Next to emerge were baskets of the kind of loot the Volpeks had been busy with ashore. These were handed up into a separate cage on the shorebound side of the pulley system. Then it was the newcomers' turn.
The bald Volpek climbed down the outside of their cage. 'Stand back!' he cried, and kicked the trapdoor open with his foot. A man tossed him the end of another rope ladder. It ended in a pair of short ropes, and these he tied swiftly to the bars of the cage. Then, 'Down! Down!' he cried. 'Don't make me step on your fingers!'
Down they went, swaying and lurching. Pazel saw now that at the bottom of the bathysphere was a lidless hole some eight feet across. On deck the prisoners huddled together. None of those who had come from the bathysphere had yet stood up.
The Volpeks formed them into a line, toes to the edge of the dive portal. The last baskets were lowered from the sphere, and yet another ladder followed.
'Climb,' they said.
Up again, into the dark mouth of the bathysphere. As Pazel stuck his head and shoulders through the hole he felt strong hands seize him by the arms. Two mighty Volpeks, wearing only loincloths and knives, pulled him up into the metallic gloom. It was clammy and cold. A bad echo distorted every sound. There were nets strung along the walls, climbing-cleats, benches high overhead. From the apex of the sphere hung an assortment of pulleys and coiled ropes.
Soon all the captives were seated inside. Each was handed a rope-end with the promised sack, ring and hook. The sacks had small holes to let the water through, drawstrings for sealing them tight. Pazel saw Marila slide a hand through her ring and push it up to her elbow. She caught his eye.
'This way… can't drop it,' she seemed to be saying (the echo made it hard to be sure). 'Lose your rope… never get back… all that weed.'
'Stop talking!' bellowed their captors, who made themselves understandable by sheer volume. 'HOLD ON TO THE CLEATS!'
The sphere gave a little jerk, like a puppet on a string. And then it plunged. The sea appeared to leap straight up. There was a deafening boom, and water boiled to their ankles before being checked by the stoppered air. Through the windows they saw the walls of the dive portal, then the bottom of the sea barge and a dark blue-green immensity below. It was abruptly quiet. The captives gripped the cleats in trembling fists. The water in the sphere began to rise.
'Swallow!' said Marila. 'Over and over! Stretch your mouth wide or your ears will break!'
She demonstrated. Pazel copied her, and saw that Neeps and the others were doing the same. The air was indeed growing heavy pressing in on Pazel's ears and nose and chest. The water passed their shins.
Neeps was frowning, concentrating. In fact everyone was: even Mintu had decided there was no use in tears. Pazel looked out through the windows again. Nothing but blue water-and then, like green flames all around them, the weed.
Ribbon kelp was the perfect name. The weed rose straight and thick, just inches between one flat frond and another. Pazel was surprised how delicate it looked, and how lovely. It glowed in the midday sun, but because it grew so straight the rays pierced the narrow gaps in long splinters of light. Small fish and tiny translucent shrimp darted everywhere. Yard after gentle yard spooled out before his eyes.
Sudden cold: the water had reached his waist.
'SWIM UP TO THE BENCHES!' roared the Volpeks. 'DON'T DROP YOUR BLARY ROPES!'
When over half the sphere had filled with water, and all the youths were huddled on the benches, their descent stopped. Pazel looked down through the bathysphere's open mouth: was that sand, thirty or forty feet below?
He had little time to wonder. His captors were screaming again. 'STAY CLOSE TO YOUR MATES, BUT NOT TOO CLOSE. IF YOUR LINES CROSS EVERYBODY DROWNS.'
With those words a Volpek handed Mintu a dark stone. The boy nearly dropped it, startled by its weight, and Pazel realized it was a lead sinker. Then the Volpek grabbed Mintu's arm, yanked him from the bench and dropped him. Rope trailing, eyes fixed on his sister, he vanished below.
Marila did not wait to be yanked. She grabbed another sinker and pushed off from her bench. Seconds later she too was gone. Neeps looked Pazel in the eye.
'Right,' he said, feeling above him for a sinker, 'let's get this over with.' And he jumped as well.
Pazel had thought himself scared all along, but now he realized his fear had scarcely begun. His heart raced. Couldn't he just sit here quietly? There were six other divers. Maybe he would be picked last. Maybe someone would find the Wolf quickly and he'd never have to dive at all.
But Neeps and Marila and Mintu were already below. He could never face them-face Thasha-if he crouched there, hoping to be spared. He coiled the rope over his shoulder. Do it now or the fear will stop you. He picked up a sinker. He took a last, huge breath and jumped.
Suddenly events (or his mind, or both) sped up. The sinker dragged him straight down through the mouth of the sphere. The kelp engulfed him, the sandy bottom rushed upward. Where was the wreck? He was spinning, helpless, the rope scraping his arm. He would not even find the Lythra, let alone any part of her cargo, before his breath ran out.
Darkness-pitch darkness! He looked up in terror. Had he fallen into a cave? Then, just as suddenly, the light returned and he saw what had occurred. A surge of current had bent the kelp over, like prairie grass in the wind. Strand against strand, it had blotted out the sun. As soon as the surge passed it straightened, and the light flooded down.
It happened again. Darkness, light. Why hadn't anyone warned them?
Then, forty feet under the bathysphere, he saw it: a great black timber on the seabed. It was weed-wrapped and barnacle-chewed, but unmistakably a sternpost. Pazel dropped the sinker and swam for it. There, and there! Other divers' ropes, vanishing in the weeds. He kept his distance. His lungs were aching already. The timber pointed like a finger through an opening in the kelp, and as Pazel kicked through the gap, an awe-inspiring vision met his eyes.
The Lythra sprawled before him, cracked open like an eggshell. But no-it was just the stern half, snagged on a jagged rock. It was as if monstrous hands had torn the ship in two. But where had the bow section gone?
Darkness, light. He could see Neeps, swimming low beside the wreck, his eyes scanning this way and that. Pazel followed, and in a moment his fingers touched the hull. A gunport lay open before him. Inside, a crusted lump, the cannon. He was almost out of breath.
Darkness.
He put his hand through the gunport, feeling.
Something moved. Pazel let out a mouthful of bubbles. It was a leathery creature, and it shot away from him into the depths of the ruined gun deck.
Light.
Fish or shark or otherwise, it was gone-and so was Pazel's breath. He flailed for his rope. He had waited too long, couldn't possibly make it back. He gave three tugs.
All he recalled of his rescue by the Volpeks was the slap of weeds against every part of his body. When he entered the sphere, hands reached down and tore kelp in bunches away from his face.
'Spit out the weeds!'
He spat out the weeds. The men propped him on a bench just out of the water, where he gagged and wretched. They looked in his empty bag and frowned.
'Next time, start swimming the minute you jump.'
Next time? Pazel thought he'd be ready in about a week. Lying stunned on his bench, he saw Marila sitting across the sphere, watching him with those unreadable eyes. Mintu lay beside her, looking ill. The weed-darkness fell on them again, and when it passed the men had a writhing ball of kelp between them. Neeps. He blew a mouthful of water in a Volpek's face.
'Creatures!' he gagged. 'Strange creatures… murths!'
'There are no Murths in the quiet sea!'
More divers were hauled in. One had tied a whole sea chest up in his rope. Another held up a cast-iron skillet, which a Volpek tossed angrily back into the water.
Two boys did not return at all. The men hauled in their ropes and found only weeds attached to the hook and ring. Nothing had broken. It was as if they had simply let go.
