The Curiosity Machine

by Richard Newsome

  Even Ruby’s mood improved a little. ‘Don’t you love how their mouths turn up at the sides?’ she said. ‘They always look like they’re smiling.’

  After twenty minutes of curious inspections, the dolphins disappeared into the bottomless blue beyond.

  ‘This reverse goldfish bowl is starting to get on my nerves,’ Ruby said. ‘Is that line getting any shorter, Sam?’

  ‘We’re getting there,’ Sam said. ‘Slowly but surely.’

  Felicity wriggled in her seat, trying to get comfortable, but with Gerald sharing the cramped space it was not easy. ‘Ouch!’ she cried, and shoved Gerald to one side, knocking his backpack across the floor. The compass spilled from the bag and rolled to Ruby’s feet. She leaned over to pick it up.

  ‘I’m sorry about the present, Ruby,’ Felicity said from the back seat. ‘I was trying everything I could to push Gerald to find the perpetual motion machine. Ursus really wants it. That, and the plans. He said if I ever wanted to see my parents again, I had to find it. I told him what was in the note that we deciphered, or as best as I could remember it, about Culpepper Island and how Jeremy Davey threw the machine into the ocean. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted the actual device. And he wanted you.’ Felicity looked at Gerald. ‘That’s why I was trying to get you to go to the Galapagos Islands. Do you understand why I did it?’ she asked.

  Before Gerald could say anything, Ruby piped up. ‘Understanding comes quickly. Forgiveness takes longer.’

  A sudden effluvial gurgle rippled through the submarine. Ruby, Gerald and Felicity looked at Sam. ‘Was that you?’ Ruby asked.

  Sam patted his belly. ‘This thing is empty, and not happy about it. Gerald, are you sure there’s no more food back there?’

  Gerald rummaged through some storage compartments and turned up three energy bars and a bottle of water. Then he opened the last storage bin. Inside was a rigid black case. He popped the two brass clasps that held it closed.

  ‘What is it?’ Sam asked as Gerald folded back the top.

  Gerald whistled long and low. ‘It’s a flare gun,’ he said. He removed a sleek black pistol with a barrel opening wide enough to fell a charging rhinoceros. ‘I’ve seen them in the movies. You shoot a rocket in the air to attract help. He held up a bright orange tube the size of one of Mr Bourse’s cigars. ‘There’s three of these. If we can get to this island, we can shoot off a flare to attract a passing ship.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ruby said. ‘Unless that ship is the Archer, which would be a rotten idea. In the meantime, can you put that thing away? We really don’t want fireworks inside a glass bubble.’

  Gerald put the gun and flare back into the case and stuffed it in his backpack with the butterfly net and the compass.

  They filled the hours with snatches of sleep, pointless games of eye spy and Sam complaining that he really needed to pee.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘All I can see is water rushing past and that’s not helping at all. You remember what happened to Tycho Brahe when he couldn’t go to the loo during that feast with King Rudolph: he died of a busted bladder.’ He grabbed the joystick and pulled back; the sub’s nose lifted and they rose towards the surface.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ruby asked, grabbing her armrest at the sudden change in direction.

  ‘I’m going to pee over the side of the sub,’ Sam said.

  Felicity screwed up her face. ‘Now that is sick-making.’

  ‘This is my life we’re talking about,’ Sam said. ‘I could die, you know.’

  The water around them grew lighter and the ongoing argument about the state of Sam’s bladder grew louder, but they stopped at the sound of a sharp thud from outside.

  ‘What was that?’ Gerald asked, looking around.

  ‘We must have hit something,’ Sam said.

  ‘A fish?’ Felicity said, tilting her head to look up.

  ‘It’d have to be a blind fish with a dodgy hearing aid,’ Sam said.

  Ruby sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Oh my gosh,’ she said. ‘Will you look at that?’

  An enormous shark, at least four metres long, rolled along the side of the sub, a clouded eye staring lifeless through the glass. The flesh around its gills had been eaten away, its jaws and teeth exposed and rotting.

  ‘What’s that wrapped around it?’ Gerald said, his eyes growing wide at the sight of the decaying monster. ‘It looks like it has been tied up with wire or fishing line.’

  A burst of air bubbled through the dead beast’s gills and the shark rolled away, sinking out of sight.

  Ruby dragged her gaze from the horrific vision and looked up. ‘What’s that above us?’ she asked, trying to decipher the cluster of objects just below the ocean surface.

  ‘Jellyfish?’ Sam suggested.

  ‘Garbage,’ Ruby said.

  ‘There’s no need to be like that,’ Sam said. ‘I was only trying to guess.’

  ‘No, stupid. It’s garbage. Rubbish. Heaps of plastic bottles and bags.’

  The top of the sub hit a thick layer of refuse, which clattered and scraped against the glass top like a plastic hailstorm. The submarine rose into the centre of what looked like an enormous floating garbage dump. Bottles, old tyres, gas cylinders, plastic bags, chemical containers, screw tops, fishing buoys, metal drums leaking their contents—all tangled together in a mess of abandoned fishing nets and kilometres of tangled nylon line.

  ‘Quick!’ Gerald said. ‘Shut off the motors. Turn everything off.’

  Sam prodded at the controls and the motors died. The soft buzz of the electrics gave way to the sound of hard plastics knocking against the side of the submarine. All around them, rolling in the swell, was a slick of filth.

  ‘Felicity,’ Ruby said. ‘You may finally be right.’

  Felicity held her fingers across her mouth. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘This truly is sick-making.’ Ruby turned her head away, searching for something else to look at. ‘Why did we have to turn off the motors?’ she asked Gerald.

  ‘So the propellers wouldn’t get tangled in this fishing line,’ Gerald said. ‘Then we’d be stuck here too.’

  ‘How did all this rubbish get here?’ Felicity asked. ‘It’s just awful.’

  Gerald shrugged. ‘People throw stuff into gutters and rivers. It has to end up somewhere. I guess it washes up here.’

  Sam climbed onto his seat and turned the locking wheel on a hatch above their heads.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘I still gotta pee.’

  Ruby shook her head. ‘You may as well,’ she said. ‘It’s not like you can make this place any worse.’

  The hatch popped open and a burst of rank salt air filled the cabin with the stench of rot and decay. Felicity grabbed her nose. ‘Oh, that is foul,’ she said.

  Sam clambered through the hatch and stared at the waterlogged wasteland outside. ‘You might want to close your eyes,’ he called down through the opening.

  Ruby stared the other way as Sam went about his business. A few metres off, a dead albatross lay tangled in fishing line on a raft of matted plastic bags, its feathers slicked with oil. The remains of rotting fish smeared against the outside of the submarine. ‘I could close my eyes for the rest of my life,’ Ruby said, ‘and I’d still be seeing this.’

  Sam dropped back into his seat, looking relieved. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Anyone else want to go?’ Gerald climbed up to take Sam’s place.

  Ruby dropped her gaze, sickened by the devastation all around them. Her eyes fell on the body of a tiny dolphin, floating on its side just below the surface. A strand of green fishing line trailed from the corner of its upturned mouth.

  ‘Let’s get as far from here as we can,’ Ruby said.

  Gerald finished up and closed the hatch above his head. ‘How far is it to this island?’ he asked.

  Sam tapped his way through the menus. ‘Another hour or so and we should be able to see land,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’
Felicity said, ‘just as long as we don’t have to see all this rubbish.’

  ‘Just because we can’t see it, Felicity, doesn’t mean it isn’t there,’ Ruby said. ‘You can’t just wish it away.’

  ‘Be quiet, please,’ Felicity said. She folded her arms across her chest and stared through the glass. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Gerald tapped Sam on the shoulder. ‘Can we get out of here without snaring the propellers in this mess?’ he asked.

  Sam flipped a switch and the sub’s flotation tanks filled with water. They dropped through the matted debris like a boulder. When they were well clear of the netting and fishing lines, Sam pressed the green button to fire the engines, and the little sub surged forward on its trek toward the remote Pacific island.

  Soon the glass bubble was once more surrounded by a wash of azure water, abundant in schools of fish darting across their path.

  ‘That’s better,’ Felicity said, looking into the blue beyond. ‘Nothing but pristine waters.’

  ‘Felicity—’ Ruby began.

  Felicity cut her off. ‘Ruby, it is my experience that one only sees unpleasantness if one goes looking for it. There are still plenty of beautiful things in nature—we should be content with that.’

  ‘You can’t seriously—’ Ruby tried again.

  Felicity clamped her hands over her ears. ‘La-la-la-la…I can’t hear you.’

  Ruby gave up. Some people just didn’t want to know.

  The red line tracking the sub’s path continued to shrink. Eventually Sam declared it would be worthwhile surfacing to see if they could sight land. The sub’s nose tipped up and they broke the surface.

  The sun was low in the sky. Almost an entire day had passed since they had escaped the Archer. There was quite a swell and the submarine was tossed about like a beach ball. As the vessel rose on a wave, Felicity cried out with excitement. ‘Oh, there! Can you see it? Was that land?’ She pointed straight ahead, and when the sub rose to the peak of the swell again, Gerald saw it too: standing above the waves some kilometres in the distance, was the unmistakable shape of a cliff-face rising out of the ocean.

  Cries of congratulations and backslaps rained down on Sam’s shoulders.

  ‘We’re not there yet,’ he said. ‘Save the celebrations until then.’ Sam flooded the flotation tanks and once more the submarine sank below the surface.

  ‘Where are we anyway?’ Gerald asked. ‘Is there a name for this island?’

  Sam tapped at the satellite map and zoomed in. ‘Oh. My. Gosh!’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘It says here…it can’t be…would you believe that this is Culpepper Island?’

  ‘What?’ Ruby said, her eyes growing wide. ‘No!’

  ‘Just as well,’ Sam said. ‘Because it’s not.’

  Ruby pummelled punches into her brother’s shoulder. Sam laughed as he tried to ward off the barrage. ‘The map says it’s unnamed,’ he said, ducking and weaving. ‘So I reckon that gives me naming rights.’

  Ruby threw a final fist at Sam and then flopped back into her chair. ‘I suppose Halfwit Island does have a nice ring to it,’ she said.

  Ruby and Sam bickered happily for another quarter of an hour until Sam decided it was time to check on progress. The last strands of the day’s sun painted the clouds on the western horizon orange and pink as the submarine broke the surface. There was just enough light to show the cliff rising out of the ocean, like a granite giant stepping out of the bath. Even through the sub’s glass enclosure they could hear the thunderous crashing of waves just in front of them: breakers rising, curling and dashing against a ring of rocks that jutted out from the cliff base.

  ‘It’s a reef!’ Gerald said. ‘We’re being washed onto a reef.’

  ‘I’ll get us clear,’ Sam said. He pulled on the throttle just as the last of the charge drained from the batteries and the submarine’s engines died.

  Chapter 14

  The submarine jostled in the rolling waves. Inside, it was as if panic had broken out inside a tumble dryer.

  ‘Do something!’ Felicity cried. She fell heavily against Gerald’s ribs. ‘Can’t you dive, Sam?’

  ‘I can’t!’ Sam cried back. ‘There’s no power.’

  Gerald could feel the air inside the submarine getting thin. They would have to open the hatch.

  A wave picked up the sub and gave its occupants a grandstand view of what lay before them: a ring of rocks spread out like jagged teeth at the base of the cliff. Breakers shattered across the reef, sending shards of spray skyward. Beyond the reef was a sheltered bay fringed with coconut palms.

  ‘We have to get across those rocks,’ Gerald said. ‘There’s no other choice.’

  ‘And how do we do that without being smashed into a jillion pieces?’ Ruby said. ‘Swim for it?’

  ‘And risk a shark attack?’ Sam said. ‘Not likely. We have to ride it out.’

  ‘What? Right onto the reef?’ Felicity said.

  In the end, they had no say in the matter.

  The swell loomed up behind them, lifted the submarine and threw it at the reef. The flotation tanks took most of the initial impact, exploding with a percussive roar. The sub lurched forward and skidded across the rocks. The glass pod broke free from its housing and landed hard, cracking open like a giant egg, and sending Gerald, Ruby, Felicity and Sam tumbling out, only to be taken from behind by another wave breaking over the unforgiving reef.

  Gerald’s head hit something hard as he cartwheeled into the bay. A shower of sparks detonated in his brain. He was suddenly aware of an all-embracing darkness as he rolled and tumbled in the water. Salt stung his eyes as he fought his way to the surface. His head broke through to clear air and he sucked in a lungful. Against the darkened sky he could just make out the ruins of the mini-submarine on top of the rock shelf.

  Gerald was almost at the beach when he heard his name being called. He stumbled out of the water to find that Ruby and Felicity, waterlogged and bedraggled, had beaten him ashore. He flopped onto the sand next to them.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ruby asked.

  Gerald touched the back of his head, and felt the warm stickiness of blood. He winced, then batted away Ruby’s inquisitive hand. ‘Ouch!’ he said. ‘Why is everyone’s first response to seeing a wound to stick their finger in it?’ He rose to his knees. ‘Where’s Sam?’

  Ruby’s expression hardened. She waded into the sea and yelled Sam’s name into the night. She called again and again. Gerald and Felicity joined her. But the only response was the rhythmic crashing of waves on rocks.

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ Ruby said. She nestled her face into Gerald’s chest and closed her eyes.

  Felicity draped her arm around Ruby’s waist, and the three of them stood motionless in the bay.

  It took Gerald a moment to realise that someone else had joined them.

  ‘What are we looking at?’ Sam asked.

  Ruby’s eyes shot open and she pushed herself free from Gerald and Felicity, flinging herself at her brother. The force took them both into the water, splashing around in the shallows.

  ‘Steady on,’ Sam said, trying to free himself from Ruby’s embrace. ‘People will think we actually like each other.’ He made it to the sand and pointed along the beach. ‘I got washed up over there,’ he said. ‘Come and see what I found.’

  Sam led the way to where a line of trees marked the edge of the beach and led to dense jungle beyond. ‘There’s a sleeping platform up here and a ratty old tarp overhead to keep the dew off. It must have been used by some local fishermen,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll be dry, or at least only damp.’

  Gerald climbed up onto the raised timber platform. He suddenly felt incredibly tired. He turned at the sound of material being torn to see Ruby ripping a strip of cloth from the bottom of her T-shirt.

  ‘This thing is too big for me anyway,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let’s see to that cut on your head.’

  Gerald allowed himself to be bandaged,
and only yelped once. Ruby admired her handiwork with satisfaction. ‘Done. Patient mended.’

  Then the four of them huddled together, squirming around to get comfortable on the hard platform.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Felicity asked. ‘We’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with no water or food. We’ve got no way to communicate with anyone. No one knows where we are.’

  ‘Felicity, there’s nothing we can do about any of that until the sun comes up,’ Gerald said. ‘You can either worry about it and get no sleep, or get some sleep and worry about it later. I’m going for the sleep-now option.’ He rolled to his side and closed his eyes. He felt the others settle around him.

  ‘Hey Gerald?’

  ‘Yes, Sam?’

  ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The tarp above their heads flapped in the gentle breeze and soon the white noise of the surf pounding the reef lulled them into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Gerald woke to a gentle rocking on his shoulder. His eyelids flickered and immediately screwed shut again at the stark white light that stabbed at his brain.

  ‘Gerald,’ a soft voice whispered. ‘Gerald, it’s time.’

  Gerald opened his eyes, and this time he saw a face smiling down at him, a white halo glowing around its circumference. He thought it the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

  ‘Is this…heaven?’ he was embarrassed to hear himself ask.

  A brash response came from off to his right. ‘Not unless they moved heaven to a desert island and forgot to put on any catering. Have I mentioned that I’m starving?’

  Sam.

  Gerald sat up slowly and discovered that it was Ruby who had shaken him awake. She sat beside him with a look of concern on her face. ‘How’s your head?’ she asked, reaching out to adjust the makeshift bandage.

  Gerald pushed her hand away. ‘Sore enough without you prodding around in it,’ he said.

  Felicity dropped down beside them and lifted a sodden bag onto the platform. ‘We’ve been exploring,’ she said. ‘What’s left of the sub has been washed into the bay. I swam out and managed to salvage your backpack, and Sam found the flares and some water bottles.’