Tunnels 05 - Spiral

all the prisoners detained in the Hold. And he wasn’t looking forward to telling them.
    Cleaver grinned, showing his missing teeth, and Squeaky began to jump up and down.
    Another of the Governors leaped to his feet. “Do what you’re told, man! Apprehend those dissenters!” he shouted.
    “But . . . arrest
who
precisely?” the First Officer asked. “Which ones?”
    “I know that voice,” Drake said, as he helped Mrs. Burrows onto an unoccupied cart, which was covered with a few desiccated cabbage leaves. Then he climbed up beside her. Will was already on the cart, watching the stage intently and shaking his head.
    The ranting Governor had turned on the First Officer, who was looking nonplussed. “Just follow your orders, you useless fool!” he snarled.
    “That stupid, stupid old fart!” Will exclaimed loudly, making no effort to keep his voice low. The Colonists close to the cart twisted around to look at him.
    “Keep it down, Will,” Drake warned, but he was intrigued by the boy’s unexpected vehemence. “Why did you say that, anyway?”
    “Because that stupid spod is my father.”
    “Your
what
?” Drake said.
    “That’s Mr. Jerome,” Will muttered. “My real father.”
    Mr. Jerome was strutting across the stage toward the First Officer. As he reached him, he began to jab a finger into the chest of the taller and far bigger man. “If you don’t do what you’re ordered, we’ll clap you in irons, too,” he promised.
    The First Officer wasn’t intimidated, just perplexed. “But if I don’t know who called Mr. Pissy a potty, then how can I arrest anyone?” he asked innocently.
    Rather than cheer at the First Officer’s fabulously confused sentence, a deathly quiet fell on the place.
    “You blithering idiot!” Mr. Jerome snapped, drawing his hand back as if he was about to strike the policeman.
    All of a sudden, there was a commotion at the front of the crowd. Cleaver was surging forward, pushing through to the platform.
    His voice dripped with the violence of which he was capable. “Don’t you lay a finger on ’im! ’E’s my friend!” Cleaver rumbled, then pounded the stage with one of his sledgehammer fists. “Or I’ll come up there meself and sort both you and Mr. Pissy out.”
    “Mr. Potty,” Squeaky corrected Cleaver, bobbing up and down as he tried to see over his shoulder.
    Mr. Jerome hadn’t backed off from the First Officer, his hand still poised in the air.
    “I’m warnin’ you,” Cleaver said, spoiling for a fight.
    An ear-piercing wolf whistle from beside Will and Drake made them both start.
    As every single person in Market Square, Colonist and Governor alike, sought out who was responsible for this, Mrs. Burrows took her fingers from her mouth.
    Drake bowed his head. “Right. And I said we should keep a low profile,” he muttered.
    “Isn’t it time for a new start?” Mrs. Burrows proclaimed in a shout. “The Styx have gone, and you don’t have to take them back. For the first time in three hundred years, you have the chance to run your own lives.”
    Everyone considered this, then there were mutters of “Yes” and “She’s right.”
    “Celia,” the First Officer said, beaming at her over the heads of the crowd. He had to take a breath before he went on, because he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes. “Tell us what to do. Tell us how to go about it.”
    Mrs. Burrows thought for a moment. “Well, for starters . . . you can send those Governors packing,” she said. “They haven’t got your best interests at heart.”
    Mr. Jerome was craning his neck and squinting at who was on the cart. “Why, look at what we’ve got here. A bunch of loathsome Topsoilers sticking their noses into our business,” he said.
    “Oh, put a sock in it, you old bore!” Will blurted, not able to help himself.
    There was a pause, then Mr. Jerome frowned. “Seth? My son, Seth?”
    Will curled his lip insolently. “I’m no son of yours.”
    Clearly in some shock at seeing Will again, Mr. Jerome took a moment to compose himself. “So . . . so my runaway son has returned home, and his friends are telling us what to do.” He laughed drily, then turned to the First Officer. “Well, you can arrest them, too.”
    The First Officer had had enough. “No, I won’t,” he said simply.
    Mr. Pearson reentered the fray. Seizing his top hat from the table, he brandished it threateningly in the First Officer’s face. “See this? We are the only authority here! You