Predator Cities x 4 and The Traction Codex

by Philip Reeve

  18

  THE NAGLFAR

  As soon as he had locked his friends and the children inside Gargle’s quarters, Caul sprinted back up the stairs to the chamber of screens. He was shuddering slightly, and half inclined to go back down and unlock the doors again. He kept telling himself that he hadn’t chosen Uncle over Freya and the others; he would find a way to stay true to both of them.

  “First thing we must do,” said Uncle, when Caul rejoined him, “is to get rid of those women. Bad luck, they’ll be. You’ll see.” He had filled his screens with images of the captives in the room below; big, grainy close-ups of Hester and Freya. He said, “They look very pretty, I’m sure, and no doubt you think they’re very sweet, but they’ll twist round and betray you, like my Anna did me all those years ago. That’s why I’ve always made it the rule that there ain’t no girls in Grimsby.”

  Caul put down Hester’s gun. He felt stupid standing there holding it. “But what about the girl who was aboard the Autolycus with Gargle?”

  “Young Remora?” Uncle snatched the gun and stuffed it away inside his filthy clothes. “I know what you mean. Odd-looking lad. High-pitched voice. Long hair. Too much make-up. I had my doubts when Gargle first introduced me, but Gargle assured me he was a boy. A fine burglar. Poor Remora. I suppose he’s dead too?”

  “Uncle, there are girls among those poor children we found downstairs. Lots of them are girls.”

  “Girls? You’re sure?” Uncle started thumbing his remote control, hunting for close-ups of the children. Caul saw his friends on the screens look up nervously as crab-cams spidered around on the ceiling above them, jangling Remora’s mobiles. Uncle saw only greyish, face-shaped blurs. “Maybe Gargle’s kidnapping squads have grabbed a few girls by mistake,” he muttered grudgingly. “We’ll have to get rid of them too, if we’re to make a new start. And we will make a new start, Caul, my boy. We’ll rebuild Grimsby, stronger and better than it ever was before, and you’ll be my right hand. You can move into Gargle’s pad, and look after things for me like Gargle used to do.”

  One of the banks of screens behind him suddenly died, leaving the room even more dimly lit than before. There was a smell of burnt wiring, and when Caul went to investigate he saw that water was flooding down the surfaces of the screens and pooling on the floor below. He touched some to his lips, and tasted brine. Uncle Knows Best, he told himself, and he wanted to believe it, because it would have been good to go back to the old days, when he had been so certain about everything. Everybody had to believe in something better and greater than themselves. Tom and Freya had their gods, and Hester had Tom, and Caul had Uncle. He would not let Uncle down again, even though he was old, and blind, and confused; even though there was probably nothing that could save Grimsby from the sea.

  But he would not let his friends drown with him.

  “You look tired, Uncle,” he said gently. It was true. How long had the old man been alone in this room, staring at the treacherous message from Brighton on his walls of screens? Caul touched his hand. “You should get some rest, now I’m here to keep an eye on things.”

  Uncle’s head jerked round to stare at him, his eyes glittering with something of their old cunning. “You trying to trick me, Caul? That’s what Gargle did. ‘Have a nap, Uncle, dear,’ he’d say. ‘Lie down for forty winks, Uncle.’ And when I woke up, some of my stuff would be missing, or another boy I’d trusted would be dead, and Gargle telling me it had been an accident…”

  “Why did you let him get away with it?” asked Caul.

  The old man shrugged. “’Cos I was scared of him. And ’cos I was proud of him. He was a sharp one, that Gargle, and it was me who made him that way. He was like a son to me, I s’pose. I like to think that me and Anna might have had sons, if she hadn’t tricked me and flown off in that homemade airship of hers. I like to think they’d have been as sharp as Gargle. But I’m glad he’s gone, Caul, my boy. I’m glad it’s you here now.”

  Mumbling quietly to himself, Uncle let Caul lead him up the steep stair to his bedchamber. The midget engine-pods of the old cargo balloon whined and clattered as the ball of screens went with them, hanging a few feet above their heads so that Uncle could keep staring up at it, his half-blind eyes flicking nervously from one screen to another. The entrance to his bedroom had been made higher and wider to let the balloon squeeze through. “Gotta keep watching them, Caul,” he muttered. “Never know what they’ll get up to unwatched. Gotta watch everybody. Everywhere. Always.”

  The room had been richly furnished once, for the Lost Boys had brought all the finest things they stole here, as tribute to Uncle. But over the years, piece by piece, Gargle must have found excuses to move all the treasures downstairs to his own quarters. All that remained was a bed with a threadbare quilt, some piles of mouldy books and an upturned crate which served as a bedside table; it held an old argon lamp, and a faded photograph of a beautiful young woman in the uniform of an Arkangel slave worker.

  “I keep that to remind me,” said Uncle, when he saw Caul looking at the picture, and quickly turned it face down. “My Anna Fang. Pretty, weren’t she? They’ve gone and made a Stalker of her now, and put her in charge of the Green Storm, and she rules over half the world, with airships and armies at her command. I’ve followed her career. Got a book of cuttings, somewhere. Gargle thought he could do a deal with her, but I knew it wouldn’t work. Knew it would only lead to trouble…”

  “What sort of deal?” asked Caul. He had heard Uncle talk about his lost love once before, but he had never heard of the Lost Boys trying to do a deal with the world outside. “Is that why Gargle came to Anchorage? Why he wanted the Tin Book?”

  Uncle sat down on the bed, and his moon of surveillance screens dipped until it was hanging just above his head. “Gargle said there was trouble coming. As soon as those first three limpets went missing he said, ‘There’s trouble coming.’ He was right, too, wasn’t he? Only he didn’t know how soon. He thought if he got hold of that Tin Book he could give it to the Green Storm and ask for their protection in exchange; get them to smash whatever city came hunting for us.”

  “But why would they want the Tin Book?” asked Caul.

  “Who knows?” replied Uncle, with a shrug. “A couple of summers back they sent an expedition to try and find the wreck of Anchorage. They didn’t, of course. But Gargle got a crab-cam aboard their ship, and he found out what it was they was hoping to dredge up.”

  “The Tin Book?”

  Uncle nodded. “They weren’t ordinary Green Storm, neither. They were special agents, who reported straight to her. So Gargle thought, if she’s ready to send ships full of herberts halfway round the world in the middle of a war looking for this thing, she must want it pretty bad. And he remembered seeing something like it when he was burgling Anchorage that time, only he didn’t think nothing of it then.” He shook his head. “I told him it wouldn’t work. I told him to stay put. But he was like that, young Gargle; once he got an idea in his head there weren’t no stopping him, and off he went, and now he’s dead, and that wicked city’s stolen all my boys away.”

  “But what was it?” asked Caul. “The Tin Book, I mean? What makes it so valuable?”

  Uncle, who had been sniffling miserably, blew his nose on a polka-dot handkerchief and peered at Caul. “Don’t know,” he said. “We never did find out. Gargle put about the story that it was the plans to some great big Ancient submarine that would save us all, but I think he made that up. What would my poor Anna want with a submarine? No. I reckon it’s a weapon. Something big.”

  He stuffed the handkerchief away and yawned. “Now, my boy. Enough about the past. We should think of the future. We should make plans. Time to start rebuilding. We’ll need to nick some stuff. Lucky you brought the Screw Worm home with you, that’ll come in proper handy, that will. And I’ve still got the old Naglfar. Remember the good old Naglfar?”

  “Saw her in the pens when we arrived,” said Caul. He could see that Uncle was growing
sleepy. He helped him lie down, and pulled the tattered quilt over him, tucking it under his chin. “You have a little sleep,” he said. “You have a sleep, and when you wake, it’ll be time to start.”

  Uncle smiled up at him, and closed his eyes. The ball of screens hung just above his pillow, and in the cathode-ray glow of the crab-cam pictures his old face looked luminous, a paper mask lit from within by the flickering light of his dreams.

  In the chamber below, some of the children had gone to sleep too. The rest sat quietly, watching with large, trusting eyes while Tom told them a story which he used to tell Wren when she was little and woke up scared in the night. They did not seem frightened by the groans and shudders of the dying city, or the dribbles of water creeping down the walls. It had been scary when they were all alone, but now that these kind grown-ups had arrived they felt sure that everything would be all right.

  Hester prowled the edges of the room, looking for weapons or ways to pick the heavy locks on the doors, and growing more and more angry as she found none of either.

  “What will you do if you do find a way out?” Freya asked her softly. “Sit down. You’ll scare the children.”

  Hester scowled at her. “What will I do? Get down to the limpet pens, of course, and away aboard the Screw Worm.”

  “But we can’t all fit aboard the Screw Worm. Even if we managed to squeeze all the children into the hold, there wouldn’t be air or fuel enough to get us back to Anchorage.”

  “Who said we were taking the children?” asked Hester. “I came to rescue Wren, not those little savages. Wren’s not here, so we’ll take the Worm to Brighton and try looking there.”

  “But the children –” cried Freya, and quickly stopped, in case they heard her and guessed what Hester was planning. “Hester, how could you even think such a thing! You have a child of your own!”

  “That’s right,” said Hester. “And if you had, then you’d know how much trouble they bring. And these aren’t even ordinary children. It’s all very well you coming over all mumsy and nurturing, but these are Lost Boys. You can’t take them back to Anchorage. What will you do with them there?

  “Love them, of course,” replied Freya simply.

  “Oh, like you did Caul? That really worked, didn’t it? They’ll rob you blind, and then probably murder you. You’ve lost your edge, Snow Queen. You asked me once to help you protect Anchorage. Well, I’ll protect it by making sure you don’t take a gang of burglar-babies home with you as souvenirs of Grimsby.”

  Freya took a step backwards, as though she didn’t like to be so close to Hester. “I don’t think Anchorage needs your sort of protection any more,” she said. “I was glad of you once. I hoped all those years of peace would bring you peace as well. But you’ve not changed.”

  Hester was about to reply when the door behind her opened and Caul came in. She turned on him instead. “Come to gloat over your prisoners?”

  Caul would not meet her eye. “You’re not prisoners,” he said. “I just didn’t want anybody to get hurt. And I didn’t want you to make Uncle leave. He’s an old man. He’d die if he leaves Grimsby.”

  “He’ll die if he stays,” said Hester. “Unless he’s a really good swimmer.”

  Caul ignored her, and spoke to Freya and Tom. “He’s asleep now. He’ll sleep for hours, with luck. That gives you time to get away.”

  “And what about you?” asked Freya.

  Caul shook his head. “I have to stay. I’m all he’s got.”

  “Well, you’re more than he deserves,” said Tom indignantly. “You do know he’ll never really be able to rebuild this place, don’t you?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Caul. “Seeing him like this, so old and mad and miserable… Of course Grimsby’s finished. But Uncle doesn’t realize that. I’m the last of his boys, Tom. I’ve got to stay with him till the end.”

  Freya was about to try and reason with him, but Hester butted in. “Fine by me. Now, how do you suggest we leave?”

  Caul grinned at her, glad of a practical question at last. “The Naglfar. She’s the cargo submarine we saw in the pens when we first got here. She’s old, but she’s trusty. She’ll take you back to Anchorage all right.”

  “Then you’ll have to come too!” said Freya, relieved. “I can’t drive a submarine on my own, or pilot it, or whatever you’re supposed to do to them.”

  “Tom and Hester will help you.”

  “Tom and Hester are taking the Screw Worm and going after Brighton,” said Hester.

  “No,” Caul told her. “You’ve got to go with Freya. I have to stay with Uncle. I’ll help you fuel and provision the Naglfar. You can take her back to Anchorage and then, once Freya and the children are safe, then you can carry on to Brighton and find Wren.”

  And so, for one last time, the limpet pens of Grimsby were filled with the sounds of a submarine being made ready for sea. The Naglfar was a rusty, ramshackle old tub, but Caul said that she would swim, and there was room enough in her spacious hold for all the children. He did not tell them what else he knew about her; that she was the submarine which Uncle had stolen years before from Snowmad scavengers, and used to begin his underwater empire. Nor did he mention where her name came from – in the legends of the old north the Naglfar was a ship built from dead men’s fingernails in which the dark gods would sail to battle at the world’s end. He didn’t want to give the children nightmares.

  So Tom and Caul concentrated on testing the old sub’s engines, while Hester filled her tanks with fuel and Freya made some of the older children show her Grimsby’s food-stores, where they collected armfuls of provisions to keep them going on the journey back to Vineland.

  Everything had to be done quickly. Metallic moans and grumbles kept rolling down the passageways of the building, as hull-plates which had been damaged by Brighton’s depth-charges slowly shifted and gave way under the pressure of the sea, and the bulkhead doors slammed shut to seal off the flooded sections. No one had forgotten that Uncle was still up there in his chambers with his mad dreams. But Uncle seemed to be sleeping soundly for the moment; at least, when Tom opened the Naglfar’s hatches and looked up at the shadowy roof he could not see any crab-cams on the move.

  He leaned against the open hatch-cover for a moment, glad of the cold, for it was growing hot and stuffy in the Naglfar’s engine room. He had been overdoing it down there, and worrying too much about Wren, and his old wound was hurting him again, sharp, jabbing shards of pain, as if his heart were full of broken glass. He wondered again if he was going to die. He didn’t think he was afraid of dying, but he was afraid of dying before he found Wren.

  He decided to worry about Caul instead of himself. He climbed out of the submarine and found Hester coming across the dock.

  “What are we going to do about Caul?” Tom asked softly, drawing her aside. “He’s still set on staying here. Has he forgotten that Uncle tried to have him killed?”

  Hester shook her head. “He’s not forgotten,” she said. “I don’t think he wants to stay, exactly. It’s just that he loves Uncle.”

  “But Uncle nearly killed him!”

  “That doesn’t make a difference,” said Hester. “Uncle is the nearest thing Caul’s got to a mother or a father. Everybody loves their parents. They may not always realize that they love them, they may hate them at the same time, but there’s always a little bit of love mixed in with the hate, which makes it really… complicated.”

  She stopped, unable to explain herself, thinking of her own complicated feelings for her dead father and her missing child. She wished Wren loved her as much as Caul loved Uncle.

  “Freya told me Caul has dreams about this place every night,” said Tom. “He dreams about Uncle’s voice, whispering to him the way it used to when he was a child. Why would Uncle keep talking to them all, over the speakers, even while they were asleep?”

  “Maybe he was sort of brainwashing them,” said Hester.

  “That’s what I think,” Tom agreed. “P
utting a kind of hook in their minds that would always pull them back to Grimsby, no matter how far they tried to run, or how much they wanted to get away.”

  “We’ll overpower Caul,” said Hester. “Knock him on the head and drag him away. He’ll come to his senses once we’re at sea.”

  “Maybe,” said Tom. “Maybe once this place is gone, and Uncle’s dead, he’ll be able to forget it.”

  From the conning tower of the Naglfar came a piercing, childish scream. “The cams!” shouted a boy called Eel, whom Freya had told to keep watch because he was too small to do anything else. “The cams are moving!”

  Tom and Hester looked up. Above them, crab-cams were scuttling along the rusty jibs of the docking-cranes, clambering over each other as they trained their lenses on the pool where the Naglfar wallowed.

  “The old man’s awake,” said Caul, scrambling out of the submarine’s forward hatch and climbing down on to the dock with Freya close behind.

  “So what?” asked Hester. “He can’t stop us leaving now.”

  “Who said leaving?” asked Uncle’s scratchy voice. “Nobody’s leaving.”

  He came limping towards them between the empty moon-pools, Hester’s gun looking huge in his papery, quivering hand. Above his head the old balloon hung like a mouldy thought-bubble and the globe of screens beneath it flickered with pictures from the crab-cams. He heaved the gun up and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet clanging into the the metal of the Naglfar’s conning tower. The sound echoed away between the shadowy docking-cranes, and as if in answer a stressed bulkhead somewhere on the upper levels let out a long groan, like some huge creature dying slowly and painfully of indigestion.

  Uncle ignored it. “Uncle Knows Best!” he shouted shrilly. “Stay here and help me rebuild Grimsby, and you will be well rewarded. Try to leave, and you’ll be flushed out the water-door to feed the little fishies.”