Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 18

18. Sistership

Black Prince loomed overhead, crewmen at work in their shirtsleeves, cutting off pieces of splintered and blackened hull metal. Beneath the long shadow of the vessel's prow, another work team was digging with shovels. Resting on the red earth next to them was a crumpled plastic sack, whose contents Cleo could guess without really wanting to be able to. The cheapness of the plastic indicated something to be thrown away; the reverence with which it had been set down indicated something far more precious.

"Prendergast", explained Chief Petty Officer Kay. "The doc was the only crewman whose combat station was in the sickbay. He probably died instantly."

Cleo nodded. "Good. He hated treating his own injuries."

Kay smiled awkwardly. "He always said he did his stitching wrong when he had to do it in a mirror."

Opposite Black Prince, like a mirror image, her immense landing feet splayed out in the muck, sat Jervis Bay.

"She's long overdue for a respray", said Chief Engineer Firth.

"And her hull's been patched a good few times", said Lieutenant Singh, Jervis Bay's Chief Engineer.

"It's a wonder she's still flying", agreed Firth.

"Mind you", said Singh, "Jervis Bay's even worse."

The two men turned to look upward at the second cruiser. Firth took off his hat, possibly out of respect for the dead.

"Can't get the parts no more", said Singh sadly.

"How many more years has she got in her, you reckon?" said Firth.

"Enough", said Singh, a tear running down his cheek as he looked up at his ship.

"I've thought up some ways of getting more mileage from her Flange, if you're interested", said Firth.

"Really?" said Singh. "Do you use slow cooling with liquid helium?"

"No, and that's the key. Liquid helium's too superfluid. I make judicious use of, and I hope I'm not being too technical for you at this point, a thing I like to call a Ruddy Great Hammer. A fettling hammer, for preference. What you have to do is rotate the Flange and WHACK it EXACTLY on -"

The two men walked away, still deep in conversation. Jenkins shook himself, turned to Cleo, smiled in great pain and said:

"Please tell me my ch-chief engineer isn't telling your ch-chief engineer how to fix a part which c-cost nineteen million dollars by h-hitting it with a h-hammer."

Cleo grinned. "I'm afraid so."

"CAPTAIN JENKINS." Space Commodore Drummond's voice boomed over the hiss of welding equipment - hull plates from both Black Prince's and Jervis Bay's emergency stores were being lifted into place to patch the holes from the attack. Commodore Drummond, in full dress uniform and wearing a natty pair of special square-footed muck-walking legs, strode smartly across the open ground and shook Jenkins' hand vigorously. Commodore Drummond had lost his real legs in an accident many years before. Nowadays, he had a pair of artificial legs for every occasion.

"You were right behind us the whole time in hyperspace from Earth to here", said Cleo. "Jervis Bay's another Revere class cruiser, so Mr. Callaway thought you were a sensor echo."

Drummond hung his head in mock disappointment. "Alas, that's one more trick I can no longer use. The enemy have seen it. I'll have to think of another. It's tough being fiendishly cunning."

Standing behind the Commodore was Ant, beaming, waving and mouthing what Cleo could only assume was GREETINGS! YOU PROBABLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING, BECAUSE I AM NOT ACTUALLY SAYING IT OUT LOUD FOR SOME REASON, BECAUSE I AM A CRETIN. Penelope, Glenn Bob, Truman J. Slughound and Richard Turpin followed behind Ant, along with Sergeant McNaught, the Commodore's batman, who was trying hard to ignore all the alien muck under his shiny boots.

"H-hopefully we won't be enemies for too much longer, sir", said Jenkins.

"Amen to that", said Drummond. Over the Commodore's shoulder, Ant mouthed something like HEY, YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT I'M MOUTHING, grinning like a monkey about to throw its own poo at a zookeeper. Commodore Drummond turned to him and looked him up and down in concern.

"Can I do something for you, young man?"

"Erm." Ant's hands vanished behind his back. "Um, no. I'm just, er, saying Hi to Cleo."

"Dear Boy, you don't say Hi to a beautiful lady like that. You do it like this." Drummond raised his hand and wiggled his fingers at Cleo. "Hi."

"We tracked you using the tracking device Drague was using to track you", said Ant excitedly. "We used it to track you too", he added.

"I have to say, if it hadn't been for Anthony jumping into the Fantasm, pressing every naughty button in sight and announcing he was going to fly the ship off after you if I didn't, I'd probably have left you", said Turpin. "It was a slim chance that you were actually on Black Prince at all."

"No you wouldn't", said Cleo. "You're like Penelope. You never give up."

"I so do too", said Turpin, sticking out his tongue. "Only last year I gave up broccoli for Lent."

"Lieutenant Turpin has a regrettable sense of humour", said Drummond, "but he is one of our best flight officers. As is Lieutenant Farthing."

"I've worked out your call sign", said Cleo to Penelope. "It's easy when you think about it."

"My parents also had a regrettable sense of humour", said Penelope. "I suffered that nickname all the way through school. The least I could do was paint it on the side of my cockpit."

Cleo looked up at Black Prince. "Isn't Black Prince a rather sinister name for a ship?"

"Also a n, n, nickname", said Jenkins. "Edward, Prince of Wales, s-son of Edward the Third of England. C-cavalry commander at the battle of Crécy, where a s-small English f-force was f-forced into a fight by a French army over twice its size. And won. So it's a g-good lucky name, but Crécy wasn't a p-pretty battle. The English were raiding F-France, you see, and the F-French had really only sent their army out to defend their own p-people. And the English just happened to h-have longbows - W-Welsh longbows", he added, with some satisfaction - "and the F-French didn't. It m-must have been like facing an enemy who h-has a machine gun when you only have a p-pointy stick." He looked back at Jervis Bay. "I think your ship's n-name is nicer."

"I would remind you", said the Commodore, "that the Jervis Bay lost her battle."

"When?" said Cleo, alarmed. "What happened?"

"In my office on Gondolin, you may remember seeing a picture of a warship", said Drummond. "Not a proper warship that flies through space at multiple factors of the speed of light, mark you, but one of the old kind that float on water."

"She w-wasn't even a warship", broke in Jenkins. "Sh-she was a passenger liner."

"But war broke out with Germany in 1939", nodded Drummond, "and the Admiralty needed all the ships it could lay its hands on. So they bolted a little armour onto a passenger steamer named Jervis Bay, and stuck a few guns on her, and sent her out into the Atlantic to protect convoys of merchant shipping."

"And th-then her convoy ran into", said Jenkins, "a German pocket battleship."

Drummond's knuckles tightened on his cane. "The Admiral Scheer, yes. Purpose-built for war, and much, much more dangerous than Jervis Bay. Her guns outranged Jervis Bay's by a considerable margin. Everyone on board knew the odds were that their little cruiser would be blown out of the water before even getting close enough to open fire. But her captain, Edward Fegen, an Irishman, and a braver man than I will ever be, ordered his merchant ships to scatter, and steamed straight at Admiral Scheer at full speed, firing every gun he had. To give the convoy time to escape, you see. He was killed, of course, and so were most of the men on board. But all save five ships of the convoy got away. To the very last, though, Jervis Bay was fighting. Her White Ensign was blown off her flagpole by an enemy shell, and the crew nailed it back up again under fire." He bowed his head stiffly to Jenkins. "Your ship's name is luckier. But I'm glad Jervis Bay was able to look in on her sister ship and give her a much needed blood transfusion."

Cleo was confused. "Black Prince and Jervis Bay are sisters?"

"Of course. Ships built by the same yard to the same specification are sisters, and both Jervis Bay and Black Prince were produced by the the Electric Space Ship Company of Dudleytown, Connecticut. Jervis Bay is the older sister by one month."

"We have a h-hard task ahead of us", said Jenkins. "C-convincing the Admiralty that s-some of its Admirals may have alien amoebas in their h-heads."

"I'm sure you're up to it", said the Commodore. "I'll have to do the same with our own, of course. Get their brains x-rayed for any lurking extraterrestrial macro-organisms. They'll play merry hell, particularly as it's an Englishman telling them to do it and they're all Americans. But it has to be done."

Behind the Commodore, Sergeant McNaught clapped a hand to his ear and began talking urgently to nobody.

"Jock McNaught.

"'Ow near and 'ow many?

"Understood, sir. I'll let 'im know." McNaught looked up at Drummond.

"Russians", said Drummond.

McNaught nodded. "Looks like they finally decided to check out their own distress signal, sir."

"Don't be harsh, Jock. We only picked up the signal ourselves because we were right on top of it. How near, and how many?"

"One Voroshilov class SHC, sir. Just entered the system out near the Oort Cloud. And, erm, sir - it's the Zinoviy Kolobanov."

Drummond nodded. "That could be particularly embarrassing, what with all the pretending-to-be-her we've been doing. Her captain is Vasily Tarasov, as I recall. He was promoted for Communist party connections, not for outstanding ability as a commander. He's lurking out in the Oort because he doesn't want to damage the shiny new ship his Papa bought him for his birthday. We have forty-eight hours. Then he'll be in orbit on top of us with a skyful of Fantasms."

"Are you g-going back to G-Gondolin?"

"No", said the Commodore. "It's only a short hop to the nearest USZ colony planet now, and the old girl needs an overhaul after running her reactor at maximum for twenty-four hours. We'll send Mr. Stevens and Miss Shakespeare back to Earth by Astromoke."

Jenkins frowned. "S-surely they'll just be arrested."

"Arrested for what?" said the Commodore. "Stealing an unidentified flying object?"

Jenkins lowered his gaze to the floor. "I t-take your point."

"That won't stop Alastair", said Cleo. "We can't be arrested, but we could disappear. Us and our entire families."

"I th-think you have a low view of Mr. Drague", said Jenkins. "He's of the opinion that there are th-things he won't do." He fished in his pocket. "B-by the way, I still seem to have this. I b-believe it's yours."

He handed Cleo the mobile phone that had originally come from Alastair. His eyes indicated that he now knew exactly what it was. Cleo accepted it like a prison sentence.

"Where I was brought up, we say Thank You when people give us things", said Drummond.

"Thank you", said Cleo woodenly.

Drummond extended a hand again. "Goodbye, Captain."

Jenkins shook the hand. "G-goodbye, sir. I hope that the n-next time we meet, we'll be at p-peace."

Drummond cast a dour glance at the body bag being slowly lowered into Prendergast's grave. "Be careful what you wish for, Captain. Look after your crew. And your ship." He pointed up at Black Prince. "You never know when I might need spare parts. MR. SINGH, WE ARE LEAVING."

He turned briefly in the direction of Prendergast's grave, removed his cap, and saluted. Then he manoeuvred his muck-walking legs round to face Jervis Bay and strode off, McNaught having to break into a jog to keep up.

***

As soon as the hatch clanged shut in the hull and the crew stopped waving cheerily to the Black Prince's crew out of the portholes, Penelope sank back against the bulkhead and burst into tears.

"There, there", said Commodore Drummond absently. "It can't be helped."

"I gave away our position", sobbed Penelope.

"One of your crew was under torture", said the Commodore. "I'm not sure I'd care to have anyone under my command who wouldn't give away a military secret or two if a crewmate was under torture."

"It's not a secret, sir, it's the secret! They know where Gondolin is!"

The Commodore nodded gravely. "Possibly."

Cleo took Penelope's side. "But they don't! Penelope didn't tell them!"

"As good as", said Penelope, gnawing her own fingers to punish herself. "Gongolin's closher van you fink", she said, mimicking her own voice. "Shtupid, shtupid, shtupid!"

"Alastair will work it out", said Drummond, "very quickly. He is a very clever man - almost as clever, in fact, as I am. When your ship left the solar system at lightspeed en route to Krasnaya, it was closer at that point to Gondolin than we are now. Alastair knows that now - all he has to do is figure out how it's possible."

"Then why don't you just open fire on Alastair's ship now?" said Ant. "They're not expecting it. Your secret would be safe."

Drummond looked down at Ant as if at talking navel fluff.

"Because I", he said, "am a gentleman - and I hope that you are too. Fair play, young man, is what separates us from the enemy. And that is why we will win, and they will lose."

"They have more guns than you, sir", said Ant.

"The French", said Drummond, "had more guns at Crécy. The very latest ones. Unfortunately, the English had longbows." He narrowed his eyes at Ant severely. "Welsh ones."

He stumped off down the corridor with his entourage, knocking alien mud off his walking legs by kicking the corridor walls. Left alone, Ant turned to Cleo and Glenn Bob.

"As if that answers anything!" he said.

"He's like that a lot", said Glenn Bob sympathetically.

The deck lurched gently beneath their feet as Jervis Bay rose off her landing legs.

"Where are we headed?" said Cleo.

"US Zee colony world", said Glenn Bob. "We'll make some repairs. Then we'll double back for Gondolin, once we're sure no-one's follerin or nothin."

"Which colony world?" said Ant.

"Closest one used to be called Novior Scotia. Now it's called New Salem", said Glenn Bob. "Orbits Groombridge 34A. It's not but a light year or so, we'll be there afore you know it. Don't care much for them New Salemites, though", he said. "They done caught Jesus real bad."

"You Dixielanders can talk", spluttered Ant. "You made me pray nine times a day on New Dixie. Once before and after every meal, once for the President and people of the United States of America before school started, once for all the poor Communist children burning in hell, and once before going to bed to ask the Lord to keep my soul in case I died before I woke up again."

"Yeah, but that was just, you know, daily routine", said Glenn Bob. "When the Salemites do it, I think they think Jesus is listening an takin notes. Their eyes are all shiny, and sometimes they speak some weird Jesus language, like French but makin even less sense."

"Speaking in tongues", said Cleo. "They believe angels are speaking through them."

"That thing you said right then", nodded Glenn Bob. "Seems the old Pastor of New Salem was one of they Speakers In Tongues, and on his deathbed while he was under all that morphine there he babbled something in God language and the elders of the New Salem church couldn't agree on what it was the angels was saying. The Pastor's wife thought they were saying Build Thou A Mighty Ark and Take Two of Every Animal, and the Moderator thought they were saying Go Thou unto Nineveh and Proclaim Against It. So one group of Salemites took theirselves to the Northern Polar Settlement, and the other group took theirselves to the South, and they ain't spoken to each other since. They rely on folks visitin from other colonies to send messages to each other."

"Which one are we going to?" said Ant.

Glenn Bob shrugged. "Depends which one answers our comms officer first. They're both as bad as each other, on account of it's hard to land through the aurorae."

"Aurorae?" said Cleo, with a face of pure childish delight.

"What's an aurorae?" said Ant.

***

The forward gunnery blister was crammed with sightseers. Every porthole on Jervis Bay had a nose pressed up against it. If the ship had been attacked at that point, it would have been defenceless.

"Oooh, look at that one!" shouted Ensign Purkiss, pointing excitedly. "It's red and green and purple!"

Next to Ensign Purkiss, Truman J. Slughound also had every eyestalk glued to the glass, pulsing gently red and green and purple as if trying to make contact with what was outside the ship.

"That one over there looks like a swan!" said the Bo'sun. "A swan with tentacles, sort of turning into a dragon!"

"What sort of description is that?" said Ant, straining to see past an immense gunner. "What sort of swan has tentacles and looks like a dragon?"

"A Swantaculosaur", said Glenn Bob in fear. "They come from King. You don't wanna feed 'em bread."

Outside the ship, the sky was on fire. Writhing, living fire, falling in curtains, shards and javelins, the colour of red-hot iron, of radium dials, of blacklight. The shapes seemed so solid it appeared the ship would be dashed on them like an egg shied at a crystalline cliff, but it passed straight through into further layers of shimmering brilliance. As the ship descended, however, Ant could see other, deeper shapes within the auroral display - shapes that were equally jagged and equally vertical. Shapes that did not move around at all. He suspected the ship would not get away with colliding with them.

"How can the pilot see to land in this?" he said.

"He kin't", said Glenn Bob. "He's in the Bridge with the heatshields down, flying by pure radar. Moren one pilot's made the mistake of tryin to land on Salem by eye. The country hereabouts ain't got one patch of flat land fit to spit on. Often pilots'll wait in orbit for the aurorae to die down afore they make re-entry."

"Why are there so many auroras?" said Ant. "I mean, aurorae?"

"On account of New Salem has a real strong magnetic field, and we're close to its South Pole. The lights are caused by the solar wind hittin the atmosphere stark hard."

"Just by particles hitting the atmosphere?" said Cleo.

Glennn Bob nodded. "Round about a hundred thousand electron volts per particle. Reckon if a few million charged particles hit you with a hundred thousand electron volts, you'd glow some." He made a face. "The New Salemites think they see Jesus' face in the Aurora."

"Back home we have people who think they've seen the Mother Mary in a slice of toast", said Ant.

"Out here", said Glenn Bob, "people like that always have a job that keeps someone else alive. Would you like to have your oxygen recycler maintained by someone who thinks he sees God's face in his grits?"

"Grits", repeated Ant.

"Hominy grits", said Glenn Bob. "Ain't you never heard of hominy grits?"

"Never", said Ant. "Perhaps this is some form of thing you have on your planet, but which we do not have on ours."

There was a CLUNK as Jervis Bay's feet hit something that Ant fervently hoped was solid ground. The intercom wheezed into operation.

"Thank you, Mr. Starkey. We appear to still be alive. I declare the landing a success. Ladies and gentlemen, we will see you all outside."

The areas around the portholes cleared as crew went to their stations. Truman J. remained intent on the sky outside the blister, swaying gently, his eyestalks rippling as if in a marine current, changing colour in silent gastropoid ecstasy.

"Will it be cold outside?" said Cleo.

Glenn Bob looked at Cleo oddly.

"Why would it be cold?" he said.

"We're at the South Pole", said Cleo.

Glenn Bob mouthed a silent oh, added to an unspoken yeah, I forgot, you and Ant are real stupid. "The poles are the only habitable part of New Salem", he said. "The rest of the planet's too hot. Well, half of it's real hot, on account of the sun never sets. And some of it, the leading edge, gets bombarded with comets a whole bunch. And the night side's so cold it'll freeze hydrogen. But folks can live at the north or south poles pretty well. Bits of the north or south poles, that is; the parts that ain't on the nightside or the dayside or the leading edge. A few hundred square kilometres or so. Most days."

Outside, a huge, cracked and cratered expanse of concrete was surrounded by scrubby grass. Cows were grazing the grass. Cows wearing ear protectors.

"Those cows", said Cleo, "are wearing ear protectors."

"That's on account of the continual deafening explosions", said Glenn Bob. "Comets hit New Salem about once a day, and cows is skittish creatures. But iffen they wear ear protectors, what they kint hear, kint hurt 'em."

The horizon flared scarlet, and there was a distant deafening explosion. The cows continued to graze. One of them looked up in distant cowish curiosity.

Crew were filing out of the ship, down access ramps leading from all the exterior hatches. Cleo, Ant, and Glenn Bob joined them. Outside, a man with a clipboard and a cross at his throat was talking to Lieutenant Singh.

"You should be all right for another forty-eight hours", said the man with the clipboard. "Long enough for what you need. We're not tracking any big ones inbound. The atmosphere'll burn up all the small stuff."

"Big ones?" said Cleo out of the side of her mouth to Glenn Bob.

"Comets", said Glenn Bob back.

"But you should get all personnel underground anyhow", said the man with the clipboard. "Sometimes the tracking systems miss one. Better safe than sorry."

The Jervis Bay's crew were already filing towards small bunkerlike structures spaced out around the concrete. Steel doors in the structures opened and closed intermittently. The air outside smelled of burning, though with a sour metallic tang that Ant could almost taste. A hot wind was blowing, like an open door to a blast furnace. A dim red sun lurked low on the horizon, giving the smallest of surface features a hundred metre shadow, albeit a shadow dimly, greenly lit by the ionic fire in the sky. The landscape consisted of low, curiously circular bluffs, occasionally centreing around solitary conical peaks. It was difficult to see the horizon through the aurorae, which gave Ant an impression of being a creature crawling in the bottom of a green magnetic sea. A hundred-kilometre aurora unrolled towards them like a velvet neon tsunami; Ant had to shut his eyes hard to stop himself flinching, but it dissipated into nothing as it hit.

The ground beyond the concrete and the cows was covered in a thick scrub of trees, straight-trunked and straight-boughed as spruces, whose clusters of leaves were as spherical as dandelion clocks.

"I've read about these here trees", said Glenn Bob. "Phoenixes, they're called. They done evolved to spread their seeds by catchin fire there. When you got yourself a cometary impact situation here on New Salem, it burns up every livin thing around it for a hundred kilometres. So these trees have adapted to cope with burnin. Those seed clusters there go up so fast they downright explode, but the main tree don't get burned. So the fire spreads the seeds."

Ant noticed that Vladlena was watching the trees with incipient panic in her eyes.

"Trees, Vladlena", reassured Ant. "Not Leshiy. Harmless."

"Trees", said Vladlena, as if pronouncing an alien concept.

"You can't be scared of trees, Vladlena", said Cleo gently. "Trees won't do you any harm."

"They will where she comes from", reminded Ant. "I might also point out that you are scared of spiders, which are also perfectly harmless."

"That's different", huffed Cleo. "I can't help being scared of spiders."

"Well, Vladlena can't help being scared of trees." Ant slid an arm round Vladlena and steered her away from the native vegetation. "You see, normal trees hardly move around at all and aren't dangerous, apart from laburnum and yew, which will kill you, but only if you eat them."

"Yeat them?" said Vladlena, alarmed.

"Oh yes", said Ant. "On Earth, people eat trees rather than the other way round. Some of the bits of trees we eat are called apples and oranges."

Cleo looked at the cows suspiciously. "Are those real cows?"

"Why wouldn't they be?" said Glenn Bob. Cleo's suspicion was infectious. Glenn Bob looked at the cows with a new paranoia. He examined them in detail. The cows looked back. They examined him in detail.

Finally, he turned back to Cleo. "Heck, I don't know. You're the Real Cow expert."

One of the cows did something large, brown and real.

"They're real cows", said Ant. "Unless that's some sort of very clever robopat."

Vladlena, who had joined them, watched the cows in fear. "Yis Yearth creature?" she asked.

"Yis Earth creature", confirmed Cleo.

Vladlena peered underneath one. "Yis not rooted to ground", she said. "Hyas not root systyem, and no leaves. How does photosynthyesize?"

"It doesn't", said Ant. "The grass photosynthesizes, and the cow eats the grass."

Vladlena frowned. "The gryass is not benefiting from this arrangement."

"The grass", agreed Cleo, "is being oppressed by the cow."

The nearest cow happily oppressed another mouthful of grass.

"All yanimals on Yearth are like this?"

"Some animals on Earth eat other animals", said Ant; and then added, rather wickedly, "it is the highest form of Capitalism."

"What do you eat on Krasnaya 3?" said Cleo.

"Pyills", said Vladlena.

"What's in the pills?" said Cleo.

"We do not yask", said Vladlena darkly. "Hey! Yis Russian flag!"

Ant and Cleo turned. Resting near Jervis Bay on the pitted concrete was another vessel - a corvette of the same type as the Merrimack that had taken them to New Dixie over a year ago. It bore the zodiac wheel of the USZ, but next to that, the insignia of a double-headed eagle on a flag like a French tricolor turned on its side. Men in USZ uniforms like Penelope's, but thicker and trimmed with fur, were busy around the ship, chainsmoking while welding with oxyacetylene.

"Wow", said Ant. "They really are Russians."

"I thought the Russian flag had a hammer and sickle", said Glenn Bob.

"The proper, new improved Russian flag", said Cleo, "the one they use in Russia nowadays, does look a lot like that one there. But without the eagle."

"Yeagle", said Vladlena, her eyes cold as comet cores, "is symbol of Czar."

"A Russian USZ ship", said Cleo. "I thought the US Zed were all American apart from the Gondoliers."

"Novaya Alyaska", said Vladlena. "White Russian yexiles. Don Cossyacks. Ukrainians. Balts. Pyeople who fight for Hyitler in Great Patriotic War." She spat onto the concrete.

Next to the Alyaskan ship stood another, similar, but sleeker design, apparently brand new. Its hull plating gleamed; its paint was immaculate. This in itself was odd in the USZ, where most ships were thirty years old and flew on a flange and a prayer. Groups of very large men in USZ uniform - unusually smart USZ uniform - were standing round the ship, their arms folded, their faces deadly serious. Holstered rocket pistols hung at their belts. Their ship also bore the zodiac wheel, as well as, oddly, a purple cartoon of a flying fish winking cheekily at the observer. Next to the picture of the fish was a slogan in large letters: TAKING THE VITAL MIDDLE GROUND.

The name of the vessel, picked out on the prow, was ZODIAC ONE.

"Aw no", said Glenn Bob. "She's here."

"Who's she?" said Ant.

"You'll find out soon enough. She came to Gondolin a while back. But I'm warnin you, you're not goin to like her."

The Alyaskans had noticed Vladlena's greatcoat with its faded red stars. Some of them were grinning and waving. Ant and Cleo ushered Vladlena hastily indoors. Indoors, as Ant had suspected, was a steel cage with a set of plastic buttons; the bunkers were elevators. Steel doors closed over them, and the floor dropped away like a trapdoor under a scaffold.