Liberator Page 6

  The drizzle had turned to a patter of steady rain on the canvas overhead. Bunting hung sodden and forlorn from the ironwork railing that encircled the roof. Looking out on the side of the convict quarters, they watched as needling raindrops made circles on the surfaces of black water.

  Convict servants carried up potplants and created a ring of greenery around the table. Riff, Lye and Dunga waited outside the ring like dumb, patient animals. Other convicts carried up musical instruments and began to prepare for a performance.

  Lady Poltney tried to be the perfect hostess. At first, Col was taken aback by the way she kept fluttering her eyelashes – a flutter so slow and heavy that she appeared to be falling asleep. Equally disconcerting was her voice, which ranged between bass and treble.

  ‘Oh, here come the hors d’oeuvres!’ she trilled.

  ‘Do try the squid,’ she rumbled.

  ‘Would anyone care to taste our’ – rumble transposed suddenly into trill – ‘our delicious mulberry wine?’

  She ate little herself, perhaps because the tightness of her gloves made it too hard to pick anything up. Sitting across from her, Col couldn’t help noticing the fusty, mothball smell of her clothes.

  Sir Peggerton hardly bothered to be the perfect host. He kept wriggling his neck in his collar, which obviously aggravated him by its misalignment. An absence of accessories aggravated him too: he called for his fob watch to be brought, then his silver snuffbox, then a favourite lavender handkerchief.

  ‘He’s very particular, you know,’ Lady Poltney confided admiringly to her guests.

  The serving of the meal proceeded in fits and starts. The convict servants, who had been kitted out in Union Jack waistcoats, dropped dishes, spilled food and slopped drinks. Coal grit had found its way into the soup and a rusty bolt lay buried in the middle of the mashed potato.

  At every new mishap, Sir Peggerton arched his neck and let out a sound somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. ‘Skwa!’ Clearly, he felt very ill-used.

  Another problem was flying beetles. They skimmed in over the ironwork railing and flung themselves bodily into the food on the table. Lady Poltney gave one such a whack with her fan that the blow not only flattened the beetle, but rocked the table, cracked the dish and spattered meat loaf in all directions.

  ‘Skwa-skwa!’

  Lady Poltney shrank back as her husband darted his head out at her. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, should I?’ she said humbly.

  Sir Peggerton fingered his fob watch, toyed with his snuffbox and recovered his equilibrium. With redoubled breeding and courtesy, he addressed himself to Victoria.

  ‘Such a shame, Your Majesty. We would have put on a magnificent banquet if you’d given advance notice of your arrival.’

  Victoria said nothing, her forehead furrowing under the weight of her crown. Col knew that her severe look was the sign of a headache.

  ‘We put on two days and three nights of festivities for your predecessor, King George the Ninth. Sixty roasted peacocks. Lobsters, crabs and crayfish. The finest local produce and the finest conversation. At least three days and four nights.’

  Lady Poltney lowered her fan, from which she had been quietly licking morsels of meat loaf. ‘When was that, dear?’

  ‘Before your time, dear.’ Sir Peggerton’s tone was like cut glass.

  Lady Poltney turned to her guests. ‘I remember the Tsar of Russia. Such a charming and elegant man. Alexander the Sixth and his Tsarina. They were most graciously pleased with our fireworks display. And the Austrian Emperor, when the Grosse Wien put in last year. The whole family came on shore to meet us.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Sir Peggerton’s neck seemed to lengthen an extra inch. ‘Naturally they came to meet us.’

  ‘They were here for a month,’ Lady Poltney went on. ‘We cleaned and serviced their turbines.’

  Sir Peggerton drew down the corners of his mouth at the word ‘cleaned’ – or perhaps it was the word ‘serviced’. ‘We lent them our ablutionary assistance,’ he drawled.

  The meal continued. Rainwater percolated through the awning and dripped here and there on the tablecloth. When a drip fell on Lady Poltney’s shoulder, she gave it a mighty smack with her hand.

  At last, dessert was served: glass bowls of fruit and cream. At the same time, the convict band struck up a tune. After three bars of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, the trombone player dropped his instrument, which hit the ground with a brassy clatter.

  ‘Skwa-a!’

  Sir Peggerton’s hiss was so vitriolic that the drummer jumped up, knocked over a drum and put his foot through it.

  Sir Peggerton turned to the nearest officer, unnaturally calm. ‘Take that one below and flog him. To within an inch of his life. The other one too.’

  That was the end of the musical performance. As they ate their dessert, a different kind of performance started up on the floor below: the swishing of a whip and howls of pain.

  Col continued to spoon fruit and cream into his mouth without tasting a thing. When he risked a glance towards Riff, Lye and Dunga, their eyes were alight with fury. Had anyone else observed them, it would have been obvious they weren’t genuine Menials. Lye wasn’t even hunched or slouched; she was on her toes and ready to lash out.

  Finally, thankfully, the meal came to an end. When Lady Poltney proposed a cup of local coffee, even Sir Peggerton pulled a face and waved the idea away.

  ‘We’d like to do business now, if that’s all right,’ Col spoke up. ‘We need a full load of coal, and we have fine Old Country antiques to offer in exchange.’

  ‘Old Country antiques?’ A note of eagerness came into Sir Peggerton’s drawl. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Vases, rugs, urns, mirrors, furniture.’

  ‘Ah.’ Sir Peggerton craned forward. Col had his full attention now.

  ‘And statues, portraits of the royal family, Imperial heirloom jewellery.’

  Sir Peggerton was almost salivating at the prospect. Still he swung towards Victoria with a puzzled expression. ‘You really want to trade away your heirloom jewellery?’

  Victoria found her voice. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how can you bear to part with such treasures?’

  ‘Not treasures. Ugly old things.’

  ‘Ugly?’

  ‘I never liked them even when I was Queen.’

  Sir Peggerton sat up very straight. ‘Even when I was Queen?’ he repeated. ‘Was? Why do you say was?’

  Victoria realised her mistake. ‘I mean . . . that is . . . ’ She floundered to a stop.

  Albert tried to come to her rescue. ‘What she means is . . . well . . . erm . . .’ He also floundered to a stop.

  Col was still trying to come up with an innocent explanation when Lye exploded.

  ‘What she means is she’s not in charge any more!’ She yelled at the Poltneys from five yards away. ‘We’ve taken over the juggernaut!’

  The frozen moment seemed to last forever. The Governor and his wife swivelled to gawp at the three sham Menials on the other side of the potplants.

  ‘I thought they couldn’t speak,’ said Lady Poltney.

  ‘We’re not Menials, we’re Filthies!’ Lye beat at her hair and pulled out the bun, shedding grey clouds of ash. ‘The ones you crush and oppress! But not us! Not any more! Not on Liberator!’

  Sir Peggerton gulped for air. ‘Liberator? What’s Liberator?’

  Riff spoke up more calmly than Lye. ‘Liberator is our new name for Worldshaker. We had a revolution.’

  ‘We live under a new system of government,’ added Dunga.

  Lady Poltney’s eyes skittered from face to face. ‘They all speak!’

  ‘It’s only babble and nonsense,’ said Sir Peggerton. ‘Meaningless sounds.’

  ‘I thought it didn’t make sense.’

&
nbsp; ‘Cover your ears, my dear.’

  Col rose from his chair. ‘It’s a fairer system. Many of us from the old Upper Decks chose to stay and help.’

  Sir Peggerton stared at him in disbelief. ‘Help?’

  ‘We showed the Filthies how to run the juggernaut. Everyone co-operates now. Mutual respect.’

  ‘Respect?’ Sir Peggerton’s voice had faded to a whisper.

  ‘No more exploitation. We trade honestly with the native people too. And we’re offering you an honest trade. Our antiques for your coal.’

  Lady Poltney had her hands over her ears. The nearby officers and soldiers stood aghast.

  Sir Peggerton struggled to rise, but he was unsteady on his feet. He grabbed hold of one of the poles that supported the awning. Immediately a deluge of rainwater came through the canvas and showered down over heads and shoulders.

  ‘Skwa!’ Sir Peggerton squawked and shook himself.

  ‘A full load of coal and we’ll be on our way,’ said Col.

  Sir Peggerton shot his neck out of his collar and turned on Col. ‘You make me sick! Sick! Sick! Sick!’

  Matching deed to word, Lady Poltney leaned forward, heaved and vomited over the tablecloth.

  ‘You see?’ Sir Peggerton gestured. ‘No decent human being can stand to hear you. Co-operating! With Filthies! How can you stand there and utter such obscenity? How can you live with yourselves?’

  ‘You’re obscene!’ shouted Lye. ‘You’re the obscenity!’

  ‘You’re as bad as Filthies yourselves.’ Sir Peggerton continued his tirade against Col. ‘No, worse, because they were born as animals. Whereas you – you debase yourselves. You’re a disgrace to the human species.’ He swung towards Victoria and Albert. ‘And you participate in this perversion, this blasphemy, this abomination! You ought to be ashamed! I’m ashamed for you!’

  ‘Filthies are born as human as us,’ Col disagreed. ‘We’re all the same species. There was no difference before the Fifty Years War.’

  Sir Peggerton wasn’t listening. ‘I want you out! Out of my Residence! Out of Botany Bay! Get out, get out, get out!’ He flapped his arms. ‘Skwaa-aa!’

  ‘We’re going,’ said Riff.

  The three Council members strode across to the stairs. Victoria and Albert followed and Col brought up the rear.

  Sir Peggerton turned to his officers. ‘Armed guard. Back to their juggernaut. Make sure they go.’

  Officers and soldiers accompanied them down from floor to floor. They kept at a distance as though wary of contamination.

  Sir Peggerton’s voice could be heard still screeching on the roof. Now he was taking out his rage on the crockery.

  ‘They ate off our plates!’ Smash!

  ‘Defiled our glasses!’ Smash! Tinkle!

  ‘Touched our knives and forks and spoons!’ Rattle! Clatter! Crash!

  Victoria paused when they came to the front door, and turned to Albert. ‘Help me with this, dear.’

  Together, they lifted the crown from her head and deposited it on the floor.

  ‘That’s better. Beastly thing.’ The creases were already melting from her brow.

  Albert followed suit, leaving his own smaller crown next to hers.

  The seating arrangements in the trolley were different on the way back. Riff, Lye and Dunga now sat in the middle, while Victoria, Albert and Col squeezed in behind. The officer at the front kept his back turned; the officer in charge of the engine averted his face.

  A second trolley followed, containing half a dozen armed soldiers. They kept their rifles trained constantly upon the passengers in the first trolley.

  Victoria hung her head. ‘I let us down, didn’t I?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, my dear,’ said Albert.

  ‘But I did.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Col.

  The return journey was a dismal, silent affair. Col stayed sunk in his own thoughts until they were travelling along the top of the frame, approaching the sorting tray. Liberator blotted out the sky and the landscape with its vast grey bulk.

  The tray was deserted, but the three officers who had remained by the gangplank were still at their post in spite of the rain. Naturally, they were bewildered by the soldiers with rifles in the second trolley.

  The two officers brought the first trolley to a halt and jumped out to explain. They were in a great hurry to escape from the presence of Filthies – and class traitors.

  Victoria, Albert and Col crossed the gangplank to the tray, followed by the three Council members. The discussion between the officers came to their ears – not only words like ‘abnormal’ and ‘monsters’, but also tones of contempt and disgust.

  Lye had no sooner stepped off the gangplank than she swung around. Her face blazed with the same violent hatred she had once directed at Col.

  ‘This isn’t the end! You’ll see! You’ll pay!’

  It seemed that her voice possessed another register quite unlike her usual quiet manner: ringing and powerful, a deep-throated scream. The officers looked at her and backed a step further away.

  ‘You won’t get rid of us so easily!’ she roared. ‘We’ll crush you! We’ll destroy you!’

  The rifles of the soldiers in the second trolley came up ready to fire.

  ‘Enough,’ said Dunga, and grabbed Lye by the shoulder. ‘Stop now.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ Lye broke away, advanced to the extreme edge of the tray and brandished her fists. ‘Cowards! Imperialist dogs! We don’t need to trade with you! We’ll take what we want by force!’

  ‘Shut her up,’ muttered Riff.

  Dunga got Lye in a bear hug and wrestled her back from the edge. Lye twisted and wrapped her hands around Dunga’s neck. Riff sprang forward and quelled the aggression.

  ‘Don’t give them the idea,’ she hissed at Lye. ‘Keep it to ourselves.’

  Lye dropped her hands, though she continued to glare at Dunga.

  Riff led them both further back, into the shadow of the scoop. ‘I’m calling a meeting of Council,’ she announced. ‘Right now, on the Bridge.’

  Col caught her eye with a silent question. She didn’t meet his gaze, but gave a warning shake of the head.

  ‘No advisers or observers,’ she said. ‘Council members only.’

  When Col returned to the Norfolk Library, Septimus, Orris, Quinnea, Professor Twillip and even Gillabeth gathered round to hear the news. Col tried not to make it sound too depressing.

  He was depressed in himself, though. He had told Victoria and Albert that the negotiations with Botany Bay were the Swanks’ best chance to prove their co-operation; now that they’d failed, the Swanks would be more unpopular than ever.

  He could imagine how Lye would describe events to the Council. If it hadn’t been for Lye’s outburst, Col still believed he could have found a plausible explanation and saved the situation. But Lye wouldn’t be accepting any of the blame, and he doubted Riff or Dunga would expect her to. The blame would fall entirely on Victoria. They might even accuse her of deliberately wrecking the negotiations.

  He was equally apprehensive about the Council’s plans. When Lye had threatened to take what they wanted by force, Riff had said, ‘Don’t give them the idea’. It wasn’t the idea she objected to, but letting it out in advance.

  Perhaps there was no other option. But did the Filthies understand the dangers involved? The Botany Bay Imperialists would have the support of all other Imperialists everywhere.

  Shiv and Lye wouldn’t care. They’d probably welcome an all-out confrontation, the bigger the better. Would the moderates argue against them? Could Riff and Dunga plot a way to seize coal with a minimum of damage?

  It was infuriating that he’d been excluded from Council meetings just when they needed his advi
ce – and the research of Septimus and Professor Twillip – more than ever. Perhaps Riff had had no option about that either. But he hated not knowing what the Council had decided.

  Life in the Norfolk Library settled back into its normal pattern. Gillabeth continued her self-imposed task of organising everything to the ultimate degree. Her current obsession was with building up their stocks of food, and she sent Col, Orris and Septimus on gathering expeditions to the storage decks and other places where she knew food was kept. There was very little that Gillabeth didn’t know about the juggernaut.

  When Septimus wasn’t out on food-gathering expeditions, he joined Professor Twillip in their latest research project. They were seeking information on all the other juggernauts: dimensions, engines, performance, armaments and crew numbers.

  Orris went back to practising ways of being more spontaneous. He had discovered he could snap his fingers better when he did it without thinking, so he kept trying to surprise himself by doing it at unexpected moments. Quinnea jumped and shook whenever he actually managed to produce a snap. His sudden braying laughs and garish grins were even more unnerving.

  On the morning after the visit to the Governor’s Residence, Septimus came up to Col and asked, ‘Do you want to see something funny?’

  ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’

  ‘Funny peculiar.’

  He led Col in among the bookshelves, between two rows where Antrobus had his sleeping place.

  ‘I was searching for books when I found them.’ Septimus pointed.

  There was Col’s baby brother, sitting cross-legged and motionless on one end of his mattress. On the other end sat a mangy-looking animal that Col recognised at once.

  ‘Mr Gibber’s pet!’

  ‘Yes. Murgatrude.’

  Murgatrude had rusty-coloured fur with bald patches, a nose like a pug and long, yellowy whiskers. At school, when he dwelt in Mr Gibber’s wastepaper basket, the students had never been able to tell what sort of animal he was. Even now, in full view, he could have been either a doggish breed of cat or a cattish breed of dog.

  ‘They get on well together, don’t they?’ Septimus nodded at the two small creatures facing each other on the mattress. They were equally enigmatic in their different ways. ‘You could almost think they were speaking.’