Then, quite suddenly, Annalie saw movement on the deck of the pirate ship. The men were looking about. They heard the distant tang of a loudspeaker, traveling across the water.
“Something’s happening,” Annalie reported. “I think they’re giving orders.”
“What sort of orders?”
The men on the boat were moving purposefully about now. They were no longer looking at the Sunfish. “I think—I think they’re giving up!”
“What?”
Will came over to her and grabbed the binoculars from her, yanking her neck uncomfortably. “Ow!”
She was right. The pirate ship had broken off its pursuit and was changing course.
“What on earth is going on?” Annalie said.
“Pirates go!” Graham squawked, turning somersaults in the air with a chatter of parrot laughter.
“Maybe they decided we’re not worth it after all,” Essie suggested.
“Maybe someone else is coming this way,” Will said.
“A bigger target?” Annalie said.
“Admiralty?” Will countered. “Either way, we’d better get out of here.”
Once more they corrected their course to get away from the pirate ship as fast as they could. Annalie kept a lookout as the ship receded, and just before she lost sight of it over the horizon, she saw the answer to the riddle.
It was a cargo ship, propelled by high-atmosphere sails. Everything about these ships, from the cargo on board to the sails that propelled them, was valuable. A ship like that would make much richer pickings than a tiny sailing boat like the Sunfish.
“Will they be all right, do you think?” Essie asked.
“They’ll be fine,” said Will confidently. “Those big boats are armed to the teeth. They have to be.”
“So were the pirates,” Annalie said.
“Better them than us,” Will said. “At least they stand a chance.”
Once the pirates had vanished over the horizon, Annalie went to check their position. “We need to keep an eye out,” she said. “There’s an undersea mountain not far from here. Not much to see above the surface, but plenty below it.”
“Might be good fishing,” Will said.
“You never know,” Annalie said. “Let’s try not to bump into it.”
“Okey dokey,” Will said.
“A mountain?” Essie said. “In the middle of the ocean? Really?”
“The ocean’s full of mountains,” Annalie said, “much bigger than the ones on land. You do get these rocky uplifts just sticking out of the ocean in the middle of nowhere. There’s often a lot of things living around them too—they’re like an oasis in the desert.”
“You mean like sharks?” Essie asked nervously.
“Sharks, whales, all sorts of things,” Annalie said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, they’re too busy eating each other to be interested in you.”
The wind that had propelled them died away again, and the boat sailed on, more slowly now. They kept a lookout for the pirate ship, but it did not return.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Annalie determined they were close to the undersea mountain. “Let’s go see what’s around,” she suggested to Essie.
Standing in the bow, Annalie and Essie watched in delight as they crossed paths with a school of flying fish. The fish leaped and soared, their winglike fins lifting them energetically out of the water. Essie was still gazing down into the water, looking for fish, when Annalie lifted her eyes and saw a wholly unexpected sight.
Not far away, white water foamed over what was clearly the rocky top of the mountain. And perched on that rocky top was a boy.
The boy
“Look!” Annalie cried.
Essie looked up and gave a yelp. Even Will stuck his head around. All three of them stared at the boy.
The empty ocean stretched for thousands of miles around them in every direction. The nearest land was many days’ journey away, no matter which way you went. Where had he come from?
For a long time the boy stared back at them, without making any movement. Then, slowly, he lifted his arms up above his head. Was he signalling? Or surrendering?
“Oh my goodness,” Essie whispered. “I wonder how long he’s been there.”
“It’s all right,” Annalie called. “We’re coming to get you.”
Will dropped anchor with a clatter, and Annalie helped him reef in the sails. Then Will lowered the dinghy and rowed over to the rock. The boy seemed reluctant to move from his perch on the rock, but eventually Will managed to get the dinghy close enough that he was able to clamber in. The boy sat slumped in the dinghy as Will rowed him back; when they got to the Sunfish, he was too weak to climb up the ladder and the girls had to help him.
“Let’s get him below,” Annalie said.
They hooked his arms over their shoulders and carried him down to the saloon. Annalie got him some water and he sucked it down in huge gasping gulps. He drank more and more, until suddenly it came up again in a smelly whoosh. The boy tensed, as if expecting a blow, but it was a dull, instinctual movement, slowed by exhaustion.
“Don’t worry about that,” Annalie said. “We’ll clean it up later. Would you like something to eat?”
Essie jumped up and fussed in the galley, not sure what castaways might like for their first meal back from the brink of death. She offered a banana, a honey sandwich, and a little leftover curry and rice. The boy crammed it all in as if he didn’t care what it was.
Annalie watched him curiously. He was terribly thin, his arms and legs like broom handles. He was about the same height as Will, but his hollowed-out face made him look almost like an old man. The clothes he wore—a T-shirt and some long shorts—were ragged and almost colorless. He wore no shoes.
None of them wanted to interrupt him while he was eating, but once he had eaten everything and Essie had brought him seconds and he’d eaten that too, Annalie began.
“What’s your name?”
The boy’s eyes darted toward her, and then flickered away.
“I’m Annalie, this is my brother Will, and my friend Essie.”
“Hi,” Will and Essie said.
The boy’s gaze darted from one face to another, then around the room. He looked like a wild animal looking for an escape route.
“It’s okay,” Annalie said. “You’re safe now.”
This didn’t seem to register with the boy at all, and Annalie began to wonder if he could understand them. “Do you speak Duxish?”
Still he gave no response. Essie tried saying hello in a few other languages. The boy showed no signs of understanding these either.
“Maybe,” Will said, “we should just leave him alone for a while.”
This seemed like a good idea, and the three of them began to get up from the table to give the boy some space. Then, unexpectedly, he said, “Pod.”
They all turned back to him with interest.
“Your name’s Pod?” asked Will.
The boy nodded, still watchful. “How many on this boat?”
“It’s just the three of us,” Will said.
“And Graham,” Annalie said, pointing to where Graham was snoozing on his perch.
The boy snapped around to look, as if expecting a threat. The sight of the parrot seemed to intrigue him, but he turned back toward the others quickly.
“No master?” he asked.
“I guess I’m the master,” Will said, and Annalie gave a splutter of laughter. Will gave her a dirty look.
“We don’t have a master,” Annalie said. “It’s just us.”
“So, I’m dying to know,” Essie said. “How did you get to be on that rock?”
Pod’s face went blank; a silence fell. Will and Annalie exchanged a look, then Will said, “If you want to have a rest, there’s a bed in there.” He pointed
to his own cabin, which had once been Spinner’s. With some hesitation, the boy got up and peeped in the cabin door; then he slipped in and closed the door behind him.
Will jerked his head to Annalie to indicate that she should follow him. They went up on deck, Essie following.
“Does anyone else think it might not have been the best idea bringing this kid on board?” Will said, keeping his voice low.
“What do you mean? We couldn’t leave him there,” Annalie said.
“Well, of course not,” Will said. “But who the hell is he?”
“I don’t know,” Annalie said.
“Maybe he’s a refugee,” Essie said.
“A refugee from what? We’re in the middle of nowhere. The only people who live out here are pirates,” Will said.
Annalie’s eyes widened. “You think he’s a pirate?”
Will shrugged eloquently.
“He doesn’t look like a pirate,” Essie said.
“What do you think they look like?” Will said.
“Well, tougher. And older,” Essie said.
“He looks too nervous to be a pirate,” Annalie said. “He looked like he thought we were going to kill him.”
“That doesn’t mean he might not try and take the boat off us.”
Essie looked at Annalie in alarm. “You don’t think he would, do you? We rescued him!”
“I’m just saying,” Will said, “we don’t know what he might do.”
They were all silent for a moment, thinking about this.
“Let’s wait and see what he’s got to say for himself,” Annalie said.
“Yeah, sure,” Will said. “But we’ve all got to keep an eye on him, right?”
* * *
The boy slept all afternoon. That evening, as they were gathering for their meal, the cabin door opened and Pod peeped out.
Annalie noticed him first. “Hey, Pod. Want some dinner?”
He nodded, and came slinking out.
Food, water and rest had done him good; he no longer looked on the brink of death. While the final preparations for dinner were made, he edged toward Graham, watching the bird with great curiosity. Graham saw him coming and flew up out of reach.
“Who this?” he squawked.
Pod blinked in surprise. “It talks?”
“Incessantly,” Will said. “This is Pod.”
Pod watched Graham as the bird flew about the saloon, his face more animated than it had yet been. “So colorful.”
Graham’s plumage was yellow, blue and green; he was a spectacular beast, and he knew it. Attracted by Pod’s attentive gaze, he stopped flying about and came to rest, just out of reach, and then sidled closer to see what would happen. Pod just stood and watched, rapt, as if everything Graham did was a marvel.
“New friend?” Graham suggested.
Pod nodded.
“Graham biscuit?” Graham asked craftily.
Pod wasn’t sure how to respond. Annalie handed him a biscuit, and Pod held it out. Graham took the biscuit and ate it with satisfaction, still sizing up Pod curiously.
“We should eat too,” said Essie.
The four of them sat around the little table and ate together in shy silence. Will, Annalie and Essie were all still desperate to know more about the stranger in their midst, but none of them knew how to begin. So they chatted about the food until they couldn’t think of anything else to say, and all the dinner was eaten up.
Then, abruptly, Pod spoke. “I was a slave.”
The others snapped to attention.
Pod’s face was expressionless, and he didn’t look at them as he spoke. “I don’t know where I was born, and I don’t remember my parents.” He paused. “I remember a village by the ocean, with houses on bamboo stilts, over the water. I remember looking down, looking for fish. I think maybe it was my mother’s village, and my sister and me, we lived there when we were little.” He paused. “I don’t remember how we left that place.
“My first job, I was a diver. My master took us to an old city—there were drowned buildings there, full of old things. They sent us down into the houses to salvage stuff. Metal, mostly.”
“Stuff that was worth money?” Annalie said.
Pod nodded. “Sometimes we had to go right under the water. We had a hose to breathe through, but it didn’t always work.”
“What happened when it didn’t work?” asked Essie, already horrified.
“You drowned.” Pod paused. “They were okay masters. They gave us food. But you had to go down under the water, had to work. Couldn’t say no. Say no, get taken away, never seen again.” He paused, swerving away from this topic. “Diving’s no good anymore. The good stuff, the easy stuff, it’s all been taken. Only the deep stuff’s left. Too hard to bring out, no money in it no more. So they sold us.
“Next job, we worked on a farm. The day we arrived, there was a huge sign by the gate with pictures of all the fruit and vegetables and grains we were going to be growing and my sister said, ‘Look at all that food! We going to paradise!’
“But there was salt in the ground. We were supposed to be fixing the soil, making it grow food again. But it was hard work—work all day in the fields until you’re exhausted, in all weather. They said they’d feed us out of what we grew, but nothing grew right. Things died or grew up stunted. Nothing tougher than salt. So we got hungrier, started working slower, and the masters got angrier cos they got big contracts to fill. In the winter, people were falling down and dying on the ground. We heard if you died there, they’d smash you up and put you in the dirt. Fertilizer.”
Essie’s hand flew up to cover her mouth.
“Eventually the farm went broke,” said Pod. “They sold us on. We got put on a boat, very bad boat. People were crammed up in the dark together for weeks. Lots of people got sick and died. And then we stopped.”
He paused. “You ever seen them floating palaces? Huge boats, all white and shiny. Rich people live on them.”
“Oh yes!” Essie said. “You mean cruise communities. My uncle and auntie live on one. They’re cruise ships, but you live on them permanently, and they just go round the world, stopping at nice places along the way.”
Pod listened, unsmiling. “So we stopped at one of them. Bosses come down. They’re looking for girls to work as maids. They need two hundred, and they choose all the prettiest faces. They chose my sister. She didn’t want to go without me. I said to them, take me too, I’ll do any work you want. But they only wanted girls.”
“Hang on,” Essie said, her face red. “That can’t be right.”
“What can’t?”
“They wouldn’t use slaves on cruise ships.”
“My sister’s a slave. They bought her.”
“But—those ships are extremely expensive to go on!”
“Someone’s making good money then,” Pod said. “That crew, they’re slaves.”
Essie looked away, mortified.
“Perhaps your sister was lucky though,” Annalie said. “If the cruise ships are nice, maybe they’re a good place to work.”
“Maybe,” Pod said, looking skeptical.
“But, wait, you mean none of the staff are getting paid?” Essie asked, not willing to let it go.
“Here’s how it works,” Pod said, his eyes blazing. “Someone sold me to my first master. He paid money for me, so I owe that money to him now, I got to pay it back. So I work and work until I pay the money back. But there are always costs—food, clothes, lodging. So my debt never gets any smaller. Every time I get sold on, it all starts again. New boss, new debt.”
“So probably your sister is getting paid, but her wages are going to your master to pay her debt,” Essie said.
“Maybe,” Pod said dryly. “Never seen any wages myself.”
Essie was still looking baffled and outraged. Will in
tervened. “So anyway, what happened to you? How did you wind up here?”
“That boat, I was on it for a long time. They sold some boys, not me, I don’t know why. Then one day, we got boarded by pirates. But they can’t find nothing on board. One of them says to me, ‘Where they hide the good stuff? Where’s the tech at?’ I say only thing worth stealing on this boat is me. He says no way. Slaves are too much trouble. I tell him I’ll work hard. But he says he don’t believe in hard work, that why he’s a pirate.”
Pod laughed, surprisingly.
“So I told him I’d show him the good tech, but only if he took me with him. So I showed him and he said, “Call that good tech?” but he took it anyway. And he took me with him.
“So now I got a pirate boss and a new job. I didn’t know nothing about boats, had to learn pretty quick. They show me something once, I got to remember it first time. Pirates don’t like to repeat themselves. The pirates did what pirates do: jack ships, strip the tech, sell it off. I did what they told me to do. Tried not to get in anyone’s way. As jobs go, it wasn’t so bad. Food was good. The captain though—he was the worst boss ever. He thought everyone was plotting against him. He got all wound up about it, started hearing voices, thinking someone was gonna kill him, steal his boat, steal his money. The others kept saying, ‘No boss, it’s okay boss, no one’s trying to kill you,’ but he doesn’t believe them.
“Then one day he works it out: my master is the one. So the captain chops his head in half with a machete, and then he started coming after me, but the other guys said, ‘He’s not a bad kid, you don’t need to kill him too.’ So the captain said, ‘Fine, I won’t kill him, but he’s not staying on my ship.’ And he tossed me over the side.”
The others gaped at Pod.
“I was lucky though. One guy threw a big plastic bottle over the side when the captain wasn’t looking, I floated on that pretty good. After a while, I saw some white water. I thought maybe it was land. Wasn’t really land though. Just rocks.”
“So, how long had you been there when we came along?” Will asked.
“Three days,” Pod said. He looked at the others with an air of defiance. “So. Now you know.”
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