“Um.” Gabriel thought. “Can we broadcast the Crabsiren through the outside speakers?”
Peter looked at him. “If it were hooked up that way, I mean, sure.”
“Yeah, we could use the forward speakers, aiming ahead of us. Take us beyond this group, hurry.”
“Working on it.” Peter maneuvered around the ships as the silt gave way to clear water. They scraped along the top of a submarine Lodger, and the whine of metal against metal shot through the whole ship.
Misty ripped open a panel and unscrewed some wires, then pulled open the metal box that held the guts of the Crabsiren. “Peter?”
“Gabe, you wanna drive? Just continue this bearing,” Peter said as he jumped from his console and ran to join Misty at the panels. Gabriel took his seat at the helm.
“Untwist the wires in the Crabsiren box,” Misty told Peter. As Peter unscrewed the little yellow caps that held the wires in the Crabsiren together, Misty pulled out two large wires from the panel she was working at. “These should be the outside amplifiers.” She held them out as Peter twisted the wires together and capped them. “Okay, hit it.”
Suddenly the Crabsiren’s high-pitched fwowowowowowow filled the air in the ship and the water around. “Come on, louder.” Gabriel whipped his hands like a conductor.
“You should be thrilled we got this far,” Misty said. “Louder, aye.”
The Obscure kept moving, the ship shaking with the sound of the Crabsiren. “Come on, guys.”
A battleship nearby turned toward them and emitted a massive call that rocked them to the side.
“Did it…?”
Peter looked up from the panel at the sonar map in the corner of the view screen as he ran back to his console. “Gabriel, here they come.”
“Onscreen rear view.”
And they were coming. Battleships, submarines, planes, they were coming, one after the other.
“Full speed ahead!” Gabriel shouted as a giant carrier with a mouth came closer. “Are they following or attacking?”
“You’re asking me?” Peter sent them down and up again as the sound deafened them.
They kept driving the Lodgers, racing through clear ocean until Gabriel called out, “How far off from Nemolab are we?”
“Twenty miles,” Peter said.
“Kill the siren,” Gabriel called. “Get us out of here. Steer us wide and west. I don’t want to sail through those things.”
As they raced wide away, Misty reported from the sonar. “They’re coming. I mean they’re still looking for the source of the sound.”
“Okay, we can’t let them see us. Dive, dive, dive, right to the floor,” Gabriel called.
Peter sent them twisting off at an odd angle, and they nearly scraped the floor as he twisted the ship down and under the school of Lodgers. “There’s a canyon. I’m gonna take it.”
“Go,” Gabriel agreed. His stomach lurched as the ship whipped up and banked down into a rocky crevasse in the ocean floor. They traveled fast for a minute, cliffs on either side. “Easy.”
Silence.
They had lost the Lodgers.
When they returned to Nemolab twenty minutes later, the assault was long over and replaced with a flurry of activity. Antennae were broken all over the seabed, and Gabriel could see walls of some of the outside structures lying in pieces as drones scurried about making repairs. Still more were swimming around the main dome with torches, looking for cracks.
Fabulous, Gabriel. You come home one day and wreck the place. And you’re supposed to be the good one.
“Nice and steady,” Gabriel said as they approached the landing pad for a second time. “Look at that.”
He checked the date and time on the view screen’s corner. “If the navy tries to destroy those things, I don’t know how well they’ll do.”
Misty was silent for a while. “I agree.”
Gabriel touched a communication button. “Obscure, coming home.”
Gabriel’s dad came on. “Welcome back. You did good.”
But looking at the damage to Nemolab, Gabriel didn’t think that was true at all.
24
THEY GATHERED IN the control room at the top of the Manta tower, where Gabriel’s parents leaned against a wall of screens and buttons. Behind them the sea went on in its usual, colorful way as drones zipped around doing repair work on the glass.
“Look,” Gabriel’s dad said. “You got them away from the lab. None of us was hurt.”
Gabriel wasn’t feeling any better. “I think we just made things worse.”
Dad seemed to see the pain on Gabriel’s face and shook his head. “No. They got here awfully fast. I’m thinking even if your invention contributed, it didn’t do so by much.” He glanced at Peter and Misty. “And you two.”
Peter and Misty looked up.
“I’m proud to call you friends.”
Nerissa chortled. “Do their parents even know where they are?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Gabriel asked. Misty looked at him with sadness. He’d heard her clearly. She was done lying. This was her last trip. But he had no great desire to hear his sister jump all over him about it.
“Okay,” Gabriel’s mom said, “your father discovered something that he wants to share with you.”
Gabriel’s dad turned around and brought a sonar view of the Lodger attack up onscreen. They saw many shapes, some larger than others, from biplane to battleship. “Look at this one, on the upper right.” He pointed at a submarine shape. He changed the view.
Now there was a diagram of expanding circles of white, coming from various points on the screen. All of the points of light were coming from the base. Except one. A pulsing burst of energy was emanating from the submarine Lodger Gabriel’s dad had pointed out.
“What’s that?” Gabriel asked.
“Radio signals. All of these on the bottom, those are us, sending lots of little signals to the drones, to equipment, to each other. That one—it’s weaker, but it’s constant.”
“I don’t understand.” Misty stared. “A Lodger had a radio?”
“No.” Gabriel stared at the image. He’d seen this before. “Well, yes and no. It has a radio, but probably not on purpose. That’s a tracker.”
“Is it one of ours?” Nerissa asked.
“No.”
“Navy?”
Gabriel’s dad nodded. “I think that’s why the carrier group has the confidence to plan an attack on the Lodgers. They tagged one, and now they can find them more easily.”
“But … if they’re following that ping,” Peter reasoned, “they could know where you are.”
Gabriel’s dad thought. “Maybe. I doubt they could track it this far.”
Gabriel’s mom waved her hand. “Nemolab is a secret, but it’s a secret plenty of people know. Especially in the navy.”
“What the navy doesn’t know is that we’re trying to help the Lodgers,” Gabriel said.
“And we’re trying to help them,” Nerissa said. “Don’t forget that if they shoot those things, it’ll be like setting off a bomb.”
“Well, there is a bright side, though,” Misty said.
“What’s that?”
“Now that you’ve seen this,” she said, “you can track them, too.”
Nerissa pointed at Misty as if to say, Yeah! “She’s right. We can track the Lodgers.”
Gabriel was nodding. “So we have a way of tracking the Lodgers and a way of directing them, at least in short bursts. That’s what we need, right? Nerissa, how much time do we have to get them away from the naval attack?”
Nerissa said, “About fifteen hours.”
“Then we need to hurry,” Gabriel said. He looked down. His time at Nemolab was over again. “I’m sorry. We have to get going.”
Twenty minutes later, Gabriel and his crew gathered with Nerissa and his parents at a branching corridor that led toward the two ships. Gabriel’s mom had a black bag with the Nemo N on it, and she drew out gifts
for each of them.
“Here,” she said to Gabriel.
He looked down to see a light metal box and tilted it, looking at Peter, Misty, and Nerissa. Light from the windows in the junction where they stood glimmered off the metal. One way went back to the Manta tower, where Gabriel’s dad was manning the controls. One way went toward the Nebula, and one toward the Obscure.
Gabriel unfastened the box and saw a bed of blue satin, within it a shining golden disk etched with numbers. It had a pair of hands like a clock.
“What is it?” Misty asked.
“It’s an astrolabe,” Gabriel said. “Ancient mariners used them to determine their position by the stars.”
“It’s the astrolabe from the Nautilus. Your dad thought it made sense for you to have it.”
“Oh.” He was shocked. The piece was priceless, but what was striking Gabriel at just that moment was that his sister was right there. His sister, the oldest, who was as much a carrier of the Nemo vision as he was. More so, maybe.
“It’s beautiful.” Nerissa came to his shoulder. “It makes sense to have this on the Obscure.”
He looked at Nerissa. “But…”
“We navigate as truly as we can. And I can’t think of anyone trying to be more true to the best of Captain Nemo’s philosophy than you. That’s hard to admit, but it’s true.” She hugged Gabriel and their mom joined in, and they were locked together for a moment. All the madness and anger washed away and disappeared, just for a moment.
“Peter.” Gabriel’s mom pulled away and swiftly wiped a tear from her eye. “We weren’t sure that it was a good idea for the Obscure to have a crew. But you’re a fine helmsman, and you helped defend our home.”
“Misty.” Now Gabriel’s mom clasped her hands in front of her. “I see how much you value the sea and its creatures. I don’t have any more antiques, but I want both of you to have these.” She reached into a pocket in her coat, pulled out a pair of black wristbands, and handed one to each.
“Whoa!” Misty exclaimed. “This is a … Nemotech receiver.” She unclasped it, laying it over her wrist. It was exactly like the ones Gabriel and Nerissa wore. “This works with our earbuds?”
“An upgrade,” Gabriel’s mom said.
“So this, what, tracks my steps?” Peter smiled.
“If you’re into that, yes.” Gabriel laughed. “But most of all it connects you to Nemolab. It’ll transmit your position, and if need be you can call any of us for help.”
“Although lately you’ve been more help to us than the other way around. I don’t know.” Mom’s eyes crinkled marvelously. “I just thought it would be nice to have you connected.”
She kissed each of them on the forehead, then stepped back and cleared her throat.
Nerissa looked at her own wrist. “Ticktock. We have to get out to open sea.”
Mom wobbled her head, la-di-da. “Oh, you don’t want your gift?”
Nerissa sighed. “Sure, Mom. What did you get for me?”
“Actually it’s something I wanted to hand over.” Mom pulled a smooth stone about the size of her thumb from the bag.
Nerissa took it and turned it around. “What is this?”
“It’s a hard drive. You can only access it on your ship. Everything we know about the location of the Nautilus is on there. It’s a jumble. Some strange stuff, some clues that turned up in Europe … anyway. It would mean a lot to your father if you looked for the ship. If you could find the time.” She shrugged. “I know you’re busy.”
“Check it out, Gabe. I got a scavenger hunt.” Nerissa turned over the stone, smiling. She slipped it into her pocket and hugged her mom.
Mom kissed her forehead as she had Gabriel’s and said, “You know what you’re doing? At least right now?”
“Always do.” Nerissa smiled briefly.
Gabriel said, “If everything we’ve theorized is right, we’ll locate the Lodgers, the largest school of them, around the Garbage Patch. If we have to talk to the navy before we can round up the Lodgers and lead them off, we will.”
“Be careful,” Gabriel’s mom said. “Sometimes they don’t want to talk.”
That seriousness of getting in the way of the US Navy sank in for a moment and Gabriel felt a tiny burst of panic, like a far-off creature growling from over the horizon. “One thing at a time,” Gabriel said.
He hugged his mom one more time, smelling her hair, and then broke off. He gestured to Misty and Peter and ran ahead of them toward the Obscure. He didn’t look at anybody, because he was holding back tears.
* * *
At sixty knots the Obscure quickly left Nemolab behind. Gabriel stood at the view screen, which had been split into three: sonar, aft, and forward. The Nebula raced ahead of them, climbing the shelf and disappearing into the tunnel that would empty out at the Dakkar Curtain like water through a grate.
Behind the Nebula by several lengths, the Obscure entered the rock tunnel.
For a moment Gabriel was seized by claustrophobia as the rocks swooped all around them. The Obscure sailed steady and true. “Good job, Peter.” Up ahead, past the Nebula, he saw great mountainous columns coming miles off. “You ready for the Curtain?”
“I’m fine, but you should sit down and strap in.” They would have to turn on their sides slightly. Gabriel nodded and got in the captain’s chair, pulling a safety belt over his shoulders.
“Nebula approaching the curtain,” came Nerissa’s voice over the intercom. He could see the giant sub already starting to list to starboard, and he pictured hundreds of sailors hanging on to pipes and handholds, only some of them strapping in. It would be like tilting a building on its side. “Exiting the tunnel in thirty seconds.”
“Nebula is through the Curtain,” Nerissa called. “Open sea and bearing east.”
“Our turn,” Peter said.
“Steady.”
“Brace.” They rolled to starboard, the Obscure turning on its side as the rocky columns rushed toward them.
Volcanic rock slid by outside the windows of the ship, thankfully farther away than the Nebula had to deal with. He counted silently as they went, waiting for the other side.
The rocks opened up, and the sea revealed itself beyond. “We’re clear.”
Excellent.
25
AN HOUR LATER they heard the ships. An American came on the radio.
“All ships prepare for encounter. Time to meet estimated twenty-five minutes.”
Encounter. Gabriel knew that could mean only one thing: attack.
“I found the carrier group.” Peter threw the sonar image up onscreen. Gabriel could see forty ships coming westward toward the beeping tic–marked Platform Island. “And there are the Lodgers.” The Lodgers were a fleet unto themselves, moving fast. A mass close together.
“How long till we catch them?”
“At this speed, ten minutes.”
“Make it five. Full speed.”
“What are you going to do?”
Yeah, what are you going to do?
The only thing to do was try to talk. “Misty, can you open that channel? Can I talk to the navy?”
Misty shrugged. “Sure.” After a moment she said, “Oookay.”
Gabriel walked back to his chair. “This is Gabriel Nemo, Captain, Nemotech Submarine Obscure, calling lead ship, advancing fleet US Navy.”
There was no answer. Gabriel saw shapes far ahead, and Misty magnified them. He saw the undulating tentacles of a Lodger in a Vietnam-era battleship.
“Three minutes to meet them,” Peter reported.
Gabriel nodded. “I say again, US Navy, this is…”
“This is Admiral Waring, Carrier USS Dubois … Obscure, state your purpose.”
He had them. But what to tell them? “We are tracking … a large group of sea creatures, whales, whalelike creatures, headed your way. We wanted to warn you. So you can avoid collision.” He shrugged at Misty.
“We know what they are, Captain Nemo,” came the voice. “They�
��re sinking ships. You know we can’t let that go on.”
“You’re making a mistake!” Gabriel shouted. “If you antagonize these creatures…”
“If you are not controlling them, then you should heave off.”
“We’re not, but listen. They’re basically giant moving oil tankers. If you fire on them, you’ll be sorry.”
“It could be thirty minutes to catch them,” Peter whispered.
“Give me a chance, Admiral. You have to trust me.”
“You know that’s not how it works,” the voice came back. “They’ve sunk ships. There’s no trust here.”
Gabriel turned to the rest. “Thirty minutes?”
Peter nodded. “Just about.”
“Keep moving. No, wait.” Gabriel held up a hand. He was thinking of Nerissa, folding her arms and chastising him. And Misty’s trust that he would do the right thing. Suddenly the right thing seemed clear.
Peter was still waiting. “You want to stop?”
“I just…” He looked from Misty to Peter. “Okay, listen.”
Peter took his hands off the controls and took out his earpiece. Misty leaned against her console.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. We’re riding now directly toward a CBG; that’s a carrier battle group. You’re talking an aircraft carrier, probably a couple of destroyers, and probably a supply ship with advanced sonar. Not to mention helicopters whose only purpose—whose only purpose—is to spot submarines. We replaced the escape dinghy at Nemolab. It can go as far as you like…”
“Gabe.” Peter shook his head.
“Listen.” They had to hear this. “We have only electrical weapons. And we have every reason to think that the navy will fire on us. What I’m telling you is that this is my fight. I can man this ship by myself—it was designed that way.”
“Can you man it well?” Misty asked.
Gabriel sighed. It would be better with them. He could lie to himself and say that he would do better without worrying about them, but the truth was that he did need a crew. But what if they got hurt?
Young Captain Nemo: The Door into the Deep Page 16
