Ariel (23 page)

* * *

Night at sea. There were few clouds and the stars were a riot of varying magnitudes. Ahead the phosphorescent shapes of three humpback whales pulled us onward. We must have been doing five or six miles an hour. I'm not sure what that is in knots. They seemed to be able to maintain that speed almost indefinitely, though occasionally one would back out of its noose and swim freely. The dolphin herd remained with us, their silvery shapes speeding about the
Lady
.

Ariel had spoken to the leader for a long time after we were under way. She came back to me after an hour and a half of conversation. She seemed disturbed, but when I asked her what was wrong she only stared through me dazedly and said, "They're very  .  .  . different  .  .  . from you," and that was all.

* * *

Ariel had gone to sleep. The summoning spell had exhausted her and she retired early from the conversation. I stayed up and Shaughnessy talked to me about dolphins—they'd been the subject of a morphological report she'd written in college. After a while she realized I was no longer listening.

"Am I boring you?"

"Huh? Oh, no; I'm listening. I just  .  .  . have a lot on my mind." I stared at my hands.

We were silent a long time.

"You've been with Ariel a long time, haven't you?" she finally asked. She looked at me steadily. There's something about moonlight and what it does to a woman's face, her eyes.

"Almost two years."

"You two act like partners. Listening to you talk is like watching a ping-pong match. It has that  .  .  . that interplay you see in people who are lifelong friends, who've been roommates for a long time."

"Partners." I tasted the word. "Yeah, we're partners. Familiars is the proper term. A friendship  .  .  .  ." I shook my head, looking at the pale form of Ariel lying on the foredeck ahead, at her mild, comfortable glow, so much like the dolphins swimming around us. "It goes deeper than that, Shaughnessy."

She looked at the deck. A dolphin broke surface beside the boat, its back a silver crescent as it curled into the water with a small splash. The motion startled Shaughnessy and she jumped.

This is where she jumps toward me and I reach out to hold her protectively,
I thought.
And I look into her eyes, awkwardly for a moment, and we start to separate, but instead we pull closer together
 
.  .  .  . It would have happened like that in the movies. But it wasn't a movie, and she just smiled a brief smile, an apology for jumping, with a small duck of her head. Was I disappointed? I didn't know.

"I like it here," I said, much too loudly. I took an exaggerated, deep breath. "The sea air—it's fresh, it's invigorating, it's  .  .  .  . Old Spice." I laughed.

"Please, I'd almost managed to forget about TV commercials."

I smiled and it faded away quickly. So did the conversation, again.

A cry came from the sea ahead of us. A mournful, echoing thing, the ghost of a dead baby calling for its mother. My heart leapt. "What's that?" I tried to keep my voice calm.

"One of the whales. They do that. Sometimes sailors in old wooden sailing ships could hear them at night. The shape of the hull acted like a kind of amplifier to make the cries echo inside"

I shivered. "It's eerie."

"Yes. I think it's beautiful, too—the way some kinds of books are wistful and leave you sad and wondering, but they're beautiful, too." She leaned toward me.

The kiss was short. Just long enough for me to feel her warmth next to me, to want it to go on longer. The muscles in my shoulders and arms tightened, and I felt strangely stiff and wooden, liking it but reluctant.

We broke apart. Her eyes opened after mine; the lids lifted slowly, darkened by the moonlight. Somehow it separated her lashes from each other, made them distinct. She started to lean toward me again. I turned away. "We—we'd better get some sleep," I said, glad the darkness hid the flush I felt creeping up my neck to my ears.

"Yeah." Her voice was flat. "Big day tomorrow." She glanced at Ariel, who stirred restlessly. "Good night," she said. She stepped carefully past Ariel and into the cabin, where she had claimed the sofabed. I moved to the stern, watching the thin wake trail behind us, seeing the stars, listening to the mournful sobs of the whale. My ears were ringing. The night had a strange, surreal quality to it, as if suddenly it was something I could grab with both hands. I felt I could rip the fabric of reality in half, crumple it up, throw it away, and look at the blackness behind it. I looked straight out and tried to find where the horizon met the sky. I gave up when my eyes found nothing to focus on.

I fell asleep to the cries of the whale song.

* * *

On the morning of our third day at sea Ariel let me sleep late. I got up and stretched, interlacing my fingers and turning my hands palm outward, yawning. "What time is it?" I asked. Force of habit; I never really cared what time it was.

"Eleven-thirty."

I twisted my upper body and vertebrae popped. "We should have grabbed George's watch from him before he left."

"I wonder if he's all right."

"I'm sure he is. He ought to be home by now; it's been almost two weeks. Where's Shaughnessy?"

"Swimming."

I looked ahead. Silver streaked the water; apparently the dolphins were going to escort us all the way to New York "There's no way she can swim this fast. She'll be left behind."

"She'll be fine. Look—here she comes."

And, indeed, there she was being pulled by a dolphin. I'd half-expected her to be nude, but she still wore the yellow tanktop and cut-offs she'd found on board before we put to sea. She opened her mouth to call out just as the dolphin dove, giving her a mouthful of salt water. She came up coughing and spitting, rubbing her eyes. The dolphin nudged her concernedly, making sure her head stayed above water. "I'm all
right!"
she complained, but the dolphin hung around to make sure. She stroked it along the side, then grabbed the dorsal fin "Come on in," she called out. "The water's fine!"

I waved back and she tugged on the dolphin. It made a sound like a high-pitched lamb's bleat and raced away, Shaughnessy skimming along behind it. "Looks like fun," I said.

"Yes, it does. I wish I could do it."

I patted her flank. "Poor thing. Must be rough being a unicorn."

"Yeah, well, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it."

I laughed. "You won't get mad if I go for a swim?"

"Mad?" Her nostrils flared. "Are you kidding? I'd be grateful."

"Okay, I can take a hint."

"Go ahead, have fun, leave me here. See if I care."

"Can't have it both ways." I rummaged through my pack, found my dirty blue shorts rolled up at the bottom, and changed.

I frolicked in the water with the dolphins and Shaughnessy until the sight of an object poking up from the distant sliver of coast made me ask to be brought back to the boat. Shaughnessy followed. Ariel came up to me as I clambered aboard. "Something wrong, Pete?"

"Look landward—see where the land ends, there?" She nodded. "What's that white thing sticking up a little bit?"

She peered forward. "I don't know what you call it. A tall cylinder, tapering toward the top. The topmost section is darker than the rest."

"A lighthouse," I said, and told her what that was. I went dripping back to the cabin and got out the road atlas. My finger traced up the coast until I found the only lighthouse marker corresponding to the lighthouse on the outcropping of land in the distance. The small red print beside my finger read.
Sandy Hook Light/National Historical Landmark.

About an inch above that were bold, black letters that spelled out
NEW YORK.

* * *

"Fun time's over, huh?" asked Shaughnessy.

I nodded. "Ariel, are the dolphins staying with us all the way to New York?"

"No. I just talked with the bull. They'll be leaving shortly."

"And the whales?"

"They know where to go."

"Terrific." My voice was heavy.

A few minutes later we said goodbye to the dolphins and the herd turned as one and sped away. We watched, silent and sad, as they sped quickly out of sight.

The whales pulled us on. Land crept closer.

All too soon we weren't on the open sea any longer. Land squeezed in on both sides of us and there was a bridge overhead. Though both shores weren't really all that close, I felt constricted.

And then we were in New York Harbor and I was looking at the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, all clearly visible. Because pollution had vanished with the Change's advent, the water was clean, no Coke cans, no traces of oily residue, but the water itself was dark.

Shaughnessy and I had changed into dry clothes. The three of us stood on the center of the deck. The three whales plowed along diligently. Farther up rose the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the latter, though my heart wasn't in it. Ariel and Shaughnessy glanced at me curiously. "Tolkien would have loved it," I explained. They said nothing.

Onward  .  .  .  .

Governor's Island to our left, the Statue of Liberty to our right. I looked up at the gray-green figure and thought of Charlton Heston scraping at the sand on the beach in the last scene in
Planet of the Apes,
screaming, "You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you all to hell!"

No, I thought. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Onward  .  .  .  .

A few minutes later the three ropes on our prow slackened as the whales backed out of their nooses. Our momentum carried us beside a boat docked on the concrete shore. The Liberty Island Ferry.
Miss Liberty
was stenciled in white on the prow and stern. The water gurgled as we stopped.

The three whales remained thirty yards away. Ariel dipped her horn in silent thank-you and goodbye. Shaughnessy and I waved as they slipped silently away.

I moored us to the
Miss Liberty
and helped Shaughnessy on board. Ariel leapt the distance. I'd have accused her of showing off, but it was the easiest way for her to disembark, and I felt too sullen to say anything.

Though the ferry was in water, it was stationary and solidly anchored, and walking on its deck was a whole new experience. When you bounce on a trampoline for even a few minutes you get used to the feeling; your brain adjusts to the ground giving way beneath you. And when you jump onto the ground it jars your teeth because your brain expects it to give and it won't. It was like that.

We walked to the other side of the ferry and down the ramp. We looked at one another before any of us moved from the end of it. Finally I nodded and took a deep breath. I stepped off. Ariel and Shaughnessy followed me onto the concrete dock.

We were in New York.

Seventeen

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!

—Lamentations 1:1

"Well," I said with mock cheerfulness, "I don't see Malachi Lee. Maybe we got here ahead of him." I stood beside the metal rail along the dock, turning slowly to take in the lonely greenness and brownness that was Battery Park, half-expecting to see bums in trench coats on the weatherbeaten benches, their grizzled faces nuzzling wrinkled brown paper sacks concealing bottles of bad wine. A squirrel or two should have been evident, a couple walking hand in hand, but there was nothing. Except for the pigeons. Pigeons and pigeons, everywhere. New York had a lot of roosting places high up, and there were few things left to check their population growth. The wide black asphalt of the Heritage Trail ended a hundred yards to our right. I surveyed the dock, the silent ferry, the
Lady Woof
moored just behind it, the seasick-green Statue of Liberty facing seaward with torch held high in greeting, Governor's Island to its right.

"What now?" asked Shaughnessy. "We take the world by storm, or something?"

I gave her a stony look. Words didn't belong, not here, not now. All things were coiled to maximum tension here; all roads had led to New York—and it seemed just as dead as old Rome. Black skyscrapers reared behind the trees of the park, looking like a badly matched matte painting in a cheap science fiction flick, a painted backdrop that didn't quite fit the foreground scene.

"I suggest we find somebody," said Ariel, "and see if we can find out what's what in this place."

"From what I've heard about this place," said Shaughnessy, "we may not want to find anybody."

"We'll have to look around anyhow," I said. "Keep a low profile, though." I couldn't take my eyes from the skyscrapers. "But this place feels so empty we'll stand out like blood on snow."

"It feels desolate, not empty," said Ariel. "There are people in this place, somewhere. I can feel it."

I studied her carefully but she didn't return my gaze, instead turning her head slowly from left to right, surveying the park. "Shaughnessy, will you get our gear from the boat? I want to look at that monument over there." I'd slung Fred at my left side but was without backpack or blowgun. I'd put Ariel's pack on her, empty except for the Barnett on the right side, the one closest to me. It was cocked and fitted with a fishing-head-tipped bolt.

Ariel and I walked across the black asphalt, gray pigeons scattering about our feet, cooing as they half-flew. Everything looks so gray, I thought, like a half-hour after sunrise in Georgia. Except for the park. That's green—green and brown, live leaves and dead ones. And even in the midst of that ran gray concrete paths. I couldn't shake my moodiness. It was the depression you feel in the heavy humidity after a big rainstorm. I wiped sweat from my palms and clutched Fred's twined grip.
It's a city,
I told myself.
You've been in dozens before. This one's just bigger, that's all—it's still empty.
I glanced at Shaughnessy as she walked back up the ramp of the ferry toward
Lady Woof
. Her brown hair fanned out as she vaulted over the rail.

The monument to American military seamen killed in the service was just ahead of us. It was a small granite court—more gray, I couldn't help thinking—with four tall granite slabs on either side. Names were carved on both sides of all eight silent monoliths, thousands and thousands of names.

"These were all killed in wars?" Ariel asked.

"In the military, yes."

She shook her head slowly, silently. A warm breeze scattered crisp brown leaves across the court, startling me. The sound was like chitinous beetles scurrying, like rat claws scraping on concrete.

At the far end of the court, between the last two slabs, was a statue—the Battery Park Eagle. It was the classic American Eagle, head arched forward and wings raked back, frozen in the midst of a killing dive with claws clenched. It was about a third the size of Shai-tan and with time and weather had gone the same pale green as the Statue of Liberty. Something was carved into the black marble of its base, but I couldn't read it from where I stood. I asked Ariel what it said.

"'Erected by the United States of America in proud and grateful remembrance of her sons who gave their lives in her service and who sleep in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

"'Into Thy hands, O Lord.'"

I started up the short flight of steps and froze as someone injected Freon into my veins with a chilled needle.

"Yes," said a familiar voice, "straight into our hands." From behind the eagle's base stepped Shai-tan's master. His right hand rested on the haft of his broadsword. "Hello again," he said, his one-eyed gaze taking in Ariel and myself. "You've saved us a lot of trouble."

Sweat on my palms. I tried to swallow.

At least twenty armed men filed onto the court from behind the last of the monoliths on the left and right, scattering pigeons and dead leaves in their wake. I looked up at the four black skyscrapers framing the scene in the background behind the park trees.

Ariel started forward without a word. Hands went to swords, axes, spears, chains, clubs.

"No," I said. "We can't. Ariel, look—we can't—we'll get killed."

She looked at me, a penetrating, disquieting gaze. "Pete," she said softly, "I can't be captured. I'll die in a month if I am."

"If we fight, we'll die now." I lowered my voice. "If we let them take us we can try to get away later."

"Fat chance."

"It's better than our alternatives." I turned around and cupped my hands to my mouth "Shaughnessy! Cast off! Push away!" I glanced back. The rider was motioning to a group of men, who broke away and ran toward the dock, ignoring Ariel and me. Shaughnessy appeared on the deck of the ferry. She hesitated, hands going to her mouth when she saw the dozen armed men heading her way. "Cast off!" I waved her away sharply. "Get out of here!"

She seemed indecisive, then turned and vaulted the rail and went out of sight. The twelve men were at the foot of the ramp, now swarming up it, then pouring onto the ferry deck.

Shaughnessy must have cut the rope and pushed off; the
Lady Woof
began to drift slowly away from
Miss Liberty
. The pursuing men stopped at the far side of the ferry deck. Two of them threw down their weapons and dove into the water. The rest were wearing a variety of heavy body protectors and couldn't follow without sinking to the bottom. They stood at the rail, watching their two comrades swim after Shaughnessy. The
Lady
was only twenty-five feet from the ferry and moving slowly. I wondered if the current would bring her back to the dock in a few minutes anyhow.

The faster of the two swimmers reached the stern of the
Lady
, grabbed with both hands, and pulled himself up. Shaughnessy popped up in front of him. In her hands was a rod. One end of it was against her mouth. The Aero-mag! The man's head snapped up and he arced backward into the water, thrashing.

The second swimmer had reached the starboard side and was pulling himself up. Shaughnessy must not have had another dart ready, or else she just reacted blindly; she reversed the blowgun and swung it like a baseball bat. I heard the faint smack as it hit him on the jaw. He recoiled but held on. She brought the blowgun back and jabbed him in the eye. He fell away with a splash.

"Let her go!" called the rider. His men turned to look at him from the deck of the ferry. "Let her go," he called again. "We don't need her." He lowered his one-eyed gaze to Ariel, lowered his voice as well. "We've got what we need."

I took a deep breath and walked forward two steps. The rider eyed me carefully, but a slight smile was on his lips. I reached slowly to my left hip, drew Fred, still sheathed, from its belt-loop sling, and laid it gently on the granite. "Let's go," I said, not looking at Ariel. I couldn't bring myself to.

He nodded and picked up the sword.

It was the hardest thing I ever said.