Текст книги "And All the Stars "

Автор книги: Andrea Höst

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"I'll head down to check," Min said. "If I don't come back, they're ready. Or I've fallen in."

"We'll listen for the splash, Minnow." As soon as the younger boy had gone, Pan took and let out several long breaths. "I'm so wired. Makes me want to shriek, and jump about."

"Tempting." Noi shifted the spare bag of food she was carrying. "When all this is over, I think some full-throated yelling while running down the middle of the nearest street will be in order."

"Works for me."

"You'll join in, won't you Millie? Maddie?"

"Through Hyde Park," Emily said, firmly, and after a moment they agreed to that, then Noi led Emily out and down the Wharf to the northern gate of the marina.

"I can't believe, with all the millions of dollars of high-powered luxury boating stretched before us, this is the plan we've come up with," Pan said. "There's something inherently deflating about the words 'utility dinghy'."

"Rowing four kilometres in the dark," Madeleine said. "Racing dawn. Smuggling ourselves right beneath the noses of the Moths."

"Stop trying to make it sound awesome. Utility Dinghy. Utility Dinghy."

"Let's go." Lifting her allotted share of the food, Madeleine stepped out of the garage, and waited while Pan pulled the service door gently shut behind them. They crossed to the corner of the main building and peered down the Wharf, all shadows and moonlit edges, and then the soft glow of lampposts beyond the area where Pan had punched out the lights. No sign of movement. They slid around the corner, keeping close to the high patio fences which hid the view into the lower apartments, and moved as quietly as they could, straining their eyes to spot the gate to the marina.

"I think it's here," Pan said, barely audible.

Finger Wharf didn't have safety railings, the edge a shin-high wooden board punctuated by the occasional pylon. The marina gate was transparent, opening onto a ramp leading down to the floating dock, which had no rim at all. Even though they'd given their eyes plenty of time to adjust, Madeleine still didn't dare do more than inch forward, searching with her free hand. They'd timed their departure to use the last of the moonlight to get around the dock without torches, and she was able to make out shapes, but couldn't force herself to move any faster.

"It's here."

The words were accompanied by the faintest metallic noise, as Pan turned the key left by their advance boat-seekers, then pulled it free. The ramp at least had railings, and Madeleine followed it down until there was nothing left to guide her, and she stood clutching the end, trying to adjust to the faint bob of the dock.

"Directly left, Maddie," breathed the night. "It's only a metre or so, so take one step forward, then kneel and pass me your bags."

Nash whispered similar instructions to Pan from the next slip over. Obedient to Noi's command, Madeleine stepped, knelt, and held out the food bag, then her overstuffed backpack, and by the time that was done she was more sure of what was in front of her, could just make out Noi, Fisher and Min. Then it was a matter of lowering herself, guided firmly by Noi, until she was sitting in the back of a small boat, shivering more from nerves than the chill lifting from the water.

"Put this on."

A bulky shape with confusing straps. Madeleine fumbled it over her head, and found parts which clicked together. By the time this was done, the moon was no more than a fading memory.

"All clear," Noi said, a fraction louder.

"Lift off."

There was a gurgle of water to accompany Nash's response, and then another as Noi pushed the boat away from the dock, and Fisher and Min used their oars to prod them out the rest of the way.

Rowing lessons had been the highlight of the wait for moonset. Boats made of couch cushions, and brooms for oars, with Nash patiently drilling them with the motions despite the spurts of giggles born of a long night's tension. Madeleine felt little urge to laugh now, as they eased clear of the slip and began to turn, with water making blooping noises off the oars, and a faint creak from the oarlocks. Unlikely to be heard no matter how well sound carried over water, but she still stared back over her shoulder at the long bulk of the Wharf, searching for movement. There would be no outrunning anything in a dinghy, but sailing at night with a crew of total amateurs would have been suicidal, and any engine a trumpet call in the hushed city, so no-one had been able to argue against using the small boats. Nash had been confident that the trip could be made well before dawn, even with inexperienced rowers, and there was little chance of them being spotted so long as they kept away from the shore.

As they picked up speed, passing the North Building, Madeleine began to relax. There was nothing but parkland on their left, and a long gap to the navy base on the far side of the Wharf. The Bay had few sources of light, and they were leaving those behind, scudding along beneath a cloak of stars, invisible.

"Destination: North Pole," Noi muttered, and squeezed Madeleine's hand.

Webcams had ruled out other choices. Circular Quay seemed to be a hive of Moth activity, while a beach cam had provided glimpses of smaller craft moving near Watson's Bay, making it clear that a speedboat dash past the headlands and out of the Harbour would not merely be a matter of avoiding two very large, weapon-festooned ships. Finally, representing the uninfected portion of Australia, some isolation-suited reporters had settled down with long-range cameras to watch Greens stationed at roadblocks, broadcasting through the night and incidentally making it even harder for free Blues to sneak out of the city. So the Musketeers were gambling on refrigerating themselves.

Three hours till dawn. Four kilometres to row. Sydney's city heart was shaped like a partially unfolded fan, with the Spire in Hyde Park located on the lower right edge of the narrower southern end. Woolloomooloo Bay sat just east of the fan's top right stretch of parkland, and they were aiming to row out of the Bay and curve around the cove-notched upper edge, keeping to a central point between the north and south shore until they'd passed beneath the Harbour Bridge and could turn down the western side of the fan to the newly-developed waterfront area called Barangaroo.

It had seemed a vast distance when they were poring over maps, but caught up in the sensation of floating through blackness, Madeleine found their arrival in the open water of the harbour came disconcertingly quickly, their narrowed view opening up to the shimmering golden sweep of the North Shore. Constellations of abandoned apartment blocks, and suburban nebulae: terrestrial stars which spun and bobbed as the dinghies hit the swell outside the shelter of the bay.

Facing the wrong direction to appreciate the vista, Fisher said: "The current's not too bad. Tell me when we reach the turn point."

The turn point was halfway to a small island called Fort Denison, helpfully furnished with a squat lighthouse. When Noi gave the word, Fisher and Min backed their oars, slowing forward motion.

In the relative quiet which followed, they could clearly make out the creak and splosh of the second dinghy, and Noi called softly: "Duk-duk! Duk-duk!" A nonsense sound, their chosen signal to try to orient the two boats in the dark. Their theory was that the noise could be mistaken for a bird, and Madeleine supposed it was mildly less obvious than "Over here!", but it did sound silly, and Emily's stifled giggle in response came to them clearly over the shush of the ocean.

Nash and Pan succeeded in following the sound, and Madeleine's straining eyes caught the shape of them just before a thin, wet rope smacked her in the face. She managed to catch it, and with a small amount of manoeuvring the two boats were soon side-by-side, temporarily lashed together.

"Any sign?" Nash asked, serious, but with a measure of exultation lighting his voice. Desperate and dangerous as this might be, the Harbour was transcendent.

"No movement to the west," Fisher replied.

Noi had the binoculars, and was peering as far down to the Harbour entrance as the angle would permit. "I think those lights belong to one of the big ships," she said. "It must have moved in from the Heads, but doesn't seem to be coming any closer. You four fine to go on after a couple of minutes' rest, or do you want to try swapping about?"

"It's easier than I expected," Min said. "Not that I won't complain about it later, but I shouldn't have problems with the full run."

"My only worry is I don't want to stop," Pan said. "This is the most incredible thing I've ever done. I feel like I'm flying." He went on, whispering, but his stage-trained voice lifting irresistibly:

"Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay – oof!"

"Enough, Juliet," Nash said, sitting ready to bop the shorter boy again. "You can give us a command performance in the refrigerator."

"Somehow, I don't think that'll have quite the same atmosphere." Pan heaved a great sigh, a combination of regret and sheer delight, but didn't argue further.

"After the challenge," Noi said, a smile in her voice. "We'll find a stage and you can perform for all of us. Right now, everyone take a few breaths. We need to calm down."

They drifted slowly, giving themselves another few moments to enjoy their surroundings, then separated the dinghies and returned to the business of escape. Madeleine's role as a non-rower was both lookout and defender, should they encounter anything. The fact that a well-aimed punch could scupper a boat had been part of the arguments both for and against trying to make a dash out through the headlands, and there'd also been an amusing discussion on whether shields could be used as a form of propulsion, or would merely be a spectacular way to overturn.

The long dark stretch of the Royal Botanic Gardens gave way to curving white shells lit by spotlights. Madeleine wondered if the lights were automatic, or if the Moths or Greens were turning them on. Perhaps they, too, were reciting Shakespeare or, more likely, singing in their oscillating language. The world knew so little of what the Moths were like, what they were doing with their hosts, whether glowing balls of light had any interest in the words, the music, the pictures to be found in the cities they had stolen. There had been indications – Greens sent to obtain fresh milk and meat – that the Moths were at least interested in Earth's food, but given the Blue hunger drive that was hardly surprising.

It wasn't until the dinghy was almost past the Opera House that they had a good view into the rectangular notch of Sydney Cove, with the ferry docks and train station at its southern end. Noi, peering through the binoculars, murmured that there was no sign of anyone, but Fisher and Min still increased their pace as they approached Dawes Point and the sweep of well-lit bridge above. The Harbour Bridge was such a focal point, and at some angles the passage of even a low boat might be visible against the lights of the North Shore, so they'd planned to get through the area as quickly as possible. Madeleine found herself holding her breath, especially when she spotted Nash's boat well ahead, tiny wake shattering golden reflections. Passing beneath the huge span, they were so small, and yet seemed so obvious.

Panting, Min and Fisher scudded after them, and Madeleine forced herself to strain for any glimpse of movement on the shoreline rather than gaze up and up at the bar across the sky. They turned directly after passing beneath, and drew the dinghy to a stop in the shadow of the first of the Walsh Bay piers.

The map had shown a hotel at this location, so they didn't dare speak, simply waited till the two rowers had their breathing under control, then pushed back out of the bay and pressed on toward the turning point marked by Barangaroo's northern park.

"Duk-duk! Duk-duk!"

Something had gone wrong. Min and Fisher stopped rowing, though they didn't back paddle, allowing the dinghy to continue slowly onward. They could hear the dip and creak of oars ahead of them, coming closer, and after a long hesitation Noi responded, and the two dinghies found each other north of Walsh Bay's central pier.

"What is it?"

Noi sounded as sick as Madeleine felt. They'd taken less time to cross the Harbour than expected, but they had few contingency plans, none of them ideal.

"There's something in the water off Headland Park."

Nash's whisper was calm, unhurried, and Emily better summed up the situation by adding: "Glowing eyes. There's glowing eyes, looking."

"Did it spot you?" Noi gazed anxiously past them.

"Don't think so," Pan replied. "We didn't get close, saw it as we started around the curve. Scurried away like mice."

"It's not visible from the near corner of the park?"

"We didn't spot it till we were past the initial bump of the sea wall."

Noi lifted the binoculars and peered into the gold-striped dark. Barangaroo was broken into three sections grouped into a north-south rectangle. The north was covered in trees, sandstone blocks rising out of the sea to a grassy hill. The south was crowded with apartments and skyscrapers under construction. The middle, separated from the other sections by two small coves, was a mixture of garden and cultural sites – Madeleine had visited it the previous year to see an open-air sculpture exhibition – but several large buildings sat on its southern edge, including the enormous Southern Sky Hotel, a 6 Star extravagance which, before the Spires interrupted, had been in final preparations for a grandiose opening gala. The plan had been to row down to the cove nearest the Hotel, risking only the briefest amount of time travelling by foot.

After a tense wait, Noi lowered the glasses. "It doesn't seem to be following you. Is it feasible at all to get into the park without going into its line of sight?"

"Yes. Easily." Nash paused, then added: "It is more a question of what we will encounter in the park, given that there is already one creature on guard."

"I'm for risking that," Noi said. "Anyone against?"

No-one spoke.

"Right. We'd better do this without any chatter. We unload, and push the boats out. Even with the path lights, it's probably a bad idea to go stumbling through the trees, so walk along the inner path all the way down the east edge to the car park entrance. If the hotel looks like a no-go, we break into the nearest apartments and get keys, cars. If we're split up, we're split up, and will either meet in Plan B City or...we won't. Nash, lead the way."

The nearest edge of the park was an inlet sheltered in all directions except north across the harbour, with more than enough room for both dinghies. They bumped against stepped blocks of stone, and Madeleine was not the only one to wet her feet in the process of getting out. A lamppost stood above them, marking the path's location, and they took their time dumping their life jackets, pushing the boats out, and then climbing, a hands and knees progress, constantly reaching to confirm each other's location, passing the food bags up, angling to avoid the light.

Moving at a pace just short of a trot along the path through the trees, they hesitated at the inlet at the southern edge of North Barangaroo, then darted from shadow to shadow in the more open Central section. The hotel loomed above, a monolith of glimmering blue glass, and they approached it at a tangent, following the road down to the gates of the underground car park.

Firmly sealed.

Chapter Seventeen

"Who takes the time to lock up in the middle of an alien invasion?" Pan deposited his food bag on the traffic island dividing the in and out lanes. "Want me to go try the front?"

"Not yet." Noi tugged experimentally at the service door to the right of the main gates. "Even if this isn't wired with an alarm, punching it open will leave an obvious sign someone's broken in."

"Shall I look down here?" Nash unslung his bags and headed down a branch of the entry drive, Pan at his heels.

Madeleine added her food bag to the growing pile, and peered through the mesh of the gate. This hurdle had not been unanticipated, but even though the garage entry was lower than street level, she felt painfully exposed beneath the cold fluorescent lighting. Not long till dawn. Just over six hours before the world would come hunting.

"We could try to finger punch just the lock," Emily suggested, peering over Noi's shoulder.

"Because only breaking it a little would be less likely to set off any alarms?" Min asked. The sharper than usual edge in his voice brought a warning glance from Noi, and he made a gesture of apology, then sat down on the traffic island, examining reddened palms.

"In a hotel this size there will be a dozen entry points," Fisher said. "After the panic of the arrival day, the chances of every single one being firmly sealed is low." But he glanced toward the eastern sky.

"Guys, check this out."

Pan, beckoning from the junction of the drive. They followed him past a "Staff Only" sign, to another set of metal gates. Nash was peering through the one on the right, and pointed as they came up: "A solution."

Standing two metres inside the gate was a machine sporting a big green button, a gate release meant to be hit by departing drivers.

"All it needs is a finger punch, at just the right strength to push the button, but not so strong we smash the machine." Pan looked around. "Who thinks they have the best control?"

Knowing her limits, Madeleine opted to fetch the food bags, and returned just as the gate whirred upward. The elevator obliged them by not requiring any keys to access the ground floor, and then they were standing at a spacious junction directly before a door marked 'Reception'.

"Kitchen," Pan said, and went right. By the time they followed him into an enormous rectangular room of shining stainless steel, he was pulling open a heavy-duty door. A wave of chill flowed over them. "Freezer. And this would be – damn, I've seen houses smaller than this refrigerator. We should all fit in here."

"No." Fisher walked into the rack-lined space and paced out an estimate of its boundaries, stepping around pallets of boxes set on the floor. "Four, no, three people at most. It's not the oxygen; it's the carbon dioxide build-up which is going to be the problem. Depending on the length of the challenge, we may need to risk even opening the doors at least once. Unless..." He glanced around the kitchen. "With big enough containers we could try to rig some kind of crude carbon sink. That may help a little."

"Then where do the rest of us go?" Emily asked, stepping closer to Noi.

"There's four restaurants in this hotel – we'll need to spread between them if we want to survive twenty-four hours." He pulled the freezer door open again and considered its size. "Plenty of space here, which is good since one of us will probably need to use it. We can adjust the temperature to the highest setting."

Madeleine shivered at the mere idea, and looked around at worn, shadow-eyed faces. Some of them had tried to sleep during the gap between the challenge announcement and leaving, but the attempts hadn't been very successful, and after a pre-dawn row and a park excursion with wet feet, the idea of even the refrigerator made her feel ill.

"Right." Noi dumped her food bag on the nearest work surface. "Iced Blues it is. But first snacks, hot showers, a warm meal, and then we'll see what we can do about making a freezer habitable.

ooOoo

An elbow to her ribs. Madeleine started awake, and came close to falling off the edge of the triple-stack of mattresses set in the centre of the refrigerator. Emily, beside her, shifted and groaned until Noi, on her far side, turned to rub the girl's arm.

"She's trying so hard," Noi murmured. "She's not even thirteen-going-on-fourteen, has only just stopped being twelve. I don't know how to convince her that she's allowed to be overwhelmed and frightened sometimes. Just like the rest of us."

Madeleine blinked in the orange glow of the emergency exit button. "I spend half of each day being overwhelmed. What's the time?"

"Ten minutes till midnight. How's your breathing? Feeling headachy? Stifled?"

"I feel like I'm in a refrigerator," Madeleine said, tucking the quilt back under her side, then contemplating the metal ceiling. "I guess it worked, then."

"Yeah, looks like Science Boy was right. I had my doubts, I admit it."

"I think he did too," Madeleine said, remembering Fisher's expression as he asked for her promise.

"Twenty minutes before we get to check what's going on. Distract me by describing exactly what you're going to do to Science Boy first opportunity you get."

"I think I'll leave that to your imagination." Madeleine's own imagination caught her up, and she paused to enjoy it before adding: "The rooms in this place are–"

"Yeah. Lap of luxury, fallen into it. And did you see the big room half done up in decorations? We'll be able to use them for Pan's party."

"Much as I liked that apartment, there are some definite advantages to this move. And we have enough food to last us maybe for the rest of the year."

"Pity we'll be leaving it behind." At Madeleine's confused look, Noi continued: "Once the fuss from this hunt dies down, we really need to get out of this city. No matter the problems we'll have dealing with the uninfected, it's clear that you – all of us really, but you particularly – are way too interesting to the Moths. We need to get out of dragon range."

"But can we do that without anyone helpfully pointing me out while I'm still within reach?"

"If Nash's sister has come through, then the Moths will have been flooded with sightings – a few more won't hurt. Though a judicious makeover is probably a good idea. A tub of peroxide should dent your serious arty girl look."

Emily's voice rose, small but defiant: "How can we fight if we run away?"

Noi blinked as the girl turned to her, then said: "Leaving doesn't stop us from returning. To fight, we need to both learn to confidently control all these fancy new powers, and come up with a plan. Getting out of the city will buy us the time and freedom to do that."

"If we leave, we won't come back." Emily spoke with a furious certainty. "We'll be like the rest of them, cowards waiting two years for it to be safe again. Don't you want to make the Moths pay?"

"You know I do." Noi was a rock against the tide of Emily's anger. "I want it enough to not run shouting at them before I'm ready. They've taken everything that was precious to me away, and I will find a way to hurt them for that. I know you miss your family, Mil–"

"No!" Their mounded quilts were pulled away as Emily sat up, her slender body rigid with ever-increasing anger. "I don't miss them! You think they're dead, don't you?"

After a swift, astonished glance at each other, Noi and Madeleine struggled into sitting positions. Noi reached out, hesitated, then changed direction to take Emily's gloved hands in her own.

"I did," she said. "They're not?"

"They left." Two words and a world of emotion. "When the dust started, they went straight to my brothers' school and then out of the city. I couldn't even get home – a girl from school took me to her house. My parents are the worst people in the world."

The tears came, bringing with them violent, wrenching sobs, and Madeleine and Noi could only clasp Emily between them until the storm had eased.

"Emily." Madeleine shied away from asking if the girl's parents even knew she was alive. "You know that, whatever happens, we won't leave you behind. We'll come for you."

"No you won't." The words had an exhausted, bitter certainty. "I know it's all a lie, just play-acting to make each other feel better. The Moths will get us one by one, just like they got Gavin, and we can't do anything at all."

"You're underestimating us there." Noi spoke with quiet assurance. "We know that we can fight. I'm sure we could hurt some of them. It's just a matter of hurting them effectively which we've yet to figure out." She stroked Emily hair. "I think you're not being quite fair to your parents as well."

"They left."

Noi took a deep breath. "Millie, when the dust came, my Dad was up at Kellyville, well away from the cloud. He drove back in. The traffic was madness, people driving the wrong way down the roads, and it took him hours, but he got home. My Mum, and my Nonna, and all his brothers, they yelled at him, called him stupid, but he said he wanted to be with us, whatever was going to happen.

"I guess maybe it helped Mum, him being there. And because he got sick later than the rest of us, he was able to look after everyone, for a little while. And, with Mum and all his brothers and all of our family gone, maybe he would have preferred to not have to be around afterwards. But me, I'd rather still have a Dad."

"Th-that's different."

"If you say so. And it's different again to get ourselves out of the reach of the Moths until we can find a way to hurt them. Nor is it just play-acting to give it your best shot. And that's what we're going to do. I'm not going to guarantee that we'll win, but I promise you we'll try." She paused, studying the stubborn set of Emily's shoulders. "About time for breakfast, don't you think? Ah, and check-in time – almost missed it." She fished a tablet computer out of one of the bags set alongside the mattresses.

Keeping devices off was more about preserving battery life than the possibility of being tracked, but it still gave Madeleine an uneasy feeling as Noi, complaining about the poor signal, slid off the bed and held the tablet toward the door.

"Pass me the thermos?" Madeleine said to Emily, and was pleased to find the tea clinging to a lukewarm state. They set out a miniature feast as Noi reported that the challenge was still underway.

"Next check-in time at seven," Noi said, returning to accept a cup. "Science Boy says if it goes much past that we might have to risk opening the doors to try and cycle the air, and we're to keep alert for any headaches, muscle twitches, or turning new and original colours. Anything to report?"

"Just cold," Madeleine said, around an oatmeal biscuit. "I'd hate to be in Pan and Nash's shoes."

While the Southern Sky had four restaurants, it had proven to own only three walk-in refrigerators, with both ground floor restaurants catered out of the same kitchen. Fisher was in the top floor restaurant's refrigerator, and Min in the one on the Mezzanine level, while Pan and Nash were stuck with the biggest freezer at its warmest temperature setting. Since the warmest temperature setting of the refrigerator was still making Madeleine wish for another hot shower, she hated to think how they were coping with the long night.

"Do you feel sleepy?" Noi asked. "I'm tired, but it might be because I kept waking up and stressing."

"Not sleepy," Emily murmured.

"Cold aside, I'm fine," Madeleine said. "Energetic, even. I usually wake up feeling good after feeding Nash. Don't know why."

She dusted away crumbs, and they packed their leftovers, then took turns using one of the large lidded buckets Noi had found and emptied during their hurried preparations. For all they'd thought they would have plenty of time between arriving and their deadline of an hour before the challenge, they'd barely been ready. With no password for the hotel's computers they'd been unable to code the card-keys to access the higher floors, and had been limited in their movements until the discovery of an unlocked security room on the Mezzanine level which, along with master keys, had provided camera views of much of the hotel.

Fisher's hunt for wheelie bins and caustic soda had taken even longer, and dumping entire containers of bathroom cleaner in after they'd been filled had produced an eye-stinging reek, which thankfully had lost its edge by the time they'd rearranged their hiding places enough to fit both the bins and mattresses hauled down from the hotel rooms, along with some wilting pot plants from the foyer. How much difference the bins would make to carbon dioxide levels was something Fisher hadn't been willing to guess, beyond insisting that in theory they should help.

She'd wanted to kiss him before they locked themselves away. She'd planned on it. And hadn't even managed an exchange of meaningful glances, though she'd known it could well be the last time she would see him. Too tired after the long night, and having Nash drain off much of her energy. Too new at all this to seize the right moment.

"Noi," she said, after they settled back down under their quilts, "did you see if any other Sydney Blues had been captured?"

"I figured looking at that can wait till we're out of here."

Madeleine sighed, and curled against Emily, working hard at not feeling guilty. Unless they'd gambled wrong about the length of the challenge, it looked as if she would have another chance to see Fisher.

How many chances had she stolen from other Sydney Blues?