Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

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.”