AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hurry was the word of the hour, and they all obeyed it.
Cly stepped into the river on a small raft that’d been pushed into his path to use as a floating stepping-stone. He straddled the raft and the shore, the remarkable span of his legs stretching the distance. “Fang,” he said.
Fang took Cly’s hand, and, with barely a step upon the captain’s knee, reached the Ganymede’s hatch and opened it—so gently that it did not make even the quietest clank when he set it aside. Immediately behind him came Houjin, moving almost as fast, almost as easily. Fang took the boy’s elbow and tipped him inside, then followed him.
“Troost, your turn. ”
“Son of a bitch,” Troost grumbled, adjusting the match in his mouth, taking a deep breath, and lunging for the captain’s outstretched hand. He stumbled, caught himself—and Cly held him up, too, keeping him mostly out of the water—and then he was against the craft, clinging to it. He swung his leg over and crawled down the hatch.
“Early,” Cly called.
When Deaderick walked over, Wallace Mumler objected, saying, “Wait. No. You’re not healed up. Not yet. ”
“No one else knows that thing as well as I do. No one else knows it in and out, all the weapons systems and all the bailing systems. ”
“I do, almost,” Mumler argued. “And I know the electrics even better than you, I bet. ”
“Then you come, too, if you’re willing. The pair of us, me and you—and these fellows. We’ll get it down the river. Norman can take over your pole boat, can’t he? Norman?”
“I can take it, Rick. ”
“Good. Take Wally’s pole-craft, and you,” he said to Mumler, “get inside. Come on, if you’re coming. ”
Wallace looked at Ganymede, and looked at his leader. “All right, then. Me and you. ”
“Go in, get in. You’ll need less help than I will, with me in this shape. Not that it’s as bad as you think,” he added before Mumler could protest any further.
Cly came last. He leaned, stepped off the raft, and stuck to the side of Ganymede, hanging there. Before he climbed in, he looked over at the few assembled men who weren’t on lookout duty, and said, “We’re counting on you fellows, you know that, right? We can’t make this work without you. We’ll drown down here, if you don’t keep us moving. ”
Rucker Little, now essentially in charge along with Chester Fishwick, nodded from the bank. “We’re coming. We won’t let you scuttle her by accident, we can promise you that. You do your job; we’ll do ours. ”
Cly gave them a nod and a small parting salute as he flipped his leg over the hatch’s round entrance and disappeared down inside it.
He drew the lid shut behind him, settling it as tightly as he could against the seal, then drawing the wheel hard to the right to compress that seal, and lock them all dry inside. As he did so, he felt a strange vacuum settle and he recognized it—he knew it from years of gas masks sucking themselves into position against his face, and from the layers of filters and seals that preserved Seattle’s underground. He knew the feel of it, but here, somehow, it felt more sinister.
In the underground, up above there was only a street—only a city filled with poison air. But that poison air could be cleaned. No one would drown in the street. All it took was a mask to make the city navigable, never mind the rotters and the blinding clots of fog.
But not here.
Not in the water, where once the ship had been lowered, there was nothing above, nothing outside, nothing touching it but the suffocating weight of liquid.
In the previous days, it’d only been practice—only puttering around the lake and learning the controls. This was different. This was the Great Muddy, Old Man River. This was bigger, or at least longer. And maybe deeper, for all Cly knew. Definitely stronger, moving with its unrelenting current from somewhere up North to somewhere beyond the delta, meeting the ocean west of Florida.
He ducked down into the main body of the interior, where red, orange, and small gold lights flickered, brightening the interior, but not much. The dimness was necessary, for two reasons.
First, no one wanted any other craft to take notice of an odd glowing presence beneath the murky waves. And second, if the interior was too bright, the windows would be useless. It was very dark beyond the six-inch-thick glass, but with a small row of encouraging sunset-colored lights mounted externally beneath the watershield—beaming like a tentative smile—it was possible to spy the largest obstacles without being spotted from above.
They hoped.
They’d tested it out after dark on Pontchartrain, but the results had been inconclusive. The ship’s visibility depended on too many things—how many other craft were present, what other lights were bouncing, reflecting, shimmering on the surface. They all quietly prayed, or wished, or crossed their fingers inside their pockets … taking it on fervent faith that the small fleet of pontoons, airboats, and skiffs above could hide them.
“How’s it looking?” Cly asked, taking a sweeping assessment of the room.
Fang signed with one hand: All ready.
Deaderick Early was standing by the window, looking out into the swirling mud and dark, dirty water. Without turning around, he said, “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. ”
Cly said, “Then everyone needs to buckle down, if you can. We’re pushing out into the water, and we don’t know how hard the current’s going to take us. Early? I might recommend that you take a seat there at the window, so you can still serve as underwater lookout. We’re running low on chairs at the moment, but you’ve got handholds there. ”
