Chapter 39 - The Kraken Gate
Ellen worked her own special brand of magic on Benjamin and got him to agree to the marines covering our shift duties during excursions. I was pleased that she had dealt with Benjamin because her words were still echoing around my head. I was confused, and an attempt to discuss anything with Benjamin just then would have risked me becoming tongue-tied.
James and I oversaw the task of lowering the components for our stockade down into the portal chamber. It was time-consuming work. The chamber was situated below a courtyard bordered by the stables. Two large sections of the flagstone floor of the courtyard had been levered open on hinges, revealing a wide rectangular opening and a vertiginous drop of ninety hands to the floor of the cavern. We stood down below in the partial gloom at the bottom, looking up at the bright aperture in the ceiling. As each load was winched down by Mr. Morten’s apprentice, Master Logan, with Jeremiah managing the horses at the end of the ropes, James and I steered the loads with guide ropes to prevent them from getting snagged on the Koulomb Gate.
All around us, Professor Maddison’s team of scientists and engineers were still working feverishly on final preparations. The professor came to check that our stockade hadn’t damaged his precious machine. He looked harassed. The clouds that I’d seen from the balcony that morning had reached Lannerville. Thin sleet was falling, and unless the weather cleared, the observatory wouldn’t get a fix on Ganessa, which meant that the opening of the gate would have to be delayed.
‘Director Harman says we have to plough on,’ said the professor, rubbing his eyes. ‘He’s convinced that there’s clear sky following in behind this filth and that we’ll get the sighting we need.’
I looked at the men and women swarming over the apparatus, checking and rechecking it, tightening bolts and testing electrical connections. ‘I’d best get ready then.’
‘Yes, Ms. Derringer. I’ll send two of my people to check you all for metal and hand out your wristbands.’ Professor Maddison’s hostility to me had faded. Perhaps he was just too tired now to blame me for the destruction of Winslow Hall, or perhaps he felt that his brainchild would be safe if I was travelling through it.
I rounded up James, Mahkran and Inigo and headed for a barrel-vaulted ante-chamber that lay off the corridor just outside the portal chamber which had been set up as a ready-room. We laid out all our equipment on the floor. Inigo and I paired up and searched everything thoroughly before we packed, stowing everything neatly into belt pouches, pockets and backpacks.
I decided to sling the crossbow over my shoulder, but James elected to hang his from the hip. Inigo and I each had a pouch threaded onto our belts containing a dozen sticks of dynamite. James and Mahkran carried more of it in their backpacks. Disassembled into two pieces, the pikes strapped neatly onto the back of our packs. We also carried two or three-dozen quarrels in pockets, or simply wrapped in bundles among our food and water supplies.
Packed in close-proximity to the control centre and gate room, the tension rose, little-by-little. The clatter of feet in the passageways was underpinned by a distant thunder of the steam engines, charging the batteries to maximum capacity. Occasionally we heard arguments in the corridor outside, engineers disagreeing and arguing about the state of the equipment and how to resolve glitches.
Not for the first time, I had the sense that the Koulomb Gate was something that operated at the very outside edge of its capabilities; a device that needed hundreds of bells of human effort to squeeze every last fraction of power and accuracy from it. I tried to imagine being a trillion leagues away - or however far it really was - a lone figure on the far edge of a gigantic canyon, with only a gossamer thread on standby to reel me back all the way back home.
I looked round at my team. Mahkran, stout, scowling as he tried to adjust the straps on his backpack. Inigo, wiry, running a hand through dark hair, sweat beading his forehead. James, turning a crossbow over in his hands, cocking and un-cocking it, lightly stooped because of his size, even though there was plenty of headroom.
Benjamin and Banks arrived shortly after us with the two lads they’d picked for the mission and went through the same process. Benjamin inspected their kit, turning everything inside out in case some metal items had made their way into the equipment. Even their military braid had been removed, in case it contained any real metal.
The final members of the party were escorted into the ready room by Professor Maddison. Millicent Onacar was among them. While her compact, buxom figure wasn’t exactly the stereotypical look of an adventurer, her sharp eyes, short, boyish hair, military fatigues and the tough boots she’d chosen, really helped her to look the part, although she was comically dwarfed by her backpack. It was Dr. Onacar’s job to establish whether the planet had enough freshwater to support a prolonged human presence, and whether the water was safe to drink.
Beside the hydrologist, Polonius Evershed looked large and ungainly. I was worried about keeping him alive when the trouble started, but he was the only person we had who had seen the Charg with his own eyes, and so he had to come.
Two of Maddison’s engineers arrived, one of them carrying a wooden case. They checked us and our provisions for metal using two handheld instruments that wailed when they were tested against a small, shiny badge. They waved the instruments over us without any warning sound being triggered. I remembered the key that was hanging round my neck, but when I handed it over for testing, the sensor remained quiet. The engineer shrugged and handed it back to me.
Finally the devices were tested once more against the badge. Happy with the result, the engineers walked around, handing out the leather wrist straps from the polished wooden case. They contained the failsafe inhibitors, the conch shell that would prevent the failsafe from triggering as we returned through the gate.
I had just verified that everyone was wearing their wrist strap when Harman’s butler, Obermann strode into the ready-room and told us to assemble in the portal chamber where Harman was set to deliver a speech.
‘The weather must have improved,’ I said.
‘No way of knowing from down here,’ said Inigo, as we made our way through the heavy, shielded doors that led into the portal chamber.
Professor Maddison had pulled all the people he could spare from their duties. They stood around in knots whispering, but fell silent when Director Harman arrived. The old man walked to the centre of the room and mounted the steps to the gate’s platform. He looked down at us, dwarfed as he was between the silent, house-high Koulomb Field dynamos. Framed behind him was the inert portal, a stout frame of seasoned oak with brass reinforcements, inset with two concentric rings. Thousands of thin strands of copper wire radiated out from the inner ring to the outer, essentially a giant tuning fork built with the strength to withstand the forces of the Koulomb Field. The only noise was the roar of the steam engines. Director Harman raised a hand in thanks.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for the prodigious efforts you have all made to get us to this point. I know that the task of reviving this prototype has not been easy. I know that you would have liked more time. The truth is, we are running out of time. Nallian forces have taken Ripolis, so they already have a foothold in Emberland… our land. You’ll have all read the news, reports that their troops are massing on the far side of The Sea of Souls, waiting for the order to pour into our country, by sea and by air.’
I cast my eye around the room, looking to see if anyone was doing anything daft around the explosive charges we had placed, like standing on one of the crates. They weren’t.
‘Emberland is a great, great nation, but it stands on the brink of oblivion, due partly to inaction on the part of successive rulers, but partly because of a chronic shortage of natural resources such as copper, ritinium, lead and, of course, leverium. The Republican Council seeks, quite literally, to dig Emberland out of this crisis, but it cannot do so without access to those vital resources. The Koulomb Gate promises an unlimited supply of ores and minerals, without the need to invade our neighbours.’
‘This device,’ Harman gestured behind him. ‘This device will give us access to the stars. Ganessa may be abundant in what we need, and it may not. As you perfect the technology here, we will extend our reach, until we want for nothing. Perhaps when we are strong and invulnerable to our aggressors, we can share the technology with them, so that each may plant their flags on worlds of their own. Who knows?’ Here, Harman paused theatrically. ‘Perhaps Draxilkind will emigrate to these new worlds.’
Professor Maddison, down at the front, began to clap. Soon he was joined by others until there was a decent clatter of applause. Director Harman smiled and tugged gently at his beard until the hall fell silent.
‘This mission is the first of several that will be crucial to our long term plans on Ganessa. We all know to our cost, that there are hostile, dangerous creatures on the other side. Ms. Derringer and her team will return to Ganessa to make a proper assessment of the threat that these creatures pose. The portal’s landing site will be made secure for further missions, with an expanded military force, if necessary, to subdue or exterminate the so-called ‘Charg’.’
‘Our work here will eventually become known the world over. Your groundbreaking achievements in this endeavour will go into the history books, make no mistake. This is a new dawn for our species. Revel in this moment because you are doing extraordinary things! Generations to come will mourn the fact that they arrived too late, too late to be a part of this wild adventure. To those of you travelling through the gate this evening, I wish you good luck!’ Harman finished with a wave of his arm, taking in the silent portal behind him.
‘That was a good speech,’ said Benjamin, speaking over another round of applause.
‘It was,’ replied Inigo, from beside me. ‘And now to the panic and the bloodshed.’
Comments
Post a Comment