Sunker's Deep

by Lian Tanner

  ‘Stories? Songs?’ Cuttle looked uncertainly at the sleeping Sharkey.‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘It’s either that or dancing,’ said Krill, ‘and I don’t reckon anyone except me’d survive the latter, not in a space like this.’

  Rain laughed, and Krill winked at her. ‘You volunteering to go first, bratling?’

  ‘Me?’ squeaked Rain.‘No!’

  Fin leaned forward.‘Rain says the Devouts returned from the ice a month ago. And Brother Thrawn is still alive, I did not kill him after all! It was he who ordered the use of the balloons, and the throwers and bombs. That is right, is it not, Rain?’

  The girl’s laughter stopped abruptly.‘Um— Yes.’

  ‘If I had not seen them with my own eyes,’ continued Fin, ‘I would not have believed it. Brother Thrawn was always strictly against such things, even though they are not quite machines.’

  ‘He— He was changed by his injury,’ said Rain. ‘But—’

  ‘That’s not the sort of story I meant,’ said Krill, interrupting. ‘I want something with a happy ending. How about you, Mister Smoke? You got a story for us?’

  ‘Why do you call him Mister Smoke?’ asked Cuttle. ‘He’s the adm’ral.’

  Krill raised his bushy eyebrows.‘You been promoted, Mister Smoke?’

  The rat ignored him. ‘When you’ve lived as long as I ’ave, shipmate,’ he said to Cuttle, ‘you accumulate names like barnacles on a ship’s bottom. But they don’t mean much. It’s what’s inside that counts.’

  Then, before anyone could ask another question, he leapt down from Petrel’s knee, straightened his whiskers, struck a dramatic pose and cried,‘I’ll tell you a story, shipmates. A story about a place so cold that it can freeze the blood in your veins. So cold that your breath turns to ice as it comes out your mouth. I’ll tell you the story of the Oyster . . .’

  But Petrel was no longer listening. All she could hear were five words, ringing like a ship’s bell in her ears. Like a message banged on the pipes, so loud that she couldn’t ignore it.

  It’s what’s inside that counts.

  Ever since the shore party had walked towards that first village, Petrel had felt lost – as if the only time she could be happy, the only time she could be herself, was on the Oyster.

  But now she wondered if that was right.

  For the first time in weeks she took herself back to that life-changing moment on the icebreaker’s bridge, immediately after the battle with the Devouts, when she had finally had enough of being Nothing Girl. She remembered the heat inside her.The noise that wouldn’t be silenced.The words that had burst out of her.

  I’m not nothing. Never was, never will be. I’m Petrel. Quill’s daughter. Seal’s daughter too!

  Surely those words still counted. Surely it was all still there inside her. The heat, the noise – and the Oyster, if she could only find it.

  She closed her eyes and imagined herself walking those familiar passageways. Imagined it so hard and fierce that before long she could almost see the rivets and bolts and patches of rust, and feel the clank of the engines beneath her feet.

  It’s all there, she thought. It’s inside me. I’m not nothing. Never was, never will be, no matter WHERE I am.

  It didn’t entirely fix things, but it made her feel more solid, as if she could think about what was coming with a clear head and a clear heart.

  And so, as Mister Smoke’s story wound around her, she set herself to working out how she could get a message to Squid and Dolph.

  Sharkey lay under the chart table with his eye closed, pretending he was still asleep. He didn’t believe half of what he heard. All that stuff about solid ocean and freezing blood was as false as his own stories.

  They’re just trying to impress the middies, he told himself.

  He heard Cuttle laugh, and winced. None of his crew had laughed like that since Rampart was lost. It should’ve made him happy to hear it, but it didn’t. It made him feel left out, and at odds with everyone.

  He tried to summon the fury that had got him through the rudder change. I should get up, he thought. Remind ’em who’s cap’n of this boat.

  Except then the laughter would stop.

  So in the end he didn’t move. He just lay there, feeling useless, and wondering who he was if he wasn’t the most important person on board.

  I AM NOT LIKE THE HUNGRY GHOSTS!

  When Rain was little, her mama used to sing a song about persistence. Rain thought she had forgotten the words years ago, but now a bit of the chorus came back to her.

  . . . and wa-ter

  Can wear away a stone.

  Petrel was the water. She had been arguing with Sharkey ever since he got up, turning things this way and that, trying to convince him to send someone back to the Oyster.

  ‘So when we get to this bay,’ she said, ‘the one the cap’n’s picked out, Gilly and Cuttle ain’t going ashore with us, right?’

  Since Poddy had been captured, Sharkey had started changing for the better. Unfortunately, having these new people on board seemed to have changed him back again. He heaved one of those long-suffering sighs that made it sound as if he was the only person in the world with any sense, and said, ‘I told you. They’re going to sit out to sea, where they won’t be caught.’ He nodded at the box in Petrel’s hands. ‘And bring Claw back in when we send ’em a comm.’

  Rain breathed in the stink of the little submersible, wondering if she was brave enough for what was coming.

  I have to be, she thought, and she glanced sideways at Petrel. Mister Smoke’s story last night had ended with a description of the Devouts’ bloodthirsty attack on the Oyster, and how it was mostly Petrel who had foiled it.

  I have to be as brave as she is, thought Rain.

  ‘They’re gunna sit out there doing nothing?’ asked the girl she admired.

  ‘There’s still repair work to do,’ replied Sharkey.

  Petrel screwed up her face, as if she was thinking. ‘Tell you what, Cap’n Sharkey, how about one of us stays with ’em?’

  Sharkey began to speak, but Petrel cut him off.‘You see, we’ve worked out a good solid plan for rescuing your friends, and I reckon it’ll do the trick, especially if we can get the masks right, and if Mister Smoke can smuggle ’em into the re-education camp. But no one’s said anything about what we do with all these Sunkers after we rescue ’em.’

  ‘We can—’

  ‘Now I’m sure you’ve thought about it long and hard, and you’ve prob’ly got something clever up your sleeve that you ain’t told us about yet—’

  Sharkey reddened.

  He has nothing up his sleeve, thought Rain. He has not thought any further than getting Poddy away from the whippings. But Petrel is right. He cannot take anyone else onto Claw. Even now there is hardly room to breathe.

  She squeezed closer to the chart table, pretending to study one of the maps. Cuttle was at the helm, and Fin and Krill were crammed up next to the batteries. Behind them, the silver boy was asking Gilly about Sunker songs. But each time she sang a line or two, he shook his head and said, ‘No, that is not it.Try another one, if you please.’

  ‘Rain’s the one you should talk to,’ said Gilly. ‘She knows lots of songs.’

  Petrel’s voice rose above all the others. ‘—what you really need is a ship. A big one that’ll take all your people and get ’em away nice and quick. And once that’s done, you can think about getting Rampart afloat again.’

  ‘We don’t need—’

  ‘And the good thing is, we’ve got a ship – or at least we will have, once we get it back from Albie. And all Cuttle and Gilly’d have to do is take a couple of us to where it’s anchored. They could take Krill and the cap’n maybe—’

  This time it was Sharkey who broke in. ‘I need Krill.’

  ‘His ankle—’

  ‘His ankle’s nearly better.’

  ‘Perhaps you could sprain it again,’ Fin murmured to Krill. ‘It would be worth it, if it would ge
t us back to the Oyster.’

  Rain did not know quite what to make of Fin.The demon-hunting expedition had left the Citadel before she and Bran had come to live there, so all she knew of the boy was the stories she had overheard. At first, he had been famous for his courage, for being the Initiate who would risk his life on the ice. Then, when the battered expedition had returned, he became known as the worst of all possible traitors.

  Rain wished he would not quiz her about what was happening in the Citadel – she was afraid he might stumble upon the truth.

  ‘I need your cap’n too,’ said Sharkey, ignoring everyone but Petrel. ‘I need all of you. That was the bargain, and you agreed to it.’

  ‘How about a rat? One little rat? That wouldn’t make much difference to you, but it’d help us a lot. Missus Slink could run up the Oyster’s anchor chain, creep onto the bridge and tell Dolph and Squid that we’re alive. She could fix the telegraph, too, so we could talk to ’em—’

  ‘Nay!’ said Sharkey, very loudly, as if that was the last word on the matter.

  Petrel looked hard at him, and he reddened again. Neither of them said anything for more than a minute.

  Someone tapped Rain’s arm, and she turned, startled. It was the silver boy. ‘According to Gilly, you know many songs,’ he said.‘Will you sing them to me?’

  Rain knew she should be afraid of him. After all, this was the demon the Devouts feared and hated. But she had seen how easy Petrel and Fin were with him, and besides, there was something about him that reminded her of Bran. ‘What sort of songs?’ she asked.

  ‘Every sort. I will not know what I am looking for until I hear it.’

  Behind them, Petrel was speaking again, her voice no more than a murmur.‘I know you’re top high brass of this vessel, Cap’n Sharkey, and everyone does what you tell ’em.And I know that’s the Sunker way. But we do things differently on the Oyster. We try to bend a bit if we can, to help our friends.’

  Rain peeped over her shoulder, to see how Sharkey would respond.

  But Petrel was still talking. ‘Course you don’t have to bend. Cos you’re right, we did agree to the bargain. But I gotta tell you that you’re reminding me more and more of Fin’s stories about the Devouts. They’re the ones you call Hungry Ghosts. They don’t bend either.’

  And with that, she walked away, though she couldn’t go far, not on Claw.

  Sharkey’s face went from red to white. He raised his hand, as if to summon her back, then lowered it again.

  As brave as Petrel,AND as clever, thought Rain.Then she turned to the silver boy and said, ‘Yes, I will sing to you.’

  Sharkey raised the hammer and brought it down with a whack on the sheet of tin. I am nothing like the Hungry Ghosts.

  He raised it again. Brought it down harder. I’m NOTHING like the Ghosts. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. None of ’em do. I shouldn’t take any notice.

  But still Petrel’s quiet words clung to him like a suckerfish.

  He tightened his grip on the hammer. Beside him, at the bench of the minuscule workshop, the silver child was tapping at a second sheet, persuading it into the right shape for the masks Petrel had suggested.The pigeon, which seemed to follow him everywhere, was perched on the lathe, its head turning back and forth with every swing of the hammer.

  At the far end of the bench, Rain was singing.

  ‘Would you walk into the jaws of a tiger?

  Would you pat a hungry bear on the snout—’

  The silver child interrupted her, just as he had done with the last twenty songs. ‘That is not it. Another one, please.’

  Sharkey gritted his teeth. ‘I am nothing.’ Whack. ‘Like.’ Whack. ‘The Hungry Ghosts!’ Whack.

  He didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until the silver child looked up and said, ‘Of course you are not.You love machines and the Devouts hate them.You are pale from lack of sunlight, whereas their skin has a little colour, like Rain’s.’

  The pigeon cooed agreement.

  ‘It’s more than that!’ said Sharkey.

  The silver child regarded him thoughtfully.‘They are not kind to their horses, but I have not seen you with a horse, so I cannot make a comparison.’ And he went back to his task, shaping the tin masks and placing them in the sealskin bag that held the comm, while Rain sang to him.

  Sharkey was speechless. He told himself that he should be angry, but somehow the anger would not come. Instead, his mind wavered. Petrel was one of the most annoying people he’d ever known, and yet there was something about her—

  ‘I went wandering,’ sang Rain,

  ‘Over the hills so bright—’

  ‘No,’ said the captain. ‘Another one, please.’

  Sharkey put down his hammer and said abruptly, ‘The rat with the green ribbon. Lin Lin, Missus Slink, whatever she calls herself. Could she ride one of our turtles? The mechanical ones? You’ve seen ’em, haven’t you?’

  ‘What is their range?’ asked the silver child.

  ‘Several hundred miles if the sea’s calm. But their direction-finders won’t work over that distance.’

  ‘She could steer by the stars.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sharkey. And he went out to issue new orders.

  The following night, Claw sidled into a deepwater bay, nine and a half miles sou’-west of the Citadel. The weather was clear, the moon was rising, and Missus Slink was long gone, riding her mechanical turtle across the waves towards the last known position of the Oyster.

  One by one, everyone except Gilly and Cuttle climbed the ladder to the deck, and jumped across the gap onto a disused stone pier. Then, as the little submersible slid away, with orders to stand well out to sea until summoned, they set their course nor’-nor’-east.

  This is the third time I’ve been on terra, thought Sharkey. There’s nothing to be afraid of . . . except for the Hungry Ghosts.

  ‘They are not ghosts,’ murmured Fin in his ear.

  ‘What?’ Sharkey turned to stare at the other boy.

  ‘You keep muttering about ghosts, and that is wrong. They are the Devouts. They are as human as you and me.You need to know that if you wish to fight them.’

  Sharkey was about to laugh out loud at the notion, when he realised that Fin was right. After all, there was no denying that Rain was human, though Sharkey wasn’t sure when he had started to see her that way. And the men who had brought Adm’ral Deeps to the rendezvous had looked human enough. Which meant that all the old stories were wrong.

  ‘How do you know about ’em?’ he asked Fin.

  ‘I used to be one of them.’

  Sharkey had half realised it, from the conversations and stories he’d overheard. But hearing it said so plainly was a different thing altogether.‘No—’

  ‘They sent me south to destroy the Oyster and its captain. But I met Petrel – and I changed.’ A smile transformed Fin’s rather serious face. ‘She has that effect on people.’

  That was too much for Sharkey. ‘Not on me, she doesn’t,’ he said. And he sped up until he was right at the front of the little group, like a proper captain, with no one and nothing to distract him except his own thoughts.

  They had been walking for a bit more than two hours when the silver child stopped. The road they’d been following was potholed and rutted, with ditches on either side. Now, enormous piles of stone loomed out of the darkness like silent messengers from three hundred years ago.

  ‘That was the university,’ said the silver child. ‘That is where the man who made me, Serran Coe, had his laboratory.’

  Sharkey tried to picture it, and couldn’t. Krill growled, ‘The world’s changed since you saw it last, Cap’n, and not for the better.’

  There was no sign of Hungry Ghosts in the ruined university, but a little way past it was a clump of houses – at least that’s what Rain told Sharkey they were. He couldn’t imagine living inside such poor-looking things. They just sat motionless on the side of the road, tiny boxes of mud and straw with square porthole
s.

  ‘And not a fish to be seen,’ he whispered to Rain as they crept past. ‘What a miserable life!’

  Rain’s eyes crinkled at the corners. They walked together for another hour, occasionally whispering to each other about the things they saw, which helped Sharkey forget his fears.

  ‘What happened to your songs?’ he asked at one point.‘The ones you were singing for the little captain? Did he find what he was looking for?’

  ‘No,’ said Rain.‘I sang everything I could remember, but—’ She stopped, jerking to a halt. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Can you see it?’

  ‘See what?’ Sharkey peered into the darkness, his heart thumping like a badly tuned engine. Ahead of him, pretty much due north, the land rose up in a sort of seamount.

  ‘It is the Citadel,’ said Fin, coming up behind them. Like Sharkey, he sounded as if he’d rather be somewhere else.

  Petrel joined them, shifting the bag that held the comm and the masks from one hand to the other. ‘That whole hill?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Mister Smoke, teetering on her shoulder. ‘Citadel’s just the bit at the top. The rest of it’s a rubbishy sort of town called Tower of Strength. Used to be a nice little city—’

  ‘Three hundred years ago it was called Gouty Head,’ said the silver child.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the rat. ‘But it looks like the Devouts tore down anythin’ that’d been built with machines, and remade it. It’s all rammed earth and misery these days, ’cept for the Citadel, which is made of hand-cut marble and self-righteousness.’

  ‘The Citadel is where B-Brother Thrawn lives,’ whispered Rain.

  There was no crinkle at the corner of her eyes now, and the way she said ‘B-Brother Thrawn’, each time with that fearful hesitation, was starting to worry Sharkey. It reminded him of the time a Massy shark had swum right up to one of Claw’s portholes and looked in.

  It’d been bigger than the submersible, with monstrous jaws and an eye like stone, and Gilly and Cuttle had had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Sharkey too, though he’d never admitted it.