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It was approaching dusk when he saw the thing in the sky, and for a long moment he just stared at it, the shape making no meaningful connections in his head. It was a round thing, painted gaudy yellow and green, like a circus tent's canopy. Was it a bird?

Then it came closer, and lower, approaching him like a vast floating whale, and he thought – a balloon! He stared up at it, smiling stupidly, and saw the open cabin, and a head peering out at him, and someone calling his name.

He waved at the face. It shouted more at him, but he could understand none of it. Then something was thrown from the balloon and hit him, and he was thrown into the water.

He flailed and took hold of the thing that was thrown. What was it? He looked at the ropes, examined them with his fingers.

"Bloody get on it, you stupid boy!"

It was a ladder. A rope-ladder. He laughed. It was so funny, to be floating in the sea alone and see a thing like that. Where had it come from?

"Quickly, you nincompoop!"

He felt he had better obey the voice. The face it came from was fat and sweaty and looked angry. He wondered if it had some water for him.

He pulled himself onto the ladder. Rising from the water was agony. His body was pain. Each step made thinking impossible.

One step, and two. Three. Four. His hands felt raw and they hurt, but he kept going.

Five. Six. He almost let go. It would be pleasant to drown in the warm, peaceful waters…

Seven. Eight.

"Come on, boy!"

Nine. Ten. Eleven–

And suddenly it was over.

Hands pulled him into the safety of the cabin. He looked down and saw his craft sinking far below.

"Orphan!"

"Wha'?"

He tried to focus on the fat man.

"It's me!" The fat man fed him water. It ran over Orphan's broken lips and into his mouth, and was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. His eyes focused, and he said, haltingly, "Verne?"

"I've found you!" the fat man said, and he grinned at Orphan, and almost gathered him into his arms.

"I…" Orphan said, a short, single word that seemed to him to encompass a whole range of meaning. Then he passed out.

PART III

Prometheus Unbound

THIRTY-TWO

The Return of the King

A glucose trap, snap crackle pop

We crossed the Strand and saw a sign:

This way to the Egress.

– L.T., "After the Waste Land"

Less than twenty-four hours after arriving back in the city, Orphan had been attacked twice, robbed once, and finally thrown in a police cell. It had not been a good day.

He had returned on a cold, damp day. Thick grey fog, suffused with the stench of burning chemicals, wafted over the water.

The Nautilus had sailed under the Thames and into the city. It did so in stealth, invisible to all but the whales, who gave it a wide berth as it sailed past them. They did not consider it one of their own.

The Nautilus, this Nautilus, was not a clipper but a submarine. It had lain hidden below the clipper ship bearing its name until the pirates' attack. Then, with only its captain, his wide-girthed guest and a handful of specially picked men, it had disengaged from the abovewater Nautilus and sank, quietly and without trace, into the depths of the Carib Sea.

"You left them to die," Orphan had said, aghast. Verne had shrugged apologetically; Captain Dakkar, splendid in a white, starched uniform, merely glowered. "You left me to die."

"Far from it!" Verne had said. They were sitting in the Nautilus' dining room. Large windows cut into the side of the vehicle showed the dark depths of the sea, and strange, glowing fish that glided past and stared with large, mournful eyes into the sub's interior. "You see, there was a large probability–"

"Yes?"

"That capture by Wyvern–"

"That reptile," Dakkar said. Verne smiled apologetically at Orphan and shrugged as if to say, Well, what can you do. "That capture by Wyvern," he said again, raising his voice, "would lead you to the island."

"Is that so?"

"It