Icebreaker

by Lian Tanner

  “First sensible thing I’ve ’eard all mornin’,” muttered Mister Smoke.

  But Albie glared at the Head Cook. “You trying to sound reasonable there, Krill? Fancy yourself as wiser than the rest of us, do you?”

  “Wouldn’t be hard.” Krill showed his teeth. “And here’s my wisdom. I say we throw the boy back where he came from, before he brings trouble upon us.”

  “I agree,” said Orca, and the black and white feathers of office, sewn to her jacket, fluttered in the breeze.

  “No,” whispered Petrel.

  “Put him back on the ice,” continued Krill, “or kill him and throw him to the Maw. It’s the only sensible thing to do. Even you, with your mind rotted by grease and fumes, gotta see that, Albie.”

  Albie’s scars bristled and he said, loudly, “I’ve never bothered listening to the Cooks before. I wonder why that is? P’raps—”

  Krill tried to interrupt, but Albie was used to making himself heard over the relentless thump thump thump of the engines. “P’raps it’s because Cooks ain’t got no more brain than a wooden spoon!”

  His face split in a vicious grin, and his fellow Engineers—men, women and bratlings—roared with laughter. Krill flushed, and raised the skillet as if he was going to throw it.

  “Ooh, he’s got a weapon on the foredeck,” shouted Skua, and he made a great show of hiding behind Albie. “Ooh, I’m scared! Save me, Da!”

  The laughter grew louder. Krill shook his skillet at the red-haired boy and muttered a string of threats.

  “Be quiet!” shouted Orca over the racket. “For once, Krill is making sense. We must talk, Albie, the three of us.”

  She strode forward, waving the rest of the crew back to their duties. Second Officer Crab didn’t move.

  “I should be part of this discussion, First,” he said stiffly. “It is my right.”

  “No, Mister Crab.”

  “But I am Second Off—”

  “No, Mister Crab!”

  “But I—”

  “Are you a bratling that has to be told the same thing over and over again?” snarled Orca. “Go inside at once!”

  Crab’s shoulders twitched, and his lips pressed together so hard that they lost all color. But he followed the rest of the crew inside without further protest. The men and women of the fishing shift turned back to their tasks. In the lifeboat, Petrel crouched as still as a bollard, hoping the three leaders would not see her.

  “This stranger,” said Orca, as soon as the deck was more or less clear, “will not remain on my ship. Get rid of him, Albie.”

  There was a sour taste in Petrel’s mouth. Don’t listen to her, Uncle, she thought.

  “It’s only common sense,” rumbled Krill. He nodded towards the fishing shift. “What do they do if they pull up something that’s all bones and bile? Why, they chuck it straight in the digester, that’s what. Get rid of the boy.”

  “Get rid of him,” said Orca, “or face the consequences.”

  Albie shook his head in mock sorrow. “You two can give me all the orders you want, and it won’t make a shred of difference. The captain’s the only one I take orders from. You get the captain telling me to throw the boy back and I’ll do it, quick smart.”

  Petrel’s breath hissed between her teeth. Like the crew’s outdoor clothes, the story of the Oyster’s captain had been passed down from generation to generation, and patched and mended until no one could remember what it used to look like. Some folk said there had never been a captain. Others said he had been killed two hundred years ago, when the crew split into warring tribes and the ship’s log was burned.

  But most folk, including Petrel, believed that the captain was merely asleep, and that one day, when they needed him most, he would wake up. No one had ever seen him, of course, and there were endless arguments over where on the ship his sleeping body might lie. But they knew he was there somewhere, and it comforted them.

  Petrel suspected that neither Orca nor Albie believed in the sleeping captain. Krill did, however, and he bridled at the Chief Engineer’s words.

  “You think you’re so clever,” said Krill. “Captain’s not going to wake up for a storm in a soup bowl like this. He’s sleeping till a real disaster comes, and you know it. But I tell you what, you keep that boy and I’ll cut off your rations. See how pleased your folk are with you when they ain’t got enough to eat.”

  “We didn’t have enough to eat all winter dark,” replied Albie. “And what little we got was barely edible.” He jerked a thumb at the fishing shift. “But toothies’ll be running soon—can’t be more than a day or so away—and you can’t stop us catching them.”

  “We won’t cook ’em for you!”

  “Then we’ll eat ’em raw!”

  The two men stood nose to nose, the breath streaming out of them in angry puffs. Above their heads the wind turbines cranked, and the song of the wind fiddles wove through their rage.

  “Ice and fog, Albie!” snapped Orca. “You’re as stubborn as a glacier. But it won’t do you any good.” And she spun on her heel and marched away. Krill followed her.

  Albie spat thoughtfully over the rail and shouted to one of the Engineers on the fishing shift. “Any sign of the toothies, shipmate?”

  The woman shook her head. “It’s just tiddlers, Chief. Good for bait and not much else.”

  “Hmm,” said Albie, and he fell silent.

  Petrel didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even breathe. It was a dangerous thing to catch the Chief Engineer’s attention; she had known that for years. Her mam had been Albie’s sister, but that fact did not soften him towards Petrel. If anything, it made him worse.

  Beside her, Mister Smoke cocked a cautious ear, then nodded. Petrel let out the breath she’d been holding. Her uncle was leaving at last.

  She waited until he had disappeared inside the ship, then she climbed out of the lifeboat and crept after him.

  She knew that Albie mistrusted strangers as much as the rest of the crew. She also knew that if he saw a chance to annoy Orca, he would take it. Which meant that he might hang on to the stranger, or he might throw him back to the ice, and there was no telling which way he would turn, or when.

  If Petrel wanted to see the frozen boy, she had better do it soon.

  CHAPTER 4

  AS HARMLESS AS A SEAL PUP

  When the boy woke a second time, his head was clear.

  I am on the ship, he reminded himself.

  He lay very still, his eyes flicking from one side of the small room to the other. He was in a sort of rope cot suspended from the ceiling. The walls around him were a patchwork of rusty iron, and a single light burned above the door. Somewhere nearby, the machines rumbled and thumped in a steady rhythm.

  The boy knew all about machines. They weaken us. They make people lazy and soft and corrupt; they steal our souls …

  The mere thought filled him with revulsion. But it set him thinking too. Because if the machines were so close to where he lay, the demon must also be close.

  His heart raced, and he remembered the night, four months ago, when he had been dragged from his dormitory and brought before the Inner Circle of Devouts.

  At first he had thought he was in trouble. He had stood barefooted on marble floors beneath the Citadel spire, surrounded by men in silken robes. Men who ruled the world. Men who did not seem to notice he was there.

  But then, suddenly, Brother Thrawn had loomed up in front of him, looking so severe that the boy braced himself for a whipping at the very least, and perhaps even a stint in the punishment cells.

  Instead, to his astonishment, the Circle’s leader praised him. “You are the best Initiate we have had for years,” Brother Thrawn said in his flat voice, “and we have a task for you. A mission.”

  The boy’s heart thumped, but he knew better than to show any emotion. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor and murmured, “Thank you, Brother.”

  “It is the culmination,” said Brother Thrawn, “of three hundred years’ wo
rk.” He cleared his throat, and all conversation in the marble room ceased. “You have heard us speak of the demon?”

  A prickle ran down the boy’s spine. “Yes, Brother. The Abomination.”

  Brother Thrawn nodded approval. “We have always suspected that the creature escaped the Great Cleansing, along with its imps. But we did not know how it escaped, or where it had concealed itself. Generations of Devouts have sought the truth. They have scoured the world, searching for hidden documents. They have traced rumors and folk tales. They have risked their lives, just as you will soon risk yours.”

  The boy kept his face blank. But inside he was glowing with excitement. This was his chance to win a Name and become part of the Circle! Risk his life? He would do it a hundred times over for such an opportunity!

  “And now,” continued Brother Thrawn, “the courage of the searchers has been rewarded at last. One of them has found an old sea chart. Another has found a diagram. A third has found a hidden diary. Things that mean nothing if taken separately, but put them together and they tell us all we need to know…”

  There was a sound at the door, and the boy dragged himself back to the present. A man entered—a savage with scars carved into his cheeks and elaborate knots tied in his red beard. The boy sat up quickly, and the rope cot rocked from side to side.

  “So you’re awake,” said the man, dragging a rickety chair up to the cot and sitting down with his legs splayed.

  “Yes,” said the boy, thinking, Now it begins.

  “Good, good,” said the man. “Let’s have some introductions. This ship’s the Oyster. I’m Chief Engineer Albie, and”—he waved a casual hand at the rumbling and thumping on the other side of the door—“I’m the one who keeps that lot running.”

  The boy was astonished that even a savage would confess to such a thing. But he gave no sign of his surprise. “You serve the machines?” he said quietly.

  “Don’t know about serve ’em.” The man laughed. “They serve me, p’raps. Do what I tell ’em most days.”

  Which was almost as bad, as far as the boy could see. Without moving his lips, he whispered the First Discipline under his breath, to protect himself from contamination.

  “That’s me explained,” said Albie, smiling. “Now what about you? Let’s start with your name.”

  “I cannot remember my name,” replied the boy.

  It was the first lie he had told in many, many years. Lying was not permitted in the Citadel—it was on the list of forbidden things, directly above dancing. But lying to savages and demon-worshippers was different. The boy had Brother Thrawn’s express permission to lie for the greater good, to play his part in cleansing the world of evil and returning it to a state of perfection, where all creatures lived in civilized harmony, uncorrupted by machines.

  He had practiced his lies under Brother’s pitiless gaze, until he could say them without flinching.

  “Do not tell them anything at first,” Brother Thrawn had instructed him. “They will not value what comes easily. Make them wait. Make them think you are coming to trust them, and then they will come to trust you. And when you lie, do it well. Do not let us down.”

  The boy must have lied well enough, because Albie nodded and said, “Brain’s addled, no doubt, by the ice. But I expect it’ll come back to you.” He coughed and scratched his chest. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “There’s a bit of boat fever going round and I’ve caught the tail end of it. Let’s try a different question. How did you get on the ice in the first place?”

  “I cannot remember.”

  That was another lie. The boy could recall every moment of his voyage south, with the waves mounting up behind the sailing ship—a ship that had seemed enormous when he first boarded it, but which was now shown to be puny and insignificant. He could remember the wind howling, and the crew battling the elements, and the fighting men of the Circle huddled around the iron stoves, sharpening their axes in anticipation …

  “It’s just,” said Albie, “that we don’t see a lot of strangers down this way. In fact”—and now there was a hardness in his voice—“we don’t ever see strangers. And there’s folk on the Oyster—not just Cooks and Officers, but my own folk—who don’t like it. Suspicious, they are, and I don’t blame ’em. From the look of you, you’re as harmless as a seal pup. But looks aren’t everything. You can understand us wondering, can’t you?”

  “Yes,” said the boy.

  “Good, good,” said Albie, all friendly again. “I expect your memory’ll come back after a bite to eat.”

  And a few minutes later, after sending for some food and assuring the boy that he was among friends, he left.

  The boy immediately climbed from his rope bed and tried the door, but to his immense frustration it was locked. He ate the hard biscuits and the slimy green paste, telling himself that Albie would not keep him confined for much longer. After all, the Chief Engineer had said he was among friends …

  But when Albie came back, several hours later, he asked the same questions. And it was not long before his friendliness gave way to shouting.

  “You must’ve come from somewhere! So tell me again, bratling, how did you end up on that berg?”

  “I do not remember.”

  “Course you don’t. Course you don’t! I should’ve left you there to freeze to death. In fact”—Albie leaned forward, showing his teeth—“it’s not too late even now. Won’t be the same berg, of course, but frozen is frozen, no matter where it happens. Eh? Eh?”

  The boy was not used to loud voices. The Citadel, where he had lived for most of his life, was a place of study and reflection. There were no raised voices, no arguments or foolish emotions. According to Brother Thrawn, emotions were wasteful things. Ignorant people wallowed in them, instead of dedicating themselves to purity and discipline.

  But this man was worse than ignorant. He shouted and swore and smiled and frowned all in one sentence. “Maybe you’re not sure of us; is that it?” he cried. “Well, the feeling’s mutual; we’re not sure of you either, and we won’t be, until you give us a bit more information. You see, I can smell intrigue five decks away”—he tapped the side of his nose, his eyes hard—“and you reek of it. Intrigue and plots—”

  “Wait!” said the boy, judging that the moment had come to reveal a little more of his story. He put his hand to his forehead. “It—it is coming back to me! There was a … a shipwreck—”

  He broke off as the door flew open and a hulking young man with red hair and a few hopeful scrapings of beard entered.

  “Everyone’s talking about the stranger, Da,” said the redhead. “Everyone wants to see him.” He grinned, and jiggled from foot to foot. “I even caught the Nothing girl sneaking round. Taught her a lesson, I did.”

  Albie grunted. “What about Braid and Duff? What are they up to?”

  “Not a peep out of Krill. But word is, Orca’s waiting for us to lower our guard, then she’s gunna hit border three, and try and snatch the stranger.”

  The Chief Engineer stood up. “We’d better move him then, just in case.”

  And the next thing the boy knew, he was being hustled out of the cabin and towards the clanking machines.

  He had thought he was prepared for anything, but still the machines took his breath away. In a daze he stumbled between huge metal hot-smelling things that towered above him and seemed to be made entirely of noise. When he shrank from them, Albie’s son roared with laughter and dragged him closer, until the noise beat around his head like Brother Thrawn’s fists. The boy whispered the First Discipline and tried not to let his horror show.

  No wonder these people are such savages, he thought. They are surrounded by vileness. And these machines are not even the worst of it!

  A pipe hissed at him, as if it could read his mind. The metal grating beneath his feet rattled. Albie’s fingers dug into the boy’s arm, and it was all he could do to keep walking.

  “He didn’t like that, Da,” said Albie’s son, grinning. “Didn’t
like our babies. Didn’t appreciate their little song.”

  Albie did not answer. He was muttering to himself, “Put him in the brig, I reckon. Orca won’t get him out of there.”

  The boy jogged between the Chief Engineer and his son, trying to clear his mind of the dreadful machines so that he could take note of his surroundings. They were passing through some sort of living quarters now, with cots and nets and rope ladders hanging down in every direction, and the stink of fish oil and unwashed bodies.

  People were chattering in groups. Between them, skinny half-naked children scrambled up and down the rope ladders, squealing at the tops of their voices. Babies chortled and cried. It was a different sort of racket from the machines, but the boy’s lip curled in disgust.

  Look at them, he thought. What do they know of discipline and virtue? They have machines on their ship! They have a demon! And do they care? Are they trying to rid themselves of these impurities? No, of course not. Brother Thrawn was right; they are savages and cowards, and they deserve to die.

  Albie pushed through the crowd, lifting rope cots out of the way with a brawny arm and greeting any questions with a grunt.

  His son, however, smirked and sang out at the top of his voice, “Here’s the stranger, shipmates, see? Ain’t he a feeble-looking thing? Hardly worth fighting Orca for. And no use talking to him, neither, ’cos he’s a dummy.”

  “You shut your gob, Skua,” said Albie mildly, “or I’ll shut it for you.”

  Skua fell silent. But his words had done their damage. Before the boy had taken another three paces he was surrounded by gaping mouths and wide, astonished eyes. There were too many people and they pressed him too close, picking at his clothes with fingers that stank of fish. Some of the smaller children began to cry, as if the boy were the strange one. As if he were the demon-lover.

  After the horror of the machines, it was almost too much for him. He wanted to push them back, to shout at them, Do not stare! Get away from me!

  His training saved him. He reminded himself that Initiates of the Circle did not shout. Initiates of the Circle were like the Citadel spire, rising clean and superior into the sky, even while the storms of the ignorant raged below. The boy gritted his teeth and bent his mind to the Spire Contemplation, which had never failed him yet. Before long his thoughts began to trace the familiar shape, and the people around him faded a little, as if he had set them behind glass.