‘You okay, Ana?’ Gem asks. His expression is concerned, expectant, like he’s waiting for me to grab a lifeline.
I force myself to breathe. I can’t spiral into this emotional vacuum right now … not when it would mean abandoning my friends. ‘Engine room, stand by.’ I turn to Virgil. ‘Can they hear us?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘One-way transmission. Pretty sure. Almost positive.’
‘Their position?’
Gem checks his panels. ‘Half a kilometre out. Holding at our six o’clock.’
How did they find us, despite all our precautions? They were never following the Varuna. They were following me …
I wanted you to have the pearl for luck, Dev said, just in case, you know, you fail spectacularly or something.
I stand. My fingers close around my mother’s black-pearl pendant. I yank it from my neck, breaking the chain. Dev had it reset, just for me. The pearl comes away easily from its new setting. Underneath, glued to the gold base, is a tiny alt-tech receptor.
‘Ana, I’m so sorry.’ Ester’s lower lip quivers. She understands how I feel. She knows about being used, being treated like a commodity even by her own family.
‘Can I borrow your Leyden gun?’ I ask.
She doesn’t hesitate. She hands me her pistol.
I set the broken pieces of the necklace on the floor – chain, setting, even the pearl. I can’t take any chances. I step back and fire.
Blue tendrils of electricity arc down the length of the chain. The alt-tech receptor pops and burns like a tiny emergency flare. White curlicues of smoke wreath my mother’s pearl.
An acrid tang fills the back of my mouth. I’m not sure if it’s from the melting tracker or the bitterness welling up in my throat.
Back on the Varuna, Land Institute’s assault team went out of their way not to hit me with a Leyden gun. They used poison instead. They were hoping to take the whole ship: me, Dr Hewett’s map, the DNA-reader, everything. But if something went wrong they didn’t want to risk damaging their tracking device. I was their insurance policy. I led them – I led Dev right to the Nautilus.
My brother’s voice booms through the ship. His tone is intimate and pleading, just for me. ‘I warned the school, Ana. I told them to evacuate. I didn’t want them to die. I don’t want anyone else to die now, especially you.’
Oh, god. That garbled audio recording of Dev hadn’t come from the school’s intercom. He’d been broadcasting from on board the Aronnax.
I want to scream at him. I want to demand explanations. But there is no way I will open communications.
An hour ago, I would have traded the Nautilus and the entire world to talk to Dev again. Now I want to be as far away from him as possible.
‘Engine room,’ I say. ‘You were talking about options?’
A moment of static, then Nelinha responds, ‘Yes, but you’re not going to like –’
‘I don’t like anything right now. Talk to me.’
‘The cav-drive,’ she says. ‘It might still be operational. It uses a different starter system to communicate with the engines –’
Dev’s voice overrides hers. ‘Harding-Pencroft are not our friends, Ana. They’ve been hoarding our family’s inheritance for generations. Their stupidity got our parents killed. They’re using you. Land Institute gave me command of their prize ship. They want to use our tech to make the world better. Harding-Pencroft would never. They refused to let me even see the Nautilus. This was the only way to force their hand. I’m sorry, but it had to be done. Now we can take what is ours. Yours and mine.’
‘N-Nelinha, this cav-drive …’ I try to tune out Dev’s words, but I feel like I’ve been gargling with sea-snake venom. ‘Are you sure it will work?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she says. ‘If I push this red button, maybe nothing happens. Maybe we explode right here. Or maybe we shoot halfway across the Pacific and smash straight into the side of an underwater mountain. But that’s all I’ve got, unless you can keep Dev talking for another six or seven hours while we make repairs.’
I’d rather explode.
‘If we manage to get away,’ Gem warns, ‘the Aronnax will turn on Lincoln Base.’
I know that. Ophelia, Luca, Dr Hewett, Tia, Franklin … How can we leave them at the mercy of that sub … of Dev? What has my brother become? On the other hand, I can’t surrender this crew. The defenders in Lincoln Base gave me a mission. They stayed behind to make it possible.