Aethernet Magazine #6 by Ed. Barbara Ballantyne

Author:Ed. Barbara Ballantyne [Ballantyne, Ed. Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

One hour later Burns knelt beside the capstan and watched as the moon-silvered waters of the Thames slowly receded to reveal a shining expanse of jet black mud. And to think, he mused, that Tommy and hundreds like him scraped a meagre living from wading through this filth in search of scant pickings.

The ragamuffin said, “It were there, just by the prow of the coaler. A minute and we’ll be able to reach it.” He glanced at Burns’s footwear. “Make a right mess of your fancy brogues, though, Mr Burns.”

“The least of my concerns right now,” Burns murmured to himself.

The boy looked at him. “What were that odd creature, Mr Burns, and what does it want with you?”

“That, m’boy, we shall soon learn.”

His mind was racing with the events of the past few hours, the arrival of the Kyrixian, and now this – the appearance of the Sentinel, if he were not mistaken. It was beginning to make a kind of sense; but the next few minutes would prove him right, or wrong, on that score.

“Right-oh,” Tommy said. “Follow me, Mr Burns.”

They climbed down the ladder and set off across the mud, Burns sinking almost to his knees with every step.

“Easy does it,” Tommy said, “or the mud’ll have your shoes.”

Burns adapted his gait, taking a lesson from Tommy’s slow, high steps. They approached the canted coaler and ducked beneath its prow, and Tommy pointed. “Right there, Mr Burns. Just where that cockleshell sits.”

Burns stepped forward, and instantly the surface beneath his feet solidified reassuringly. He scraped his right foot, and made out a dull copper gleam before the mud oozed back.

Tommy joined him. “I were standing here when all of a sudden–”

Burns’s stomach lurched, and he was falling…

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