“Someone good with the electrics,” Callum answers, clearly still upset, not worried a bit about what should or should not be divulged to us Choristers. “We hadn’t had a good one of them since we lost Brother Calvert. Brother Ernesto in’t up the task.”
“And why were you sent, Lazlo?” St. John asks, apparently feeling bold enough to demand information.
Lazlo glances at Brother Augustine before answering. “Parts. Electrics. Wiring. I knew what we needed, helping Brother Ernesto like I do.”
“A shame you could not do more to save Brother Silas,” St. John says, smugly. Jealous, perhaps, that again, Lazlo was considered important enough to be singled out, to join on such an auspicious mission.
Lazlo looks down.
“We got what we needed,” I say, trying to comfort him.
“Nah, wan’t worth it,” Brother Callum says bitterly, shaking his head.
Brother Augustine glances uncomfortably at us.
The ringing of the hull sweeps away the tense moment.
Call to Prime.
We will gather in the chapel, but today, since it is not a holy day, only for private prayer. Individual meditation.
Normally, Lazlo would linger at the back of the procession with me—sometimes to exchange a hushed word or two. I haven’t yet had a chance to speak with him privately at all since his return. But he has rushed ahead.
We are almost to the chapel, and I have almost caught him, when the red bulb, caged in rusted wire, mounted above the main hatchway begins flashing.
“Enemy ship!” an urgent, crackling voice calls out over the squawk box. “Dive! Dive! Dive! All unessential crew forward, to the balneary.”
This is Ex-Oh Goines’s voice on the speaker. Urgent, strained.
Though a rigid man, he has never been good at shielding his real emotions.
He is scared.
“We haven’t fixed the dive plane yet,” Ephraim whispers.
“Diving in’t the problem,” Brother Augustine shouts as he rushes against us to reach the ladder to the control room. “It’s the surfacing I’m worried about.”
“Topsiders,” young Caleb says, rushing from the chapel, voice tremulous. “Again.”
The deck pitches suddenly downward, and we all must grasp anything available to keep our balance—pipes, walls, the ceiling to brace ourselves as we carefully shuffle our way down the steeply pitched corridor.
No time to drop down into the battery well to retrieve the key. It should be safe, tucked where it is, even if there is flooding.
We snuff out lamps and grease wicks along our way, casting our path into a deep gloom. Gather buckets for bailing, should we need them. Finally, we make our way back into the balneary, completely dark, save for one bulb flickering above head.
More than just us Choristers here. Brothers Gonzaga, Marcus, and Erris. Alexander and Magnus and Philip and Nicolas follow. Some twenty of our sixty-eight-soul crew rush in.
More weight in the nose of the boat means we dive faster.
Lazlo huddles against me and Caleb.
If we are called to some other emergency service, like extinguishing a fire, or patching a breach, then we will have to move, but for now, we cluster together, a large mass, seated silently between the tubes, below the array of valves and dials and gauges.
One large, round gauge we are all keeping a close eye on.
Depth.
A red needle arcs across the face, edging downward, past thirty fathoms now and still steadily falling.
Hollow knocks against the hull.
Pressure.
“I hope we don’t stay down as long as that one time—I didn’t like the way the air smelled. Made me dizzy as anything,” Caleb says.
That time occurred when we were diving for Vespers, and the planes did not respond at all, stuck in a position that took us down and down. The Leviathan screamed at us that day. Groaned and creaked like I never heard. I was sure then that it would be our end, that we would be crushed. That’s what Lazlo says will happen on our final day, after we launch the Last Judgment. The pressure will squeeze us tight until all the bolts and welds give. We went down to 140 fathoms before the Watch was able to regain control of the dive.
If the dive plane has been damaged, who is to say we can correct this time?
In the dark, the dank, green reek of the room closes in.
I hold my breath and listen. Listen for the splashes, for the inorganic thrumming of the enemy machines.
“Don’t hear any depth charges,” Ephraim says.
“No,” I say, glancing at Lazlo. Something heavy in his gaze. “Not yet.”
No sooner do I say it than a resonant boom thunders above us. I feel the percussion of the blast pass through the hull. Our little world rattles.
The deck lurches from beneath me.
But no sounds of cascading water from breach or leak. No smoke, no fire. No damage-control alarm.
“It was shallow,” Brother Marcus says, looking up with his normal, froglike frown. Like the rest of us, waiting.
“We should pray,” Brother Ernesto, one of the feebler elders, says in his rich, quavering voice.
Yes, it is Prime.
A time for personal confidences with the Lord.
In the days of Caplain Amita, we were told to pray for those faithful who have suffered in the years of tribulation. People like my parents, who I do not remember in the least but who I figured must somehow still be deserving of Grace. To pray for the Demis and the rest of the Forgotten.
Caplain Marston now tells us to pray for our own souls instead. Those others are already damned, yet ours might still be saved.
Instead, I think of the bodies. Of Silas. Of Caplain Amita. Of Brother Calvert and all the others lost to sickness and raids and stale air and poison.
The truth is that I don’t want to drown in the icy black fathoms.
I never have. Not even upon the promise of the salvation that will follow. A secret I have always kept to myself. If Caplain Amita really knew how I felt, he would have never entrusted me with the key.
Thus, just as during our times of private meditation, I often pray that we live.
I pray that all these seeping seals and pipes and valves hold true. I know that they are aging—these works, salt-corroded and rusted and gummed up and ailing. I do not want to suffocate—we have choked on fumes before. My lungs know the tight burn. So, I pray that the oxygen generator keeps sputtering away, the little brown strips taped to the vents still flutter, that the ventilation-fan system circulates the air. The CO2 scrubbers once worked—machines and chemicals used to purify the air—now we use soda lime when we must, but even those stores have run out. We must surface often to vent. So, I pray that the diving planes and the rudder stay true.
I pray that we do not starve, for I know the pain of hunger. How it eats at the soul.
I pray our engine—our glowing blue heart that has sent so many Demis to early graves—continues to burn. For it powers everything. And should it fail, then we really would be doomed.
“We’re going deep this time,” Ephraim says, alarmed, despite his best effort.
Ninety fathoms.
A chain of muffled, watery, fizzling blasts rings weakly in the depths above.
“This is the third time in a month,” St. John says, disgusted. Less fear in his voice than the others, perhaps. It’s only for show.
The hull continues to groan around us. Echoes. Steady, deep drumming.
“It’s a sign that our time has almost come, is what Caplain says,” Caleb says soberly.
“Caplain Amita said that too,” Lazlo says. “And we have survived this long.”
Except we all know the truth.
That even if we survive today, it will only be to die some other day. We’ll eventually take our last dive. Sing our last song, and let the depths take us.
But what about before then? What if we are damaged, or stranded under water before we have launched?
We were never
officially trained in how to survive should such an event occur.
“Ditch,” is what Brother Calvert told me one day, months before he went on a Topside raid and never came back. He said this to Lazlo and me, had gathered us together ostensibly to train us on properly cleaning and drying electrical parts, but he instead led us to the forward trunk.
“You can equalize the pressure in this air lock,” he said, showing us the valves, how they worked. “This is how raids are sometimes done when we swim up while submerged. You can float right out if you ever get stranded below the surface.”
He spoke hushed to us, knowing this was something we should not be taught.
“But what if we’re too deep?” I asked him.
“Even at a depth of one hundred fathoms, a float or life vest will carry you right up to the surface—”
“What about air?” Lazlo asked.
“You’ll have plenty in your lungs,” Brother Calvert said calmly, answering our questions, seeming to understand our apprehension, our confusion. “Too much. You’ll have to blow out as you rise.”
“But should we survive?” I asked him, and everyone looked at me. “Should we try to survive?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, considering his words, lowering his kind, warm eyes, rubbing together his big hands. He did that when he was contemplating. “Yes, I think you should always try to survive. It’s in our nature.”
“And what about after we launch the Final Judgment? The last days?”
Again, a long reach of silence.
Eventually, he said, “When that times comes, we won’t need to worry about being saved, will we? We’ll be lifted up into his Glory.”
I see it now, the careful way in which he responded.
Is that what Caplain Amita believed as well? In the end?
That we should try to survive?
Lights spring on overhead, the red, flashing bulb cut off. The boat, still groaning unhappily, levels out.
One hundred and thirty-two fathoms.
It is as though all of us release a held breath at once. The very compartment sighs.
“Return to your stations,” the voice calls out over the squawk, distorted. “Remain in readiness. Observe silence.”
And that is all.
The red bulb flashes.
“We’re not rising,” Lazlo whispers, the last of us to stand, adding a glumness to the otherwise leavened mood.
“It’s that interloper we brought aboard. It’s his fault. He’s a Jonah,” St. John whispers in response. “Going to curse us all before we can complete our mission.”
“We’ll surface and vent soon,” Ephraim assures, but appears to provide little ease for the dispersing crew.
Lazlo grabs my hand, staying me, pulling me back, eyes burning, frightened or curious, I am not certain. He swings the hatch shut after the last of the line of brothers has exited.
“What?” I ask, heart sinking just looking at him. “What is it?”
He wants to speak, to say something, but he won’t. I see fear in his eyes.
“What happened up there?”
“They’re not our enemy!” he says, speaking low—almost inaudibly. I think, at first, I must have misheard him.
“Who?”
He points up. “The Topsiders. They don’t want to kill us.”
“But . . . they’ve tried. They’ve dropped charges . . . They killed Silas. You were there . . .”
“I was there. I think this is only . . . retaliation. Because of what we did to the crew of the first ship.”
“What did you do?” I ask, seeing the shadow fall across his face.
“We . . . we slaughtered them,” he says, voice thin, high. He looks away. Shameful.
“They were Topsiders. The wicked . . .”
“But it wasn’t a warship,” he says, whispering, pulling me away from the door. “They called it a . . . research vessel. A ship called the Janus.”
“But they shot Silas . . .”
“They were defending themselves. We climbed up over the side—we struck fast—most weren’t armed. We didn’t kill them all at first . . .” He is shaking now as he grips both of my arms, the story spilling from him as though in one long breath. “Ex-Oh Goines gathered them all up on the deck, on their knees, tied cloth over their eyes. Asked each of them who was . . . who could work with the electrics, like. I had already done what was asked of me—I was shown these . . . circuit boards, here on the ship. Caplain Marston laid out different types for me to look for before we set out—told me where I should find them. In certain kinds of machines on board. So, that’s what I do, once everyone is rounded up. Pick up some other equipment I was supposed to take if I could find. Time I come back on deck, most of the crew of the Janus has been killed. Blade at the back of the neck. The deck was all . . . It was bloody. It was pooled up. Pouring off the sides. Only a few left alive when I showed up. Ex-Oh was killing them, one by one, looking for this . . . specific kind of technician. And then . . .” Lazlo draws me even closer—swallows. “I heard them. They were crying, begging for their lives. They were saying things like . . . like the war was over. That the world isn’t all poisoned. That they had kids back home. They were pleading for their lives, see?”
Lazlo finally lets me go, turns away to wipe his eyes.
“They’re deceivers,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder.
But he brushes me away.
“I don’t think so. They said they knew about us . . .” he says, eyes red with anger now. “Said they had been trying to track us, been trying to get in contact with us. Trying to tell us that they weren’t the enemy. That we don’t have to starve. That there’s plenty of uncontaminated food. Enough for everyone, but Goines had each of them cut down anyway.”
I brace myself against the bulkhead.
I’m suddenly aware of a gulf between us. A divide. Me, standing at the precipice of safe territory, and he, my best friend, on the brink of something altogether unknown and dangerous.
“No,” I say, speaking through an uncomfortable tightness clenching in my chest. “It was deception, Lazlo. If they were contacting us, it was only a trick to get us to surface. To board us, to stop us from fulfilling our mission.”
“I was watching from the hatchway,” he says, shaking his head, seeming not to have heard me at all. “I saw it all. When the interloper—the one we brought on board—finally confessed that she was a technician . . .”
“She?” Have I heard him right?
He nods.
There has never been a woman brought on board.
I swallow.
“They’re trying to keep it secret,” he says.
“I can understand why.”
“Ex-Oh says there was no choice. Once this woman said she was a technician, they killed the other two crewmembers.”
There is no consoling Lazlo now. “He referred to Caplain Amita by name, one of the prisoners. Before he was killed. Called him ‘Captain’ Amita. Said that peace was at hand . . . that they wanted to talk. To meet.”
“How did they know the caplain’s name?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone any of this. Ex-Oh warned me. But . . . I couldn’t. I couldn’t not say something to someone.”
Now it’s my heart that sinks. Heavy with its own, myriad secrets.
“What if we’ve been wrong?” he asks, a dangerous whisper. He takes in a great, shuddering breath. “What if the war is over? What if it wasn’t the end of times?”
A clash of metal startles the both of us.
It came from the other side of the sealed hatch, followed by a muffled clapping, like the sound of retreating footsteps.
Lazlo and I share a lightning-fast, dread-deep look before I spring to the hatch and fling it open.
Down the corridor, into the mess and beyond, the lower deck is still active with the crew attending their duties. But no one retreating. No one near enough to have heard us.
On the deck,
a wrench that must have been left on a small outcropping beside the hatchway.
We’d just imagined the footsteps. That’s all.
“Come on,” I say. “They’ll have noticed we’re missing.”
I take Lazlo’s grease-blackened hand and roughly pull him along with me.
* * *
Later that night, me in my bunk, Lazlo in his, directly below me, I feel his fingers brush against mine, from the inch of space between the edge of our bunk and the bulkhead.
In this gesture, he is asking if I am mad at him. If I still trust him.
A question I answer by interlocking my fingers with his.
The whales are singing out there in the dark ocean, their song resounding against the hull.
We lie awake and listen to them, Lazlo and I. Sometimes, when we are in the chapel, singing, the beasts sing back.
Here, though, this deep, it is quiet enough to listen to their solemn strains fully. Every odd sonorous leap and ululation. Every rich bellow and delicate turn. One calling out to the other in these blind, cold depths, the dark chambers of the sea. When all they have in the darkness is one another. Each other’s song.
What were they discussing, these beasts? These leviathans?
“Hello, I’m a whale,” Lazlo whispers in a forced, deep timbre beneath me.
“Hello, I’m also a whale,” I respond, as deeply as I can, trying to stifle a laugh.
“Do you have any fishes?” he asks.
“No, but I do have this man in my belly who keeps trying to get out,” I whisper.
I hear Lazlo’s smile in his breathing. I smile, too. For a moment.
But I keep thinking, do they have a message for me? Like Caplain Amita said? Will they tell me what I am to do, when the end finally comes?
I realize I am gripping Lazlo’s hand too tightly. He doesn’t seem to mind. I suppose he is gripping mine just as tight.
Sometimes, I dream we are whales, Lazlo and I. Free, and unafraid of the dark, of the depths. Places that are natural for us to go, singing songs that are not yet written. Together. Him singing a secret song to me, and me singing to him. A song only the two of us in the whole world know. Like our names.
Alden Tomas, I mouth but do not actually speak.
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep Page 4
