Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [106]
Lucille has nightmares in which our son is dying, although these are undoubtedly caused by her fears over his persistently strange behaviour. Last night she awoke to discover that Jontney was missing from his cot, although our cabin door had been bolted. After a frantic search we found him crawling across the top deck towards the open sea. Lucille has now sworn to remain awake until we are safely home, but her exhaustion is evident.
The men avoid my gaze and say little to each other. Morale is fading, with anger swelling to fill the spaces. It is only a matter of time before violence breaks out. I must find a way to channel it before then. I fear someone will have to be sacrificed to save the others.
Objects have gone missing from my cabin, including two cans of water, a gem lantern, some coins and the Unmer spectacles. We have a thief aboard, a thief who seems intent on endangering the life of my son. Who here has the motive to do such a thing?
Someone knocked on the door. Maskelyne set down his pen and got up from the workbench. He opened the door to find Kitchener standing in the passageway. The sailor was standing over an open crate.
‘We found these in a hidden compartment under the hold,’ he said. ‘We were about to throw them overboard, but I thought I’d better check with you first.’
Maskelyne looked down at the open box. It was almost completely full of dust, but he could see the edges of artefacts partially buried in there: heavy iron rings, wrapped with wires. He brushed away the dust and picked one up. The windings felt hot to the touch. A foul, burned metal odour came from them. ‘How many are there altogether?’ he asked.
‘Twelve in each crate,’ Kitchener said. ‘And we pulled five crates out of the compartment. We stored our supplies down there first, but they rotted so fast you wouldn’t believe. I had a few of the men start carrying what was left up into one of the bow cabins, while Roberts and me went looking for the source of the problem. We found the compartment quickly enough.’ He hesitated. ‘It wasn’t just the rot, you see? The supplies had been moving about too.’
‘Moving?’
‘Our own boxes wouldn’t stay in one place. We’d leave them alone for an hour, and come back to find that they’d slid right across the floor, like somebody had been moving them when nobody was looking. The men . . . well, you know how things go, sir. Talk of hearing whispers when no one was around, that sort of thing.’
Maskelyne touched his dust-smeared fingers to his tongue. ‘Tastes like . . .’
‘Bone marrow,’ Kitchener said.
‘It’s an amplifier,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Unmer Brutalists used the consumption of human tissue to increase their energy.’ He turned the ring over in his hand. It looked quite dead now. What else, he wondered, could it amplify? ‘The effects you witnessed are just residual, amplification of decay, inertia, voices.’
‘Then they go overboard, sir?’
‘All of them.’
The crewman looked relieved.
‘Except this one,’ Maskelyne added. ‘I’ll keep it for study.’ He placed the device on his desk. ‘Is there anything else?’
Kitchener hesitated. ‘It’s the wheel console, sir,’ he said. ‘Ab-ernathy got the inner sleeve open.’ He rubbed his eyes and then took a deep breath. ‘It’s full of bones. We think maybe five or six infants.’
Maskelyne nodded. ‘Human sacrifices. Tell Abernathy to close it up again before it unsettles the crew. What’s our situation with water?’
‘The purifier’s still acting strangely, captain. The stuff coming out of it looks like urine and tastes about as good. Most of us are drinking it anyway. Got no choice.’
‘Who’s not drinking it?’
‘Duncan, Abernathy, a few of the others. They say they’d rather die.’
Their situation was deteriorating