Syren

by Angie Sage

Chapter 30 The Red Tube

  Miarr staggered to his feet, but his legs gave way. He sat on the floor of the bunkhouse shaking. "Leave me alone," he whimpered. "I am doomed. "

  "Now, Mr. Miarr," said Lucy sternly, "this kind of behavior won't get your Light rescued, will it? Wolf Boy and I will carry you. "

  "We will?" asked Wolf Boy.

  "Yes, we will," said Lucy.

  So they did. They carried Miarr - who, happily, was even lighter than he looked - down the scarily shaking steps until at last they reached firm ground in the well of the lighthouse. Gently they set him down on the earthen floor and got their breath back.

  "Through there," said Miarr, pointing to two narrow doors - one black, one red - hidden in the shadows under the last turn of the steps. "Open the red one, then come back for me. I must rest for a few moments. "

  Wolf Boy took the lamp from its holder on the wall and held it up for Lucy so that she could see to unlock the door. The key turned easily, and Lucy pushed the door open. The smell of the sea hit them, and far below they heard the wash of the waves. Lucy caught her breath in amazement. Wolf Boy, who was usually not impressed by much, whistled in surprise.

  "What is that?" he muttered.

  "That is the Red Tube," came Miarr's voice from the lighthouse. He sounded amused. "It is the rescue boat. "

  "That's not a boat," said Lucy. "That's. . . " She trailed off, unable to find the words to describe the huge red capsule in front of her.

  Wolf Boy stepped up to the Red Tube - and gingerly gave it a poke. "It's metal," he said.

  "But how can it be metal if it's a boat?" said Lucy.

  Wolf Boy scraped a spot of rust off with his fingernail. "But it is. You know," he said, "it reminds me of those stories about people in olden times who used to fly to the moon in things like that. "

  "Everyone knows they're not true," said Lucy. "How could you possibly fly all the way up to the moon?"

  "Yeah. . . well, of course they're not true. Obviously. "

  Lucy stuck out her tongue.

  "But I used to like the old stories all the same," said Wolf Boy, tapping the side of Miarr's boat. It rang like a bell. "We had a nice Chief Cadet for a while - before they found out that he was nice and put him in a Wolverine pit for a week. Anyway, he used to tell us moon stories, and they were all about things like this. "

  The Red Tube lay cradled between two metal lattice platforms that came halfway up its sides. It was, Wolf Boy guessed, about fifteen feet long, and had a line of tiny, thick green glass windows punctuating the sides and a larger one in the front. Through the glass Wolf Boy could just about make out the shapes of high-backed seats that were unlike any seats he had ever seen before.

  The Red Tube rested on two sets of parallel metal rails. The rails extended for about twenty feet and then took a steep turn downward and descended into the dark, toward the sound of the waves. Wolf Boy and Lucy peered down, and the lamplight caught the glint of metal rails disappearing into black water.

  "We can't possibly go in that thing," said Lucy, her voice echoing in the cavern.

  "But how else are we ever going to get off this lighthouse?" asked Wolf Boy.

  "Swim?"

  "Crumbs," Lucy said before falling uncharacteristically silent. Miarr walked shakily through the red door and joined them on the metal platform beside the Red Tube.

  "Please open the pilot hatch," he said, pointing to the smallest and farthest of four hatches ranged in a line along the roof. "Push on the black button in front of it and it will open. "

  Feeling as if he were in one of the Chief Cadet's stories, Wolf Boy leaned over the rescue boat and pushed a black circle of some rubbery kind of material that was set flush with the metal of the roof. With a faint whir, the oval hatch flipped open smoothly, and a smell of iron and damp leather came from inside of the capsule. Catlike, Miarr jumped onto the Red Tube and disappeared down through the hatch. Lucy and Wolf Boy watched through the thick green windows as the fuzzy shape of Miarr strapped itself into the tiny seat in the nose of the Red Tube and then, in what seemed to be a well-practiced maneuver, began turning an array of dials in front of him. Slowly Miarr's hatch closed, and Lucy wondered if he was going without them. Looking down at the stomach-churning drop, she thought that she really wouldn't mind if he did go without them. But no such luck; suddenly Miarr's oddly distorted voice came crackling into the air - how, Lucy and Wolf Boy had no idea.

  "Embark now, please. " Miarr's disembodied voice filled the cavern. The larger hatch behind the pilot's swung open. "Make haste. The capsule will release in one minute. "

  "One minute?" Lucy gasped.

  "Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight, fifty-seven. . . " Miarr's countdown began, but Wolf Boy and Lucy hung back.

  "Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight. . . "

  "Oh, crumbs, we're stuck here if we don't," said Lucy, looking panicky.

  "Yeah. "

  "Forty-one, forty, thirty-nine. . . "

  "We might never get off the lighthouse. Ever. "

  "Yeah. "

  "Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one. . . "

  "And we said we'd rescue the Light. "

  "You said, you mean. "

  "Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three. . . "

  "Well, get in then. "

  "You first. "

  "Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen. . . "

  "Ohcrumbshurry up!" Lucy clambered onto the rounded metal top of the rescue boat, took a deep breath and dropped through the hatch. She landed on the seat behind Miarr's, though she could see nothing of its occupant, as the wide, padded headrest concealed his neat, sealskin-clad head from view. Lucy looked out the thick green window and saw Wolf Boy hesitating on the platform.

  "Eleven, ten, nine. . . " Miarr's voice was loud and clear inside the rescue boat.

  "Get in!" Lucy yelled at the top of her voice and rapped sharply on the glass.

  "Seven, six. . . "

  "For goodness sake, get in now!"

  Wolf Boy knew he had to do it. He suspended all hope of surviving for more than another minute and jumped in. He landed with a bump next to Lucy and felt as if he had landed in his coffin. The hatch closed above him and nailed his coffin lid shut.

  "Five, four. . . fasten seat belts, please," said Miarr. "All crew must wear their seat belts. "

  Lucy and Wolf Boy fumbled with two thick leather straps and buckled them across their laps. Lucy realized that something must have told Miarr that they were fastened, as the cat-man did not look around but continued his countdown.

  "Three, two, one - release!"

  The Red Tube set off deceptively slowly along the first twenty feet of rail, then it tipped forward. Lucy felt sick. Wolf Boy screwed his eyes shut tight. There was a jarring clang as the boat's nose hit the rails - and they were off. The Red Tube was down the rails in less than two seconds. They hit the water with a deafening bang and then - to Wolf Boy's horror - they kept right on going, down, down, down into the blackness, just as he had done so many years ago that night in the river when he had fallen from the Young Army boat.

  And then - just as had happened on that night in the middle of the river - the terrifying dive leveled off, the water loosened its hold and, like a cork, they began to rise to the surface. Beautiful green light began to shine through the tiny windows and, a moment later, in a fountain of dancing white bubbles, they broke the surface and sunlight flooded in.

  Wolf Boy opened his eyes in amazement - he was still alive. He looked at Lucy. White-faced, she managed a flicker of a smile.

  "Launch complete," said Miarr, his voice still eerily crackly. "Surface successful. Hatches secure. Commence controlled dive. "

  And to Lucy and Wolf Boy's dismay, the Red Tube began to sink once more. The sunlight changed to green, the green to indigo and the indigo transformed to black. Inside the capsule a dim red light began to glow, giving a contradictory warmth to the chill that was s
eeping in from the cold depths of the sea.

  Miarr twisted around to speak to his passengers. His sealskin cap blended into the shadowy background and his flat, white face shone like a small moon. His big, yellow eyes were bright with excitement. Miarr smiled and once again his two lower canine teeth edged over his top lip. Lucy shivered. He looked very different from the pathetic creature collapsed on the bunkroom floor whom she had so much wanted to help. She began to wonder if she had made a terrible mistake.

  "Why have we. . . sunk?" she asked, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice and not entirely succeeding.

  Miarr was obscure. "To find the Light, first we must enter the dark," he replied, and turned back to his control panel.

  "He's gone bonkers," Lucy whispered to Wolf Boy.

  "Nuts," agreed Wolf Boy, who knew he had been right all along about the coffin.

  "Totally raving, screaming nuts. "