Wait. What am I doing?
‘Dive control.’ I take a deep breath, then turn to Lee-Ann. ‘Set depth to ten metres. Here goes nothing.’
Lee-Ann grins. ‘Aye, Captain. Here goes nothing.’
The water rises outside, engulfing the bow windows. The Nautilus submerges. For the first time in a century and a half, she sails out under her own power.
And then we hit something.
The sub shudders and screeches.
‘All stop!’ I yell.
The screeching continues like nails on a chalkboard until we lose our forward momentum. I take a shaky breath, wondering if we’ve just ruined the world’s most important invention.
‘What was that?’ I ask.
‘Ah, that’s on me.’ Halimah grimaces. ‘The LOCUS was set for long-range scans …’
She toggles a switch. Her console’s holosphere expands to the size of a medicine ball. A glowing purple dot still marks our position in the centre, but now I can see our immediate surroundings. Lacey nets of green light define the cavern walls. Rising from the lake bottom are half a dozen spires of rock. The tip of one is right underneath us – a pokey finger of death touching the Nautilus’s belly.
I grit my teeth. Luca and Ophelia might have warned us about the forest of giant stalagmites we’d be navigating through. At least they could’ve set the LOCUS back to short-range. Then again, our departure was a bit rushed.
‘No, that’s my fault,’ I tell Halimah. ‘I gave the order. Damage report?’
She tries to make sense of her readouts. Given the Nautilus’s style, I’m half expecting a brass plaque to pop up from the console with the word OUCH written in fancy calligraphy.
Meanwhile the other bridge crew readjust their LOCUS displays.
‘Oh, yeah, look at that,’ Lee-Ann mutters. ‘Giant rocks.’
Ester rushes onto the bridge with a plate of scones. At her feet, Top goes into a play bow, like, Where’s the party?
‘DID WE HIT A ROCK?’ Ester demands.
From the overhead speaker, Nelinha’s voice announces, ‘I think we hit a rock.’
‘Thanks, we got that,’ I say. ‘Can anybody tell if we took damage?’
‘Not that I see,’ Nelinha says. ‘But let’s not do it again.’
‘Agreed. Helm, ease us off the pokey finger of death, please.’
‘Aye, Captain.’ Halimah sounds relieved.
‘I have the tunnel entrance,’ Virgil says at the comm station. ‘Fifteen degrees starboard, range ninety metres, depth twenty metres.’
I try not to shudder. One of the first things you learn in dive school is how dangerous underwater caves can be. They’re the places most likely to kill you.
Being in a sub does not make me feel any better about our chances. We’re barely out of the driveway and we’ve already almost impaled ourselves. Nevertheless, I decide that it wouldn’t be good form for the captain to scream We’re all going to die!
‘Make fifteen degrees starboard,’ I say. ‘Make depth twenty metres. Ahead slow. Let’s get to the exit without hitting anything else, folks.’
Gem laughs.
I scowl at him.
‘Right, that wasn’t funny,’ he agrees.
We start to move again. I study the LOCUS displays. The tunnel entrance looms closer, like the mouth of a whale.
‘Range forty metres,’ Halimah announces. ‘Depth is steady at twenty metres.’
I glance at Ester, who’s standing on my right with her plate of baked goods. ‘How does the Nautilus seem to you?’
‘Calm,’ she says. ‘Want a scone?’
Calm is good. And, yes, I want a scone.
I hear no groans or creaks, no cries of alarm from the corridors. Still, I imagine a thousand little leaks springing up all along the sub’s ancient hull plating.
‘Jack,’ I say, ‘make a pass through the ship, would you? Check on all hands.’
‘Aye.’ He looks relieved to have a job. He grabs a scone and runs off.
‘Tunnel entrance ten metres,’ Halimah says. ‘This’ll be tight.’
‘You understand how to steer this thing?’ Virgil asks.
The pipe organ plays a diminished chord, making us all flinch.
‘I mean … do you know how to steer this beautiful vessel?’ Virgil corrects himself.
‘I think so,’ Halimah says. ‘Nautilus, help me out here. Captain?’
It takes me a second to realize she’s asking me a question. I’m still not used to being called Captain.