Page 106 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

Thaniel didn’t have the energy to point out that there were some guns you had to stick to, if you still wanted to be you.

‘I imagine he’ll come out of this by himself sooner or later,’ Willis added into the silence.

Thaniel nodded. Mori had better do it quickly, before he starved.

The telegraphs had gone haywire again. Some of them were sparking and juddering of their own accord. As Thaniel came into the translation office, the juniors were pulling the wires out with their hands over their sleeves and getting shocks anyway. One of the translators had just volunteered to go north, wherever the electricity was weaker, when they all noticed Thaniel and went quiet.

‘Mr Steepleton,’ Vaulker said, too briskly. ‘You can go. We need to find a working telegraph and arrange a Navy ship.’

‘We can’t ask the Navy,’ he said. ‘We’d start a war. Pringle, get down to the harbour and charter a ship. The problem is getting places on board a liner but we don’t need a liner to get to Peking, just a clipper. Whatever they ask, give it to them, there’s no point haggling when everyone else will be doing the same thing.’

‘Hold on,’ Vaulker said.

‘Go on, Pringle, through the stables.’ Pringle went.

‘No – no, I said, the Navy—’

‘This will be quicker and quieter than the Navy,’ Thaniel said when Vaulker caught his elbow. He waited and looked down at his arm. After two ringing seconds Vaulker let go and kept his hand open above it, conciliatory. He looked frightened.

‘But not safer,’ Vaulker said. ‘There are women here.’

‘It is safer. No one’s going to open fire on a chartered clipper. And we need to go before everyone outside realises the militia aren’t coming, whatever the protesters do. Speaking of families – are people packed to go?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Better get together what they can carry. And tell the women they need to be in flat shoes.’

‘Flat …’ Vaulker nodded and went to the stairs, more slowly than usual, as if they were between earthquakes and he was waiting for the floor to ripple.

A flash went off in the camp, but nothing explosive. It was silver, magnesium, from a camera. Then another and another; there was a whole firefly swarm of journalists just beyond the gate. Thaniel bit the tip of his tongue. The whole government would know Mori was here in a couple of hours. After that, there would be nothing stopping them telling Vaulker to hand over Mori or enjoy the incoming mob.Vaulker turned away to tell some of the juniors to make sure the women were ready. Everyone else went back to what they’d been doing before – fighting with the manic telegraphs, or else nailing boards up over the windows. Thaniel wanted to help, but he could barely lift his arms. The bruises and the gunshot wound had stiffened. All around him, the hammer blows shot unpleasant green stars over everything.

The other door banged open. Pringle came through, out of breath and frightened. ‘I couldn’t get through,’ he said. His eyes were streaming. The others had paused to listen to him and after the hammering from before, everything was very quiet. The shouts from the camp seemed much closer. ‘They saw me. Some men chased me. They had – they had knives. I’m sorry, sir,’ he said wretchedly.

Thaniel put him in a chair and gave him some of the plum wine they usually saved for diplomatic guests. It was as strong as rum. Pringle scrubbed his sleeve over his eyes. The wine danced in the glass when he took it.

The quiet in the room lasted a long time.

‘If we’re trapped and we can’t even use the telegraphs,’ someone said eventually, ‘what do we do now?’

‘Keep nailing those up, for a start,’ Thaniel said. ‘And then – might as well crack open the good wine. Not going to be a better time.’

That got a half-hearted little whoop. Pringle popped the cork on another bottle and took it round, and people started to make gallows-humour jokes. Because the wine was strong, it didn’t take long before the laughter wasn’t forced. Everyone’s wives came down too, and the children. Six came up to see what the noise was about. Thaniel gave her some wine to try. Pringle asked awkwardly if Thaniel wouldn’t play something on the piano, so he played something he would have done at a pub, the sort of song people could sing and clap to even if they didn’t quite know the words. Mrs Vaulker turned out to have once been a professional singer. They shook hands over the piano top.

‘We ought to have had a glass of wine together before now,’ she said wryly. ‘But I was taken up with drumming classes with the girls, and I believed Tom when he said you were an awful prick.’

Thaniel started to laugh. Vaulker looked mortified, but then laughed too and toasted her forlornly with his nearly empty glass.

Thaniel went downstairs to tell Willis and Takiko what was happening, and to bring them some of the wine. Mori hadn’t moved an inch, and Willis looked more worried than he had before, even while Thaniel was still explaining.

‘Under siege, how droll,’ Willis said, but distantly. ‘Listen … I’m worried I was wrong about his being stable. His heart is slowing down. So is his breathing.’

‘Why?’

‘It might be nothing more complicated than a kind of catatonic state brought on by trauma or shock,’ Willis said uncomfortably, plainly unsatisfied with it. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never seen a damn thing like it.’ He lifted his hands and let them thump again onto his knees with more of a bang than most people’s would have. He was more than twice Mori’s size and Thaniel wished, however gentle he was, that he would sit back.

Takiko caught Thaniel’s eye and asked with her expression, shall we tell him? Thaniel shook his head. Willis wasn’t the kind to believe in clairvoyance even if it was dying in front of him.

Thaniel sat down on Mori’s other side and folded his arms to keep from touching him. Panic was starting to flutter under his sternum. There were too many things he couldn’t help or change, and they were all closing in, and there was nowhere to go.