by Arthur Slade
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Arthur Slade
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Canada by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., Toronto.
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eISBN: 978-0-375-89740-5
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v3.1
FOR TORI,
with all my love
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: The Yellow Boy
Chapter 1 - Under a Hunter’s Moon
Chapter 2 - The Familiar Intruder
Chapter 3 - The Report
Chapter 4 - Inside the Secret Room
Chapter 5 - The Assignment
Chapter 6 - The Crossing
Chapter 7 - The Arrival
Chapter 8 - Other Eyes
Chapter 9 - The Indecipherable Cipher
Chapter 10 - Commandeering a Ride
Chapter 11 - The Cold Truth
Chapter 12 - When Hands Become Claws
Chapter 13 - The True Meaning of Ictíneo
Chapter 14 - Nifleheim’s Circle
Chapter 15 - The Captain
Chapter 16 - Under Observation
Chapter 17 - A Message Received
Chapter 18 - Thievery and Secret Pacts
Chapter 19 - Hard Truth
Chapter 20 - A Stroll at Full Fathom Five
Chapter 21 - Inside New Barcelona
Chapter 22 - Not Worth His Salt
Chapter 23 - The Voice Inside His Head
Chapter 24 - A Tale Transparent
Chapter 25 - Invisible Plans
Chapter 26 - A Glimmer of Hope
Chapter 27 - To Sing a Song of Madness
Chapter 28 - The Quandary
Chapter 29 - The Wreck
Chapter 30 - Getting a Message Through
Chapter 31 - The Forever Enemy
Chapter 32 - Force Will Be Applied
Chapter 33 - For Want of a Nail
Chapter 34 - Down in the Hold
Chapter 35 - Blood and Flowers
Chapter 36 - The Hanging Man
Chapter 37 - Honor Among Spies
Chapter 38 - An Underwater Assault
Chapter 39 - Skeleton Crew
Chapter 40 - Sleeping Dogs
Chapter 41 - Icaria, My Heart
Chapter 42 - The Dark Deeps
Chapter 43 - A Game of Cat and Fish
Chapter 44 - The Bottom of a Well
Chapter 45 - Into the Underbelly
Chapter 46 - An Act of Charity
Chapter 47 - The Ictíneo Is My Heart
Chapter 48 - The Pod
Chapter 49 - Under Pressure
Chapter 50 - A Wound That Moves
Chapter 51 - A Bell That Doesn’t Ring
Chapter 52 - On the Surface
Chapter 53 - A Fellow Agent
EPILOGUE: The Assignment Ends
About the Author
PROLOGUE
The Yellow Boy
THE BOY HADN’T ALWAYS been yellow. Once he had been lily white, had worn cravats and fancy shoes instead of rags. But that was before he was brought to this island to help the old doctor with his work; before the salt pills, the elixirs, the teaspoons and teaspoons of ingestible compounds, and the horrible injections. It was only after the first year in the employ of the doctor, his eleventh year of life, that the boy understood that he was the subject of a long-term experiment.
The boy often dreamed of his mum and father arriving on a steamship and taking him away from this cruel place. Mum would sing and lull the evil dogs to sleep, their mechanical jaws slowly clanking shut. Father would climb up to the cave, throw the wicked doctor over the cliff, carry the boy to their ship, and steam far, far away.
The boy knew the dream was impossible, since his parents had drowned in the same shipwreck that had stranded him in this part of the world. The boy had survived because he was small enough to cling to a broken section of the ship’s mast and his mum and father had pushed him as far as they could before their bodies weakened. Mum’s last words to him were “I love you, dearie,” and his father’s were “You have a great destiny, Griff, my son.” Then the two of them waved goodbye as the boy drifted on.
His “great” destiny was to spend six months surviving on a deserted island, eating berries and other fruit and muttering to himself. He grew thinner as he shivered through the cold nights. His clothes turned to rags and he wore reeds and leaves. And then nothing at all. At least the daylight hours were warm.
Then one day the hounds arrived and pursued him from one end of the island to the other, jaws snapping like traps. Their skulls were made of metal; their eyes reflected fiendish light. They didn’t bark or even snarl. They ran with the speed of panthers and the weight of bulls, crashing through brush at his heels and finally cornering him on a rocky cliff. They were soon followed by soldiers in gray, who were just as silent. One grabbed Griff by the hair, dragged him to a steamship. They transported him to a larger island and threw him down at the feet of Dr. Cornelius Hyde. “You asked for a servant,” the soldier said. “We have delivered one.”
And so that became the boy’s role. Hyde rarely spoke to Griff, other than to tell him to fetch powders or scalpels from the shelves or to lug crates of medicines from the docks. Griff learned what he could about the doctor from his rambling and his many rages. Hyde’s accent was English. Upper-class. He said he’d been betrayed by “those blackguards at the Society of Science.” And Griff had learned that the doctor liked dogs.
The cave was not a pleasant workplace. Chimpanzees trembled in cages. Puppies yipped in boxes. The place reeked of animal excrement. Griff grew used to that, and to sleeping on the straw pallet next to the cages. Slowly his childhood memories of Liverpool, of growing up in a small house that overlooked the bay, were lost to him.
Despite the drudgery, many things captured his fancy. From what he could tell, the island was owned by a man called the Guild Master, who must have been very rich to have his own cannons, steamships, and small army. The soldiers were constructing a massive building at the far end of the island.
What the boy loved most was the airship that returned every few weeks, bringing the red-haired woman with a metal hand. She was thin and very beautiful, and moved with animal grace. She was powerful, he knew by the way she carried herself, and by the way the soldiers saluted her. Her accent was odd; her voice commanded attention, but she sometimes spoke as softly as his mum had. He picked flowers for the woman every time she visited.
“You will grow up to be the greatest man who ever lived,” she’d told him during her latest visit. “The good doctor will see to it.”
“Yes, this is true,” Dr. Hyde said. He was always kinder when the woman was near. “You shall be the first human to experience a new state, a new form. Now, swallow this sugary treat.”
Griff did so. The pill tasted acidic and burned like a hot coal in his stomach. But he didn’t wince—he so wanted the woman to see how strong he was.
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nbsp; She gently held his shoulder with her human hand. “One day you’ll be so much more than you are now. You must train. You must follow the doctor’s advice. And always take your medicines, my dear little Griff.”
“I will,” he whispered. “For you I will.”
That afternoon he watched her stride down to the docks. He didn’t return to the cave until her airship had disappeared behind the horizon, even though Dr. Hyde would be angry at his tardiness. Griff wept, knowing it would be weeks before he would see her again.
The medicine burned in his stomach all through the night. In the morning he awoke to find that his skin had turned completely yellow.
He looked at his yellow fingers. Poked at his yellow stomach. “What is my great destiny?” he asked his pillow. “What is it?”
Seven years passed before the answer became clear.
1
Under a Hunter’s Moon
The stars saved her life that evening. Colette Chiyoko Brunet was in her cabin aboard the steamship Vendetta, seated at a small oak table papered with maps, diagrams, newspaper clippings, and agents’ reports. The oil lamp swayed on its chain as each wave struck the ship. In her eighteen years of life she had never had an experience more frustrating than this mission. Even the taunting of her fellow French agents, who called her la sorcière ainoko—the half-breed witch—was nothing to what she had undergone this night. They would be snorting derisively now if they knew of her failure.
She glared at the papers: a map with several points ticked off, sailors’ accounts of sightings of a sea monster or a giant narwhal, and a pencil drawing of a massive metallic fish with the name Ictíneo written below it.
She pressed her fingers against her forehead. What was the answer? What had been sinking the ships in this quadrant? She wanted to tear the documents to shreds. She had spent two weeks on the Vendetta, searching for the “peculiarity” that lurked in the depths. The French government had financed the mission. Ministers believed that the secret of the attacks could unlock some new underwater military weapon for France. Colette had no inkling how they had come to that conclusion. They’d given her a mess of scribbles and madman’s tales, nothing more. Did they intend for her to fail?
Calm down. She sat back. Ah, Papa, she thought. Her father had been an artillery captain in the French army and had married her mother, Amaya, during his first visit to Japan. He’d spent his every spare moment training Colette to survive in un monde sévère, a harsh world. The analytical lessons and the discipline stuck early, her mind becoming so sharp it cut through most myths and falsifications. Ah, Papa, I am failing tonight.
An overwhelming sadness consumed her when she thought of her father’s death in the Boshin War, on Japanese soil. A land that was half hers. She knew he’d be proud of her, of everything she’d done in her short life. She had risen to a prominent position in the world of French secret agents, despite her ainoko—half French, half Japanese—blood.
Colette stood. Fresh air and a view of the sky would help her focus. She tied up her black hair, wrapped a long sable coat about herself and opened the metal door to her cabin, then tiptoed past the snuffling and snoring sailors in their bunks. Next to them was a locker of rifles. She gently ran her hand across the stock of the last gun, then climbed the iron stairs.
The November wind chilled and awakened her. The deck was deserted, but there was a light in the bridge and an ember glow from the crow’s nest—a cigarette. Colette imagined that the only others who were awake labored in the engine room, feeding coal to the furnaces to keep the steam engines chugging.
She breathed deeply and strode across the deck, grabbed the rope railing, and gazed out over the Atlantic. She smelled the salt water and heard the splashing waves, but the sea was so dark it was as if they were sailing through ink.
On the outside the Vendetta looked like a research ship, with the crew dressed as ordinary sailors. Colette knew better. They were marines handpicked from the First Regiment of L’infanterie de marine. The rifles were on board in case they had to defend themselves. A ten-pounder gun was hidden under a canvas in the bow of the ship. Hunters had to be prepared to hunt.
She looked to the heavens. Her father had taught her the constellations; she easily picked out la Grande Ourse, and was comforted. She relaxed her mind by triangulating her position in the Atlantic. They had spent the past few days zigging and zagging through the same coordinates—her maps had indicated that the “peculiarity” usually appeared here.
Colette leaned against the railing. The darkness reminded her that she was no closer to finding her prey. Tomorrow, the Vendetta’s coal stores would be too low for them to sail further and they would have to return to Marseille in failure. Colette would be laughed out of the position she had fought to win. There were always other agents scheming to take her place.
A shattering noise startled her; then she fell hard against the railing, then to the deck, smashing her head. She lay still for a moment, realizing she’d been inches from plunging to a watery death. The Klaxons sounded and she struggled to her feet, but there was something wrong with her legs. No, not her legs—the deck of the Vendetta listed sharply toward starboard.
“Helm, hard to starboard!” the captain shouted from the bridge.
My papers! she thought. The deck was at such an angle that she would have to climb toward the stairwell. She took a step, leaning forward; then the ship lurched and she slipped and struck the railing again, jarring her ribs.
“Mademoiselle Brunet, are you hurt?” It was a seaman, one hand on a rope, the other extended toward her. Marlin from Cherbourg. The son of a tailor.
She took his warm hand and stood again. “Did we hit an iceberg?”
“Not at this time of year,” he said.
“A naval mine?” She hadn’t heard an explosion. “What have we struck?”
“Something struck us,” another voice said. She turned to see Chief Petty Officer Fortant, holding his balding head, blood seeping down his left cheek. “The hull has been breached!”
“You’re injured!” Colette exclaimed.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to move! We’re sinking fast!”
“But I must have my papers!”
“No time!” Fortant replied, pulling her toward the line of lifeboats swinging like pendulums on their davits. “Your papers will go down with the ship.”
That gave her some solace; at least no one else would read them. Briefly she thought of the lives lost in retrieving those documents from foreign embassies and enemy agents. Such information always had a price.
The ship made a metallic moaning as it listed further. Sailors leapt into the water from the forecastle. The door on the bridge banged open, revealing the captain holding firmly to the wheel, bellowing orders. What few men were able to climb out of the hold lost their footing on the deck and fell headlong into the water.
Marlin was already lowering a lifeboat.
“Get in!” Fortant shoved Colette into the boat and then he and Marlin tumbled in after her. The boat swung wildly.
“What about the sailors below deck?”
“Faster with that rope, seaman!” Fortant said. The lifeboat slipped closer to the water.
“What about the others?” she demanded, working to keep her voice from cracking.
Fortant shook his head. “There is nothing to be done.”
She shuddered to think of the sailors in their cots and the engineers and stokers far below in the engine room. At least a hundred men.
Marlin and Fortant worked the ropes, the pulleys squealing. “We don’t want to be near the Vendetta when she goes down,” Fortant said.
With a lurch they smashed into the side of the ship; to her shame Colette let out a yelp. When they finally hit the water, they were nearly swamped by the splash. The men grabbed oars.
“Row hard, Marlin!” Fortant yelled. “Harder, you dog! She’ll suck us down with her.”
As their boat rode the waves, Colette looked back at the vast sid
es of the Vendetta, the stern lifting higher and higher, gleaming wet in the moonlight. The roar of wind and waves could not drown out the desperate cries of the sailors in the water. The lifeboat tossed up and down as they rowed away.
“We’ll return for the survivors, once the Vendetta has sunk,” Fortant said. “I’ve never seen a ship go down so fast.” His face glistened with fresh blood.
“Let me row! You’re still bleeding,” Colette said.
“No! I must do it.”
Stupid, bullheaded man! she wanted to shout. She shivered; her feet felt much colder than the rest of her body, though she wore good boots. She reached down to touch her feet, then snapped upright. “We’re taking on water!”
“Bail!” Fortant yelled.
Colette found a tobacco tin, dumped out its contents, and bailed for all she was worth, but she made no headway. She felt for the breach under the water and was horrified at what she found. “The hole is huge!” she shouted at Fortant.
“There’s an emergency kit under your bench!” he grunted.
A metal case was fastened right under the seat. Her hands were frozen, so it took several tries to unlatch it. Inside she felt the handle of a gun, which she yanked out of its clasps.
“Fire the flare! If there are ships out here”—Fortant sounded doubtful—“they will come.”
She held the gun above her head, pointed at the heavens, and pulled the trigger. The light was so bright that she was blinded for a few moments. The flare floated lazily in the sky, reflecting on the water. The Vendetta had disappeared, but in the distance heads bobbed and occasional shouts for help could be heard.
