boy.
“They’re interesting,” said Caul.
“They’re Drys!” said Skewer impatiently. “You know what Uncle says about Drys.
They’re like cattle. Their brains don’t move as fast as ours. That’s why it’s right for us to take their stuff.”
“I know!” said Caul. Like Skewer, he’d had all this drummed into him when he was just a newbie, back in the Burglarium. “We’re the Lost Boys. We’re the best burglars in the world. Everything that ain’t nailed down is ours.” But he knew Skewer was right. Sometimes he felt as if he wasn’t meant to be a Lost Boy at all. He liked watching people better than burgling them.
He swung himself out of his seat and snatched his latest report from a shelf above the camera controls; thirteen pages of Freya Rasmussen’s best official notepaper covered in his big, grubby handwriting. He waved them in Skewer’s face as he headed aft. “I’m sending this back to base. Uncle gets angry if he doesn’t get an update once a week.”
“That’s nothing to how angry he’ll be if you go and get us caught,” Skewer muttered.
The Screw Worm’s fish bay was beneath the boys’ sleeping cabin, and had taken on the same smell of stale sweat and unwashed socks. There were racks for ten message-fish, but three were already empty. Caul felt a pang of regret as he started prepping Number 4 for launch. In just six more weeks the last fish would be gone.
Then it would be time for the Screw Worm to decouple from Anchorage and head for home. He would miss Freya and her people. But that was stupid, wasn’t it? They were only stupid Drys. Only pictures on a stupid screen.
The message-fish looked like a sleek silver torpedo, and if it had been standing upright it would have been taller than Caul. As always, a slight sense of awe overcame him as he checked the fish’s fuel tank and placed his rolled-up report in the watertight compartment near its nose. All over the north, limpet captains just like him were sending fish home to Uncle, so that Uncle would know everything that was going on everywhere and be able to plan ever more daring burglaries. It made Caul feel even more guilty about his liking for the Drys. He was so lucky to be a Lost Boy. He was so lucky to be working for Uncle. Uncle Knew Best.
A few minutes later the message-fish slid from the Screw Worm’s belly and dropped unnoticed out of the complex shadows on Anchorage’s underside, down on to the ice. As the city swept on into the north, the fish began drilling its way down through the snow, down through the ice, patiently down and down and down until it broke through at last into the black waters beneath the ice cap. Its Old-Tech computer-brain ticked and grumbled. It wasn’t bright, but it knew its way home. It extended stubby fins and a small propeller and went purring quickly away towards the south.
13
THE WHEELHOUSE
Hester did not tell Tom about her strange encounter. She did not want him to think her silly, babbling about ghosts. The shape she had seen watching her from the shadows had been a trick of her imagination, and as for Mr Scabious, he was mad.
The whole town was mad, if they believed Freya and Pennyroyal and their promises of a new green hunting ground beyond the ice, and Tom was mad with them. There was no point in arguing, or in trying to make him see sense. Better just to concentrate on getting him safely away.
Days and then weeks went by, with Anchorage running north across broad plains of sea-ice as it skirted the mountainous shield of Greenland. Hester began to spend most of her time at the air-harbour, watching Mr Aakiuq work on the Jenny Haniver. There was not much she could do to help him, for she was no mechanic, but she could pass him tools and fetch things from his workshop and pour him cups of scalding purple-dark cocoa from his old thermos flask, and she felt that just by being there she might help to hasten the day when the Jenny would be ready to take her away from this
“They’re interesting,” said Caul.
“They’re Drys!” said Skewer impatiently. “You know what Uncle says about Drys.
They’re like cattle. Their brains don’t move as fast as ours. That’s why it’s right for us to take their stuff.”
“I know!” said Caul. Like Skewer, he’d had all this drummed into him when he was just a newbie, back in the Burglarium. “We’re the Lost Boys. We’re the best burglars in the world. Everything that ain’t nailed down is ours.” But he knew Skewer was right. Sometimes he felt as if he wasn’t meant to be a Lost Boy at all. He liked watching people better than burgling them.
He swung himself out of his seat and snatched his latest report from a shelf above the camera controls; thirteen pages of Freya Rasmussen’s best official notepaper covered in his big, grubby handwriting. He waved them in Skewer’s face as he headed aft. “I’m sending this back to base. Uncle gets angry if he doesn’t get an update once a week.”
“That’s nothing to how angry he’ll be if you go and get us caught,” Skewer muttered.
The Screw Worm’s fish bay was beneath the boys’ sleeping cabin, and had taken on the same smell of stale sweat and unwashed socks. There were racks for ten message-fish, but three were already empty. Caul felt a pang of regret as he started prepping Number 4 for launch. In just six more weeks the last fish would be gone.
Then it would be time for the Screw Worm to decouple from Anchorage and head for home. He would miss Freya and her people. But that was stupid, wasn’t it? They were only stupid Drys. Only pictures on a stupid screen.
The message-fish looked like a sleek silver torpedo, and if it had been standing upright it would have been taller than Caul. As always, a slight sense of awe overcame him as he checked the fish’s fuel tank and placed his rolled-up report in the watertight compartment near its nose. All over the north, limpet captains just like him were sending fish home to Uncle, so that Uncle would know everything that was going on everywhere and be able to plan ever more daring burglaries. It made Caul feel even more guilty about his liking for the Drys. He was so lucky to be a Lost Boy. He was so lucky to be working for Uncle. Uncle Knew Best.
A few minutes later the message-fish slid from the Screw Worm’s belly and dropped unnoticed out of the complex shadows on Anchorage’s underside, down on to the ice. As the city swept on into the north, the fish began drilling its way down through the snow, down through the ice, patiently down and down and down until it broke through at last into the black waters beneath the ice cap. Its Old-Tech computer-brain ticked and grumbled. It wasn’t bright, but it knew its way home. It extended stubby fins and a small propeller and went purring quickly away towards the south.
13
THE WHEELHOUSE
Hester did not tell Tom about her strange encounter. She did not want him to think her silly, babbling about ghosts. The shape she had seen watching her from the shadows had been a trick of her imagination, and as for Mr Scabious, he was mad.
The whole town was mad, if they believed Freya and Pennyroyal and their promises of a new green hunting ground beyond the ice, and Tom was mad with them. There was no point in arguing, or in trying to make him see sense. Better just to concentrate on getting him safely away.
Days and then weeks went by, with Anchorage running north across broad plains of sea-ice as it skirted the mountainous shield of Greenland. Hester began to spend most of her time at the air-harbour, watching Mr Aakiuq work on the Jenny Haniver. There was not much she could do to help him, for she was no mechanic, but she could pass him tools and fetch things from his workshop and pour him cups of scalding purple-dark cocoa from his old thermos flask, and she felt that just by being there she might help to hasten the day when the Jenny would be ready to take her away from this
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