The sub must still be up there, hunting for us.
It has been a full day.
The reactor and electric generators have been brought back online, but the air is running out. The oxygen generator must have been damaged. The rest of the scrubbers must have shut down.
My throat burns.
Every breath is tight. Each gasp filled with smoke and oil fume and poison.
The berthing compartment is full with my fellow brothers, sleeping or trying to sleep, or gasping for breath in their bunks.
But I’m listening. Ear to the hull. Listening to that lonely strain reaching through the depths.
One whale is singing. Yes, just one.
“What are you looking for, Brother Whale?” I whisper. “Your friend? Has he been taken from you? Your family? Were they put somewhere far away? Is there a deep dark even too deep for you?”
It is a sad song. I hear the bend, the strain. I sing softly with it, with broken voice. I follow its odd, unearthly melody. My voice wants to sing with it, to let it teach me.
A song of mourning for little Caleb. For all of us.
I wonder if Lazlo has been injured in this attack. And what of Adolphine?
It strikes me that now might just be the best time to check on her, when all are silent.
“It was the Liánméng,” Adolphine whispers weakly through the grate. “Would recognize the scream of their torpedoes anywhere. The Chinese have been using old Soviet ordnance since the end of the war. They might have intercepted our transmission.”
“I thought you said it was a code I was transmitting… a secret code.”
“Even if they couldn’t read the code, they could have triangulated our position. But yes… they may have cracked it.”
“Then Caleb’s death is my fault…”
“Caleb?” She asks. I hear her every breath. Strained, like mine.
“A Chorister. Like me. Killed during the attack. He was… very young,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Adolphine says. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s my fault.”
I swallow, take in a slow breath. “I’m beginning to think… in trying to survive, we might accidentally kill more people. That sub might be waiting for us at the coordinates I transmitted. Waiting to destroy us…”
“We can’t know, Remy…”
“Why would they be after us in the first place?”
“They’ve been hunting you for years. This boat is a threat to either side. Plus, they might want what you have.”
“The Last Judgment?”
Her silence confirms it.
“Why?” I ask.
“There aren’t any nukes left. Not after the wars. At least, none that aren’t sitting in irradiated territories. It would be a commodity—” She stifles a cough. “A way to secure their power. We’ll be sailing into Australian waters soon,” she says thoughtfully. “They might not follow, risk causing an incident with the ceasefire…”
“I heard… on the radio, when I sent the message,” I say. “Australia will officially surrender in a few days. They said they weren’t sure about Guam.”
No word for a moment. “Peace, then.”
She should sound happier than she does. “Isn’t that a good thing?” I ask. “Isn’t that what the world has been waiting for?”
“Yes, of course. But peace on equal terms. If Australia gives in, rolls over, then the Liánméng will be the world’s superpower. Communists.” She coughs again. “This air tastes bad.”
“We’ll have to surface soon,” I say.
“It won’t be soon enough. This CO2 buildup is getting poisonous,” she says. I think she must be lying down, by the sleepiness in her voice.
“I think I should get rid of the key,” I say, feeling the hard metal pressing into my chest. “As long as I have it, the caplain could still get his hands on it.”
“No,” she says sharply. “No, don’t do that.”
“But even if we survive until we get to the launch location, what if our plan fails?” I ask. “What if we can’t take the engine room?”
“Then you keep it in order to trade your life for it.”
Or Lazlo’s.
“It’s more valuable than you, than me, than anyone else to Marston. Let him launch.”
“But… what about Sydney?” I ask.
“I’ve almost fixed the missile—it will launch, but I’ve found a way to reprogram the targeting computer. Even if Marston does get the key, the missile will launch into the sea. The middle of nowhere. Where it can’t hurt anyone. No, that key is power, Remy. You keep it. Don’t let anything happen to it until we’re safely off this boat.”
“Assuming we survive this—that we make it to the Arafura Sea, and the enemy hasn’t tracked us…”
Silence. No comforting word.
“Do you think the Coalition will be there? That they even heard us?” I ask.
“They received the message,” Adolphine says. “But they might not make it in time. Might not be any ships in the area. Should be two days until we reach it now. Maybe three, once we’re under way again.”
“I heard Brother Roberts say we’re just west of New Caledonia.”
“Okay, that’s two days away from our launch location, based on the Leviathan’s pace.”
Two.
Two more days.
“Remy,” Adolphine says, her tone one of caution now. “If the plan doesn’t work, like you said… if we can’t force the boat to surface, I’d like for you to promise me that you’ll try to escape. Regardless.”
“How…”
“If we’re close enough to the surface, you can ditch… escape through the trunk. Did you ever train on that? Most submariners have.”
“No. But… Brother Calvert told me about it.”
Ditching. Swimming out from the cold depths. That darkness. It puts a chill in me, just thinking about it.
“But it won’t come to that,” I say.
“Like you said, we might not be able to take the engine room, or something… something might just go wrong. Just… survive, okay, Remy? Try.”
Her tone makes me feel worse, not better.
“Promise me?” Adolphine presses.
“Okay… I promise. But I’m not going without Lazlo…”
“Look out for yourself, girl!” Adolphine hisses, almost angry. “Would he risk his life for you?”
“I know he would,” I respond, equally as sharp.
This silences her for a time. I hear her labored breathing.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “I am tired. They aren’t letting me sleep.”
“I… I understand.”
The boat groans suddenly. The bilge water sloshes past my feet, toward aft.
“We’re rising,” I whisper, heart lurching.
“Thank goodness,” Adolphine sighs. “Air.”
“I should go. I’ll try to come back soon,” I say. “But I think I’m being watched…”
“Then don’t risk it. Follow the plan. You’ll know when it’s time to come for me. When we surface again. When we arrive at the launch location. Two days.”
“Yes, two days,” I say, my hand reaching for the hard piece of metal still tucked in my bindings, pressed against my chest.
Between my own collection, and Lazlo’s and Caleb’s, I count forty-six teeth in total, spread out on my bunk. Molars and eye teeth and incisors. Some yellowed, some pipped, but most clean, cream-colored. I wonder if anyone else has gathered so many. I sweep them into a darned wool sock, and, by wicklight, when others are bunked down for second sleep, I write my message with lampblack ink on the very last of the sheaves of scrap parchment Caplain Amita gave to me.
Lazlo,
You were right. About everything. Caplain will try to launch the Last Judgment soon, but we have a plan to stop it. We will need your help. In two days, be ready.