Page 24 of Daughter of the Deep

Hewett musters a weary smile. ‘Yes, Miss da Silva. They would not, of course, call themselvesbad guys. They fled from Nemo’s sub, theNautilus, convinced that they had barely escaped the world’s most dangerous madman.’

‘An outlaw,’ I remember. ‘Caleb said we were protecting the legacy of an outlaw.’

‘Yes,’ Hewett says. ‘And Nemowasa bitter, dangerous outlaw. He hated the great colonial powers. He sank their ships across the globe, hoping to wreck their trade and bring them to their knees.’

Gem frowns. ‘So … nice guy.’

‘A brilliant scientist,’ Hewett counters, ‘who had personal reasons to hate imperialism.’ He hesitates, as if weighingwhether or not he wants to tell me about yet another family tragedy. ‘During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Prince Dakkar stood up against the British. In response, the British destroyed his principality and killed his wife and elder son. After that, Dakkar went into hiding, eventually becoming Captain Nemo. You, Ana, are descended from his younger son, his only living heir.’

Nobody says anything for a minute. Even though the tragedy happened generations ago, I feel a familiar aching emptiness inside me, as if Nemo’s wife and child were two more people I lost when HP crumbled into the sea.

Finally Nelinha mutters an unkind comment in Portuguese about what imperialists can do with their national flags.

As far as I know, Dr Hewett doesn’t speak Portuguese, but he seems to understand the sentiment. He nods in sympathy.

‘At any rate,’ he says, ‘when Ned Land and Pierre Aronnax escaped theNautilus, they were terrified by the captain’s rage and power. They made it their lives’ work to save the reigning world order from his agenda. They decided they could only do that by re-creating or stealing Nemo’s technology by whatever means necessary, claiming his power for themselves.’

Nelinha studies her nails, chipped from a hard day’s work braining enemies with her socket wrench. ‘So that’s where Land Institute came from. Like I said, thebad guys.They want to save the world order. What does that make us – the good-guy outlaws?’ She arches her eyebrows. ‘For the record, I’m okay with that.’

‘I’m so glad,’ Hewett says dryly. ‘As Prefect Dakkar deduced, our school was founded by the second group who encountered Nemo – the one led by Cyrus Harding and Bonaventure Pencroft. They had the good fortune of becoming stranded on an island that happened to be one of the captain’s secret bases. He helped them survive and eventually escape.’

‘He had a lot of secret bases?’ Gem asks, like he’s always wanted one.

‘A dozen that we know of,’ Hewett says. ‘Perhaps more. Anyway, by the time Harding and Pencroft met Nemo, he was a different man. His personal tragedies had left him broken and disillusioned. Despite being a genius, despite possessing the most powerful submarine ever built, he had failed to make any real change in the world … Or so he believed.’

‘He died in his sub.’ I didn’t realize how much I remembered aboutThe Mysterious Island. I guess it feels different now, knowing that this guy shared my blood as well as my name. ‘Nemo helped the castaways escape. Then he sank theNautilusin a subterranean lagoon or something, right before the island went up in a big volcanic explosion. The sub was his tomb.’

I can see the goosebumps ripple across Nelinha’s arms. For a genius engineer, she is pretty superstitious. Ghosts, dead people, tombs – that stuff totally freaks her out. ‘There wasn’t anything in that book about Harding and Pencroft starting a school,’ she says.

‘Of course not,’ Hewett says. ‘The only reason Harding and Pencroft spoke to Jules Verne was to change the public narrative. For our purposes, if anyonedidbegin to suspect that Captain Nemo was real, it was much better if they never saw him as a threat. By the end of his life, Nemo had given up his quest for vengeance. And, yes, he did die aboard theNautilus, which was supposedly demolished in the destruction of his island.’

‘Our purposes,’ Gem says. ‘What are those?’

Hewett gestures at the map. ‘Just before Nemo died, he pulled Cyrus Harding aside and had some final words with him. It says that much in Verne’s book. What it doesnotsay is that Nemo gave Harding a treasure chest of pearls and also entrusted him with a mission: to make sure his technology was never usedby the world powers or stolen by Land Institute. We were to safeguard Nemo’s legacy, to reveal his advances only a little at a time, when we decided the world was ready for them. Most importantly –’ he looks at me – ‘we were to safeguard his descendants until the time was right.’

I don’t want to ask, but I do anyway. ‘Right for what?’

Again, Dr Hewett simply watches me, waiting for the hints to fall into place.

‘This map leads to one of Nemo’s bases,’ I say, getting goosebumps worse than Nelinha’s. ‘Not just any base. The island where Nemo died. It wasn’t completely destroyed in the eruption, was it?’

Hewett gives me his rarest classroom gesture. He simply points at me to sayCorrect.‘Ana, two years ago, your parents gave their lives to find this island. Your brother was being prepared to take charge of operations there once he graduated college. Since we discovered it, the island has become a field lab and underwater archaeology site staffed by HP faculty. It holds our most advanced technology. And … artefacts.’

Gem rubs his forehead. ‘That’s what Land Institute wants. Access to this island. And you … you used to work for LI.’ He sounds personally hurt, as if Hewett has broken a promise.

Hewett stares at the nautical map. ‘That’s true, Mr Twain. When I was younger, I graduated from HP – House Shark, like you and Dev Dakkar. Nevertheless, I always had a grudging admiration for Land Institute. They favour action over caution, offence over defence. That was alluring to me. In some ways, they are a school made entirely of Sharks. That’s why I accepted a job there, and why I spent years designing specs for a submarine that could rival theNautilus. It took me a long time to see the ugly, brutal side of LI, to realize what they would do with such power …’

He gives me a mournful glance. ‘I don’t expect you to trust me. But my past with LI is one reason I wanted to be Dev’s advisor. I tried to guide his progress, to teach him why HP’s approach is the only responsible way forward. Dev reminded me so much of myself at his age …’

If I wasn’t so shocked, I might be tempted to laugh. I can’t imagine two peoplelessalike than Dev and Dr Hewett. It’s hard to envision Hewett as a Shark, or young, or anything other than our professor. But it makes me wonder what Dev might have accomplished when he got older. Would he have gone on to command his own ship and then his own fleet as he’d always dreamed? Or is it possible he would have ended up a frustrated, dejected teacher like Hewett? That idea is almost as sad as knowing that, now, Dev will never get the chance to have any future at all.

Hewett sighs, as if thinking the same thoughts. ‘At any rate … when your parents found Nemo’s base, Land Institute feared it would give HP an unstoppable advantage. As I said, Nemo’s most important work could only be operated by his descendants. And, unlike Land Institute, we have … good relations with the Dakkar family.’

I get the uncomfortable sense that Hewett almost saidwe have control of the Dakkar family. He doesn’t seem to notice the cold look I’m giving him.

‘The island is completely off the grid,’ he says, some colour coming back into his face. ‘It is cut off from all outside communication. Its location is unknown even to me. The only way to find it –’

‘Is me.’ I look at the coppery paperweight thing.

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