Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

“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…”

“Change the record, love,” the man said wearily. “I heard you telling Monica Weems that same story down on Fishmarket Hard when we first dredged you up. The answer’s still the same. Don’t matter who you are. You’re merchandise now. You’ll fetch a good price in Nuevo-Maya.”

Memories of old geography lessons stirred in Wren’s brain: the big globe in the schoolroom at the Winter Palace and Miss Freya saying, “Here is Nuevo-Maya, which used to be called South America before the isthmus that linked it to North America was severed by Slow Bombs in the Sixty Minute War.”

Nuevo-Maya was thousands of miles away! If they took her there, how could she ever find her way home?

The guard leaned on her cage and leered at her through the bars. “You don’t think Mr. Shkin’d try and sell a bunch of lairy pirates off as house slaves and nursemaids, do you? You’ll end up as fighters aboard one of them big Nuevo-Mayan ziggurat cities. Lovely shows they have in them arenas. Gangs of slaves pitched against each other, or fighting souped-up dismantling machines and captured Green Storm Stalkers. Blood and guts all over the shop. But it’s all done in honor of their funny Nuevo-Mayan gods, so it’s quite spiritual, really.”

Spiritual or not, Wren didn’t think she fancied it. She had to find a way out of this horrible mess. But her brain, about which Miss Freya had said such nice things, was too addled by the pitching of the city to think of anything.

“I hope we do sink!” she shouted weakly after the guard as he went on his way. “That’d serve you right! I hope we sink before you trap any more poor Lost Boys!”

But next day the storm slackened and the waves subsided, and that evening the crews of three more limpets were dragged, sheepish and weeping, into the slave pens. There were four more limpets that night, and another three the following day; one of them sensed a trap and fled before the magnetic grapples caught it, but Brighton gave chase and dropped depth charges until a white plume of water burst from the ocean to drench the cheering spectators on the starboard observation decks and bits of limpet and Lost Boy came bobbing to the surface.