first dredged you up. The answer's still the same. Don't matter who you are. You're merchandise now. You'll fetch a good price in Nuevo-Maya."
Memories of old geography lessons stirred in Wren's brain: the big globe in the schoolroom at the Winter Palace and Miss Freya saying, "Here is Nuevo-Maya, which used to be called South America before the isthmus that linked it to North America was severed by Slow Bombs in the Sixty Minute War."
Nuevo-Maya was thousands of miles away! If they took her there, how could she ever find her way home?
The guard leaned on her cage and leered at her through the bars. "You don't think Mr. Shkin'd try and sell a bunch of lairy pirates off as house slaves and nursemaids, do you? You'll end up as fighters aboard one of them big Nuevo-Mayan ziggurat cities. Lovely shows they have in them arenas. Gangs of slaves pitched against each other, or fighting souped-up dismantling machines and captured Green Storm Stalkers. Blood and guts all over the shop. But it's all done in honor of their funny Nuevo-Mayan gods, so it's quite spiritual, really."
Spiritual or not, Wren didn't think she fancied it. She had to find a way out of this horrible mess. But her brain, about which Miss Freya had said such nice things, was too addled by the pitching of the city to think of anything.
"I hope we do sink!" she shouted weakly after the guard as he went on his way. "That'd serve you right! I hope we sink before you trap any more poor Lost Boys!"
But next day the storm slackened and the waves subsided, and that evening the crews of three more limpets were dragged, sheepish and weeping, into the slave pens. There were four more limpets that night, and another three the following day; one of them sensed a trap and fled before the magnetic grapples caught it, but Brighton gave chase and dropped depth charges until a white plume of water burst from the ocean to drench the cheering spectators on the starboard observation decks and bits of limpet and Lost Boy came bobbing to the surface.
"Word must have reached Grimsby by now," said Krill, one of the boys who'd been taken earlier, watching white-faced from his cage as the pens around him filled with captives. "Old Uncle will do something. He'll rescue us."
"Word has reached Grimsby," said the new arrivals.
"That's where we came from...."
"We picked up that message a couple of days ago."
"Uncle said it was a trap and we shouldn't listen, but we sneaked out anyway."
"We thought our mums and dads would be here...."
Krill hung his head and started to cry. He had led raiding parties against static cities in the Western Archipelago,
slaughtering any Dry who stood against him, but here in the Shkin Corporation's warehouse he was just another lost teenager.
Wren reached through the bars and tugged at Fishcake's sleeve. He had not spoken to Wren since they were brought in, and she guessed he blamed her for what had happened to him. Maybe he was right. If only she hadn't been so keen to persuade him to come to Brighton!
"Fishcake," she asked gently, "how many Lost Boys are there? All together, I mean."
Fishcake would not look at her, but after a moment he muttered, "About sixty, I s'pose. That's not counting Uncle and the newbies too young to ride limpets."
"But there are at least forty of you here!" Wren said. "Grimsby must be nearly empty...."
The warehouse door rattled open, letting in another bunch of people. More prisoners, Wren thought, and didn't even bother to look at them; it was too depressing. But the sound of tramping feet stopped beside her cage, and she glanced up to see that the newcomers were not Lost Boys, just two Shkin Corporation guards and the odious Miss Weems.
"Fetch her out," Miss Weems commanded. Wren was alarmed. Had Miss Weems finally accepted that she was not a Lost Girl? Perhaps the Shkin Corporation had realized that she would never cut the mustard in those Nuevo-Mayan arenas and were planning to throw her overboard rather than waste any
Memories of old geography lessons stirred in Wren's brain: the big globe in the schoolroom at the Winter Palace and Miss Freya saying, "Here is Nuevo-Maya, which used to be called South America before the isthmus that linked it to North America was severed by Slow Bombs in the Sixty Minute War."
Nuevo-Maya was thousands of miles away! If they took her there, how could she ever find her way home?
The guard leaned on her cage and leered at her through the bars. "You don't think Mr. Shkin'd try and sell a bunch of lairy pirates off as house slaves and nursemaids, do you? You'll end up as fighters aboard one of them big Nuevo-Mayan ziggurat cities. Lovely shows they have in them arenas. Gangs of slaves pitched against each other, or fighting souped-up dismantling machines and captured Green Storm Stalkers. Blood and guts all over the shop. But it's all done in honor of their funny Nuevo-Mayan gods, so it's quite spiritual, really."
Spiritual or not, Wren didn't think she fancied it. She had to find a way out of this horrible mess. But her brain, about which Miss Freya had said such nice things, was too addled by the pitching of the city to think of anything.
"I hope we do sink!" she shouted weakly after the guard as he went on his way. "That'd serve you right! I hope we sink before you trap any more poor Lost Boys!"
But next day the storm slackened and the waves subsided, and that evening the crews of three more limpets were dragged, sheepish and weeping, into the slave pens. There were four more limpets that night, and another three the following day; one of them sensed a trap and fled before the magnetic grapples caught it, but Brighton gave chase and dropped depth charges until a white plume of water burst from the ocean to drench the cheering spectators on the starboard observation decks and bits of limpet and Lost Boy came bobbing to the surface.
"Word must have reached Grimsby by now," said Krill, one of the boys who'd been taken earlier, watching white-faced from his cage as the pens around him filled with captives. "Old Uncle will do something. He'll rescue us."
"Word has reached Grimsby," said the new arrivals.
"That's where we came from...."
"We picked up that message a couple of days ago."
"Uncle said it was a trap and we shouldn't listen, but we sneaked out anyway."
"We thought our mums and dads would be here...."
Krill hung his head and started to cry. He had led raiding parties against static cities in the Western Archipelago,
slaughtering any Dry who stood against him, but here in the Shkin Corporation's warehouse he was just another lost teenager.
Wren reached through the bars and tugged at Fishcake's sleeve. He had not spoken to Wren since they were brought in, and she guessed he blamed her for what had happened to him. Maybe he was right. If only she hadn't been so keen to persuade him to come to Brighton!
"Fishcake," she asked gently, "how many Lost Boys are there? All together, I mean."
Fishcake would not look at her, but after a moment he muttered, "About sixty, I s'pose. That's not counting Uncle and the newbies too young to ride limpets."
"But there are at least forty of you here!" Wren said. "Grimsby must be nearly empty...."
The warehouse door rattled open, letting in another bunch of people. More prisoners, Wren thought, and didn't even bother to look at them; it was too depressing. But the sound of tramping feet stopped beside her cage, and she glanced up to see that the newcomers were not Lost Boys, just two Shkin Corporation guards and the odious Miss Weems.
"Fetch her out," Miss Weems commanded. Wren was alarmed. Had Miss Weems finally accepted that she was not a Lost Girl? Perhaps the Shkin Corporation had realized that she would never cut the mustard in those Nuevo-Mayan arenas and were planning to throw her overboard rather than waste any
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