Escape to the Moon Islands: Quest of the Sunfish 1

by Mardi McConnochie

  But at least she no longer felt seasick.

  Southaven

  The journey to Southaven was trouble-free. More than one Admiralty patrol boat passed them at a distance, but did not signal or come closer, and so they began to think that no one was really looking for them.

  They did, of course, take precautions. The huge harbour at Southaven was one of the busiest in the world, and the port authorities ran checks on every boat that entered it. As soon as they checked the Sunfish they’d discover it had been reported stolen, so Will and Annalie decided that they would drop anchor in a little bay just up the coast and travel to the city by bus.

  ‘How much money have you got?’ Will asked, turning to Annalie.

  ‘A little,’ Annalie said, fetching out her purse. ‘Spinner gave me some emergency money, and I haven’t had to use any of it yet. What about you?’

  ‘He gave me this,’ Will said, pulling notes from his pocket.

  They pooled their money and looked at it doubtfully. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be enough,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Essie said. ‘I’ve got money.’

  ‘You need that to get you home,’ Annalie said.

  ‘No, really, I’ve got plenty. I’ve got a credit-stream on my shell.’

  Will turned to her, interested. ‘What’s your limit?’

  ‘I don’t really have one,’ Essie said.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ Will asked excitedly.

  ‘Will, it’s not our money,’ Annalie said.

  ‘But if she wants to help us out—’

  ‘She’s already in enough trouble without spending her parents’ money on us.’

  ‘How else are you going to pay for what you need?’ Essie asked.

  Annalie hesitated. ‘We can probably find some stuff to barter.’

  ‘Won’t you need that stuff yourself?’

  ‘Well, maybe . . .’

  ‘Then let me pay, and I’ll worry about my parents later,’ Essie said.

  Will grinned. ‘Now I know why you brought her along!’

  Essie narrowed her eyes at Will disdainfully.

  The crowded, wheezing bus took them very slowly from the little seaside hamlet where they’d anchored, over gently rolling countryside, and then made stop after stop through the city of Southaven until it reached the great harbour at its heart.

  Southaven, like the city of Port Fine, had been inundated by the Flood, but its position on the international shipping routes was so important that no expense had been spared in rebuilding it. You could still see what the old city must have looked like as you travelled through the city’s heights; lower down, everything was new, with flood-proof roads and buildings and mighty anti-flood barriers and sluice gates to protect against high tides and storm surges. There was concrete and steel everywhere, reassuringly massive.

  At last they came over the crest of a hill and Southaven port spread out below them, huge and deep, a vast expanse of water, staggeringly full of ships of all sizes and kinds. There were cargo ships and passenger ships, fishing boats and ferries. Some, like the Sunfish, travelled under old-fashioned sail; some used high-altitude sails, giant kites that rode the steadier and more powerful winds in the high atmosphere. Others had engines driven by high-efficiency solar, or wind turbines, or wave-power. And there were Admiralty ships, lots of them, from small pursuit ships to large heavy cruisers. Southaven, after all, was the home of the Admiralty’s southern fleet.

  ‘There’s going to be a lot of sailors down there,’ Annalie said anxiously, counting the Admiralty boats.

  ‘So what?’ Will said. ‘No one ever notices kids.’

  They decided to split up: Will to scout for spare parts, Annalie to find provisions. Once they’d bought what they needed, Annalie would take Essie to the railway station and Will would hire a cart to take the provisions back to the Sunfish.

  It gave Will a great sense of pleasure and purpose to set off on his own through the crowded streets of the port. He’d been to Southaven once or twice before with Spinner, on similar missions—looking for spare parts, or with something to sell—so he had a rough idea of how the town fitted together. He knew there was a group of streets where you could find ships’ equipment, from the most basic to the most high-tech. He soon found his way there and began moving from shop to shop, checking prices, comparing quality, eyeing off all the lovely gadgets he wished he could afford. He made notes on his list and worked out where all the best deals were, and once he was satisfied he knew what he was going to buy, he turned his attention to the things he was never going to buy: the gleaming shipboard sat navs with their lightning-fast interfaces and dazzling breadth of information.

  While the sales assistant was busy elsewhere, he hopped onto a demo model and began to play with it. Idly he keyed in Little Lang Lang Island, the island where Uncle Art lived. At once a map popped up, and Will went closer, zeroing in on the cove where Uncle Art’s house was. Then, the obvious thing to do was plot a course there. An array of possible routes popped up, with tools to optimise your search. Will kept clicking and optimising happily, refining the trip for traditional sailing vessels, for the least amount of pirate activity, for coral reefs, debris fields, whales.

  I wish there was some way I could save all this, he thought, looking at the beautifully detailed route information with all its supplementary appendices—everything they would need to find their way to Uncle Art’s island safely.

  Meanwhile, Annalie and Essie had quickly established that the best place to buy the supplies they needed was at the huge, ugly warehouse-style store where they sold things by the box. There wouldn’t be a lot of variety, but the prices were inarguable. The boxes, however, would be heavy, so they decided they’d come back later when they’d hired a pedicab.

  They had arranged to meet Will in a street filled with shops. Advertisements flashed and animated in every window, illuminated billboards glowed above the shopfronts, and a news ticker scrolled along the top of a TV studio where you could stand and watch the reporters broadcasting live.

  ‘You know, normally when I’m walking down a shopping street like this, all the shops would be sending me offers through my feed,’ Essie remarked. She hadn’t dared to switch her feed on since she’d realised the Admiralty might be tracking her through it.

  ‘Really?’ Annalie said. ‘All the shops? Doesn’t that drive you crazy?’

  ‘Not all of them. Only the ones I’m interested in.’

  ‘How do they know you’re interested?’

  ‘If I’m on their mailing list, or if I’ve ever bought anything there. I do get some random stuff though. You buy something for your dad once, and then they’re forever wanting to sell you hokey old music and golf-club covers.’

  Essie hadn’t meant to remind herself of her father. A sad feeling settled over her, and she felt the misery of it threatening to overwhelm her again. She looked away, and by a strange coincidence, something caught her eye in the fast-moving stream of the news ticker: Tower Corp. She froze, staring up at it. But it was gone too quickly for her to see what the news was, replaced by celebrity gossip and international atrocities and political gaffes, all in a swift-moving jumble.

  ‘What is it?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Something about Tower Corp,’ Essie said.

  ‘Maybe if you wait it’ll come back round,’ Annalie suggested.

  They waited, but it didn’t reappear.

  ‘It can’t have got any worse, can it?’ Essie said.

  ‘Maybe we could ask someone?’

  ‘That would just be weird,’ Essie said. ‘I’m sorry, I have to know.’ She whipped out her shell and headset and switched it on. Chimes rang and kept ringing. She flicked a finger. The newsfeed came up.

  Annalie watched anxiously as Essie’s eyes scanned the display. She gasped once, and then her face settled into a dreadful, flat expression.

  ‘What is it?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Apparently Dad’s been charged w
ith criminal manslaughter, but the big news is my mum’s left him for a shipping magnate with pots of money,’ Essie said flatly. ‘While I’ve been offlink she’s left me eleven messages. The feeds say they’ve been together since they met at a charity ball two months ago!’

  ‘The feeds aren’t always right,’ Annalie said. ‘Maybe you should get in touch with her and find out what she’s got to say.’

  ‘I don’t really care what she’s got to say,’ Essie said abruptly. ‘Where’s Will? We need to buy these supplies.’

  Will was now talking to the sales assistant about the journey he’d mapped out.

  ‘Planning a career in international piracy, are you?’ joked the sales assistant, a young man in his early twenties with a fashionable handlebar moustache.

  ‘Something like that,’ Will said.

  ‘You know, if you really were going to take a journey like this, in that kind of boat, I’d think about this,’ the sales assistant said, pulling up more menus and adding parameters and refinements. Still more detail appeared.

  ‘Wow,’ Will said. ‘This program is amazing.’

  ‘That’s why it’s the best. So what kind of system are you running at the moment?’

  Will hesitated. The boat did have a sat nav, but it was nothing like this one, which could connect to the link from anywhere on the planet, even the open ocean, so you could update data all the time. Spinner had a very old computer in a thick, waterproof case, which ran much older versions of the sat nav programs. They were very basic, and they weren’t connected to the links. Spinner always claimed he didn’t really need anything else.

  ‘It’s old,’ he said. ‘But we’re thinking of buying a new one. I don’t suppose you could let me save this search, could you? If I’m going to convince my dad to buy the new system, it might help if I could show him what it can do.’

  ‘Why don’t you get him to come in so I can take you both through it?’ the sales assistant said.

  ‘My dad’s super busy,’ Will said. ‘You couldn’t just put this on a chip, could you?’

  The man’s affable smile had disappeared. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t.’ And he deleted the search.

  Will let out a little moan as the information vanished. He tried desperately to remember as much of the detail as possible but knew it was already sieving away.

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘No,’ Will sighed. ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘Why are you looking so down?’ Annalie asked when Will arrived at the meeting spot, laden with spare parts.

  ‘I had all the information we needed to get to Little Lang Lang but the guy wouldn’t let me save it on a chip,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘What do you mean? Where did you find it?’

  ‘I looked it up on a sat nav. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff there was! Charts, data, route maps, everything! With all that information the trip would have been an absolute breeze. I don’t see why the guy had to be so weird about it. It was only information, he could have just saved it for me.’

  Essie was looking at him, frowning. ‘You entered where you’re going into a sat nav in a shop?’

  ‘Yeah—why shouldn’t I? I didn’t tell the guy my name.’

  ‘You know they say that’s the sort of thing the Admiralty monitors, right?’

  A horrid cold feeling crept over Will. ‘They what?’

  ‘There are rumours that the Admiralty monitors all the sat nav programs, so they can check where all the boats are going.’

  Annalie looked aghast. ‘We’d better get our shopping done and get out of here.’

  The three of them went to the big box supermarket and loaded up with groceries, all paid for with a swipe of Essie’s shell. Outside, after some bargaining, they found a man with a cart who was willing to take Will and the supplies back to the next town.

  ‘So are you coming?’ Will asked, clambering aboard.

  ‘I’m going to take Essie to the station. I’ll get the bus back.’

  Will looked at Essie. ‘Thanks for buying the stuff for us,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Essie said.

  ‘Hurry back,’ he warned Annalie as the cart rolled off.

  The girls walked towards the central railway station in silence. Essie brooded; Annalie waited respectfully for her to say something.

  At last they reached the great station, and walked in through the large vaulted entrance, wandering towards the information board that displayed the timetable for all the intercity trains. They stood underneath it, looking up. There was a train leaving for the capital in two hours’ time.

  Abruptly, Essie spoke. ‘They say my dad’s probably going to jail.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Annalie said.

  ‘I’m sure he never meant for any of it to happen,’ Essie said. ‘But I suppose when something like this happens, someone has to pay.’ She paused, her face crumpling a little. ‘She could have stood by him.’

  ‘Your mum?’

  ‘As soon as she saw the money running out, she was off.’ Essie dashed a tear from her eye. ‘I thought it was bad at school before. It’s going to be so much worse now.’

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ Annalie said, trying to sound encouraging. ‘Just tell them if they don’t leave you alone, they’ll have me to deal with.’

  ‘You’ll be on the other side of the world,’ Essie said in a watery voice.

  ‘Not as far as all that, I should think,’ said a voice.

  Annalie turned, and there, to her horror, stood Beckett.

  Run

  ‘You’ve led me a merry dance, young lady,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I’ve finally caught up with you. We have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ Annalie said, already looking for an escape route, noticing that this time he’d brought backup. Two marines were standing by. There were probably more she couldn’t see.

  ‘They’re very worried about you two back at Triumph,’ Beckett said. ‘Very anxious for your safe return.’

  ‘We were about to buy our train tickets actually,’ Essie said, ‘so there’s no need for you to worry, we can get back safely by ourselves.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to risk you getting lost again,’ Beckett said. ‘I’ve got a car standing by to take you back.’

  ‘None of this has anything to do with her,’ Annalie said. ‘She’s just my friend from school and she was on her way back anyway. Why don’t you just let her go?’

  ‘That’s not strictly true though, is it, Annalie?’ Beckett said, with his tooth-baring smile. ‘She’s just paid for all sorts of things she’s not going to need at school.’

  ‘I made her do that,’ Annalie said desperately. ‘She didn’t want to, but—’

  ‘None of this is really relevant,’ said Beckett. ‘Let’s go.’

  He steered the two girls out of the information hall and towards the front entrance. Annalie’s eyes darted about, looking desperately for a chance to escape. ‘Don’t try anything,’ Beckett warned. ‘It won’t work.’

  Escape certainly seemed unlikely, with Beckett right behind her, and marines on either side of them. Where are they going to take us? she wondered. And what would Will do when they didn’t come back? She wished they’d made a contingency plan in case one of them didn’t return. She had no way of sending him a message, no way to tell him to get away. She imagined him waiting there at the boat, waiting and waiting while Beckett’s men closed in on him.

  Suddenly an irate middle-aged lady appeared in front of them, trying to get the attention of the marines. ‘Excuse me! Excuse me! Could we get some help over here please?’

  The marines tried to brush her off, but she wouldn’t be brushed. ‘Those men over there are creating a disturbance and no one’s doing anything about it! Over there, look!’

  Some men, possibly drunk, were shouting and pushing each other in the midst of some discombobulated travellers. One of them crashed into a stand of water bottles and knoc
ked them flying.

  ‘Sorry ma’am,’ said one of the marines, ‘we can’t attend to that right now—’

  But Annalie, seeing an opportunity, blurted, ‘Talk to this man! He’s in charge of station security!’ and pointed to Beckett.

  The woman started demanding action, Beckett and his men tried to shake her off, and in that brief moment of turmoil and confusion, Annalie grabbed Essie and they broke into a run. They began weaving through the crowd, dashing and darting and ducking behind as many visual barriers as they could. People stopped to watch them go past, but they were lucky—no one decided to step in and stop them. Annalie spotted a camera as she ran, and realised that a place like this must be heavily monitored.

  ‘We need to get out of the station,’ she shouted to Essie.

  They darted out the great open doors, the heavy thud of boots close behind them. Annalie chose a direction at random and kept running, only hoping Essie could keep up. She saw an alleyway and went running down it; it doglegged around, and came to a dead end. Essie came careering down it after her. ‘Where now?’ she gasped.

  There was a door, metal, dented. Annalie yanked it open and clouds of steam billowed out. Not knowing where she was going, Annalie darted inside; Essie followed. They pulled the door shut behind them and moved forwards.

  It was a huge industrial laundry. Massive washing machines churned in a cloud of steam; dryers roared. The air smelt heavily of washing powder and bleach and it was very hot.

  ‘Hey!’ someone yelled, seeing them, and they ran again, racing past rows of machines and huge trolleys full of grimy sheets and filthy tablecloths.

  They found themselves in a loading dock where the trucks rolled in and out; more workers turned to stare at them as they jumped down from the dock and raced out into the street again.