Page 53 of Daughter of the Deep

‘Yes, well …’ Ophelia peers over the top of her glasses. ‘Harding and Pencroft may have stretched the truth a bit when they spoke to Jules Verne. Adventurers and treasure hunters were less likely to search for the island if they believed it had been obliterated.’

‘So the book lied.’ Ester sounds offended, as if her meticulous note cards have betrayed her. ‘That explains …’

She stops herself. In the dim overhead light of the corridor, her skin looks like stressed coral, slowly losing its healthy pink.

‘Whatisthat metal?’ Nelinha asks our host. ‘It isn’t steel or brass. It doesn’t seem to corrode.’

‘Ingenious, isn’t it?’ Ophelia agrees. ‘For lack of a better term, we call it nemonium. We still have not managed to re-create the alloy, though we can work with it and repurpose old pieces for our own alt-tech. As far as we can tell …’

She launches into a detailed analysis of nemonium’s tensile strength, malleability and density that I’m sure several people in the world could understand, one of them being Nelinha. Meanwhile, I turn to Ester and whisper, ‘You okay?’

She chews her thumb. I resist the urge to pull her hand away from her mouth.

‘Just be careful inside,’ she says. ‘I think it would help if you talk to it first.’

I’m not sure I understand her. One of the problems with beingmultilingual is that sometimes you second-guess yourself about the meanings of words. Did Ester saytalk to it? Isn’tita neutral pronoun in English? Isn’t that the language we’re speaking?

I start to say, ‘Talk to –?’

‘Ana,’ Ophelia interrupts. ‘Would you do the honours?’

She gestures to the vault door. It has a massive round gear plate in the middle, with pistons radiating outwards like the spokes of a ship’s wheel. In the centre of the gear plate, where the wheel’s spindle hole would be, is a hemisphere of nemonium, the same size as the DNA-reader I used on Dr Hewett’s nautical map.

‘Me?’ I ask, as if she might be talking to some other Ana.

‘Well, Icoulddo it.’ From her pocket, Ophelia fishes what looks like a metal security card. ‘We were able to jury-rig the lock after your father first opened it. But since it’s already keyed to your DNA …’

She waits. I don’t know if she’s testing me or letting me test myself. I think about the unpleasantly warm electrical current that went up my arm the last time I touched a Nemo DNA-reader. Then I think about my dream of drowning – the hopeless feeling of terror as Dev reached out for me and seawater filled my lungs. I am the last Dakkar.

I press my hand against the spindle-wheel lock. The metal doesn’t shock me. The central plate rotates. Pistons retract. Air hisses around the edges of the door like I’ve broken a vacuum seal. The door itself doesn’t move, but I suspect that if I pushed it now, it would swing open easily.

Ophelia raises her hand in caution. ‘Before we proceed … Please remain calm when we get inside. It’s best to avoid sudden movements and loud noises. Especially you, Ana. Approaching theNautilusshould be quite safe. Luca and I are in and out of this cavern on a daily basis, and we’ve had no mishaps.’

Mishaps.The term seems like quite an egregious understatement, considering my parents died because of theNautilus.

‘But you’re still worried,’ I note. ‘Because I’m the first Dakkar to approach the sub since … since the accident.’

Ophelia’s barbed-wire braids glisten in the dim light. ‘We’ve been working for two years to clean and repair the submarine’s systems as best we could.’

‘Hold on,’ Nelinha says. ‘You’ve beenon board? It’s still got systems left toclean?’

‘It’s easiest to show you,’ Ophelia says. ‘Most of the sub’s higher functions are dormant because … well, operating them requires a living Dakkar. What happened with Tarun and Sita was most likely a malfunction, a misunderstanding. Still, we can’t be sure –’

‘Amisunderstanding?’ I don’t mean to shout, but she’s talking about my parents’ deaths. I don’t feel like remaining calm.

Ophelia grimaces. She faces Ester.

‘Would you like to explain, my dear?’ Ophelia says. ‘I can tell you’ve figured it out.’

Ester picks at her blouse. ‘Ana, like I said, your parents’ death wasn’t an accident. The submarine killed them. I’m so sorry.’

My legs turn wobbly. ‘You make it sound like it was on purpose.’

‘It must have been angry,’ Ester says. ‘It had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a hundred and fifty years. Nemo abandoned it.’

‘Nemo died inside it,’ Ophelia says grimly.

‘Even worse,’ Ester says. ‘It didn’t have anyone to maintain its systems.’

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