Chapter 5

"NO, NO, NO!" YELLED GOBLIN LOUD ENOUGH to attract attention

all around his homewaters. He gnashed his teeth so hard he felt one break

and saw it drift to the sandy bottom. A crab scuttled over and began probing

the tooth to see if there was anything to eat inside it. It almost made Goblin

laugh, but the situation was too serious to allow that right now. "We need to

keep up all our patrols! Razor Shiver isn't going to rest and neither can

we!"

"You're telling me what you want, and I'm trying to tell you what's

possible," Ripper replied evenly. The big, battle-scarred hammerhead was

close to insubordination. But then he ducked his head and added, "I suppose

we could promote a couple of the pups into full shiver sharks to make up

for—you know—"

Goblin took time to appear thoughtful. His mother, the shiver leader

before him, had always told him to do this. "Good idea. Let them flex their

fins a little. When I was a pup, I couldn't wait to get into the thick of

things!"

It wasn't as if he was much older than a pup now, being just fifteen. For

great whites, fifteen was physically mature. But some of the sharkkind that

Ripper was thinking of were a little too young and weren't experienced

enough to survive a real battle. They could be used for patrols and as an

early warning system, though, which would free up his veterans for more

important things. Not a perfect solution, but it would do for now.

Goblin stared imperiously at his Five in the Line. Ripper was his first, a

giant hammerhead and the only shark who might be tougher than himself.

Thrash, the tiger, was his second. Goblin's third was Streak, a blue shark

who was small for her kind but made up for it in sheer ferocity. Churn was

an oceanic whitetip and his fourth. Goblin had known Churn since the

whitetip was a pup. Then there was his fifth: Velenka, a sleek, black mako.

Velenka was undoubtedly the smartest and most beautiful shark he ever

met. Such big eyes. She could have been his fourth, maybe even third. She

was invaluable as an adviser. Why the mako didn't make a move up the

Line was puzzling to Goblin. Velenka hadn't even won her rank by combat,

as was custom when a position in the Line opened. It was done by vote after

Goblin's last fifth, Hawley, was found floating on the surface in the chopchop three months ago. Hawley wasn't attacked by sharkkind; there were

no bite marks. His corpse was grotesquely swollen as if he had died a week

earlier. But Goblin swam with the thresher the night before he was found,

so he knew that wasn't the case. He had trusted Hawley most of all, and the

thresher worshipped Goblin like an older brother. It was a bitter loss, but

that was life in the open waters of the Big Blue.

"What do you want to do, Goblin?" asked Velenka. The mako spoke

more than any of the others even though she was only his fifth. It was a

little odd, even presumptuous, but Velenka did keep things on point. The

others waited for Goblin's answer.

"Can't you see I'm thinking?" He snapped at the mako, his bulk

nudging hers out of hover. "Do you have a current you're late for?

Someplace more interesting to go?"

"I didn't mean any disrespect," she answered.

"And that's why I'm not feeding on your carcass!" he yelled.

His shiver, now called Goblin Shiver instead of Riptide Shiver, had

gotten their tails kicked by the bull sharks of Razor Shiver a day ago.

They'd lost two soldiers and hadn't sent any bulls to the Sparkle Blue.

Razor and his shiver controlled the best hunting grounds in the entire North

Atlantis and also owned a prized territory for the Tuna Run. This annoyed

Goblin. It was because of Razor naming his shiver after himself that Goblin

had done the same. He would never admit that, of course. Razor Shiver

weren't the only tough gang of sharkkind on the Western edge of the

Atlantis, but they were the strongest today. Food was growing scarce, with

fewer and fewer large groupings to feed on. Goblin and his shiver would

stay near the muck-sucking bottom if he couldn't figure out a way to recruit

more warriors and conquer new territory!

And to top things off, Thrash now swam in as though he was being

chased by a prehistore nightmare with a story about a pair of rogue sharks

named Gray and Barkley. And this Gray was a mysterious giant type of

Sharkkind Thrash had never seen before! His Five in the Line and the rest

of the full members of the shiver were looking at Goblin now, waiting for

answers. His shiver sharks hovered listlessly behind the Line, speaking and

joking in low voices with each other. At one time there would have been

order, every mariner hovering in its own row, waiting for the leader's orders

to be carried out by subcommanders. When Goblin was young, discipline

and numbers were the mark of a true battle shiver. But now…

Everyone was always waiting for answers from him. It was what Goblin

liked least about being leader. Sometimes he wished his mother were still

around. She would know what to do, he thought to himself.

Goblin turned to Thrash. "You're sure they weren't just passing

through? Maybe from the Sific Ocean?"

The tiger shook his head from side to side. "Nah, they mentioned a

coral reef. I think they're from somewhere near shore. They were soft."

"Beat you, didn't they?" noted Ripper. Goblin saw that the tiger took

the insult personally, but if Thrash got mad the big hammerhead could take

care of himself. That's why he was Goblin's first.

"Who cares about a couple of yokels from the boonie-greenie who don't

know anything about the Big Blue?" yelled Streak. The undersize blue was

seething. "We lost Scrape and Jonquil to the bulls! Let's attack and even the

score!"

Streak would want to fight no matter what because Scrape was her

brother. But Goblin was pretty sure the blue didn't care one way or another

that Jonquil was gone. He had just joined the shiver recently.

"Bad idea!" cried Churn. "We should take some time to regroup." The

whitetip had almost been eaten by Razor himself in the battle and sported a

ragged bite mark across the gills to show just how close he'd come to death.

Churn was now one jumpy fin and would be for a while longer.

"Coward!" Streak yelled angrily. "Swim off the Line, useless! Go find a

turtle shell to hide inside!"

Churn might be jumpy, but he was much bigger than Streak. Goblin was

about to lose control as his third and fourth tried to eat each other! But then,

the smell of an enemy interrupted the budding fight. Everyone looked over

as a solitary bull swam close enough to be seen, but far enough away to

retreat. Goblin's spine tingled with the sense of impending battle. He was

about to charge the bull when Velenka spoke.

"I don't think he's here for trouble," she said.

"How would you know?" snarled Streak.

Velenka took no notice of the blue's tone but answered the question

instead. "You know what an attack looks like better than anyone, Streak.

What do you think?"

Streak calmed herself and watched the lone bull for a moment. "Okay,

he's not on offense. But who is he and why's he here?"

"That's exactly what we should ask him." Velenka swam forward,

drawing Goblin with her. "Maybe this has something to do with the two

sharks Thrash saw?" The mako seemed happiest when she was puzzling

something out. Or scheming. She once told Goblin that her hero was the

legendary Machiakelpi, the mako who swam in the First Shiver and

supposedly ruled the entire Sific after Tyro left for the Sparkle Blue. Goblin

had to admit Velenka was a schemer worthy of Machiakelpi's reputation.

"Keep your place behind me, Fifth!" He took the lead. Maybe this shark

was an opportunity. If it was, Goblin wanted the credit for leading. And it

wasn't as though he would let Velenka meet the bull without him.

Velenka tried to keep her excitement in check but felt her spine tingling as

they swam to meet Kilo. She knew that the bull would play his part and

pretend they'd never met before. But could he play it well enough so that

Goblin wouldn't sense something out of the ordinary? That was the

question. That was why she needed to carefully control the conversation.

Goblin might be dim, but he wasn't without instinct. You didn't stay shiver

leader for long without good instincts.

And who was the mysterious giant Thrash had tussled with? No one

else had noticed the large tooth lodged underneath the tiger's fin. Was it

important? Its shape looked so familiar for some reason. Velenka had

knocked the tooth free before anyone could see, and it floated into the

darkness below. She didn't need Goblin distracted just now, not when she

was setting her plan into action.

Velenka would send Thrash back in the direction the mysterious sharks

came from to find their home. Perhaps Kilo and his bulls could be useful in

this also. Always bend circumstance to your advantage. Machiakelpi taught

that eons ago. Good advice, then and now.

"Maybe I should find out why this bull is here?" Velenka asked Goblin.

"That way you can watch for lies when he speaks. Besides, why should this

puny flipper talk to you, our shiver leader, as if he's your equal?"

Goblin nodded as they stopped a few body lengths from Kilo. "Good,"

he said quietly. "Do it."

Velenka smiled as she swam forward. There was destiny in the current! She could feel it!