Daughter of the Deep: Chapters 33–46

Then again, I’ve spent enough time with Nelinha to know that Cephalopods get tunnel vision when they’re working on things that intrigue them. And nothing could be more intriguing than the Nautilus.

She reads aloud the fancy calligraphy on each engraved bronze label: “Vector thrusters. Dynamic positioning. Recursive ballast control? Oh, this is incredible! Nautilus, I love you!”

She reads aloud the fancy calligraphy on each engraved bronze label: “Vector thrusters. Dynamic positioning. Recursive ballast control? Oh, this is incredible! Nautilus, I love you!”

One of Ester’s many superpowers: She is impervious to sarcasm.

The sound shakes the floor and rattles my eye sockets: a deep, resonant low E-flat, held for a whole note.

The bulging metal-laced domes provide a wide view of the cavern outside, making me feel like I’m in an aquatic conservatory...or maybe a fish tank.

“As near as we can figure out, the material is a transparent iron polymer created at extreme temperature and pressure.”

“Ana, my dear, I am sorry. My husband has no sense of propriety.”

The seat’s upholstery appears to be gleaming black leather.

I trace my fingers across the supple leather seatback.

Your future depends on many skills, I remember my father saying, including the keyboard.
I’d never understood that. I just chalked it up as yet another of our parents’ strange and inscrutable commandments.

But now that I know about the Nautilus, I wonder if Dev was secretly chafing about those extra four years of waiting.

I decide to try Bach’s Fugue in D Minor.

Played at a slow pace, it’s also plaintive and sad, and the composition is so old Nemo might have known it.

“Ana Dakkar,” Luca says in a reverent tone, “today is going to be a wonderful day.”

He still looks too pale, his skin almost translucent, but some of the jaundiced yellow seems to have faded around his neck and cheekbones.

I wonder what Nemo would tell me. Did he die aboard his ship because he loved it so much, or because it became his personal prison? Thankfully, I don’t get much time to brood.

On the bottom level of the sub (there are three levels total), we find a shuttle bay with a smaller mini sub nested inside. “That’s the skiff,” Ophelia informs me.

Socrates is nowhere to be seen. In fact, the lagoon seems devoid of any dolphins. This doesn’t help my sense of foreboding.

The starboard deluge falls harmlessly into the lake, but the port-side spray soaks all of us from head to foot.

She gives each house a different assignment: Sharks to check the island’s defensive grid; Cephalopods to send out drone reconnaissance; Orcas to monitor communications and LOCUS; Dolphins to sweep the Varuna one more time for tracking devices.

Ana, the tunnel from this cavern emerges south of the atoll, directly opposite the Aronnax’s approach vector.

You can take Jupiter on board, however. He will enjoy the adventure, and he’s quite familiar with the sub’s galley.

“Course corrections at your discretion.”

As we saw on Dr. Hewett’s fuzzy drone footage, the ship is shaped like an arrowhead—as if Land Institute retrofitted a stealth bomber for underwater use.

Caleb’s tirade continues at a lower volume: “All we want is the Nautilus and Ana Dakkar. None of you will be harmed. We’ll treat you better than you treated me.”

The island’s defenses continue to fire, trying to draw the Aronnax's attention. Our enemy ignores the barrage.

My instructor took me below a hundred feet with regular air tanks, just to show me what “rapture of the deep” felt like.

Nelinha’s voice breaks through my stupor.

White curlicues of smoke wreath my mother’s pearl.

An acrid tang fills the back of my mouth. I’m not sure if it’s from the melting tracker or the bitterness welling up in my throat.

His tone is intimate and pleading, just for me.

You’re a bunch of freshmen on a derelict ship you don’t understand.

My headache is generating an explosive yield of about fifty megatons.

I add super-cavitation drive to the list of reasons why Land Institute wants this “piece of junk” submarine so badly. That kind of proprietary technology could turn the world upside down.

“Our course and bearing were pretty obvious. If the Aronnax has a cav-drive, they should have been able to follow us. Since they haven’t shown up yet, I think we can assume we have the advantage there.”

But I sense no discomfort in the crew: no furtive glances, no squirming in seats.

I defer to Lee-Ann.

I get the feeling she’s not just talking about his cold-fusion engine, or his cav-drive, or his copious reservoir of seaweed slime.

Against the far wall is a pallet of gold bricks. There’s even a shelf with half a dozen crowns, each of which looks like it might have been ripped from the head of some nineteenth-century monarch. All in all, the room reminds me of a bizarre supply store.