Far From The Sea We Know

by Frank M Sheldon

CHAPTER 26

  Dawn was just breaking when Penny walked out on deck. It was still cool from the night, but the new day’s sun was already bringing a little warmth to her skin. The weather was as perfect as it could be. No rain. Sun with some clouds. A mild, but constant, breeze easily earned her gratitude. She glanced up at Andrew behind the wheel on the bridge and gave him a quick wave. Things were returning to normal.

  But not really. Things would never be normal again. Normal was gone and wasn’t ever coming back.

  Another day and a night had passed since Penny’s meeting with Andrew. Since then, a frigate had appeared yesterday and was shadowing them on their port side. The two disabled Navy ships still floated like bathtub toys to their port. For some reason, the seagoing tugboats were just standing by.

  After searching around, she found Matthew on the fantail, gazing at the Valentina’s wake. She walked up slowly and took a place by his side at the rail, but not too close.

  “Must be driving them mad,” she said, grinning as she looked over at him. “Their propellers just falling off like that.”

  Matthew didn’t return the smile, didn’t say anything. He had become almost unwilling to speak, preferring long looks of knowingness. It was as if he had simply packed his bags and moved up to some lofty peak of self-containment. In the aftermath of the whales disappearing, and all his disbelievers being laid low, he had fallen into the role of vindicated prophet as if into the arms of a true lover.

  “Quite a regatta out there today,” she said, trying again. “What’s taking them so long to tow those ships?”

  He shifted his posture a little and mumbled, “Soon, now.”

  At least he’s starting to talk, she thought. For some reason, she remembered how he had gone into a kind of daze when he walked into the bar after the floatplane dropped them off on their trip up.

  “Matthew? Do you remember what Normy said to you?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy in Abercrombie. Normy. He said something to you and you just froze up and started to sweat and turned pale as a ghost. Remember that? Something about bones?” He just looked at her with the same vaguely sublime face.

  “Matthew? You’re creeping me out. Hellooo…?”

  His head quivered for a moment, and he suddenly seemed to see her as he said. “Why are you goading me? Because I stayed in the men’s quarters last night?”

  “You can sleep where you want. I made that clear.”

  “Some of the crew seemed to need to talk. About what happened to them.”

  “Well, how compassionate of you, then.”

  He didn’t strike at the lure, saying only, “I hope you had a good evening.”

  “Slept like a baby. Nice to stretch out.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” he said, “the guy next to me smelled like a fresh-turned compost heap. Is there anything I could do to win a place back, if not in your bunk, at least in your cabin? The floor would be fine.”

  She looked at him, kept looking, and at last his face broke into a true smile. She pounded his arm. “Damn you! Okay, you’re back in, but you could use a shower yourself, you toad. I have to tell you something. Chiffrey was picked up by a launch from the frigate after you and your buddies turned in last night. About three in the morning.”

  “You were still up?”

  “I woke, couldn’t get back to sleep. Found out this morning that Chiffrey left no word of when he would return. Well?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “And stare at all the pretty waves, you mean?”

  “Something changed for me, Penny. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to put it into words. It needs time, and I need time. Part of me is here and part of me is…looking on.”

  “You need guy space. Got it.”

  He was about to protest, but then seemed relieved. She let him off the hook, after all.

  Most of the crew would soon be filing into C-lab for a meeting, but she wasn’t going and she wasn’t surprised that Matthew had also decided to stay away. She looked at him again, his hair rustling in the breeze. He no longer stared at the waves, but had produced a set of nail clippers from somewhere and was busy with an impromptu manicure, of all things.

  “Keeping up personal hygiene, good,” she said. He suddenly seemed completely absorbed in his clipping, as if he were working on his definitive masterpiece, and didn’t respond. She persisted. “Why has this happened to everybody? And you?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, but the knowing look on his face was exasperating. “Everything is the same, yet somehow nothing is the same and never will be again.”

  “How fine and wise.”

  “I will be able to say it better one day.”

  “Listen, you’ve been holier-than-thou ever since the whales disappeared, and the Navy was disabled. I was watching people around you yesterday. They treated you with such deference, and why? Because all along you were right. I know it’s a relief to finally have everyone see that you’re not crazy, but is this going to be your new career?”

  “You were going to give me a break.”

  “I never promised.”

  “No, I guess you didn’t.”

  She waited, but he didn’t follow through, so she said, “I’ve always been straight with you. That’s better than bullshit with sugar on top, isn’t it?”

  “I’d just like the rest of you.”

  “So, you want it all, do you? No one gets everything.”

  He seemed to look inward for a moment and said, “Then I must make everything of what I get.”

  “Skip the platitudes. Where are you now with this? Explain it to me.”

  “Ever since the incident, I look at people, I see them, I hear them. I mean, really see and hear them. And everything around them as well. The ship, it’s almost as if it is alive. I feel right with everybody. Things may be the same outside, but I feel so connected in a way that is just…” He struggled for words and looked almost sad. “…just the way things were always meant to be.”

  “If that includes me, I’m not feeling it back.”

  “I know,” he said and then looked truly sad for a moment.

  “Forget it,” she said. “You still haven’t told me why all this now?”

  “I’m putting it as simply as I can.”

  “No need to dumb it down.”

  “It’s hard to put into words. I just have this certainty that I am where I am meant to be. As if everything is part of a play, the one play, and I just play my part. All is exactly as it should be, and I’m free. It’s a dance, and I dance.”

  “Then I suggest you widen your repertoire. You’ve been about as lively as a garden ornament.”

  “Please drop the cynicism, at least for a while.”

  “Oh, so all is just as it should be except me.”

  “No! Not at all, it’s just that I wish you…Just listen to me, please. I am where I am meant to be, and so are you!” He paused and added, “With me, us together…”

  She had been looking at the newly arrived ships when he said this, but she turned and held his glance for a moment, looked for even a trace of condescension. Just one flicker would have been enough, but he looked back at her with no more guile than a child lost in the forest.

  “All right,” she said. “But aren’t you concerned at all? I mean, of all this, everything we seem to have set loose?”

  “We didn’t set it loose.”

  “Okay, it just happened to us, ‘it’ meaning stuff totally outside the known laws of physics. And I’m even getting used to it. But the way everyone is acting?”

  “Not an act. They’re just becoming themselves.”

  “Really. Aren’t you the least bit skeptical?”

  “Of what needs to be questioned, of course. But if it’s sunny, I don’t doubt the light or the warmth. I don’t need to analyze the sun to feel the sun, to know the sun directly.” He gazed up at the sun, but at least he had his eyes closed. “It’s a relat
ionship now. I feel the sun’s reality and my place with it so immediately.”

  He turned back to her and opened his eyes. “This is the way life is meant to be, that’s what is important. I don’t know why this has all happened now, and I do hope to know, but it would be wrong to make an obsession of trying to find out.”

  “I never suggested we should.”

  “What has happened to us should be embraced, not shunted aside because it’s new and, therefore, a threat.”

  “I’m with you on not denying. It just bothers me that no one is questioning the validity of their experience and the source. I include you. It should be a cause for concern.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Ripler was just as convinced that he was right as you are now. Being convinced beyond all doubt does not make what you believe true. Think about it! All the people out there who just know they’re right, half of them self-righteous creeps who seek to bend the world to their will even if it breaks and do not hesitate to destroy those who do not agree with them. Listen, I don’t really want to go into that now.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Sure. Some other day.”

  “A little unfair, I know, since I brought it up.” She gave him a hug and looked up into his eyes, which somehow seemed darker brown than ever.

  “What do you say we have another look?” She gave a quick glance toward the bridge.

  “The transceiver?”

  “No one but Andrew seems to be there now, the students are enjoying their group grope, so now’s as good a time as any.”

  His answer was barely audible. “Maybe another time. I was going to kind of just sit for a while.”

  “Sit? Like meditate or something?”

  “I just sit and let everything stop for a while. My thoughts.”

  “Then enjoy your holiday. I’ll see you later.” She smiled, but stalked off a little annoyed. No matter, she thought. Let him be, let him have some time to find his footing. Let him see for himself if what he believes he’s found is real.

  As she entered the bridge, Andrew gave her a nod and said, “Morning. Come to visit me or our new addition?”

  “Both,” she said.

  A new array of equipment had been installed, the wires cinched together with cable ties in an attempt to make it neat, but it was still clearly a jury rig. Most of it was gathered around the transceiver on the floor.

  “Emory adapted a stereo microscope and rigged it to get a closer look,” Andrew said. “Set it up with video, but right now only hooked into the monitor down in C-lab. Will be spliced into the monitors here after the meeting. That black box next to the transceiver can detect electrical fields in living organisms. Didn’t have much else that would be of use.”

  “Do you think this meeting the crew is having is wise?” she asked.

  Andrew gave a slight nod. “They seem to be coming back together. If a meeting helps, good enough reason.” He handed her a large magnifying glass. “Have a look.”

  She took the magnifier, knelt down, and brought the glass up to see. What looked like roots in all kinds of colors were emanating from the transceiver, growing right before her eyes. How could that possibly be?

  “Penetrating steel deck plates,” he said. “Feel the heat?”

  She put her hand down. The deck felt just as hard as always, but unaccountably warm. She said, “At the rate they are extending, you would have to say this was more like animal movement than plant growth.”

  “May not be plant or animal,” he said.

  “Then what? Some kind of quasi-life? I’ve never heard of anything that can grow through steel. More to the point, damn it, how could a transceiver send out roots?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “They’re beautiful,” she said, “the colors, the way they weave in and out like some super fine tapestry, but many dangerous things use bright displays of color as warning signs.”

  She didn’t touch the roots but ran her hand along the cables from the microscope. They jacked in to an AV junction box underneath the bridge console along with other instruments.

  “I hope they’re backing up everything they’re recording,” she said, “because they may never get another chance.”

  “Malcolm and Emory? Before we sailed, they put in enough storage to hold the Library of Congress.”

  She got to her feet. “This is ten levels beyond incredible. We should be staggering around with our minds blown.”

  “Some are,” he said, pursing his lips as he glanced at the old brass compass in its gimbals. She knew he had never done much in the way of analyzing data and had sometimes been faulted for it. Yet she had always trusted Andrew’s intuitions and pure observational skills more than anyone else’s, even her father’s. And Martin would be the first to say the same.

  Andrew tapped a few settings on the monitoring equipment to get readouts. “We have little to go on so far. Not really kitted out for this kind of barbecue.”

  “Any idea how this could happen?” she asked.

  He tapped another screen a few times and shook his head. “No one saw it arrive, including me. The whales had just disappeared. I’m looking at the tracer screen and the transceiver blip is suddenly dead center. I turn around and it’s just there where you see it.”

  “Are we sure it’s really the same one?” she asked.

  “As much as can be,” he said. “Becka checked the serial numbers. This seems to be the tag we attached to Lefty, a young bull in the same grouping that Matthew originally saw from the Eva Shay. Need to check a few more things to be dead cert.

  She looked down at the transceiver. “The casing’s getting all mixed up with the steel of the deck plating. Like they’re melting together.”

  “Casing’s plastic,” he said. “Normally, that would be impossible.”

  She nodded. “And the tendrils. You kind of wonder if there’s wire or something inside them. They’re all heading over to your navigation gear. Trying to connect?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Penny put her hands to her ears.

  “If one more person says, ‘that’s what I was thinking,’ I’m going to open up a psychic hotline.” She shook her head and looked up at him. “I was hearing that all day yesterday, every time I tried talking with the crew. Like they think they’re reading thoughts.”

  “People feel more connected.”

  “For all we know, the behavior change is part of a strategy for getting us where whatever’s behind all this wants. I’ve seen a snake fascinate a small bird. They really do this, and the bird just sits there mesmerized. Maybe it feels great, maybe it feels one with everything, but in another minute, it’s making a slow trip to snake stomach. Still alive.”

  “Doubt that’s what is happening here,” Andrew said.

  “I don’t really know, but that’s the point. No one knows, but many of the crew act like everything is just fine. Disconcerting. I find it even more disconcerting that no one else seems concerned.”

  Andrew looked thoughtful. “Crew’s been through a lot. Especially Matthew.”

  “I know,” she said, “but he’s become insufferable, like Moses down from the mountain, the prophet of the true word.”

  “Wait it out. Only advice I can give.”

  He was right. Yet, when she looked at the transceiver working its way into the ship like a parasite, she was not comforted.

  “Do you think it’s wise to probe the transceiver, if we can still call it that? We really have no idea what we’re doing and what consequence we may unwittingly trigger.”

  “Point taken,” he said, “though being excessively cautious has its own risks. Did tell Malcolm and Emory no cutting or probing.”

  “Remember their adventure with the scrambled eggs? Okay, I know they’re good techies and all, but watch them.”

  “Watching everyone,” he said. “Emory now seems in surprisingly good shape. More relaxed around people. Malcolm’s more relaxed about being Malcolm.”
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br />   She smiled and didn’t say any more for a while. She looked at the horizon and tried in her own way to let all thoughts go. But she couldn’t.

  “There are risks in examining it, no matter how careful we are,” she finally said. “Risks that can’t even be calculated.”

  “Spoke with Chiffrey last night before he went to that frigate over there to report. They want to move some of their own people over here.”

  “You told him no, of course.”

  He shrugged. “You were talking danger a minute ago, so why not?”

  “I was simply urging caution, not suggesting we go to war.”

  “He claims he wants to bring over scientists,” Andrew said. “Not Navy SEALs.”

  “You can’t trust that,” Penny said.

  “Trained researchers,” he said. “Experts in other fields.”

  “Well, I don’t know the name of the field of study that has inanimate objects coming to life as its province. His ‘experts’ are probably just glorified technicians, but they’d want to take over….” She saw his smile. “Wait, you never intended to let them onboard.”

  “Not while we’re at sea.”

  She caught the implication. “Are we heading back?”

  “We have a boatload of students who got more trip than they signed on for. Some are bound to want to go home.”

  “Most of them seem to be enjoying it. In their own way, at least. And the whales?”

  “They could be anywhere. Not going to find them unless they want to be found. I won’t be a stalking horse for Chiffrey and his people. Too much like a hunt.”

  “Well, I’m with you all the way on that, but Chiffrey is right about one thing. At least we have hard evidence now.” She stared again at the mutating transceiver. “This thing makes mush of however we thought the world works. I guess he was right about that as well.”

  She gazed at the transceiver as if waiting for it to tell its secrets. But Andrew didn’t wait. “Still doing its job, you think?”

  “What?” Then it hit her. “You mean we’re tagged now? Being tracked?”

  “Could be,” was all he said.

  “If that’s true, shouldn’t we…” Her voice trailed off. She had already given her best argument why they should not disturb it.

  “We don’t know,” he said. She waited, but he remained as silent as a monk. He checked the heading on the compass again, an act that must be as natural to him by now as breathing. A gleam of light, like a spark of white fire, caught her eye. Hanging above the center port window over the compass was a string of tiny white shells interspersed with bits of silver. Penny knew it well, but hadn’t seen the necklace since she was a small child. She had always assumed it lost at sea along with the woman who had been Andrew’s wife, all those years ago. Valentina, the namesake of this ship they depended on to keep them safe on a now uncharted sea.

  The necklace gave her a strange pang of gladness, almost hopefulness. But like a rainbow fading into clearing air, the feeling was subsumed by the old ache of loss for Valentina, a loss they each shared in their separate ways.

  “A course for home,” Andrew said. He might have guessed her thoughts as he followed her glance to the necklace, because he added, “…and a star to steer her by.”

  “So soon?” she found herself saying, surprised by her own words.

  “There may be stops along the way. ‘Ports of opportunity’ in the old way of speaking.”

  She laughed. “Still a pirate at heart.”

  She knelt down one more to time to get a closer look at the transceiver. “Will you tell Chiffrey you suspect that thing may be tracking us now?”

  “No.”

  “He’s sure to figure it out.”

  “Counting on it.”