Seeking the Mythical Future (2 page)

The Second Mate came up the steps to the bridge and saluted. ‘I've primed the cannon, sir, and picked five men who can be trusted not to lose their heads if the monster attacks. The rest are a pack of gibbering idiots. They're cowardly scum and I've told 'em that to their faces.' He jerked a calloused thumb over his shoulder to indicate the men crouching below on the main deck. Mr Swann had risen over fifteen years from ordinary seaman to Second Mate. He had seen monsters before and lived to tell the tale, and though he knew the ship to be virtually helpless should the creature decide to attack he had absolute faith in Captain Kristiensen's qualities of leadership – besides which he believed in his own sense of destiny; he wasn't ready to die yet: the surge of life in his veins was too quick and strong. He glanced from the Captain to the First Mate, and it confirmed what his nostrils could detect: the rancid smell of fear.

‘Very good, Mr Swann. We can do no more. Have you checked the line for drift?'

‘Not a movement, sir, the cork's dead. We could be on a millpond. The barometer is steady, no change.' He stepped to the rail and spat into the sea; the spittle plopped into the murky red water and remained motionless. The vessel was fixed to the ocean as a fly stuck in treacle.

‘What do you reckon, Mr Swann, to sending a telegraph message?' asked the Captain.

The Second Mate forced a cynical grin. ‘And scare off any ship within fifty leagues? Aye, damn true, I know where I'd be if a message came through that somebody had sighted a Diamond Back. I'd be gone.' And he pointed away towards the empty horizon, an almost imperceptible demarcation between sea and sky which was lost in the sluggish haze.

Mr Standish said, ‘Is it eating or drinking, or what? Why doesn't it do something? It's almost as if there's something … mekanikal about its movements – so slow and deliberate.' He looked at the others, taking a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiping his face and neck. He couldn't believe that this was actually happening; it had about it the eerie strangeness of a nightmare. Was he really on this deck, here and now, and not dreaming in his deep and comfortable bed in London Toun,
wrapped in the arms of a girl? He would wake up in a minute. He pinched himself to wake himself up but nothing happened, nothing had changed, he was still here. The plesiosaur basked seemingly unperturbed some distance from the ship. The sky, the sun, the mist still had their yellow tinge, the ocean its reddish hue. Captain Kristiensen stood with his feet firmly braced on the deck, the Second Mate leaning on the rail, the crew on their knees murmuring prayers and imprecations. Mysterious forces were at work, hidden powers of the unknown, and the First Mate felt intimidated by his ignorance of the natural elements.

Mr Swann turned from the rail and said tersely, ‘It's moving.'

It was true. The plesiosaur had slid down into the water so that only its long snaking neck was visible, and had begun to move astern of them, a gentle vee of ripples marking its progress. The neck glided through the water with perfect smoothness, the creature moving away on a dead straight course, without deviation, and within minutes was a speck in the haze almost too faint to be seen.

‘Have we seen the last of it?' Mr Standish asked in a voice he didn't recognize as his own. He felt slightly braver. He had seen his first sea monster and was alive to tell of it. What a story it would make!

Kristiensen unfolded his bulky arms, and the places where his hands had been were damp. ‘Unless one or both of its brains decides otherwise,' he said shortly. ‘Mr Swann.'

‘Captain?'

‘Break open a cask of black biddy for the crew. They'll need something to wash the fear out of their throats.' He said to the First Mate: ‘I expect you could take a strong drink yourself, Mr Standish. We'll retire to my quarters. Mr Swann, when you've issued the ration, post a double-look-out and join us there. It isn't every day a Diamond Back comes a-calling and is polite enough not to eat its hosts.'

Later in the day the faint stirrings of a breeze began to palpate the sagging vinyl canvas. The timbers began once again to creak their welcome song as the barque eased itself slowly into
motion: it was barely a movement at first, a few paltry knots, but to everyone on board it seemed as though they were racing into the sun itself.

*

The cry from the crow's nest and the outstretched arm of the look-out brought everyone up on deck. The crew took up vantage points in the rigging and scanned the flat sea, shading their eyes from the fierce yellow orb of the sun. ‘What is it, Mr Standish?' asked the Captain, emerging from the companionway on to the quarter-deck, still struggling into his black pigskin jerkin with the golden eagle embossed above the left breast: his captain's insignia.

‘Can't make it out, sir.' The First Mate adjusted the brass ferrule on the telescope. ‘Appears to be a craft of some sort, quite small, I should judge. It's signalling to us, I think.'

‘Let me see.' Kristiensen came forward and squinted into the eyepieces. He was silent for a moment, his lips compressed tightly together. Then he said in a breath, ‘Oracles and omens.' It was an exclamation used by the crew, one signifying fear and perplexity, but not what the First Mate would have expected to hear on the Captain's lips.

The barque drew nearer. Through the heat mist it became evident to Mr Standish that what he had taken to be a signal could now be seen as the sun's rays glinting on the hard and polished surface of a small, low craft of shallow displacement floating not so much in the water as on top of it. And as they approached they could see the figure of a man sprawled against the smooth concave incline, his head resting on the rounded lip, one hand trailing in the water. His clothing was stained and tattered, apparently bleached white by the sun.

Kristiensen issued instructions and a boat was lowered. At this distance – less than ten metres – they could see that the craft was made of a material resembling gun-metal. It had the appearance of having been scorched by fire: parts of it were pitted and blistered, with darker areas obscuring the hard bright finish.

‘What on this earth do you make of it, sir?' Mr Standish asked the Captain. ‘Has he been cast adrift do you suppose?'
He was nearly his old self once more, curious but not frightened; castaways were not as fearsome, and much more easily accommodated, than sea monsters.

‘If we, as educated men, believed in omens,' Kristiensen replied with faint irony, ‘we might be forgiven for taking this to be the fulfilment of a prophecy. But no doubt we're too rational for that.' He was smiling in a detached fashion.

‘What omens do you mean?' the First Mate said.

‘Have you forgotten the black albatross we sighted three days ago?'

‘No, I hadn't forgotten, but I thought—'

‘You thought that to regard it as an omen was straining credulity – that it was a foolish superstition confined to the ignorant and the simple-minded.' He nodded slowly and said softly, as if to himself, ‘Perhaps you're right. After many years at sea the sickness seems to spread everywhere like a cancer; sooner or later it affects everyone.'

The First Mate regarded him curiously. He was about to ask which sickness the Captain was referring to when his attention was distracted by the voice of Mr Swann calling from the boat. ‘He's alive, Captain. But only just. Heartbeat faint and unsteady.'

‘Bring him on board,' Kristiensen ordered. ‘Is there anything worth salvaging, supplies, telegraph equipment?'

‘It's a shell, that's all,' the Second Mate answered. ‘No lockers, sails, no rudder even.' He gestured to one of the seamen, and together they raised and supported the unconscious man and with some difficulty brought him into the longboat. Where he had lain on the shallow concave interior the craft was streaked dark-grey as if seared by flames; and as Kristiensen looked he suddenly stiffened and a tremor passed through him. Partly obliterated by the discoloration, yet still legible, a row of letters in a strange configuration was visible. Kristiensen read them silently, his lips forming the sounds:

RAL

X→

JEC

            LE

A foreign language perhaps? Certainly the craft was of a type and construction unfamiliar to him. Yet it was just as likely, Kristiensen reasoned, that the letters formed part of words which had been burnt off or otherwise obliterated. He repeated the sequence to commit it to memory, then watched as the longboat returned to the ship and the man was taken on board. Beckoning to the First Mate he went down to the main deck and approached the circle of men that had formed round the supine figure. They fell back and stood silently, curious and yet ill at ease, their eyes shifting restlessly from the Captain to the man lying on the bleached timbers.

He was a tall man, Kristiensen judged, with a strong neck and a robust physique: his features were sharply defined, the nose angular and jutting out from beneath a wide forehead, his hair discoloured from the effects of sun and seawater. There was something odd, too, about his appearance that Kristiensen couldn't quite place until Mr Standish remarked on it – to do with the man's face. It was deathly pale, when by rights it should have been sunburnt. The flesh seemed almost transparent, as if all colour and substance had been washed out of it.

His clothing was also strange. He was dressed in a single piece of material, without seams or fastenings, which fitted him snugly like a second skin from neck to ankles; here and there it was torn and ragged, stained by seawater, and through the vents in the material his skin appeared to glow with an intense paleness and transparency.

Kristiensen knelt down and placed his ear against the man's chest. Barely perceptible, but, yes, there it was: the slow irregular beat of the heart.

He said to Mr Swann: ‘Have a bunk made ready. We can save him if we hurry.' He stood up and jerked his head impatiently at the crew: ‘Lend a hand here,' but the men clustered in a self-protective group looking fearfully at the pale, scarcely-breathing figure. The voyage had held more than its share of
terrors: they were unprepared for sea monsters and even less for the sudden arrival of a man adrift in a strange craft in the dead lost centre of the ocean. It would have been wiser, their attitude implied, to have left him to die: it was tempting the fates to bring on board a man of such unnatural appearance.

Kristiensen tried hard to control his temper. He took a step forward, this time gesturing more emphatically, and the men retreated before him, intimidated by his anger but unwilling to obey.

‘I'll shift 'em,' Mr Swann growled. His hand went to his belt where the ivory handle of a knife protruded, but the Captain stopped him with a cautioning hand.

He said softly: ‘We needn't resort to force.' Then, addressing the crew in a level and reasonable tone of voice, ‘There is no cause to be afraid of this man. I know where he comes from.' There was a stirring of disbelief. ‘You've all heard of the airships which New Amerika has constructed to carry passengers and cargo across the sea. This man is a crew member of such an airship, I know this by his uniform. His airship must have been on a voyage over uncharted seas and been blown off course – perhaps it foundered and fell into the sea and this man is the only survivor. There is no reason to be afraid. Surely you don't fear an unconscious man in
this
state of exhaustion? Look at him, is it conceivable that he could do you any harm?'

The men glanced uncertainly at each other. They rubbed their bare feet on the deck in the manner of schoolboys caught in some childish prank. He would shame them into obeying him. Then the Summarian, his dark eyes slitted and evasive, his small tarbrush of a beard close to his chest, shuffled forward a pace or two.

‘We didn't bargain for this. There is something bad about this man. I feel it here' – touching his heart with a horny thumb-nail. ‘Already we have seen the evil omen, then there was the sea serpent, and now this man floating on the ocean.' His eyes flickered across the Captain's face. ‘If he's from an airship of New Amerika, as you say, where are the others who were with him? Why should one man survive and all the others perish?'

Kristiensen held up the broad palms. of his hands. ‘Who can say? How do we know there aren't other survivors out there somewhere? Take my word, I have no reason to lie to you.' Without waiting for a reaction or giving the Summarian a chance to respond, he turned, saying over his shoulder, ‘Take him below, Mr Swann. He must be given immediate attention.'

‘One moment, Captain.' The Summarian was not giving in so easily. ‘Why is he so pale? He has been exposed to the sun and yet his skin is like a child's.'

‘The men who fly the airships are all pale-skinned,' Kristiensen answered. ‘It is because they are so high above the clouds. His colour will return in a day or so.' He continued, almost as if it was an afterthought, ‘There's likely to be a reward for his safe return; he'll be able to give an eye-witness account of what happened to the airship. Any sum awarded the
Slave Trader
will be divided equally amongst all hands – providing I get your full cooperation.'

He returned to the quarter-deck, Mr Standish hurrying to keep pace with him. The young man was in a state of rare excitement. He knew of the airships though had never seen one, and it was thrilling to have rescued one of their crew – a man who would have marvellous stories to tell of steering with all sails unfurled through pinnacles and canyons of cloud.

He said anxiously, trotting along, ‘Is it possible, do you think, that the airship is still afloat?'

Kristiensen halted at the entrance to the companion-way. He looked slowly over his shoulder and shook his head.

Mr Standish followed him down the steps to the narrow passage. ‘The craft he was in stayed afloat, so perhaps the airship did too.'