'Where?' he demanded. 'This aircraft is bloody gigantic! We'll be slaughtered if we go running about down there.'
'That's as good an argument as I've ever heard to bail out while we can,' Malvery said.
Frey stopped his search for a moment and fixed the doctor with a hard glare. 'We're not going anywhere without her.'
'Worth a try,' said Malvery, and delivered a sulky kick to a severed hand that was lying nearby.
Frey needed to keep moving, keep thinking, make a plan. He was full of restless energy that demanded an outlet, but he couldn't just rush off headlong into a horde of Manes. Something was nagging at him. Being here, in Grist's cabin, had reminded him of something. It slid around frustratingly in his mind until he pinned it down.
'Your father's research. You still have it?' Trinica's question to Grist, while they were down in the sanctum.
'Safe in my cabin, don't you worry.'
Frey's eyes fell on a large chest in the corner of the cabin. One of the few places he hadn't already searched. He pulled it out, and found that it was shut tight. He shot off the lock. Malvery jumped at the sound.
'You trying to give me a heart attack?'
'Think!' Frey said, addressing Jez. 'You know this type of craft. Where's the most defensible place? If you were Harvin Grist, where would you go?'
He tried to think of the answer himself as he opened the chest. Looking for Maurin Grist's research was a tactic to keep him occupied, to prevent him from doing anything stupid. His thoughts were on Trinica, and how to save her.
Inside the chest were piles of documents and accounts, bound up in folders. On top of them lay a large manila folio of papers. He picked it up and ruffled though the papers within. It took only a few glances to establish the subject matter. He rolled them up absently and stuffed them in the inner pocket of his greatcoat.
'Come on, Jez!' he said, because he couldn't find an answer himself.
'Engine room,' said Silo.
Jez's face lit up. 'He's right. On a frigate like this, it must have walls a foot thick.'
Frey snapped his fingers at the Murthian. 'Engine room. Then that's where we're going.'
Forty-One
Malvery and Silo backed up the passageway, laying down gunfire as they went. A half-dozen Manes swarmed to-. wards them, sinewy limbs stretching out, jaws gaping. But lever-action shotguns were devastating in a confined space.
Blood sprayed the dirty walls. The men kept firing until nothing moved.
'Not that way, I reckon,' said Malvery. He took off his glasses and wiped them with his thumb. Silo was calmly reloading.
Frey gazed at the sickening clutter of bodies through the haze of gunsmoke. 'We'll never get down to the lower decks like this.' He ran his hand through his hair and swore. Every moment might be Trinica's last, but he couldn't get to her. The deeper into the Storm Dog they went, the more Manes they came across.
He could hear them howling down below. The sound was terrifying. Even if they could fight their way in, he doubted they had enough ammo to deal with those kind of numbers.
'What are they doing down there?' he muttered to himself.
Jez responded as if the question was directed at her. 'Can't tell,' she said, her voice faint and dreamy. 'The sphere . . . it's too loud. They want the sphere, that's all. They're not interested in us.'
He exchanged a glance with Malvery. They were losing her. The longer she stayed here, the more her mind drifted out of focus. Soon, she'd be no use to them at all. They had to get her away. But he wasn't leaving without Trinica.
What if Jez turned Mane, right here? Could he bring himself to shoot her, if she became one of them?
He didn't like that idea. He hurried to change his train of thought. 'The engine room on a craft like this, it'll be huge, right?' he said.
'Should think so,' said Malvery.
'There's got to be a back way in, then.'
Silo's eyes widened suddenly. 'You're right, Cap'n.'
'I am?' he asked, surprised.
'Most every engine room got an escape hatch, 'n case fire cut you off from the door. All kinds o' things go wrong in an engine room. You don't wanna be stuck in there when they do.'
'The Ketty Jay doesn't have one,' said Frey.
'Ain't the first safety regulation you broke,' Silo pointed out.
'S'pose not,' said Frey. 'Let's get looking for it, then. Jez!'
She blinked out of a daze.
'Escape hatch!' he barked at her.
'We're on the deck above the engine room,' she said. She thought for a moment. 'Could be anywhere around here. In the floor.'
'Split up, get looking!' said Frey.
'Split up?' said Malvery, pointing at the pile of dead Manes cluttering the corridor. 'Bad idea, Cap'n.'
'Just find it!' said Frey.
They hurried up the passageway, scanning the floor, investigating likely alcoves and side corridors. The gunfire from the lower decks had ceased, but since Jez had said that the sphere was still broadcasting, he had to assume the Manes hadn't got hold of it yet. That meant Grist was still down there. Trinica too.
His thoughts were interrupted by a screech and a flurry of limbs, as a Mane launched itself out of an open doorway just ahead of him. It crashed into Malvery, hard enough to knock the bulky doctor off his feet, and sank its teeth into his shoulder. Malvery rolled around bellowing as Silo and Frey tried to grab hold of the ragged ghoul. The very touch of it was appalling: taut muscles sliding under clammy skin. They pulled it away far enough for Malvery to get his boot into its throat. He slammed it against the wall, put his shotgun to its temple, and fired. Frey shuddered as he was pelted with brain flecks.
'Bastard!' snarled Malvery, as he dusted himself down and got to his feet. His face had turned red with anger. He pulled back his coat to examine his shoulder, which was dark with blood.
Frey spat in case any bits of Mane skull had got in his mouth. 'You alright, Doc?'
'Got a good chunk of me,' he grumbled. 'Coat got the worst of it.' He rolled his shoulder and sucked in his breath through his teeth with a hiss. 'I'll live.'
They found what they were looking for a few minutes later, tucked away in a short, dead-end corridor. It was a pressure hatch, set into the floor, with a turn-wheel in the centre. Frey spun it and pulled it open. A ladder led down.
'Whaddya know?' said Malvery, amazed. 'It's actually here.'
'Reckon the Manes don't have escape hatches like this,' Frey said. 'Didn't occur to them to look.'
'Guess they skimped on the safety regs, too,' Malvery said.
The ladder led down on to one of the gantries that surrounded the monstrous engine assembly. It was the size of a small building, a mass of oily pistons, gears and magnets, nestling inside a web of walkways. Inside that structure, prothane was processed ready to feed to the thrusters, and aerium was pulverised into gas. It was dormant now, but it still radiated heat from recent use. The room was sweltering. Metal parts ticked and grumbled as they cooled. Shadows lurked in the folds of the room, hiding under pipes and in corners.
Frey heard voices from somewhere within the room. The echoes mangled the words, turning them ghostly and strange, but he caught the tone. Angry and fearful. Desperate men arguing.
