Page 29 of Daughter of the Deep

There’s some uneasy murmuring in the group. Nobody looks shocked by Rhys’s allegations. Rumours travel quickly.

‘The base is there,’ Ester says.

She’s kneeling next to Top, picking bits of crusted sea salt off his furry ears. Ester doesn’t speak loudly, but she gets everyone’s attention.

‘Youknowthis?’ Franklin asks her.

‘Not for sure.’ She’s still addressing Top. ‘Not because I’m a Harding or anything. If Dr Hewett wanted us dead, there are easier ways than sending us to a make-believe island in themiddle of the ocean. If Dr Hewett is a spy, it’s more likely he was using us to find this base. He would need Ana for that. Then he could sell us out to LI.Thenthey could kill us.’

That cheerful idea hangs in the warm, wet air. The sea churns under our feet. Again, everyone is looking at me for answers.

I want to kick an LI upperclassman. I’m a week shy of fifteen years old. Why doIhave to be handling this crisis? I want to scream,This isn’t fair!But I’ve been screaming that internally ever since my parents died, and it’s done me no good. I’ve learned that the world doesn’t care what is right for me. I have tomakeit care.

‘Searching for the base is a risk,’ I admit. I’m amazed my voice doesn’t break. ‘Our other option is to turn back. That’s a risk, too. TheAronnaxis somewhere in these waters, and we saw what it did to the school. We had a lot of … a lot of friends on campus.’

More than friends. I think of Dev’s crooked grin. His early birthday gift to me, my mother’s black pearl, hangs heavily around my neck. I look at Kay Ramsay, whose sister was a sophomore. Kay’s watery red eyes are glaring a hole in the deck boards. Brigid Salter, who had a brother in the junior class, trembles as she leans against her housemate Rhys for support.

Yesterday was about shock, uncertainty, fear. Our world was shattered. Today, we have to figure out how to reassemble ourselves from the broken pieces.

Some of us wereliterallyshattered. Eloise McManus’s left shoulder is wrapped in gauze, her arm in a sling so she can’t hold a rifle. For a Shark, that must be infuriating. Meadow Newman stands stiff and pale. Her shirt hides her bandages, but I remember the silver barb that hit her in the shoulder.

Her fellow Cephalopod Robbie Barr leans on a crutch, his right leg in a gel cast from his encounter with a Leyden harpoon.He wipes his nose with a cloth handkerchief. He’s not crying, he’s just famous for his many allergies. Even on the open sea, he can find something that makes him sneeze.

‘This alt-tech …’ Robbie squints sideways at me. ‘You’re saying it was HP’s mission all along to safeguard this stuff. And none of us were told. Not even you?’

‘Not even me,’ I confirm. ‘Until yesterday, I knew nothing.’

I try not to let my eyes drift to Ester. I’m pretty sure she knew more than she was allowed to say, but I don’t want to put her on the spot in front of everybody.

Cooper Dunne hefts his new Leyden pistol. ‘And there are more surprises like this at the secret base?’

Cooper’s leg is still bandaged from the harpoon wound yesterday, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. If anything, he sounds anxious for a rematch with LI – preferably with bigger guns on our side next time.

‘Hewett said that Leyden weapons were the simple stuff,’ I recall. ‘He claimed Nemo’s most complicated tech is stillwaybeyond our best science. Our trials this weekend were supposed to be our first introduction.’

More grumbling in the ranks. Ah, yes, the good old days of twenty-four hours ago, when our biggest worry was passing the trials and staying at HP.

Tia Romero tugs at her corkscrew hair. ‘So the upperclassmen, even the sophomores … they knew all about this stuff, and they never breathed a word.’

I can tell nobody likes the idea that the sophomores had important inside information. The tenth-graders were the worst.

On the other hand, the secret of alt-tech does explain why they always looked at us so smugly. A lot of things make sense now. The tight security around Verne Hall. The armed guards. The gold-level crates.

I still can’t believe Dev kept all these secrets from me …about our family heritage, and especially about the circumstances of our parents’ death. The more I think about it, though, the less angry I am. It just makes me sad that Dev had to carry that weight alone. I wish I could have helped him. Now he’s gone …

‘We can’t let them have it.’ Brigid Salter’s voice draws me out of my thoughts. She still looks shaky, like she’s emerged from a three-day bout with the flu, but her expression is hard as iron. ‘This base. It might be all we have left of HP. We can’t let Land Institute take it. Or you, Ana … We can’t let them have you, either.’

I get a lump in my throat. It would be so easy for Brigid, forallmy classmates, to blame me for what has happened, given the fact thatI’mthe one Land Institute is after. Instead, I can sense the anger rippling through the group, and that anger isn’t directed at me.

‘I call for a vote,’ Gem announces. ‘I say we give Ana command. We follow her orders, work together and find this base. Then we make Land Institute pay for what they’ve done. All in favour?’

The vote is unanimous. Everybody raises a hand except Top, and I like to think I have his moral support.

I swallow the metallic taste of fear. I’ve just been made acting captain of a ship with a crew of twenty freshmen, a dog, a dolphin and one comatose adult.

I do not want that responsibility. Just because I’m descended from Nemo does not mean I’m captain material. But my classmates need someone to rally behind, someone who will bring them better fortunes. God help them, they’ve decided that someone is me. For them, for our lost friends and especially for Dev, I have to try.

‘I won’t let you down.’

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