Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker Read online

  Richard Harland

  Worldshaker

  Worldshaker #1

  , EN

  Col live in luxury on the Upper Decks of the juggernaut Worldshaker, a mobile city as big as a mountain. Far Below, the Filthie toil amidst the grime, powering the massive engines. Col has been chosen as the next Supreme Commander – but then a girl Filthy escaped from Below and appears in his cabin. “Don’t let them take me!” she begs. Will he hand her over, or will he break all the rules? Col’s safe, elite world is about to fall apart.

  Table of contents

  1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55 · 56 · 57 · 58 · 59 · 60 · 61 · 62 · 63 · 64 · 65 · 66 · 67 · 68 · 69 · 70 · 71 · 72 · 73 · 74

  Epilogue

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  One

  A sound brought Col out of a deep sleep. Something was happening out in the corridor. Urgent footsteps, orders and questions, the clangs of many doors opening and closing. Cabin by cabin, the disturbance came closer.

  His own cabin remained in darkness – until suddenly the door was flung open. Two menacing shapes stood silhouetted against the dim blue light of the corridor.

  “Room light on!” came the order.

  The figures sprang forward into the room, flourishing their weapons. Col switched on his bedside lamp.

  In the warm yellow-pink glow, the figures diminished to a pair of ordinary warrant officers. The pounding of Col’s heart eased. Warrant officers were responsible for security and their heavy wooden batons were for his protection. But what were they doing in this part of the ship?

  “Ah, Master Porpentine, isn’t it?” The senior officer fingered his grey walrus moustache. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. We have to search your room.”

  “What for?”

  Ignoring the question, the officer went on. “How long have you been awake, sir? Have you seen or heard anything unusual in the last few minutes?”

  Col raised himself higher on his pillow. “Doors clanging. And you clumping along the corridor.”

  “She must have run on,” the junior officer whispered to the senior. “We’re wasting our time on this deck.”

  “Who’s she?” Col demanded.

  “A Filthy,” the junior blurted – then clapped his hand over his mouth. “I mean…”

  “Hold your tongue, Jull!” The senior officer swung his baton and gave Jull a cracking blow on the wrist. Col was shocked.

  The senior officer turned to him again. “You didn’t hear what he said, did you, sir?”

  “Yes, I did. What’s a Filthy doing on the Upper Decks?”

  “You wouldn’t want to know. My colleague got carried away.”

  “I’ll forget about it if you answer my question.”

  “She…” The senior officer’s cheeks were red and he was visibly sweating. “Well, she escaped. That’s all I can say.”

  He prodded Jull with his baton and pushed him towards the doorway. “So, if you’ll just forget about it, thank you, sir…”

  Out in the corridor, he began an angry whispered conversation with his junior. Col caught the words ‘grandson of Sir Mormus Porpentine’. Then the door closed behind them and they moved off down the corridor. More clanging doors, more questionings.

  He still couldn’t believe it. A female Filthy running around on the Upper Decks? Inconceivable!

  He looked round at his own safe, civilised bedroom. Green carpet, brown velvet curtains, cream wallpaper…On the walls were framed pictures of the most dignified creatures: the Wise Owl, Noble Lion and Brave Bear. A metal plate above the door was stamped with the name Worldshaker and the date 1845, which was when Worldshaker had been constructed, one hundred and fifty years ago. The washstand, bookcase and full-length mirror bore similar stamped plates. Only the massive wardrobe cupboard lacked a plate: it was an antique of carved oak from earlier times in the Old Country.

  All proper, all normal – like the distant thrum of Worldshaker’s turbines, driving the great juggernaut forward. Time to go back to sleep.

  He reached out to switch off the lamp – when a sudden thought set his heart pounding again. The sound that had woken him up wasn’t the clang of a door! Now that he thought back, there had been something else. Something much closer.

  Don’t panic, he told himself. There was no one else in his room. Where could they hide? Unless in the cupboard…or under his bed…

  He twisted over, lifted the fringed edge of the bedspread and looked under his bed.

  Two eyes looked back at him.

  The female Filthy!

  For ten long seconds, he couldn’t move. So close, separated only by the thickness of his mattress! He was lying almost on top of her!

  The eyes studied him, sizing him up.

  Then she moved first. Quick as a whip, she slid out and knelt at the side of his bed. Nostrils wide and flaring, hollow cheeks below sharp cheekbones. Her hair was a knotted tangle, black in some places and blonde in others. Huge burning eyes dominated her face.

  He wriggled away and fell out on the other side of the bed. Fighting free of sheets and blankets, he stumbled to his feet.

  She opened her mouth and spoke. “Don’t let ‘em take me,” she said.

  It wasn’t a grunt, but actual proper words! Pronounced in a rough and uncouth accent, but definitely words!

  Col goggled. “You can speak?”

  “‘Course I can speak. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I thought…I didn’t know Filthies could speak. Menials can’t.”

  “Yeah, I heard about Menials.”

  “We train Filthies and make them into Menials. Then they can understand human language.”

  “Un-train ‘em, more like. They could understand and speak, before.”

  Col had no answer. His head was spinning, he couldn’t adjust.

  She jumped up suddenly. She was all muscle and sinew, lithe and slight, quite unlike a Menial. Col had a general impression of darkness and dirtiness. She wore rags around her hips and torso, leaving her limbs shockingly naked. Her skin was streaked with smudges of soot and grease.

  “See, they brought me up from Below to make me into a Menial.” She faced him across the bed. “Fished me up on their hook and tried to march me to the Changing Room. But I give ‘em the slip.”

  Col shook his head. “What do you mean, Changing Room?”

  “Where they change us. They torture our bodies and do horrible things to us.”

  “Nonsense, there’s no such place. How would you know anyway?”

  Col was quite sure that Upper Decks people would never do ‘horrible things’. Mere Filthy ignorance! He had studied ethics with his tutor, so he knew torture was against proper moral principles.

  He put on the kind of dignity he’d seen his elders assume. “You’re lucky to have the chance to become a Menial. You’re too young to know what’s good for you.”

  “I’m not young. I’m fourteen.”

  “Well, I’m sixteen.”

  “You oughter know about the Changing Room, then.”

  It was hopeless trying reason with a Filthy. And I shouldn’t even be trying, he told himself.

  He turned to the door and raised his voice. “Officers!”

  She was across the room in a flash. He had always pictured Filthies as slow and brutish, but not this one. She opened the door a fraction, peeked out, then closed it again in a hurry.

  “They’re still there,” she muttered.

  He took a deep
breath for a louder shout.

  She flew back across the room and stood before him, hands clasped in appeal. “Please!” The bravado had fallen away, leaving only abject terror. “Don’t let ‘em take me!”

  Footsteps came tramping along the corridor.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered, and stared at the door.

  In that moment, he remembered his own feeling of a few minutes ago. Seeing the two menacing figures in the doorway, flourishing their batons, ready to hit and beat…

  She made a dart for the antique cupboard. While Col stood open-mouthed, she jumped inside and pulled the door shut behind her.

  The footsteps came up level with his room – then went past. If it was the warrant officers, they hadn’t heard his call.

  He didn’t think of calling out again. He was still strangely churned up inside, as though her fear of the officers had transferred itself to him.

  He went over and spoke through the cupboard door. “They’ve gone past.”

  “Thank you,” said a muffled voice. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t want her thanks; all he wanted was time to think. He turned the key in the cupboard door.

  “I’m locking you in,” he told her.

  “Hey! No! You don’t need to do that.”

  Col didn’t reply. He was sure she couldn’t escape: the wood of the cupboard was solid and the lock was strong. She was his prisoner. But what was he going to do with her?

  She rattled at the door. “C’mon, let me out. You won’t never see me again.”

  He removed the key from the lock and retreated to his bed. She was still trying to talk through the door, so he climbed in between the sheets and pulled the pillow over his ear. The key stayed safe in his clenched fist.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Two

  He felt hot, then cold, then hot again. It was like a bad dream. Had he actually been having a conversation with a Filthy? A Filthy who could not only speak but answer back? Instead of making her aware of her ignorance, he’d ended up feeling he didn’t know as much as he should. Like a child!

  He stared at the antique cupboard. It no longer looked the same, was no longer his old familiar cupboard, but a menacing, alien presence in the room. The girl had long since stopped shaking the door, but she was still inside, pressed up against his clothes. Her Filthy smell would be seeping into his suits and shirts! He would never be able to wear any of them again.

  It was all unthinkable and unreal. And his own actions were the most unreal of all. Where had he gone wrong? He went back over it step by step. Why hadn’t he called the officers, before ever starting to talk to her? Or, when he did call, why hadn’t he gone right out into the corridor? Or why hadn’t he called again after she’d hidden in the cupboard? That was the most inexplicable moment of all. The way he’d behaved when the footsteps went past seemed to belong to someone else, not Colbert Porpentine. Crazy, crazy, crazy! If only he could take that moment back!

  How had it happened? Was it the look in her eyes? So large and…not attractive, a Filthy couldn’t be attractive, but it was as though her feeling of terror had jumped right out at him. He shouldn’t be able to sympathise with a Filthy, and yet-Creaking sounds came from the cupboard. He lifted the pillow from his ear to listen. The girl must be adjusting her position, perhaps settling down to sleep. He lay with the bedclothes pulled up to his chin.

  The sounds continued for a while, then stopped. Now he seemed to hear breathing, faint and steady, in and out. His hearing had become almost preternaturally sharp.

  An unpleasant thought came into his mind: if he was listening to her, perhaps she was listening to him? Both listening to each other’s sounds! He took smaller and smaller breaths until the sheets stopped rustling over his chest.

  How much did he truly know about Filthies? They weren’t the sort of thing he discussed with his tutor, Professor Twillip. He must have picked up hints and worked out for himself that they couldn’t speak. Only he’d worked it out wrong.

  In polite society, people only ever hinted at the existence of Filthies. His impressions came not from what anyone said, so much as the look on their faces when they avoided the topic.

  His main impression was that the Filthies were both dangerous and necessary. They were dangerous because they were always breeding and multiplying, which meant they might some day outnumber the civilised people on the Upper Decks. He had no idea why they were necessary.

  What did it mean anyway, breeding and multiplying? Such dreadful, fascinating words, which stirred strange feelings in him. Going round and round in his mind, they brought up related words like obscene, brutish, bestial. Fearful images from old nightmares floated before him: heavy lumbering shapes, hairy unclothed bodies, hideous cannibal faces with leering mouths. Doing things, hidden things, filthinesses – he couldn’t even imagine the things they might do.

  This girl didn’t match up with his nightmares, though. He’d always pictured Filthies as a savage, uncivilised version of Menials. But she was the complete opposite, swift and athletic, flickering like a flame…

  He knew he ought to decide what to do with her. But somehow the right moment for making decisions had passed. Although a million thoughts chased around in his head, his mind refused to work on solutions. It was all too difficult.

  He calmed himself by concentrating on words that always filled him with good and proper feelings: Duty, Empire, Queen Victoria. For what seemed like hours, the good words competed against the dreadful words, slowly driving them out. Waves of drowsiness washed over him. When he finally fell asleep, he was thinking of his favourite words of all: Her Imperial Majesty.

  But his dreams didn’t follow on from the good and proper feelings. In one dream, his cupboard developed a thick coat of hairs and flapped its door at him in a suggestive manner. In another, he discovered a person wearing one of his shirts beside him in bed. Other dreams were filled with wise owls that frowned at him, noble lions that shook their heads at him, brave bears that turned their backs on him…On and on, for the rest of the night.

  When a rap-rap-rap on his door woke him up, it seemed as though he’d hardly been asleep.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Three

  He opened his eyes and saw that the ceiling light had come on, with its white daylike radiance. There was a second, louder rap-rap-rap. Then the cabin door flew open and his sister, Gillabeth, marched in.

  “Why are you still in bed?” she demanded. “Didn’t you hear the morning bell? Why is your bedside lamp on? You know you’re not allowed to sleep with it on.”

  She was only two years older than Col, but always acted as if she were ten years his senior. Her black hair was cut very straight and plain, and she wore a sensible brown frock with white bib and cuffs. Her only ornamentation was the name Gillabeth embroidered on the bib. Everything about Gillabeth was straight and plain and sensible.

  She and Col divided the family traits between them. While Col was growing up tall like his grandfather, with the same broad forehead, black eyebrows and grey eyes, it was Gillabeth who had inherited the square Porpentine jaw. She stood now with jaw out-thrust and hands on hips.

  “It’s a special day,” she told him. “Grandfather has an announcement to make at breakfast. You’ll need to wear your best sailor suit.”

  Col was about to get up when he felt the key in his hand. Last night’s events came flooding back into his mind. The Filthy girl in the cupboard! He prayed she’d have enough sense to keep quiet.

  “Can you guess what it is?” asked Gillabeth. “It’s about you.”

  “What is?”

  “Grandfather’s announcement.”

  “Oh. Why me?”

  “You’re such an innocent, Colbert Porpentine. You and your Professor Twillip. You have no idea what goes on.”

  “Is it good or bad?”

  “Good, of course. Only good things happen to you. The world falls into your lap, and you never know why.”

  Col paid no attention to
the sharpness of tone. It was just Gillabeth’s normal way of speaking to him.

  “I’ll get your sailor suit out ready,” she said, and marched across to his cupboard.

  “No!”

  “Why not?” Gillabeth directed a smug look of conscious virtue upon him. “I’m your sister. I’m here to help.”

  At least the cupboard was locked and he had the key. Col plunged his hand deeper in under the bedclothes.

  But when Gillabeth pulled on the handle, the door swung wide open.

  This was the end of everything! A Filthy discovered in his cupboard!

  “Now where is it?” She reached in and rummaged about. “Why don’t you keep your clothes in proper order?” She lifted out Col’s best sailor suit on its hanger. “Here you are.”

  Col didn’t understand, he only felt a vast relief.

  “Now hurry up.” She laid out the suit across the bed, over his feet. “The family is waiting.” In her mouth, the word family always seemed like an imperial command.

  “Gillabeth, what do you know about Filthies? You know so much more than Professor Twillip and me. Are they like Menials?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t think about them.”

  “But can they speak?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are they slow and heavy like Menials?”

  Gillabeth averted her eyes. “Why would you ask that?”

  He had the impression that she knew some things about Filthies he didn’t. But it was impossible to probe her without giving himself away.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He tried to sound casual. “I’ll get dressed now.”

  He waited until she was out of the room. Then he threw off the bedclothes and rushed over to investigate the cupboard.

  There was no one there. Gillabeth hadn’t missed seeing the Filthy girl, because she’d already gone. He swished his clothes back and forth to be sure.

  Then he noticed something stuck into the lock on the inside. His Young Patriot’s badge! Unbelievable! The girl must have found the badge on his jacket lapel, then used the pin to pick the lock. He was amazed that a Filthy could be so cunning.