Annalie looked up and down the street, her brow furrowed. “What on earth is keeping Will?”
Liberated
“Nice save, bird,” Will said.
Graham croaked modestly, then gave him a crafty look. “Graham biscuit?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Luckily, he’d remembered to pack the biscuits, although they were now a little smashed. Graham accepted two halves and began nibbling them, holding them in a knobbly but delicate claw, while Will thought about his next move.
It was clear to him now that the Admiralty weren’t giving up. They would do whatever was needed to get to Spinner—and that meant lying low was not going to be enough. He needed to get away. And to do that, he needed the boat.
Will knew the neighbors kept an old bicycle near their hen house. They used it to carry eggs and caged chickens to market. He felt a bit bad about taking it, but it would take him ages to get to the port on foot. He sneaked back into the yard, thought about leaving a note, remembered he didn’t have any paper, gave up on that idea, and set off.
He was almost killed half a dozen times as he pedalled furiously through the crowded streets of Lowtown, then hit the more mechanized traffic of the new town. At last he reached the port district, and began pedalling toward the shipyard, where Admiralty ships took on supplies or performed repairs. This was also where they kept impounded boats. Will pedalled around a curve, and suddenly there it was: huge, fenced, and guarded.
An Admiralty patrol class vessel was in port, taking on supplies. Cases were already lined up on the dock, and there were more supply vans arriving all the time. The guards on the gate stopped every van that came in and out, but maybe there was a way to sneak in on one of them...
He watched for a while, then decided to ride on and see what else he could discover.
He followed the fence past large administrative buildings, the dry dock—currently unoccupied—and beyond it, at the far end, were the impounded boats.
Four boats were moored there. One was the Sunfish.
Will’s heart leaped with joy as he jumped off the bike and raced up to the fence for a look. It was hard to tell from a distance, but the boat didn’t seem to be too badly damaged. He wondered what they’d done to disable it, and how difficult it would be to fix.
“The only question now,” he said to Graham, “is how to get in.”
“Fly?” Graham suggested, with a birdy titter.
The shipyard was surrounded by a chain-link fence. It was high, and there was barbed wire at the top, but it didn’t look all that sturdy. Will waited, watching, to see if there were any guards on patrol. After ten minutes, a guard came by, walked the perimeter, then turned and walked back again.
“If I cut a little hole in the fence, I reckon I could get to the boat without anyone seeing me,” Will suggested.
Graham made a noise that could have meant anything, but probably didn’t mean “great idea!”
“Let’s go and see what’s at the end of the fence,” Will said.
He rode along the length of the fence until it came to a rocky point surrounded by water. Where the land ended, a line of spikes stuck out from the fence preventing anyone from climbing past. It was emblazoned with warning signs:
Admiralty Property
Strictly No Admittance
Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted
Danger! Underwater Security Devices
No Swimming, Fishing, or Recreational Boating
Will read these thoughtfully. “What do you suppose the underwater security devices are?”
“Sharks?” Graham said.
“I reckon it’d be easy enough to swim round the point.”
“Hate wet,” Graham warned.
“You don’t have to swim,” Will said.
He left the bike, grabbed his kitbag, and picked his way over the rocks until he reached the very edge of the point. There was a gap between the large spikes, so he reached through and tossed the kitbag as far round as he could reach onto the Admiralty side. Then he climbed down to the water and jumped in.
The water was cold and his clothes filled instantly, hampering his movements. A current was flowing fast past the point, and he found himself being swept away from the fence and back toward the hazardous waters of the old port. He began to swim determinedly, battling the current until finally he came to land on the Admiralty side of the fence. Wet and gasping, he scrambled ashore and collected the kitbag, then began to pick his way cautiously across the rocks, expecting at any moment that someone might come out and arrest him, but still he saw no one. When he reached the path where the guard did his rounds, he scampered, crouching, toward the berthed boat.
This is too easy, he thought as he slipped in between the boats to where the Sunfish was moored. He swung the kitbag across the gap and onto the deck, and then stepped on board after it. Here on deck at least, everything looked mostly untouched. Some of the hatches and compartments were open or unlatched, but there was none of the wholesale destruction he’d seen back at the workshop. He wondered what he’d find below decks.
What had they done to disable the ship? The masts were intact and so were the sails. A quick glance showed him that the mechanisms for moving and setting the sails were all in place. He checked the wheel and saw everything shipshape here too: nothing damaged, nothing missing.
He looked again for guards. There was no one around. No one keeping an eye on the impounded boats. What would happen, he thought, if I just took it?
He stepped back out on deck and began to cast off the ropes, looking around. Still no one coming. But then he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before: in the distance, in front of the administrative buildings, there was a lookout tower. And out on the tower, guards patrolled with binoculars.
He hurried to cast off the second rope. He didn’t think the guards had seen him yet. But at any moment they might.
Free of its ropes, the boat began to drift and bump.
Will took the wheel. Although the boat traveled largely under sail, it had a little engine that was used for maneuvering in and out of port, getting about if the wind died down, and generally getting out of tight spots—like the one he was in now. Will pressed the start button, and to his absolute joy, the engine turned over and started to spin.
With one last look around, he opened the throttle and set the boat in motion. The engine roared, the water churned, and the boat began to move. Will steered it forward, trying to keep clear of the boats on either side, but there was something oddly sluggish about the steering. He was correcting the heading, but the boat wasn’t responding. With a heavy clunk it clipped the boat on his starboard side, and that collision drove it to port, where it clipped another boat.
That’s when Will realized what they’d done to disable the boat. They’d disconnected the steering.
At the same moment, he heard a siren wail across the water. He looked up at the lookout tower and saw sailors up there with binoculars trained on him. They had spotted him.
There was no time to try and fix the steering. The only thing he could do now was keep going.
The boat was still moving forward but he could feel it getting buffeted by the current that flowed around the point. If the boat turned broadside he was in trouble. Worse, its present heading would take it out into the wide bay of the port and the busy shipping lanes, where he risked being caught, or simply mown down by another vessel. He needed to turn the boat—but how?
On the port side he could see sailors scrambling to a pursuit ship, getting ready to intercept. Their boat was fast, light, maneuverable, and powerful. All too soon, they’d be upon him—unless he could think of something.
An idea came to him. He checked his instruments—wind direction favorable. Quick as he could, he throttled back the engine and darted out to unfurl a sail and haul it up. The sail flew up—the wind caught it—it fill
ed—and the boat began to turn. Dragged on the wind, the boat began to shift to starboard until they were caught by the current that was moving fast out of the port, round the point, and on into the waters that led to the slums and the Eddy.
Will pushed the engine to full throttle and the boat seemed to leap forward in the water. It was a surprisingly powerful engine when you really opened it up. The only problem was, it drained the battery quite fast, so you couldn’t use it for long. Will just hoped it had enough juice to get him where he was going.
He motored along for a while, hugging the shore as closely as he dared. He could not outrun the Admiralty pursuit vessel, but perhaps he could outfox them.
The water he was driving into now, which lay south of the new port, was filled with hazards to shipping. The rocky point he had just cleared marked the end of the new territory, the end of the shipping channel which had been cleared of old wreckage. Beyond lay the remains of the old drowned container yards, with their massive gantries, ship carcasses, and rusting shipping containers; and further south, the ghostly ruins of beachfront hotels and luxury apartment blocks, their expensive ocean views now lapping through their rotting windows, barnacles clustering on their balcony railings.
The water here was immensely dangerous, and for that reason, regular shipping never went anywhere near it; but of course, that didn’t mean no one went into it. The waters off the slums were full of boats carrying cargo that couldn’t go through the main port with its tax collectors and customs inspectors. Spinner wasn’t in the business of smuggling or moving contraband about, but he knew the secret ways in and out, and Will had traveled them with him.
Of course, he had never actually done the steering. And in this case, he didn’t have any steering.
He was traveling as slowly as he dared now, keeping an eye out for telltale choppy or white water that would signal something lying just below the surface—not that there was much he could do if he saw any. He knew that if he could just get across this first stretch of open water, across the top of the old dockyards, he would reach the first of the drowned beachfront hotels, its distinctive stepped-down silhouette still jutting above the waterline, hide there in the maze of old buildings and do something about the steering. Then he could get back to the Eddy, and find Annalie.
The roar of an engine reached him. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the pursuit ship round the point.
There was no help for it. Will opened up the throttle again and went for it. The Sunfish leaped forward. Ahead of him, the hotel loomed. He kept on going, knowing there was nothing he could do if something bobbed up in his way. He glanced behind him. The pursuit ship was gaining on him. He looked ahead once again and saw the water seething white directly in his path. He caught his breath in fear, but as he passed over it a wave rolled through and gave him just enough clearance to squeak over whatever it was that lay beneath. He glanced back—the pursuit ship had slowed down a little and was swerving past obstacles.
The hotel was close now: its shadow made the water look dark and sinister. Will pushed the boat as fast as he could for as long as he dared; with no steering, he had no way to adjust his course, and he risked smashing straight into it.
He took one more glance behind him. The pursuit ship was speeding up again, getting ready to come after him. They had followed a slightly different trajectory to Will and he could see they’d managed to drive into a thicket of old pylons and bits of steel sticking up at odd angles, jagged and rusted, with more lying unseen below. They were weaving through the mess, desperate not to lose sight of him.
Will checked his own course—he was still powering toward the gap between the hotel and the next line of buildings just behind it, and he didn’t want to risk overshooting. The waves were pushing him in toward the shore. He began to be concerned they would push him too far in and he would miss the gap and smash into the next row of buildings.
Then he heard something crunch, and looking back, he saw the pursuit ship stuck on a projecting spar. It had penetrated right through the side of the boat, holding it fast. The swell dropped away, leaving the boat high and dry, the engine exposed, roaring in the air. They weren’t going anywhere.
Hardly daring to believe his luck, Will turned back to watch where he was going. The walls of the hotel loomed up in front of him, the broken windows yawning dark and terrifying. He pushed the engines into reverse; the water boiled around him; the waves slapping between the buildings smacked at the boat; he slowed to a crawl, but still nearly took out her portside on the ragged hotel wall. Gradually, slowly, the Sunfish came to a halt in the dank, slimy shadows of the street behind the ruined hotel.
Will switched off the engine and took a deep breath. He’d escaped! Time to reconnect the steering and find his sister.
The boat thief
A harsh squawk made Annalie jump. She looked up, and saw Graham circling down toward her. “About time!” she said, hopping to her feet. “I thought they must’ve got you for sure. Where’s Will?”
“Skeleton Stairs,” Graham said.
Annalie stared at him for a moment, then said, “Oh no!” and broke into a flat run. Essie had to scamper to keep up with her.
“What’s wrong?” Essie gasped as she ran.
“If he’s at the Skeleton Stairs,” Annalie said, “it means he’s got a boat.”
They ran all the way round the Eddy, the full length of the quay, until they reached the very end, where the Skeleton Stairs descended to the water.
There, waiting just offshore, was the Sunfish. Standing at the wheel, jiggling with impatience, was Will.
“I got it!” he shouted as soon as he caught sight of them. “I got the boat back!”
“How?” Annalie shouted, pausing at the top of the stairs.
“How do you think?” Will said triumphantly.
Annalie groaned. She started climbing down the green, slimy stairs, as quickly as she dared. When she was at the bottom, she jumped onto the deck. Essie began to descend more cautiously after her, and Graham flew up and perched at the top of the mast.
“You stole the boat?”
“It’s not stealing if you already own it.”
“Bet the Admiralty aren’t going to see it that way,” Annalie said.
Will’s triumph was turning to irritation. “What would you have done? Leave it there to be burnt or sold? It’s not like they were ever going to give it back to us.”
“Before this we still had a chance,” Annalie said. “But now you’ve broken into the Admiralty Shipyard and taken an impounded vessel. Now we’re criminals too.”
Will’s face closed. “Not you. Just me.”
“Will—”
“None of this has anything to do with you, anyway. You can go back to school. It’s like Old Truman said—you’re one of theirs now.”
“I am not one of theirs!” Annalie shouted, fury sparking.
“It’s not like you ever cared much about the boat anyway.”
“That’s not true!”
“You only ever cared about books. The boat was always my thing, mine and Spinner’s. Now I’ve got it back, and I’m going to take it to him.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Yep.”
“You’re going to sail this boat, alone, to the Moon Islands?”
“Yes.”
“How are you planning to sleep?”
Will folded his arms. “I’ll work something out.”
“Do you know how to set the course? Read the charts?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“How hard can it be?”
“Quite hard, actually,” Annalie said. “That’s why it was always my job.”
Two pairs of dark, determined eyes drilled into each other, neither one willing to back down.
“You can say whatever you like,” Will snapped. “I’m goin
g and you can’t stop me.”
“You won’t make it by yourself,” Annalie said.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Will shouted, pushed beyond endurance. “You always think you know better than me, but you don’t. Not about this. I know how to sail this boat and I’m going to the Moon Islands to find Spinner.”
Before Annalie could argue any further, an ear-splitting electric squeal interrupted them, and then a voice spoke through a loudhailer. “Attention, unauthorized vessel!”
The voice was coming from above them. Annalie looked up and saw an Admiralty officer and two sailors looking down at them from the top of the stairs. The officer had the loudhailer; the sailors were both armed. “Step away from the wheel and prepare to be boarded!”
Annalie looked at Will, standing at the wheel. Will looked back at her. At once it was quite clear to both of them what was going to happen next.
Annalie leaped for the ropes and cast off, and Will slammed on the engine. Once more, the Sunfish leaped forward.
“Switch off your engines now, or we’ll fire!” said the voice through the loudhailer.
“They wouldn’t shoot at kids, would they?” Annalie said.
Will was too busy steering to answer.
A shot, savagely loud, blasted over their heads, and the children ducked. It didn’t seem to hit anything.
“Warning shot,” Will guessed.
“Have they got a boat in the water?” Annalie asked. “Can they come after us?”
“They lost one chasing me before. But I’m sure they’ve got more.”
More shots rang out; the bullets whizzed into the water around the rear of the boat, but one or two struck. “I think they’re trying to take out the steering,” Will said.
The Flooded Earth Page 8
