With special thanks to Dan Metcalf and David Shephard, along with Steven Wendland and Marty Kossoff.

  With additional thanks to Alison Warner, Pam Kunick-Cohen, Avrill Stark, Robert Chandler, Tom Taylor, James Brouwer, Wolfgang Bylsma, Trent Carlson, Kirsten Newlands, Anne Loi, Rob Spindley, Logan McPherson, Sophie Bloomfield, and John Lomas-Bullivant.

  With special thanks to Speckled Pen

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  The Deep: Selkie Warrior

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Come on, Jeffrey! Last one there’s a blobfish!’

  Ant Nekton zoomed through the ocean in the Shadow Knight, the sleek, high-tech underwater exploration suit he used for missions. Beside his visor, he could see Jeffrey, his pet fish – and best friend – flapping his fins furiously to keep up, but the Shadow Knight was too fast for him. Ant steered the suit down to the sea bed and away from the Aronnax, the giant submarine that the Nekton family called home, which floated above them like a huge metal whale.

  Ant had convinced his parents, Will and Kaiko, to let him explore the nearby kelp forests. As a junior explorer, he knew that the kelp forests were often used by organisms as a safe place to hide from predators. Ant was always on the lookout for new discoveries, whether it was a strange species of sea snail, or something more exciting …

  As he approached the forest he cut the Knight’s engines so that the vibrations fell to a low hum. He didn’t want to disturb any forms of sea life living there. He felt his heart give a nervous flutter. There was no telling what he might find in the depths of the ocean …

  ‘OK, what do we have today?’ he muttered. Jeffrey finally caught up and swam next to Ant, his eyes bulging from the effort. If a fish could pant for breath, that’s what Jeffrey would have been doing. Ant reached out the Knight’s mechanical hands to part the swaying column of kelp and peered between the strands. ‘Kelp … kelp … and more kelp. Hmm, I was hoping for something a little less … kelpy.’

  They investigated a little further and found nothing more than a strangely coloured piece of algae, but then Jeffrey darted off towards a hidden corner of the forest.

  ‘Jeffrey? What is it? Have you found something?’

  Ant followed his little orange and purple fish to a mound of sand and looked closely at it.

  ‘Seems like it’s just a heap of sand,’ he said to his faithful fish. ‘Come on, let’s go back to – Whoa!’

  A sudden swell of current buffeted the Shadow Knight and caused the kelp forest to sway. Grain by grain, the sand mound in front of them drifted away to reveal a strange, ancient-looking object beneath the surface.

  Ant felt his eyes grow wide and his skin prickle. ‘What. Is. That?!’

  He carefully brushed away the rest of the sand to reveal a round metal object the size of a cricket ball. It was a dirty green, the colour of an old, unpolished penny. Around the centre of the sphere was a protruding ring, and it was covered in barnacle shells, just as most things were under the sea when they had been there for a long time. But how long? Something about the look of it made Ant think it had been there for centuries.

  Slowly, he lifted the orb out of its resting place and instantly felt a shiver of excitement run down his body. Jeffrey danced around him.

  ‘It could be anything.’ Ant shrugged. ‘Maybe just a piece of sea junk, or something someone dropped off the side of their boat years ago.’ He glanced at Jeffrey and burst out in a grin. ‘Who am I kidding? I have no idea what this is, but it’s definitely awesome!’

  It wasn’t every day that Ant came across buried treasure in a kelp forest.

  He held it gently in his mechanical grip and powered up the Shadow Knight. He turned to head back to the Aronnax, where he would be able to investigate properly.

  ‘Jeffrey, old pal, I have a feeling life in the ocean just became even more interesting …’

  A column of bubbles erupted from the little fish as he mouthed his agreement. The two of them headed home. This discovery was something they had to share … when Ant was ready.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘You guys are not going to believe this!’

  Ant carried his mystery object across the bridge of the Aronnax. The orb was covered with an old dust sheet. He’d managed to keep his discovery a secret from the rest of the Nektons for an entire two weeks while he’d worked on it. None of them had any idea it even existed.

  It was nearly dusk and the family had just returned from a talk Kaiko had given at the Tokyo University of Marine Science. Everyone, that is, except Ant, who had stayed behind to prepare his surprise. Ant loved visiting new places but, having grown up on a submarine, being on solid land felt peculiar to him. There wasn’t the usual hum of engines and swaying movement that he was so used to on the Aronnax.

  Ant carefully placed the strange object on a control panel.

  ‘So what have we got here, Ant?’ asked Will. The Nektons gathered round, used to ‘Ant’s hobby of creating imaginative (and occasionally unsuccessful) inventions.

  ‘You remember that I went exploring in the kelp forests a while ago?’ he began, looking from face to face. He paused for dramatic effect. ‘I found something!’

  ‘Would that “something” be the reason you stayed back on board the Aronnax these past couple of weeks?’ said Kaiko with a smile and a raised eyebrow. ‘I thought you said you were staying behind to “guard” the Aronnax?’

  ‘Um, I was kind of doing both?’ said Ant with a sheepish grin. ‘I’ve been working on restoring my “something” to its former glory. And now I want you all to see it!’

  ‘Can’t this wait, son?’ yawned Will. ‘I think we’re all pretty beat from your mother’s talk at the university – which was excellent, by the way, dear!’

  ‘Thank you!’ smiled Kaiko, folding her arms. ‘Good to know I didn’t bore you to sleep.’

  ‘What is so important that it has to keep me from my bed?’ said Ant’s sister, Fontaine, giving him a level stare.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Ant, ‘this’ll be worth it.’

  The family looked on in anticipation.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen! And you, Fontaine! I am pleased to finally unveil the latest of my amazing, mind-boggling, awe-inducing discoveries!’ Ant performed a drum roll on his tummy. ‘I call it – the CIRCLOTRON!’

  He whipped the dust sheet away to reveal the strange-looking contraption he had saved from the sea bed. Since recovering it, Ant had lovingly cleaned it and carefully brushed away the mud of hundreds, maybe thousands of years, so that it was now a tarnished brown colour.

  ‘The … Circlotron?’ said Fontaine, peering at it.

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, seriously!’ said Ant, affronted. ‘It didn’t have a name, so Jeffrey and I came up with one. Cool, huh?’

  Fontaine rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, turning to leave.

  ‘Wait a second, Fontaine,’ said Will. He moved closer to inspect the unusual device. ‘Your brother may have something here. What does it do, Ant?’

  ‘Do?’ said Ant. ‘Um … I haven’t got a clue! But that’s the fun part about science, right? Finding out about stuff?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Kaiko, peering at the Circlotron. ‘What are those markings?’ She traced her fingers over a few engravings on the ring that ran around the centre of the globe.

  ‘They’re glyphs. Lemurian, wouldn’t you say, Dad?’ said Ant.

  Will grinned as he examined the Circlotron more closely. ‘If this is a Lemurian artefact, then it is incredibly exciting.’

  ‘Look – just yesterday I cleared away some impacted sand and I found this hole in the side.’ Ant angled the Circlotron so that the others could see a tiny hole, hidden beneath the ring. ‘I think it might be a keyhole. Maybe it’s mechanical, like clockwork?’

  ‘And you want to wind it up?’ said Fontaine. ‘It could be anything! A crazy, mechanical cricket ball! A weird robot-fish egg!’

  ‘Or it could be the next clue to discovering the ancient city of Lemuria! What do you think, Dad?’ Ant looked at Will hopefully.

  Will donned his reading glasses to look at the symbols and walked around the Circlotron for a few moments, stroking his chin in thought. Will had dedicated his entire life to researching the lost, ancient civilisation of Lemuria, and no one knew more on the subject than him.

  ‘The symbols are definitely Lemurian,’ he admitted. ‘Are you sure this is going to work, Ant?’

  ‘Come on, Dad! When has anything I’ve done ever gone wrong?’ said Ant. Will drew breath to speak. ‘Actually, don’t answer that! This is totally going to work.’

  Will and Kaiko looked at each other and shrugged.

  ‘Let’s do it!’

  Will fetched some tools and managed to bend a piece of metal to fit the shape of the keyhole. Ant scooped up the Circlotron into the palm of his hand. Then, shaking with excitement, he took the key and slid it into the Circlotron. He turned it and to his surprise there was no resistance – it smoothly went round. From deep inside the Circlotron they could hear a series of whirrs and cracks and clicks. Cogs which had laid unused for centuries began to move. He felt a judder travel through his hand as the device

buzzed into life.

  ‘Nektons,’ said Ant with an air of drama, ‘meet the Circlotron.’ The ball hummed and whirred and suddenly a shaft of white light shot out from the top, making Ant almost drop it – almost.

  ‘Whoa!’ said Fontaine.

  ‘Yes! It worked!’ Ant held out the Circlotron. He could feel its energy pulsing through him. Will and Kaiko moved out of the way of the beam, shielding their eyes.

  ‘Aargh! Put it down!’ shouted Fontaine, dazzled by the light. ‘Did you find an ancient Lemurian flashlight?’

  ‘What? No! Whatever this is, it’s way more important than a flashlight.’ Ant placed the Circlotron carefully on the floor. The light seemed to settle and point upwards, through the observation window and into the night sky. The beam moved wildly west to east.

  ‘Really? Because it looks like a flashlight,’ said Fontaine, not even trying to hide a yawn. ‘I’ll be in my room …’

  Ant stared at the light and the path it cut into the sky. Whatever this was, he knew it was essential to understanding the Lemurians. He could feel it in his bones. He looked up at the light and tried to track where the line was pointing. Suddenly –

  ‘Oh. Oh, whoa! I think … I think I know …’ Ant stumbled over his words as a hundred thoughts hit him at once. ‘I think I know what it does!’

  Still holding the Circlotron in the palm of his hand, Ant rushed to a control panel to note down the current coordinates of the Aronnax and started to do some mental calculations. He grabbed a tablet computer and brought up a map of their position. Yes! he thought. It fits!

  As the beam of light moved, it was drawing a straight line through the black pit of space, highlighting several stars along its path. ‘I’ve got it! We’re travelling towards the equator, which is to the south, here,’ he said, pointing to the on-screen map. ‘Look at the line the light is pointing to. The Circlotron must be tracking the celestial equator!’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Will.

  ‘You’re right! Very clever, Ant!’ said Kaiko. She gave her son a hug. Fontaine looked at her family and shrugged.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘What’s the big deal?’

  ‘It’s –’ began Will.

  ‘Dad, allow me,’ said Ant with a grin. ‘I don’t mind explaining to my sister.’

  Fontaine rolled her eyes, but she was listening.

  Ant paced across the floor as he explained. ‘The celestial equator is just like it says. The equator is an imaginary line around the middle of the Earth, right? Well, the celestial equator is an imaginary line across the night sky.’

  ‘Er … right,’ said Fontaine.

  ‘Say you got a rubber band and stretched it around the world,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a pretty big rubber band!’ Fontaine laughed.

  ‘Well, if you keep stretching it outwards, that’s the celestial equator. The Circlotron is tracking it and projecting it on to the sky. Look!’ Ant pointed to the bright beam of light. ‘See how that glowing white line runs through the constellations? Right above us, the line goes straight through Mintaka – the rightmost star in Orion’s Belt!’

  Fontaine nodded, finally grasping the concept.

  ‘I … I suppose that’s pretty cool …’ she mumbled. Ant leaped up again and Will ruffled his hair.

  ‘Good job, son,’ he said. ‘You’ve been studying the stars, haven’t you?’

  ‘A little,’ Ant shrugged modestly. In truth, he had been reading up on constellations and astronomy for months. ‘I just thought that the more I understood about how the skies and the oceans connect, the closer we might get to discovering where Lemuria is located.’

  ‘Great thinking,’ nodded Will. ‘After all, we know that the ancient Lemurians used the stars as their guide across the seas. It could be that the Circlotron – love the name, by the way – is an ancient piece of Lemurian maritime equipment.’

  Ant smiled. Finding the lost city of Lemuria was the Nekton family’s mission, and Ant loved doing anything he could to help. He stared into the night sky, daydreaming about finally finding Lemuria. He was smugly congratulating himself on his discovery when –

  WOOP WOOP WOOP!

  The shrill sound made Ant jump. A call was coming through, the Aronnax’s monitors flashing red. He placed the Circlotron back down and the whirring sound from within stopped. The cogs inside ground to a halt and the light faded. Ant went to his position on the bridge, where Kaiko and Will were already in their seats.

  ‘It’s an emergency call from the Worldwide Oceanic Association!’ said Will. ‘They need our help – now!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  The image of a stern-looking woman in uniform flashed up on the Aronnax’s monitors.

  ‘Commander Pyrosome, how can we help?’ said Kaiko.

  ‘We’re picking up a disturbance in the South China Sea, just off the Paracel Islands,’ said the commander.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Will.

  ‘The WOA has been monitoring the area and we think we’ve detected a weakness in the Earth’s crust there. Magma has been erupting from the ocean floor,’ said Commander Pyrosome.

  ‘Like an underwater volcano?’ said Ant. He almost leaped out of his seat in excitement. ‘Cool!’

  ‘Absolutely not cool,’ said Pyrosome sternly. Ant sat back down, feeling like he’d just been told off by a teacher. ‘The leaking magma is sending poisonous magmatic gas into the sea. As you can imagine, along with the boiling seawater, this is not good for the creatures that live there.’

  She pressed a button on her screen and a map popped up on the Aronnax’s monitors. She used the computer to draw a line along the map and circle a dark blue blob.

  ‘I’ve been monitoring the eruptions and they seem to be travelling along the weak line of the Earth’s crust. They are getting perilously close to this area –’ she tapped her fingertip against the screen – ‘which is vitally important to our research. It houses fossils and organisms that are one of a kind. It’s a blue hole known as the Dragon Hole.’

  ‘Dragons?’ said Ant. He straightened up, exchanging an excited glance with Jeffrey, who was in his mounted fishbowl, eagerly watching the action on the screen.

  ‘It’s just a name, Ant,’ said Fontaine. Ant sighed with disappointment.

  ‘As the Aronnax is the closest vessel to the area …’ Commander Pyrosome said, her eyes glittering. ‘The Association had hoped …’

  ‘We can’t set off before morning,’ said Will, guessing what her question was going to be. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Commander Pyrosome looked less than happy – she was used to getting her own way.

  ‘Will, Kaiko, this is serious,’ she said. ‘There could be much more at stake than we realise. I need you to investigate … now.’

  Will and Kaiko exchanged a glance.

  ‘Commander, I’d like to remind you that the Nektons don’t work for the WOA,’ said Kaiko. Her face had hardened, like when she was telling Ant to clean up his room.

  ‘Which is why you would be doing us a massive favour,’ said Pyrosome. ‘As well as managing a potentially dangerous situation for the ocean of course.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Ant looked at his parents. Please let them say yes! He’d give anything to visit the Dragon Hole – it just sounded so mystical, so legendary, so … dragon-ey.

  ‘It’s a dangerous journey to take by night,’ said Kaiko, glancing at her controls. ‘But I don’t think we have a choice right now, if this is so urgent.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll send over the coordinates,’ said Commander Pyrosome. ‘It’s vital that you control the explosions near the sinkhole. It could spell disaster for the sea life in that area. Over and out.’

  Fontaine groaned.

  ‘We’re going on a mission? Now?’

  Ant ran over to his dad. ‘Hey, how about we travel like the Lemurians? We can use the Circlotron and have stars as our guide, just like the ancient sailors!’

  ‘Sure,’ said Fontaine dryly. ‘Or how about we use technology. Like all the equipment we have right here? Just a thought …’

  ‘Aw, Dad!’ Ant started to complain.

  ‘Your sister’s right,’ said Will. ‘We don’t yet know enough about how the Lemurians used the Circlotron. Let’s play it safe and get there as quickly as we can.’

 

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