Daughter of the Deep(28)

‘Electric eels communicate with low-energy pulses,’ Ester says. ‘The parchment could be eel skin, or probably a lab-grown organic material derived from eel skin, because killing eels would be cruel. Nemo wouldn’t do that, would he?’ She looks at me for confirmation, then decides for herself. ‘No. That’s impossible.’

‘Whatever the case …’ Nelinha shakes her head in amazement. ‘My god.’

‘Please don’t blaspheme,’ Gem says.

‘Who are you, my mother?’

‘I’m just asking politely …’

‘Both of you, knock it off,’ I say.

Surprisingly, they do.

‘Ester,’ I say, ‘how far are those coordinates from our current position?’

I’m pretty sure I know the answer. Dolphins excel at navigation. I can read nautical maps just fine. But Ester’s command of hard maths is better than mine. She can juggle more variables.

‘Maintaining top cruising speed,’ she says, ‘in a straight line? Seventy-two hours. That’s assuming favourable weather, no mechanical problems and no more attacks by LI’s varsity commandos. Also, there’s nothing marked on the chart at that location. Nothing even close. If we don’t find a base, we’ll be in the middle of nowhere with no supplies. We’ll die.’

Well … no sugar-coating.

But three days is not as bad as I feared. We’re provisioned for a weekend. If we ration carefully, we might make it with the supplies we have on board. My suspicious mind wonders if Hewett planned it this way. He said he didn’t know the location of the base. Nevertheless, we have exactly three days of supplies for a three-day trip. That’s quite a coincidence.

On the other hand, I don’t think Hewett is faking his coma. I doubt he would knowingly risk his life to lure us to a secret base and betray its location to LI.

Also … I hate to admit it, but I love treasure hunts. Secret maps. X marks the spot. Nobody at Harding-Pencroft doesn’t love that stuff, and all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life is explore the world, solving its puzzles. Whether this is a trap or not, it’s hard to resist.

A lot of things could go wrong. We’re only twelve hours out from San Alejandro. The responsible thing would be to turn around, but who on the mainland could help us?

Our class has trained, suffered and worked for two years. The goal has been to graduate from Harding-Pencroft as the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators and underwater explorers in the world.

We owe it to our lost schoolmates to find out what’s at the other end of that glowing line. I want to know why my parents sacrificed their lives, and why Dev is … gone, too. But I can’t make this call on my own, no matter what Hewett said about following my orders.

‘Assemble the crew,’ I tell my friends. ‘We’ll make this decision together.’





I’ve never liked oral reports.

Put me in a group project, and I will volunteer to do the research. I will draw the maps. I will write the essay and create the multimedia slides. I prefer to leave the presenting to somebody else.

This time, though, it has to be me who delivers the news.

Everyone assembles on the main deck. They line up by house, the way we did yesterday at the docks in San Alejandro. I don’t tell them to do this, it’s just our custom. The only people absent are Linzi, who is attending to Dr Hewett in the sickbay, and my fellow Dolphin Virgil Esparza, who has the bridge. I’ve already filled them in personally.

It’s mid-morning. The ocean is ash grey with light swells. Clouds hang low and heavy, promising rain. Not the most auspicious weather for making a major decision.

Gemini Twain stands on my right. I guess I appreciate the backup, but I’m still not used to having a heavily armed Shark breathing down my neck. I half expect him to push me out of the way and say, So, now that I’m in charge …

The worst part is, I’m not sure I would object. I didn’t ask for leadership. I don’t like everyone staring at me, waiting for answers.

‘Here’s the situation,’ I begin.

I know there may be spies among us. Somebody betrayed our school to LI and sabotaged our security from the inside. That somebody may be on this deck. But I can’t let that paralyse me. My classmates and I have been through a lot together over the last two years, and the last twenty-four hours. I’ll keep trusting them until one of them gives me a solid reason not to.

Besides, we’re observing radio silence now. Hewett confiscated all our cell phones after Tia checked them for tracking chips, and even if the phones weren’t locked in a box in the captain’s quarters there’s no way anyone could get a signal this far out at sea. We’ve activated sonar and radar blocking and dynamic camouflage. We’ve swept the ship for secret transmitters. No one on board should be able to share our location or our plans with the outside world. At least in theory …

I tell the crew everything. Surprise, I’m descended from Captain Nemo. No, not the cartoon fish. Our zappy guns and other gold-level toys are based on Nemo’s tech. Land Institute and Harding-Pencroft have been fighting a cold war over said tech for 150 years. Now that cold war has been turned up to a full boil. The mother lode of alt-tech, including the wreck of Nemo’s sub, is supposedly at a secret HP base three days from our current position. If LI’s sub, the Aronnax, finds us in the meantime, we’re fish food. Oh, and, by the way, Dr Hewett is in a coma in the sickbay and needs immediate treatment.