by Trevor Hoyle
‘If we, as educated men, believed in omens,’ Kristiensen replied with faint irony, ‘we might be forgiven for taking this to be the fulfilment of a prophecy. But no doubt we’re too rational for that.’ He was smiling in a detached fashion.
‘What omens do you mean?’ the First Mate said.
‘Have you forgotten the black albatross we sighted three days ago?’
‘No, I hadn’t forgotten, but I thought—’
‘You thought that to regard it as an omen was straining credulity – that it was a foolish superstition confined to the ignorant and the simple-minded.’ He nodded slowly and said softly, as if to himself, ‘Perhaps you’re right. After many years at sea the sickness seems to spread everywhere like a cancer; sooner or later it affects everyone.’
The First Mate regarded him curiously. He was about to ask which sickness the Captain was referring to when his attention was distracted by the voice of Mr Swann calling from the boat. ‘He’s alive, Captain. But only just. Heartbeat faint and unsteady.’
‘Bring him on board,’ Kristiensen ordered. ‘Is there anything worth salvaging, supplies, telegraph equipment?’
‘It’s a shell, that’s all,’ the Second Mate answered. ‘No lockers, sails, no rudder even.’ He gestured to one of the seamen, and together they raised and supported the unconscious man and with some difficulty brought him into the longboat. Where he had lain on the shallow concave interior the craft was streaked dark-grey as if seared by flames; and as Kristiensen looked he suddenly stiffened and a tremor passed through him. Partly obliterated by the discoloration, yet still legible, a row of letters in a strange configuration was visible. Kristiensen read them silently, his lips forming the sounds:
RAL
X→
JEC
LE
A foreign language perhaps? Certainly the craft was of a type and construction unfamiliar to him. Yet it was just as likely, Kristiensen reasoned, that the letters formed part of words which had been burnt off or otherwise obliterated. He repeated the sequence to commit it to memory, then watched as the longboat returned to the ship and the man was taken on board. Beckoning to the First Mate he went down to the main deck and approached the circle of men that had formed round the supine figure. They fell back and stood silently, curious and yet ill at ease, their eyes shifting restlessly from the Captain to the man lying on the bleached timbers.
He was a tall man, Kristiensen judged, with a strong neck and a robust physique: his features were sharply defined, the nose angular and jutting out from beneath a wide forehead, his hair discoloured from the effects of sun and seawater. There was something odd, too, about his appearance that Kristiensen couldn’t quite place until Mr Standish remarked on it – to do with the man’s face. It was deathly pale, when by rights it should have been sunburnt. The flesh seemed almost transparent, as if all colour and substance had been washed out of it.
His clothing was also strange. He was dressed in a single piece of material, without seams or fastenings, which fitted him snugly like a second skin from neck to ankles; here and there it was torn and ragged, stained by seawater, and through the vents in the material his skin appeared to glow with an intense paleness and transparency.
Kristiensen knelt down and placed his ear against the man’s chest. Barely perceptible, but, yes, there it was: the slow irregular beat of the heart.
He said to Mr Swann: ‘Have a bunk made ready. We can save him if we hurry.’ He stood up and jerked his head impatiently at the crew: ‘Lend a hand here,’ but the men clustered in a self-protective group looking fearfully at the pale, scarcely-breathing figure. The voyage had held more than its share of terrors: they were unprepared for sea monsters and even less for the sudden arrival of a man adrift in a strange craft in the dead lost centre of the ocean. It would have been wiser, their attitude implied, to have left him to die: it was tempting the fates to bring on board a man of such unnatural appearance.
Kristiensen tried hard to control his temper. He took a step forward, this time gesturing more emphatically, and the men retreated before him, intimidated by his anger but unwilling to obey.
‘I’ll shift ’em,’ Mr Swann growled. His hand went to his belt where the ivory handle of a knife protruded, but the Captain stopped him with a cautioning hand.
He said softly: ‘We needn’t resort to force.’ Then, addressing the crew in a level and reasonable tone of voice, ‘There is no cause to be afraid of this man. I know where he comes from.’ There was a stirring of disbelief. ‘You’ve all heard of the airships which New Amerika has constructed to carry passengers and cargo across the sea. This man is a crew member of such an airship, I know this by his uniform. His airship must have been on a voyage over uncharted seas and been blown off course – perhaps it foundered and fell into the sea and this man is the only survivor. There is no reason to be afraid. Surely you don’t fear an unconscious man in this state of exhaustion? Look at him, is it conceivable that he could do you any harm?’
The men glanced uncertainly at each other. They rubbed their bare feet on the deck in the manner of schoolboys caught in some childish prank. He would shame them into obeying him. Then the Summarian, his dark eyes slitted and evasive, his small tarbrush of a beard close to his chest, shuffled forward a pace or two.
‘We didn’t bargain for this. There is something bad about this man. I feel it here’ – touching his heart with a horny thumb-nail. ‘Already we have seen the evil omen, then there was the sea serpent, and now this man floating on the ocean.’ His eyes flickered across the Captain’s face. ‘If he’s from an airship of New Amerika, as you say, where are the others who were with him? Why should one man survive and all the others perish?’
Kristiensen held up the broad palms. of his hands. ‘Who can say? How do we know there aren’t other survivors out there somewhere? Take my word, I have no reason to lie to you.’ Without waiting for a reaction or giving the Summarian a chance to respond, he turned, saying over his shoulder, ‘Take him below, Mr Swann. He must be given immediate attention.’
‘One moment, Captain.’ The Summarian was not giving in so easily. ‘Why is he so pale? He has been exposed to the sun and yet his skin is like a child’s.’
‘The men who fly the airships are all pale-skinned,’ Kristiensen answered. ‘It is because they are so high above the clouds. His colour will return in a day or so.’ He continued, almost as if it was an afterthought, ‘There’s likely to be a reward for his safe return; he’ll be able to give an eye-witness account of what happened to the airship. Any sum awarded the Slave Trader will be divided equally amongst all hands – providing I get your full cooperation.’
He returned to the quarter-deck, Mr Standish hurrying to keep pace with him. The young man was in a state of rare excitement. He knew of the airships though had never seen one, and it was thrilling to have rescued one of their crew – a man who would have marvellous stories to tell of steering with all sails unfurled through pinnacles and canyons of cloud.
He said anxiously, trotting along, ‘Is it possible, do you think, that the airship is still afloat?’
Kristiensen halted at the entrance to the companion-way. He looked slowly over his shoulder and shook his head.
Mr Standish followed him down the steps to the narrow passage. ‘The craft he was in stayed afloat, so perhaps the airship did too.’
‘Not possible,’ Kristiensen said. He opened the door to his cabin and went swiftly round the chart-table to a cupboard in the corner, unlocking it with a small silver key he took from his pocket.
‘You sound very certain.’
‘Shut the door.’ Kristiensen began to take medical supplies from the cupboard: phials of coloured liquids, tubes containing emollients, bandages, salt tablets, and various other preparations. He glanced up and said in a flat expressionless voice: ‘I’m certain the airship isn’t still afloat because there is no airship.’
The First Mate smiled apologetically. ‘You mean the airship has been lost? I’m sorr
y, I don’t—’
‘I mean that there is no airship,’ Kristiensen said distinctly. ‘There never was.’
‘He isn’t from an airship?’
‘No.’
The First Mate regarded him blankly.
‘I had to spin the crew a tale to calm them down. It wouldn’t take much just now to panic them. But he’s no more from an airship than you or I. I’ve seen the uniforms they wear, and this man belongs to no service that I’m familiar with.’
‘But we found him in the middle of the ocean. He’s not from a sailing vessel, that much is clear, so what other explanation is there?’
‘I don’t know,’ the Captain said thoughtfully. He placed the supplies in a small canvas bag and handed it to the First Mate. ‘But I suggest we find out as quickly as possible.’
They found Mr Swann and several of the men clustered round the bunk in which the man lay, still attired in the one-piece garment and showing no signs of recovery. The Second Mate moved aside to allow Kristiensen access, saying, ‘His breathing is shallow but I don’t think he’s injured in any way. There are no wounds or bruising that I can see.’
‘His skin,’ Mr Standish said. ‘It’s so white.’ He couldn’t yet fully take in what the Captain had told him: that here was someone who had appeared as if by magic from nowhere. But of course there had to be a sensible, rational explanation. No educated person, especially in this advanced age, believed for a moment in the inexplicable, the extra-ordinary. There was always a reason to explain everything, from the behaviour of people to those events which at first seemed to defy common sense. For those who didn’t conform to this belief there was the inescapable reality of Psy-Con, which no one in his right mind would deny.
Kristiensen told the crew members to clear out of the way, and it seemed for a moment as if the Summarian might object, but then Mr Swann made a gesture which was unambiguous in its intention. He closed the cabin door firmly behind them and stood with his back to it.
Kristiensen leaned over the unconscious man and carefully cut the material away with his knife until he was naked to the waist. His flesh seemed to glow, as if illuminated from within; and Mr Standish, his eyes straining in the dim light, started involuntarily and said, ‘You can see his bones.’
‘And also his blood vessels,’ the Captain added.
Indeed it was true: the man was translucent. His flesh was solid enough to the touch and yet it was possible to see below the surface, to see actually inside him – the vague milky outline of the skeleton and musculature, the tenuous network of arteries and veins, the shadowy bulk of the inner organs, like pebbles seen darkly at the bottom of a murky pool. And there was something else. Kristiensen touched the man’s left shoulder and traced the shape that was imprinted there, as though branded into the flesh. It was a circle with a bar set diagonally through the lower right-hand arc. It was the letter Q.
The First Mate said wonderingly, ‘Is he a man? Is he human?’
‘He’s a man all right,’ Kristiensen replied. ‘Though where he comes from and to what race he belongs I haven’t a notion. Mr Swann, what do you make of this?’
The Second Mate stepped forward, his dark square face sober and perplexed. He gazed his fill at the figure on the bunk, and then his brows grew close together; his arms hung by his sides, impotent, urging some kind of action. He looked towards the Captain as if seeking some friendly reassurance, a sensible and rational explanation.
Kristiensen held a tube to each of the man’s nostrils and squirted something inside which dispersed like mist in the nasal cavity. They waited for a moment but there was no response.
‘What does the mark on his shoulder signify?’ Mr Standish asked.
‘It’s not a birthmark, at least I don’t think so,’ Mr Swann said. ‘It’s too exact and well-formed.’
‘A badge of rank perhaps.’ Kristiensen said, which was less a query than an inward musing.
‘But where is he from?’ Mr Standish said. ‘A man adrift on the ocean must come from somewhere.’ He looked at the others; for some reason he felt light-headed and was aware of a trembling in his fingertips. There was no threat of danger, so why should he feel so odd? The mystery of it deepened his anxiety.
The Captain spread an emollient preparation over the man’s chest and shoulders and smoothed it into the skin. His large broad hands had a surprising delicacy of touch. He took a strip of cloth from a bottle containing a pale amber liquid and placed it underneath the man’s left armpit. After a second or two he removed the strip and examined it; Mr Standish noticed that it had changed colour, from dark red to pink.
‘His body temperature is normal,’ Kristiensen said. ‘There’s little we can do for him except keep him under observation, above all keep his temperature down, and immediately he shows signs of recovery—’
‘Captain!’ Mr Swann said. He stumbled forward.
The man’s eyelids were flickering. A muscle moved in his shoulder and a spasm of nervous energy contracted the muscles of his chest. His lips trembled and tried to form themselves into a word. The First Mate experienced a sudden cold prickling down his spine and his mouth was hot and parched.
Kristiensen was straining to hear what the man was trying to say. The words, when they came, were mingled with his breath, barely above a whisper.
‘What is it? What does he say?’ asked Mr Swann.
The Captain straightened up, the lines like furrows on his forehead. ‘It’s difficult to make out. He keeps repeating the same words, something that sounds like “Time no longer” or “Will be time no longer”. Does that make sense to anyone?’
The Second Mate said grimly, ‘I wouldn’t expect it to make sense, not coming from him. He’s a queer cove, as is obvious to anyone with eyes in his head.’
‘Will he be all right?’ Mr Standish asked.
‘I believe so.’ Kristiensen stood up to his full height, his head almost touching the beams. ‘We must let him rest, then feed him as soon as he’s conscious. Mr Swann, is there a man you can trust to keep watch over him? We need someone of a calm disposition who can keep his mouth shut and not blab to the rest of the crew. Any more shocks or surprises and we’ll have a mutiny on our hands.’ He stepped into the passage, the First Mate close behind, and they returned to the Captain’s quarters.
There was an atmosphere aboard the barque that night that was almost tangible: a presence pervading everywhere, above and below deck. The air was sultry, the vessel drifting languidly beneath the canopy of stars on its silent lonely course; behind it the knife-edge track of bubbling phosphorescence stretching like a slug’s trail to the black horizon.
Kristiensen found sleep impossible. He tried to read a book which dealt with the origin and meaning of ancient symbols – hoping to find and identify the mark imprinted on the man’s shoulder – but his concentration kept sliding off the page, and after a while he snapped the book shut and went up to the quarter-deck where Mr Swann was taking the second watch. Because of the presence of the man at the wheel they talked of inconsequential matters, avoiding any mention of the stranger and striving to keep their voices calm and unconcerned. From deep below, within the bowels of the ship, there came now and then the sharp crack of a whiplash followed by a dull murmur of dark voices which gradually faded into the night; nothing else disturbed the calm.
Towards dawn, with the vessel still asleep it seemed, the seaman whom Mr Swann had chosen to keep watch over the stranger – he was a boy of eighteen – appeared on deck and ran like a shadow to the companion-ladder, calling for the Second Mate to come quickly. Kristiensen stepped to the forward rail and demanded sharply to know what was the matter. The boy came up on to the quarter-deck, his sunburnt face almost invisible in the darkness and his bleached hair gleaming like a cap of silver.
‘They’re in the cabin, I couldn’t stop them.’ The boy was gasping and visibly trembling. ‘They said he had a curse upon him and would make the ship founder. I could do, nothing, they—’
‘H
ow many of them?’ Kristiensen said crisply.
‘Four, five, I’m not sure. The Summarian said—’
‘I might have known he’d have a hand in this; the others wouldn’t have had the nerve on their own. What was it he said?’
‘He – he said,’ the boy stuttered. ‘He said the man, the stranger, had the mark of the beast upon him. He said the brand on his shoulder was the sign of the Evil Eye and that we would all perish if he wasn’t cast back into the sea.’
The Second Mate spoke urgently in the Captain’s ear. ‘Mr Standish has the cabin adjoining. Do you think he’s safe?’
‘He has a pistol, he should be able to defend himself if necessary. But we must hurry if we’re to save the stranger from harm.’ Kristiensen addressed the boy: ‘Can you handle a flintlock?’
‘I think so. Yes, sir.’
‘Good lad. Mr Swann, break out the arms locker in my cabin, two flintlocks apiece. We must check this before it erupts into open mutiny.’ As he spoke the first rays of morning light began to streak the southern sky. The ocean was a dark sluggish mass of purple under the fading stars. Once again it was going to be a day of stifling heat and humidity, the slack breeze barely filling the yellow sails.
The Second Mate returned with the flintlock pistols, loaded and primed, and Kristiensen led the way down the companion ladder and across the deck. There was no sound from below. The Summarian and his fellow conspirators were moving with the stealth and cunning of bilge rats, down there in the creaking passageways and shadowed cabins. For such a big man Kristiensen was light as a cat on his feet, creeping down the ladders below decks with Mr Swann close behind and the boy nervously bringing up the rear. Approaching the cabin they heard (‘Ssshhhh!’ Kristiensen said) the muffled sound of voices; and then all at once, in the near blackness, very close to them, something moved – what Kristiensen instantly took to be the look-out posted by the Summarian – and raised his pistol, cocked the hammer, and shot Mr Standish straight through the head. The young man gave no cry, made no sound, but fell immediately to the floor, all life extinguished from his body. The lead ball had split his skull in two like a pomegranate and the contents were stuck to the walls and bulkhead.