The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Author:Stephen Hunt [Hunt, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: SteamPunk, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780765360229
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 2009-03-31T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

What has your analyser uncovered, Aliquot?’ asked Nickleby.

‘Is it my parents?’ said Molly. ‘Have you discovered their identity?’

‘I am afraid no blood machine is sophisticated enough to do that,’ said Coppertracks. ‘Although theoretically speaking, with some modifications I am sure I might … but I digress. You may see for yourself, Molly softbody. Press your eyes up to the magnification glass.’

Molly placed her face inside the rubber hood on the front of the machine, cold glass staring down onto a pink river filled with the flow of creatures – fragile jelly-like things moving in liquid. ‘This is my blood?’

‘It is,’ said Coppertracks. ‘The gas compression acts as a powerful lens, magnifying the view of your system juices a thousand fold. What you see under the glass are the animalcules that constitute your biological cooperative.’

‘It looks – odd. Like a river filled with fish and eels.’

‘Filled with other things, young softbody. Filled with answers. Look!’ Coppertracks turned up the magnification, the machine hissing as the gas cylinders intensified their internal pressure. ‘Do you see the smaller organisms in your system juices?’

‘What can you see, lass?’ Commodore Black moved closer. ‘Through that infernal periscope of Aliquot’s?’

‘Tiny things – with cogs turning, moving through my blood, like the screws on a boat. That’s not normal, is it?’ A terrible feeling of apprehension seized Molly. Had she been poisoned, was she dying?

Coppertracks held up a wad of tape from the analysing machine. ‘Your people have a name for it, young softbody. Popham’s Disease. If you needed a transfusion of system juices during a medical operation you would die in agony unless the donor of the juices also suffered from Popham’s Disease. This is the missing link, the thing that you share with all the other victims of the Pitt Hill Slayer. This disease was not to be found on your records in Greenhall’s transaction engine rooms because the information entity that uncovered your details erased that data. I warrant that every name on the list of victims had the same disease.’

‘Why would a rare blood type make Molly a target for murder?’ said Nickleby. ‘Is there someone important who is ill with the disease – and the slayer wants to wipe out all sources of donor blood?’

‘A logical reason if the murderer could not directly make their intended victim deactivate,’ said Coppertracks. ‘But in this case I think not.’

One of the slipthinker’s mu-bodies returned to the clock chamber bearing a leather tome, its cover cracked and brown with age. Coppertracks took the book and rested it carefully on a workbench. He opened it wide and Molly saw that the pages were illuminated in metallic ink – still shining despite the crinkled age of the paper. She had never seen such beautiful illustrations before, delicately rendered raised metal images surrounded by black calligraphy in a language she did not recognize. It made the linework pictures of Jackals’ news sheets and penny dreadfuls look like bored scribbling dashed out by amateurs. Something told her that

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