Sunker's Deep Read online

  For Deb, Pam &

  Margie, with love

  Also by Lian Tanner

  The Hidden series

  Ice Breaker

  The Keepers trilogy

  Museum of Thieves

  City of Lies

  Path of Beasts

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Lian Tanner 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74343 542 7

  eISBN 978 1 74343 707 0

  Cover and text design by Design by Committee

  Cover photo by Sebastian Ciaffaglione

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Three hundred years later

  Earlier that same day

  A duty to stay alive

  The Hungry Ghost

  Rain

  The last of the Sunkers

  We should never have left the ice

  Terra

  If I live

  It's them!

  Lin Lin and Adm'ral Cray

  Without Poddy

  The Great Puddle

  Nowhere to hide

  'Who's Your Captain?'

  I am not like the Hungry Ghosts!

  Hope . . . and despair

  Captured

  Brother Thrawn

  Uncle Poosk

  The punishment hole

  'Are we friends, you and me?'

  We knew you'd come for us

  Execution

  The balloon

  PROLOGUE

  They came to the meeting shortly after midnight, separately and secretly. Professor Serran Coe was the first to arrive, and he greeted the other three with his finger to his lips. Not a word was spoken until they were in the basement, and even then, with the university abandoned above them and a dozen locked doors between them and the outside world, they were reluctant to name the things they were talking about.

  ‘Has he gone?’ whispered Professor Surgeon Lin Lin, a small, sharp-eyed woman with night-black hair.

  Serran Coe nodded and a flicker of regret crossed his face. ‘Two weeks ago. The ship sailed under cover of darkness.’

  Ariel Fetch leaned forward, her long earrings tinkling. ‘Did you give him the instruction? The one we agreed upon?’

  ‘I built a compulsion into his circuits,’ said Coe. ‘It will come into play when he crosses the equator on the return voyage.’

  ‘If there is a return voyage,’ growled Admiral Cray, who was Lin Lin’s husband.

  The others began to protest, but the Admiral spoke over the top of them.‘Nothing is certain, and you cannot tell me otherwise. I have just learned that five of our best ships were sunk last night, and their officers murdered! By their own crews, mind you, who then deserted en masse to join the Anti-Machinists.’The Admiral’s waxed moustache twitched in disgust. ‘This whole thing is spreading quicker than anyone thought possible. There are even rumours that the government is teetering! And what do we four do about it? We run, we hide, we send a mechanical child to the far southern ice, hoping that one day he will return and be compelled to seek out—’

  ‘Hush!’ said Lin Lin, and her husband broke off his rant.The building above them creaked ominously.

  ‘It is only the wind,’ said Serran Coe in a tired voice. ‘It has been rising all week.’

  The Admiral grumbled, ‘Look at us, jumping at shadows! Why are we not out there fighting the mobs?’

  His question momentarily silenced the other three. Then Ariel Fetch sighed and said,‘You may be a fighter, Admiral, but we are not. And even if we were, we could not turn back the Anti-Machinists.Their time has come. All we can do is try to preserve as much knowledge as we can, so it is there when people want it again.’

  ‘Pah!’ said the Admiral. ‘They will never want it again! They are fools and criminals—’

  His wife interrupted him.‘Then you should be glad that we are leaving them behind.’

  Her words fell like a blow on the tiny gathering. Serran Coe loosened his stiff white collar and said, ‘You are going to do it? I thought you might change your minds. It is so – extreme.’

  ‘Extreme it may be,’ said Lin Lin, sitting up very straight,‘but I refuse to live under the rule of the Anti-Machinists, and I am not the only one who thinks that way. Besides, the medical papers we are taking with us must be preserved for the future. Even your mechanical child does not know everything.’

  ‘When will you go?’

  Lin Lin’s calm voice gave no hint of what lay ahead. ‘Another week, at least. It will take that long to gather family and friends.’ She smiled wryly at her husband. ‘Which means there is still time for a little fighting if you wish it, dearest.’

  The Admiral took a deep breath through his nose – and let it out again.‘Nay,’ he said.‘Nay, you are right.We must follow our plans to the very end. I just hope—’ He scrubbed his fists against his knees until the blue cloth crumpled. ‘I just hope it is worth it.’

  Nine days after that meeting, Professor Surgeon Lin Lin and her people left.They told no one where they were going, and no one had the time or the inclination to ask; the government was on the brink of collapse and the city was in uproar.

  Screaming mobs rampaged through the streets, determined to destroy the machines that they blamed for all the wrongs in the world. They smashed automobiles and typewriters, omnibuses and telephones. The police were helpless against them. The army, brought in by the collapsing government, destroyed its own gun carriages and joined the mobs. Everyone else, frightened and confused, barricaded their doors, telling each other that the madness must stop soon.

  But they were wrong. The long harsh reign of the Anti-Machinists was only just beginning.

  THREE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

  Sharkey squinted one-eyed through the thick glass porthole. He was searching for scraps of metal – metal that’d be covered in weed by now, and colonised by barnacles, so that it looked no different from the rocks around it. But it was here somewhere, seventy-five feet below the surface of the sea, and he was determined to find it.

  ‘Two degrees down bubble,’ he murmured.

  ‘Two degrees down, aye sir!’ cried eleven-year-old Gilly, and she turned the brass wheels that tilted the little submersible’s diving planes.

  In the bow, eight-year-old Poddy’s hands flew across the control panel, trimming the boat and keeping the direction steady as it sank. Further aft, Gilly’s younger brother Cuttle braced his bare feet on the metal deck, waiting for orders to change speed. Pipes gurgled. Dials twitched.Above the children’s heads, the ancestor shrine maintained a silent watch.

  ‘Ease your bubble,’ said Sharkey.

  ‘Ease bubble, aye sir!’ Gilly turned the wheels the other way.

  Outside the porthole, the green light that filtered down from above touc
hed thick strands of kelp and a shoal of codlings. The throb of Claw’s propeller was like the beating of Sharkey’s heart.

  He straightened his eye patch and sang the last part of an old Sunker charm, under his breath.

  ‘Below to find,

  Below to bind—’

  It must have worked, because almost straight away he saw something out of the corner of his undamaged eye. ‘Starboard twenty,’ he said.

  ‘Starboard twenty, aye sir!’ cried Poddy, and Claw began to turn.

  When they were on the desired heading, Sharkey said,‘Midships.’

  ‘Midships, aye sir!’

  ‘All stop.’

  ‘All stop, aye sir!’ And Cuttle threw himself at the motor switches.

  Gilly came for’ard, ducking past the periscope housing and wriggling around the chart table. ‘Have you found something, sir?’

  Sharkey wasn’t sure, not really. But he always sounded confident, even when he had no idea what he was doing. ‘Aye. There, where the kelp’s thickest,’ he said.

  Young Poddy hooked her toe under the control panel and leaned back on her stool. ‘Adm’ral Deeps thought you’d be able to find it, sir. And she was right!’

  ‘Course she was,’ said Sharkey, hoping that the strange-looking bit of rock really was scrap metal from the giant submersible Resolute, which had broken up somewhere near here ninety-three years ago.

  ‘Has he found the boxes?’ called Cuttle.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Gilly. ‘But he will.’ She bobbed her head in the direction of the ancestor shrine. ‘Thank you, Great Granmer Lin Lin.Thank you, Great Granfer Cray.’

  For the rest of the morning, Claw cruised back and forth through the ropy kelp, while Sharkey stared out the porthole, half-dizzy with concentration.

  At the end of the forenoon watch, Gilly struck the bell eight times. Ting-ting ting-ting ting-ting ting-ting. ‘It’s midday, sir.We’re due back on Rampart soon.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Sharkey.‘I want to find at least one of the boxes before we go.’

  From the helm, Poddy said, ‘You could ask Lin Lin and Adm’ral Cray where they are, sir.’

  Sharkey said nothing. His fellow Sunkers venerated their dead ancestors, but at the same time they seemed to think that the spirits were like some sort of boat crew, and all he had to do was whistle and they’d come running.

  Poddy glanced out the helm porthole. ‘Look, sir, there’s a dolphin! Maybe it’s the spirit of Lin Lin! Maybe she’s going to show you the boxes!’

  Sharkey sighed in a long-suffering sort of way. ‘Lin Lin talks to me when it suits her, Poddy. So does First Adm’ral Cray—’

  The younger children bobbed their heads respectfully.

  ‘—and that is just an ordinary dolphin.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Poddy, disappointed.

  The dolphin swam idly away from them, and Sharkey watched it go. His eye flickered downwards. There was something—

  ‘There!’ he said.‘Port full rudder.’

  ‘Port full rudder, aye sir!’ Poddy’s small hands brought Claw around, as smooth as sea silk.

  ‘All stop.’

  ‘All stop, aye sir!’ shouted Cuttle.

  ‘Hold us right there,’ said Sharkey, and he gripped the lever that worked the retrieval device.

  Like the underwater vessel that housed it, the device was called the claw. Sharkey pulled the lever back and it ratcheted out from the side of the little submersible and spread its talons. It wasn’t easy to use with only one eye; Sharkey had to compensate for the fact that he couldn’t judge distances very well since the accident. And he didn’t want to wreck the box. Now that he’d found it, he was sure it’d be a good one, crammed full of surgeons’ secrets with not a drop of water seeped in to spoil it.

  Gilly eyed the chronometer. ‘We’re due back on Rampart now, sir,’ she said.

  Without looking up, Sharkey said, ‘Send a message turtle.Tell ’em we’ll be late.’

  ‘…Aye, sir.’

  There was no argument, of course. Discipline on the submersibles didn’t allow for arguments. But as Gilly scratched out a note, and took one of the mechanical turtles from its rack, Sharkey knew what the middies were thinking.

  He won’t get into trouble. But we will, even though we’re just following his orders!

  It was true. Because of who he was, Sharkey could get away with being late, whereas the middies couldn’t.

  Still, that was their problem, not his.

  It took him another ten minutes to juggle the box into the side airlock. As soon as it was secure, he murmured, ‘Mark the position.’

  Gilly squeezed past the ladder to the chart table.

  ‘Position marked, sir!’

  ‘Half-ahead.Take her up to periscope depth.’

  As Claw moved forward again – the planes tilting, the bow rising – Sharkey sat back on his stool, pleased with himself. He knew what the other Sunkers would say when they heard about the box.

  Sharkey can do anything. Sharkey can find anything. Sharkey’s a hero, a future adm’ral, born on a lucky tide and blessed by the ancestors.Thank you, Lin Lin!

  The submersible levelled out, and he grinned. ‘Up periscope.’

  There was probably no danger from their enemies, not so far from terra. But caution was drilled into the Sunker children from the day they could crawl. Gilly crouched, her face pressed against the eyepieces, her feet swivelling in a circle.

  Halfway round, she stopped and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Sir, there’s something strange in the Up Above. Like huge bubbles—’

  Sharkey was already moving, snatching the periscope handles away from her.

  ‘Sou’-west,’ said Gilly.

  The breath caught in Sharkey’s throat. Gilly was right. There were three enormous white bubbles floating through the sky with woven baskets hanging beneath them! And figures leaning over the edges of the baskets, pointing to something below the surface. And lines tethering the bubbles to—

  To skimmers! To a dozen or more skimmers with billowing sails and their hulls low in the water, following those pointing fingers with a look of grim purpose.

  ‘It’s the Ghosts!’ cried Sharkey, and his blood ran cold. For the last three hundred years, the Sunkers had dreaded this moment. ‘It’s the Hungry Ghosts! And they’ve found Rampart!’

  EARLIER THAT SAME DAY

  As dawn broke, twelve-year-old Petrel leaned against the rail of the ancient icebreaker Oyster, staring into the distance. Somewhere over there, beyond the horizon, was the country of West Norn.

  ‘Will there be penguins,Missus Slink?’ she murmured.

  ‘Probably not,’ said the large grey rat perched on her shoulder. A tattered green neck-ribbon tickled Petrel’s ear. ‘But if my memory serves me correctly, there will be dogs and cats. And perhaps bears.’

  ‘Bears is further north,’ said Mister Smoke, from Petrel’s other shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry about bears, shipmate.There’s worse things here than bears.’

  ‘You mean the Devouts?’ asked Petrel.

  ‘Don’t frighten the girl, Smoke,’ said Missus Slink.

  ‘I’m not frightened,’ said Petrel quickly. But she was.

  For the last three hundred years, the Oyster had kept its course at the farthest end of the earth. Its decks were rusty, its hull was battered, and its crew had broken down into warring tribes and forgotten why they were there. All that had remained of their original mission was the myth of the Sleeping Captain, and the belief that the rest of the world was mad, and therefore best avoided.

  But the Devouts, fanatical descendants of the original Anti-Machinists, had traced the Oyster to the southern ice, and sent an expedition to destroy the ship and everyone on board.Thanks to Petrel they had failed, and the Sleeping Captain had woken up at last.

  The Devouts thought the Oyster’s captain was a demon. But really he was a mechanical boy with a silver face and a mind full of wonders. He knew sea charts, star maps and thousands of years of human his
tory. He could calculate times and distances while Petrel was still trying to figure out the question, and he could mend or make machines and lectrics of every kind. On his orders, the Oyster had left its icy hideaway and headed north.

  ‘We are going to bring knowledge back to the world,’ he had said.

  The voyage had taken more than twelve weeks, with several engine breakdowns that had tested even the captain. But now Petrel was about to set foot on land for only the second time in her life.

  She heard a rattling in the pipes behind her and turned to listen. It was a message in general ship code. Shore party prepare to board the Maw. Signed, First Officer Hump.

  With the rats clinging to her shoulders, Petrel slipped through the nearest hatch and onto the Commons ladderway, which took her from Braid all the way down to Grease Alley. She ran past the batteries, which were fed by the Oyster’s wind turbines, and past the digester, which took all the ship’s waste and turned it into fuel.

  And there was the rest of the shore party, making their way towards the Maw.

  ‘Here she is!’ boomed Head Cook Krill, in a voice that was used to shouting over the constant rattle of pots and pans. ‘We thought you must’ve changed your mind, bratling.’

  ‘Not likely!’ said Petrel, putting on a bold front. ‘Don’t you try leaving me behind, Krill.’

  ‘We would not go without you,’ said the captain in his sweet, serious voice. ‘I knew you would come.’

  Fin just smiled, his fair hair falling over his eyes, and handed her a woven seaweed bag.

  ‘Ta,’ said Petrel, and she smiled back at him, though her heart was beating too fast, and her mouth was dry at the thought of what lay ahead.

  The Maw was an enormous fish-shaped vessel set to watch over the Oyster by its long-ago inventor. It travelled underwater, and the only way onto it was through the bottommost part of the ship. As the small party climbed through the double hatch, Chief Engineer Albie was giving last-minute instructions to his son Skua.

  ‘No mucking around, boy.This is a big responsibility, taking the cap’n and his friends ashore.’ In the dim light, Albie’s eyes were unreadable, but Petrel thought she saw a flash of white teeth through his beard. ‘You set ’em down nice and gently.’