Arthur looked into the chamber. The red line was about four inches from the top. He would have to crouch a bit and keep his head back to have his face out of the water for that last breath. The hatch was big enough for him to fit through without a problem.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Get in. Pull yellow handle. Wait till the water reaches the red line. Take a breath. Pull red handle. Swim out.’
‘That’s it, sir,’ said Watkingle.
‘I’ll swim to the door and go through,’ Arthur told Suzy. ‘I’ll meet you on the other side.’
‘This looks like fun,’ said Suzy. She rubbed her hands together and added, ‘Sure I can’t go first?’
‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘As in ‘no, you can’t go first.’ I guess we’d better put on our disguises now.’
He tied on the rat nose and fixed the tail. When he looked around, Suzy was near his feet, already a rat. Arthur presumed he appeared to be a rat as well.
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
Suzy squeaked something back at him.
‘What?’ asked Arthur. Then the realization hit him: They looked and sounded like rats to each other as well as to everyone else.
Arthur lifted off his rat mask and unhitched his tail.
‘We won’t be able to talk to each other when we’re wearing these,’ he said. ‘So once we’re inside, follow me.’
Suzy squeaked, then was herself again, holding her rat nose.
‘Whatever you say,’ she said.
Before Arthur could make sure she really meant it, she’d turned back into a rat.
‘I mean it,’ said Arthur. ‘Follow . . . as in, stay behind me.’
He slipped the rat nose back on and refastened his tail, then stepped into the escape chamber. The door shut behind him and he heard a heavy bolt or latch sliding across.
Arthur rubbed his suddenly sweaty hands against his breeches, checked that the Atlas and Wednesday’s invitation were secure in his Immaterial Boot, and reached up to pull the yellow handle.
Water flowed in with shocking speed. It didn’t sting or dissolve his clothes, but it did smell very strongly of ozone. Arthur barely had time to register this and take a breath before the water hit the red line. It was up around his eyes before he even pulled the red handle. Instantly, the hatch above flicked open.
Arthur clumsily kicked the floor, favouring his bad leg, so that he didn’t get clear of the escape chamber in one go. He had to push against the wall till he rose up in a froth of bubbles from the small pocket of air that had been left, mixed with the atmosphere trapped under his clothes.
Orientating himself from the line of the submersible’s hull, Arthur struck out for where the door was supposed to be. The rainbow light from the dome was much brighter when seen directly, so for a moment Arthur couldn’t see the archway even from the corner of his eye. Panic started to rise in him, until he calmed himself with the simple thought that even if he didn’t find the door, all he had to do was rise to the surface. Though if he did that, it might be hard to dive back down again.
Then he saw the archway, a little bit to the left of where he thought it was. Arthur already felt as if he needed a breath, but he was used to that feeling. He kicked harder, feeling the strangeness of his crab-armoured leg, and scooped harder with his arm stroke.
The archway drew nearer. Looking down, Arthur saw that the layer of fine debris and muck below him contained many bones, broken skulls, and pieces of rusted chain. Evidence of the scores, possibly even hundreds, of slave salvagers who had either failed to return to Feverfew’s worldlet . . .
. . . Or who had been thrown out, to die in the belly of the Leviathan.
Twenty–four
ARTHUR REACHED THE DOORWAY. As he touched it, the rainbow colours drifted away, to be replaced by a featureless grey. Even more disturbingly, his hand went through it as if there was nothing there.
The boy didn’t stop. He kicked again, and went through the grey archway, to land sprawling on a wet stone floor.
‘What was that?’ asked a voice.
Arthur rolled over and sat up, ready to move. He saw that he was in a large, timber-walled room — more of a shed or barn really, since the far end was completely open and there was bright sunshine streaming in.
There were four Denizens sitting on a wild variety of chairs of different styles and eras, around a highly polished table that even to Arthur looked like a priceless antique. The Denizens were all dressed in flamboyant and ill-matching finery, mixing up everything from twentieth-century Earth military tunics to glittering, lumpy, alien-looking helmets. Every inch of their visible skin was tattooed, and they all had at least three knives in their belts, as well as short, pistol-grip crossbows on the floor next to their chairs.