The Castle in the Sea: Quest of the Sunfish 2 Page 8

  Annalie gave him an uneasy smile. Spinner’s secrets were stored on the Sunfish, hidden where they’d always been inside the doll Spinner had made for Annalie when she was a little girl. She was not at all confident that that counted as a secure location.

  ‘So, do you know where Spinner’s going next?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘He’s going to see Sujana.’

  ‘All the way up north? It’s a long trip.’

  ‘They’re all long trips from here,’ Gari said.

  ‘Is he still travelling with the Kangs?’

  ‘He shipped out with them. I didn’t discuss his itinerary in detail.’

  ‘If he’s still with them, is there a way we can get a message to him?’ Annalie asked hopefully. ‘The Kangs must have a way of making contact, even when they’re at sea.’

  ‘Call Spinner!’ Graham chimed in. ‘Bad Spinner leave Graham behind.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d let you do that,’ Gari said.

  ‘But surely, if you asked them—’

  ‘Oh no,’ Gari said. ‘I don’t think I could. They wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Aren’t you their number one weather guy?’ Pod said. ‘That ought to give you some pull.’

  ‘Well, yes, and no,’ Gari said haughtily. ‘I wouldn’t want to annoy them.’

  Annalie looked at him in frustration. ‘Well, did the two of you discuss how you’d get in touch with each other if you ever needed to?’

  ‘We decided it was safer to continue silent running. It’s worked pretty well up till now.’

  ‘So, you have absolutely no way to contact him?’

  Gari shook his head.

  ‘Is there any way he can contact you?’

  Gari shrugged.

  ‘Well, could you at least let me use your link network?’

  They knew the pirates had to be able to access the links from the island, but their access was heavily protected.

  ‘Oh no, absolutely not,’ Gari said. ‘You have to have special clearance to use it.’

  ‘Don’t you have special clearance?’

  ‘Well, of course. But you don’t.’

  ‘All I want to do is send a message to Spinner!’ Annalie said, frustrated almost beyond endurance.

  ‘They monitor my transmissions. At least I think they do. They can, if they want to. I would, if I were them. Anyway, if I let you use my code to send a message they’d be furious.’

  ‘I’d let you check it first.’

  ‘But how would I know it wasn’t some secret code?’ Gari said. ‘You could be messaging anybody. It might not really be Spinner. Somebody may be monitoring his transmissions, it could be intercepted, they could track the message back here, to me and this island! There are too many variables. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘But you know Spinner, you know who I am,’ Annalie protested. After all he’d told them, this late outbreak of paranoia made no sense to her. ‘Can’t I just send him a simple message telling him we’re coming?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. No.’

  Annalie could have wept with disappointment but she tried to remain polite. ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  Currents

  ‘Danny Boy always a mean grump,’ Graham said, when they were back in their quarters.

  ‘All he had to do was send one message,’ Annalie said, ‘and he wouldn’t even do that.’

  ‘He’s scared,’ Pod said. ‘He lives with pirates. They’re paranoid. Decide they can’t trust you, you’re done.’

  ‘It would have been so simple. One sentence. One short sentence.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Pod said. ‘We know where he’s going. We’ve just got to keep our heads down while they fix our boat, and then we can find the others and get out of here.’

  ‘I wish there was more we could do,’ Annalie said. ‘It’s so frustrating to think we’re just going to be sitting here wasting time when we could be out looking for Will and Essie.’

  ‘You heard Wirehead,’ Pod said gloomily. ‘They’re not going to give us a boat.’

  ‘He did say he’d put the word out,’ Annalie said, trying to decide how much faith to put in Wirehead’s promise. ‘You think he will?’

  ‘They’ve got plenty of boats,’ Pod said. ‘They’re all probably out and about, shaking people down all over the place. You know: “Hello local fisherman, where’s my protection money? And, by the way, have you seen any lost kids in life jackets?”’

  Annalie smiled. ‘Maybe we should offer a reward.’

  ‘Might have to rob the Admiralty again to do that.’

  ‘I don’t think I could do that again. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done,’ Annalie said.

  ‘You didn’t seem scared. When you were talking to that officer you were just ice cold,’ Pod said with admiration.

  ‘I got lucky,’ Annalie said. ‘I guessed things were pretty much the same on every base, and it looks like I was right.’

  Pod looked at her quizzically. ‘So—you were in the Admiralty for a while?’

  ‘Not exactly. It was an Admiralty boarding school,’ Annalie said, faintly embarrassed. ‘Triumph College.’

  ‘An Admiralty school? Serious? Why’d you go there?’

  ‘Spinner wanted me to go. If you want to go to university you have to go somewhere like that. It doesn’t have to be Admiralty, but it helps.’

  ‘What’s university?’

  ‘It’s where you go to learn how to be a doctor or a scientist or an engineer.’

  ‘Which you gonna be?’

  ‘I have no idea. Anyway, it’s never going to happen now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How can I go back and join the Admiralty now, after all we know about them?’ Annalie said.

  Pod looked at her, frowning, trying to make sense of it all. ‘But your dad wanted you to go there, right?’

  Annalie nodded.

  ‘So, he must’ve thought it was a good idea.’

  ‘I guess he did,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Was it a good school?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be the best,’ Annalie said with a sigh. ‘Can’t say I liked it very much. I didn’t really fit in there.’

  ‘I never went to school,’ Pod said thoughtfully. ‘I thought maybe one day I’d like to go.’ He glanced at her shyly, and looked away again, embarrassed. ‘But it’s probably too late now.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not,’ Annalie said. ‘But do you really want to go to school?’

  ‘I can’t read like all you guys,’ Pod said.

  ‘Oh,’ Annalie said. ‘Sorry. Yes. I forgot.’ She paused. ‘I could try and teach you, if you like.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Pod gave her a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘I thought maybe one day, after we’ve found the others and your dad, I can look for my sister and get her back. Then I’ll get a job, and we can go to school, her and me. She’s younger than me, so she’s got more of a chance.’

  ‘I promise we’ll help you find your sister,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Pod said. ‘Right after we find Will, Essie and your dad.’

  Annalie laughed, and then her laugh went wobbly. ‘I really miss them,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Pod said. ‘Me too.’

  ‘I keep hoping some boat’s going to come in and they’ll be on it.’

  ‘It could still happen.’

  ‘But what if it doesn’t?’ Annalie said. ‘What if they washed up somewhere, and they’re hurt, and they’re waiting for someone to rescue them? Or they found another bunch of cannibals?’

  ‘We don’t know what happened,’ Pod said. ‘Maybe some boat picked them up that was going the other way. Maybe they ended up in a port on some other island. They could be waiting for us to come and pick them up right now.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Annalie said, trying to remain positive. ‘And even though we can’t leave yet, we can still try to join the links, in case they have sent us a message.’

  �
��Who you going to ask? Wirehead? He’ll make you pay extra for it.’

  ‘No, not Wirehead,’ Annalie said.

  ‘I already told you,’ Gari said huffily, ‘I can’t let you send any messages.’

  ‘But I don’t want to send a message,’ Annalie explained patiently. ‘I just want to check my messages, to see if I’ve got any. It’s very important.’

  ‘What’s so important, anyway?’

  ‘We were travelling with my brother and my best friend,’ Annalie said. ‘We got caught up in that big storm a week or so ago—that’s when our mast got snapped—and Will and Essie got washed overboard. We tried to find them but we couldn’t, and we’re hoping that a boat might’ve found them and picked them up. If they did, they might’ve sent us a message.’

  ‘Statistically speaking, it’s very unlikely they got picked up by another vessel,’ Gari said, in his abrupt, insensitive way.

  Annalie’s eyes prickled with tears, but she said, ‘Is it really so unlikely, though?’ She turned to look at his enormous array of monitors, charts and readouts. If anyone knew how to find Will and Essie, it was him. ‘If I showed you where we were when the storm hit, do you think you could tell me whether it was likely someone else ran into them?’

  ‘You know what your position was?’ Gari asked, sounding surprised.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Annalie said. She had brought the charts with her, just in case, and now she spread them out in front of him. ‘We were about here when the storm hit,’ she said, pointing, ‘and we ended up here. Do you know if many boats go through here? Do your people go that way much?’

  ‘My people? You mean the Brotherhood? No, they tend to follow a different route. That’s a bit of a backwater.’ He paused, still studying her chart. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked, pointing to the crosshatched areas.

  ‘That’s where we went back to look for them,’ Annalie said. ‘We thought—’

  ‘Well, you thought wrong,’ Gari said. He swivelled to his keyboard and tapped away. Displays popped up—charts filled with swirling lines and curving arrows. ‘There are strong currents flowing through that water. See?’ He indicated the swirls and arrows. ‘If your friends were washed overboard, it’s unlikely they stayed where they were.’

  ‘So where does the current go?’ Annalie asked.

  Gari turned from his screens to Annalie’s chart. He picked up a pen and drew a curving line which went in quite a different direction from their search area. ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘We were looking in the wrong place the whole time,’ Annalie murmured, dismayed.

  ‘You were just thinking about the wind, weren’t you?’ Gari said, rather patronisingly. ‘You’ve always got to consider the currents as well.’

  ‘I know, but—’ Annalie began. This time the tears did begin to flow. ‘We wasted all that time,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you weren’t to know,’ Gari said, deeply uncomfortable about having a crying girl in his office. ‘If you’re lucky, they might have washed up here.’ He pointed to some tiny islands at the bottom of the chart.

  ‘You think they could be there?’

  ‘If they’re anywhere,’ Gari said. ‘But it’s a long shot.’

  Annalie felt a surge of fresh hope. ‘It’s better than nothing,’ she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Thank you. You’ve been a huge help.’

  Dan Gari looked pleased. ‘If you like,’ he said, a visible struggle crossing his face, ‘we can check your shell for messages.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘But you can’t send any. And I’m deleting the access code afterwards.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Annalie said.

  She handed him her shell. He turned away from her, entered a code and then handed it back. She waited, holding her breath, but no messages arrived.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said sadly, and handed the shell back to him so he could delete the code again.

  ‘They’re not likely to have been picked up round there,’ Gari said. ‘Big boats have no reason to go that way and local boats tend to avoid it because of the current. But a lot of stuff washes up on those islands. Maybe your brother and your friend did too.’

  Rafting

  Sailing a raft was very different from sailing the Sunfish. It rode very low on the water, and when waves washed over it, Will and Essie got wet. The Sunfish had two masts, a number of different sails, an engine for those times when the wind was not obliging, and it had been designed to be steered. The raft had a single sail and had been built only to float; although it had a rudder, it was not really much use, and they soon found that the currents had as much power over it as the wind. They drifted, slowly, out to sea, with no real notion of where they were going. Will hoped the wind and the current would keep them travelling in a more or less easterly direction, and that this might take them somewhere in the vicinity of Dasto Puri.

  They drifted for a day, a second day, a third day. The sky was blue and cloudless; nothing crossed their path and they saw no sign of land. Fish began to follow the boat; Will caught two: they ate one and hung up the other to dry. They saw the occasional seagull and Essie managed to hit one with the slingshot. It plummeted out of the sky and hit the water with a splash. Will leapt in after it and swam to retrieve it like a hunting dog, making Essie laugh. He fretted about the slow progress they were making, but there was nothing to be done about it. They couldn’t make the wind blow any harder or the currents pull them along any faster. For three whole days, things were dull but tranquil.

  On the fourth day, they saw a shape on the horizon. Will spotted it first. ‘There’s something there!’

  ‘Is it a ship?’

  ‘A container ship. A big one!’

  ‘Where’d we put the kite?’

  The kite had been Will’s idea. They had no signal flares for alerting a passing vessel to their presence, but Will thought if they could send up a kite with a message on it—help!—they might be able to attract someone’s attention. They’d made the kite as large and colourful as they could, and they’d tested it back on the island to make sure that it actually flew.

  The only thing they hadn’t counted on was the wind. On the island the wind had seemed to blow constantly, at least on one shore; now, out here in the ocean when it actually mattered, the wind had slackened. The sail hung limp. The kite would not fly, no matter how hard they tried. The two of them jumped and shrieked and waved their orange life jackets, they tried signalling with pieces of glass, they did everything they could think of to attract attention, short of actually setting the raft on fire. But the container ship slid across the horizon, imperturbable and distant, and passed away without ever turning in their direction.

  ‘Why didn’t they see us?’ Essie wailed.

  ‘Weren’t looking,’ Will said glumly. ‘Big boats, tiny crews.’

  ‘There’ll be another one along, right? Where there’s one, there’ll be more?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Will said. ‘For sure.’

  But there weren’t. More days passed. No other ships came by, even at a distance. There were no rocks, no islands, no land. Only glinting sea and cloudless sky and the occasional fish, which they did their best to catch.

  Then the wind changed. A storm front gathered on the horizon, then rolled towards them. Watching it approach, Will took down the sail while Essie did her best to secure anything that wasn’t already tied down in preparation for what was to come.

  Soon it was upon them: gusting wind, sheets of rain and a choppy white-capped swell. As storms went, it was not a particularly bad one and if they’d been on the Sunfish they would have ridden it out quite happily sitting in the saloon, keeping out of the rain and playing old card games. But in an open raft, it was entirely another story. Each wave that washed over the raft smashed into their belongings, which were lashed down with whatever fixings they’d been able to improvise: old bits of rope, plaited cords made from plant fibres or bits of junk. The wind blew and the waves scoured and the raft rocked and tipped, a
nd all too soon their fixings began to give way. A particularly large wave came tumbling over them; with a snap, a strap gave way and a whole section of equipment came loose; precious fishing gear spread across the raft; Essie and Will pounced, trying to gather up as much of it as they could, but the fishing net, the reel, a large water container and a spare piece of rope went overboard. Will let out a despairing cry as his precious fishing gear vanished into the water and Essie had to grab him by the legs to prevent him from jumping in after it. He managed to claw back the floating container and he almost snagged the fishing reel, which taunted him by floating for a moment or two, just out of reach, before sinking into the churn.

  ‘Let’s try and tie down the rest of it,’ Essie said.

  Will seemed stunned by the loss of his fishing gear and for long moments he couldn’t move, staring into the water as the wind whipped around him. Essie did her best to secure everything she’d managed to save from the broken bundle, rewrapping and retying, before giving up and settling in with her arms around the mast and the remaining gear in case anything else terrible happened.

  Nothing did, although it certainly wasn’t pleasant; the wind lashed them for another hour or two; then the storm rolled away as swiftly as it had come. They were left, sopping, without fishing gear, although with a supply of fresh rainwater.

  ‘We’ll be okay,’ Essie said gamely. ‘We’ve still got supplies. And we’re sure to find help soon.’

  Will said nothing. He was already trying to think of ways to trap fish (or birds, or anything really) without any gear.

  More days passed, still without sight of land or other ships. Their supplies dwindled and they began to get scared. Neither of them really wanted to voice their fears to the other, but at last Essie said it: ‘What happens when our supplies run out?’

  ‘Something will come along,’ Will said. ‘We’ll catch something. It’ll be okay.’ He paused. ‘At least we can still make fresh water. You can survive quite a long time without food, as long as you’ve got water.’