* * *
Down in the cabin, Essie was miserably seasick. She’d slept in while the other two got up and got underway, and by the time she’d woken up and looked out the porthole (scratching her mosquito bites) the rubbery mangrove trees had vanished; instead they were moving through a rolling swell, and far off in the distance she could see the line of the shore. They were at sea again.
The whole thing still seemed unreal; she couldn’t quite believe that she had run away from school, walked through a slum, been chased by Admiralty men, and was now on a stolen boat heading for Southaven. But at least from Southaven she knew she’d be able to get home easily enough—there were trains from there to Pallas.
Provided she didn’t actually die before she got there.
Her stomach churning, she hurried to the bathroom (Will called it the “heads”) but didn’t quite get all the way there before her stomach contents heaved themselves all over the bathroom floor.
When it was done, Essie crawled up on deck to confess what had happened and ask for a bucket.
“I didn’t think,” Annalie said apologetically, as she came to help. “We never get seasick.”
Annalie hauled up a bucket of seawater from the side and took it below to start sluicing out the bathroom. It took a couple of goes, but soon the floor was rinsed clean.
“Come up on deck,” Annalie suggested. “It’ll only make it worse sitting down here.”
The two girls came back up on deck. Will eyed them, a look of suppressed glee on his face. “You know what the best cure for seasickness is?” he asked.
“What?”
“Come here, I’ll show you.”
Essie went over to him unthinkingly. To her astonishment, Will grabbed her and flung her over the side of the boat. Essie went down, terrified. She kicked frantically for the surface, her heart beating so fast from the shock that she thought it might actually explode.
Her head broke the surface, but then a wave smacked across her face and she swallowed more water. She coughed and heaved and floundered.
An object smacked heavily into the water beside her. A life preserver had been thrown to her. She grabbed it and clung on, looking mistrustfully at Will, who was holding the other end of the rope.
“How do you feel now?” he yelled.
To her surprise, she discovered that he was right: the plunge into the water had cured her seasickness. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t furious with him.
“I could have drowned!” she shouted.
“No you wouldn’t,” he said.
He pulled her in, arm over arm. When she reached the side of the boat he put a hand down to her but she refused to take it. “How do I know you won’t just drop me in again?” she said.
“Don’t be a crybaby,” Will said.
Annalie pushed him out of the way and held out her own hand. “Here,” she said, and hauled Essie up, with some difficulty.
“Are you okay?” Annalie asked, after they’d both flopped, gasping, onto the deck.
“What would you have done if I couldn’t swim?” Essie asked Will accusingly.
Will rolled his eyes in disbelief. “I was standing by with a floaty thing!” he said. “You were never in any danger. Man!”
Will went huffing back to the wheel.
“Still feeling sick?” Annalie asked.
“As a matter of fact, no,” Essie said haughtily. “But I still think he should have asked.”
Essie sat on the deck and let her clothes dry in the sun, watching both Will and Annalie as they moved about the boat, doing important sailing things, thinking how much she envied their competence. She was impressed by the easy way they moved around the boat, and talked so confidently about routes and dangers, as if they did this sort of thing every day. Watching them steer the boat together yesterday through those narrow channels had been dazzling, daunting: they were like characters from a vid, or a game. She couldn’t imagine ever knowing so much about boats, or currents, or being able to handle an oar with such practiced skill. Watching them in action had just made her feel even more useless in comparison.
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 harbor 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 creditstream 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 harbor 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 traveled 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, traveled 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 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 optimize 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 or were 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 realized 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 with criminal manslaughter, but the big news is my mom’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 mustache.
“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 rumors 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 d
one 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 toward 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 toward 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 mom?”
“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.
The Flooded Earth Page 10