“Why did you let him get away with it?” asked Caul.
The old man shrugged. “ ’Cos I was scared of him. And ’cos I was proud of him. He was a sharp one, that Gargle, and it was me who made him that way. He was like a son to me, I s’pose. I like to think that me and Anna might have had sons, if she hadn’t tricked me and flown off in that homemade airship of hers. I like to think they’d have been as sharp as Gargle. But I’m glad he’s gone, Caul, my boy. I’m glad it’s you here now.”
Mumbling quietly to himself, Uncle let Caul lead him up the steep stair to his bedchamber. The midget engine pods of the old cargo balloon whined and clattered as the ball of screens went with them, hanging a few feet above their heads so that Uncle could keep staring up at it, his half-blind eyes flicking nervously from one screen to another. The entrance to his bedroom had been made higher and wider to let the balloon squeeze through. “Gotta keep watching them, Caul,” he muttered. “Never know what they’ll get up to unwatched. Gotta watch everybody. Everywhere. Always.”
The room had been richly furnished once, for the Lost Boys had brought all the finest things they stole here as tribute to Uncle. But over the years, piece by piece, Gargle must have found excuses to move all the treasures downstairs to his own quarters. All that remained was a bed with a threadbare quilt, some piles of moldy books, and an upturned crate that served as a bedside table; it held an old argon lamp and a faded photograph of a beautiful young woman in the uniform of an Arkangel slave worker.
“I keep that to remind me,” said Uncle, when he saw Caul looking at the picture, and quickly turned it facedown. “My Anna Fang. Pretty, weren’t she? They’ve gone and made a Stalker of her now, and put her in charge of the Green Storm, and she rules over half the world, with airships and armies at her command. I’ve followed her career. Got a book of cuttings, somewhere. Gargle thought he could do a deal with her, but I knew it wouldn’t work. Knew it would only lead to trouble…”
“What sort of deal?” asked Caul. He had heard Uncle talk about his lost love once before, but he had never heard of the Lost Boys trying to do a deal with the world outside. “Is that why Gargle came to Anchorage? Why he wanted the Tin Book?”
Uncle sat down on the bed, and his moon of surveillance screens dipped until it was hanging just above his head. “Gargle said there was trouble coming. As soon as those first three limpets went missing, he said, ‘There’s trouble coming.’ He was right, too, wasn’t he? Only he didn’t know how soon. He thought if he got hold of that Tin Book, he could give it to the Green Storm and ask for their protection in exchange, get them to smash whatever city came hunting for us.”
“But why would they want the Tin Book?” asked Caul.
“Who knows?” replied Uncle with a shrug. “A couple of summers back, they sent an expedition to try and find the wreck of Anchorage. They didn’t, of course. But Gargle got a crab-cam aboard their ship, and he found out what it was they was hoping to dredge up.”
“The Tin Book?”
Uncle nodded. “They weren’t ordinary Green Storm, neither. They were special agents, who reported straight to her. So Gargle thought, if she’s ready to send ships halfway round the world in the middle of a war looking for this thing, she must want it pretty bad. And he remembered seeing something like it when he was burgling Anchorage that time, only he didn’t think nothing of it then.” He shook his head. “I told him it wouldn’t work. I told him to stay put. But he was like that, young Gargle; once he got an idea in his head, there weren’t no stopping him, and off he went, and now he’s dead, and that wicked city’s stolen all my boys away.”
“But what was it?” asked Caul. “The Tin Book, I mean? What makes it so valuable?”
Uncle, who had been sniffling miserably, blew his nose on a polka-dot handkerchief and peered at Caul. “Don’t know,” he said. “We never did find out. Gargle put about the story that it was the plans to some great big Ancient submarine that would save us all, but I think he made that up. What would my poor Anna want with a submarine? No. I reckon it’s a weapon. Something big.”
He stuffed the handkerchief away and yawned. “Now, my boy. Enough about the past. We should think of the future. We should make plans. Time to start rebuilding. We’ll need to nick some stuff. Lucky you brought the Screw Worm home with you—that’ll come in proper handy, that will. And I’ve still got the old Naglfar. Remember the good old Naglfar?”
“Saw her in the pens when we arrived,” said Caul. He could see that Uncle was growing sleepy. He helped him lie down, and pulled the tattered quilt over him, tucking it under his chin. “You have a little sleep,” he said. “You have a sleep, and when you wake, it’ll be time to start.”
Uncle smiled up at him and closed his eyes. The ball of screens hung just above his pillow, and’ in the cathode-ray glow of the crab-cam pictures, his old face looked luminous, a paper mask lit from within by the flickering light of his dreams.
In the chamber below, some of the children had gone to sleep too. The rest sat quietly, watching with large, trusting eyes while Tom told them a story that he used to tell Wren when she was little and woke up scared in the night. They did not seem frightened by the groans and shudders of the dying city, or the dribbles of water creeping down the walls.
It had been scary when they were all alone, but now that these kind grown-ups had arrived, they felt sure that everything would be all right.
Hester prowled the edges of the room, looking for weapons or ways to pick the heavy locks on the doors, and growing more and more angry as she found none of either.
“What will you do if you do find a way out?” Freya asked her softly. “Sit down. You’ll scare the children.”
Hester scowled at her. “What will I do? Get down to the limpet pens, of course, and away aboard the Screw Worm.”
“But we can’t all fit aboard the Screw Worm. Even if we managed to squeeze all the children into the hold, there wouldn’t be air or fuel enough to get us back to Anchorage.”
“Who said we were taking the children?” asked Hester. “I came to rescue Wren, not those little savages. Wren’s not here, so we’ll take the Worm to Brighton and try looking there.”
“But the children—” cried Freya, and quickly stopped, in case they heard her and guessed what Hester was planning. “Hester, how could you even think such a thing! You have a child of your own!”
“That’s right,” said Hester. “And if you had, then you’d know how much trouble they bring. And these aren’t even ordinary children. It’s all very well, you coming over all nurturing, but these are Lost Boys. You can’t take them back to Anchorage. What will you do with them there?
“Love them, of course,” replied Freya simply.
“Oh, like you did Caul? That really worked, didn’t it? They’ll rob you blind, and then probably murder you. You’ve lost your edge, Snow Queen. You asked me once to help you protect Anchorage. Well, I’ll protect it by making sure you don’t take a gang of burglar babies home with you as souvenirs of Grimsby.”
Freya took a step backward, as though she didn’t like to be so close to Hester. “I don’t think Anchorage needs your sort of protection anymore,” she said. “I was glad of you once. I hoped all those years of peace would bring you peace as well. But you’ve not changed.”