Phoenix Rising by Bryony Pearce Read Free Book Online

slipped as steam dampened the floor and he jammed his toes beneath the lever base, trying to regain purchase. “If it empties, even a trickle of feed water will cause an explosion that’ll take out the hull.”
    “What about your father’s buffering system?” Polly flapped her wings, clearing steam briefly from Toby’s face. “He can shut off the passageways.”
    “It’s not enough. We’ve got to move this lever ourselves.”
    Toby strained until his muscles popped, but he knew he couldn’t move the lever alone.
    “Can I help?”
    Toby’s head whipped round at the unfamiliar voice. He released the lever long enough to wipe his goggles; then he gaped.
    A kid was standing there. Smaller than him, a few years younger, dressed in thin clothes completely inappropriate for seafaring. The boy’s head was badly shaved and tufts of black hair stuck up in every direction. He was grey with soot, from his eyelashes to his fingernails, and he was cringing from the heat of the steam.
    “A stowaway.” Toby grabbed the lever again. “You’ve been hiding out in my boiler room. How…?” He gave his head a quick shake. “I don’t care. Wrap your shirt around your hands, grab this lever and pull .”
    The strange boy covered his hands with his tattered cuffs, closed his fists below Toby’s and hauled.
    “It’s moving, don’t let go.” Polly flapped, helping as much as she could. Suddenly the lever dropped back into position, cutting off the steam’s flow.
    As the whistling quietened, Toby pulled his goggles off his face and stared at the rupture.
    “Ashes,” he muttered.
    “Toby, the paddles!” The captain’s voice was urgent now. Toby grabbed the comms tube, not taking his eye from the stranger who had saved them.
    “Captain,” he swallowed, “a delivery line ruptured. It must’ve happened when the Phoenix was hit during the salvage.”
    There was silence from the speaker. Toby fidgeted. “Captain?”
    “I’m thinking,” the captain snapped. “Did you cut it off in time, has the boiler run dry?”
    “ I’ll check.” The new boy ran to the water gauge. “It’s reading a third full. That isn’t enough, is it?”
    “How did you know to do that?” Toby covered thecomms tube as he spoke.
    The boy shrugged awkwardly. “Been watching you. Sorry.”
    “Watching me from where ?” Toby shuddered. He thought of the boiler room as an extension of himself. Shouldn’t he have known that he wasn’t alone? Shouldn’t Polly have detected the stowaway?
    The boy indicated what at first appeared to be a haphazard pile of junk: car bonnets, motherboards, sheet metal, tubing. Toby’s hoard of ‘things that might be useful one day’. He realized that it had been moved since he had last sorted through, creating a hidden nest. Above the nest the air vent was ajar. Toby blinked, remembering. Years ago he used to slip inside the gratings and travel through the vents, spying on the pirates with no one any the wiser. The captain had put a stop to his travels when, at eight years old, Toby got stuck and had to be cut out of the mess-hall wall. Now those passages were the sole province of the rats and, apparently, a half-starved stowaway.
    He exhaled. “OK. I can’t deal with this now.”
    Toby uncovered the tube to address the captain. “It hasn’t run dry, but there’s not enough feed water. I-I’ll have to switch the boiler off to let it build back up. And the line has to be repaired.”
    “The Phoenix can’t just sit here,” the captain said.
    Toby imagined his father’s fist almost collapsing the table. From the dents in the metal tabletop Toby could map every setback the Phoenix had ever experienced. “If she can’t outrun the storm, we have to get to shelter to weather it out. There’s a hidden cove near Tarifa that’ll take a ship our size.”
    “What about the plane fuel?” Toby slid a finger under his goggles to rub his eyes. “Is it ready yet?”
    “Not even close. It’s still being