"So we'll leave it be. There's no hope with the engine, at least not until the water level goes down a few feet."
"And it's likely to get worse without the engine pumps."
"Lovely. Adam, maybe my timing's bad, but we might not get a chance to talk about it later. Can you tell me what in the hell happened? Wasn't this boat supposed to be unsinkable?"
"Yeah, and the hull was supposed to be indestructible, but that's the way things go. Still, we got a lot of plastic foam between the ceiling and the upper deck, so we may go awash, but she'll stay afloat. The stuff we got in the garbage bags should help out with flotation, too. Still and all, it might be a good idea to get the inflatable life raft out and ready, and maybe The Concrete Canoe, too."
"You still haven't said what happened. I mean, it was your watch and all," I said.
"I'm not really sure. The wind was from astern, and we were holding our own, when suddenly a freak wind knocked us on our side. Then, at just that very instant, the tip of the mast hit something, hard. A whale, for all I know, or a submarine. Or maybe a submerged rock, or something that was barely floating."
"It couldn't have been a rock. We're four hundred miles from the nearest land."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Except that a little while before all this happened, I fired up the radar just for something to do, and there was this island up ahead," Adam said.
"That's impossible. It must have been some kind of ghost, or reflection off the storm."
"Yeah, only it showed up on sonar, too."
"Our navigation can't be that far off. Besides all the different electronic stuff all agreeing with each other, you took a noon sighting with your sextant yesterday, and it agreed with everything else."
"I know. Look, we got other problems just now. You're still bleeding, so maybe you ought to do the light work and get the lifeboat out. I'm going to go down and work the manual pump."
The safety equipment was mostly stowed in and around the aft cockpit, where there was always supposed to be someone on duty, as things had been originally planned, at least. I got out the life raft, tied it securely to the boat with the rope provided, and popped the carbon dioxide cylinder. She inflated like a champ. The raft was covered with an inflatable roof, and had room and supplies for twenty.
The Concrete Canoe was big enough for thirty in a pinch, but it was an open boat. Furthermore, it took at least two men to launch it, so I left it in its compartment aft.
There was a combination Global Positioning System and satellite transceiver aboard the raft that was supposed to send a distress message to whatever ships were in the vicinity. I hesitated, and then decided not to turn it on for a while.
We weren't sunk yet, after all, and I wasn't ready to give up on The Brick Royal just yet.
Rescuers have been known to forcibly rescue people who really didn't need it. The feeling seems to be that if they had to go through all the bother of being heroic, then you had damn well better appreciate it and act humble. I once heard about a couple of mountain climbers who ran into a bad snowstorm while halfway up a slope. They were experienced men, well trained and well equipped. When the weather got impossible, they had pitched their tent, gotten into it, and then into their sleeping bags. They were quite comfortable, even though their tent was soon almost buried in the snow. As far as they were concerned, the snow was just more insulation. Their intent was to wait out the storm and then to proceed to the top of the mountain as they had originally planned.
Their rescuers, being much less well trained and prepared than the supposed `victims,' and having had three of their members injured in the storm, had forced the recipients of their unwanted favors to abandon their equipment and to accompany them down off the mountain. The net result of this supposedly heroic rescue was that everyone concerned, victims and rescuers alike, became severely frostbitten. I had heard the story directly from one of the two unfortunate mountain climbers. A quarter inch of his nose was missing, along with all of the toes on his right foot.
Better to wait until we had abandoned ship ourselves, I thought, and were in the lifeboat before we called for help. If the Coast Guard arrived before we had abandoned ship, they might force us aboard their vessel, and then we'd likely lose The Brick Royal.
Our radar dome was mounted on its own mast, just in back of the cockpit. Despite the drain on the batteries, I turned it on, and by God, there really was something big dead ahead. I tried the forward-looking sonar, and it said the same thing. Switching both off to conserve juice, I tried the Global Positioning System, and it said we were four hundred miles east of the Line Islands. I tried our depth gauge, another kind of sonar, and it gave a depth consistent with where the navigation stuff said we should be. I turned everything off except the Chrysler windshield wipers and looked ahead. The clouds and spray to the west of us parted for an instant, and I saw what looked like a huge, multitiered city dead ahead.
"Adam!" I shouted over the intercom, "You'd better come up and look at this."
His head came up through the hatchway beside me.
"Sweet Jesus! You know, I read about something like that once. It was supposed to be an optical illusion. They called it the Fata Morgana, after the witch in the King Arthur legends. There was a big write-up in Scientific American, about how the different layers of calm air made it appear. It made a lot of sense at the time."
"There's nothing calm about the air out here. We've got gale winds going! This optical illusion is showing up on radar and sonar. I turned them on for a little while, and I saw the same thing you did earlier."
"Well, given the choice, I think I'd rather be marooned than sunk. But I'd rather be sailing than either of the above, so I'm going back to the pump. If you feel up to it, you might relieve me in a while, Fata Morgana or no Fata Morgana."
He went below and I went back to checking our emergency equipment. After a while, I had done everything I could think of, even reading the checklist, and went below to help Adam. Then, suddenly, the ladder wasn't where it was supposed to be, and I was knocked unconscious again.
NINE
On the highest peak of the Western Isles, two figures stood watching as the storm winds blew their long capes high behind their backs. Aldrich Skybolt, journeyman wizard and Master of Radios, pointed due east into the wind.
"There! A ship! I told you it was coming!" He shouted above the wind in a language akin to ancient French.
"Yes, but it's an old one! Look, it has a mast. It's broken, but it's still a mast. That thing is a sailing ship. I was told that the outsiders stopped using such craft a century ago," cried Sister Joan of the Lyonnesse Nunnery.
"That's no ancient ship, sister! I have been hearing its many radios for hours. It may be powered by the wind, but its equipment is brand new."
"Believe what you want. How do you know that this ship is the one you heard? They stopped calling half an hour ago!"
"I tell you, I know! The law says that the Shire Reeve must be told immediately, as must the Council of Wizards and the Warlock!"
"Then you must tell them yourself, Master Aldrich, because I am going to alert the Archbishop of this ship's coming!"
"You're going to play politics when Christian lives are in danger? You know that I can't leave my post! Look! They're sure to be shipwrecked on our shore, near the Point of Avalon! The Shire Reeve there must be told first, so he can call out the Sea Farmers and the Fishermen! Lives are at stake!"
"All lives are in the hands of God, Aldrich, and God will decide whether they live or die. And how do you know that the people in that ship are Christians? Odds are that they are Heathens, or even Atheists!"
"I warn you of the law, sister! When there is danger from the sea, the Reeve must be told first. If you must suck up to your superiors, and try to advance yourself at the expense of innocent lives, do so and be damned! But you must go to the Reeve first!"
"He's on my way, so I'll do it. But the Archbishop will hear about this before your Warlock does!"
&
nbsp; "Then so be it, but get moving, woman! There are lives at stake!"
The nun ran down the long path to the shore. When she was out of sight, the wizard hurried down to his cave, unlocked a chest, picked up crude, handmade telephone and said, "Warlock? Warlock? Are you there, master? A ship, a strange new ship is about to wreck on the point of Avalon. This may be the one we have waited for all these years! Warlock, are you there?"
* * *
I awoke, naked and in pain, on a stiff, lumpy bed with scratchy sheets. For some reason, this inferior bed had been covered by a rich blue velvet bedspread with a wide border that was heavily embroidered with threads of at least a dozen colors. It portrayed some sort of a medieval scene, a party of noble knights and ladies with their dogs and horses on a field of flowers. It looked to be done by hand, and if so, must have taken thousands of man-hours, or more likely woman-hours, to make. For a few moments, my back and neck in pain, I couldn't help wishing that they had spent more money on the mattress and less on the decoration.
The ceiling was high above me, thirty feet at least, and glancing about I saw that I was alone in a sparsely furnished bedroom that was big enough to be used for a game of professional basketball. Three walls and the whole domed ceiling were heavily carved, or maybe it was plaster work, but it was done in a style that I had never seen before. It was partly an elaborate floral decoration, but there were also bas reliefs of men and women that gave the feeling of being actual portraits rather than simple decoration.
One wall was made up of tall, thick Doric pillars, beyond which was a small garden that looked out on the sea, a few hundred feet below. There was no glass in the windows thus formed, but the weather was fair, and the temperature comfortable. The storm was over, the sky was a cloudless blue with the beginnings of a sunset, the sun being just a few degrees above the horizon. Seagulls were flying above a blue sea touched with pink by the occasional breaking wave.
I rolled and sat up at the edge of the bed, and an incredible pain shot through my head. I stayed there a bit, groaning, and then let myself slowly back under the covers. It seemed that I would live, but I was far from well. My body was a mass of bruises, from my lumpy head to my smashed toes. It felt as though every tendon, ligament, and muscle I had was pulled. Except for my eyeballs, all bodily motion was painful. The good news was that as best as I could tell, my bones were reasonably sound, I could wiggle my toes, so my spinal cord was all right, and the cuts on my back were sewn up and bandaged.
My groans must have attracted the nurse, because she came immediately. She wasn't the adolescent dream that my ex-wife had been, but she was nonetheless a remarkably attractive woman. She looked to be in her early thirties, with very fair skin and long, blond hair, held back by a jeweled clasp. She wore no makeup, but I caught a hint of a strange, musky perfume. Her posture was very erect, and she walked with a sort of flowing motion, almost as if she were on wheels rather than legs.
I called her a nurse since somehow she acted that way, but she certainly wasn't dressed like one. She wore a floor-length vermilion dress held out by hoops. The bodice was tight and was cut about as low as it could go, actually exposing the upper parts of her nipples. The entire dress, like my fabulous bedspread, had been adorned with several thousand woman-hours of embroidery.
She felt my forehead and then my pulse.
"Where am I?" I said. "What is this place?"
She answered me in something that was maybe French, or even Latin, and I couldn't make out a word of it.
"Is there anyone here who understands English?" I said slowly, carefully, and a bit too loudly. I had to find out about Adam, and The Brick Royal.
Again, her response meant nothing to me. I used the few words I remembered from my high school Latin, but got no response.
All I remembered from my college Russian was how to say that I was going to go soon to the library, but I was either not understood, or the nurse didn't care about who went to Russian libraries. I tried the limited Vietnamese that my parents had allowed me to learn, but that too drew a blank.
Finally, resorting to sign language, I gesticulated that I was thirsty and hungry, and at last met with some success. Within minutes she was back with a bowl of almost meatless stew in a porcelain bowl, a wooden spoon, a clay cup, and a pottery pitcher of beer. That is to say, I thought it might be beer, even though it was thin, flat, and strangely flavored. It definitely contained alcohol, which in my book put this place way ahead of the average American hospital.
After a cup of the beer, I felt the call of nature, and though it embarrassed me to do so, I had to gesticulate my needs. She handed me a chamber pot from under the bed, and discreetly left for a few minutes. I'd never used a chamber pot before, but I'd heard of them. It sufficed.
On returning, she talked a long while, and although I still could not understand a word of what she said, her tone and her bearing let me know that somehow I was in good hands, that all would be well. Later, she rolled me over and massaged my back, carefully avoiding the places where I had been cut.
The sun was setting. Contented and comfortable, I fell asleep. When I awoke, the thin grey light of morning was coming through the window wall. It was almost unpleasantly cool. My nose was cold, but the rest of me was warm enough under the thick covers, some of which must have been added while I was asleep. In a short while, the sun came up and shined directly in my eyes. I watched it for a long time, and it was definitely rising.
I knew that something was very wrong.
Last night I had lain in this same bed and watched the sun set out of that very same window. Only one wall had windows in it and that wall had been to the west! Now, either it was to the east or I was going insane! Or was I in a different, identical room, the victim of a fabulously expensive practical joke? Or had I died and gone to some irrational afterlife?
An unfair thought. A decent Atheist like me should not have to worry about that sort of thing!
The same lady brought breakfast, although this time she wore a pale blue dress, as richly embroidered and expensive looking as the last one, and of a similar cut. I guessed that if she had to work unnaturally long hours, she was at least well paid for it.
I slept for a few more hours, and when I awoke, my nurse was again sitting beside me. She began teaching me the language, starting with the parts of the body. The word for elbow, the word for finger. How you said that your finger was touching your elbow.
I was never much good at learning a foreign language. I'd gotten D's in Latin in high school, and had flunked out of Russian in college. But now, with a desperate need to get some questions answered and absolutely nothing else to do, I learned. Total immersion, I think it's called.
Her name was Roxanna. We were on the Western Isles, and the language was Westronese. She couldn't say exactly where the Western Isles were. Indeed, she seemed to think that it was a very complicated question to answer. I gave it up until I could speak the language better.
While the medical help was always there when I wanted it, the level of medical technology seemed to be as ancient as the style of my nurse's dress. Another, older, woman occasionally came by. She talked briefly with my nurse, changed my bandages, and checked my wounds. I never saw anything like the ordinary tools to be expected in a doctor's office. No one checked my blood pressure. I never saw a stethoscope. I never got a shot or took a pill. Slowly, my body healed.
My mind was already well. My physical pains were such that I was actually a few days noticing it, but somehow the deep, black depression that had plagued me for over a year was simply not there, gone as if it had never been. I could no longer even imagine what it had been like to suffer from it. Perhaps the brain cells that had caused it had died in the wreck. If so, they would not be missed.
As I slowly recovered, my nurse got sick. It looked as if she had a bad case of the flu, with a running nose and a fever, but she doggedly continued to serve me, to the point where I got to feeling very guilty about it. I tried to get her to take it eas
ier, but my Westronese wasn't up to explaining what I meant, and my gestures were not understood.
My nurse gave me a thorough weekly sponge bath in a strictly professional manner, but never a shave. After much difficulty with my almost nonexistent Westronese and a lot of gesticulation, I found that Roxanna had never even heard of a razor. What she thought of my initially clean-shaven face remained a mystery for quite a while. As it was, the discomfort and itching of growing a full beard was added to my other physical problems, or perhaps it distracted from them.
It wouldn't have been a good idea to scratch the itching, healing cuts on my stitched up back, even if I could reach them, but I could and did take considerable satisfaction in scratching the stubble on my cheeks. Call it a counterirritant.
It was a week before they would let me get up and walk around for a short while, and over the weeks that followed I was allowed to explore a bit, but not to leave the mansion I was in.
I say "they" because I found that I was apparently at the head of a household with six servants. Besides Roxanna, my nurse-tutor, there was a maid, a cook, and three gardeners. Two of the gardeners were married to the maid and cook, respectively. How I rated such a royal entourage was beyond me.
Strangely, every one of them had the flu. By the time I commanded enough of their language to tell them about the Contact capsules in the ship's medical kit, I realized that there simply wouldn't have been enough for everybody, and I let it go.
The area in front of our windows was planted in a carefully tended vegetable garden, but the two men and the woman who worked there were not the same people as the gardeners I had been introduced to. The garden and people apparently belonged to some other household, whom the people of our household didn't talk to, or look at, or even acknowledge the existence of. I tried to get Roxanna to explain about them, and for quite a while it almost seemed as though she couldn't even see who I was talking about. I put it down as just another mystery that would hopefully be answered someday.
The Fata Morgana Page 6