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  11 Or, if they are anything like me, they are saying, ‘What? Not another pair of socks from Aunt Mumby. Where are the lead soldiers which I requested?’—A.M.

  12 This is another top-notch Christmas notion from Germany, where aunts and parents are forbidden from choosing presents for their little ones, and the whole business has been farmed out to a jolly, old red-coated fellow named St Nick or Santy Claus, who goes from house to house on Christmas Eve, dishing out goodies to sleeping children. If you have been well behaved that year, you are allowed to hang up your stocking at the end of your bed and he will fill it with toys and sticks of gingerbread. (But if you’ve been naughty, a fellow comes down the chimney and punches you on the nose, so it is not all fun.)—A.M.

  13 The mer-people of Georgium Sidus are well known now, so I shall not trouble to describe the features of their undersea town – the luminous starfish which serve them for lamps, the water-filled bladders which they use as nurseries for their tadpole babies, the charming gardens of seaweed and shells. Nor is there space here to record the glimpses which I had through the bladder-floors of merman hunting parties down in the deeps beneath me, chasing luminescent sea-slugs across the ocean floor – that boundary below which the gas is so compressed that it becomes a solid, and where all manner of strange creatures creep about. But Mr Wyatt has essayed a few pictures to give a general impression of what I saw. Should you wish to know more I can recommend Professor Eden Griffith’s Descent into the Gas-Sea: A Compendium of Georgian Haunts and Habits (published by Cutlet & Shortstop of 12 Clerkenwell Lane, London).

  14 Now that I have read Professor Griffith’s book I know that those cabbages were really Georgian sea sprouts (Brassica aquatica) and that the one I was looking at was the king sprout, the original plant from which that whole island of roots, buoyancy sacs and lesser sprouts had grown. There are now believed to be many thousands of such sprout colonies adrift upon the gas-sea. Several of the older ones are the size of small continents.

  15 There are so many portable pulpits on the market these days that it was hard to be certain, but I believe this one was a Campion Preach-Easy (‘The Revivalist’s Friend’).

  16 The signal for ‘be quiet’ in Cruet’s Universal Sign Language is a raised forefinger waved to and fro in front of the mouth. It is a great improvement on Myrtle’s signal for the same thing, which involves throwing some books at my head.

  17 Tails are important to the Snilth. Only the tails of females carry spikes and clubs, and the number of the spikes and shape of the clubs are used to distinguish between the various Snilthish clans and families, which have names like Forktail, Threespike, Fisttail, etc.—A.M.

  18 You may sometimes have heard Spooli referred to as the ‘Venice of Space’. But since it has been there for ten thousand years, it would be more accurate to call Venice the ‘Spooli of Earth’, don’t you think?

  19 Of course we should have to find some way of losing Myrtle, for nothing is more likely to spoil a holiday than to have her drizzling on about the prices of everything and complaining that her delicate constitution has been upset by all the funny foreign food. It is a great pity that someone does not open a sort of boarding kennel for older sisters.

  20 You will recall, I’m sure, how the Threls have laboured throughout their history to knit a lovely cosy coverlet for their asteroid home. Thanks to the wool which we had caused to be sent to them after their bravery during the Starcross affair, they had completed nearly the whole northern hemisphere and were busy decorating it with some pretty pom-poms. So you may imagine what alarm the space moths’ arrival caused on Threl! Indeed, their prophets in ancient times had foretold just such a catastrophe. So it was small wonder that Sergeant Tartuffe and all other able-bodied Threls had cast off their knitting, picked up their war-needles and taken a train to Modesty Junction and then a ship to Spooli. They were a small army, both in number and in height, but their hearts were stout.

  21 I know where she learned that word—from naughty Mr Grindle.

  22 It has always seemed very strange and wonderful to me that these warlike women of the Snilth were so taken with Myrtle. We now know that ideas can spread among Snilthkind in much the same way that germs spread among us. No doubt the Mothmaker had shaped them thus in order that they should be easier to rule. It explains why they were all so quick at picking up our lingo. (And jolly useful it would be if we could learn like that, I must say. There would be no more slaving over Latin verbs; I should simply get a schoolmaster to sneeze on me—and iacta alea est.) But this infectious learning was also the Snilth’s Achilles’ heel, for Myrtle’s silly notions seem to have been particularly virulent. Having never been exposed to such novel ideas as crinolines and swooning, their minds had no defence against them, and the new fad passed among them like a summer cold—A.M.

  23 Querp is an odd little moon with an interesting history. Back in the 1780s, when our first expeditions to Jovian space were being prepared, a gentleman named Lord Appledore made a foolish wager with his friend the Duke of Stairbrass, that somewhere in Jupiter’s orbit there would be found a moon made entirely out of green cheese. In the years that followed, he watched with growing concern as first one and then another of Jupiter’s moons was explored and found to be made of ordinary rock. At last, fearing that the bet would soon be lost and that the sum he must forfeit would bankrupt him, he resorted to a most underhand ruse. He hired some Ionian dairymaids to build him a moon out of their finest cheese and caused it to be towed out and abandoned in a close orbit around Jupiter. Then, taking out full-page advertisements in The Times and other journals of note, he announced that he had been proven right; no one could deny that there was a moon made of green cheese in orbit around Jupiter.

  Sadly, the expense of this operation broke Lord Appledore just as completely as paying his wager would have, and he died miserably in a debtor’s prison. But his cheese-moon remains in orbit, growing riper and mouldier with each passing year and tainting the aether for miles down-wind with its distinctive pong. Named Querp by the Jovians, it is now officially recognised as the smallest and smelliest heavenly body in British Space.

  24 Jack was correct, as we later learned. Surprised by the fierce resistance we put up, the Mothmaker had decided that the way to crush us would be to capture or destroy our Queen. She knew of Queen Victoria, of course, from her conversations with her captives, and her Snilth had told her how, ’mid battle’s heat, they’d heard brave British tars shout, ‘God Save the Queen!’ and ‘For Queen and Country!’ as they fired their aether cannon or bravely boarded Snilthish ships. ‘It seems,’ she hissed, striding about inside her moth-bone house in a perfectly dreadful fit of rage, ‘that although these foolish creatures have no Shaper to lead them, they still know somewhere deep inside themselves that they should honour and obey some great female ruler. I shall rid them of this puny Victoria and give them a new and greater Queen to serve!’

  25 Naval officers of Admiral Chunderknowle’s generation, who have spent so much of their lives in low gravity or in none at all, often sport the most extraordinary whiskers and mustachios which would collapse in an instant were they ever to return to Earth.

  26 But a crab of the nasty, creeping sort, you understand, not a bold, heroic crab like Nipper.

  27 Oh no I wasn’t, you beastly fibber!—A.M.

  28 Oh good grief, I hope this is not going to unfold as I fear it might—A.M.

  29 Yuck!—A.M.

  30 This really is too much!—A.M.

  31 I have no idea which bright spark decided to give the name ‘Sun Dogs’ to these great predators of the Solar Sea. They look not a bit like any dog I’ve ever seen. The one which attacked the Sophronia resembled much more closely a sort of gigantic, wingless dragonfly made out of living glass. Through its translucent skin all its internal organs could be viewed, like goods displayed in the window of a London store. Charity Cruet claims that as it swept past her she quite clearly saw into its see-through belly, where the carcasses of icthyomorphs
and other aetheric life forms were slowly dissolving in the acids of its stomach. Eugh!

  32 Myrtle has made a decision only to call for help in French, which she says sounds far less vulgar.

  33 I only hoped that it suited me better than it did poor Myrtle, who looked more than ever like an owl who has just received bad news.

  34 I saw nothing of this battle, which is a pity as it sounds jolly spectacular. But I visited London a few weeks later and saw for myself the vast heap of dead moths piled up for burning in Regent’s Park and the wrecked Snilth warship which had fallen upon Parliament Hill Fields. And I have read accounts of how the brave citizens of London fought off the moths which landed in their midst and made captives of the Snilth who spilled from them. Luckily, little damage was done to the city during the fighting, since most of it was still in ruins following the Crystal Palace Disaster of the previous spring.†

  † See Larklight, available from all good booksellers, price one penny.

  35 Good old Ssil! It came as a terrible shock, of course, to find herself thrust suddenly among millions like herself and to learn that she was born to be their queen. She is a modest, unassuming person and was quite distressed at first by the excited way that the Snilth stared at her and whispered about her, and how Snilth fathers came and lay their babies at her feet, as if her touch would be enough to bless them.

  From a high gallery in Snil-ritha, where Thsssss and some other friendly Snilth had hidden her, she looked out across the silvery void at the planetoid which they called ‘the Death Star’ and wept sad tears to think that that mass of bleaching bones was all that she would ever see of her own family. But she consoled herself with the thought that after so many years of wondering who and what she was, she now knew who her mother had been and that she had been both brave and beautiful. And it was a comfort to find herself surrounded by others of her kind and also to know that she had a family of sorts outside Mothstorm too, in the form of Jack Havock and his crew, whom she was resolved to save if she could from the wrath of the Mothmaker. So, like the sensible lizard that she is, she did not give in to melancholy or despair. Instead, with the help of Alsssor and Ssoozzs, she began laying plans to overthrow Mothstorm from within.

  Thus it was that even as the Mothmaker was marshalling her legions for the final assault upon our empire, the rebellion against her was already gathering strength inside the Snilth planetoids.

  36 And should you ever tie a fairy or an angel to your Christmas Tree, you might stop a while to remember where this custom came from, for it was started by Prince Albert to celebrate his own Dear Angel’s bravery, when she found herself in that uncongenial position.

  37 Indeed, it was the third time that year.

  38 Naturally, it would not be proper for Myrtle to live aboard the Teasel and be Jack’s alchemist full-time, so when she is not available her post is filled by the Rev. Cruet. Charity’s father is quite recovered from his brain fever, but very ashamed that he allowed himself to be used by the Mothmaker, poor gentleman. He has given up being a clergyman, declaring that it is far too dangerous an occupation, and was delighted when Jack offered him the post of alchemist and accommodation for himself and Charity aboard the Teasel.

  39 Her Majesty has ordered that enough serum shall be produced to restore all the Venusian colonists to their former state. Dr Blears objected strongly, of course, but Dr Blears has been dismissed from his post and appointed Keeper of the Royal Water Serpents instead, so who cares a fig what he thinks? If you ever visit Balmoral, you may generally find him up a stepladder on the shore of the loch, tossing bucketfuls of salmon to his charges. Huzzah, and God Save the Queen!

  40 See Larklight.

  Praise for the series:

  ‘Remarkable … Out of this world.’

  SUNDAY TIMES

  ‘The pleasure is in the detail – the breadth of invention is staggering – and the fluent writing.’

  TELEGRAPH

  ‘Reeve’s mechanical fantasy world is every bit as enthralling as in his Mortal Engines, and Wyatt’s illustrations add to the fascination.’

  INDEPENDENT

  ‘Satisfying, enjoyable and engaging. Mr Reeve has done it again.’

  MR PHILIP ARDAGH, GUARDIAN

  ‘Larklight is a glorious space adventure set in 1851. Forget what history tells you, and enjoy this laugh-out-loud, old-style page-turner which is coupled with David Wyatt’s fantastic illustrations.’

  FUNDAY TIMES

  ‘I hope this series never ends.’

  LITERARY REVIEW

  ‘It’s hard to pin down Philip Reeve’s prodigious imagination in just a few words. It’s Monty Python meets Dan Dare meets Diary of a Nobody, and it rattles along, cheekily tangling historical figures in Reeve’s brilliant fictional web.’

  SUNDAY HERALD

  ‘Few talents in contemporary children’s books match Philip Reeve’s and Starcross, the sequel to his story of Victorian space travel, Larklight, proves his quality once again. Delighting in orotund Victorian diction and enhanced by David Wyatt’s fabulous Mervyn-Peakeish illustrations, it is, as the book might put it, “truly first-class, cunning, most intriguing and a trifle dark”.’

  NICOLETTE JONES, SUNDAY TIMES

  ‘It keeps you gripped all the way through.’

  SUNDAY EXPRESS

  ‘Elegantly constructed, a frothy confection of fanciful imagery and fantastical footnotes.’

  GUARDIAN

  ‘Larklight is completely engrossing, miss-your-tube-station excellent. The first in a new series by the writer of the popular Mortal Engines quartet, it is a brilliantly witty quest set in outer space that will get children turning pages at the speed of light.’

  TELEGRAPH

  ‘Any fan of fantasy or science fiction will love it.’

  MR CHARLIE HIGSON, MAIL ON SUNDAY

  ‘Truly original.’

  PUBLISHING NEWS

  ‘The rollicking, devil-may-care attitude of the book is an absolute delight. This book will provide enjoyment for all ages, and I long for more from Reeve’s pen.’

  LITERARY REVIEW

  Titles in this series, in reading order:

  Larklight

  Starcross

  Mothstorm

  THE FANTASTIC

  LARKLIGHT

  SERIES

  (IN READING ORDER)

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in October 2008 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

  First published in the USA in November 2008 by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

  This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © Philip Reeve 2008

  Illustrations copyright © David Wyatt 2008

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  All rights reserved

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  make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

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  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4088 2551 8

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    Philip Reeve, Mothstorm