The Forever Ship. Francesca Haig

and then drowned, I looked back at Zach, and saw Piper’s knuckles standing out white, his fingers crushing Zach’s arm. If it hurt, Zach made no noise.

      At the Tithe Collector’s office, The Ringmaster dismissed the guards with a sweep of his hand, and pulled the door of the main chamber shut behind us.

      In that large room, I was no closer to Zach than I had been outside, but it somehow felt worse, and more intimate, to be sharing a room with him, away from the noise of the soldiers and the streets. I already shared too much with Zach. I didn’t want to share the same air, the same enclosed space.

      ‘Who knows you’re here?’ demanded Piper.

      ‘Nobody,’ Zach said. He pushed the hood back.

      The last time I’d seen him had been in the Ark, but the space had been barely lit, and I’d never got close to him. Now I stared at his changed face. It wasn’t only the bruises and scabs that made it different. There were new lines under his eyes, and between his eyebrows, and a long-healed scar on his jaw. So much of his life was unknown to me, now. How far our stories had diverged since the days of our childhood, when I could have drawn a map of every freckle on his cheekbones.

      The Ringmaster moved closer to Zach. They were the same height, but The Ringmaster was broader, stronger. Once, these two had sat together on the Council, living and working in luxury that I could barely imagine. Now they faced off across the bare room. It had once been the Council’s Tithe Collector’s office, so it was plusher than anything else in the Omega town, but it wore the marks of the last few months. One wall was patched where it had burned during the battle. A broken window had not been mended – just nailed shut with slats. The planks of the balcony outside, where the townspeople used to line up to pay their tithes, had been ripped up for firewood during the coldest weeks of winter. In the next room, where the Tithe Collector used to dine, the floor was covered with sleeping rolls for The Ringmaster’s personal guards.

      ‘You should never have come here,’ The Ringmaster said to Zach.

      ‘I don’t want this any more than you do,’ Zach replied. ‘You think I’d be here—’ he waved a hand at the shabby room ‘—if I had a choice?’

      His shoulders slumped. ‘The General’s turned on me. She’s trying to kill me.’ He turned back to me. ‘You’ve gone too far now, done too much. Destroying the database. Warning the island that we were coming. Freeing New Hobart. Then trashing the Ark. You did too much,’ he said again, his voice rising, ‘and you found out too much. Until getting rid of you was worth the cost of getting rid of me.’

      This was the kind of calculation that should have been familiar to him: he’d spent years weighing up the value of lives, and making choices he had no right to make. But he looked frantic, his voice swerving between rage and disbelief.

      ‘Didn’t you have anyone else you could turn to?’ I said. ‘You must have your own soldiers. Won’t they protect you?’

      ‘Against The General?’ he said.

      I remembered her: the way she kept her head still while her eyes roamed indifferently over us. How even Zach had obeyed her every command.

      Zach continued. ‘Ever since you took New Hobart, The General’s been trying to push me out. She tried to hide it at first, but I knew. She was manoeuvring in the Council, making sure she had the support she needed. Talking more and more about the threat posed by the resistance. By you, especially. Then you drowned the Ark, and I knew it wouldn’t be long. Six nights ago she came for me – sent her soldiers to my chambers before dawn. I wasn’t there – I had a source who tipped me off. I got out through the kitchens, a few hours before the raid, but even then I had to fight my way past a sentry. One of my own soldiers – he said he had orders not to let me leave the fort. Me.’ He closed his eyes and took two breaths. I didn’t know who the anger on his face was aimed at: his soldiers; The General; me.

      ‘You should have known this was coming,’ The Ringmaster said. ‘You should have known better than to trust her.’

      ‘And I should have trusted you instead?’ Zach shot back. ‘You, who proved yourself so loyal, so trustworthy?’

      ‘I’ve been loyal to the principles the Council was supposed to uphold. The taboo. Protecting our people from the machines.’

      Zach shrugged impatiently. ‘Everything I’ve done has been for the protection of our people. You’re clinging to superstition, harping on about the taboo. Machines aren’t the real threat – the Omegas are.’

      ‘The taboo exists for a reason,’ The Ringmaster said. ‘The machines ended the world. They caused the Omegas.’

      ‘We can harness the machines to help us,’ Zach said. ‘Everything I’ve done – the machines, the tanks – it’s all to protect us from the burden of the Omegas.’

      ‘And the blast?’ I asked. ‘Are you really stupid enough to think that can be harnessed? That the blast will protect you as well?’

      ‘If need be,’ Zach said. ‘If that’s what it takes, against the threat of Elsewhere.’

      ‘You disgust me,’ I said, each word a hiss.

      I could not look at him without thinking of the tanks. The blast. The stink of death that came off him, like a rabbit carcass claimed by flies.

      ‘Then at last you might begin to understand how I’ve always felt about you,’ he said.

      I pulled back my fist and swung at him. It wasn’t an impulsive jab; I thought carefully about everything Zoe had taught me. I focused on his right cheekbone, and when I punched I made sure I punched through rather than at it, and I threw my whole weight behind the blow.

      He saw me draw my fist back, but he didn’t believe I would really do it. When my knuckles connected with his face, his whole head snapped backwards. Mine did too, the jerk of pain sharp enough that my teeth clashed together as my head recoiled.

      I was still staggering slightly as I tried to punch him again, but Piper held me back, his arm tight around my waist, lifting me off my feet. My knuckles were red, but the ache in them was nothing compared to the pain beneath my eye.

      Zach had one hand pressed to his face, his other hand raised at me, palm first.

      ‘You’re insane,’ he said. ‘If you attack me, you’re attacking yourself.’

      Piper released me, and I stood close to Zach.

      ‘You’re the mad one,’ I said. ‘You’re disgusting. You look down on us, think that we’re less than you. But the things that you’ve done—’ I spat at the ground beside him. ‘You’re a monster. A freak.’

      He lowered his hand. The skin was already purpling, his eye clenched shut against the hurt.

      ‘It doesn’t matter what you think of me,’ he said. ‘I’m not here to win you over. It doesn’t make any difference that you hate me.’ He had regained control of his breath now. His voice was measured, his gaze cool. ‘If you don’t take me in, I’m dead. You too. Do you want that?’ He paused. ‘You want it all to be over?’

      If he’d asked me that question a few months ago, my answer might have been different. They had been the bleak days, when I’d wandered through the world like a half-dead thing, lost without Kip. But I had found my way back. I had found Kip’s body and set it free, and I had chosen to live. I knew that I would choose it again, now, even if it meant protecting Zach.

      I kept my gaze on Zach as I spoke to Piper. ‘I want him shackled, and locked up,’ I said.

      The Ringmaster called for the shackles. When his soldiers brought them, I helped Piper with the chain myself, looping it tight around both Zach’s wrists. When my skin touched his, I forced myself not to flinch.

      *

      Piper sent for Sally. I heard him explaining Zach’s arrival in the corridor. I couldn’t make out her words, but her tone was