Six Days by Philip Webb

are real. I think about old Fred the pigherd. Lights in the sky and machine-men.
    She holds up her flinder. “When you get in an evac shuttle with one of these, it just takes you back to the mother ship. It’s automatic in case you’ve become injured or you’re unconscious. We should be able to override that setting but, well, there’s some problems with the ship itself …”
    “Oh, yeah, and another thing, I ain’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
    “I know you haven’t, but you have to strap yourself in or you could get really hurt. It’s a short journey. We’ll explain everything just as soon as we get out of here, I promise.”
    “Explain everything,” I mutter, my voice all shaky. “Yeah, that’d be just peaches, that would. I want a bloody good
explanation
an’ all. With bells on.”
    Both of them guide me to a chair and put these padded belts over my shoulders. When they strap in either side of me, the chairs tip back, then the vehicle starts shaking and humming so hard that everything goes blurry. My head slams back and I feel like a wall’s pressing down on me and there’s this crazy roaring. I yelp out but I can’t even hear my own voice. All this spit dribbles out my mouth but I can’t lift my hand to wipe it off. Next thing the roaring stops, and I feel all light and woozy. My spit sails past, wobbling around in slow motion.
    “What the …?”
    “It’s all right, you’re just weightless,” goes Erin.
    “You mean we ain’t in the Thames no more?”
    “No, we’re in orbit about thirteen miles above London.”
    Then she just leans forward out of her chair and
floats
over to the screens.
    “A submarine what can fly,” I say out loud to no one in particular.
    It’s weird how my voice sounds all dreamy while my heart is thrashing about like a bee in a tin.
How is this
even happening, for crying out loud?
No one’s been in space since the Quark Wars, or so Wilbur says. Them old rockets and stations in the sky have been empty for years. And there just ain’t no way for me to get a handle on this. I think about the run to the river with all the Vlads chasing after us, taking potshots – that just feels like it never even happened. But still, the stink from the river is in my nostrils. And I keep thinking about Wilbur, about how he has to be done in with worry by now. He’d have heard the gunfire for sure.
    “We’ve got to get back,” I go.
    “We will,” says Erin. “When we dock up to the
Aeolus
, we’ll be free to return to London just as soon as we reset the shuttle …”
    “And just exactly when’s that gonna be?”
    “Don’t worry,” Erin says gently. “It’ll take no more than half an hour. Plus, going back is under our control – there’s no emergency protocol or anything. We can navigate straight to where Wilbur is. We’ll be there long before the two o’clock deadline. I promise you.”
    I figure I’ve got to trust her. What else can I do? Peyto has kind of clammed up, but Erin’s completely the queen of the flying sub, cos she’s suddenly got this air of
confidence
.
    And the weirdest thing? I slow right down. Bonkers stuff is happening all around, like floating people andflying ships with mothers, but my brain just freezes over and pretends everything’s fine and dandy. Like, that world you knew about all of thirty seconds ago, well, that has just gone, so welcome to this new world. Where your spit don’t stay on the ground where it belongs.
    “Right, then,” I go at last. “I’m just about ready for that explanation now.”
    Erin taps the screen a couple of times and the view switches to something floating in the night sky. It’s shaped like a bone – narrow in the middle with bulbs at either end – and it’s twirling very slowly.
    “What’s that?”
    “That is the
Aeolus
,” says Peyto without much of a fanfare. “The ship.”
    He unstraps me and I float out of my chair. It’s like swimming without holding your breath. But I