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dressed in his long white rubber coat and wore the red wheel of the Guild of Engineers upon his brow. Those earlier Lord Mayors had had their Guild-marks removed to show that they were serving the whole of London, but things had changed when Crome seized power—and even if some people said it was unfair for one man to be master of the Engineers
and
Lord Mayor, they still admitted that Crome made a good job of running the city.
    Katherine didn’t like him. She had never liked him, even though he had been so good to her father, and she was not in any mood to meet him this morning. As soon as she heard the front door iris open she hurried back into the corridor and started up it, calling softly for Dog to follow her. She stopped as soon as she was around the first bend, hidden in a shallow alcove, resting the tips of her fingers on the wolfs head to keep him still. She could tell that some terrible trouble had overtaken her father, and she was not going to let him keep the truth from her as if she was still a little girl.
    A few seconds later she saw Gench arrive at the door to the atrium, clutching his hat in his hands. “This way, yer worshipful honour,” he mumbled, bowing. “Mind yer step, yer Mayorness.”
    Close behind came Crome. He paused for a moment, his head flicking from side to side in an oddly reptilian way, and Katherine felt his gaze sweep the corridor like a wind from the Ice Wastes. She squeezed herself tighter into the alcove and prayed to Quirke and Clio that he would not see her. For a moment she could hear his breathing and the faint squeaks and creakings of his rubber coat. Then Gench led him into the atrium, and the danger was past.
    With one hand firmly on Dog’s collar she crept back to the door and listened. She could hear Father’s voice and imagined him standing beside the ornamental fountain while his men showed Crome to a seat. He started to make some polite comment about the weather, but the cold, thin voice of the Lord Mayor interrupted him. “I have been reading your report of last night’s escapade, Valentine. You assured me that the whole family had been dealt with.”
    Katherine flinched away from the door as though it had burned her. How dare the old man talk to Father like that! She did not want to hear any more, but curiosity got the better of her and she set her ear against the wood again.
    “…a ghost from my past,” Father was saying. “I can’t imagine how she escaped. And Quirke alone knows where she learned to be so agile and cunning. But she is dead now. So is the boy who caught her, poor Natsworthy…”
    “You are sure of that?”
    “They fell out of the city, Crome.”
    “That means nothing. We are travelling over soft ground; they may have survived. You should have sent men down to check. Remember, we don’t know how much the girl knew of her mother’s work. If she were to tell another city that we have MEDUSA, before we are ready to use it…”
    “I know, I know,” said Valentine irritably, and Katherine heard a chair creak as he flung himself down in it. “I’ll take the
13th Floor Elevator
back and see if I can find the bodies…”
    “No,” ordered Crome. “I have other plans for you and your airship. I want you to fly ahead and see what lies between London and its goal.”
    “Crome, that is a job for a Planning Committee scout-ship, not the
Elevator…
.”
    “No,” snapped Crome again. “I don’t want too many people to know where we are taking the city. They will find out when the time is ripe. Besides, I have a task in mind that only you can be trusted with.”
    “And the girl?” asked Valentine.
    “Don’t worry about her,” said the Lord Mayor. “I have an agent who can be relied on to track her down and finish the job you failed to do. Concentrate on preparing your airship, Valentine.”
    The meeting was at an end. Katherine heard the Lord Mayor getting ready to leave, and hurried away up the corridor before the door opened, her