The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [88]
Into space. He stared at the giant cannon and thought of the amount of power that would be required to power it. Were it used in war, it would devastate whole cities. The sweat on his face suddenly felt cold.
He was so absorbed in what he was seeing, that it was a moment before he realised Elizabeth was tugging urgently on his arm. "Hide!" she whispered. He looked around, but it was too late.
Out of a path he had not seen before, following the crater's rim, came a group of men.
Soldiers. He did not recognise the uniforms – they carried no insignia – but he recognised the guns in their hands easily enough. He and the girl stayed rooted to the spot. She seemed as frightened as he himself felt. The soldiers approached and halted when they saw them.
"Hey," said a rich, drawling voice that belonged to a whiskered, middle-aged man who might have been the commander of this unit – a patrol, Orphan realised, though what they could be guarding against…
Himself, perhaps.
"What are you doing here?"
The soldiers did not look like they were about to shoot him. They were smiling, in fact, though he drew no comfort from that. They seemed to gaze at the girl and him in amusement, but if so it was not a friendly one.
"I'm…" Orphan said, then realised he had nothing to offer and fell quiet. Were they Scottish? he thought. Clearly they were brought over with the rest of the scientific expedition on the island.
"We're gathering fruit," the girl declared suddenly, rather startling him. "For the kitchens, do you see."
"The kitchens, eh?" the whiskered soldier said, and the others tittered, though some muttered darkly: the only word Orphan thought he caught was, inexplicably, mushrooms. "Well, I don't see no fruits here, Yer Highness."
"We got lost," Elizabeth said. Orphan nodded his head.
"Lost? I'd say you were lost four hundred years ago, princess," the man said, and the soldiers laughed out loud now. "This your brother? Seems a bit dimwitted."
Orphan nodded, and smiled, and hoped he looked as dim-witted as he felt.
"Inbreeding," said another soldier, and the whiskered one laughed. "Get out of here," he said, and motioned with his gun. "This is no place for people like you."
"Thank you, sir," Elizabeth said, and then she did something else that took Orphan by surprised. She curtsied.
"A right little princess," someone said. Elizabeth, grasping Orphan tightly by the hand, quickly led him away and back into the trees. Behind them he could still hear the soldiers' laughter as they moved off.
"What was that?" he said. The girl looked up at him and shrugged. "I wanted to see the crater."
"Evidently you're not allowed to."
She shrugged again. "I don't care. I know what they're doing. We all know. Come on." She led him through the trees and the ground sloped gradually, until they reached a large stone boulder that stood on its own in a clearing.
"What are they doing?" Orphan asked, only half-listening. He almost said, Did you mention kitchens?
"They're building a spaceship, silly," the girl said. "So all the lovely lizards can go back home. Or so they say."
She approached the rock and felt around its wall. Her fingers tapped against the surface.
"You don't believe them?"
"Why should I?" Elizabeth said, reasonably. She tapped the stone again, and Orphan jumped back as a section of wall slid smoothly away and revealed a dark opening in the rock. "You know, you do look a little like my brother," she said, and giggled. "Are you sure you're a pirate?"
"I'm retired," Orphan said shortly. He felt disorientated, hungry and tired and not exactly sure what he had let himself into. Well, he thought, not much has changed.
He followed Elizabeth through the hole in the rock, and found himself in a dark tunnel. The door slid shut behind them, and for a moment he couldn't see. He felt panic again, but in another moment dim lights came on, embedded in the low ceiling, and in their light he could see