Icebreaker (29 page)

For most of her life, she had survived by pretending to be witless. Shipfolk had called her Nothing Girl, and believed that she couldn't talk. Then the Devouts had attacked, and Petrel had spoken up at last, to save the
Oyster.

Since then, she had grown used to speaking her mind, to proving over and over again (to herself as much as anyone else) that she was
not
Nothing. But that was on the ship where everything was as familiar and comforting as her own two hands.

This was different. This was
land,
and these villagers were strangers. She already felt out of place.
What if they take one look at me and decide I'm not worth talking to?

To take her mind off such an ugly possibility, she whispered to Fin, “Wouldn't it be good if your mam was right here, in the first place we stopped?”

“She will not be,” said Fin. “Look! There are the cottages!”

“They're small,” said Petrel.

“And
dirty
!” Fin sounded shocked. “I knew people's lives were hard, but I had forgotten—”

He broke off, and they all stared in dismay at the little settlement. The cottages were made of earth and reeds, with more reeds for the roofs. Most of them leaned one way or the other, and the ones that didn't lean slumped in the middle as if they could no longer be bothered to stand upright. The snow between them had turned to sludge and, in some places, it was hard to tell where the houses ended and the muddy ground began.

“Is this the place you were thinking of, Cap'n?” murmured Krill. “It don't look prosperous to me!”

Petrel thought she saw movement, but when she jerked around, there was just a scrap of filthy curtain trembling over a glassless window. “Where's all the people?” she whispered.

“Watchin' us,” said Mister Smoke, from her right shoulder.

“Scared,” said Missus Slink, from her left.

They're not the only ones,
thought Petrel.
Blizzards, I wish I was back on the ship!

“Come,” said the captain, and they waded through the mud to what seemed like the middle of the village. Krill looked relaxed, except for the muscles in his neck, which were as taut as staywires. Fin eyed the mean little cottages with a mixture of fascination and disgust.

They saw no one.

“Don't reckon they want to talk to us,” whispered Petrel. “We might as well go—” Her whisper turned to a yelp as a rock flew out of nowhere and hit her on the leg.

Her instinct, honed by years of survival, told her to run for her life. But Fin grabbed her hand, and the captain stepped forward and cried, “We do not mean you any harm!”

A whisper came from one of the cottages. “Go away!” A man, from the sound of it, not wanting to be heard by his fellow villagers.

“We wish to help you,” cried the captain. “We will teach you how to build a water pump so you do not have to carry—”

Another rock splashed into the mud by his foot. “Scat, the lot of yez!”

Somewhere, a baby started to wail, and was instantly silenced. The air was sour with fear.

Petrel swallowed. More than anything else, she wanted to be back on the ship. “Let's go,” she whispered.

But the captain did not move. He raised his voice again. “We are also searching for a Song—”

“Scat!” hissed the man, a third time.

At which Fin suddenly lost his temper. “Is that all you can say?” he shouted. “You ignorant peasant!”

“Shhh!” said Krill.

But Fin wouldn't be silenced. “We came here to help you, and you will not even—”

A woman's voice interrupted him. “Our beloved leaders, the Devouts, are on their way.” Unlike the man, she spoke loudly and carefully, as if she had tested each word beforehand to see how it would sound. “They will be here shortly after midday. They are always interested in travelers; you must wait and speak to them.”

That stopped Fin in his tracks. “Let's go!” urged Petrel again. And this time, the captain listened to her.

“D'you reckon they'll tell the Devouts about us?” she asked when they reached the headland at last. She felt horribly exposed standing there in the open, with the hostile land at her back.

“Course they will,” said Krill. “Didn't you hear what the woman said? She was warning us, which was right kind of her. Especially after the way a
certain person
spoke to 'em.”

Fin reddened. “I—I did not mean to shout. But they
are
ignorant. That is the truth.”

“They're scared,” said Krill severely, “and with good reason, from the sound of it. And if they're ignorant as well, who made 'em that way, hmm? The Devouts, that's who. Seems to me you're in no position to go around shouting insults at folk, lad.”

Fin was a proud boy, and Petrel knew that apologies did not come easily to him. But he swallowed and said, “You are right. I am—sorry.”

Krill glared at him for a moment longer, then softened. “Ah, you're not doing too badly, considering where you came from.”

“It is not long till noon,” said the captain. “By the time the Devouts arrive, we will be gone.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the village. “But I wish the people had liked us more. How are we to help them if they will not talk to us? How are we to find the Song?”

“Look at it this way, Cap'n,” said Krill. “We mightn't have got any further with the song or the water pumps, but those poor folk told us more by their silence than they could've done with a thousand words. We've got a huge task ahead of us.”

That stopped the conversation dead, and they waited for the
Maw
in silence, staring out over the water. Petrel kicked at a rock, wishing Skua would hurry up and take her back to the ship, where she belonged.

Noon came and went.

“D'you think he's forgotten us?” asked Petrel after a while. She shaded her eyes with her hand. “Can you see any sign of him, Mister Smoke? Look, over there, is the water moving?”

“That's the tide, shipmate,” said the rat. “It's on the turn.”

Petrel made herself wait another few minutes, then said, “He should be here by now. We'd best remind him.” She took the telegraph device from her bag. “How does this thing work, Cap'n?”

“It is quite simple,” said the captain, sounding pleased that she had asked. “I took a spark gap transmitter and changed the—”

“Sorry, Cap'n. I'm sure that's really interesting, but it's not what I meant. How do I
use
it?”

“Oh,” said the captain. “It is like banging on the pipes. You tap the key, and it sends that same tapping to the device on the bridge.”

“Dolph'll be on duty by now,” said Krill. “Ask her what's happening.”

But before Petrel could begin, the telegraph key began to move by itself, clicking out a message in general ship code.

At first, Petrel thought it must be a joke. She looked at Krill and he was obviously thinking the same thing. But then his smile died. Because Third Officer Dolph would never joke about something as serious as—

“Mutiny!” whispered Petrel. The word tasted so foul in her mouth that she could hardly continue. But Fin didn't understand general ship code, not when it was rattled out fast, so she had to translate the whole message, stumbling over the dreadful meaning of it.

“Albie's locked the First and Second Officers in their cabins and taken over the ship!”

“What?”
said Fin.

“He told everyone that—that Skua came to fetch us—but we were dead—murdered on the rocks and—and the cap'n smashed to smithereens!”

“But that is not true!” said the captain. “I am not smashed. Why would he say it if it is not true?”

The tapping continued. Petrel felt sick. “Albie's saying we should never have left the ice in the first place, and—and he's demanding that the
Oyster
goes south again!”

Krill roared like a wounded sea lion. But the captain said, “Why would he
do
that? It is not logical.”

Petrel thought of Albie's uncharacteristic helpfulness, and Skua's smirk. She thought of all she knew about the Chief Engineer, from a lifetime of hiding from him. “Reckon he prefers the way things
used
to be on the
Oyster,
Cap'n,” she whispered. “With the payback and the treachery, and everyone being scared of him. Since you woke up, he's had to take orders, and he's not an order-taking sort of man.” She stared blindly at the telegraph. “I
knew
he wasn't to be trusted. I did! I should've seen this coming!”

Small paws patted her shoulder. “So should we all,” said Missus Slink. “But we didn't—”

“Hush, there is more!” said Fin, as the telegraph began to click again. “What is it saying?”

Petrel listened. The thought of the
Oyster
sailing south without them filled her with such horror that it was hard to concentrate. But the next bit of news was not quite so bad. “Dolph and Squid and a few others have—have barricaded themselves—on the bridge. They've got a bit of food and water—which means—which means Albie
can't
go south! Not yet anyway—cos they control the steering—”

The tapping stopped abruptly. Petrel shook the device, but there was no further sound from it. Quickly, she sent a return message, begging Dolph not to go south without them—
please
not to leave without them! But there was no reply.

“Cap'n,” she said, thrusting the device into his hands, “it ain't working! I think your spark thing's broken!”

The captain inspected the device, then shook his head. “There is nothing wrong with it. The fault must lie at the other end, on the
Oyster.
A loose wire, that is all it would take.”

“So, did Dolph get my message?” asked Petrel.

“Probably not,” replied the captain.

Petrel stared at her companions, and they stared back. Krill looked as if he was going to explode. Fin's face was deathly white. Even the captain seemed dumbfounded.

“Then, we're stranded,” whispered Petrel. And suddenly, the countryside around her looked more hostile than ever. “We're stranded, and the Devouts are coming.”

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I hoped to go to Antarctica while I was writing
Icebreaker,
but never made it. As a result, I was more than usually dependent on asking endless questions. Many thanks to the following people.

Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff of the University of Tasmania School of Plant Science, for helping me work out how the
Oyster
might be powered; Gwyneth Tanner, for a first-person account of dogsledding; Katherine Scholes, for the loan of her Antarctic photos; Captain Simon Estella, for arranging my tour of the icebreaker
Aurora Australis
; Murray Doyle, Ship's Master, for the guided tour of
Aurora Australis,
and for helping me work out some of Petrel's hidey-holes; Firefighter Andrew Mackey, for reminding me that water pumped into a ship must also be pumped out; Gosta Blichfeldt, for reading the manuscript and explaining how engines, digesters, and wind turbines might work together; and Professor Pat Quilty, ex-ANARE Chief Scientist, for information about seasonal events and weather.

For editorial advice and guidance, I owe thanks to Eva Mills and Susannah Chambers at Allen & Unwin, Jill Grinberg and Katelyn Detweiler at Jill Grinberg Literary Management, Liz Szabla at Feiwel and Friends and the redoubtable Peter Matheson.

My deep and sincere thanks to the fine people at Feiwel and Friends for giving
Icebreaker
a home in the U.S. My particular thanks to Editor in Chief Liz Szabla, who has proved a pleasure to work with, and to Senior Creative Director Rich Deas, for designing what has to be the best book cover ever.

And finally, thanks as always to my most excellent agents, Jill Grinberg in the U.S., and Margaret Connolly in Australia.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lian Tanner
is the author of the Keepers trilogy (Museum of Thieves, City of Lies, Path of Beasts), winner of numerous awards around the world, including the Aurealis Award for Children's Fiction. She lives in Australia. You can sign up for email updates
here
.