Infernal Devices (10 page)

"... and for those of you who have just joined us," it bellowed through squalls of feedback, "Brighton has captured a

fourth pirate submarine! There are the crew, creeping out onto the hull--as desperate-looking a pair of young cutthroats as you could hope to meet! But don't worry, ladies and gentlemen; the world will soon be rid of these parasites forever!"

"It's a trap!" said Wren. Fishcake, who hadn't understood what the announcer was saying, turned a shocked white face toward her. "It's not real!" she cried, standing up, shouting. "Fishcake! It's a--"

And two men came up the limpet's side, unfurling something between them that turned out to be a net. They dropped it over Fishcake, who kicked and struggled and shouted and reached for Wren's hand. "Does this mean they aren't our mummies and daddies?" he asked her, his voice going squeaky and ready to cry. "You lied! You lied to me!"

Then strong hands grabbed him from behind and tore him away from Wren, and more hands grabbed her, rough hands in rubber gauntlets that stank of fish and oil. A net went over her, and though she wriggled and lashed out with fists and feet, she could not stop her captor from throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her down the limpet's flank, and dumping her heavily on the deck. She heard Fishcake's sobs turn suddenly to a sharp squeal, and a moment later she understood why. A man grabbed her arm and burned the back of her hand with a hot iron stamp, branding her with a sort of logo:

"Mummy! Mummy!" Fishcake was howling as they dragged him away, still not wanting to believe that WOPCART and all the smiley parents had been nothing but bait.

"Leave him alone!" screamed Wren, weeping with the pain of her seared hand. "He's only ten! How can you be so beastly? He thought you were his parents!"

"That's the idea, boy." A big, burly man in a waterproof cape stooped over her, belching out a hot fug of whiskey fumes as he peered into her face. "Hang on," Wren heard him say. "Look, Miss Weems--this one's a girl."

A brittle, beautiful woman in black shoved him aside. She had a brand on her hand just like Wren's, but hers was old and had faded to a raised scar not much darker than the surrounding skin. "Interesting," she said, looking at Wren. "We've heard rumors of female parasites, but she's the first we've seen."

"I'm not a Lost Girl!" Wren shouted through the tight wet mesh of the net. "I was a prisoner aboard the
Autolycus,
Fishcake took me from my home...."

The woman sneered at her. "I don't care who you are, girl. We are slave dealers You are just merchandise, as far as we're concerned."

"But I'm-- You can't make me a slave!"

"Au contraire,
child, our contract with Mayor Pennyroyal is perfectly clear: Anyone we dredge up in one of those parasite machines becomes the property of the Shkin Corporation."

"Mayor Pennyroyal?" cried Wren. "You don't mean ... Not
Nimrod
Pennyroyal?"

The woman seemed surprised that a Lost Girl should recognize that name. "Yes. Nimrod Pennyroyal has been mayor of Brighton these past twelve years or more."

"But he can't be! Who'd want Pennyroyal for mayor?

He's a fraud! A traitor! An airship thief!"

Miss Weems made some notes upon a clipboard. "Take her to the slave pens," she told one of her men. "Inform Mr. Shkin of the catch. I believe it's a good sign. We may be drawing close to the pirate nest."

***

ON THE MORNING OF their departure, when the
Screw Worm
was ready at last and Hester and Tom were waiting for Caul to run a few final tests on the engines, Freya Rasmussen came down to the mooring beach and announced that she was coming too. Nothing that Tom or Hester could say seemed to change her mind.

"It'll be dangerous."

"Well,
you're
both going."

"You're needed here."

"Oh, Anchorage-in-Vineland runs itself perfectly well without me. Anyway, I told Mrs. Aakiuq that she can be Acting Margravine while I'm away, and you don't want to disappoint her, do you? She's made herself a special hat and everything...." Beaming, Freya clambered up the
Screw

Worm's
boarding ladder and dumped her bulky going-away bag through the hatch.

"Don't you understand, Snow Queen?" Hester said. "We're not off to Grimsby to pay a social call. We're going to get Wren back, and if I have to kill every Lost Boy who stands in my way ..."

"You'll only make things worse," said Freya tartly. "There's been too much killing already. That's why you need me along. I can talk to Uncle and make him see reason."

Hester let out an exasperated howl and looked to Caul, sure that he would not want Freya along for the ride, but Caul was saying nothing, staring away across the shining water.

So it was settled, and the voyage began like a picnic trip, with Tom and Freya waving from the
Screw Worm's
open hatchways as the limpet nosed out into the lake and all of Anchorage-in-Vineland lined the beach to cheer them on their way.

As the city passed out of sight behind the headland and the
Screw Worm
folded in its legs and prepared to submerge, Freya went down into the cabin, where Caul was hunched over the rusty controls. But Tom stayed out on the hull until the last moment, watching the passing shoreline, the green slopes reflecting in the rippled water. Birds were calling in the reed beds, their songs echoing the car alarms and mobile-phone trills that their distant ancestors must have heard: sound-fossils of a vanished world. They made Tom think of the Ancient settlements he had begun to excavate in the Dead Hills and the relics of forgotten lives he had unearthed there. Would he ever return with Wren to finish his work?

"We'll come back," promised Tom as he climbed inside to join Hester. But Hester said nothing. She did not think that she would ever see Anchorage-in-Vineland again.

In the cramped control cabin of the
Screw Worm
there was no way for Caul to avoid talking to Freya Rasmussen. He wondered if that was half the reason for her deciding to come. As the waters closed over the nose windows, she sat down beside him and spread Snori Ulvaeusson's ancient map upon the pilot's console and said, "So do you remember the way back to Grimsby?" He nodded.

"I was sure you would," she said. "I'm surprised you haven't made the trip before."

"To Grimsby?" He turned to look at her, but the kind, careful way she was watching him made him uneasy, so he stared at the controls instead. "Why would I want to go back to Grimsby? Have you forgotten what happened the last time I was there? If Gargle hadn't cut me down ..."

"But you still want to go back," said Freya gently. "Why else did you repair the
Worm?"

Caul squinted into the silty darkness ahead of the limpet, pretending to be keeping a lookout for sunken rocks. "I thought about it," he admitted. "That's the trouble. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Even in the first weeks at Vineland, when there was so much to do and everybody was so kind and welcoming and you--"

He glanced sideways at her and away. She was still watching him. Why was she always so kind to him? Sixteen years ago she had offered him her love, and he'd turned her down

for reasons he still couldn't quite understand. He wouldn't have blamed her if she'd banished him back to the sea.

"That's why I live down in the underdeck," he admitted. "Because it's the bit of Anchorage that's the most like Grimsby. And every night, when I'm dreaming, I hear Uncle's voice. 'Come back to Grimsby, Caul,' it says." He looked at Freya nervously. He'd never told anyone this, and he was afraid she might think he was mad. He thought it himself, sometimes. "Uncle whispers to me, the way he used to whisper out of the speakers on the Burglarium ceiling when I was small. Even the waves on the beach talk with his voice. 'Grimsby's your home, Caul, my boy. You don't belong with the Drys. Come home to Grimsby.'"

Freya reached out to touch him, then thought better of it. She said, "But when Gargle showed up, asking for you to help him, you turned him down. You could have given him the Tin Book and gone back with him on the
Autolycus."

"I wanted to," said Caul. "You don't know how much I wanted to."

"But you didn't. You chose Anchorage over Grimsby."

"Only 'cos I was afraid," said Caul. "Only 'cos I was afraid that when I got there, I'd find I don't fit in any better with the Lost Boys than I do with you Drys. Maybe I'm not either anymore. Maybe I'm nothing at all."

Freya did touch him then. She laid her hand on his shoulder and felt him flinch away from her, quick and shy, like a frightened animal. Sometimes she thought that Caul was as much of a mystery to her now as he had been all those years ago when he'd first come to her out of the sea. He would have been so much happier if he had just let her love him.

And so would she. It hadn't exactly ruined her life, for so many other good things had happened to her, but sometimes she did feel sad that she had no husband and no children of her own. It seemed to her that there were some people-Caul was one, and Hester Natsworthy another--who just didn't have the knack of being happy.

Or was there more to it than that? She thought of the waves on the beach whispering to Caul with Uncle's voice, and felt spooked and uneasy. If Uncle could speak to him in Vineland, what would it be like for him when they reached Grimsby? And if things went badly there, and it came to a fight, would Caul be on her side, or on Uncle's?

***

THAT'S RIGHT YOUR WORSHIP! Hold it Smile!" tray of flash powder exploded with a soft
chuff,
and a ball of smoke rose into the sunlit air of Cloud 9 like a party balloon. Nimrod Pennyroyal, explorer, author, and mayor, was having his photograph taken for the
Brighton Morninig Palimpsest
again, posing this time with Digby Slingback and Sardona Flysch, the actor and actress who played the grieving spokespeople of WOPCART in the messages Brighton was beaming into the Atlantic.

"So, Your Worship," the
Palimpsest's
reporter asked while the photographer loaded a fresh plate into his camera, "can you remind our readers what gave you the idea of this expedition against the parasite-pirates?"

"I considered it my duty," said Pennyroyal, beaming and adjusting his chain of office, which twinkled prettily in the

sun. "After all, it was I who first alerted the world to the existence of these maritime miscreants; you can read of my encounters with them in my interpolitan bestseller
Predator's Gold
(Just twenty-five Brightonian dolphins at all good bookshops). In recent years we have had more and more reports of their raids and burglaries and have started to deduce how their organization operates. I considered it my duty to take our city north and capture as many of them as I could."

"Of course, Your Worship, some of your critics have suggested that it is all a publicity stunt designed to attract more visitors to Brighton and sell more copies of your books...."

Pennyroyal made scoffing noises. "My books sell well enough without publicity stunts. And if news of our quest to rid the oceans of these parasites brings more tourists to Brighton, what is wrong with that? Brighton is a tourist city, and it's the mayor's job to help boost it. And may I remind you that our little fishing expedition is not costing Brighton's ratepayers a penny. Thanks to the partnership deal I worked out, all the underwater sensing equipment and limpet traps are paid for by one of our most eminent businessmen, Mr. Nabisco Shkin. This fake organization for pirates' parents was all Shkin's idea. I know some people think it's rather cruel, but you must admit it's worked like a charm. Shkin understands the psychology of these parentless louts perfectly, you see. He was an orphan himself, you know, an urchin from the underdeck who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, so he knew just how to appeal to them."

"And does Your Worship think we shall catch more pirates soon?"

"Wait and see!" chuckled Pennyroyal, presenting his best

profile to the camera as the photographer lined up another shot. "The boys we took from the first three limpets were hard nuts who refused to divulge the location of their base. This latest catch includes a younger boy and a girl too: much easier to crack. I believe the next few days will bring big results!"

In fact, what the next few days brought was a change in the weather. A storm sweeping off the Dead Continent chopped the ocean into steep white waves and threw Brighton up and down so violently that even the residents felt queasy, and a lot of the visitors who had flown in from the Hunting Ground to watch Pennyroyal's people fishing for pirates took to their airships and sky yachts and went hurrying home. The Brightonians (those who were not feeling too ill to walk about) glared up through the blustering rain at the underbelly of Cloud 9 hanging in the wet sky and wondered why they had agreed to let Pennyroyal bring them out onto this wild, unfriendly ocean.

Down below the pitching decks, on Brighton's lowest level, Wren lay on the floor of her narrow cage in the Shkin Corporation's holding pens and wished she were dead. Above her head, an argon lamp swung to and fro, splashing light across the metal walls and the rows of cages that sat waiting for more Lost Boys to be lured aboard. Fishcake lay in one; the others held the crews of the limpets that had been captured earlier. The burn on Wren's hand hurt terribly. She supposed she would bear that raised weal for the rest of her life--although that might not be very long.

"Are we sinking?" she asked when the Shkin Corporation's guard came round and aimed his flashlight at her to

check that she was still alive.

The guard chuckled. "Feels like it, don't it? But Brighton's ridden out worse than this. Don't worry; we'll soon be hoovering up the rest of your chums."

"They're not my chums," said Wren bitterly. "I'm not a Lost Boy...."