Read Online Mortal Engines me-1: Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve - Free Book Online Page A

him, “it’s locked.” He tried it anyway. She was right. Next he stumbled over to peer through a crack in the wall. Beyond it he could see a narrow wooden walkway that flickered like a Goggle-screen picture as the shadow of one of Speedwell’s wheels flashed across it. The Out-Country was rushing past, looking much rockier and steeper than when last he saw it.
    “We’ve been heading south by south east since first light,” explained Hester wearily, before he could ask. “Probably longer, but I was asleep too.”
    “Where are they taking us?”
    “How should I know?”
    Tom sat down in a heap with his back to the shuddering wall. “That’s it then!” he said. “London must be hundreds of miles away! I’ll never get home now!”
    Hester said nothing. Her face was white, making the scars stand out even more than usual, and blood had soaked into the planking around her injured leg.
    An hour crawled by, and then another. Sometimes people went hurrying along the walkway outside, their shadows blocking out the skinny shafts of sunlight. The plumbing burbled to itself. At last Tom heard the sound of a padlock being undone. A hatch low down on the door popped open and a face peered in. “Everybody all right?” it asked.
    “All right?” shouted Tom. “Of course we’re not all right!” He scrambled towards the door. Wreyland was on hands and knees outside, crouching down so he could see through the hatch (which Tom suspected was really a cat-flap). Behind him were the booted feet of some of his men, standing guard. “What have you done this for?” Tom asked. “We haven’t done you any harm!”
    The old mayor looked embarrassed. “That’s true, dear boy, but times are hard, you see, cruel hard these days. No fun, running a traction town. We have to take what we can get. So we took you. We’re going to sell you as slaves, you see. That’s how it is. There’ll be some slaving towns at the cluster, and we’re going to sell you. It has to be done. We need spare parts for our engines, if we’re to keep a step ahead of the bigger towns…”
    “Sell us?” Tom had heard of cities that used slaves to work their engine rooms, but it had always seemed like something distant and exotic that would never affect him. “I’ve got to catch London! You can’t sell me!”
    “Oh, I’m sure you’ll fetch a good price,” Wreyland said, as if it were something Tom should be pleased about. “A handsome, healthy lad like you. We’ll make sure you go to a good owner. I don’t know about your friend, of course: she looks half dead, and she was no oil-painting to start with. But maybe we can sell you off together, ‘buy one, get one free’ sort of thing.” He pushed two bowls through the flap, round metal bowls such as a dog would eat from. One contained water, the other more of the blue-ish algae. “Eat up!” he said cheerfully. “We want you looking nice and well-fed for the auction. We’ll be at the cluster by sundown, and sell you in the morning.”
    “But…” Tom protested.
    “Yes, I know, and I’m terribly sorry about it, but what can I do?” said Wreyland sadly. “Times are hard, you know.”
    The hatch slammed shut. “What about my seedy?” shouted Tom. There was no answer. He heard Wreyland’s voice in the passage outside, talking to the guard, then nothing. He cupped his hands and drank some water, then took the bowl across to Hester. “We’ve got to get away!” he told her.
    “How?”
    Tom looked around their cell. The door was no use, locked and guarded as it was. He peered up at the plumbing until he had a crick in his neck, but although some of the pipes looked big enough for a person to crawl through he could see no way to get into them, or even to reach them. Anyway, he wouldn’t have fancied crawling through whatever that thick fluid was which he could hear gurgling inside them. He turned his attention to the wall, feeling his way along the planks. At last he found one that felt