“We’ll come back,” promised Tom as he climbed inside to join Hester. But Hester said nothing. She did not think that she would ever see Anchorage-in-Vineland again.
In the cramped control cabin of the Screw Worm there was no way for Caul to avoid talking to Freya Rasmussen. He wondered if that was half the reason for her deciding to come. As the waters closed over the nose windows, she sat down beside him and spread Snori Ulvaeusson’s ancient map upon the pilot’s console and said, “So do you remember the way back to Grimsby?” He nodded.
“I was sure you would,” she said. “I’m surprised you haven’t made the trip before.”
“To Grimsby?” He turned to look at her, but the kind, careful way she was watching him made him uneasy, so he stared at the controls instead. “Why would I want to go back to Grimsby? Have you forgotten what happened the last time I was there? If Gargle hadn’t cut me down…”
“But you still want to go back,” said Freya gently. “Why else did you repair the Worm?”
Caul squinted into the silty darkness ahead of the limpet, pretending to be keeping a lookout for sunken rocks. “I thought about it,” he admitted. “That’s the trouble. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even in the first weeks at Vineland, when there was so much to do and everybody was so kind and welcoming and you—”
He glanced sideways at her and away. She was still watching him. Why was she always so kind to him? Sixteen years ago she had offered him her love, and he’d turned her down for reasons he still couldn’t quite understand. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d banished him back to the sea.
“That’s why I live down in the underdeck,” he admitted. “Because it’s the bit of Anchorage that’s the most like Grimsby. And every night, when I’m dreaming, I hear Uncle’s voice. ‘Come back to Grimsby, Caul,’ it says.” He looked at Freya nervously. He’d never told anyone this, and he was afraid she might think he was mad. He thought it himself, sometimes. “Uncle whispers to me, the way he used to whisper out of the speakers on the Burglarium ceiling when I was small. Even the waves on the beach talk with his voice. ‘Grimsby’s your home, Caul, my boy. You don’t belong with the Drys. Come home to Grimsby.’ ”
Freya reached out to touch him, then thought better of it. She said, “But when Gargle showed up, asking for you to help him, you turned him down. You could have given him the Tin Book and gone back with him on the Autolycus.”
“I wanted to,” said Caul. “You don’t know how much I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t. You chose Anchorage over Grimsby.”
“Only ’cos I was afraid,” said Caul. “Only ’cos I was afraid that when I got there, I’d find I don’t fit in any better with the Lost Boys than I do with you Drys. Maybe I’m not either anymore. Maybe I’m nothing at all.”
Freya did touch him then. She laid her hand on his shoulder and felt him flinch away from her, quick and shy, like a frightened animal. Sometimes she thought that Caul was as much of a mystery to her now as he had been all those years ago when he’d first come to her out of the sea. He would have been so much happier if he had just let her love him. And so would she. It hadn’t exactly ruined her life, for so many other good things had happened to her, but sometimes she did feel sad that she had no husband and no children of her own. It seemed to her that there were some people-Caul was one, and Hester Natsworthy another—who just didn’t have the knack of being happy.
Or was there more to it than that? She thought of the waves on the beach whispering to Caul with Uncle’s voice, and felt spooked and uneasy. If Uncle could speak to him in Vineland, what would it be like for him when they reached Grimsby? And if things went badly there, and it came to a fight, would Caul be on her side, or on Uncle’s?
Chapter 12
Business in Great Waters
That’s right your worship! Hold it Smile!” tray of flash powder exploded with a soft chuff, and a ball of smoke rose into the sunlit air of Cloud 9 like a party balloon. Nimrod Pennyroyal, explorer, author, and mayor, was having his photograph taken for the Brighton Morninig Palimpsest again, posing this time with Digby Slingback and Sardona Flysch, the actor and actress who played the grieving spokespeople of WOPCART in the messages Brighton was beaming into the Atlantic.
“So, Your Worship,” the Palimpsest’s reporter asked while the photographer loaded a fresh plate into his camera, “can you remind our readers what gave you the idea of this expedition against the parasite-pirates?”
“I considered it my duty,” said Pennyroyal, beaming and adjusting his chain of office, which twinkled prettily in the sun. “After all, it was I who first alerted the world to the existence of these maritime miscreants; you can read of my encounters with them in my interpolitan bestseller Predator’s Gold (Just twenty-five Brightonian dolphins at all good bookshops). In recent years we have had more and more reports of their raids and burglaries and have started to deduce how their organization operates. I considered it my duty to take our city north and capture as many of them as I could.”
“Of course, Your Worship, some of your critics have suggested that it is all a publicity stunt designed to attract more visitors to Brighton and sell more copies of your books…”
Pennyroyal made scoffing noises. “My books sell well enough without publicity stunts. And if news of our quest to rid the oceans of these parasites brings more tourists to Brighton, what is wrong with that? Brighton is a tourist city, and it’s the mayor’s job to help boost it. And may I remind you that our little fishing expedition is not costing Brighton’s ratepayers a penny. Thanks to the partnership deal I worked out, all the underwater sensing equipment and limpet traps are paid for by one of our most eminent businessmen, Mr. Nabisco Shkin. This fake organization for pirates’ parents was all Shkin’s idea. I know some people think it’s rather cruel, but you must admit it’s worked like a charm. Shkin understands the psychology of these parentless louts perfectly, you see. He was an orphan himself, you know, an urchin from the underdeck who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, so he knew just how to appeal to them.”
“And does Your Worship think we shall catch more pirates soon?”
“Wait and see!” chuckled Pennyroyal, presenting his best profile to the camera as the photographer lined up another shot. “The boys we took from the first three limpets were hard nuts who refused to divulge the location of their base. This latest catch includes a younger boy and a girl too: much easier to crack. I believe the next few days will bring big results!”
In fact, what the next few days brought was a change in the weather. A storm sweeping off the Dead Continent chopped the ocean into steep white waves and threw Brighton up and down so violently that even the residents felt queasy, and a lot of the visitors who had flown in from the Hunting Ground to watch Pennyroyal’s people fishing for pirates took to their airships and sky yachts and went hurrying home. The Brightonians (those who were not feeling too ill to walk about) glared up through the blustering rain at the underbelly of Cloud 9 hanging in the wet sky and wondered why they had agreed to let Pennyroyal bring them out onto this wild, unfriendly ocean.