Pisces of Fate

by Pisces of Fate (retail) (epub)

  “Hey man,” Sandy said. “How can I help?”

  “I need some tanks filled and I need some information.”

  Ascott froze as he recognised Kalim AarI’s voice.

  “Here.” Sandy handed a tank back to Ascott, who nearly buckled under the weight.

  “Tank fills is three blues a piece. Information, well, that’s a different scale.”

  “The tanks are on my boat. I’ll have them brought up. I’m told there’s a local historian that lives here.”

  “Is that right?” Sandy frowned.

  Ascott stepped out of the shadows. “Hello again, Kalim.”

  “Mr Pudding.” Kalim still wore the large black sunglasses that hid his eyes. “I’m interested in facts—not stories, mind, but facts about historical shipwrecks in the islands.”

  Sandy lifted the other air tank and scratched his nose with one finger of the same hand. Ascott marvelled at the casual strength of the man.

  “Plenty of shipwrecks out there. Hidden reefs, bad storms, giant octopuses, shrimp that’ll eat the hull right out from under you. Lot of ways to wreck a boat.” Sandy spoke with the authority of one who believes what he says to be undisputed fact. “Anyway, Palm knows more about this stuff than I do.” Sandy went to the bead curtain and yelled up the stairs. Palm came down, drying her hands on a towel.

  “Fella wants to ask you some stuff about shipwrecks,” Sandy waved at Kalim. “I’ll give the boy a hand with the tanks.” He swung the air tank over his shoulder and marched out the door. Ascott quickly followed, feeling the stranger’s dark glasses turning to stare at his back.

  Chapter 5

  “Don’t go diving for at least another hour after eating,” Sandy said as they laid the tanks down in the bottom of the canoe. Ascott agreed he would not and they climbed back up the ladder to the dock. Tacus hopped off Ascott’s shoulder and settled at the front of the boat, ready to hurl abuse and navigational advice once they were under way.

  “Have you ever seen that guy in the sunglasses before?” Ascott said.

  “Nah, probably arrived on one of the seasonal fishing ships, or flew in. We call them tourists.”

  “I met him before. He wanted to buy Tacus.”

  “What, like some bird seed or something?”

  “No, he wanted to buy the parrot. Take him off my hands. Said to name my price.”

  “People these days, always so ready to sell things. Trust me, if there weren’t a good reason to be bottling air and selling it to people, I’d be just as happy to give it away. But that Palm, she has plans. Wants Shoal to go to college and see something other than ocean in her life.”

  “College isn’t that great,” Ascott said with feeling. “Mostly it’s sitting in a big room full of people being told what to think and believe, but no one really explains why you should think that way or believe those things.”

  “They do a college course yet that teaches you how to be happy?” Sandy asked with a grin.

  “Not that I’ve seen.” Ascott looked grim.

  “Not much point in signin’ up then, eh? If you want to learn things, read a book like yours, or talk to people. Plenty of them around these parts. Some of them know more than they’re letting on. Other ones are just passing through so fast that you’re not sure you should be sayin’ hi or bye. Let alone askin’ their name.”

  “I’m not going to sell Tacus, not for anything. Especially to some stranger.” Ascott felt as certain of that as he had of anything in a long time.

  “Course you ain’t. It’d be like me trying to sell the air. The air ain’t for sale, neither’s a bird, or a wave, or a tree. They’re just doin’ their own thing and we’re there to appreciate it.”

  “You sell air for three blue pearls a tank,” Ascott said.

  “Not quite.” Sandy tapped the side of his nose with one long leathery finger. “I sell the service of fillin’ up the tanks. The air is free. The mechanical compression, that’s what you’re payin’ for.”

  Sandy started laughing and Ascott found himself laughing with him. They laughed until tears ran down the furrows in Sandy’s cheeks and he collapsed on the dock timber clutching his sides. Ascott slowly recovered his breath, though he couldn’t explain what was funny. Maybe the humour was contagious. Something deep inside let go and he laughed till he gasped.

  “Hey,” he said nudging the wheezing Sandy, “Is that Shoal’s boat?” He pointed at a flat-bottomed skiff, the prow pointing skyward at a 45 degree angle while a high white plume of wash shot out the back. The outboard motor hurtled the wooden torpedo into the tangle of the Montaban local fleet. It zipped past the other canoes, coracles, cruisers, crab-boats, catch-craft and the occasional wind-surfer. A flash of blonde hair came into view on some of the turns as Sandy squinted into the glare.

  “What’s got her so excited?” he muttered. Shoal was waving and the only thing stopping her from standing up was the angle of the deck and the need to keep one hand on the throttle. With a whoosh and a sudden coughing gurgle from the outboard, she arrived at the dock, cut the engine power and leapt for the ladder.

  Sandy and Ascott crowded around as her head popped up. “Whales!” she gasped, her eyes glowing with excitement.

  “What, already?” Sandy said.

  “Oh yeah, a whole pod of them, maybe twelve veterans and a few first-timers.”

  Sandy slapped his thigh and did an impromptu jig. “Goosegonegoggles!” he exclaimed. “I’m gonna ring the bell!” He took off running up the dock, vanishing into the market crowd. Ascott extended a hand and helped Shoal up the last rungs of the ladder.

  “The migration has started?” he asked.

  “Migration started a month ago, maybe two.” Shoal was breathless with excitement. “They swim a long way from down south to reach us. They come up to the islands to have babies and next year they’ll all come back.”

  “So the race…?” Ascott wished he had been less focused on his own misery a year ago and had paid more attention to local news and traditions.

  “Will be in a few days. These are just the first whales. Soon there’ll be so many coming through the deep channel that they’ll block the way for shipping and then the race will happen.”

  Ascott wanted to ask more questions, but at that moment a bell started ringing somewhere up by the Exco. An urgent, joyous pealing echoed out over the island. Silence fell over the market and then it was as if all Montaban took a deep breath and shouted at once: “WHALES!”

  A spontaneous carnival atmosphere erupted across the dock and surrounding town. People cheered, screamed and shouted. Bands struck up a discordant song and it sounded like it could be a while before they all came round to playing the same tune with the same timing, in the same key.

  “Shoal, I need to go home. Back to The City,” Ascott said while Shoal jumped up and down and cheered along with the others.

  “What?!” she shouted over the noise.

  “I’m going to dive that wreck we found, with SCRAM gear. I need to find some pearls so I can pay for a ticket home. “

  ”Why?”

  Ascott wanted to say that he felt that Drakeforth had given him a message that he couldn’t ignore. But the prospect of explaining about Charlotte, and his own anxiety about everything, muted Ascottt for a moment. Instead he shouted, “Because it might be home to fish I haven’t seen before. I’ll need to catalogue them for the encyclopaedia!”

  “Ever seen a whale?” Shoal shouted back.

  “Well, no, but they’ll be here for a while. I don’t imagine that they are leaving again today!”

  “This is important!” Shoal’s face darkened.

  “So is this diving trip. I want you to come with me!” he added.

  “We can go out there any time! It’s carnival! The whales are here!”

  “Great! I’ll go on my own, then!” Ascott threw his ha
nds up in the air.

  “Diving alone is dangerous!” Shoal snapped.

  “And running along the backs of whales isn’t?”

  “Is that what this is about? You don’t think I can do it?!”

  “I think you are crazy! I think that anyone who tries it risks getting killed!”

  A heaving mob of singing dancers twirled along the dock, sweeping up everyone in their path. Ascott stepped back to the edge to avoid being caught in the crowd. Shoal followed him, her face as grim as a stonefish with toothache.

  “You’d better get going then!” she shouted and shoved Ascott backwards. Arms flailing, he yelled and toppled off the dock. Landing with a splash in the water, he surfaced and stared up in surprised outrage. Shoal had gone, vanishing into the clapping, slapping and excitedly rapping crowd of Montabanians celebrating the arrival of the whales.

  Crawling into his dugout, Ascott started the motor. Tacus waited in his position at the bow and didn’t say a word as they made their way out of the log jam of boats around the dock.

  Ascott fumed all the way across the shallow waters between the thousand islands of the Aardvark Archipelago. This was only the first whale pod of many that would come through the deep channel into the warm waters of the islands. There would be at least a week to see the migration and the race wouldn’t happen for a day or two. He only wanted Shoal’s help for one afternoon.

  The canoe’s outboard hummed until he was in familiar waters, then Ascott turned the boat and began tracking to where he thought Shoal had taken him fishing the day before. Opening an old metal lunchbox, he took out some crackers, a tin mug and a bottle of water.

  “Bread an’ water, thirty dayth!” Tacus squawked.

  “More like thirty minutes. Don’t fly off. I’ll be back soon.” The tin cup filled with water was set on the floor of the canoe, with crackers for Tacus to amuse himself with while he waited.

  Ascott attached an air tank to his inflatable vest, clipped the floater on and cinched a weight belt tight around his waist. Slipping fins on his feet he positioned his goggles and took an experimental breath through the respirator. The air flowed clear and sweet into his throat. A voice in the back of his head reminded him that Shoal was right, diving alone was stupid. If you got in trouble, there would be no one to help. Another part of him coughed politely and replayed the footage of Shoal pushing him off the dock in a huff.

  “Your argument is invalid,” Ascott said through the respirator and toppled backwards out of the canoe.

  Surfacing for a moment, he waved to Tacus and then deflated the buoyancy vest. The counter-weight of the belt dragged him down and he flicked his fins, swimming out in a search grid to find the coral-encrusted wreck.

  Chapter 6

  The search took longer than Ascott had hoped. He swam in straight lines, high enough above the bottom to see any cross-shaped masts sticking out of the sand and coral. Back and forth, crossing a wide grid that included the area he was certain Shoal had been in yesterday. The air-gauge said he had half a tank left when he found the wreck. It was invisible from most directions until you were right on top of it. Tilting his body down, Ascott kicked and swam through a school of circular plate fish, their tassel-like fins fluttering as they pushed themselves out of the way.

  The wreck was half-buried in the sand and now with the air to explore at leisure, Ascott could see the boat had been holed in the port side and her spine had broken. Three shattered masts were all that remained, the sails rotted or eaten away. The ship still had the portholes for a dozen cannons on each side and now fish flitted in and out of the muzzles of the guns.

  It probably sank in a hurricane. During storm season the seas became walls of white foam and the howling winds sent the trees on brief, but exhilarating, flights across the raging water.

  Swimming closer, Ascott brushed away the clinging weed and a stubborn crab that clung to the gilded plank with the ship’s name inscribed:

  Bi . . e . . . p .

  The rest was too weathered by the currents and coral to read. Ascott took a torch from his vest and clicked it on. The beam of yellow light sent the shadow fish dancing away to hide in the darkest corners as he pulled himself in through the ragged hole in the ship’s wooden hull. Inside there were more fish, and silt formed from the remains of the eaten and the inedible. Ascott’s movement disturbed some of the smaller creatures. The crushed bones and shells of those who hadn’t hidden as well as they might have hoped moved with the silt stirred up by his fins.

  Diving alone was risky; diving alone on an unknown ship­wreck was an act of irresponsible lunacy. Ascott felt he had a point to prove: if there was some kind of pirate treasure here, he would be the one to find it. Shoal would have to settle for not dying on her stupid whale-running race.

  And he might have enough pearls to buy a ride home sooner than the next zipillin flight.

  The visibility dropped as the muck stirred up. Ascott sank deeper into the half-buried ship, pulling himself along through a particulate fog. Crabs and fish clicked and gaped at him as he slipped past, moving down a corridor that even when the ship was afloat would have been unpleasantly claustrophobic.

  Some recent shift in the wreck had collapsed timbers at the end of the passage. Ascott gave one of the beams an experimental tug. It seemed wedged in tight. With a sigh of bubbles he twisted around in the tight space and found that there wasn’t room for him to turn completely—the air tank jammed against the wall. Moving back slightly he tried again, twisting the other way; but the only way out was to inch backwards. Pressing his hands into the sludge on the floor he pushed and drifted. His breathing grew more rapid and the waterlogged timbers seemed to shrink in around him.

  Don’t think about dying, Ascott told himself.

  It was hard not to keep the idea of mortality in mind. With visibility dropping to zero, he felt a growing disorientation about which way was up. He might even be going deeper into the wooden tunnel, not backing out.

  Ascott screamed as something slithered over his foot. The sound was mostly inaudible, but he did manage to keep the respirator in his mouth. The slithering thing curled around his ankle and jerked him backwards. He felt a tugging on his fin and then a thrashing movement sent him spinning on to his back. Through the blizzard of silt Ascott saw that a large octopus had pulled the fin off his foot and was now trying to eat it. With a shudder, he drew his knees and remaining fin out of reach.

  The octopuses of the archipelago were notoriously intelligent predators. They would eat anything and had mastered the use of simple tools to cut open shells, trap fish and, some said, to snare the occasional diver. The chance to observe one of the legendary creatures in close proximity calmed Ascott’s terror. He started taking mental notes about the way the cephalopod’s eight tentacles explored their surroundings as the body pulsed and shifted through a spectrum of colours.

  With the octopus blocking the only exit, Ascott pulled himself along the corridor as far as the collapsed timbers. The creature turned the webbed fin over in its tentacles before casually tossing it over what passed for its shoulder. As the octopus flowed down the corridor like a bag of half-set jelly, Ascott scrambled for his dive knife, and waved the four-inch blade between himself and the octopus. The floating sack of tentacles hesitated and then all eight of its arms snapped forward. Curled in the tip of each was a variety of sharpened implements, from swords and dive knives to a fishing spear. The large unblinking eyes seemed to be saying, Your move.

  The knife slid back into the sheath on Ascott’s weight belt. He let his hands fall to the silt and mud on the floor. Watching the octopus, he felt around until a something solid passed under his fingertips. With a mental Ah-ha! Ascott yanked the object out of the mud and threw it at the octopus.

  It was a box, flat, wooden, and about the size of a book. Its shape made it a poor choice to throw underwater, and the waterlogged case sprang open midway
to its target. A set of Ixnay game tiles—small squares of bones with letters and smaller numbers etched into them—tumbled in suspension towards the octopus. The knives dropped and the tentacles flicked over the scattered letters, gathering them up in one eight-pronged swoop.

  Ascott froze again. The octopus held each tentacle’s catch of letters in front of its eyes and then with a flourish began to lay them out on the silty ground.

  F-O-O-D, Ascott read. For eight points.

  He shook his head and said, “I have no food.” The respirator in his mouth meant it came out as “Ugh aarrgh ooh ood.”

  The tentacles clicked the remaining letters down in a neat pile. Moving with care, Ascott picked a sample and began to sort them and lay them out.

  I-H-A-V-E-N-O-F-O-O-D. Twenty-one points. He finished with an apologetic shrug.

  The octopus swept the tiles up and began to lay them out with rapid clicks. Y-O-U-A-R-E-F-O-O-D, seventeen points.

  Ascott shook his head. The bubbles spreading along the roof of the corridor were merging into large pools that shimmered like quicksilver above his head.

  The octopus gathered the tiles and laid them out again:

  I-F-I-T-S-W-I-M-S-I-E-A-T-I-T. Twenty-three points and an inescapable logic.

  N-O-T-F-O-O-D-S-C-I-E-N-T-I-S-T Ascott desperately spelled out. One of the octopus’s tentacles curled into a large, sucker-laden ?.

  Ascott collected the letters and laid out, N-O-T-F-O-O-D-I-N-T-E-L-L-I-G-E-N-T. Twenty-three points, if anyone was keeping score, Ascott though.

  The octopus gathered the tiles immediately and began to lay them out.

  N-O-T-I-N-T-E-L-L-I-G-E-N-T-O-N-L-Y-H-A-S-T-W-O-A-R-M-S. Before Ascott could reply, the tentacles laid out a second group of tiles. F-O-R-T-Y-P-O-I-N-T-S.

  Ascott gave a bubbly snort and spelled out, T-W-O-A-R-M-S-A-N-D-B-I-G-B-R-A-I-N. Thirty points, he mentally added.

  W-H-E-R-E-B-I-G-B-R-A-I-N the octopus replied for twenty-four points.