The Sea of the Dead

by Barry Wolverton

  Nindemann seemed to read his mind. “I hope we don’t have to use it. The men won’t admit it, but they’re terrified of being in the water. King Max sees the onderzeeer more as a weapon, to sneak up on enemy ships. I see it as the ideal scientific vessel for polar expeditions, freeing you from the mercy of the water’s surface.”

  “Except, unlike a river, how do you get it down there, and then back up, with all the ice?” said Bren.

  Nindemann frowned. “I haven’t figured everything out yet.”

  He didn’t admit it to Nindemann, but Bren could see why the men were afraid. He didn’t want to be under the sea, either. He had been in the ocean once, when the Albatross foundered, and he never wanted to be overboard again. Or underboard, for that matter.

  Another problem cropped up as well. The navigator, Mr. Duval, who had sailed with Tromp for several years, took it upon himself to tend to his woefully ill captain and first mate when the surgeon allowed it. At supper one evening he confronted Nindemann with something Tromp had been mumbling in his half sleep, about how he was dying, and when would he see Amsterdam?

  “Why does he think he’s going to see Amsterdam soon?”

  “He’s sick,” said Nindemann. “Delirious.”

  “I’ve never seen Maarten Tromp sick a day in his life,” said Duval. “Once saw him eat a dead man’s hand on a dare.”

  “You sure the man was dead?” said Nindemann, at which point Duval became indignant and pointed his fork at the engineer.

  “You did something!” he said, his eyes now scanning the whole table. “All of you!”

  Aadesh, who was sitting next to Duval, gently but firmly grabbed the navigator’s wrist and wrenched the fork out of his hand.

  “You don’t respect that bastard any more than I do,” said Nindemann.

  “I respect the position, and so should you,” said Duval. He tried to pull his arm free of Aadesh, but he may as well have been trying to tear free of a crocodile.

  “Tromp was planning to murder our guests,” said Nindemann. “He was planning to murder these children.”

  Duval again recoiled, not wanting to believe it. But Bren could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew it was true, or at least believable. Aadesh released him.

  “So what, you poisoned him? This is mutiny?”

  “It’s something much bigger than that,” said Nindemann. He looked to Shveta, who left the saloon and came back with both the mandala and the crude map David Owen had drawn. “Where we are now,” Nindemann continued, “is roughly five hundred miles from the North Pole. The magnetic pole. But if we’re right, we could be free of ice and sailing into a warm ocean in half that distance.”

  Duval was just shaking his head. “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then it takes us a sight longer to get there,” said Nindemann, trying to sound lighthearted. “But we’ll still be the first explorers to reach the North Pole. Even now we’re mapping lands never known. We’ll return home heroes.”

  Duval didn’t say what he must have been thinking: if we return home. But he nodded and agreed to do his best to pilot them. Meanwhile, the ship, while taking on less water now, was weakened and would be unable to withstand much more of a beating like the one they had just come through.

  And the days of August were slipping away. Even if there was a warm polar sea waiting for them, if the summer didn’t produce a late-season burst of warmth, they might very likely be stuck wintering on the ice; no way forward, no way back.

  CHAPTER

  25

  SHIP, ABANDONED

  Bren remembered lying in his cot, in the cabin he shared with Ani, watching the hull of the ship as it slowly bulged and exhaled, like a dying animal. The whole ship was like an expiring body, gasping and groaning as the ice relentlessly crushed it.

  It was the last week of August when Nindemann and Duval realized they could go no farther, not on the Sea Lion. It was beyond repair; beyond saving. The decision was made to abandon ship and take what resources they could for shelter and firewood, food and medicine. Duval insisted they go on foot, with their sleds, which the remaining twenty-six crew members would have to pull themselves. They had but two dogs left after their battle with the barbarians.

  Nindemann had other ideas. He took the entire crew down to the hold, to show them the onderzeeer.

  They all stood there, ankle deep in freezing water, looking at the thing as if it might come alive. None of the men wanted to get in, save two. Nindemann and the ordinary seaman being played by Lady Barrett. No one except Bren, Shveta, Ani, the brothers, and now Nindemann were in on her secret yet.

  “What’s the fewest number of men needed to row this tub?” said Shveta.

  Nindemann rubbed his chin. “Two, I suppose. Though your progress would surely not be swift.”

  Shveta snapped her fingers at Aadesh and Aadarsh. “Let’s go. You too,” she said to Ani and Bren and Lady Barrett. “Show us how to get in.”

  There was an awkward silence and some murmuring as the men weighed the benefits of letting these strangers be the ones to test the submarine versus the shame of being upstaged by women and children. In the end they decided shame was temporary, drowning was permanent.

  Nindemann, though, shook his head. “Duval’s right. We’re better off walking. The onderzeeer’s too risky. I’ve never tested it in a frozen sea. Bren himself saw right off the problem of getting it below the surface and back up again.”

  Bren felt bad for the engineer. He had been so proud of his invention. But he was probably right, and in the end they decided to walk. Though after they began dismantling the ship for firewood, they did leave the onderzeeer atop the ice, on a row of timber, just in case. It seemed a waste to destroy it.

  Once they set off, Captain Tromp and Mr. Hein had to be carried on one of the sleds. The first mate had slipped into a sort of permanent sleep, though the surgeon refused to pronounce him dead. Tromp had lost the use of his legs and had spoken nothing but gibberish for weeks.

  Bren and Lady Barrett had walked twenty-five miles a day across China with Yaozu, but the Arctic was something else entirely. The storms and snow-blindness made it nearly impossible to forge ahead for hours at a time. Bren felt as if he had walked for days just to advance a few hundred yards. They would never make it.

  When they had burned the last of the wood they had carried from the ship, Nindemann led a hunting party and came back with an enormous walrus. Cook prepared steaks, and they burned blubber for a fire, adding in scraps from supplies they could sacrifice, until they could carry what was left on one sled. Then they burned the other sled. Mr. Hein was the first to die; two men who began the journey already malnourished died of exposure shortly after. Their remains were used to feed the two dogs, so the remaining men could have more rations. Bren didn’t want to think about what would happen to Caesar if he didn’t survive.

  They all were suffering from frostbite. Bren’s toes hurt so much he wanted to cry. Why couldn’t the cold just numb them? Instead it was like he was walking barefoot across a field of sharp stones. He saw the ghastly results of frostbite firsthand when the surgeon peeled the shoes off Captain Tromp, who had been suffering from extreme fever, and one of his swollen, blackened toes came off in the surgeon’s hand.

  “Is he going to lose the whole foot?” Bren asked, feeling panicky about his own condition. The surgeon shook his head.

  “He won’t live that long. I can’t treat his fever.”

  He was right. They woke up the next morning to find the indomitable Maarten Tromp cold and stiff, a pained scowl frozen onto his face.

  “Don’t feed him to the dogs,” Shveta told Nindemann. “He ate almost the whole liver by himself.”

  “I say we burn him,” said Duval. “And good riddance.”

  And so they did. The remaining crew cheered the only warmth ever given off by their despotic captain.

  Before they turned in that night, Nindemann came to Bren, Lady Barrett, Ani, and Shveta with a new plan. “I
don’t like the progress we’re making,” he said. “We don’t know for sure how far the polar sea extends, which makes it almost impossible to ration for all of us. We don’t know if we’re on a five-hundred-mile trek or a fifty-mile trek.”

  “What do you want to do?” said Shveta. Her face was barely visible through her fur hood. All Bren could see were her deep black eyes and the scarlet jewel which had regained its rightful place on her forehead. Of all of them, she seemed the most impervious to the cold. Bren had no idea if she had frostbite—he wasn’t sure he had ever seen her feet.

  “The onderzeeer,” said Nindemann. “We walk back . . . it won’t take us as long without sleds . . . and launch it. I can solve the problem of getting under the ice and back out. I think.”

  “You think?” said Shveta. “Or you’re sure?”

  “I can’t be sure of anything,” he admitted. “But I like our chances better than continuing on foot.”

  Shveta shrugged. “I wanted to take the thing to begin with, if you remember. You were the scaredy cat.”

  Nindemann laughed. “That I was. I just wish I had nine lives.”

  He actually drew a smile from Shveta. At least, that’s what Bren thought. He couldn’t see her mouth, but her eyes lit up.

  Nindemann met with Duval and came to an agreement on rations they would take and also where and when they would try to meet up again. Neither seemed to have much conviction that would happen.

  After a brief sleep, they were off, Nindemann, Aadesh, and Aadarsh carrying all their supplies. As a smaller group, without the sleds, they made better time going back, but they still had to make camp twice, cocooning themselves in furs. The entire trek, Shveta, Bren, and Ani had been sleeping in the polar bear hide that Shveta had saved. But on this return trip, Bren had the strangest dreams.

  He awoke in the middle of the night—real night, pitch-black—but he could see. Even more, he could smell. His nose picked up scents that seemed to come from everywhere, and from great distances: salt; blooms of algae; the warm flesh of a newborn seal; smoke from a faraway fire; and when the wind blew violently, a thousand other sudden sensations. But it was another smell that drew him—it smelled like . . . him. He began walking toward it, and Bren realized he was walking on all fours. He briefly stood, but it wasn’t natural, so he let himself fall back on his hands, which is when he saw that he didn’t have hands, he had paws. Massive paws covered in pinkish-white fur.

  After his initial surprise, he relished how easy it was to cross the frozen ground. There was no pain, no numbness. His body was warm, too. But he was hungry. He followed the scent of flesh, covering what felt like dozens of miles, but he could find nothing. His stomach growled. Or was that him? He wondered if this was how Ani felt when she became a cat. Was it how Mouse had felt when she soul-traveled into an animal?

  A moon had risen and bathed the entire Arctic landscape in pale blue. Bren came to a pool of water and looked at his bear reflection, the solid black eyes. He could see Mouse there, her opaque, fathomless eyes. The monk at the Leopard’s Nest had looked at him with those same eyes, trying to make Bren understand as he drew signal flags in the sand.

  The next night was just the same, except for one thing: Bren came upon another bear, lying on its stomach, next to a hole in the ice. He was far away and the other bear didn’t notice him, but Bren knew he shouldn’t approach. He slowly turned and walked away.

  Bren woke up suddenly and rousted the others. “We need to get going. I think we’re being stalked.”

  They reached the spot where they had abandoned ship by midday, and the onderzeeer was still there, untouched except for a coating of snow and frost. They had propped it on a row of timbers, from which they could launch it into the water, but the first obstacle was making a hole in the ice big enough. Here, they caught a break. The bulk of the Sea Lion’s skeleton was still there. They had only salvaged as much of the hull as they could carry. They had only to burn the rest of the ship, which would also melt away some of the surrounding ice.

  Bren basked in the warmth of the raging fire once it was going strong. They all did. It was almost painful to be so warm after their constant exposure to the Arctic weather, their misery scarcely relieved by the weak summer daylight or their puny campfires. Bren felt alive again. More important, he felt like they all might actually survive.

  “Any sign of bears?” Nindemann asked, when Lady Barrett came back to the group. They had been taking turns scouting the area for the predator or predators Bren had warned them about. But she just shook her head and buried her hands and face in the radiant heat. They enjoyed their finest meal in ages, too. Walrus steaks and the one bottle of wine Duval had parted with, probably because he thought he was sending them to their deaths.

  This time, they didn’t risk sleep before setting off. It was time for their voyage into the great unknown, inside a great unknown.

  “There’s a hatch above and one below,” Nindemann explained. “Everyone but me and the two brothers will go in now, and then the three of us will push her into the water and climb in before we seal and descend. Everyone ready?”

  They all nodded, Bren wondering if he were the only one who really wasn’t. Nindemann climbed to the top, opened the hatch, and then Aadesh and Aadarsh helped boost the others up. The engineer unfolded a rope ladder for everyone to climb down, and when they were all inside, he closed the hatch behind them.

  Bren expected it to be pitch black until they could light some lamps. But to his surprise, the inside of the submarine was aglow with soft, bluish light. He looked up and saw that the engineer had installed three portals in a row along the top, like a whale with three blowholes. Suddenly Nindemann’s craggy, bearded face appeared through one, staring right at Bren.

  “Couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to see anything,” he shouted. “Plus, we’re going where no sailors have gone, with a chance to see ocean life up close. Couldn’t resist.”

  Bren smiled. Nindemann had a little bit of Mr. Leiden in him, too, the long-lost surgeon from the Albatross who had taught Bren so many things about botany and zoology and medicine.

  Shveta, meanwhile, was looking for a comfortable chair.

  “We should all sit,” said Lady Barrett. “It will be quite jarring when they put us into the water.”

  For the moment they all took seats next to the oars and held on tight. They felt the vessel lift up from the stern, and then with unexpected speed they were rushing forward until the surface of the water brought them to a jarring halt. The oar Bren was holding on to for dear life rammed into his ribs.

  “Everyone okay?” said Lady Barrett, when the worst was over.

  She was answered mainly with groans, but it appeared everyone was fine. It was obvious they were in the water; Bren could feel them bobbing, and despite how well-sealed the vessel was, he could hear the two brothers on the ice murmuring their amazement at the fact that the contraption didn’t sink immediately.

  A few minutes later, they heard some splashing and then the chuff of boots atop the vessel, and the hatch opened again.

  “May we come in?” said Nindemann. He and the brothers climbed down, and this time Nindemann locked the hatch, a slight hiss letting him know it was sealed shut. “How about a tour?” he asked.

  Despite being small, the inside of the submarine was fairly cozy—more so than any of the ships Bren had sailed on. Ahead of the rowing stations was the navigation area, with a compass set into a gimbal, plus a tube lined with mirrors that extended out of the vessel so the pilot could see where they were going. Nindemann had made the rest of this area into a living room of sorts, and Shveta plopped herself cross-legged on a floor cushion.

  Behind the rowers was the magic that made the submarine livable. There was a brazier where Nindemann would burn saltpeter for fresh oxygen. As a bonus, the fire would provide warmth. There was an open container of soda lime to absorb the moisture from the air they exhaled. And rising from the floor was a massive screw, topped by a cran
k. Nindemann explained how it was connected to bladders on either side of the vessel’s stern that either took in or expelled water. Turning the screw controlled their ability to descend or resurface.

  “Speaking of which,” said Nindemann, who grabbed the crank and, even with his prodigious strength, struggled to move the massive handle. But move it he did, and with each clockwise rotation, the screw turned and the submarine slowly began to sink.

  Bren could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that he wasn’t the only one unsettled by the downward motion of the vessel. A ship wasn’t supposed to sink! Ice packs juddered the hull and created the unnerving sensation for those inside of being crushed.

  But as Nindemann continued to turn the screw, the grinding subsided and they felt . . . nothing. Just the sensation of being suspended in water.

  “Now’s as good a time as any to test our ability to propel ourselves,” said Nindemann, taking a seat at one of the oars. “I’m a bit worried about loose ice.”

  “Now you tell us,” said Shveta, who closed her eyes and assumed her meditation pose. She obviously wasn’t planning to help row.

  Aadesh and Aadarsh took seats opposite each other, Lady Barrett sat opposite Nindemann, and Bren and Ani took two more. That left three pairs of oars unmanned, but Nindemann said they would help with balance.

  “If our earlier calculations were correct,” said Nindemann, “we should have ample supplies of air and water and food until we reach the polar ocean.”

  “And if they weren’t correct?” said Lady Barrett.

  “We chisel our way back to the surface and see where we are,” Nindemann replied. When he noticed that Lady Barrett was about to ask more questions, he stopped her. “Let’s see how this goes before we assume the worst, shall we?”

  CHAPTER

  26

  UNDER THE ICE

  Bren, of course, had helped row the longboat from the Albatross from the Vanishing Island to the East Netherlands, a voyage of a thousand miles across open ocean. Even with the dozen surviving crewmen from that ship doing the lion’s share of work at the oars, he had nearly died of exhaustion.