The Shadow and Night (68 page)

Passing beyond the sail craft area, Merral came to the main part of the harbor. Here larger vessels were moored to a maze of quays and hoverers, and smaller boats lay beached on ramps while an extraordinary array of cranes, gantries, and servicing engines worked on them. Ahead of him, he saw a big, silver, six-legged transporter leaning at an odd angle against a large red cylinder on wheels. There was a cluster of men standing around peering at the interlocked machines, and Merral decided that he would ask them the way to the
Miriama.

“Evening,” he said.

Heads turned toward him, and there was a ragged chorus of greetings in response. Yet despite the words, Merral felt strangely aware of looks that did not seem as welcoming as he would have expected.

“What's up?” he said, trying to make conversation.

“Machine's amiss,” a man said. “This spider here hit the tanker.”

“That's odd.”

“Telling me,” a second man said. “Could have been nasty, only Malc here hit the manual override. Shut it off before it did any real damage.”

“Has it ever happened before?” Merral asked.

“Nah,” the first man said. “Machines always work, don't they? That's what they're designed for.”

“That always used to be the case.”

How very odd,
thought Merral, trying to resist the temptation to look up to where the Gate should have stood if it had not been destroyed. But someone else made the connection for him.

“It's 'cause of the Gate,” said a third man.

“What do you mean?” asked someone else.

There was a shrug. “Dunno. But if the Gate can go, so can a spider. Figures, right?”

“An interesting thought,” Merral said, oddly anxious to move on. “Anyway, I'm looking for a ship called the
Miriama.
Where can I find it?”

“Can't miss it,” someone said, gesturing with a jerk of a large thumb. “Over there. The only orange vessel round here.”

Ten minutes later, after skirting the area where the big cargo and passenger ferries for the islands were berthed, Merral came to the
Miriama.
As he got closer, it seemed to him obvious that this dumpy, businesslike ship with
OCEANOGRAPHY
written in man-high black letters on the lurid orange sides could only be a research vessel. The strangely smooth hull—he presumed of some high-strength dura-polymer—was broken by a sharp, titanium alloy, ice-breaking prow; the masts had an abundance of strange aerials; and aft of the cabin the deck was covered with an array of drogues, submersible samplers, winches, and davits. A small launch under a pair of davits hung above the ship's stern.

The ship appeared deserted, and Merral climbed up the gangplank onto the deck, feeling the high-friction flooring surface grip his feet and noticing the numerous dents and scratches on the surfaces.

“Hello?” he called out. There was no answer and he looked round, seeing the terraced houses of the town staring down at him.

“Hello?” he called out more loudly.

Suddenly he saw a face at the window of the bridge, and moments later, a doorway swung open. The head of a man with unruly but sparse and receding gray hair, wild green-blue eyes, and a thin, stubbly gray beard peered at him from the top of a stairway.

“I'm looking for Captain Sterknem,” Merral shouted.

“Wait,” the figure called out. He clumped down the stairway and walked over. The man's bulky frame was dressed in old, stained blue overalls that were held in place by a wide belt from which an array of tools hung.

Merral found himself staring at the man's face, noticing the etched lines round the eyes and mouth, the rough, reddened skin, and the small white scars visible beneath the beard.
He must be in his fifties, and I'll bet he's spent most of those years at sea.

“Captain Sterknem?”

“I suppose that's me,” the man grunted. He came a few steps closer, and Merral saw that his eyes showed both intelligence and caution.
A closed and reserved man,
he thought, suddenly reminded of his troubled uncle, Barrand.

“Merral Stefan D'Avanos, forester,” he said, extending his hand.

“Daniel Klaus Sterknem, captain, Farholme Oceanographic Service,” was the response, and with it came a brief but powerful handshake. The hands were large and marked with numerous tiny scratches and cuts.

They looked at each other for a moment, and Merral decided that there seemed to be something strangely wintry about the man, as if long years among ice floes had transmitted their character to him.

“Not from these parts, are you?” the captain asked, tilting his head slightly as if to give him a better view.

“Ynysmant,” Merral replied. “But does it matter where I come from?”

“Not to me,” was the terse response, “but some people seem to think so these days. But how can I help you?”

“I have a message from Isterrane for you.”

Merral handed over the letter from Corradon. Shaking his head, Captain Sterknem took the letter with reluctance and slit it open with a knife from his belt. He read the single sheet silently and then, without comment, folded it up and put it in the breast pocket of his overalls.

There was a pause and then he turned to Merral. “Look,” he said, his weather-beaten face reminding Merral of some wave-washed piece of driftwood, “excuse me for being blunt—even rude. I told Dr. Clemant everything that was significant weeks ago. We, the crew, apologized. It's all over. I'm trying to forget it. It was a bad move.”

As the green-blue eyes locked with his, it suddenly came to Merral in a flash of certainty that this man had seen something that had troubled him and still did. Merral uttered a little prayer under his breath and then began talking, groping for words as he went on.

“Look, Captain, I'm here because I know there is a problem. A few of us do. We know that there is something bad up north. Really bad. Something that we in the Assembly have never met before.
Things.
And to counter it—to counter
them—
we need to know. We need to know what you know. Please?”

For a moment, the only acknowledgment that Merral had even been heard was a faint widening of the sea-colored eyes. The big man gave a soft sigh so deep it was almost a groan. Then he gestured toward the cabins. “Follow me,” he said. “I suppose we'd better talk.”

25

T
he captain led Merral through the watertight doorway into the lower part of the bridge, where Merral glimpsed a complexity of screens and consoles that reminded him this ship was as much a laboratory as anything at his own Planning Institute. Then they descended a ladder and went aft along a corridor with the names of the crew on the doors. As if answering some unspoken question, the captain said over his shoulder, “I have lots of work to do at the moment. We are supposed to be listing all NFS parts that may need replacing in the next fifty years.”

“NFS?”

“Not heard it yet? Oh, you will. It will haunt you and me to the end of our working lives. ‘Non-Farholme Sourced'—NFS—the problem bits.”

The door at the end of the corridor opened to reveal a low-roofed kitchen with a mess room attached. Two open portholes let in light.

Merral glanced around the mess room. In the best Assembly tradition, a good deal of effort had been made to make it pleasant and even homely, with genuine wood paneling and a collection of decent landscape paintings on the walls. He presumed that in the bad weather and short days that the
Miriama
's more northerly winter voyages must encounter, an attractive eating room was considered a vital feature.

“You hungry?” the captain asked, with an abrupt gesture of a big hand toward the cooker complex. “I normally eat about now, even without having days of fasting. I get up early.”

Merral looked at his watch. “Why not?” It felt early, but he hadn't yet adjusted to Eastern Menaya Time.

The captain nodded as if to himself, then turned his rugged face to Merral. “Look, I'll tell you what happened, right? All of it, including the stuff I didn't tell Advisor Clemant. But after supper. Not before. That all right?”

“Fine by me. I may be able to help you.”

“Hope so,” Captain Sterknem muttered. “It's bugged me.” He looked around. “You got somewhere to stay tonight?”

“No. I was going to knock on a few doors when I had finished talking with you. As usual.”

“Of course.” The captain paused. “Better still, I'll give you a cabin. The company won't hurt me. Meantime, come and choose some food out of the store.”

He stopped and twitched his back as if troubled by an old injury. “Personally, I ain't eating any crayfish or lobster, though.”

“I've never heard of a sailor refusing to eat invertebrates. We kill them humanely too.”

The captain's tight-lipped expression seemed to hint at something hidden. “Forester, I'm just being humane to myself. But let's have a look at what we have.”

In the end, they agreed on a bean, vegetable, and cheese casserole recipe, and after finding the ingredients in a well-stocked freezer, Merral started the cooking while the captain went off to close down hatches on deck.

A quarter of an hour later, just as Merral was deciding that the food was ready, the seaman came back.

“I've closed everything up. Oh, and if you try and leave in the night, I should warn you I've pulled up the gangway.”

Merral detected a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “Any reason?”

“Same as the lobsters, Forester,” he said with a strange, deep, and injured look. “Let's just say I feel better that way.” They sat down at the table and, after giving thanks, began to eat. Captain Sterknem began to thaw out as the meal progressed, and soon it was “Merral” and “Daniel” rather than “Forester” and “Captain.” The barriers, though, did not drop entirely, and Merral felt certain that there were things that his host was not ready to talk about. So he let Daniel lead the conversation in his clipped, almost staccato speech, and for a long time they talked only about the loss of the Gate and its probable effects on Farholme life and culture.

Sitting opposite the captain at the other end of the thin table, and aware of the ever-present gentle sway of the ship underneath him, Merral was struck by how nearly it was an enjoyable meal. Yet despite the cozy nature of the room and the increasing openness of his host, he did not feel at ease.
There are shadows about,
he thought,
both around this man and this town.

As they ate, the sun went down and the evening light flooding in through the west-facing porthole reddened, making the room glow and casting long, distorted shadows across the table. Finally, with the fruit pie dessert over, Daniel began, at last, to talk about the work of the
Miriama.

“Extraordinary, really. The rest of these ships—” here he gestured with a big hand toward the rest of the harbor—“avoid storms, currents, unstable water masses, gas seeps. We seek them out. That's why she is built like she is. Capable of surviving even if we capsize. Not that I want to try it.”

He rubbed his sparse beard, sipped his drink, and stared into the distance. “This is the last ocean, Merral. If there are any oceans beyond here, beyond Worlds' End . . . they will be different. Funny,” he sighed, “that idea always used to excite me. To be the sailor navigating the farthermost ocean. To sail the ultimate edgeward sea.”

I sympathize,
thought Merral, recognizing the common challenge of the Made Worlds. But he noticed the past tense. “Does it still?”

“No,” the captain answered after a long time. “Not after what happened. . . . I am now afraid of what I may find.”

Then he stood up and, walking heavily, went over to the portholes and slid covers smoothly over them. As the crimson light went and the room slipped into a soft darkness, a low yellow illumination came on around the room.