Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online

it be the British...
    The dot grew larger, taking on the shape of a twin-propped airship. The craft came in low, nose down, and as it banked she made out the hammer-and-sickle sigil on its flank. Her stomach flipped.
    Lady Eddington was peering hopelessly through her lorgnette. She saw Jani’s expression and said, “What’s wrong, child?”
    “I am afraid it isn’t a British craft, Lady Eddington. It’s Russian.”
    “Blast their eyes. And what might they want with us?”
    “I dread to think,” she murmured.
    She looked about her. There were numerous nooks and crannies where she might conceal herself, though moving Lady Eddington, with a broken leg, would prove difficult.
    The rhythmic thumping of the airship’s rotor blades became deafening. She watched it land half a mile away down the hillside. At least, she thought, they would have time to hide themselves among the debris.
    “I’ve heard bad things about the Russians’ sense of fair-play, girl, but I assume we can presume upon their better natures to lend us a helping hand.”
    “With respect, Lady Eddington,” Jani said, “I think that might be a mistake.”
    A minute later she heard the first shot. It rang out in the silence and Jani felt the sickening, cold weight of dread in her stomach.
    She recalled the woman she had found further down the hillside.
    The shot was followed, shortly, by further sharp reports.
    She was about to tell Lady Eddington that she would attempt to carry her into the cover of a nearby engine cowling – and hope that the Russians would not investigate too scrupulously – when she saw movement amid the wreckage further down the slope.
    Three soldiers, in drab green uniforms and fur-lined hats, were moving methodically through the wreckage. She judged they were a hundred yards away and heading towards where she and Lady Eddington were cowering. Her gaze dropped to the seated form of Mr Gollalli, his limbs stiffened and ridiculous now with rigor mortis.
    She whispered urgently to Lady Eddington, “Be very still, and forgive me for what I’m about to do. There is a method in my madness, as my father is fond of saying.”
    Before the dowager could question her further, Jani leaned forward, took a handful of the old lady’s dress and ripped it, exposing a sunken expanse of ancient stomach.
    “Have you taken leave...?” the dowager began.
    “Shh!” Jani hissed.
    Dropping to her belly and out of sight of the approaching Russians, she scrabbled across the tussocky ground and grabbed Mr Gollalli’s samples ledger. Opening it at random, she tore out a section of transparencies and scrambled back to the old lady.
    The Russians had stopped to light cigarettes. Seconds ago, she thought, they had been killing innocents – and now they were enjoying a leisurely smoke.
    She flipped through the transparencies, selected a suitably gory-looking wound, pulled it free and draped it across Lady Eddington’s exposed stomach.
    “Now lie still and when they approach, hold your breath!”
    “Are you sure...?” Lady Eddington began.
    Jani examined her handiwork. The wound appeared fresh and fatal; she only hoped that the Russian soldiers would give it no more than a cursory glance.
    The dowager clutched her hand suddenly and squeezed. “I’m frightened, Jani!”
    “If it’s any consolation, Lady Eddington, so am I. Now don’t move a muscle!”
    She slipped the facsimile of a long gash from the transparencies, concealed the remainder beneath her skirts, and ripped at the chest of her bodice. Peering down, her heart thumping, she spread the wound across her throat and the swelling of her breast, then lay back on the ground and flung out her arms.
    She closed her eyes and waited, a sick feeling in her stomach.
    Only then, as she mimicked death, did the throbbing pain in her ankle and back return.
    She heard a Russian voice – what an ugly language it was! – and the sound of footsteps crunching through the debris. The soldiers were