Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

“Well, Wren,” she said, hugging herself for comfort, “if you’re going to stay alive and find your way back to Mum and Dad, you’ll have to start using them.”

The Autolycus was a hundred miles from shore when the signal came in. Fishcake thought at first that it must be a message from another limpet, although he didn’t know that any others were operating on this side of the ocean. Then he noticed something strange: The signal was being broadcast simultaneously on the limpet-to-limpet frequency and on the wavelength that the limpets used to receive pictures from their wireless crab-cams.

He flicked some switches, and the bank of circular screens above his station slowly flooded with light.

Huddled on the floor of the hold, Wren heard voices. She crept to the door of the control cabin and peeked through. Fishcake was staring up at the screens. All six showed the same strange image: a city, seen from above, cruising on a calm sea. It was hard to tell on this grainy, ghosting picture what size of city it was, but it looked pleasant, with many ornate white cupolas and domes, and lots of long pennants streaming in the wind.

“What’s that?” asked Wren.

Fishcake glanced round, but if he was surprised to find her standing there, he didn’t show it. He turned his face to the screens again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It keeps repeating. Watch.”

The picture changed. A kindly-looking man and woman sat side by side upon a sofa. They seemed to be looking straight at Wren and Fishcake, and although they were strangers, and dressed in the robes and turbans of rich townspeople, something in their sad and gentle smiles made Wren think of her own mum and dad and how they must be missing her.

“Greetings, children of the deep!” said the man. “We are speaking to you on behalf of WOPCART, the World Organization for Parents of Children Abducted from Raft Towns. For half a century, boys—and lately girls too—have been vanishing from cities that cross the Atlantic and the Ice Wastes. Only in recent years, thanks to the explorer Nimrod Pennyroyal, have we become aware of the parasite-pirates who secretly burgle and infest such cities, and who steal children away to train as thieves and burglars like themselves.”

“Pennyroyal again!” said Wren crossly.

“Shush!” said Fishcake. “Listen!”

The woman was speaking now, still smiling, but weeping too, as she leaned toward the viewers. “Now the good people of the raft resort of Brighton have brought us north into your home waters. If you tune your radio equipment to 680 kilocycles, you will pick up the signal of Brighton’s homing beacon. We know that you probably have no memories of the mummies and daddies from whom you were stolen when you were so very little, and who have been missing you so very much. But if you come to us, come in your submarines to meet us here in Brighton, we are sure that many of you will recognize your own families, and they you. We do not want to harm you, or take you from your new friends or your exciting new life beneath the waves. We only want a chance to see our dear lost boys again…”

Here the woman’s voice grew high and wobbly; she hid her face in her handkerchief while her husband patted her arm and took over.

“WOPCART has many members,” he explained, and the picture changed again to show a crowd of people gathered on one of the city’s observation platforms. “Every one of us has lost a child, and longs to see him again and learn what has happened to him. Or, indeed, her. Oh, children of the deep, if you can hear this message, we beg you, come to us!”

The image lingered for a moment while sad music swelled and the members of WOPCART all smiled and waved at the camera and the sea breeze plucked at their coats and robes and hats. Then it was replaced by a printed sign that read:

The music faded, there was a moment of blackness, and the transmission began again. “Greetings, children of the deep!…”

“See?” asked Fishcake, turning to Wren. He had forgotten that she was his hostage, so eager was he to share the astonishing message with somebody. His eyes were shining— his whole face was radiant—and Wren realized for the first time how young he really was: just a small boy, far from home and longing for love and comfort.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked. “I checked for Brighton’s homing beacon. They’re close. About fifty, sixty miles southwest of us. I never heard of a city coming that near to the Dead Continent…”

Wren could feel the sense of yearning building in the cramped cabin as Fishcake imagined that city full of mums and dads floating fifty miles away. What if she could persuade him to rendezvous with Brighton? She was sure that she would be far better off there than down in Grimsby. So would Fishcake, probably, so she need not feel guilty about it.

She went into the cabin and sat down in the swivel chair beside his. “Maybe they’ve come here because they’re searching for Lost Boys,” she said. “They could have been zigzagging their way north for weeks, transmitting that message over and over. Gargle told me that limpets had gone missing. He thought something bad had happened to them, but what if they just heard that message and went to find their families… ?”

“Why haven’t they contacted Grimsby, then?” asked Fishcake.

“Maybe they’re having too much fun,” suggested Wren. “Maybe they were scared that Gargle would punish them for going to Brighton without his orders.”

Fishcake gazed up at the screens. “Those people look so rich. The Lost Boys take only kids nobody’s going to miss: orphans and urchins from the underdecks who nobody wants…”

“That’s what Gargle and Uncle told you,” said Wren. “What if it isn’t true? What if they take children from rich families sometimes too? Anyway, probably even an orphan would be missed by somebody. Probably even an urchin’s mummy and daddy would want to find him if he got himself stolen away…”

Two big tears ran down Fishcake’s face, pearly in the light from the screens.

“I’ll send a message-fish to Grimsby and ask Uncle what to do,” he decided.

“But Fishcake,” said Wren, “he might tell you not to go!”

“Uncle Knows Best,” said Fishcake, but he didn’t sound very certain.

“Anyway, by the time you get a reply, Brighton might have sailed away. Autumn’s coming. Storms and high seas. Miss Freya always taught us that raft cities head for sheltered waters in the autumn. So this might be your only chance…”

“But it’s one of the rules. What they teach us in the Burglarium. Never show yourself. Never give the Drys a chance to find out about the Lost Boys—that’s what Gargle says…”

“These Drys seem to know all about you already,” Wren reminded him.

Fishcake shook his head and smudged the tears away with the heel of his hand. His Burglarium training was fighting against the rising hope that his own mother and father might have been among that crowd of smiling faces on the screens. He did not remember them, but he felt sure that if he met his parents in the flesh, he would know them at once.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll go closer. We’ll have a good look at this Brighton place, get crab-cams aboard if we can. Check these WOPCART people are on the level…” He looked at Wren and pitied her; after all, she had no hope of finding her parents aboard the waiting city.

“You must be starved,” he said.

“Pretty hungry,” admitted Wren.

Fishcake smiled shyly at her. “Me too. Mora used to do all the cooking. Do you know how to cook?”