by John Brunner
For there stood her son kissing a girl.
She had not seen a man doing that for…
That was her conviction for the space of three heartbeats. Then memory flooded in and took possession of her.
She might not have seen that. But she had been watched when doing something far more shameless.
The world she lived in was a strange, strange place, even to those who knew it well. Yet it was neither crazy nor even illogical. Given the basic assumptions—for instance, that power might be exerted over others without their knowledge and at any distance, but for this talent a price must be paid far exceeding the cost of ordinary political or financial power—everything else followed tidily.
Finding herself committed to a trip that would last four days without touching shore (she had learned this from the laundress, who was concerned about finding her a change of clothes among the stock kept for newly recruited crew, assembled in accordance with Drew’s miserly instructions from items left behind by forgetful passengers), she felt at the mercy of the divine force that, people said, was demanding the sacrifice of her son. But she was fated to resist. She must salvage something from the wreck of her life.
Elsewhere she might have fought against the conclusion. Here, where every atom of the air resonated with instability, she was helpless. Never in her life had she been in a building as huge as this cabin that was not securely rooted on dry land. Like a cathedral it evoked religious feelings. Like a ballroom it evoked the pleasures of the flesh. The very thrumming of the engine sent quivers down her spine. She thought of the night when (it was never provable, but she felt certain) this intractable son of hers had been conceived. Calendars and doctors might argue it was earlier or later, but she recalled the way her frame had been half torn apart by the lips and tongue and hands and spear-armed haunches of her lost Alphonse…
That was a ceremony fit to make a man.
At the very beginning she had thought of sexual congress as being pierced. Which was why she had asked for the silver crucifix on that of all days.
Now what was most important was to create a posterity for Alphonse… and Fernand, if he was doomed in spite of all. She had heard about his involvement with a girl, presumably this one. Seeing her for the first time, she approved two things: she was not dressed like a whore, though with such looks she could have been among the most successful; and even in her alarm at finding they were being watched she had not let go Fernand’s hand.
Summoning all her self-control, smiling as though there had never been a moment’s disagreement between her son and herself, Eulalie advanced across the worn but still colorful carpet.
“My dear, why have you never brought your young lady to meet me? I’m certain we shall like each other very much. Even though I don’t yet know your name…” The smile grew dazzling; she had forgotten none of the charm that had enraptured Alphonse.
Five minutes later they were chatting like old friends while Fernand stood by in amazement. What could have made him imagine his mother was less unpredictable than Dorcas? A scant hour ago he had been convinced she was off her head, whereas now…
Taking his leave on the grounds that he must confer with Drew and Tyburn, he left them to it, baffled.
Was he ever going to understand women? They were more inscrutable than the Mississippi!
At the hour-and-a-half mark they were abreast of Red Church, symbolic of Europe’s greatest impact on the New World. As yet it was too soon for the competing boats to feel the true force of the river. Moreover there were plantations and gardens on either bank, and the water was still aswarm with smaller craft, including some belated steamers working down, hours or days overdue because of grounding or mechanical trouble.
Later, in the huge broad reaches out of sight of habitation, where the water seemed sluggish until one tried to fight its flow and learned the hard way about its sheer mass, and where the only sign of life might be a beetle come to blunder against the pilothouse window, or a grasshopper welcoming the chance to see the world, then things would be very different from this interlude of merrymaking.
For the time being, the passengers on both boats were on deck, waving at spectators on shore, mocking the steamer behind or cursing the one ahead, applauding and gossiping and taking the occasional drink—alcoholic if their morality permitted. The stewards sold little solid food; no one seemed to have time to think about appetite.
But the bars did land-office business.
Eventually the contempt of the Nonpareil’s officers—or perhaps the fact that he was sobering up—bore it in upon Auberon that his vision of a wrecker’s plot was absurd. He did not admit the fact in so many words, but abruptly turned away with some muttered remark about arranging a stateroom for Josephine at his expense. Joel, embarrassed by his transient credulity, made no move to accompany him.
When in a little while he rejoined the company, he acted as though the whole affair had never happened.
Parbury appeared equally satisfied, but was still desperate to be distracted from the recollection of Dorcas. Aware that Gordon and Matthew had field glasses, he had forced his way to where they stood staring at the Atchafalaya’s smoke plume, surrounded by the rest of the cabin passengers.
“Where is she now?” he demanded for the uncountableth time.
Growing weary, Matthew did his best to make an estimate.
“Ah… I guess about a half-mile behind.”
“Not a yard more than one quarter!” Gordon barked, and retrieved the glasses. “Boy, your notion of distance is—” He muttered the rest into his beard, suddenly remembering there were ladies in earshot, including Louisette and Stella.
“You mean she’s gaining on us!” Parbury roared, and at once Gordon realized his error. But he made no apology.
“I mean we are holding our lead,” he said coldly, “as we have expected all along, have we not?”
“It’s not good enough!” Parbury rasped. “We ought to be gaining all the time! We—”
“It will be enough to win,” Gordon cut in.
Parbury seemed on the verge of explosion, when by good fortune the band struck up in the cabin and black waiters began to parade around the deck, tapping gongs to announce that from now on full meal service would be available.
“About time,” Gordon grunted. “I did scant duty to my luncheon, being overconcerned with courting Moyne!” And instantly tried to bite back the words, having momentarily forgotten it was Louisette and Auberon’s father he was referring to. Luckily neither they nor Arthur had noticed.
In the case of the Gattrys, perhaps they were still too wrapped up in each other after such a short period of marriage. But Auberon had been distracted by something else, to which he had drawn Joel’s attention seconds earlier.
Josephine was approaching, walking like one in a trance.
A little while after starting the medication intended to heighten her color, Josephine’s discomfort had driven her to dependence on the tincture of cannabis Cherouen had used to relieve her after being raped.
The numbness in her feet and fingertips remained; the darkening patches on her skin grew larger; anxiety evolved into agony. Therefore she tried laudanum. There was always some at hand, because Cherouen regarded a few standard remedies as stopgaps tolerable until electrical techniques were fully understood.
Now opium, arsenic, and shock due to being rejected by her employer, had created a state where she enjoyed almost angelic detachment from the world; she could observe it, heedless of the fact that she had lost her purse with all her various “medicines”; that belonged to a universe she still inhabited but need not be touched by unless she chose.
This was no special surprise. She had been taking such events for granted since her initiation into the rites of Damballah. Semistarvation, sleeplessness—for the proceedings began at dusk and lasted until dawn—and firm conviction concerning the nature of what was about to happen sufficed to make a reality of what skeptical people would term delusion. She had never emerg
ed from one of the night-long ceremonies without deep reaffirmation of her original beliefs, even when she was obliged to be at greatest pains to conceal her identity from her followers. She was always masked when she participated in such services; she dared not be recognized if her adorers crossed her in the street.
But she had for some time been aware that a crisis was approaching, and a race between two steamboats, one of which was piloted by the son of her arch-rival, was clearly just the sort of event she must prepare for. She had expected and planned to be on the Nonpareil, of course…
Some portion of her mind attempted to disagree. It was outvoted. It was not protective to the ego of the master witch, Mam’zelle Josephine, to recall how she had been taken wholly by surprise when Cherouen announced his invitation to St. Louis.
Therefore it was with indelible conviction that she had known all along about this divine decree that she emerged from the stateroom where she had been given the chance to refresh herself. She was not thinking about anything practical, like leaving the boat and heading back to New Orleans, or even the possibility that the Nonpareil would reach St. Louis first, so she might greet Cherouen on his arrival. Her powers of reason had been usurped by the god. What other explanation was there? It fitted together, it was logical!
Which gods were not.
But it was possible to extract from this situation a plan of action. She must be on the wrong boat for a purpose. Her half-brother had urged her to come aboard; perhaps he sensed that purpose. At all events he must have had grounds for what he had done. Therefore it behooved her to be polite to him and go along with what he proposed. She must seek him out again at once.
Beyond that she could not see. Her thoughts danced like the mosquitoes celebrating sundown.
“Ma’am!” Auberon said, and his face was flushed and his clothes were crumpled but his manners were still impeccable despite the amount of liquor he had taken. “I owe you an apology for having rushed you on board, and of course I know now that the interpretation I put on what you said was foolish.”
Interpretation? She thought about what she had just heard and recalled, faintly, something about wrecking, or… No, it was too long ago.
“I checked with Mr. McNab, the chief clerk,” Auberon pursued. “And he told me… Joel, I forget the details. Refresh my memory.”
Looking acutely embarrassed, Joel said, “According to Mr. McNab, while the Nonpareil will never actually tie up until she makes St. Louis, arrangements could be made to transfer you to one of the small boats that are bound to turn out to greet us at Baton Rouge; and if you’re short of funds, we could give you enough for a ticket back to New Orleans…”
The words trailed away. Josephine was beaming sunnily.
“There must be a reason for my being here,” she said. “I trust in my Lord. Not the least of the signs I have received is your kindness”—to Auberon, with a sketch for a curtsey.
“But I jumped to a stupid conclusion!”
She looked at him inquiringly.
Confused, he said, “When you started talking about sticks, I imagined…” He hesitated, pulling out a silk kerchief to wipe his face. “At any rate I don’t understand why you aren’t with Dr. Cherouen on the Atchafalaya!”
“It was fated,” Josephine said solemnly, and with grand pantomimic exaggeration aped his face-wiping. “Oh, but this heat grows unbearable! Will you not escort me within?”
Joel and Auberon exchanged glances, equally astonished. Then the latter gave a sudden grin and offered his arm.
“There’s little more to be seen up here,” he said. “At least until full dark. Then the sparks from her chimneys may make a show. And I’m told they’re going to light beacons on the banks for us, since the moon is less than a week past new. So we might as well investigate the cuisine. I’m told it’s better than average. Joel, will you join us?”
But, not waiting for an answer, he continued in the same breath, “What happened to Louisette and Arthur?”
“They sloped,” Joel replied. “I have the impression the excitement was too much for Loose.”
“Could be. Arthur once mentioned that taking a girl on a river trip… But I’m certain you have work to do, don’t you?”
Every time they met now, Auberon seemed to be acting more and more strangely, Joel reflected as he watched his cousin leading Josephine to the cabin, heedless of the heads that turned on every side; some wore disapproving scowls. Yet a short time ago he had been talking with admiration of the racial theories of the Comte de Gobineau.
Oh, no doubt he was doing it deliberately, pour épater les bourgeois, to quote one of his favorite European catch phrases—
Joel’s thoughts ran abruptly aground on a name: Var. It was common enough in New Orleans for him not to have made the connection before, but suddenly it dawned on him.
This Josephine must be Auberon’s half-sister!
And if he’d realized, he wouldn’t be calling her “ma’am!”
He thought of rushing after them; then began to chuckle inwardly. For a moment he had been conned into believing that ridiculous story about dynamite, and revenge would be sweet. Maybe this was a shock which Auberon deserved.
Then all concern for his cousin was dispelled as he heard a shout from the bow, where off-duty deckhands were keeping informal lookout.
“Hey, man, fire come down from heaven, yeah!”
And, within seconds, it was no longer a mere shout, but the making of a song, using a tune Joel was familiar with whose words were about stars falling from the sky: number one, number two, my Lord…
Along the west bank around Bonnet Carré, bonfires were springing up, one beyond another, marking out the river’s course toward the darkling north.
The Nonpareil felt divided into two unequal parts: on one side, the gaiety of those to whom the race was just another exciting event in a life kept well stocked with distraction against the risk of growing bored; on the other, the seriousness of those to whom the contest was in deadly earnest.
No doubt, Hogan thought as he cast an eye astern to determine whether the Atchafalaya was still in view, anybody involved in this clash of titans could trade on it when applying for other jobs, down to the lowliest fireman or deckhand. It had been such a long time since any similar race occurred, and very possibly this would be the last of all.
But if it were, he wanted to be aboard the winner. And he knew the same held for Trumbull. The latter had not gone below once during the three hours that had so far elapsed of the four-hour watch, and had eaten a sketchy supper off a tray.
They could faintly hear the band playing for the cabin passengers, most of whom had been driven inside by now, the night being too dark to see much except the bonfires, which were growing fewer as the boat cleared the denser areas of habitation, and moreover full of flying insects, which, if they did not bite or sting, all too often found their way up sleeves or skirts.
Revelry, however, was far distant from the minds of the pilots. They were high above any lights that might diminish the acuity of their eyesight; they had their ears more keenly attuned to the thump-and-pound of the engines, the plashing of the wheels, the faint creaks and subtler rubbing sounds of the hull structure and the guards, than to the quadrilles Manuel was leading on violin, and Hogan had ordered the boat’s silken banner replaced by the bulbous white-painted nighthawk as an aid to setting course. Even so…
Inevitably it was impossible now to run at full speed, for the night drained the world of clues to location, making a waste of darkness and not-quite-darkness. If only the moon had been full… Perhaps they should have waited until it was.
He had not realized he was speaking aloud until there came a grunt from Trumbull, which sufficed to indicate agreement with the opinion he had already arrived at: it was as good to win a race under unfavorable conditions as favorable, and likely better. It merely reduced the chance of new records.
So long as they didn’t meet something really disastrous, like a coal tow aground on
a mid-river sand reef…
While he was thinking along these lines, long practice and a trained subconscious were enabling him to lay the Nonpareil into the marks that would take her past the sawmill on the west bank until she came almost level with the point on which stood Jefferson College. Then it would be necessary to line up on the courthouse, and then on Contrelle Church, exactly as though they could head straight for Donaldsonville… except they couldn’t, since a spit of land lay between, and they would have to swing another hundred degrees to starboard, and go to larboard again to round Hampton’s Point, and creep through a string of tricky snag-strewn shallows in order to reach that town… but by then his four hours would be blessedly up and he would have heard from Trumbull the welcome words, “I got her!”
The intensity of his concentration was tiring him much more rapidly than usual at this stage of a trip. He was angry with himself because of that. He was still tolerably young, only in his forties; he should not grow weary so soon! A few brief years ago he had been able to stand two watches in succession and still return a good fast time and never so much as brush a sandbar…
Was that one, looming black-on-black to larboard? He had his hand reflexively on the backing bell rope before he was able to reassure himself: an illusion.
But there was a distraction happening, which perhaps was to blame for his lapse. They heard the quiet complaint of the stairs leading to the pilothouse as weight was placed on each tread in succession. A little dim light crept in also as the door opened and its polished wood caught the fugitive reflection of a poorly shielded lamp.
He was about to snap at the intruder when he realized it was Woodley.
“How are things below?” he inquired.
“We finally quieted Parbury down.”