Infernal Devices

But when he reached the city’s edge, Caul did not stop, just hurried down a stairway that led onto the bare earth and started up the hill, sweeping the lantern beam ahead of him. Wren waited a moment, then followed, jumping down into the springy heather and creeping after him up the track that led to the humming drystone turbine house of old Mr. Scabious’s hydroelectricity plant. Caul did not stop there either, but kept going, climbing between the apple orchards and across the high pasture, into the woods.

At the top of the island, where the pines filled the air with the smell of resin and crags poked up through the thin turf like the spines on a dragon’s back, Caul stopped and turned his lantern off and looked around. Fifty feet behind him, Wren crouched among the crisscross shadows. A faint wind stirred her hair, and overhead the trees moved their small hands against the sky.

Caul looked down at the sleeping city nestled in the curve of the island’s southern shore. Then he turned his back on it, raised his lantern, and switched it on and off three times. He’s gone mad, thought Wren, and then, No—he’s signaling to someone, just like the wicked headmaster in Milly Crisp and the Twelfth Tier Mystery.

And sure enough, down among the empty, rocky bays of the north shore, another light flashed back an answer.

Caul moved on, and Wren began to follow him again, dropping down the steep northern flank of the island, out of sight of the city. Maybe he and Miss Freya had got back together and were too afraid of gossip to let anyone know? It was a romantic thought, and it made Wren smile to herself as she tracked Caul down the last precipitous stretch of sheep track, through a stand of birch trees, and out onto a beach between two headlands.

Miss Freya was not waiting for him. But someone was. A man was standing at the water’s edge, watching as Caul went crunching toward him down the shingle. Even from a distance, in the faint light of the Aurora, Wren could tell that he was someone she had never seen before.

At first she could not believe it. There were no strangers in Vineland. The only people here were those who had come here aboard Anchorage or been born here since, and Wren knew all of them. But the man on the shore was a stranger to her, and his voice, when he spoke, was a voice she had never heard.

“Caul, my old shipmate! Good to see you again.”

“Gargle,” said Caul, sounding uneasy, and not taking the hand that the stranger held out for him to shake.

They said more, but Wren was too busy wondering about the newcomer to listen. Who could he be? How had he come here? What did he want?

When the answer hit her, it was one she didn’t like. Lost Boys. That’s what they’d been called, the gang Caul had been part of, which had burgled Anchorage back in its ice-faring days with their strange, spidery machines. Caul had left them to come with Miss Freya and Mr. Scabious. Or had he? Had he been secretly in contact with the Lost Boys all these years, waiting until the city was settled and prosperous before he called them in to rob it again?

But the stranger on the beach wasn’t a boy. He was a grown man, with long, dark hair. He wore high boots, like a pirate in a storybook, and a coat that came down to his knees. He flicked the skirts of the coat back and stuck his thumbs through his belt, and Wren saw a gun in a holster at his side.

She knew that she was out of her depth. She wanted to run home and tell Mum and Dad of the danger. But the two men had wandered closer to her, and if she ran, she would be seen. She wriggled deeper into the low gorse bushes behind the beach, timing each movement to coincide with the rasp of the little waves breaking on the shingle.

The man called Gargle was speaking, sounding as if he were making some kind of joke, but Caul suddenly cut him off. “What have you come here for, Gargle? I thought I’d seen the last of Lost Boys. It was a bit of a shock to find your message under my door. How long have you been creeping around Anchorage?”

“Since yesterday,” said Gargle. “We just dropped by to say hello and see how you were doing, friendly- like.”

“Then why not show yourselves? Why not come and talk to me in daylight? Why leave messages and drag me out here in the middle of the night?”

“Honest, Caul, I wanted to. I’d planned to land my limpet on the mooring beach, all open and aboveboard, but I sent a few crab-cams in first, of course, just to be sure. Good thing I did, ain’t it? What’s happened, Caul? I thought you were going to be a big man in this place! Look at you: oily overalls and raggedy hair and a week’s worth of beard. Is the mad tramp look big in Anchorage this season? I thought you were going to marry their margravine, that Freya What’s-her-name.”

“Rasmussen,” said Caul unhappily. He turned away from the other man. “I thought so too. It didn’t work out, Gargle. It’s complicated. It’s not like you think it’s going to be when you just watch it through the crab-cameras. I never really fitted in here.”

“I should have thought the Drys would welcome you with open arms,” said Gargle, sounding shocked. “After you brung them that map and everything.”

Caul shrugged. “They were all kind enough. I just don’t fit. I don’t know how to talk to them, and talking’s important to the Drys. When Mr. Scabious was alive, it was all right. We worked together and we didn’t need to talk, we had the work instead of words. But now that he’s gone… What about you, anyway? And what about Uncle? How is Uncle?”

“Like you care!”

“I do. I think of him often. Is he—?”

“The old man’s still there, Caul,” said Gargle.

“Last time I spoke to you, you had plans to get rid of him, take over…”

“And I have taken over,” said Gargle, with a grin that Wren saw as a white blur in the dark. “Uncle’s not as sharp as he was. He never really got over that business at Rogues’ Roost. So many of his best boys lost, and all his fault. It nearly did him in, that. He relies on me for nearly everything nowadays. The boys look up to me.”

“I bet they do,” said Caul, and there was some meaning in his words that Wren couldn’t understand, as if they were picking up a conversation that they’d started long ago, before she was even born.

“You said you need my help,” said Caul.

“Just thought I’d ask,” said Gargle. “For old time’s sake.”

“What’s the plan?”

“There’s no plan, exactly.” Gargle sounded hurt. “Caul, I didn’t come here on a burgling mission. I don’t want to rob your nice Dry friends. I’m just after one thing, one little thing, a particular small thing that no one will miss. I’ve looked with the crab-cams, I’ve sent my best burglar in, but we can’t see it. So I thought, ‘What we need is a man on the inside.’ And here you are. I told my crew, ‘We can rely on Caul.’ ”

“Well, you were wrong,” said Caul. His voice was trembly. “I may not fit in here, but I’m not a Lost Boy either. Not anymore. I’m not going to help you rob Freya. I want you gone. I won’t tell anyone you were here, but I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open. If I hear a crab-cam nosing about, or see that something’s gone missing, I’ll let the Drys know all about you. I’ll make sure they’re waiting for you next time you come sneaking into Anchorage.”

He turned and strode up the beach, crashing through the gorse barely a foot from the place where Wren was hiding. She heard him fall and curse as he started up the hill, and then the sounds of his going growing fainter and fainter as he climbed. ” Caul !” called Gargle, but not too loud, a sort of whispering cry, with hurt in it, and disappointment. “Caul!” Then he gave up and stood still and pensive, running a hand through his hair.

Wren began to move, very carefully and quietly, getting ready for the moment when he would turn his back on her and she could creep away between the trees. But Gargle did not turn. Instead, he raised his head and looked straight at her hiding place and said, “My eyes and ears are sharper than old Caul’s, my friend. You can come out now.”

Chapter 3 The Limpet Autolycus