to record that information? Who was so interested in Father’s affiliations, and why? The man hadn’t woken from his coma, and Sorensen had promised to wire Southsea immediately with any further developments.
As they approached the northern coast of Scotland, Father switched the cabin wireless on. The newscaster’s almost musical Irish voice burst to life: “...have confirmed reports of a tremendous explosion off the northwest coast of Norway yesterday evening. At least one merchant airship crew saw the lighthouse and a considerable portion of Jan Mayen, an island in the Greenland Sea, topple into the sea in the aftermath of the explosion—a blast also seen by an ice breaker and two whalers south of Svalbard. The resulting wave rose to a height of fifty feet out to sea. But as it hit the north-western coastline of Norway, it reached as high as several hundred feet in some of the narrower fjords and bays, demolishing coastal towns and fishing fleets and washing up to six miles inland in one valley.
“Rolf Fjortoft, a fisherman from Tromso, who was airlifted to safety minutes ago, described ‘an unimaginable swell that roared in before I even realized it had blocked out the sky. It lifted me over half way up the hillside and dumped me, still in my rowing boat, on a ledge above the tree line. Both myself and the boat were unbroken.’
“Other residents were not so lucky. While the precise death toll might not be known for some time, early estimates suggest as many as thirty thousand lives may have been lost. A grave night indeed for our redoubtable friends in the north. Our prayers go with them over the coming weeks. And if anyone has means to convey food and emergency supplies to these disaster areas, please visit your local post office for details of how to volunteer. The Leviacrum Council has this morning forwarded emergency funds to support the relief effort in full, but if you would like to donate further—”
Father growled as he flicked the wireless off. His normally warm brown eyes had narrowed to an angry squint, while his wide lips, capable of the most extreme grins or sorry-for-himself, hang-dog sulks, pursed inside his fortnight of a beard, in a way Meredith hadn’t seen since he’d resolved to prove the world wrong by organising his second expedition to Subterranea. It frightened her a little, and she shuffled in her seat. He was the calm of any storm, the laid-back one. What disturbed him would surely terrify her.
“Father, what do you know that we don’t?”
He glowered at her. “Enough to fill a library, where the Leviacrum Council is concerned. The unmitigated nerve. They’d solicit for aid for the very disaster they caused.”
“Ralph?” Lady Catarina voiced everyone’s confusion. “What can you mean?”
“Those bloody weapons tests. You’ve all heard the rumours. Whenever the Coalition rebels launch an attack with some new technology, the Council makes a point of demonstrating their superior weaponry. Oh, it’s never advertised as such—a freak tidal wave, this time—but every man Jack knows the goal is to scare the rebels.”
“But not to drown an entire coast, surely to goodness.” She eyed Meredith and Sonja with concern.
“No, no. They clearly didn’t know how devastating this particular weapon would be. Reckless fools, the lot of them. That’s been their legacy from the very start. Any challenge to their supremacy and they immediately launch half-cocked on some hair-brained technological display. Remember the airship crash of ’98, smoked Buckingham Palace; the lunar rocket misfire in ’03, killed all those pilots. That’s what the Council’s really about—pushing science through before its time. They want pre-eminence, to sit as gods in their tower in the clouds, so the rest of us will kowtow to their ideologies.” He snarled. “Those warmongers and their—no, no, I shan’t say any more. It’s not for the ears of young girls.”
“Ahem. Not so young as all that, Father.” Sonja cast him her cheekiest grin that had never failed to butter him up, but his expression appeared determined to keep the cabin overcast.
While polishing his uncut amethyst with his thumb, something he did when he had a lot on his mind—most of the time—he stubbornly jutted out his chin. “Little girls. Bratty and vindictive little girls, that’s what I have. Ah, ah—” he silenced their protests with a wave, the worn-to-a-polish amethyst glinting between his forefinger and thumb, “—I know all about it. You were getting even with Brigitte and her cousins for what they did to you. But there’s getting