Daughter of the Deep(39)

‘And the third section,’ Halimah says. ‘What is that?’

We gather around the map table and play the recording over and over at different speeds. Jack fills his notebook with sketches and mathematical equations. Halimah and Virgil argue about phonetic versus alphabetic symbology. Lee-Ann lectures us on the relationship between acoustics and fluid dynamics. It’s basically a giant Dolphin nerd fest.

I don’t realize how much time has passed until Gem sets a tray of sandwiches in front of us. ‘Lunch.’

While the others eat, I take a bathroom break. I freshen up, splash water on my face, take more medicine. My gut pain is now competing with back pain from being hunched over for so long, looking at codes. I consider throwing up but suppress the impulse by sheer force of will. Once I give in to nausea, the vomit genie is not easy to put back in the bottle.

On the way to the bridge, I freeze in my tracks. Suddenly all the pieces of code that have been swirling around in my brain fall into a perfect pattern. I live for these moments. They’re as exhilarating as cliff-diving, and they’re the main reason I love being a Dolphin. Jack’s a better cryptographer. Halimah is more gifted at navigation. Lee-Ann has a stronger grasp of counterespionage, and Virgil is our expert at electronic communications. But I’m the best at putting all the pieces together to make a bigger picture. That’s why I was elected the freshman prefect.

With a grin on my face, I march back to the bridge. ‘I’ve got it.’

I walk my housemates through the code. The first section, the blue-whale song, is an algorithm for decrypting the second section, which is the actual message. The third section provides phonetic clues that tell us the language used in that message: Bundeli, a derivation of Hindi, which happens to be my ancestral tongue and the native dialect of Captain Nemo.

‘Wow.’ Halimah nods appreciatively. ‘Nice work, Ana.’

‘No kidding,’ Virgil says. ‘I thought I was going to go crazy if we listened to that recording one more time. I wish I had your ear.’

I try not to feel too pleased with myself. ‘I just put together what you guys did. Jack, can you –?’

Jack’s mouth is full of peanut-butter sandwich, but he starts scribbling, translating the coded message into English.

He hands the notepad to Lee-Ann to read.

She clears her throat dramatically. ‘And the winner is … “This is Lincoln Base. Identify. Five hours.”’

Halimah frowns. ‘That was a lot of work for a really short message.’

‘?le Lincoln,’ Gem chimes in. ‘That’s what Harding and Pencroft named the island where they were stranded.’

The Dolphins turn and stare at him.

‘What?’ he asks. ‘I read The Mysterious Island, too.’

I study the LOCUS display. It’s still riddled with purple blotches like the pattern from a shotgun blast. My nerves tingle. Our situation finally starts to feel real. We’re getting close to the island of Captain Nemo … The place where my parents died.

‘Identify.’ Lee-Ann drums her fingers on the table. ‘That part is clear enough. They want to know who we are. Five hours … Is that our time to arrival?’

‘It would be two hours now,’ Gem says. ‘You guys were working on that code for three hours.’

That seems impossible. But, according to the ship’s chronometer, Gem is right. It’s one in the afternoon. I remember the coordinates I got from the super-secret map in the captain’s stateroom. I do some quick calculations based on our current course and speed.

‘It’s not our ETA,’ I decide. ‘We shouldn’t arrive at the island until seven p.m. The five-hour thing is an ultimatum. We need to figure out how to answer this challenge. And we need to do it in the next two hours.’

Virgil gulps. ‘And if we don’t respond in time, or respond the right way?’

‘Then,’ I say, ‘I imagine our own secret base will blow us out of the water.’





But no pressure.

It’s one thing to decrypt a message. It’s much harder to figure out the correct answer and say it back in the same code. And we have less than two hours to do it.

Maybe Lincoln Base – if it really is Lincoln Base – has a machine that generates messages in blue whale/five by five/Bundeli. We do not. Nor do we have access to that superweapon of information, the internet, which might help us put together the pieces.

We have to trust our own training and best guesses.

That’s terrifying.

‘Virgil,’ I say, ‘do you still have that simulator app on your phone, the one that makes whale songs?’

He stares at me in surprise. ‘I – Yeah!’

‘Will it work without an internet connection?’

‘Of course.’ He sounds mildly offended. ‘I downloaded the whole library of whale songs.’

This doesn’t surprise me. I have spent years teasing Virgil about the number of useless apps on his phone. Now I owe him a huge apology.

‘Virgil, you’re amazing,’ I say. ‘Gem, go with him to open the lockbox. Just make sure that phone stays offline.’

I doubt they could get a signal anyway, and neither Virgil nor Gem seems like the type to try sneaking a look at TikTok in the middle of the Pacific. But I feel I should remind them.