“Ah, but you don’t have to believe in order to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit. Your dear Adolphine is proof of that. Look what she did for us—repaired the Last Judgment. Like Solomon, like Paul—a tool of God.”
He believes it. Everything he is saying, he believes.
“And when you were done with her, you killed her,” I say.
“We could not have an interloper on board during our final hours.”
“But you’ll have a woman aboard,” I say. “You haven’t told them, have you? The brothers? They don’t know.”
Marston pauses. Stands straighter. I’ve caught him out. The only time I’ve seen him flinch. “No,” he says, steely.
“All the lies you’ve built this place upon . . . you and Caplain Amita both—you know that if they knew about me, it would cause people to doubt. That I was conspiring with a Topsider, that I was going to escape.” The words keep coming. They won’t stop. “St. John knows. I saw the confusion when he discovered my secret.”
Marston bends down, pinches my chin, tight. Leans in. I couldn’t turn away from his narrow, yellowed face if I wanted. “St. John knows how important our mission is. He’ll be dutiful to the order. And if you will not—if you attempt to say a word—then I will take Lazlo’s life with my own hands. While you watch. I promise you that.”
Beady eyes, dark. Almost dead with resolve.
I swallow. My throat, thick.
Agreeing means that I will be let free. Agreeing means that Lazlo will be with me and that we still might possibly find a way out.
I nod once, silently.
“Tomorrow, then,” he says, releasing his grip, standing straight, smoothing out his robes. “Tomorrow will be our grand day. Our salvation. I suggest you pray, dear Remy. Pray that you might be forgiven your trespasses. He might just listen.”
* * *
The deck had been at an upward tilt. Now it levels.
The hammer throngs against the hull. Three resonant blows.
Call to Compline.
The final office in the liturgy of the hours.
We brothers were often asked, in this hour, to contemplate our actions and thoughts in the day. An examination of conscience.
This was common when Caplain Amita was still alive.
Have our actions and thoughts aligned with our moral code? The order by which we have all promised to live our lives?
Sometimes, I felt I had strayed. My thoughts had often bent toward those scant memories of my life Topside. Of sunlight. Of bright-tasting limes. Even though I knew I should not let them stray. To dwell on such memories was the same as wishing to live amongst the Forsaken. Amongst the sinners.
I often thought that my very existence was an aberration.
Me, a woman. A forbidden figure amongst the penitent men, living a lie.
Caplain Amita tried to assuage this guilt when I confessed it to him.
“You are doing God’s work,” he would say. “A vessel for God. And God will watch after you.”
But this was the same argument Marston gave.
Utility.
It does not matter what you think, what you feel, how you act, so long as it is God’s work.
An ultimate hypocrisy—this from the man I thought had taken care of me for so long. The man I thought loved me. The one who started all this—who helped to end the world, who tossed little girls screaming into the sea, and took the boys and cut them so that they might remain eternally pure.
I look at my hands, in the dimness of the officers’ quarters I have been locked in for the past day. Wash them in the bowl of rare fresh water brought to me in a chipped clay bowl. Splash my face. Taste the salty grit trickling down over my lips. I pull on clean, newly sewn robes. Marston has given me fresh linen strips for binding my chest. These, I don’t wear. If I am to die, I will go to God the way I was put into the world.
When the rusted, squealing latch is finally pulled aside, I stand. The door swings open, and a blazing amber, putrid light pours in. Every lamp and grease wick ablaze. Ex-Oh Goines and Brother Augustine await me to exit, and then escort me, standing on either side, to the chapel, down to the lower deck, past the radio room, which is empty, past the missile control room, which is manned by Brothers Elia and Cordova, both seated before a wide bank of electronic panels that are already lit up. They watch as I pass.
I am pushed forward, ducking through the hatch, and stand to find almost all the brothers lining the walls of the chapel, staggered between, around, and behind the missile tubes. All bow their heads in silence as I pass.
Brother Ernesto. Ignacio. Andrew. Callum. Jessup. Pike.
Do some of them know the truth? That I was conspiring with a Topsider? That I was planning on escaping? Brother Callum might. He knows this is madness. He might not have the words to express it, but he knows. I saw it the night I dosed his steep with the nostrum, when he recounted his story of first being brought aboard.
But he will not look at me. No, he will not act.
He will be complicit in all of this.
At the end of the long compartment, atop the driftwood dais, Caplain Marston stands, eyeing me intently.
And, before the dais, before the psalter, Ephraim. Mouth drawn tight, eyes weighted. St. John, face swollen, welted red and purple from my attack. He is staring directly at me. Yet I don’t find fury or contempt there, as I would expect after what I did to him. Not even coldness. It’s a vacancy.
And there, beside them all, Lazlo.
He, too, is looking directly at me, but his eyes are still very full of light.
Lazlo.
Did he, for a moment, dare to dream that there might be an escape for us?
There still might be.
If I could slip away. Take Lazlo with me. Marston said the Coalition ships might be an ocean away, but they also might be closer than that. It would only mean surviving a day or two on the open seas if they are indeed on their way to the rendezvous.
If.
Too many ifs.
The reality of it begins to drape over me.
A coldness.
That this is it.
I see now that both the hatchways at either end of the compartment are being guarded. The ladders down to the lower level. There’s no escape.
This is my fate. Our fate.
As I take my place beside Lazlo, St. John, and Ephraim, the brothers turn their attention to Marston, who, tall and energized, opens with the psalm.
“Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum.”
And then the Canticle of Simeon.
“Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace: Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.”
Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word.
For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.
I have no voice for the chant. No spirit. No, the light is robbed from me. Drained. What was once a freedom feels like the greatest, the weightiest of shackles.
I glance to Lazlo, standing just beside me.
His fingers find mine. Cold and thin. I entwine mine with his.
We don’t care who sees.
“My brothers, we are soon to launch the Last Judgment,” Marston says solemnly, with great dramatic effect, after the calls and the responses are complete. “When we do, we shall finish what was started some twenty-four years ago. And we shall dive to the deepest depth. We shall sing a song into that deep—a hymn I have heard in that darkness—the Lord has whispered unto me the words that will ready our souls for His glory!”
Before us, the psalter is opened.
Cantio Maris.
I see penned on the top stave of each page the descant that is meant for me. Just looking at it, I can hear the melody in my mind. Something exalting. Stilted.
What darkness we have lighted, one of the lyrics reads. They above shall know what we below have sent.
“Yes, we shall know salvation,” Marston continues. “Salvation, after these years of service. Of maintaining the order b
egun by our beloved Caplain Amita. We shall see him again, brothers. We shall see so many faces that we have long ago committed to the sea. And the sea shall give up her dead,” he says, eyes lit with a fervor, a passion.
“And the sea shall give up her dead!” the brothers respond.
“As below, so above,” Caplain says.
And the congregation answers.
When I glance upward, Marston is staring down to me. The others are watching as well. Expectantly.
Now is my time.
Here is my purpose. The very reason I was saved, eight years ago. The only reason.
I am to sing now.
In my brothers’ eyes, I am holy. Special. Caplain Amita has told me this all along. Fed me this lie.
But should I not ease their worry? Lighten their souls? If we are all to die. To sink down and down until, at last, the depths crush us.
And so, I sing.
I open my mouth, find my voice. Find an energy that was not there before.
But I do not sing Marston’s hymn.
I sing my own Song of the Sea. A song the leviathans have taught me. No words. Just melody. An odd, sorrowful strain that leaps and dives in pitch, that slides into bitter notes and then resolves.
I close my eyes while I sing. Let the melody take its own form. Like when I have sung during Terce. Improvisation. But more than that. I think of that one whale, searching for the other. Its lover, its friend, its child. Whatever it is. It’s a song that seeks out. That searches. That mourns. That hopes.
And when I have finished the song and open my eyes, I find the chapel utterly silent. And yet, I feel the weight of all sixty-seven pairs of eyes upon me, can almost hear sixty-seven hearts thrumming in some kind of unity.
Then I glance up to Caplain Marston. Gaze narrowed, piercing. Face tight with fury.
“It’s time, my brothers,” he finally says, hollowly, shattering the silence. “Watch, are we at depth?”
“Ready, Caplain. We need only finish bringing the targeting computer online,” Brother Marcus says.
“Good. Cantor Remy,” Marston says through gritted teeth. “You will follow me.”
St. John flicks a quick glance my way. Ephraim.
Where is he taking me?
Is this punishment for my betrayal?
I glance around at the room, at the faces of my fellow Choristers, the brothers, all watching, eyes twinkling in amber light. Faces bent in some emotion I cannot read. Cheeks wet.
I release Lazlo’s hand. I must. No other choice. I try telling him everything I want to with just a look, should this be the last time I ever see him.
Marston commands St. John lead the brothers in the singing of the final hymn, and then I’m immediately led back through the center of the chapel, between brothers and the column-like missile tubes, back through the hatch, to the missile control room.
The small space is hot with the humming equipment, with the several bodies crammed inside.
Six of us with Elia and Cordova, and Ex-Oh Goines and Brother Augustine, both of whom will not leave my side, and Caplain Marston.
On the main panel, two rows of square indicators, eight in each, each numbered, are lit. Fifteen of them glow red. One of them glows green. The Last Judgment.
“Missile is ready for launch, Caplain,” Brother Cordova says. Before him, on the desk console, the red CAPTAIN indicator switches to green. Beneath this indicator is a round, metal slot for the missile key.
Ex-Oh grabs hold of my arms from behind, grip tight.
Caplain Marston turns to me. “I wanted you to see this, Cantor. To understand that God’s will cannot be undermined. Cannot be changed.”
I glance at the others, at Brother Augustine. He shares a tense expression.
From the chapel, I hear the hymn being sung now. “The Heart of the Leviathan.”
“And the sinners shall know fire once more.”
“Tube pressurized, Caplain,” a crackling voice calls from the squawk box. “Missile door open. Ready to fire.”
I watch as Marston feeds the stem of the key into the slot, as he turns it.
The launch indicator for Missile 1 flashes.
A siren chimes throughout the boat.
The singing has ceased in the chapel. Silence now, save the normal thrumming of engines and fans and the hiss of stale, oily air from the vent.
Caplain’s eyes are closed, in prayer, finger hovering over the plastic button marked “Launch.”
I couldn’t stop him if I wanted to, not with Ex-Oh holding my arms back.
Will the world end?
It already has. Been ended and then reborn. Were we ever on the edge of peace? No, I think not. Not now. Not ever.
Maybe the world will never be saved.
“Woe! Woe to you, great city, you mighty city of Babylon!” Caplain Marston begins. His voice is being amplified throughout the boat, over the squawk.
Won’t anyone step up and stop this? Anyone? I look to the old, weary elders. To Brothers Carrington and Goines. Neither will Brother Dormer or Augustine or Callum. No. They haven’t stepped in before now. During all the horrors and atrocities that have occurred these long years. None of them tried to stop it.
So, I pray.
“The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’”
I pray that the electricity will wink out. That the ballast mains will burst. That the Liánméng will attack us.
“And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth.”
The pipes continue to pressurize in the underworks. I hear the high-pitched whine.
“The cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath.”
I pray that the blue, hot reactor will suddenly blow, will end all this right now.
“And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And the Lord rose up, with the wicked stricken from this place, forever, finally finding a purified kingdom of heaven on earth.”
Please!
“As below, so above!”
And then the cabin goes dark.
Just like that.
The main lights die, as do the consoles, the missile control. Auxiliary lights flash on.
Yellow lights spin now.
Warning lights for contamination.
This is no attack by the Topsiders.
The reactor.
“Caplain,” a crackling voice cries out over the squawk box, “Reactor coolant line just failed—it’s overhea—”
The rest of the transmission is cut short by a thunderous resonance emanating from aft. From engineering. A shudder through the very vessel. Then a roar.
A wave of heat and toxic fume wash through the cabin, through the chapel.
“Stations!” Caplain Marston shouts. The men in the room scramble.
Looking through the hatch, to the far side of the chapel, I see the glow of red flame. In the chapel, a mass of rushing shadows and shapes. Lazlo is among them, but I can’t see him—I am hooked about the shoulder by a powerful, cinching grip. Marston has ensnared me with his long reach.
“What have you done?” he demands, long face before mine. Long hands grappling my neck.
“Nothing . . .” I try to say, but the words are choked from me.
“You were sent by Satan, weren’t you?” he says, eyes blazing, face bent into a sneer. “Sent to ruin us. To thwart God’s will!”
I can’t breathe—can’t even gasp for the tightness.
Another pronounced bang causes the entire vessel to shiver. Then the world suddenly tilts, pitches downward. The caplain releases his grip, is knocked off his balance, falls, slides down nearly the full length of the corridor.
I catch myself on the entryway to missile control. Many other brothers tumble past me, scrambling for a grip. Brother Andrew.
Brother Ernesto. Marcus.
“Dive planes aren’t responding!” a voice calls out over the squawk.
The Leviathan cants severely to starboard. One of the trim tanks has failed.
We’re going down.
I begin scaling up the inclined corridor, gripping the bulkhead in order to pull myself through the hatchway into the chapel, which is a riot of shouting, a smoke-filled and dim chaos.
“Lazlo!” I call out.
Brother Callum swims into view, clinging to one of the missile tube hatches. “Brace yourself . . . we’re going . . .”
He is slammed suddenly into the bulkhead as the whole boat lurches, screeches. A deafening report of clashing metal.
Impact.
My grip is shaken from me. I’m knocked to the deck.
The Leviathan has struck bottom. Heavy. Hard. The Arafura Sea is shallow, though. Just like Adolphine said, we can’t be more than forty fathoms deep.
Now comes the unmistakable hiss of ruptured pipes followed by a roaring torrent coming from deck below. The hull has been breached.
The klaxon blares.
The hatch to engineering is closed, sealed. The only entry to the tunnel. The fate of the Forgotten is now sealed. How many souls will be lost?
The deck has leveled. I push through the smoke, the confusion, past faceless, lurking, coughing forms. Brother Peter? Brother Jenner? I stumble over a fallen figure. I cannot see who, only that the shape is too big to be Lazlo.
Finally, I see a familiar figure in the flashing yellow lights. Ephraim. He is bracing a small, thin shadowed person.
“Lazlo!” I embrace him, his thin, emaciated body, so tight, I feel the breath go out of him. I feel his arms close around me.
“Come on,” I say, pulling both him and Ephraim along, forward.
“Where can we go?” he asks, coughing.
“We’re going to ditch,” I say.
The escape trunk at the top of the balneary. That’s the only way off this ship. The only way to survive.
We’ve pushed through the crowd, past Brother Alban, Brother Henry, bent over, kneeling, praying.
“Come on!” I shout to them. “Come follow us!”
But they do not.
Behind us, a wrenching burst. A watery roar.
The bulkhead to engineering has breached.
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