Daughter of the Deep(79)

I hold a C chord. The notes synchronize with the ship’s lights, turning the dark water an intense shade of indigo. Romeo’s colouration begins to change, matching the blue. The sound waves are strong enough to rattle the seal of my helmet.

‘Is it working?’ Gem asks.

‘Hold on,’ I tell him. ‘I’m still saying hello.’

I play a verse of Adele, just to see how it goes. The Nautilus puts on her light show. Romeo watches my hands on the keyboard. His skin ripples with different colours, as if he’s trying to absorb a new spectrum of information.

‘I think he likes puzzles,’ Ester decides. ‘Try the Bach, something intricate.’

Organ Sonata Number 4 is about as intricate as I can get without tying my fingers in knots. I turn the colour wheel, setting it to brighter hues that normally wouldn’t be visible this deep, then I start to play. The Nautilus obliges with bursts of red and yellow, more like Romeo’s natural pigmentation. About halfway through the song, the Nautilus starts adding harmonic riffs.

Romeo responds with his own palette of colours. His enormous head pulses. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think the Nautilus is using my song to send a message.

I hope that message is not Hi, buddy! I brought you lunch!

‘Ana,’ Gem says urgently, ‘we’re almost out of air.’

I end the song. The ship’s lights fade to a gentle purple glow.

I float eye to eye with the octopus. I can feel my air supply thinning, starting to smell like hot metal.

At last, Romeo’s tentacles undulate. His entire boneless mass compresses into a flattened lozenge shape, much smaller than should be possible for a creature his size. But octopuses can do such things. They are amazing creatures.

I laugh. My message has been received.

‘Okay,’ I tell Ester and Gem. ‘Let’s get back on board.’

As we jet to the ship, Romeo returns to his regular form. He floats there, apparently content just to be near the Nautilus, though he still looks a bit lovelorn.

The airlock drains quickly. That’s good, since I’m sucking the last molecules of oxygen from my helmet. Thankfully, the nemonium suits are self-regulating, so we won’t have to spend hours decompressing.

I’m just removing my helmet when Nelinha opens the interior door. She marches in, Top right behind her. The dog sniffs my suit, letting me know I smell like pee. Nelinha glares at me angrily. ‘Are you crazy, risking yourself like that?’

I give her a big wet hug.

‘I love cephalopods,’ I tell her. ‘You, the rest of your team and the giant one outside. You’re all wonderful.’

Nelinha scowls at Gem. ‘Does she have nitrogen narcosis? Did you break my Ana?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Gem says. ‘She was like that when I found her.’

‘That octopus is amazing,’ Ester says.

Top barks.

‘Not as amazing as you,’ Ester assures the dog.

‘Get the crew ready,’ I tell Nelinha. ‘I’ll explain my plan. Then we’re going to war.’





The best lesson I ever got in military-tactics class wasn’t even from a naval officer. It was an army saying attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander during World War II: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

That’s how I feel, talking to my crew. We go over every possible scenario. I tell them what I think Dev will do. We come up with Plans A, B and C, knowing we’ll probably throw all of them out in the heat of combat. But at least the discussion helps us wrap our minds around the challenges we’re facing. They are considerable.

Finally, I explain my ace-in-the-hole strategy, or more specifically octopus-in-the-hole. After a full week of crazy stuff, the idea takes us to a whole new level of bonkers.

But the crew agrees that it’s worth a try. If we can do it without breaking into a million pieces, all the better.

Three hours later, I’m on the bridge. All stations are manned. We’ve repaired our systems as best we can without dock facilities. We’ve got working dynamic camouflage, electrifiable hull plating, Leidenfrost shielding and some really cool mood lighting. The fore and aft Leyden cannons are operational, along with two somewhat questionable torpedoes.

Best of all, our special cargo has been loaded into the sheath along the ship’s belly.

Ester and Robbie return to the bridge after a visual inspection, both of their dive suits still dripping wet.

Robbie looks shell-shocked. ‘That was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘You mean amazing,’ Ester says.

I can’t believe it actually worked. I find myself grinning.

‘Don’t celebrate yet,’ Gem warns. ‘The extra weight may make it impossible for us to use the cav-drive.’

‘I heard that,’ Nelinha says from the engine room. ‘Don’t bad-mouth my engines, Spider-Man. They’ll do just fine. Captain, waiting on your orders.’

I take my chair. I strap myself in with a newly installed alt-tech modification the Cephalopods call a ‘seat belt’ (patent pending).

I open ship-wide communications. ‘All hands, this is the captain.’ As if they don’t know me. ‘We’ve worked hard for this moment. You all know your jobs. We can do this. Assuming our course is plotted correctly –’