Read Online The Chemickal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist - Free Book Online Page B

each entrance black as coal.
    ‘The lock is on the other side,’ Svenson said, slapping a wide metal plate. ‘Nothing to pick or even to shoot open. We need a field gun.’
    ‘There must be someone within,’ observed Phelps.
    ‘No one especially
mindful
,’ said Miss Temple. ‘We are veritable tradesmen at the door.’
    ‘We might climb,’ offered Mr Brine, pointing up. The fence was ten feet high, topped with sharp spikes.
    ‘Surely not,’ said Phelps.
    Miss Temple went onto her toes to peer through the bars. ‘Do you see that barge?’
    Svenson screwed his monocle in place. ‘What about it?’
    ‘Was it not at the Parchfeldt Canal?’ she asked. ‘I recognize the rings of red paint around the mast.’
    ‘Perhaps it came from Parchfeldt with the machines.’
    Miss Temple turned to Phelps. ‘From the river here, could one reach the Orange Canal – and Harschmort?’
    Phelps nodded. His hair was plastered to his skull, and Miss Temple saw that the man was shivering. ‘But if they have gone to so much trouble, where
is
everyone? What is more, if the people of Raaxfall are so exercised against the factory, what has stopped them from storming it? Not their own reticence, I am sure, yet – no, no! What is this?’
    His last words were petulantly addressed to Mr Brine, who had nimbly clambered halfway up the fence.
    ‘Mr Brine,’ Miss Temple called. ‘There are spikes.’
    ‘Not to worry, miss.’ Brine gathered himself just beneath the spikes, curling his legs, then recklessly sprung over them, slamming into the other side of the fence with a clang. Miss Temple gasped, for a spike had gouged through his sleeve.
    ‘Not to worry,’ he repeated, and lifted the arm free. Brine landed with a solid
thump
on the other side.
    ‘Well
done
!’ cried Miss Temple.
    ‘Is there a lock?’ called Svenson. ‘Can you –’
    Before Mr Brine could reply, he was surrounded by a dozen sudden lines of jetting smoke, each lancing towards him with a serpentine hiss. Brine staggered, eyes wide with shock, then toppled off the platform and out of sight.
    Miss Temple had the sense not to scream, and instead found that she – like both men – had dropped to her knees.
    ‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘Where is he?’
    ‘Is he killed?’ asked Phelps.
    She quite quickly began to climb, fitting her feet like a ladder.
    ‘Good God!’ cried Phelps.
    Both men reached for her legs but Miss Temple kicked at their hands.
    ‘He will die if I do not help him.’
    ‘He is dead already!’ called Phelps.
    ‘Celeste,’ whispered Svenson. She was too high to pull down without causing her harm. ‘It is a trap. Think – you render Brine’s sacrifice without purpose –’
    ‘But we cannot go back!’ she hissed.
    ‘Celeste –’
    ‘
No
.’
    ‘You are being stubborn.’
    The fence seemed higher from the top than it had from below. Brine’s strategy to reach the other side would not work for her – she’d not the strength, nor would her dress clear. She grasped the base of two spikes and called down.
    ‘You must support my foot.’
    ‘We will not,’ answered Phelps.
    ‘It is the simplest thing – one of you climb beneath and let me rest a foot on your shoulder – and then I will step over as if the spikes were daisies.’
    ‘Celeste –’
    ‘Or I shall fling myself like a savage.’
    She felt the fence shake and then Svenson was below her, gritting his teeth.
    ‘I will shut my eyes,’ he said, then looked up directly beneath her legs and began to stammer. ‘For the height, you see – the height –’
    ‘The danger is on the
other
side,’ called Phelps. ‘You will set off the trap!’
    ‘A moment,’ she said to Svenson. ‘Let me gather my dress …’
    Somehow his shyness gave her a confidence she had not had. She raised one knee and slowly settled it on the other side, digging her toes between the bars. The line of spikes ran straight between her legs, but she did not hurry, shifting her grip and