Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

about time I spoke up for myself.
    Tm here to see you,’ I said. ‘And
Menial.’
    ‘You’re seeing me,’ Fergal said. He waved a
dismissive hand. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ He
stalked closer, to a few metres away, and stared at Druin.
‘I know you,’ he said venomously.
    Druin shrugged. ‘You’ll have seen me
around.’
    Fergal’s weapon was instantly aimed square at
Druin’s gut. My companion made a twitch towards his rifle
strap, then raised both hands above his head. The other two
tinkers brought their rifles to bear at the same moment.
    ‘I know who you are,’ Fergal said slowly,
‘and what you are. Give me one good reason why I
shouldn’t kill you now.’
    Druin took a deep breath. ‘Och, man, if you have to ask
that there is no help for you,’ he said in a steady voice.
I looked at him sideways, frozen except for a severe shaking in
my jaw and my knees. ‘You see,’ Druin went on
conversationally, ‘if you were to kill me, now, my friend
Clovis here would some time soon have to kill you. He would kill
you and cut your head from your neck, and carry it to my widow
and my weans to prove that you were dead and the matter was at an
end.’
    He glanced at me. ‘You would, aye?’
    ‘I would,’ I swore. I had eaten under
Druin’s roof, and could not well refuse the task, if
required. The thought of it made me feel sick, but it
didn’t shake my resolve. I had no idea why Fergal might
want to kill Druin in the first place, and I didn’t care.
That he was willing to contemplate murder told me all I needed to
know about him.
    ‘Well, there you are,’ said Druin. ‘You
could kill Clovis too, I suppose, but that would just double your
problem.’
    I did not find this last consideration quite as definite and
reassuring as Druin made it sound.
    Fergal’s glance flicked between the two of us, his
tongue unconsciously touching his lips. He backed off a
little.
    ‘Put down your weapons,’ he said, then added, as
we lowered our rifles, ‘all of them.’
    As I unbuckled my belt I looked at Druin. He shook his head,
almost imperceptibly. I placed my knife and pistol and multi-tool
beside the rifle.
    ‘The sgean dhu as well.’
    I felt naked when I stood up. Quick hands passed over or
patted my body.
    ‘They’re clean.’
    Fergal picked up my gear, and one of the other tinkers picked
up Druin’s. Fergal jerked his chin at the exit and moved
around behind us.
    ‘This way.’
    We walked forward to the end of the corridor. Beyond it was
the open interior space of the old power-station; we descended a
short flight of steps to a concrete floor and were told to halt.
Behind us I could hear some low-voiced consultation. We waited
for its decision, hands on our heads, and I looked about. The
turbine, of course, was long sincegone, as were most of the
original fittings; all that remained was a haunting afterlife of
odours, of flaked paint and rusted metal and antique brickwork.
Above these whiffs rose the newer smells of concrete and solder.
The whole big cuboidal building, with its long windows, had been
turned into a complex factory full of workshops and walkways,
noisy and bright with the screech and sparks of metalwork. From
the number of people I glimpsed at their benches or hurrying
along, I guessed that about a hundred tinkers were at work in the
building.
    Strangely I felt on safer ground here, amid those scores of
busy people, and hard by the road and rail of civilisation. I
knew this comfort was delusory, but clung to it anyway. The
thought of calling out for help crossed my mind; then I reflected
that Fergal and his comrades would hardly be so bold if their
actions were unknown to the rest.
    Suddenly the tinkers clattered down the steps behind us and we
were each roughly jostled away, in opposite directions. I heard a
door slam, from the other side of the stair, just before I was
pushed through another.
    The room into which I stumbled was a few metres square, with
an overhead light, a table and a couple of chairs. Along its
sides rough stacks of copper piping, coils of cable, sacks and so
forth suggested that the room was one that currendy didn’t
have a definite use, and was used indifferently as a store, a
meeting-place and – now – an interrogation cell.
There was even, as somehow seemed inevitable, a sink and an
electric kettle and some grotty opened bags of coffee, sugar and
tea.
    Fergal stepped past me, spun a