Chapter 24 - The Kraken Gate
Two bookshelves covered an entire wall of the games room, with the exception of a space between them where we found the door to the clock-tower. I unlocked the door and Ankush led the way up a narrow stone staircase that spiralled around a solid stone central pillar. Faux arrow-slits in the outer wall looked out over the estate. We climbed the equivalent of three floors before Ankush pushed open a door onto a narrow balcony.
I scanned the distant landscape first. Surrounding the estate in every direction lay the tree-clad, undulating hills of The Forest of Yesper with the Kingsridge Mountains, the border with Caddria to the north. Trees hugged the horizon to the south so that I could only approximate Lannerville town’s location. Tidy white cloudlets pocked the sky, somehow managing to increase my sense of vertigo.
A stomach-lurching distance below me, the lead-clad rooftops of the manor leant against one another all around the quadrangle at the heart of the building. Still looking north, over the back of the servants’s quarters lay the walled garden, colours splashed about it like a painter’s pallet. Those tall yellow-trumpeted flowers that grow in the botanical gardens in Emberly, the purple sprays that were common in parks and along riverbanks. I know, I know…I’m no expert with plants. Jarkisfar’s stinking sewers, give a girl a break. I know a dozen ways to kill a man with my bare hands. I can disassemble and reassemble a rifle blindfolded and can make a bomb with household cleaning products! I’m actually not that bad a cook, either. I did recognise the pink climbing roses that clambered all over the walls. Beyond the walled garden was open parkland and in it, some distance away, the dark waters of the lake. Cascading willows bordered the lake at one point, and rising above them was a peculiar brick tower, a folly, topped with crenellations.
The hunting lodge that Rigsby had mentioned lay east of the lake. Stretching all the way to it from the manor house was the Great Lawn, set with ornamental trees and topiary. On its most easterly edge, the lawn gave way to shrubs and three towering, sentinel ironwood trees, through which it was possible to glimpse the observatory that was the Koulomb Gate’s primary targeting mechanism.
I followed the balcony one full circle, noting that the clock had four faces, one for each compass point. They were fully eighteen hands in circumference, verdigris streaked, with black iron numerals for each bell. The turns and ticks were not marked. I looked at my own pocket watch and decided all four were running six turns late.
‘Draxil’s Beard!’ exclaimed James, big forearms draped on the parapet. ‘You could fit half of Emberly into the grounds of this place!’
‘All this from digging up rocks from the ground.’
‘I know. It isn’t right.’ James shook his head.
‘I suppose you’d refuse to live in a place like this if it was handed down the generations,’ I teased.
‘It’s not going to happen, so we will never know.’
‘Since the Republic has been such a dismal failure, James, perhaps you should consider a life of pious subsistence with the Endarchine Collective?’
‘Bollocks to that! No meat or liquor, no fires to keep warm in the winters! I’ve got no problem with people owning material possessions. It’s when it’s earned off the sweat, toil and blood of honest labourers that I get angry.’
I waved James back the way he had come so that I could see the grounds to the north and, I hoped, the hunting lodge. ‘Fine, so what about Lockhouse Security? I run the company, you work for me. Is that exploitation?’
James’s laugh was a minor explosion. ‘Ha! We barely cover our own expenses so you’re hardly lording it up in your own country mansion. Anyway, you work alongside us, so it’s completely different.’
I noticed Ankush was staring out over the expansive parkland with a contemplative face.
‘What are you thinking,’ I asked.
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing that your army friend is joining us.’
‘He’s not my friend,’ I shot back, a little too quickly. ‘I suppose you’re right though,’ I conceded. ‘This place is huge, and yesterday’s trouble makes it clear that we’ve got a determined foe.’
‘This is a good place for a marksman. My brother should see it.’
As though summoned via telepathy, Mahkran appeared behind us. Behind him were Ellen and Inigo. James, Ankush and I had to shuffle round to the sides of the tower to make way for them. The presence of Na-Su, Finnian and Ty Rendish would have turned it into a full company meeting. My stomach lurched; Edgar and Ty would never be coming back.
I watched Inigo, remembering what he’d said about wide open spaces. He was gripping the handrail, face pale, looking down at his feet most of the time. When he did look up at the surroundings, it was with a brief, experimental glance. After a few moments, he seemed to breathe easier.
‘So, this is where you three have been hiding,’ said Ellen, unaware of Inigo’s discomfort. ‘Oh my! What a view.’
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ I let them stare for a while, just as we had. They made their own tour of the balcony and then unbidden, we all looked north, towards the hunting lodge and the observatory. I added, ’We can’t secure all this.’
‘No,’ agreed Inigo. ‘We’re too far from the Koulomb Gate. We should move to the hunting lodge with all our equipment.’ He still looked a little queasy, but his thinking was sharp as ever.
‘What, so we can all get blown up when the failsafe gets triggered again?’ snorted James.
‘We need to be smarter,’ I said. ‘The failsafe has to be an absolute last resort, so we need to think of primary, secondary and tertiary defences, right?’
‘I don’t think the defences around the landing point will work,’ said James. I was getting a little tired of his negativity, truth be told. Think the thoughts of a leader, Connie.
‘That’s why we need more ideas.’
‘Easy to say, but has anyone here got experience of travelling to another planet and fighting an alien kraken?’ James challenged. ‘No…I thought not.’
I fought down my irritation and began again. ‘The only reason the failsafe will trip is because it senses something coming through the gate without the wristband, yes? Focus on that. How do we make sure that doesn’t happen?’
‘We’ve been through all this.’ Now it was Ellen, mediating between James and me. ‘Walls, explosives, bright lights…what else can we do? Aren’t they the measures?’ Ellen often had a plan when the rest of us had run out of inspiration, but this time even she was struggling.
I looked at the others. Ankush and Mahkran were quiet. Inigo was strong enough now that he was gazing out to the distant mountains, but if he had an idea, he wasn’t ready to share it yet.
‘What about you?’ asked James, pointing at my chest. ‘You’re the boss. Don’t you have any ideas?’
I nodded, ‘I do.’ They wouldn’t like it. It was the last resort before the last, last resort. Even I didn’t like it.
‘Well?’
‘Maybe there’s a way to signal back through the gate. Professor Maddison may have a way. If it looks as though the Charg or anything else we don’t like the look of is heading for it, we tell the controllers at this end to close it.’
‘Draxil and Aripole’s sodden bedsheets!’ James exclaimed. ‘So whoever’s on Ganessa gets trapped there with deadly alien creatures! I knew it! We’re all going to end up like poor Tyrone.’
As predicted, they didn’t like it. I didn’t try to sell them my view that alive on an uncharted planet was better than blown to bits. Ellen put her tiny hand on James’ huge bicep to calm him down. The contrast in the sizes was absurd. I looked up at the sky, trying to control my own rising temper. The mild breeze at ground level was clearly stronger higher up because the clouds were scurrying along at a fair clip. They seemed to possess more purpose than any lifeless thing should. It was Inigo who spoke for me.
‘If the gate isn’t destroyed, it could be reopened later when the Charg have gone.’
Ellen didn’t look convinced. ‘How would the controllers know when it was safe to open the gate?’
‘I don’t know, Ellen,’ I replied. ‘I was going to speak with Maddison or Harman’s niece about it.’
‘Important to make the landing place safe, quickly.’ It was Mahkran speaking this time. ‘There is no time for making complicated things, is this correct?’
I agreed. ‘It is.’
‘No time to build a wall, but maybe there’s enough time to bury stakes in the ground, sharpened wood poles. Charg have soft bodies, I think. Can we take wood through?’
‘We can.’
‘My uncle, Ankush’s uncle, Jalal Rah Malek fought many times with the Vareh tribes, neighbours of ours. Often my uncle’s people had little time to make defensive camp. Sometimes they took some stakes; sometimes they cut wood and made it where needed.’
‘Like the Nubrian soldiers when they conquered Bray and Lyhsten all those years ago,’ said Ellen.
Mahkran nodded. ‘Three hundred years ago, yes. Like them.’
In their day, the Nubrians had conquered half the continent. Their soldiers were well drilled. They would march all day, only stopping to make camp when Draxil first kissed the horizon, and by full dark, their camps were pitched and encircled by defensive pickets. Some of their tactics were still taught in Emberland’s military.
‘This method is good,’ Mahkran continued. ‘Less wood needed than for a wall. It doesn’t stop the enemy, but it slows them down and allows defenders to fight them. Only a small ring is needed to protect a small party.’
‘I’d prefer a wall.’ James remarked.
‘So would I,’ I rejoined, ‘except we’re pretty certain they can climb over them, so a wall wouldn’t be a lot safer. Defensive stakes just might work, but only if we have offensive weapons too.’
‘Fire, then. We should try fire.’
‘Simplest solutions are often the best, James, so you and Mahkran may have the right idea. Good thinking. I’ll speak with Rigsby tomorrow, see where we can get wood that we can use for stakes. Let’s work with this, but speak up if any of you come up with other ideas.’
That afternoon, we moved all the explosives that had arrived by land train into a reinforced storeroom under the main stairs in the hunting lodge. In times gone by, it had been used to store estate guns that were used by visitors on hunting expeditions, and so was very secure.
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