“Honey, they all look like this,” the maid said sympathetically. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Pod.”
“Shamela,” the maid said. She looked at him curiously. “Where’d you come from anyway? You just start here?”
“Not exactly,” Pod said cautiously.
“You don’t work in the kitchen?”
“I’m just looking for my sister,” Pod said.
“Hey, Dodo!” called the maid on the monitor. “Glass broken on D40.”
“Coming boss!” One of the other maids got up.
“Hey,” Shamela said, “spread the word, huh? Maybe someone knows this boy’s sister.”
* * *
Essie was settled comfortably in a deckchair. Bliss! There was signal. It had been weeks since she linked in and she had forty voice messages and more than four hundred unread mails to wade through.
Most of the voice messages were from people trying to find out where she was. Friends at first. Then school. Her mother. Her father’s lawyer. Lots more messages from her mother and the school.
Her mother: “Essie? It’s Mom. Call me back.”
Beep.
“Essie, I need to talk to you. Call me back please.”
Beep.
“Essie, can you switch your shell on please? It’s really important that I speak with you.”
Beep.
“If you’re getting any of these messages can you call me please? Now.”
Beep.
“Essie, it’s me. The school keeps calling me. They’re threatening to expel you if you don’t come back. Enough is enough. It’s time to come back now.”
Beep.
“All right Essie, you’ve made your point. You’re angry at me, I get it. But you know I’m not actually the bad guy here. I know you worship the ground your father walks on, but there are things I could tell you...Anyway, no need to get into all that now. Just call me, please. Or if you won’t call me, call somebody. Everybody’s worried about you.”
Beep.
She didn’t sound worried, Essie thought. More annoyed that her daughter was causing trouble at an inconvenient time.
There were more messages from her mother but she didn’t listen to the rest. She thought she had a fair idea what they’d say. Instead she turned to her mail. At least three quarters of it was pleasant fluff—pictures taken by her friends, songs and movies and all that—but then, buried among it, she found a message from her father.
It had been forwarded by her father’s lawyer while he was still in jail, some weeks ago (the company had eventually agreed to pay his bail—an astronomical sum—and he was out again, under very strict conditions, while he awaited his trial date). He wrote:
My dear Essie,
You must be thinking the worst of me right now, and I can’t blame you for that. What happened was terrible, and I feel terrible about it. It’s all more complicated than they say in the newsfeeds and I hope one day I can make you see things from my point of view. But I’m not writing this to justify myself. I’m writing to beg you to come back to us.
I don’t know what made you run away from school. I hope it wasn’t because of me and all my troubles. I know it can’t have made things easy for you. But even if things have been tough, you have to give it another try. The school will take you back, I’m sure I can make that happen. Don’t worry about the fees. I don’t know what your mother told you, but I won’t let anyone take you out of Triumph. You deserve the best, because you’re smart and kind and you’re the sort of person the Admiralty needs. So you don’t have to worry about being sent away.
They told me about the money, too. As you probably know, they’re freezing all my assets, but I’ll try and keep that line of credit open for as long as I can, so if you need it, you can use it. They told me you were last seen in Southaven, with another girl who’d also run away from Triumph. I have to hope she’s really your friend and she’s not just taking advantage of you. I wish you’d let someone know where you are and what’s going on. Why did you run away? Where are you? Why have you switched off your shell? We’ve been trying to locate you but they say your shell’s gone dead. Please let us know what’s going on. I won’t be angry, I just want to know that you’re safe. I have a lot of time in here to worry about your welfare, so please put me out of my misery and get in touch! Even if it’s just to let me know you’re okay. And remember that wherever you end up, whatever has happened, if you want to come home, just pick up your shell and I’ll arrange it, I promise.
Please know that whatever happens with the trial, and whatever happens between me and your mother, I will always love you, and I will always do my best to look after you. I’m still hopeful that everything’s going to work out okay. But even if it doesn’t, know that I’m always your loving dad, and I’ll try my best to take care of you.
I hope you can forgive me. Please come home.
Dad
Essie had to hide her face behind a drinks menu when she got to the end of the mail so no one could see her cry.
She had known, sort of, that they must be wondering where she was. But until now she hadn’t really let herself think about it. Now she realized that they must be frantic with worry. She had been gone for weeks without a word, and they had no way to contact her or even locate her. Guilt sideswiped her.
Essie spent several minutes trying to compose an email to her father, reassuring, explaining, justifying, but everything she wrote seemed wrong, or gave away too much information. Eventually she wrote:
Dear Dad,
Please don’t worry about me. I’m okay and Annalie is a true friend. I’ll send word when I can. Hope to be home soon.
Love Essie.
* * *
“Hey, sister boy,” the maid called Dodo said, and beckoned to Pod.
He got up and followed her out into the service corridor, where two young maids were standing with a trolley filled with neatly folded towels and tiny shampoo bottles. One of them looked at him, and her face brightened with excitement. “Hey, I know you!” she said.
Pod recognized the girl too. “Karmon, right?”
“Yes!” She was giddy with excitement. “We were on that slave hulk together, you and me and Blossom. That boat was the worst!”
Pod nodded, almost feeling faint with anticipation. “You seen Blossom?”
“We were together,” Karmon said. “First six months or so. We were on the same boat at first, but then we got separated. We both started out on Blue Water Duchess, then they moved me here, to Blue Water Princess.”
“Is she still there?”
“Far as I know,” said Karmon.
“How’s she doing?” he asked eagerly. “How do they treat you on these boats?”
“They’re good places to work,” Karmon said, a little too emphatically.
“Truly?”
“Ain’t the worst job I had,” Karmon said, and laughed.
“Food’s okay,” the other maid said. “Work’s okay. No danger. Just hard. Long hours.”
“Long hours,” Karmon said. “And we never see land. Trouble is, costs are high on a job like this. Uniforms, food, cabin, water. I got me an even bigger debt now. Your sister too, prob’ly.”
The story was too familiar to make Pod very angry, but still it rankled. “But she was okay, the last time you saw her?”
“She’s okay. Don’t worry.” Karmon paused, looking at him curiously. “So are you working here now? Got a job in the kitchen?”
“Not exactly,” Pod said. “Hey, you ever see Blossom again, you tell her I’m doing good now. And tell her I’m looking for her, okay?”
“What do you mean you’re doing good?” Karmon stared at him, her eyes widening. “You free or something?”
The maid in charge of the monitor had come out to see what all the chit-chat was about. “Hey,
” she said, “why ain’t you working?”
Karmon and the other maids scrambled. The maid from the work station glared at Pod. He hurried back the way he’d come, shedding his kitchen hand’s jacket, and went out onto the deck to find Essie, his head pounding with excitement.
He hadn’t found his sister, but he’d found the next best thing: he knew the name of the ship she was on.
* * *
Essie was still sitting in her deckchair when he emerged into the sunny dazzle of the deck. She was deeply immersed in her shell and didn’t seem to notice him until he was standing right in front of her.
“We’re good,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Essie nodded and they were about to head back to the companionway that led off the ship when the sound of a siren split the air.
At first the people around them merely seemed startled, but then an alarm began to blurp, loudly and repetitively, in a way that seemed guaranteed to prevent rational thought. The passengers looked variously startled, disgruntled, confused. Only the staff made it clear: they looked terrified. Something was going on.
“What’s happening?” asked Essie, grabbing a steward.
“Nothing to worry about,” he gabbled, “everything’s under control. Now please return to your cabin and stay there until you hear the all-clear.”
Essie and Pod stared at each other and ran as one to the gate.
Too late: the companionway was being raised.
There was no way off the ship.
Pirate submarine
“How do we get off this thing?” cried Pod.
“I don’t know,” Essie said. “It’s too far to jump.”
“I’m not jumping,” Pod said.
“Maybe there’s another deck below this one. It wouldn’t be so far—”
“I’m not jumping,” Pod insisted.
“We have to get off somehow!” Essie said.
They were interrupted by a scream. They turned; passengers were running to look over the opposite deck. Pod and Essie ran with them, and saw something in the water below them.
It was a long, curved metallic shape floating just above the waterline, bristling with guns and turrets. Inflatable boats were deploying from it, filled with men carrying big guns, and other men in diving gear.
“That’s a pirate submarine,” Pod said.
“A what?” said Essie.
“They put mines on the bottom of the boat. Captain don’t hand over the boat, company don’t pay the ransom, they blow it up,” said Pod flatly.
Essie looked at him in horror. “We really need to get off this boat,” she said.
With a blast, water cannons began to roar, pouring torrents of water off the cruise ship and down onto the submarine and its submersibles. The submersibles scooted out of range of the water cannons, and when they were visible again to the people up on deck, their cargo of divers had vanished—presumably somewhere under the boat.
“Where do you think Will and Annalie are?”
“Hopefully, where we left them,” Pod said.
Essie began to run toward the stern of the boat, in the vague hope that they might be able to see the Sunfish. They reached the back deck and looked out. There was no sign of them.
“Oh, what are we going to do?” wailed Essie.
“Look,” Pod said. He dragged Essie over to a map of the ship that had been posted on the wall with many detailed instructions about what to do in case of emergency. “Where are we now?”
Essie looked frantically around her. “Um...we’re on this deck,” she said, pointing.
“There’s another deck here,” Pod said, pointing to another deck below the one they were on. “Let’s get down there.”
They ran to the nearest stairs, but the crew were busily locking them down. “Return to your cabin!” they shouted.
“But our cabin’s down there!” Essie said.
“Go via the main stairs.”
“But these are right here! I promise we’ll be quick!”
The crewman unlocked the gate, let them through, then slammed and locked it behind them. Pod and Essie clattered down the stairs. At the bottom, the gate was already locked.
“Hey!” they shouted. “Help!”
But there was no one nearby. The deck was littered with overturned deckchairs, abandoned magazines, lost shoes and tumbled towels.
“Help!” they shouted, rattling the gates.
At last a crewman stuck his head out, looking pale and frightened. “What you doing there?” he called.
“We’re trying to get to our cabin, can you let us out please?”
“We’re locked down!”
“Please!”
The crewman dashed out, unlocked the gate, and set them free. As he did so, a stream of armed men came pouring from a Staff Only door.
“Get off the deck, quick!” the crewman said, and fled back to where he’d come from.
Essie and Pod ducked for cover as the armed security guards spread out and took up positions, looking over the sides. None of them seemed even slightly interested in the two children: all their attention was on what was happening in the water.
“How hard do you suppose it would be to launch a lifeboat?” Essie whispered. She could see one, not far away. The instructions for its use seemed very detailed.
“Hard,” Pod said.
There was a shout, and the security guards began to fire. The noise was deafening. Orders were barked, and they heard radios squawking, then the guards closest to them were running forward.
“Come on,” Pod said, and started running in the opposite direction.
Something was clearly happening at the front of the boat; the sound of gunfire grew more intense and there was more shouting.
Essie grabbed two lifejackets and handed one to Pod.
“No,” he said.
“You want to get off this boat or not?”
They scrambled into the life jackets, fumbling with clips and straps, and headed to the observation deck in the stern.
A security guard was standing there, monitoring the approaches. Fortunately he had his back to them and they avoided being seen.
“We’ll have to go over the side,” Essie said. “Don’t want any of them to see us.”
“No,” Pod said. “’Specially not the pirates.”
They peered over the sides. The water cannons were still blasting—if they jumped directly into the path of one they would get pummelled. They crept along the deck, afraid that the security guards might return at any moment.
“Here,” Essie said. “We have to do this, Pod. It’s the only way.”
Pod knew she was right. So he did what he’d learned to do years before when he’d been sent down into some flooded factory with only a leaky hose to rely on. He made his mind go blank, and focused on doing the very next thing that needed to be done. That was the trick: take this step, then this step, then this step, and not think about it.
He climbed up the rail. He held on. He took Essie’s hand. He let himself fall.
Into the churn
And oh, how far it was. So far and so far, falling with his stomach traveling at its own separate and sickening pace, and then he hit the water, his body ready to keep flying down into the terrifying green, but the life jacket had other ideas. It smacked him in the chin as it pulled him back up to the surface and he was floating awkwardly and Essie was beside him.
“Swim!” she gasped, and began breaststroking awkwardly, hampered by her life jacket.
Pod paddled with his arms as best he could.
It was mayhem above them, mayhem in the water. The water cannons still roared and he could hear the whine of the motors on the pirates’ inflatables. They had jumped into the water on the landward side; the submarine was on the other side, so they could not see what was going on. A
n inflatable roared past, only meters from Essie’s face, the pirates in it spraying the upper decks of the great cruise ship with gunfire. Gunshots pinged down into the water all around them and Essie screamed in terror, afraid she might be caught in the crossfire, but the inflatable roared off and the shooting went with it.
Then, from the other side of the boat, they heard a thud, and then, a moment later, they felt a shockwave roll through the water around them. The huge cruise ship barely moved.
“What was that?” Essie asked. “Do you think they detonated the mine?”
“We’ll soon find out,” Pod said grimly.
They swam, even more desperately than before, both of them aware, from different sources, that sinking ships could suck you down with them. (Essie had seen a tear-jerking movie about a famous historical shipwreck; Pod had heard first-hand stories about the wreck of a slave hulk.)
Behind them, the cruise ship’s horn boomed out, three blasts, and then a new roar was added to the mix.
Pod glanced back. “They’re starting their engines!”
The water cannons shut off. The great propellors began to turn. The water boiled.
Essie and Pod kicked frantically, getting nowhere fast. All around them they could feel the water churning. Very slowly, the great ship began to move.
“It could still pull us in!” Essie shrieked, and the two of them kicked and thrashed and stroked some more.
The cruise ship, huge, white, slightly scarred, moved off into open water. The churn moved with it.
Essie and Pod stopped paddling and dangled there in the water, held up by their life jackets.
“Now what?” Essie said.
They were still a long way from shore, and there was nowhere to land. This part of the island was edged with cliffs
Then, from around the headland, came a welcome sight.
The Sunfish was sailing toward them.
Links
“A pirate submarine?” Will exclaimed. “Really?”
“And armed security guards,” Essie said. “That’s a new thing for cruise ships.”
The Flooded Earth Page 17