Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve

into the Screw Worm, which hung hidden in the oily shadows of Anchorage’s underbelly, not far from the drive-wheel.
    It was a rusty, ramshackle old limpet, but Caul was proud of it, and proud of the way its hold was already filling with the things he and his crew had pilfered from the abandoned workshops and villas of the city above. He dumped his latest bag of plunder with the rest and slid between the stacked bales and bundles into the forward compartment. There, amid the soft buzz of machinery and the steady blue flutter of the screens, the rest of the Screw Worm’s three-boy crew were waiting for him. They had seen everything, of course. While Caul had been following Hester quietly through the engine district, they had been tracking her with their secret cameras, and they were still chuckling over her conversation with the engine master.
    “Wooooh! Ghostie!” said Skewer, grinning.
    “Caul, Caul,” chirped Gargle. “Old Scabious thinks you’re a ghost! His dead son come back to say hello!”
    “I know,” said Caul, “I heard.” He shoved past Skewer and settled himself into one of the creaky leather seats, suddenly annoyed at how cluttered and stuffy the Screw Worm felt after the clean chill of the city above. He glanced at his companions, who were still watching him with foolish grins, expecting him to join in their mockery of old Scabious. They, too, seemed smaller and less vital, compared with the people he had just been watching.
    Skewer was the same age as Caul, but bigger and stronger and more sure of himself.
    Sometimes it seemed strange to Caul that Uncle had not put Skewer in charge of this trip, and sometimes there was an edge to Skewer’s jokes that made him suspect Skewer thought the same thing. Gargle, ten years old and permanently wide-eyed with the rush of his first burgling mission, seemed unaware of the tension between them. He had turned out as clumsy and useless as Caul had feared; inept at burglary, freezing with terror whenever a Dry came near him, he came back from most of his expeditions into the city with his hands shaking and his trousers sodden.
    Skewer, who was always quick to make the most of another’s weakness, would have bullied and mocked him mercilessly, but Caul held him back. He still remembered his own first job, stuck with a couple of unfriendly older boys in a limpet under Zeestadt Gdansk. All burglars had to start somewhere.
    Skewer was still grinning. “You’re slipping, Caul! Letting people see you. Lucky for you the old man’s mad. A ghost, eh! Wait till we get home and tell the others! Caul the ghoul! Whooooo!”
    “It’s not funny, Skew,” said Caul. What Mr Scabious said had made him feel edgy and strange. He was not sure why. He checked his reflection in the cabin window.
    There wasn’t much resemblance to the portraits of Axel he’d seen when he was casing Scabious’s office. The Scabious boy had been much older, tall and handsome and blue-eyed. Caul had a burglar’s build, skinny as a skeleton key, and his eyes were black. But they both had the same untidy, white-blond hair. An old man whose heart was broken, glimpsing a fair head through darkness or mist, might jump to conclusions, mightn’t he?
    He realized with a start that Skewer was talking to him, and had been talking to him for some time. “…and you know what Uncle says. The First Rule of Burgling – Don’t Get Caught.”
    “I’m not going to get caught, Skew. I’m careful.”
    “Well, how come you’ve been seen, then?”
    “Everybody gets unlucky sometimes. Big Spadger off the Burglar Bill had to knife a Dry who spotted him in the underdecks of Arkangel last season.”
    “That’s different. You spend too much time watching the Drys. It’s al right if it’s just on screen, but you hang around up there watching them for real.”
    “He does,” agreed Gargle, eager to please. “I’ve seen him.”
    “Shut up,” said Skewer, absent-mindedly kicking the smaller