Diana Pho - Steampunk World

The leviathan shark wolfed the orca down in two gulps, and then righted itself to face the submarine. It looked roughly like the great whites the fishermen had speared in the shallows, but this creature’s skin about its head and jaws was armored with thick denticle scales; its snout looked more like a medieval battering ram. And this monster was far, far larger than any shark she’d ever seen. It was easily four times the length of her submarine.

The monstrous creature began to swim toward her.

Thilini shrieked and pulled the sub around, shoving the steam engine into full speed. She ignored the groaning of the boiler and the rattling of metal as she forced the sub faster and faster, convinced the dire monster was right behind, jaws opening, ready to snap the sub in two.

In her panic, she grounded the sub in the shallows several hundred yards north of the harbor. She killed the engine, got the hatch open with numb, shaking hands, and splashed to land where she collapsed on the sand and gave in to her desire to weep.

Herr Rothschild believed his daughter’s story straight away. But since she was merely a girl and deemed subject to frivolous flights of fancy, most others were skeptical and, despite the evidence from the Southwind , claimed she’d been frightened by a common cachalot whale or even a mere barracuda.

But in the following week, an East India Company cargo ship was attacked and most of the crew drowned or eaten. And the week after that, they got word of similar disastrous attacks on ships near Colombo and Batticaloa. More and more people heard and believed Thilini’s account of the leviathan shark; townsfolk and visiting officials asked her to tell her story so many times that the repetition almost sapped the terror from her memory. Almost. The terrible shark swam through nightmarish seas in her mind when she tried to sleep, and she’d start awake, feeling herself drowning, feeling those awful teeth closing down on her body.

“Our family has lost three ships,” her Uncle Martin fretted one day. “I cannot take my tea to Europe! The sailors fear this monster like nothing else. We must kill the beast, or drive it away, or else we will be paupers!”

“What would you have me do?” her father asked.

“I would have you build a mighty version of the submersible you tested. Something armed with a powerful harpoon, and a hull built to withstand the pressures of the depths. I would have you build a craft fit to hunt this leviathan down and kill it in its lair.”

“If it’s a harpoon you need, why not gird a whaling ship in iron and send her and her crew after the shark?”

Uncle Martin shook his head. “The Bombay and British navies have tried that very thing, to no avail. I read survivor’s reports; only the head of the shark is visible during its attack, and that part is so well-armored that even harpoons fired from cannons cannot harm it.”

“What about a harpoon down its gullet?” her father asked.

“No man who has tried such a shot has lived. The naturalists speculate that the shark may have a softer underbelly that is vulnerable, but there is no way to reach it from the surface of the sea.”

“What about explosives?” Thilini asked.

“That, too, has been tried,” her uncle replied gravely, “with no better result.”

He turned to her father. “We need a working version of your machine.”

Her father paused, chewing on a corner of his moustache thoughtfully. “I could build a submarine such as you describe, but I haven’t the materials or craftsmen to attempt it.”

“I will get you anything you need. Anything at all. I have spoken to officers in the British Navy, and they have agreed to fund your enterprise. Glass, metals, workers … tell me what you need and I shall get it to you even if I have to strip every estate in Kandy for materials and manpower. We can bring in specialists from Europe by airship.”

“All right, then,” her father replied. “If it’s a fearsome submersible you want, then that’s what you shall get.”

Thilini and her father put their heads together for several days to figure out what they’d need to build the new craft. Herr Rothschild presented their list to his brother; within days carpenters, welders and masons arrived by balloon to Trincomalee from all around Ceylon to build a fabrication complex at the northern end of the harbor.

Her father hired foremen from a group of engineers his brother recruited, and everyone went to work. Once the construction was underway, it was non-stop. Thilini feared that her father might abandon her now that he had so many educated men at his beck and call, but he kept her close, showing her every engineering novelty his new staff had to show him and every interesting failure.

Further, he introduced her to a brilliant young Serbian engineer named Nikola Tesla, fresh from Edison’s laboratory, who helped her solve the problems with their wireless telegraph within a month. She went home to bathe, bolt down quick meals and catch naps away from the noise of the machinery, but otherwise she stayed in the factory and worked and studied and listened and worked some more.

Nine months after Martin Rothschild demanded her construction, the HMS Makara was ready. The completed submarine measured 120 feet in length and weighed over 80 tons. The cabin was equipped with compressed air and chemical scrubbers to enable the craft to stay under for up to five days at a time, though they hoped the shark could be found much sooner than that.

Thilini’s mother was dead-set against her daughter joining the crew and scolded her husband mightily when she found out about the plan to include the girl as the sub’s telegraph operator.

“Isn’t it bad enough you let her go out into the water in the first place by herself?” her mother asked.

“She’s a brave girl, and she’s fine,” her father replied.

“Fine? She’s not fine! She’s barely slept since she saw that monster! I can hear her cry out at night.”

“Mama, listen —” Thilini began.

But her mother carried on: “I will not have you take my daughter to her death in that metal casket of yours!”

“We have tested it, over and over. The submarine is as safe as any seagoing vessel.”

“She’s too young for such things!”

“Too young?” her father replied. “Girls her age are already celebrating their weddings; I saw a procession for one girl just this afternoon! How many of them will soon be pregnant, and dying in childbirth next year? Or strangled or beaten by raging drunken husbands who have forgotten their wedding vows? There are so many ways for a girl to die in this world, my dear, and you have seen them all. How many friends did you lose, eh?”

Her mother was silent at that, her eyes downcast. “I lost far too many.”

“I do not want to die, and I certainly do not want our child to die,” he replied. “But if the worst happens on this venture, her name will be written down alongside mine in the history books. Men years from now will know who she was and what she tried to help us do. And other Tamil girls will hear her tale, and maybe some of them will realize that they, too, could be people of importance in the world.”

“Mama,” Thilini said. “I am afraid of the shark. I see it in my dreams. I don’t want it to haunt me when I’m old, but if I do not face it again, I am sure it will be with me forever.”

“Oh, my baby.” Her mother pulled her in for a tight hug. “Do what you feel you must. But please go to the Koneswaram temple with me first. We must pray to Ganesha to remove all obstacles in the way of your success and safety.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Four days later, the HMS Makara launched with minimal fanfare to go hunting for the ship-killing shark. Her father was the craft’s engineer; once they were in the water, he was to focus entirely on making sure the steam engines ran properly. Two British naval men — Hart and Dawes — who were experienced with handling submersibles served as pilot and co-pilot. A third British sailor — Jacoby — manned the triggers for the massive harpoon cannons mounted to the sides of the craft.