Sunker's Deep

by Lian Tanner

  The water was so cold it made his teeth hurt, but he’d been swimming in temperatures like this since before he could walk, and thought nothing of it. He hung on to a porthole, taking in lungfuls of air and letting them out again. Then he took a deep breath – and dived into the darkness.

  His strong legs drove him down and down and down. Fish darted across his path. Strings of kelp brushed against his hands.When his ears felt as if they were going to burst, he held his nose and blew, to even the pressure.

  On that first dive, he found nothing except the rough seabed. On the second, he thought he saw something to the east – something grey and silent – but when he brought the lantern closer it turned out to be an outcrop of rock.

  He went up again, for another breath. He felt sick and angry, and the rumble of the diesels seemed to drag on him like an anchor chain.

  It took him another ten minutes to find Rampart. By then the horizon was growing light, and Sharkey was so cold he could barely think. One more try, he told himself. And he drew the air into his aching lungs and dived.

  Rampart was lying on her side, some way west of where Sharkey had been looking for her. Even in the semi-darkness, he could see the battering she’d taken. There was an enormous jagged hole just behind the conning tower, and another two further for’ard. The water must have rushed in like a king tide. It was a wonder Adm’ral Deeps had managed to get a message sent. It was a wonder anyone had got out.

  If they had got out.

  Sharkey picked up a rock and banged on the bow hatch, in case someone was still alive in one of the watertight compartments. There was no answer. He banged again on the stern hatch, trying to remain hopeful. But he couldn’t ignore what he knew in his heart.The holes in the hull were too big.The watertight compartments weren’t watertight, not any more. If there was anyone left on Rampart, they were dead.

  He dropped the rock and swam for the surface. His fingers and toes were numb, but he didn’t feel cold, not any more. He’d lost his fear of the dying Ghost girl, too.There was a ball of rage inside him, and he wanted to grab hold of the girl and shake her until she rattled.

  It wasn’t until he had dragged himself back onto the deck of Claw, with the diesel engines thumping away under his bare feet, that he realised Gilly was no longer there.

  Sharkey hated it when crew weren’t where they were supposed to be. Life on the submersibles was dangerous enough as it was.There were so many things that could go wrong – a stuck valve, a hot bearing, a loose connection. There was no room for half-measures, no room for inattention. For the Sunkers, it was all or nothing.Watertight or holed. Alive or dead.

  Which meant that Gilly wouldn’t have left her post unless there was some sort of emergency.

  The Ghost! thought Sharkey.

  And with murder in his heart, he threw on his smallclothes and leapt for the conning tower.

  RAIN

  She was not a fighter, but she did her best. As the three savage children pummelled her from all sides, she put her arms over her head and pressed forward. She thought she had nearly made it, but then, without warning, one of the children kicked her behind the knees. Her legs crumpled and she tumbled to the floor.

  ‘That’ll teach you!’ cried the child, sitting on top of her so she couldn’t move. ‘Stinking Ghost!’

  Rain said nothing. She had retreated into her own world and was doing what she always did when things turned bad. Singing under her breath.

  Her name was Rain,

  And like rain

  She fell from the sky …

  She heard a thud of footsteps, and the fourth savage, the boy with black hair, came hurtling bare-chested down the ladder from outside.

  ‘What happened?’ he snapped. ‘Gilly, report!’

  The older of the two girls – the one who had kicked Rain – leapt to her feet. She had very short brown hair that looked as if it had been hacked off with a knife, and she wore trousers instead of an overskirt.

  ‘The Ghost tried to eat the depth gauge, sir! We barely stopped her in time.’

  The savages had an odd way of talking.They slurred some of their letters, chopped off others and used strange words, so that at first Rain had thought they were speaking a completely different language. But now, after a day or so of listening, she was used to it.

  Depth gauge, she thought, and she automatically started to weave it into a song. She did it silently, in case the savages disapproved of singing, the way Brother Thrawn did.

  I tried to break the depth gauge

  To save my brother’s life—

  Rain liked singing, though she was not very good at it. She was not very good at anything, according to her Uncle Poosk.

  ‘Nevertheless, Brother Thrawn wants to try you in one of the new hot air balloons,’ he had said. ‘I did my best to persuade him otherwise, but he would not budge. Since returning from the failed demon-hunting expedition, he will not tolerate weakness of any kind, and if you make a mess of it, he might well punish your brother. So please try to get it right.’

  Of course Rain had made a mess of it, which was why she was here now, trapped in this terrifying underwater ship with bruises rising on her legs and arms. All around her, iron wheels stuck out of the walls, along with a hundred other things she did not have names for. Somewhere not far away, machines rumbled out their frightful tune.

  She was afraid, of course. She was afraid of most things, including hot air balloons and throwers and the infernal devices called ‘bombs’. Such things had not been seen in West Norn for hundreds of years – hardly anyone even suspected they still existed. But after he came back from the southern ice, Brother Thrawn had ordered them dug out of buried storehouses, and had set teams of men to test and repair them.

  For the last few weeks, everyone in the Citadel had been repeating his words with a mixture of awe and excitement. ‘The demon is coming and we must protect ourselves. We will use the devil’s tools to fight the devil.’

  The balloons and the bombs were frightening enough. But the machines at the far end of the underwater ship were far worse. They hadn’t stolen Rain’s soul, not yet, but it was only a matter of time. She imagined them stalking stiff-legged towards her, like savage dogs—

  She shuddered. What will happen to Bran, when I am no longer there to protect him?

  ‘It was our fault, sir,’ said the boy sitting on Rain’s ankles. He looked a bit like the girl, though his face was narrower and he seemed younger. ‘We weren’t watching her close enough. Sorry.’

  The boy they called ‘sir’ nodded. Then, without a word, he found a rope and bound Rain’s feet together.

  The other two children stood up cautiously, but Rain made no move to escape. After all, where could she go? She was trapped and helpless, and her captors were both stronger and fiercer than she was.

  The bare-chested boy trussed her arms behind her back, then pulled her into a sitting position and tied her to the leg of a table. Like the other savage children, he was streaked with oil, but beneath the dirt his skin was as white as a winter grub.

  ‘What are we going to do with her, sir?’ asked Gilly.

  ‘Sir’ did not answer. Instead, he leaned closer to Rain and tapped his face. ‘See this?’ he hissed.

  Rain looked directly at him for the first time – and gulped. His eye socket was puckered and hollow, and the skin around it was a web of scar tissue.

  ‘I fought a Massy shark,’ whispered the boy, baring his teeth in a vicious grin.‘A big one. Bigger than you could imagine.’

  Rain had no idea what a Massy shark was. She tried to slide away from the boy, but the rope held her tight.

  ‘And you know who won?’ he asked, still grinning. ‘Me. Shark got my eye, but I got its guts.That’s why they call me Sharkey. So when we’re safely away from here, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know. And don’t try holding anything back, cos if you do I’ll slice you open like I sliced that shark. And then I’ll chuck your dead body overboard.You understand me
?’

  Rain nodded jerkily. The machines growled, as if they could smell her fear.

  ‘Good,’ said Sharkey.

  Then he stood up and said to the other children, ‘Rampart’s busted wide open. There’s no one left on board, not alive, anyway.’

  Rain peeped at their faces, expecting tears and other signs of grief, but saw nothing.

  ‘It’s close to sunclimb,’ continued Sharkey. ‘Poddy, get my clothes. Cuttle, you’ve got the conn. Take her down.’

  ‘Take her down, aye sir!’ shouted Cuttle, as Poddy, a small round-faced girl, scrambled up the ladder. ‘Prepare to dive!’

  For a moment, Rain thought they were going to leave Poddy to drown. But the little girl was back down the ladder with Sharkey’s clothes quicker than Rain would have thought possible.

  And then they were all shouting incomprehensible phrases like, ‘Pressure in the green!’ and ‘Five degrees down bubble!’ and ‘Switch to batteries!’ They closed some things and opened others, they turned the huge wheels, they ran back and forth, ducking their heads and edging around the table, and shouted some more.

  Or at least, the three younger children did. Sharkey tied a black patch over his empty eye socket, then stood with his legs braced and a superior look on his face, watching the activity around him.

  As the iron ship sank beneath the water, Rain stole a glance at the patch and gulped again. She was not a brave person. She was shy and timid, and the only way she had ever been able to make sense of the world was by singing at it. She even thought in songs much of the time, as if they were a code that only she could understand.

  Now she sang under her breath:

  I will tell him everything

  I know.

  I will tell him names and days

  And places—

  She stopped, knowing that there was one thing she must not tell him, must not tell anyone. Ever. Something she did her best not to even think about.

  Because she might get away from these savages, though she could not imagine how. And her little brother might survive without her.

  But if anyone learned the truth, and traced it back to Rain, Bran’s life would be worth less than a scrap of kindling. And so would hers.

  Sharkey didn’t really lose his eye in a fight with a Massy shark. He didn’t lose it in a fight with anything. It was just a dreadful accident.

  There were always accidents on the submersibles, but no one expected Sharkey to get caught by one. He was born on a fortunate tide. Not only that, but he came into the world with a head of straight black hair, just like the old engravings of Lin Lin. His ma and fa were so pleased that they named him straight off, rather than waiting a few months in case he didn’t survive.They gave him a good strong name, too, instead of calling him Winkle or Sprat, or one of the other baby names that got changed to something better as children grew older.

  No way was Sharkey changing his name. There wasn’t a better name to be had, except perhaps for Adm’ral Deeps.

  His straight black hair fell out, the way it usually did with babies. But to his parents’ delight, it grew back even straighter and blacker.

  ‘He’s Lin Lin’s boy, that’s for sure,’ said everyone who saw him. ‘He’s got great things ahead of him. Expect he’ll make adm’ral one day.’

  And as Sharkey grew older, he thought the same. Why wouldn’t he? He was clever, keen-eyed and lucky. He had everything on his side – until the dreadful day, when he was eight years old, that ruined everything.

  It was an accident, nearly everyone agreed on that. Retribution, where they lived, was old and tired, and there were always gaskets bursting and pipes breaking. Crew usually managed to skittle out of the way in time, but every now and again someone got hurt.

  The steam from that particular burst gasket cost Sharkey his right eye and most of the skin around it. He could still remember the agony of it, and how Ma held his hand while Presser Surgeon Blue applied cold water to the burns.

  That was the end of ‘Expect he’ll make adm’ral one day’. Crew stopped mentioning the fortunate tide, and how much he looked like Lin Lin. Instead, Sharkey was reminded over and over again how lucky he was that he’d lost one eye, instead of two.

  He didn’t feel lucky. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life huddled in a greasy corner of Retribution, doing someone else’s bidding. He didn’t want crew looking away so they wouldn’t have to see his ruined eye, even after his ma had sewn a patch to cover it. He didn’t want to be at the bottom of things.

  But that’s where he had been, and that’s where he’d seemed likely to stay – until the night of his tenth birthday, a year and three months after the accident. When the miracle happened.

  This is how he’d told it, breathless, on his return to Retribution. He was out swimming, when a turtle spoke to him.Yes, a turtle, a flatback, as pretty as moonlight! It swam right up close, and he was thinking of turtle soup. But before he could kill it, it put its horny head close to his, and said,‘Do not go west, Great Grandson, not this week.’

  Then it swam away into the deep blue, leaving Sharkey half-drowned with shock.

  He was still spluttering when Fa dragged him over to Rampart, to talk to Adm’ral Deeps. ‘Adm’ral, you’ve got to hear this!’ said Sharkey’s fa. ‘It’s—’ He shook his head, speechless.

  Sharkey told the story again. And again, as the Sunkers gathered around him, firing questions.

  ‘It spoke? The turtle spoke to you?’

  ‘You sure it was a turtle?’

  ‘How far down were you? Might’ve been raptures, if you were deep enough.’

  ‘Not far down at all,’ said Sharkey, standing up for himself. ‘Maybe half-periscope, that’s all. It wasn’t raptures, I’m sure of it. And it was a turtle.’

  ‘Turtles don’t speak,’ said Adm’ral Deeps, and everyone nodded. That was a fact, on a day when facts seemed few and far between.

  ‘What did it call the boy?’ asked one of the old salties from the back of the crowd.

  ‘Great Grandson,’ replied someone else. ‘It called him Great Grandson!’

  Everyone grew very quiet then, staring at Sharkey as if they’d never seen him before. He stood as straight and tall as he could, trying not to shiver, trying not to flinch when Adm’ral Deeps turned her cool eyes on him.

  ‘And why would a flatback turtle name you Great Grandson, Sharkey?’ she asked.

  It was his ma who answered. ‘Because it wasn’t a turtle at all, Adm’ral. It was the spirit of Lin Lin!’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sharkey, drawing his ten-year-old bones even taller. ‘It was the spirit of Great Granmer Lin Lin!’

  And with that, his life changed forever.

  Of course Lin Lin wasn’t really Sharkey’s great granmer; she had died too long ago for that, and people had lost count of the generations in between. But everyone called her Great Granmer, because it was respectful, and respect was important to the Sunkers.

  They respected Sharkey, once they heard his tale. And their respect grew when, a month later, both Great Granmer Lin Lin and Great Granfer Cray spoke to him. This time they appeared in the form of dolphins, and warned Sharkey not to go north, which was where the fleet had been heading.

  Everyone took the warnings seriously. In three hundred years, the Hungry Ghosts had never found them, but that could change at any moment. So instead of going north, they went east and south, and saw no sign of their enemies. None of the submersibles broke down either, and everyone knew it was because of Sharkey and Lin Lin.

  It wasn’t long before they started mentioning that fortunate tide again. Even Adm’ral Deeps smiled at Sharkey, and she wasn’t a woman who gave her smiles easily.

  Sharkey loved the attention, loved being so important. He was allowed to take Claw out whenever he wanted to, and he got the best food and the fewest hard duties. And whenever he came back from a swim, someone was sure to ask, ‘Any word from Lin Lin or Adm’ral Cray?’

  Sometimes there was
and sometimes there wasn’t. And right now, with Rampart lying broken on the ocean floor, and the rest of the Sunker community dead, Sharkey’s honoured ancestors weren’t talking.

  Which was no great surprise to Sharkey, who had made the whole thing up.

  THE LAST OF THE SUNKERS

  Meanwhile, on the besieged bridge of the Oyster, Third Officer Dolph was testing the barricades, making sure Albie and his mutineers couldn’t break through.

  Behind her, a dozen voices went over the same old arguments.

  ‘Maybe Skua’s telling the truth. Why would he lie about such a thing?’

  ‘Because his da told him to, why else?’

  ‘But what if they are dead? Where does that leave us? We can’t hold out against Albie forever, not with the whole ship behind him—’

  Squid’s sensible voice broke in. ‘The whole ship’s not behind him!’ she said. ‘Glory be, haven’t you been listening to the pipe messages? The Engineers are behind him right enough, but—’

  ‘Engineers always do what Albie tells ’em.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Squid. ‘But it sounds as if a goodly number of Cooks don’t want any part of it – didn’t you catch that pipe message about barricades in Dufftown? As for the senior Officers, there’s no way they’re behind him. But they can’t do much while they’re locked up.’

  ‘Still, there’s an awful lot of folk listening to Albie.’

  ‘And who can blame ’em?’ said Squid sharply.‘Here we are in hostile waters, and the first thing that happens is the shore party gets murdered – at least, that’s what Albie’s telling everyone. And you know how shipfolk feel about the cap’n; he’s like a talisman, and losing him just about strips the heart out of ’em.Then there’s Krill and Petrel and Fin, and each one of ’em leaves a gap. If First Officer Hump could’ve taken charge it mightn’t’ve been so bad, or Second Officer Weddell. But Albie’s no fool. He’s got ’em both under lock and key, along with anyone else the crew might listen to. Most folk don’t want to follow him, it’s just that he hasn’t left ’em much alternative.’