my hand?”

  He looked uncertain, but then nodded and released her.

  “Thank you.” Maliha leaned over Lilith and put her arm around her. “There now, you go to sleep.”

  Lilith closed her eyes but remained tense. She was trying, but Maliha could tell she was not sleeping.

  Outside the vessel, nothing changed. The ship continued to rotate and the view was always the same, constantly repeating. The only way she knew that time continued to tick away was by the changes in the passengers as they quieted, and the settling of Lilith’s breathing.

  No meal was served; the overall travel time did not balance against the difficulties the passengers would have. Easier to let people become a little hungry than force them to attempt to eat in this weightless condition.

  She sensed the change.

  Something in the rotation of the ship altered and through the porthole she saw an elegant, sparkling stream of ice crystals curve into the Void—the residue of a steam-thruster on the side of the vessel.

  They were manoeuvring for their approach to the station. She peered out. The stars were no longer simply circling them but were now engaged in a more complex dance. She breathed in suddenly as the Earth came into view: an enormous blue, white and brown ball filling the sky. She could see the shape of India, the islands and land masses to its east, and the coast of Africa in the west with the island of Madagascar off its coast. Great swirls of white cloud hung above the surface.

  Maliha tried to grasp the idea that only a week before she had been an invisible dot on the surface of Africa. Cloud covered the southern regions of the continent, hiding Johannesburg from her sight.

  But she could see the place where Pondicherry was located on India’s coast. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes but did n
ot run down her cheeks. They clung to her eyelashes and she had to wipe them away with the back of her hand. She was not even sure why she was crying.

  The Earth rotated out of view to be replaced by the velvet black filled with gems, and then her first glimpse of Victoria Station. It resembled a Fabergé egg enclosed by five great cartwheels. It turned about its own axis and reflected sunlight from its seemingly jewelled surfaces, which were no more than glass and steel.

  She knew from her reading the central ‘egg’ contained the docking ports, Spanish furnaces and boilers, along with the gardens and administrative offices. The rings—accessible through any of the eight spokes which were not currently visible—had been given sufficient rotational velocity to provide a low level of artificial gravity.

  The various residential quarters for crew and visitors were located in the rings, along with shops and other amenities, including a small theatre. The two outer rings (upper and lower depending on how one looked at it) were not yet complete, but even now the station could house fifteen hundred passengers.

  The station was a colossal construction and a testament to the engineering abilities of the British Empire—and Nikola Tesla, who had defected to the British camp after his American laboratory was destroyed over ten years before. Maliha did not doubt that it was Tesla, in collaboration with Rutherford at Cambridge, who had achieved the total nullification of gravity.

  The vessel continued to rotate and neither the station nor the Earth now appeared in the portholes. But other vessels came into view. There were small ships, similar to the shuttle, driven by engines which utilised Newton’s Third Law—they fired out streams of steam to propel themselves.

  These small ships plied the Void between the station and the true Voidships. In the distance she saw a squadron of three Royal Navy vessels, iron-hulled and mounted with batteries of artillery, with huge ether-propellers in their sterns to drive them across the vast expanses between planets. Another invention of Tesla and Rutherford, though one known to all and utilised by all Void-faring nations. Except one.

  The thought caught in her mind and stuck. She had always thought of Timmons as owning a fleet of slaving vessels and carrying people away to work on Venus and Mars—perhaps other places. But how did their behaviour differ from that of the early colonists of, say, the Americas? People who had nothing to lose journeying across the sea to make a new life? Was that truly different from what Timmons was doing with the South African farmers and who knew what other people?