Sunker's Deep

by Lian Tanner

  ‘Try again,’ he snapped, and as Gilly tapped out the futile message, he pressed his eye to the periscope.

  All Sunker children knew the tale of the Hungry Ghosts off by heart.They’d heard it from Granfer Trout, who was the oldest of all the old salts on Rampart, and had no duties at all except to eat, sleep and tell stories.

  Three hundred years before, a horde of Ghosts had escaped from the darkness of Hell and invaded the Up Above. These ghosts had bellies as big as mountains! They were always hungry, and their favourite food was machines.They ate automobiles, trains and omnibuses; steamships, rockets and flying machines. And when that didn’t satisfy them, they gobbled down the people who invented the machines, and the people who used them.

  Anyone who tried to stop the Hungry Ghosts was killed and eaten. Nowhere in the Up Above was safe. And so, Presser Surgeon Lin Lin and her husband, First Adm’ral Cray, built a fleet of giant submersibles and took to the Undersea, along with family, friends, and a hundred waterproof boxes of surgeon papers.

  Things were fearfully hard for that first generation. They weren’t used to being crammed into such small spaces, sharing bunks and bumping into their neighbours whenever they turned around. But they gritted their teeth and stayed. And it was only at night, with the fleet running on the surface, renewing air and batteries, that they gave in to their homesickness and stood on the outer decks straining their eyes to see the land from which they were exiled.

  Sharkey couldn’t imagine feeling homesick for terra. The Undersea was the only world he’d ever known. Like all the Sunkers, he ate mussels, oysters, seaweed and fish, cooked and raw. His clothes were made from sea silk, and any metal he needed was mined from the ocean floor and smelted in one of the onboard workshops.

  Life was still dangerous, of course, and smelly, and either too hot or too cold, depending on the season. The water from the distillers always tasted of oil, the air was usually a little stale, and over the centuries, most of the submersibles had been destroyed by storms or rust or accidents, until only huge Rampart and tiny Claw were left.

  But no one complained. It was what they were used to, and besides, it was a hundred times safer than the Up Above. In all those years, the Sunkers had seen the Hungry Ghosts’ skimmers from afar any number of times. But the Ghosts had never seen the Sunkers.

  Until now.

  The skimmers were furling their sails, revealing immense structures on their decks. Sharkey had a bad feeling about those structures – which worsened when he saw rocks being loaded onto them, and figures hauling at a winch, turning it tighter and tighter.

  ‘Looks like some sort of catapult,’ he muttered.

  ‘Still no answer,’ said Gilly.‘What now, sir?’

  Sharkey’s mind was awhirl. Would the rocks damage Rampart? Maybe not! They’d lose some of their force when they hit the water, so maybe they’d bounce off the hull, leaving nothing but a few dents.

  But then the first catapult fired its load – and a moment later the children heard a muffled whoomp, like an undersea avalanche. Claw shuddered. A gout of water spurted upward.

  Sharkey groaned.‘They’ve got explosives!’

  The second catapult fired. And the third. Then the first again! Whoomp. Whoomp. Whoomp. Explosives tumbled into the water all around Rampart.

  ‘Sir?’ said Poddy.‘We’re going to help ’em, aren’t we?’

  Sharkey hesitated. He was horrified by what was happening, but he was also pretty sure that Rampart was doomed – and he wasn’t about to risk his own precious skin for a lost cause. ‘Nay,’ he said.

  The three middies stared at him. He knew what they were thinking. But it’s Ma and Fa they’re attacking, and Granfer Trout and Ripple and Adm’ral Deeps and Presser Surgeon Blue—

  ‘It’s not going to help anyone if we get eaten as well,’ he said.‘If Rampart goes down, we’ll be the last of the Sunkers. We’ll be the only ones who know where the boxes are, and what’s in ’em. We’ve got a duty to stay alive.’

  It sounded good, which didn’t surprise him. His mind was always calculating, even in an emergency. Always thinking about what things sounded like, and how to survive, and how to fool people so that he came out the other end looking like a hero.

  The three middies nodded. Poddy’s eyes were brimming, but Sharkey knew she wouldn’t cry. Sunkers hardly ever cried. They just followed orders and made the best of things.

  He put his good eye to the periscope again.‘Rampart must be trying to get away,’ he said, keeping his voice flat and sensible. ‘But the Ghosts are pointing to her – the skimmers have caught up—’

  He stopped as a roil of water, like the breath of a dying whale, broke the surface. The skimmers rocked from side to side. The Ghosts rushed to re-aim their catapults.

  ‘Rampart’s surfacing!’

  And now at last the comm began to work. First came Adm’ral Deeps’s call sign. Then the quick, desperate message.

  Rampart holed and taking on water. Abandoning ship. Position fifty-one degrees twenty-five minutes north, four degrees twenty-two minutes west. Save yourselves. Go! That’s an order!

  None of middies moved.

  Sharkey snapped at them. ‘You heard the adm’ral! All ahead two-thirds! Ten degrees down angle!’

  At that, Cuttle, Poddy and Gilly rushed to their posts. ‘All ahead two-thirds, aye sir!’

  ‘Ten degrees down angle, aye sir!’

  As Claw’s bow sank, Sharkey took one last look through the periscope. He thought he saw one of the giant bubbles break from its moorings and blow towards Claw . . . and then the sea washed over the glass, and the Up Above, with all its hatred and destruction, was gone.

  ‘Make your depth sixty feet.’ Sharkey stood over the helm, snapping out orders and watching the depth gauge. No one spoke except to acknowledge his instructions, but the air in the little submersible was thick with grief.

  There’ll be no survivors, thought Sharkey. The Ghosts’ll get ’em, every one.Which makes us the last of the Sunkers.

  ‘Steady on sixty feet, sir!’ said Gilly.

  Sharkey nodded.‘Adjust trim. Heading east-sou’-east.’

  He sounded completely calm. But if he was good at hiding his feelings from his crew, he couldn’t hide them from himself. His parents had died two years ago, killed in the accident that sank Retribution, but his aunties and uncles and cousins were still on Rampart and he couldn’t imagine a world without them.

  He thought of what it must have cost Adm’ral Deeps to abandon the giant submersible and let it sink to the bottom. He thought of the Hungry Ghosts, who had eaten so much and were still not satisfied—

  To port, something tumbled down through the water.

  Sharkey’s first thought was that they were under attack, but then he saw the billowing cloth and the thrashing legs. Someone had escaped from the Ghosts!

  ‘Hard port rudder!’ he shouted.

  Claw turned quickly, though not quickly enough for Sharkey. Those frantic legs touched the seabed and tried to push off, but the cloth had snagged on something and wouldn’t come free.

  Sharkey threw himself into the retrieval seat and grabbed the lever.‘All stop!’

  He pulled the lever back quickly, and the mechanical claw shot out towards the frantic figure, knocking the box out of the side airlock and probably losing it forever. But there was no time for regret. No time for caution, either, or for worrying about bruised flesh or broken bones.

  ‘Stay still!’ he hissed, but the figure struggled harder.

  Bubbles swirled around the little claw, and so did sand. It was almost impossible for Sharkey to see what he was doing.The talons closed around something. He hoped it was the figure; he wouldn’t get a second chance at this.

  Behind him, Poddy opened and shut valves, compensating for the weight of the little claw and whatever it held. Sharkey pushed the lever forward and the figure was hauled back into Claw’s side airlock.

  ‘Seal outer hatch!’ he snapped. ‘Blow water! Unseal i
nner hatch!’

  He scrambled for the side airlock, which was aft of the chart table. He flung the inner hatch open and dragged the limp, sodden figure into the control room.

  It was a girl, her eyes closed, her hair in pale strings around her face. She coughed, and a stream of salt water gurgled out of her mouth.

  Sharkey backed away from her in horror, his ruined eye aching behind its patch. In that moment of confusion, he’d thought he was saving one of his cousins. But the girl who coughed and puked on the deck was a complete stranger.

  He had rescued a Hungry Ghost and brought her onto Claw.

  When the telegraph device started chattering out a new message, Petrel almost jumped out of her skin with relief.‘It’s Dolph!’

  But it wasn’t.

  ‘That’s not ship code,’ rumbled Krill. He’d been pacing up and down, his face thunderous, ever since the message from the Oyster came through. Now he stopped and glared at the device.‘Nor is it Cook code.’

  ‘It’s not any sort of code,’ said Petrel, her shoulders slumping.

  The telegraph fell silent. But a few minutes later it tapped again.

  ‘I believe it is a code,’ said the captain. ‘And I have nearly enough information to calculate—’ He listened. ‘Yes, there are numbers. Fifty-one degrees twenty-five minutes north, four degrees twenty-two minutes west.’

  ‘That’s a chart readin’, shipmates,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘Someone out there’s sendin’ their position to someone else.’

  The members of the stranded company stared at each other. ‘But that is impossible,’ said Fin. ‘They would need another telegraph device, would they not? And such things are unknown outside the Oyster.’

  ‘Someone must know about ’em.’ Krill ran his fingers through his beard.‘Cap’n, where’s fifty-one thingummy? It’s not close enough to do us any good, I know that.’

  ‘It is two hundred and seven miles, sixty-five yards and two feet north-east of here,’ replied the captain. ‘Which puts it forty-three miles off the coast in the Nornuckle Sea. Near the Banks of Kell, which are famous for their fishing.’

  ‘A fishing boat would not have a telegraph device,’ said Fin, firmly. ‘No one would have a telegraph device. The Devouts would have found it and destroyed it years ago. You do not understand how clever they are, how persistent.They even found the Oyster in the end!’

  Krill started pacing again. ‘But they didn’t destroy us, so maybe they’re not as clever as you think, lad. Or maybe there’s a ship out there that’s even better at hiding than we were. But like I said, it won’t do us any good, not two hundred miles and more away.’

  ‘Two hundred and seven miles is not far, not for Mister Smoke and Missus Slink,’ said the captain.‘They could run that distance in—’

  ‘No!’ said Petrel. And then they were all looking at her, and she couldn’t say what she was thinking – that Mister Smoke and Missus Slink had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember; that without the Oyster’s deck under her feet she already felt as if she’d lost a big chunk of herself, and now here was the cap’n trying to slice off another chunk and send it north!

  So all she said was, ‘I don’t think we should split up like that. Sorry, Cap’n, but it doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.’

  ‘All the same, he is right,’ said Fin. ‘We must get back to the Oyster before Albie goes south and leaves us behind.Which means we need a boat.’

  ‘Course we do,’ said Petrel. ‘But there must be one closer than two hundred miles!’

  ‘I thought there’d be boats all along this coast,’ said Krill,‘but I ain’t seen a single one.’

  ‘The Devouts have probably confiscated them for their own use,’ said Fin.

  Krill peered at the captain from under his heavy brows. ‘How long would it take the rats to get to this other ship?’

  ‘I cannot give you an exact time,’ said the captain. ‘If they keep to the coast, they will have to pass very close to the Citadel, which will slow them down.And then they will somehow have to get from the shore to the ship. My best estimate is twenty-six hours, or perhaps a little more. That is, if the ship does not move from its current position. How long will Squid and Dolph hold out against Albie, if they do not hear from us?’

  ‘As long as they can,’ said Krill gruffly.‘That daughter of mine won’t believe me dead until she sees my bones laid out in a row, and even then she’d probably tell me to get up and stop lazing around.’

  ‘Then Smoke and Slink should go now,’ the captain said.

  ‘No!’ Petrel couldn’t believe that they were going to do it. She tried to think of sensible reasons to keep the two rats with them.‘What if they can’t get from the shore to the ship? What if the weather’s bad? What if the crew’s hostile or mad or – or just plain nasty, like Albie?’

  Mister Smoke winked up at her. ‘Don’t you worry about us, shipmate.We’ll find a way.’

  ‘But what do we do in the meantime?’That was Fin. ‘We cannot stay here, not with the Devouts on their way.’

  ‘We will go up the coast too,’ said the captain, ‘but at a slower rate.We will look for villagers who want to learn about water pumps and mechanical ploughs. We will search for the Song. And when Mister Smoke and Missus Slink find the boat—’

  ‘If they find it,’ said Petrel quickly,‘which I don’t see how they can.’

  ‘—they can send us a telegraph to get our new position.’

  Fin winced. ‘We will be travelling towards the Citadel.There will be spies and informers everywhere.’

  ‘Then we will have to be wary,’ said the captain. ‘Mister Smoke, Missus Slink, are you ready?’

  It was going to happen, and there was nothing Petrel could do to stop it. She wanted to pick up the two rats and hold them so tightly that they couldn’t go anywhere, but she knew she mustn’t.

  Her hand touched each grey head, as light as a snowflake.‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye, shipmate,’ said Mister Smoke. ‘We’ll come back.’

  ‘Don’t worry about us, girl,’ said Missus Slink.

  And with that, the two of them turned tail and dashed off. Petrel watched them go, wondering if she would ever see them again.

  THE HUNGRY GHOST

  The four Sunker children stood well away from the Hungry Ghost, studying her warily.They half expected her to leap to her feet and attack them, but once she’d finished puking she just lay curled up on the deck, with her eyes closed and her fists clamped under her chin.

  Which was a nuisance.

  Claw was basically a metal tube, no more than twenty-five paces from one end to the other, and every inch of her was packed with instruments, valves, pipes and pumps. Her control room, in the bow, was really just a stool set in front of an array of dials and switches. Her engine room, in the stern, was hot and cramped, and so was her little workshop. Her batteries, with a single bunk perched on top of them, butted up against the dive wheels, which in turn nudged the tiny galley and the chart table. And in the middle of it all, so that everyone had to breathe in as they edged past, was the periscope station and the ladder that led up to the conning tower.

  Even without a Ghost on board, there was hardly room to move.

  ‘Maybe the salt water hurt her,’ whispered Gilly. ‘Maybe she’s dying.’

  ‘Ghosts can’t die,’ said Sharkey.

  He wasn’t sure if that was true, but Gilly nodded seriously and said, ‘She might sort of melt, though, sir. If we leave her alone. She might disappear.’

  Sharkey hoped his cousin was right. He had no idea what to do with the Ghost. Granfer Trout had been wrong about ‘bellies as big as mountains’. Apart from her white hair and pinky-brown skin, the girl looked almost human, and Sharkey had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t.

  I should shove her back out the airlock, he thought. But he didn’t want to touch her again. Didn’t dare touch her, if he was being truthful with himself. No matter
what she looked like, she was a Ghost, and Ghosts were dangerous.

  So in the end, he left her where she was, with Gilly standing guard.

  Early next morning, they returned to the scene of Rampart’s sinking. Sharkey didn’t want to go, but he gave the order all the same. If it’d been Claw down there on the seabed instead of Rampart, Adm’ral Deeps would’ve gone back to check. It’d look bad if Sharkey did anything else.

  They surfaced forty-five minutes before sunclimb, with the periscope showing a dark, overcast sky and no sign of skimmers or giant bubbles. Sharkey ordered the diesels started, to recharge the batteries and air. Then he edged past the Ghost.

  Right up to that moment, he hadn’t been sure about leaving the middies alone while he went to check on Rampart. But apart from flinching when the diesels roared to life, the Ghost still hadn’t moved. Maybe she IS dying, thought Sharkey. Or maybe she’s just too sick to hurt us. Wish Presser Surgeon Blue was here; I bet he’d know.

  He beckoned Cuttle and Poddy. ‘Watch her carefully,’ he said, over the clatter of the diesels.

  ‘Aye, sir!’

  ‘If she moves, call Gilly – she’ll be up on deck, keeping watch.’

  The two middies saluted and took up guard positions.

  With a weight-belt and a waterproof lantern slung over his arm, Sharkey climbed the ladder inside the conning tower. Then he unsealed the two hatches and stepped out onto the small flat deck, just two feet above the waterline. Gilly followed him.

  The sea was calm and the horizon was a dark line. Sharkey screwed up his good eye and said,‘You’ve got the conn while I’m gone.’

  Gilly saluted.‘I’ve got the conn, aye sir!’

  ‘Keep an eye on Poddy and Cuttle. Make sure the Ghost doesn’t try anything. And watch out for skimmers and bubbles.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Sharkey took off his sea-silk pants and jerkin and hung them over one of the stay wires. He undid his eye patch and tucked it into the pocket of his pants. Then, with his back to his cousin, he strapped on the weight-belt with the waterproof lantern attached, slipped out of his smallclothes and jumped over the side.