The Curiosity Machine (14 page)

‘You don't think that sounds a bit unbelievable?' Ruby said. ‘You couldn't just go with “We're lost and need help”?'

Sam gave his sister an injured look. ‘I thought
mentioning pirates would get someone's attention,' he said.

Ruby opened her mouth to speak but was cut off when a woman's voice crackled through the speakers. ‘This is the merchant ship
Oso
, responding to the distress call from the mini-submarine. What is your location? Over.'

Sam gave a smug smile. ‘See?' he said. ‘A result.' He lifted the microphone to his mouth when Felicity flung herself forward from the back seat, squashing Gerald's face flat against the glass in the process. ‘Wait!' she cried, grabbing Sam by his wrist. ‘Don't say anything.'

‘Careful,' Sam said. ‘You almost dislocated my elbow.'

‘What are you doing?' Ruby said, her eyes afire. ‘If this is about your mum and dad again—'

Felicity shook her head. ‘It's not about my parents,' she said. ‘That voice on the radio, I don't think you can trust it.'

The radio crackled again. ‘This is the merchant ship
Oso
, calling the mini-sub in distress. What is your location? Over.'

‘Don't you see?' Felicity said. ‘That's definitely Ursus.'

She was met with blank stares from the others. ‘But that's a woman on the radio,' Ruby said.

‘And Ursus had a woman working for him on the
Archer
,' Felicity said.

Sam shrugged. ‘What does that tell you?' Sam asked, trying to pull his arm free from Felicity's grasp. ‘Ursus is hardly going to say,
Hi, I'm calling from the
Archer
. Can you tell me where you are so I can come kidnap you again
.'

‘Don't be so thick,' Felicity said. ‘She knew we were in a mini-sub. You didn't say anything about that when you made your distress call.'

Sam leaned back in his seat and Felicity released her grip on his arm. Water lapped against the sides of the mini-sub as the scale of their predicament struck home.

‘So we can't radio for help,' Sam said, ‘because Ursus will most likely be the first one to reach us.'

‘And we're a zillion miles from anywhere, and the only thing between us and an ocean full of sharks is a giant glass bubble,' Ruby said.

A few metres away a black shape weaved from the darkness and cruised past with one eye fixed on them, unblinking.

‘Now I know how a dessert trolley feels,' Sam said.

Gerald looked at each of his friends in turn. ‘So what do we do?'

Ruby frowned and nodded, as if winning a debate with herself. ‘This is what we do,' she said, and took the microphone from Sam. ‘May Day. May Day. Gunmen working for the fugitive Sir Mason Green have hijacked the ship
Archer
. The attack took place three days' sail east of Bora Bora. Please send urgent help. Send—'

A screen in front of Ruby flashed into a fuzzy video image. It took a moment to realise they were looking at a man wearing a black balaclava.

‘That will do, Miss Valentine,' the man said. He peeled the woollen mask back from his chin and off his head, then stared hard at the four occupants of the submarine. ‘That will most certainly do.'

Chapter 13

Ursus was just as Gerald remembered from the last time they had seen him, in Sir Mason Green's apartment in San Francisco just before Christmas: slender, with dark hair swept back and an expression that could make a baby cry. For a moment, the shark circling the submarine looked the better option.

‘Sadly for you, Miss Valentine, the radio on that submarine is not set up for long-range communications,' Ursus said. ‘In fact, it's a direct link to the bridge of the
Archer
. So you can give up any idea of contacting the outside world.'

Ruby's jaw muscles tightened. ‘So the only person who can hear me on this radio is you?' she asked Ursus.

‘That is correct.'

‘Good,' Ruby said.

Gerald's eyes flew wide as Ruby told Ursus exactly what she thought of him, his parents and his career choices. The tirade ended with a detailed description of exactly where Ursus could store his balaclava.

‘Miss Valentine!' Ursus said. ‘I hardly think that type of language is constructive.'

‘Possibly not,' Ruby said, ‘but it is incredibly satisfying. Just be glad I'm not there in person or I would most probably vomit all over you.' She leaned forward and switched off the communications screen.

‘Was that a sensible thing to do, Ruby?' Felicity asked. ‘He doesn't seem a good person to get angry.'

‘I don't need a lecture from you about good sense,' Ruby snapped. ‘Who knows what tracking capabilities the
Archer
has on board. The longer we were talking to Ursus the more likely he'd find us. Remember, that's not part of the plan anymore.'

Felicity did not respond.

‘We're floating in a plastic bubble in the middle of the Pacific,' Gerald said, trying to keep the peace. ‘We might need Ursus to rescue us.'

‘Nonsense,' Ruby said. ‘Come on, Sam. You got us this far. Find some satellite map or something to show us the closest piece of land.'

Sam pressed the panel by his knee and hunted through the options menu. Screens and tabs flashed on and off until finally a map popped open with a small
pulsing red dot in the centre. ‘I'm guessing the dot is us,' he said.

‘There's an awful lot of blue around it,' Felicity said.

‘I'll try zooming out,' Sam said. The red dot shrank until finally a speck of green appeared in the bottom right corner of the map.

‘There!' Ruby said. ‘Is that land?'

Sam zoomed in on it. ‘It looks hopeful,' he said. With his fingertip he traced a line between the red dot and the island, then pressed the large green button. The submarine responded with a buzzing whir, and cut its way through the gathering swell. Sam tilted the joystick forward and the nose dipped. In seconds they were cruising a few metres below the surface.

‘That's better,' Ruby said. ‘I couldn't take much more of that bobbing about.'

‘We should go faster underwater,' Sam said. ‘And the quicker we get to that island, the better.'

‘What's your hurry?' Gerald asked, gazing through the glass to the vast blue empire about them. ‘This is pretty awesome.'

‘Because this thing operates on battery power and according to this gauge we've got about six hours left.'

‘What happens when the batteries run out?' Felicity asked.

Sam thought for a moment. ‘I guess we bob around in the ocean like a bottle with a message in it until someone finds us.' A school of fish flashed around them like a
sequined curtain. ‘So we may as well enjoy the show while we can.'

The mini-sub ploughed on, its path tracked on the satellite map by the pulsing red dot. The line between it and the island grew steadily shorter. Gerald discovered a stash of chocolate bars in a storage bin and handed them around.

Felicity tried to get the conversation going to ease her way back into the group. But Ruby was having none of it. ‘Can you please stop talking, Felicity?' she said. ‘I think we've all had enough of your input for one day.'

Felicity turned to look out the side of the submarine. Gerald could see she was struggling to hold back tears.

At one point, a family of bottle-nosed dolphins joined them—three adults and an infant—circling the sub and sweeping up close to the glass to peek inside. The sight of them seemed to brighten Felicity. ‘Oh, look at the baby,' she said. ‘It's gorgeous.'

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.