We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep

by Andrew Kelly Stewart

  “Indeed,” he says. Perhaps wary. Suspicious.

  But if he does suspect, he doesn’t let on. He dismisses me. I rush from the room before he can say another word.

  * * *

  “I have them. The coordinates,” I whisper up into Adolphine’s cell.

  I waited a full day before coming to visit her again, just to be careful of the caplain’s suspicion, and of St. John’s ever-vigilant watch of my comings and goings. But today St. John is busy helping Brother Aegis with the mending and sewing of robes, and my job, to inspect the underworks, presents the perfect opportunity.

  “What’s that, child?” Adolphine asks, her shadowy form appearing on the other side of the grate above.

  “I got a look at the chart. The caplain called me up to the control room. We were standing right beside it the whole time.”

  “Good,” Adolphine says, more energetic than I’ve ever heard her. “Good girl. Brave girl.”

  Girl. The word gives me pause. Such weight to it.

  There’s a bond hidden in this word.

  An association so very different than this place. This submarine and everyone on it.

  A new covenant.

  “Where is the course plotted?” she asks.

  “West, to the Arafura Sea,” I say.

  “Arafura,” Adolphine mutters thoughtfully. “A very shallow body of water, between Papua New Guinea and the northern coast of Australia.”

  “We normally wouldn’t sail into such shallow waters,” I say. “No room to dive and hide.”

  “It makes sense. Most of the CPN fleet will still be to the northwest, near the Philippines. They won’t be patrolling those waters. Your captain is smart—he’s been listening to the radio chatter, figuring out what’s been going on up there in the world,” she says. “Also, the Polaris missile only has a range of 1300 miles. He would need to get close in order to hit Sydney without sailing into the southern waters around Australia, which will certainly be heavily patrolled. Could you see how close we are to the launch destination? Captains will normally keep track of the boat’s position.”

  “Yes, I saw. There was a solid line that ended with an X, and a dotted line continued to the Arafura sea. The X had us just south of an island called Fiji.”

  “Fiji,” Adolphine says, then falls silent.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Doing the math. I’ve been aboard . . . thirteen . . . no, fourteen days. And the Janus was attacked just off the coast of the Cook Islands. Means we’re only going about . . .”

  “About 160 miles a day,” I answer. “So, we’ve traveled about two thousand miles.”

  “That’s . . . right. That’s right, Remy,” she says, the same way she was impressed when I told her I could read words and charts. That Caplain Amita taught me. “That’s not very fast. Which means we’ve got about another five or so days . . . yes, five days at least before we reach the launch point. I can stretch out repairs for that long. Brother Ernesto doesn’t know much about the electronic systems, the targeting computer, but Goines and your captain do. They know how to check to see if each of the missile and launch systems are in order, that I’m repairing them correctly. No way to fake that. But I’ll keep finding ways to delay. Scavenge for parts. That’s time.”

  She seems to be speaking only to herself, thinking out loud.

  “Time for what?” I ask.

  “For us to send a message . . .” the woman whispers. The whites of her eyes flash in the wicklight.

  “Message?”

  “Rescue. We’re probably too far away for Guam or Australia to receive the transmission, but we’re no doubt still being followed by one or two CPN ships. We can send a radio transmission to them. I know the channel to transmit . . . we have a secret code. We can tell them what our launch position will be.”

  “But they would attack us . . . right? They’re hunting us.”

  “Not if we send them the message that I’m alive. That the missile cannot be launched. Then we surface the boat.”

  “Caplain Marston would never surrender . . . I told you that . . .”

  “We won’t get him a choice. We’ll disable it,” she says, knowingly. “You said you know the Leviathan backward and forward, right?”

  I think. “Short of taking control of the helm, or the control room . . . and we wouldn’t be able to manage that—too many people. We could get to the engine room somehow . . .”

  “Exactly,” Adolphine says, the way Caplain Amita would offer praise when testing my reading skills.

  She says, “We wait until we surface to vent. Then we find a way to shut off engineering from the forward compartments. You said there’s only one entry point to access aft, yes?”

  “Yes . . . through the tunnel . . .”

  “Is it guarded?”

  “No—the hatchway is sealed on the forward side. The brothers enter and exit by calling over the squawk. If we’re in the middle of a shift, there won’t be anyone there.”

  “Then we could easily get back there and shut off the engine, the generators if we time it right. How many are stationed back there?”

  “Two. Two or three brothers at any time.”

  “That’s not many,” she says, ever more confident. “Yes, we can take them.”

  We.

  “But . . .” I begin. “I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “We won’t have to. If we surprise them, we can restrain them. No one has to die.”

  I think a moment, find myself chewing at a nail. Bitter grease. Most of it pulls away at the quick. Only a little jolt of pain. My fingers no longer have much feeling in them. “But even if we shut off the engine and generators, Marston could still use battery power to dive.”

  “We disable the hydraulics, then,” Adolphine counters. “They won’t be able to control the dive planes.”

  “Then the boat would be dead in the water.”

  “I know most of the Leviathan’s systems,” Adolphine says. “I studied them. But I’m not sure if I’d know how to shut everything down. Would you?”

  “No,” I say. “Lazlo would.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, he’s very smart. Good with the electrics. With the machines. But even if we could take over the engine room, force the boat to surface, we’d have to send off the message first. How will we get you to the radio room?”

  Silence. The boat groans. I feel it shift. Feel the water and seepage flow past my feet. Soon, the hull will resound with the hammer.

  “You’ll have to do it, Remy,” she says.

  I swallow.

  “But I don’t know . . . I don’t know how any of it works.”

  “I can tell you. I can walk you through it—”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I’ve risked so much already, coming here. I would get caught!” I say, trying to keep control of my voice.

  She says, “We could all survive this. You and your friend Lazlo. We have medicines. Treatments.”

  Topside.

  All along, it has been such a distant thought. Sunlight. Air that doesn’t reek of oil. Water that doesn’t taste bitter, brackish.

  What would life look like without the order? Without the ringing of the hull every third hour?

  “Others could perhaps help, too,” I say. “It will be hard to accomplish this on our own. I could try talking to them . . . to the Forgotten. I could send a message back to Lazlo . . . let him know what to expect.”

  “And risk getting us caught?” Adolphine asks, her tone suddenly sharp. “Don’t do it, Remy. We can’t trust others.”

  “You trust me.”

  “Yes, but you’re the one who came to me, Remy. Can you really say without doubt that you could convince the others to disregard everything they’ve believed in, everything they’ve been taught, so quickly?”

  I want to fight back. I want to say that I have changed quickly. That my whole world has been turned upside down in a matter of days.

  But no . . . it wasn’t quick. The cracks w
ere already there, before any of this occurred, before Caplain Amita died. Before I was given the key. I just couldn’t see them.

  “Do Topsiders believe in God?” I ask.

  Adolphine doesn’t answer for a few long seconds. “People have always believed in something. Different religions have different names for God. Some believe in many gods.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  Another pause. “No. I was raised to. My parents believed. But I do not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . I got older and saw what had happened to the world. When I truly realized how many had died, how many continued to suffer—suffering you cannot fathom—I could not imagine a God that would allow such a thing to happen.”

  “Some of the scripture claims God to be merciful. But some say He is vengeful. Lately, I’ve had trouble seeing how he could be both.”

  Adolphine doesn’t speak.

  “Lazlo doesn’t deserve what is happening to him,” I say.

  “You love him?” she asks, carefully, kindly.

  “He’s my best friend,” I say. “I do . . . I do love him.”

  I have never said it. Love has always been a word associated only with God. But yes.

  “We listen to the whales. When we should be sleeping. They sing against the hull. We would listen to them and try to figure out what they were saying to each other. Have you heard them?”

  “Yes . . .” she says. “I’ve heard the whales.”

  “There’s several I can recognize just by their song. Now I only hear one.”

  Silence.

  The creaking of the boat. Footsteps somewhere. A compressor hisses in the next compartment.

  “We can save him, Remy,” Adolphine whispers from above, voice full of light. Of hope. “We can save them all. And ourselves.”

  * * *

  I find Brother Callum alone at his nightly station, manning the radio room on the main level. The Leviathan often tows a buoy with an antenna cable in order to listen to the Topside transmissions, even from great depths. But, especially on nights like this, when we surface in order to vent gasses, the station must be manned. To scan for our enemies. For prey.

  He is focused, ears covered by the bulky headset. He starts upon turning to find me standing at the hatchway, his one uncovered grey eye wide. He looks cross, ready to scold, but softens upon seeing what I’ve brought. A bowl full of steaming ginger steep.

  I must continue adjusting it in my hands to keep it from spilling.

  The boat sways, pitches heavily. It creaks and groans. It’s a rocking, stormy sea out there tonight. Normally, the Leviathan would dive deep beneath the squalls, but on venting nights, there is no choice.

  Brother Callum, normally red-faced, has a sallow and green countenance. He does not handle bad weather well.

  And so, he accepts the steep gratefully, waving me inside, keeping one hand braced against the broad console.

  The radio room is small—just big enough to hold two seats positioned before a vast, bulky array of electronic equipment. A face of switches and dials and knobs that fill an entire wall of the compartment. I take the empty seat next to him.

  I see exactly the electronic equipment I am to use. The tuner, where I am to change the broadcast channel. The teletype machine, in the corner, likely unused since the days leading up to the war.

  Will it still work?

  I shouldn’t be in here. No Chorister should, but Brother Callum, normally one of the most observant, one of the strictest in our order, has softened since Silas’s death. Not just to me but to Ephraim and Caleb, and even St. John, who tends to stoke the ire in most people.

  The overall mood on the boat has been muted since Silas’s death.

  They were close.

  “Do you hear the enemy?” I whisper.

  “There’s nothing out there. Not in this storm,” he says, taking a long sip of the steep. A particularly large swell rocks the compartment upward, pitches him so that he almost spills the bowl.

  He mutters, closes his eyes, takes another long draw.

  Silence has always meant something different in Brother Callum’s presence. He clearly was never inclined to be a loquacious person, and so has always seemed to abide the mandate of our order, our silence, with greater ease than the other brothers. Perfectly happy in it.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, he is discontented.

  He takes another sip. Closes his eyes.

  Too soon, I think. Too soon for the nostrum to take effect.

  Even though it is a powerful treatment. Caplain Amita often took it, in his last days, to stave off pain long enough to find some rest.

  Here, I have used all three doses’ worth.

  Not enough to harm someone.

  I asked Brother Dumas what would happen if I took all the powder at once.

  He laughed and simply said it would be a long, uninterrupted sleep. That I would certainly be unable to rise for the call to Matins.

  So, I would not hurt anyone. Yet I feel guilty for doing it.

  “He liked you, you know?” Brother Callum says.

  “Who?”

  “Brother Silas,” he says, clearing his throat.

  I almost don’t know what to say. “I . . . I liked him as well.”

  “We was rescued real close together, you know?” he asks. He doesn’t intend for me to answer. “Silas and me. We was both of us a few weeks apart, coming here. I was on a boat with my parents. Refugees. I was ten.”

  Brother Callum has slumped in his seat. No, this is not the nostrum. This is something else. I can do nothing but listen as he continues:

  “My parents and I lived in Hawaii. Civilians. Not military, I mean. When the big island got hit, us and a few other families got together on this . . . yacht. That’s a sailboat. Not very big. Not big for all of us, for sure. We were eight, total. Sailing for New Zealand. Dad thought that would be the best place to ride out the rest of the war. That was the plan. All the way across the Pacific. Food ran out, though. Mom got sick. Not sure what it was, but whatever it was, killed three out of the eight of us. Then we ran out of water. No rain for a bad, hot stretch. Out of food. One of my friends’ parents. Man named Ellison. Went nuts. Killed my father—intended to eat him and me, but I stood up to him. Killed him. Knocked him across the back of the head with an oar. Then I guess I was in charge. I knew how to sail well enough. But then the heat and the thirst really got most of us. It was just me and a girl in the end. Daughter of one of the friends. Girl named Moira. She was about . . . eight, I guess. Eight. Boat was in bad shape—we’d gotten battered by a typhoon. Knocked out our mast. We were drifting then. We weren’t going to make it another day or two when we came upon this small island. Saw the Leviathan out, just past the shoals. Surfaced. Thought we were saved. I was, well enough. Caplain Amita, he was a good man, took me in. Said that Moira couldn’t come, though. That there were too many mouths. That we were doing God’s work, yeah. No women. No women allowed in the garden. I couldn’t really sing—but I was strong for my age. I had purpose. Survived my cutting. My purification. Moira, though. We left her, yeah. On that island. Only a few palms. Probably no fresh water. I remember I . . . didn’t even fight to bring her on board. Maybe I could have begged the caplain, changed everything, but I didn’t. Felt damn lucky to just be alive, suppose. To have purpose. And we left her. Yeah, we did. And she probably died there. On the island. Might not’ve. But probably, yeah. Probably still there.” He grunts, staring down at the last slurp of steep in the bowl before taking it down in a final swig.

  His eyelids have grown heavier, but he shows no sign of stopping, of not talking. I look out the door, peek either way down the hall outside to see if anyone is in earshot. But Brother Callum seems not to care. He continues:

  “That’s how you were rescued, you know . . . from a boat, adrift at sea. Skin blistered and salt-cracked when we found you—I remember. Skinny little thing. Didn’t think you would survive. Caplain took a liking to y
ou, all right. Good thing, because Marston would have just left you there. But Caplain nursed you back to health hisself. A good man, in all. Harsh, but good. Said you were special. An’ he was right about that, wasn’t he?”

  “I . . . I suppose,” I say, not knowing how to respond.

  I remember the burn of the sun behind my eyelids, just now. A flash of blinding light bursting through layers and buried memory. The feel of it. The dry, salty, stinging lips.

  “Was I alone?” I ask. “When I was found?”

  Brother Callum blinks slowly, groggily. “You know, I don’t remember.”

  He gives half a colorless laugh.

  “Remember when I first heard you sing, yeah. All of us knew . . . we knew you were special. Knew God had spared you for a reason. Silas loved it. Loved hearing your voice. Said it sounded like an angel.”

  His eye is welling up now. Red, and angry.

  “Here, I want you to listen to something,” he says suddenly, pulling one side of the headset on his ear while turning the tuning knob on the console, clearly searching for something.

  “Listen?”

  “It’ll all be over soon, won’t it?” he asks, words thick now, whispering. “It won’t matter. I want you to hear something. Sometimes I listen. Something just for me. Ah, this is a good one . . .” He smiles, his mouth slack. Before I can respond, he has removed the headset from around his neck and is placing them over my ears.

  The creaking of the boat, the squeal and the whine of distressed metal disappear in a sea of crackling, popping static. Harsh. Loud. I want to pull it off. Then I hear it. Swimming somewhere behind the static

  Music. Music without voices. Rhythm. Cracks. Instruments that blare, lurking behind a curtain of static that pitches and wails and sometimes swallows but does not fully obscure.

  Where is the voice? I think.

  And then she enters—a melody, sung not in English. In some other beautiful language—a voice that seems to be moving in hot, short notes.

  Energy. Life. Being transmitted out from some island, from some city, where people live and walk and breathe the free air. Something indescribably happy that pours into me. Pours in through my ears, into my heart.

  When have I ever felt so light?