Fever Crumb Read online

  What was it? What did it show? She could not be sure. Looping

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  lines of smudged pencil swept across the page, bisecting three big interlocking rings, and inside those rings were smaller rings, and other forms: small crosses, squares, and shapes that reminded her of cogs and pistons. She wished that Dr. Crumb were there with her. Together, she was sure, they would have been able to make sense of it. But even without him she started to understand that some of those pencil marks meant patterns of force, and she could see how some of those shapes might move inside each other, and around each other. And that egg-shaped thing marked (d) might act as a kind of regulator on the movement of the other pieces....

  It was an engine, she realized, and with that realization came a blazing star of pain, somewhere at the back of her head.

  She cried out, and the diagram seemed to jump up at her out of the creamy paper and close around her like a net. In the middle of it a red flower appeared, and she straightened up, looking in horror at the splash of blood that had fallen on the drawing.

  Cupping one hand under her streaming nose she pulled out her handkerchief and set one corner of it to the bright little splat of blood. The white fabric soaked up most of it, and Fever dabbed carefully at the rest, but she could not get rid of the brown stain that it had left, like an extra cog wheel, in the heart of the diagram.

  She was still trying when she heard footfalls behind her, and turned guiltily to find Kit Solent standing in the doorway, wearing a quilted nightgown, his long hair loose.

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  "Fever! You poor thing! Whatever's happened?"

  "It's a nosebleed," said Fever. "I'm sorry I've never had one before. I got blood on the book...."

  Kit Solent strode over to her. He didn't seem to care about the book. He took her handkerchief from her and gave her his own, which seemed as big as a bedsheet, clean and fresh-smelling. "Sit down," he advised, guiding her to a chair. "Tip your head back. Ruan gets these sometimes. It is never as bad as it looks. Yes, the worst is over. I must have left the scent lantern burning when I went to bed. Foolish of me. Perhaps that's what made you feel faint. These old Scriven smells are not to everyone's taste."

  The nosebleed seemed to have stopped. She said, "I'm sorry about the book...."

  "Oh, don't worry about the book," said Kit, kneeling beside her. "I picked it up for a few quid from a bookstall at Rag Fair, years ago. It's just one of Godshawk's old notebooks. Dozens of them were looted from the Barbican after the riots."

  Fever nodded. "Dr. Isbister has some at the Order's library."

  "I bought it because it looked interesting. I don't really understand what it's about. Do those old drawings mean anything to you?"

  He asked it casually, but Fever sensed a kind of eagerness under the words. Had he left the book out in the hope that she would come in and see it? She lowered her head cautiously, and looked at him, but she could see nothing in his face except kindness and honest concern for her.

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  Then she noticed something else. Behind him, the rugs of moonlight that had lain on the floor beneath each window were gone. Outside, above the rooftops, the sky was growing pale.

  "What is the time?" she asked.

  "Almost sunrise," said Kit Solent. 'There's hardly any point going back to bed. Shall I sort out some breakfast?"

  "But that can't be...." Fever went to the closest window and looked out. It was true. While she had sat staring at that diagram, the whole night had passed. Behind the Barbican, the sun was coming up.

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  ***

  10 summertown

  Kit Solent did not take Fever back to Godshawk's secret vault .that day. He had been troubled by her confusion when he stood her before the locked door the day before, and also by the events of the night. He had hoped that the scent lantern and the book would have some effect, but the blood and the girl's obvious distress had upset him. He was a kindly man, and for all her solemn, Engineerish ways Fever seemed a child to him, not so very much different from Fern or Ruan. It felt horrible to see her frightened, and to know that he was to blame. He thought a day of rest was in order before he tried again.

  "No school today," he announced over breakfast that morning. "And no work neither. We'll go to Summertown instead!"

  "Summertown!" shouted Fern and Ruan happily.

  "Summertown?" said Fever, far from certain. She knew what it was, a great triangle of waste ground up in Clerkenwell where, every summer, the wandering land barges stopped to dazzle the

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  citizens of London with sideshows and trade goods. She had often watched the barges rumbling along the Westerway and the Great South Road, and Dr. Crumb had told her much about the engines that powered them, but as for Summertown itself...

  "Is it not a rather irrational place?" she asked.

  "if fun is irrational," said Kit Solent, through a mouthful of toast, "if color and excitement and good things from far places are irrational, then yes. But I think you'll find it educational, Fever, and I'm sure the children will. Come, you can explain to us how all the engines work."

  "Yes, sir," said Fever, lowering her head.

  "You're still worried about what happened yesterday," said Kit kindly. "I'm not surprised. But Summertown is not the Straggle-market, and you'll be with us, not on your own. Anyway, everyone will have forgotten you by now."

  But Fever was not sure about that. As she left the house an hour later (for it took an extraordinarily long time for Kit Solent and his children to get ready) she noticed two figures standing on the opposite pavement. A ragged boy and an old man in a long black coat and a black bowler hat. They did not do anything, they did not try to accost her; indeed, they drew back shyly into the shadows of an alley as Kit Solent let her out through the gates, and she knew that he had not seen them, but she could sense their eyes on her as she followed him along the street. It made her uneasy, and she did not know why.

  ***

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  From the far side of the street, Charley Shallow watched the girl go by. She strode along mannishly at the gentleman's side, with her hat in her hand and her bald head bared for all to see. She looked human enough to him, and pretty, almost. He glanced at Bagman, hoping for some clue as to how he should react.

  "I can't see no speckles on her, Master Creech...."

  "No, boy."

  "So does that mean she's a human being after all?" Charley tried not to sound disappointed. He was half relieved that Bagman wouldn't have to kill the girl, but at the same time he found himself thinking that if Bagman had no prey to hunt he might not need a 'prentice anymore.

  "I'm not sure," said Bagman. "There were some Scriven who didn't have many markings. A few had no markings on their faces at all. Blanks, we called 'em. I remember cornering a female like that once, and she held a baby that might have passed for human."

  Charley waited for him to say more, but the old man fell silent. He started to realize what a terrible responsibility it was to be a Skinner.

  Bagman had turned away, watching as the man and the children and the girl went on up the street, climbing toward Cripple-gate. When they were out of sight he shook his head and gave a few soft, doubtful coughs. "Strangest thing," he said quietly, perhaps to himself. "Always before I could tell at a glance. Even if I couldn't see no markings I could always tell a Scriven by the way

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  they held themselves, the way they moved. But this one ... I ain't sure."

  "So what do we do, Master Creech?"

  "We follows her, boy, and we gets a closer look."

  ***

  It was startling to come out of the quiet streets into the bustle of Cripplegate. Fever had expected Kit Solent to turn uphill toward the wind tram Terminus, but instead he simply stepped out into the mud of the roadway and raised one hand, and at once a sedan chair swerved toward him out of the passing scrum of drays, chairs, and pedestrians. He pulled the door open before it had even stopped, the children bundled in
side, and as Fever scrambled after them, she heard him call out to the bearers, "Summertown!"

  The men did not reply, simply started trotting, turning off Cripplegate as soon as they could and cutting westward through the complicated little streets of Pimlicker and Chel's See. Several times, through gaps between the buildings, Fever caught a glimpse of Godshawk's Head, picked out from the clutter of rooftops and chimneys farther north by stray beams of sunlight.

  "Would you like to stop in at home on the way?" asked Kit Solent, noticing how she craned her head to keep it in sight.

  "Godshawk's Head is not on the way to Clerkenwell."

  "We could make a detour. I thought you might want to look in on Dr. Crumb, and let him know that you are all right."

  Fever wanted nothing more, but from across the city

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  Godshawk's steel face seemed to be staring sternly at her, reminding her that she must be rational and not let down her Order. She said, "There would be no purpose in such a visit. I'm sure Dr. Crumb knows that you would contact the Order if there were any problem."

  Kit Solent started to say something, then changed his mind and sat in silence, smiling to himself, watching Fever strain for another glimpse of home. He liked her, her primness and her bravery. It was a shame, he thought, that those dry old-tech botherers at the Head had never let her have a proper childhood.

  He did not think to look behind him, through the small window in the rear wall of the chair, if he had, he might have seen another taxi-chair following not far behind.

  ***

  Ruan couldn't believe that Fever had never been to Summertown. "What, never?" he kept asking her, as if there were a chance that she had been but had forgotten -- as if anyone could forget Summertown. To Ruan there was simply nothing in the world that mattered more than the land barges. Each May time, as the snows of winter melted, he would start to listen for the grumble of their engines on the Great South Road. He would lie in his bed in the quiet of early morning and strain his ears to catch that first distant whisper. Sometimes, when a convoy had been sighted, Daddy would take him down to 'Bankmentside and they would stand together and watch the great pachydermous vehicles passing, big as houses, big as castles, their tracks ingrained with the

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  mud of Europe and their upperworks dusted by the sands of far-off Asia. There were big lumbering cargo hoys like herds of sauropods, but Ruan's favorites were the gaudy, speedy tinker barges and traveling fairs. Half the size of the sluggish hoys and twice as fast, they were painted in a million lurid shades, decked out with flags and chrome and mirrors, and hung each night with strings of saffron lanterns. Dizzy op-art spirals whirled on their wheel hubs, and their exhaust stacks were striped like gypsies' stockings. And along their sides, in cutout letters as high as house fronts, they wore their names: Ma Gumbo's Travelin ' Raree Show ; The Dark Lantern; The Paradise Circus; A Dream of Fair Women.

  He did his best to explain all this to Fever while the chair joggled them through the rookeries of Lemon Heel. He wasn't sure that she understood. She was a strange person, and he couldn't help wondering if she was a bit stupid, even though Daddy had told him she was clever. But she was very pretty -- he thought she was the prettiest person he had ever seen -- so he didn't want to think that she was stupid. Perhaps she was just shy, and that was why she didn't seem interested when he told her about the barge with the big dragon's head at the front, or the magician who made rabbits and ribbons appear out of his hat.

  They crossed the Westerway and the chair slowed as it joined the flocks of chairs and people on foot all making for Summer-town. Even Fever began to look interested as the breeze blew fairground noises in through the open windows -- chingling

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  music and bellowing, foghorn voices. She remembered Dr. Crumb telling her how some of the land barges traveled all the way to Vishnoostan and Kerala. Even Zagwa, the crazy Christian empire which had conquered most of Africa and southern Europe and banned all technology there, still permitted land barges to visit the free trade zones along its borders....

  By the time they stepped out of the chair onto litter-strewn grass between the big barrel-shaped wheels and clay-clagged tracks of the barges, Fever was as wide-eyed as the children. Kit Solent paid the bearers and took Fern's hand, while Ruan ran ahead, shouting back to draw Fever's attention to his favorite barges.

  There was a boy who strode about on stilts, and a man who was juggling with shining knives. ("You must not try that at home, Fern," Fever warned the little girl, remembering her role as the rational member of their party.) There was a man who was busy sawing a woman in half. ("Or that ," she added. "I expect it is all done with mirrors.") A barker on the deck of a barge shouted at them through a big tin trumpet, inviting them to climb the boarding plank and see for themselves the lizard girl and the three-headed goat. "Mutations, no doubt," said Fever, looking at the scary pictures painted on the barge's stern. "It would be unkind to go and stare at them." Ruan and Fern sighted a stall selling candyfloss, and their father bought three sticks. "It has no nutritional value whatsoever," said Fever, looking doubtfully at the pink cloud he handed her. She stretched her head forward,

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  wary of getting the stuff on her coat. It tasted as it looked, scratchy and sticky and very pink. Not nice, not exactly, but fun.

  Fern thrust Noodle Poodle into her father's hand and ran off after Ruan, both children gripping their candyfloss sticks like pink banners as they hurried to watch a fire-eater performing. Fever half wanted to go with them, but she told herself it was not dignified for an Engineer to gawp at vulgar entertainments. While Kit Solent strolled after the children, she hung behind, eating her candyfloss with awkward, birdlike movements of her head and an expression which was meant to signal to anyone watching her that she was not enjoying it, just tasting it in a spirit of scientific inquiry. And as she ate, she stopped to stare at the strange events on the open stage at the rear of a barge called "Persimmon's Ambulatory Lyceum, where actors dressed in cardboard armor were talking too loudly to one another in front of a painted landscape . It is all make-believe, Fever thought. The words, the clothes, the things -- that's not a real sword, and I'm sure that man's beard is made of wool . Even the people are pretending to be other people. Why would anyone waste their time watching such stuff ? Yet people were; quite a crowd had gathered before the stage, and a pretty girl who seemed not to be needed in the play just then was strolling amongst them with a basket, into which they threw their offerings.

  It was like a symbol for all the foolishness of the world outside the Head, and Fever was still staring at it when a hand came down on her shoulder from behind. It gripped her firmly, though

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  not painfully, and turned her. She dropped the candyfloss and wiped pink stickiness from her mouth on the back of her hand. A gaunt white face stared down at her. Hard old eyes, pale as glass in the shadow of a tattered hat brim. A rough voice that said, " 'Scuse me, Miss, I needs a word...." But it didn't seem to be a word the stranger wanted so much as a long, hard look. His pale eyes roved over Fever's face as if he were reading her.

  He frowned. "What are you?" he muttered.

  Fever gave a violent shrug, and the old man's hand fell from her shoulder. She turned away from him, almost knocking over the shabby boy who seemed to have sprung up behind her like a mushroom out of the littered grass. She scanned the crowds between the barges, and saw the fire-eater's burning breath flare up like a beacon, guiding her to where Kit Solent was. Hurrying toward him, she looked back and saw the old man and the boy standing, watching her. They were the same pair who had been watching the house that morning, she was sure.

  "All right, Fever?" asked Kit, when she writhed through between the other spectators and arrived beside him.

  She nodded, wiping at her mouth again. She did not want him to think that she could not be left alone for thirty seconds without trouble finding her. The old man had mistaken her for someone else, that was all.
That was the rational explanation. She calmed herself, and looked skeptically at the fire-eater in his roped-off ring.

  "I do not believe that he is really eating that at all...."

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  ***

  11 Master Wormtimber

  That afternoon, at the hour when the low sun shone flickering through the wheels of wind trams as they rumbled above the streets, Bagman Creech and Charley went down Cripplegate and turned right along 'Bankmentside. A wind huffed at them off the Brick Marsh, but it could not quite blow away the acrid smell of the big vats where scraps of plastic dug up from the fields around the city were being melted down and remolded. They crossed one and then another of the slimy timber bridges which spanned the streams flowing into the marsh. People coming the other way stood aside for the Skinner, bobbing bows and curtsies, and he nodded back and rested one hand on Charley's shoulder, letting the town know the boy was with him.

  Charley was getting used to his new life by then. He liked the way people called out to wish Bagman luck, and parents pointed him out to their children, and the children stared round-eyed at the old man stalking by, and stared at Charley, too, because,

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  although he was no bigger or better dressed than most of them, he was lit up by some of the Skinner's glory.

  At last Bagman stopped at a tall, shabby warehouse with a painted sign above the door. "Wormtimber's historick curios," he read out, for Charley's benefit. "We'll have to teach you to read, son, if you're to be a Skinner's boy."