"Silencio," Sunny said, which meant "We never heard a reply."
"They're closing in," the captain said darkly. "Our enemies are preventing us from communicating."
"I don't see how Count Olaf would have time to destroy all those machines," Klaus said. "Many telegrams travel through telephone lines," Fiona said. "It wouldn't be difficult."
"Besides, Olaf isn't the only enemy," Violet said, thinking of two other villains the Baudelaires had encountered on Mount Fraught.
"Aye!" the captain said. "That's for certain. There is evil out there you cannot even imagine. Klaus, have you made any progress on the tidal charts?"
Klaus spread out a chart on the table so everyone could see. The chart was really more of a map, showing the Stricken Stream winding through the mountains before reaching the sea, with tiny arrows and notations describing the way the water was moving. The arrows and notes were in several different colors of ink, as if the chart had been passed from researcher to researcher, each adding notes as he or she discovered more information about the area. "It's more complicated than I thought," the middle Baudelaire said, "and much more dull. These charts note every single detail concerning the water cycle."
"Dull?" the captain roared. "Aye? We're in the middle of a desperate mission and all you can think of is your own entertainment? Aye? Do you want us to hesitate? Stop our activities and put on a puppet show just so you won't find this submarine dull?"
"You misunderstood me," Klaus said quickly. "All I meant was that it's easier to research something that's interesting."
"You sound like Fiona," the captain said. "When I want her to research the life of Herman Melville, she works slowly, but she's quick as a whip when the subject is mushrooms."
"Mushrooms?" Klaus asked. "Are you a mycologist?"
Fiona smiled, and her eyes grew wide behind her triangular glasses. "I never thought I'd meet someone who knew that word," she said. "Besides me. Yes, I'm a mycologist. I've been interested in fungi all my life. If we have time, I'll show you my mycological library."
"Time?" Captain Widdershins repeated. "We don't have time for fungus books! Aye! We don't have time for you two to do all that flirting, either!"
"We're not flirting!" Fiona said. "We're having a conversation."
"It looked like flirting to me," the captain said. "Aye!"
"Why don't you tell us about your research," Violet said to Klaus, knowing that her brother would rather talk about the tidal charts than his personal life.
Klaus gave her a grateful smile and pointed to a point on the chart. "If my calculations are correct," he said, "the sugar bowl would have been carried down the sane tributary we went down in the toboggan. The prevailing currents of the stream lead all the way down here, where the sea begins."
"So it was carried out to sea," Violet said.
"I think so," Klaus said. "And we can see here that the tides would move it away from Sontag Shore in a northeasterly direction."
"Sink?" Sunny asked, which meant something like, "Wouldn't the sugar bowl just drift to the ocean floor?"
"It's too small," Klaus said. "Oceans are in constant motion, and an object that falls into the sea could end up miles away. It appears that the tides and currents in this part of the ocean would take the sugar bowl past the Gulag Archipelago here, and then head down toward the Mediocre Barrier Reef before turning at this point here, which is marked 'A.A.' Do you know what that is, Captain? It looks like some sort of floating structure."
The captain sighed, and raised one finger to fiddle with the curl of his mustache. "Aye," he said sadly. "Anwhistle Aquatics. It's a marine research center and a rhetorical advice service or it was. It burned down."
"Anwhistle?" Violet asked. "That was Aunt Josephine's last name."
"Aye," the captain said. "Anwhistle Aquatics was founded by Gregor Anwhistle, the famous ichnologist and Josephine's brother-in-law. But all that's ancient history. Where did the sugar bowl go next?"
The Baudelaires would have preferred to learn more, but knew better than to argue with the captain, and Klaus pointed to a small oval on the chart to continue his report. "This is the part that confuses me," he said. "You see this oval, right next to Anwhistle Aquatics? It's marked but there's no other explanation."
Captain Widdershins said, and stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "I've never seen an oval like that on a chart like this."
"There's something else confusing about it," Klaus said, peering at the oval. There are two different arrows inside it, and each one points in a different direction."
"It looks like the tide is going two ways at once," Fiona said.
Violet frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," she said.
"I'm confused, too," Klaus said. "According to my calculations, the sugar bowl was probably carried right to this place on the map. But where it went from there I can't imagine."
"I guess we should set a course for G.G., whatever it might be," Violet said, "and see what we can find when we get there."
"I'm the captain!" the captain cried. "I'll give the orders around here! Aye! And I order that we set a course for that oval, and see what we can find when we get there! But first I'm hungry! And thirsty! Aye! And my arm itches! I can scratch my own arm, but Cookie and Sunny, you are responsible for food and drink! Aye!"
"Sunny helped me make a chowder that should be ready in a few minutes," Phil said. "Her teeth were very handy in dicing the boiled potatoes."
"Flush," Sunny said, which meant "Don't worry I cleaned my teeth before using them as kitchen implements."
"Chowder? Aye! Chowder sounds delicious!" the captain cried. "And what about dessert? Aye? Dessert is the most important meal of the day! Aye! In my opinion! Even though it's not really a meal! Aye!"
"Tonight, the only dessert we have is gum," Phil said. "I still have some left from my days at the lumbermill."
"I think I'll pass on dessert," Klaus said, who'd had such a terrible time at Lucky Smells Lumbermill that he no longer had a taste for gum.
"Yomhuledet," Sunny said. She meant "Don't worry Phil and I have arranged a surprise dessert for tomorrow night," but of course only her siblings could understand the youngest Baudelaire's unusual way of talking.
Nevertheless, as soon as Sunny spoke, Captain Widdershins stood up from the table and began crying out in astonishment. "Aye!" he cried. "Dear God! Holy Buddha! Charles Darwin! Duke Ellington! Aye! Fiona turn off the engines! Aye! Cookie turn off the stove! Aye! Violet make sure the telegram device is off! Aye! Klaus! Gather your materials together so nothing rolls around! Aye! Calm down! Work quickly! Don't panic! Help! Aye!"
"What's going on?" Phil asked.
"What is it, stepfather?" Fiona asked.
For once, the captain was silent, and merely pointed at a screen on the submarine wall. The screen looked like a piece of graph paper, lit up in green light, with a glowing letter Q in the center.
"That looks like a sonar detector," Violet said.
"It is a sonar detector," Fiona said. "We can tell if any other undersea craft are approaching us by detecting the sounds they make. The Q represents the Queequeg and "
The mycologist gasped, and the Baudelaires looked at where she was pointing. At the very top of the panel was another glowing symbol, which was moving down the screen at a fast clip, a phrase which here means "straight toward the Queequeg." Fiona did not say what this green symbol stood for, and the children could not bear to ask. It was an eye, staring at the frightened volunteers and wiggling its long, skinny eyelashes, which protruded from every side.