Suddenly, a huge dark shape torpedoed up from the murky depths below the orca. Thilini saw a jagged maw as wide as her craft open in a flash, sucking the orca down into it, and close with a sickening crack of bone. The force of the bite cut the orca right in two. Blood stained the water in scarlet clouds.
The leviathan shark wolfed the orca down in two gulps, and then righted itself to face the submarine. It looked roughly like the great whites the fishermen had speared in the shallows, but this creature’s skin about its head and jaws was armored with thick denticle scales; its snout looked more like a medieval battering ram. And this monster was far, far larger than any shark she’d ever seen. It was easily four times the length of her submarine.
The monstrous creature began to swim toward her.
Thilini shrieked and pulled the sub around, shoving the steam engine into full speed. She ignored the groaning of the boiler and the rattling of metal as she forced the sub faster and faster, convinced the dire monster was right behind, jaws opening, ready to snap the sub in two.
In her panic, she grounded the sub in the shallows several hundred yards north of the harbor. She killed the engine, got the hatch open with numb, shaking hands, and splashed to land where she collapsed on the sand and gave in to her desire to weep.
* * *
Herr Rothschild believed his daughter’s story straight away. But since she was merely a girl and deemed subject to frivolous flights of fancy, most others were skeptical and, despite the evidence from the Southwind, claimed she’d been frightened by a common cachalot whale or even a mere barracuda.
But in the following week, an East India Company cargo ship was attacked and most of the crew drowned or eaten. And the week after that, they got word of similar disastrous attacks on ships near Colombo and Batticaloa. More and more people heard and believed Thilini’s account of the leviathan shark; townsfolk and visiting officials asked her to tell her story so many times that the repetition almost sapped the terror from her memory. Almost. The terrible shark swam through nightmarish seas in her mind when she tried to sleep, and she’d start awake, feeling herself drowning, feeling those awful teeth closing down on her body.
“Our family has lost three ships,” her Uncle Martin fretted one day. “I cannot take my tea to Europe! The sailors fear this monster like nothing else. We must kill the beast, or drive it away, or else we will be paupers!”
“What would you have me do?” her father asked.
“I would have you build a mighty version of the submersible you tested. Something armed with a powerful harpoon, and a hull built to withstand the pressures of the depths. I would have you build a craft fit to hunt this leviathan down and kill it in its lair.”
“If it’s a harpoon you need, why not gird a whaling ship in iron and send her and her crew after the shark?”
Uncle Martin shook his head. “The Bombay and British navies have tried that very thing, to no avail. I read survivor’s reports; only the head of the shark is visible during its attack, and that part is so well-armored that even harpoons fired from cannons cannot harm it.”
“What about a harpoon down its gullet?” her father asked.
“No man who has tried such a shot has lived. The naturalists speculate that the shark may have a softer underbelly that is vulnerable, but there is no way to reach it from the surface of the sea.”
“What about explosives?” Thilini asked.
“That, too, has been tried,” her uncle replied gravely, “with no better result.”
He turned to her father. “We need a working version of your machine.”
Her father paused, chewing on a corner of his moustache thoughtfully. “I could build a submarine such as you describe, but I haven’t the materials or craftsmen to attempt it.”
“I will get you anything you need. Anything at all. I have spoken to officers in the British Navy, and they have agreed to fund your enterprise. Glass, metals, workers … tell me what you need and I shall get it to you even if I have to strip every estate in Kandy for materials and manpower. We can bring in specialists from Europe by airship.”
“All right, then,” her father replied. “If it’s a fearsome submersible you want, then that’s what you shall get.”
* * *
Thilini and her father put their heads together for several days to figure out what they’d need to build the new craft. Herr Rothschild presented their list to his brother; within days carpenters, welders and masons arrived by balloon to Trincomalee from all around Ceylon to build a fabrication complex at the northern end of the harbor.
Her father hired foremen from a group of engineers his brother recruited, and everyone went to work. Once the construction was underway, it was non-stop. Thilini feared that her father might abandon her now that he had so many educated men at his beck and call, but he kept her close, showing her every engineering novelty his new staff had to show him and every interesting failure.
Further, he introduced her to a brilliant young Serbian engineer named Nikola Tesla, fresh from Edison’s laboratory, who helped her solve the problems with their wireless telegraph within a month. She went home to bathe, bolt down quick meals and catch naps away from the noise of the machinery, but otherwise she stayed in the factory and worked and studied and listened and worked some more.
Nine months after Martin Rothschild demanded her construction, the HMS Makara was ready. The completed submarine measured 120 feet in length and weighed over 80 tons. The cabin was equipped with compressed air and chemical scrubbers to enable the craft to stay under for up to five days at a time, though they hoped the shark could be found much sooner than that.
Thilini’s mother was dead-set against her daughter joining the crew and scolded her husband mightily when she found out about the plan to include the girl as the sub’s telegraph operator.
“Isn’t it bad enough you let her go out into the water in the first place by herself?” her mother asked.
“She’s a brave girl, and she’s fine,” her father replied.
“Fine? She’s not fine! She’s barely slept since she saw that monster! I can hear her cry out at night.”
“Mama, listen —” Thilini began.
But her mother carried on: “I will not have you take my daughter to her death in that metal casket of yours!”
“We have tested it, over and over. The submarine is as safe as any seagoing vessel.”
“She’s too young for such things!”
“Too young?” her father replied. “Girls her age are already celebrating their weddings; I saw a procession for one girl just this afternoon! How many of them will soon be pregnant, and dying in childbirth next year? Or strangled or beaten by raging drunken husbands who have forgotten their wedding vows? There are so many ways for a girl to die in this world, my dear, and you have seen them all. How many friends did you lose, eh?”
Her mother was silent at that, her eyes downcast. “I lost far too many.”
“I do not want to die, and I certainly do not want our child to die,” he replied. “But if the worst happens on this venture, her name will be written down alongside mine in the history books. Men years from now will know who she was and what she tried to help us do. And other Tamil girls will hear her tale, and maybe some of them will realize that they, too, could be people of importance in the world.”
“Mama,” Thilini said. “I am afraid of the shark. I see it in my dreams. I don’t want it to haunt me when I’m old, but if I do not face it again, I am sure it will be with me forever.”
“Oh, my baby.” Her mother pulled her in for a tight hug. “Do what you feel you must. But please go to the Koneswaram temple with me first. We must pray to Ganesha to remove all obstacles in the way of your success and safety.”
“Yes, Mama.”
* * *
Four days later, the HMS Makara launched with minimal fanfare to go hunting for the ship-killing shark. Her father was the craft’s engineer; once they were in the water, he was to focus entirely on making sure the steam en
gines ran properly. Two British naval men — Hart and Dawes — who were experienced with handling submersibles served as pilot and co-pilot. A third British sailor — Jacoby — manned the triggers for the massive harpoon cannons mounted to the sides of the craft.
Thilini took up her station in front of the gleaming brass wireless telegraph. Her job would be to send back as many details of the hunt as she could. In the event that they failed, at least there would be an account of what happened. Technicians had taken one of the wireless telegraphs down the road to Kantale and the transmission back to Trincomalee was a success, so Herr Rothschild was confident it should function well for at least part of the journey.
She took a small mahogany statuette of Ganesha out of the pocket of her rubber suit and set it on the instrument panel. Her mother had given her the figurine after their visit to the temple. Thilini never had much religious fervor, but she felt better knowing the jolly elephant-headed god was there with her.
As her father started the steam engines, Thilini tapped out a test message to the technician manning the telegraph back at the factory; she quickly received her acknowledgement. So far, so good. She began to transcribe the orders the men shared amongst themselves.
“Steady forward,” said Hart.
“Aye,” replied Dawes. “Ten knots, cabin temperature 80 degrees, boiler temperature 240 degrees.”
“All systems fair!” her father called from the rear.
They passed through the area where the orca had been taken by the shark. The crew was silent; all Thilini could hear was the pounding of her own heart. She took Ganesha off the instrument panel and held him tightly in her fist to steady her shaking hand. The porpoises had seemed to be able to find their way in the water not so much by sight as through sound; she wished they had something similar on the submarine so they could better find their way in the dark.
Jacoby the harpooner shifted in his seat a few feet away from her, mumbling a tuneless sea chantey under his breath. His leg jittered, making the metal panel beneath him squeak. His teeth were bad and his breath terrible.
In fact, all the Britons were starting to sweat and stink inside their rubber suits. Thilini decided the best tactic was to breathe shallowly through her mouth.
“Hoy!” Jacoby sat up straight. “I saw something down low off the port bow.”
“Taking her around now,” said Hart. “Bait the water.”
Dawes pulled the lever that released a half barrel of salt pork from a compartment below one of the harpoons.
Thilini watched with growing horror as a dark form rose and rose toward the submarine. When it was 100 yards from the craft, it was clearly the shark and not a whale. Its armored snout was scarred and lumpy from dozens of attacks on ships. It swam closer, attracted by the meat.
Jacoby pulled the trigger on the first harpoon; it struck a glancing blow on the shark’s thick gills and tumbled off into the depths. The huge shark veered away and began swimming west. The harpooner swore long and hard.
“I’m after it!” exclaimed Hart. “He’ll not escape us!”
“Twenty knots … twenty five ….” said Dawes.
They followed the shark for hours. The engines were able to keep up with the shark’s prolonged speed, but the interior of the submarine became a steampot. Thilini had to fetch a flannel cloth to clean the condensation off the windows every half hour.
Shortly after they lost telegraph contact with Trincomalee, the shark dove down into a valley on the seafloor. Dawes turned on the bright electric headlamps so they could better see. The twin beams cut through the murk, and they illuminated a scene none of them would ever be able to forget.
A huge figure sat there in the middle of the sea floor. At least thirty of the gargantuan sharks circled it; they looked like minnows next to it. At first glance, Thilini thought it was a colossal statue of ten-armed Ganesha. If it sat in the sea beside the cliffs of Swami Malai, she guessed it would be able to peer over the temple built upon those high rocks. But as her eyes better focused, she realized that what she took for elephant ears were really fanning gills, and what she thought was a trunk was a bundle of enormous tentacles hanging down on the figure’s distended belly. The arms, yes, those were certainly giant limbs, although jointed in all the wrong places and ending in too many clawed fingers. And other arms were not arms at all, but massive boneless tentacles.
Surrounding the huge figure for at least two miles around were enormous shards of metal, like pieces of a giant shattered eggshell. They gave off a faint green glow that she instantly recognized.
“The meteor,” she breathed. “You were inside it!”
As if it heard her, the hideous colossus turned its gilled, tentacled head toward the submarine and fixed them all in its gaze. Its four eyes were each bigger than their craft, each blacker than the deepest ocean trench.
A sudden vertigo took hold of Thilini, and she could feel the terrible darkness of those eyes spreading through her mind, could feel a cold, alien intellect trying to probe the corners of her consciousness. She clutched her Ganesha figure tightly and began to pray.
She could hear her father reciting a Hebrew prayer behind her; there was so much fear in his voice she thought her heart would break. Jacoby had gone slack in his seat, his eyes rolling up into his skull and a trickle of blood running from his left nostril. Hart had fallen to the floor, jerking as though he suffered some kind of seizure. Dawes just sat there staring at the colossus, muttering “No … no … no ….” under his breath over and over.
Thilini watched as the colossus casually plucked one of the circling sharks with a facial tentacle. The shark obediently opened its maw, and the colossus reached inside it with another tentacle, pulling out half a whale carcass. It popped the whale into its tentacle-obscured mouth and ate it as a man would munch a buttered cashew.
The colossus blinked and turned its head ever so slightly toward the sharks. Five of them peeled away from their formation and began swimming toward the submarine.
Thilini swore and leaped over Hart into the pilot seat. She quickly turned the sub around and tried to put as much distance as she could between them and the pursuing leviathans. She glanced at the pressure and temperature gauges. Both were climbing dangerously high.
“Papa! Papa, check the engines!” she cried.
His praying stopped. “What?” he stammered, sounding confused.
“The engines! Attend to the engines!”
“Yes, of course.”
She heard him making adjustments and releasing valves, and soon the needles on the gauges were dropping into their safe zones again.
“The sharks!” she called back to her father. “Are they gaining on us?”
“Oh no.”
She took that as a ‘yes’ and pushed the accelerator lever as far as it would go. Forty knots … forty-five … fifty. An unhealthy vibration began to spread throughout the sub, the steam engines clearly laboring under the load. She heard her father cursing and twisting handles behind her.
“Dawes! Dawes!” she shouted, trying to rouse the Englishman from his terrified fugue. When her words made no impression, she slapped his cheek.
His eyes popped open. “Ow!”
“I need a navigator, Mr. Dawes. We’re headed back to Trincomalee. Can you help me get us there?”
“Aye, Miss.” His voice shook and his eyes seemed unfocused. Thilini hoped for the best.
“They’re still gaining,” her father called. “I have done all I can here to improve the efficiency of the engines.”
She thought hard. “Mr. Dawes, do we still have bait aboard?”
“Yes, two barrels worth.”
“Dump it. Dump it all. And pray it distracts them,” she said, gripping the Ganesha figurine.
He did as she ordered, pushing buttons to release the salt pork into the chilly water.
“Ah!” her father cried, jubilant. “They’re stopping! They’re stopping!”
Thilini kept the engines hot and pressed the subm
arine on to land. An hour after they distracted the sharks, she reduced speed and Dawes took over piloting duties so she could send a brief telegraph back to shore.
Martin Rothschild and an array of British naval officers were waiting for them at the harbor when they docked. The morning light was just breaking over the horizon.
“Did we receive your telegraph properly? You said thirty of the blasted sharks?” her uncle Martin asked.
She nodded, unbuttoning her rubber jacket to cool off in the morning air. Her cotton undershirt was soaked. “Perhaps even more. And they are but sardines compared to the leviathan who controls them.”
Martin looked to her father. “Is this true?”
Her father nodded gravely, watching medics pull Hart and Jacoby from the submarine; both were completely insensible. “Every word.”
“They will eat anything they can devour,” she said. “No ship is safe here. No one on Earth has a weapon strong enough to combat the leviathan. I am terrified to imagine the weapon that could, for it would surely endanger all other life on the planet as well.”
Martin twisted his gloves in his hands and stared out at the sea. “What shall we do? If we cannot take our tea and timber out on the water —“
“— you can take it by airship,” Thilini said. “My father and I thought on this. We have the means to create larger and faster airships suitable for all manner of cargo. Just give us a week or so to draw up new plans, and we may begin building in the factory here.”
“What shall we do when that monstrosity has devoured the whole of the ocean?” Dawes was still sheet-pale. “What will we do when it decides to come up on land?”
“Then we will do what we must. But in the meantime, I say give the monster the sea, and we can take the sky.”
Her father left to discuss the details with her uncle. Thilini stood on the docks, staring out at the gray expanse of water, remembering the cold touch of the leviathan’s mind in hers. She did not know whether it was a solitary conqueror, a lost traveler, or an exile marooned by its own kind on her planet.
Steampunk World Page 14