Helix (36 page)

“They
wore clothing, my dear, strange garments embedded with tiny machines, the like
of which we have never seen before. The Governor claimed that they appeared to
be even more technologically advanced than ourselves.”

Sereth
stood quickly and walked to the window. She thought of Ehrin, and how he would
no doubt delight in this news, and she silently cursed him.

She
turned to her father. “And what will happen to these creatures? The Church
won’t let it be known that such beings exist, surely?”

“Of
course not. My guess is that they’ll be executed as godless heathens, their
carcasses donated to the Church medical researchers for dissection. But Hykell
has yet to decide upon their fate.”

She
was silent for a long time after that, watching her father as he dabbed at his
damp nose with a soiled handkerchief and blotted his eyes.

“Does
that make the Church right, father? Does that mean the word of God can be
trusted?”

He
looked up. “I beg your—”

“I’m
sorry, father, but if alien beings come to Agstarn, intelligent aliens, then
what of the veracity of the Book of Books?”

He
held his head in his hands, his expression woeful. “It has... has yet to be
decided. The Book is but the
received
wisdom of the Lord, communicated
through the prophet Kahama. But Kahama was but mortal, and prone to error. This
visitation does not, cannot, call into question the other tenets of the Book of
Books and the Church’s wise teachings.”

She
wanted to believe his words, but the manner of their delivery, the very state
of her once proud father, suggested that even he did not believe what he was
saying.

She
felt as if her world were falling apart.

She
thought of her fiancé, and how much she wanted to feel safe in his arms just
then. “And Ehrin? With Hykell so busy with the aliens, I doubt he will have
decided on Ehrin’s fate, father?”

He
looked up, and his expression was pained.

“What?”

“Hykell
made his pronouncement late this afternoon, just after the aliens were
imprisoned. It was Velkor Cannak’s doing. He is convinced that Ehrin and his
friend Kahran Shollay had a hand in the arrival of the aliens while out on the
plains. Apparently they heard the arrival of an airborne craft, which they said
was a meteorological effect at the time, and they went out to investigate.”

“But
I was there, father. They certainly had nothing to do with any alien visitors!”

“Cannak
claims otherwise. At any rate, Hykell ordered the arrest of Ehrin and Kahran at
first dark. I didn’t want to distress you further, Sereth.”

She
could not stop her tears. “Have the militia been for them yet?” She moved to
the door.

“Sereth,
don’t be rash. There is nothing you can do.”

“I
want to be with the man I love, father. I want to prove his innocence.”

He
called her name again, but she ignored him and slammed the door. She ran down
the stairs, almost slipping in her haste, and snatched her skates from the
table in the hall. She spent a long minute pulling them on and fumbling with
the laces, before tottering upright and dragging open the door. The icy blast
that greeted her had the effect of clearing her mind and stiffening her
resolve. She would get to Ehrin before the militia, and if needs be she would
be arrested with him.

She
skated north at speed, to the edge of town where Ehrin had his grim place of
work, the long mill building of which he was so proud. Tears came to her eyes
as she thought of him, and froze on the fur of her cheeks. When she dashed her
hand across her face, the frozen tears fell through the air like tiny jewels.

On
the ice canal leading to the foundry, she saw in the distance an approaching
wagon drawn by a team of zeer. She passed alongside it, wondering as she did so
if it could be a prison wagon—and then dismissed the thought. Ehrin and Kahran
were respected citizens, and would not be made to suffer the indignity of being
hauled off to jail like drunken hoodlums. They would be approached by a High
Church official, surely, and politely requested to accompany him to the council
chambers...

She
came to the foundry entrance and was about to haul on the bell-pull when she
noticed that the big double doors were standing ajar. Her heart leapt. At this
time of the evening, with the shift over and the workers gone home, the doors
should be locked.

Fearfully
she stepped inside.

The
vast cavern of the foundry was in darkness, and the silence was intimidating.
Orienting herself and crossing towards the stairs, stepping carefully lest she
bark her shins on the anvils and girders she knew made an obstacle course of
the factory floor, she came to the wooden steps without mishap and hurriedly
ascended to the offices, and from there to Ehrin’s attic rooms.

“Ehrin!”
she called optimistically as she pushed open the door. She stood on the
threshold, staring about her, heart tolling like the bell for evening prayers.
A lamp burned beside his favourite armchair, and his books and papers littered
various desks and tables. The room spoke so much of Ehrin’s character that his
absence was cruelly emphasised.

She
thought back to their last meeting, that afternoon. She had warned him of his
impending arrest, so he would have been a fool to remain where a Church
official would easily find him. Therefore he had taken her words to heart and
hidden himself.

But
where, she asked herself as she hurried from the attic and tapped down the
stairs. The offices offered no place of concealment, and while he might
conceivably have hidden himself somewhere in the vast foundry, a more obvious
place would be the hangar... It came to her suddenly that he might even have
taken flight aboard one of his skyships, but she dismissed this. Even someone
as headstrong and recalcitrant as Ehrin would not risk flight when the charges
against him were so meagre.

Having
said that, if Velkor Cannak thought him in league with the aliens...

But
how would Ehrin know of Cannak’s suspicions, she asked herself as she moved
carefully across the foundry towards the vast hangar doors.

Then
it came to her that the only reason he would have to take flight in a skyship
would be if he were guilty, if he had indeed, that night out on the ice plain,
come across aliens whom he had aided and abetted.

She
laughed nervously. She was being fanciful. She had more faith in Ehrin than
that; a stubborn radical he might be, but stupid he was not.

As
she crept through the darkness, the thought of aliens sent a chill up the fur
of her spine. She felt, unaccountably, under threat. From a workbench she
fumbled for something with which she might arm herself, and found a short, sharp
chisel, which fitted snugly into her palm and offered reassurance
disproportionate to its size.

A
faint light spilled from the open door of the hangar. When she reached the
threshold, she saw that an oil-lamp had been dropped on the floor and was guttering
as the last of its fuel seeped across the concrete.

The
sight of it confirmed her worst fears. Could this be Ehrin’s lamp, taken from
him on his arrest?

She
picked it up and proceeded into the hangar, the great shapes of the skyships
casting mammoth shadows across the walls.

She
had no way of knowing if any of the dirigibles were missing, but the hangar
doors at the far end of the chamber were closed. Surely, if he were fleeing, he
would not have had time to shut them behind him?

So
perhaps he was still hiding in one of the dirigibles?

But
which one? The
Expeditor
? She crossed to it quickly and stepped through
the hatch into the gondola’s lounge, which was empty. She hurried along the
corridor, checking the cabins on the way. Finding nothing, she moved to the
control room. “Ehrin,” she called under her breath. “Ehrin!”

She
left the
Expeditor,
holding the lantern high and casting her gaze around
the dozen other stilled sky-ships. Her eyes alighted on the largest dirigible
in the hangar, the scarlet freighter that had accompanied them across the ice
plains. The door of its cargo hold, she saw with a start of joy, stood open a
fraction.

She
ran towards it and slipped inside, then stopped. At the far end of the hold,
she made out an effulgent golden craft like a stylised teardrop. She moved
towards it slowly, the light of her lamp playing across its surface.

It
was unlike the gondolas that belonged to the other skyships, but what else
could it be? Perhaps another of Ehrin and Kahran’s inventions, a secret prototype?

She
walked around the ship, searching for some kind of hatch. She found a
triangular viewscreen on one flank, but it was black and impossible to see
through. She paused, then raised her fist and knocked on the glass. “Ehrin, are
you in there? Ehrin, it’s me, Sereth!”

She
waited, her heart thumping. How she wanted Ehrin in her arms now. How she
wanted his reassurance that all would be well...

A
noise made her jump. Something mechanical sighed, back along the flank of the
vessel. She turned and saw a section of its golden panelling ease out and
upwards. She started forward. “Ehrin, y ou don’t know how—” she began, then
screamed.

Something
was standing in the entrance to the golden ship, staring out at her.

Before
she could unfreeze herself and command her limbs to move, the creature darted
for her and grabbed her upper arms. Its grip was painful and, as much as she
struggled, she was unable to free herself.

The
creature pushed its face close to Sereth’s, and she almost passed out. Its
visage was beyond ugly— it seemed malformed, crumpled and hairless and
blackened, as if it had suffered some terrible injury.

“You
know Ehrin?” it said, its accent grating.

She
screamed, “What have you done to him?”

“I
have done nothing.” Its snout was horribly flattened, its nose smeared halfway
across its face. It breathed noisily. “He was taken, with Kahran.”

“Taken?”
was all she could say.

“I
saw them arrest him and Kahran, drag them outside. I need to know where they
were taken.”

“Why?
What do you want with—”

It
shook her, silencing her questions. “You are a friend of Ehrin?” it asked.

“A
friend? I’m his fiancée! We—”

“A
female?”

She
grunted. “What do you think?”

The
monster blinked. “I’m sorry, but I think you all look alike to me.”

She
realised that she was still grasping the tool she had picked up in the factory.

The
creature had relaxed its grip on her. Quickly, without thinking, she raised her
hand and swung the chisel with all her might.

Gasping,
she stared at what she had done. The handle of the chisel emerged from the
alien’s chest and blood trickled from the wound and down its silver suit.

The
monster’s reaction startled her. She had expected it to fall, or even to attack
her. It did neither, but instead grimaced at her. With its free hand, it
plucked the chisel from its chest as if it were nothing but an insect-sting.

It
cast aside the chisel and gripped her even tighter. “Listen to me!” it said as
if the attack had not occurred. “Ehrin, Kahran and I are working together. We
are friends. You have nothing to fear from me. I need to find out where Ehrin
and Kahran are being kept. Then, with luck, I can free them.”

“Free
them?” she shook her head. “But they’ll be freed in days...” She stopped
herself. So Velkor Cannak was right. Ehrin and Kahran were in league with the
aliens, some of whom had been captured. In which case, the Church was unlikely
to free Ehrin and Kahran within days.

The
alien said, “I need Kahran now. It is vital to my plans that I free them. Do
you know where they are being held?”

She
wanted to cry. She was shaking with fear and she realised, with a hot flush of
embarrassment, that she had lost control of her bladder. The fur on the inside
of her legs was hot with urine.

She
wept. “In the central penitentiary.” She recalled what her father had told her.
“In the western tower. It’s the most secure block there is.”

The
alien monstrosity blinked at her. “You are telling the truth?”

Something
battled within her. She loved Ehrin, that she could not deny; but was her love
for him sufficient to accept his alliance with these monstrous forces?

She
wept as she said, “Of course I’m telling the truth! Don’t you think I want
Ehrin free as much as you do?”

The
creature bared its oversized teeth in a horrible snarl, then dragged Sereth
into the gloom of the golden ship. It pushed her along a narrow corridor, into
a small triangular room fitted with two horizontal couches and other black
accoutrements.

The
alien forced her into one of the couches, then strapped her in so that she was
unable to move. It pulled something from the silver suit that clothed its body,
and held it out to her. In the gloom she could only make out a dark plate.