At the End of the World

by Charles E Gannon

  “A line on the surface of the earth making the same oblique angle with all meridians,” I snapped back at him. I figured this was some sort of test, and I wanted to make up for sounding stupid and having my voice break. For the first time in my life, I cared about somebody’s opinion of me other than my mom’s.

  He nodded. “And what’s the solstitial colure?”

  “The great circle of the celestial sphere where the sun passes through the celestial poles and the solstices.”

  “And swirl error?”

  “The additional error in the reading of a magnetic compass during a turn, due to friction in the compass liquid.” I could do this all day.

  The captain stared at me through narrowed eyes. “And what’s the third topic heading in the sixth chapter of Knight’s Seamanship?” he asked me.

  “Which edition, sir?” There were two on board.

  “The old one.” He stopped to think. “Tenth edition.”

  That seemed like a pretty arbitrary piece of information, but I knew it. “‘The Azimuth Circle.’”

  He looked at me. “So you say you don’t know how to be a navigator.”

  “Well,” I explained, “I mean, I can do it a little. But most of that is just book learning, and I—”

  “Bollocks, boy.” I think that may have been the first time he ever interrupted me. “You’ve been charting courses without any help for three days. And you didn’t need my help for the four days before that. I’ve never seen anyone learn these principles so quickly. But then, you get on pretty well with books, don’t you?”

  I felt my face get hot. “Pretty well,” I admitted.

  The left side of his mouth twitched in what might have been, for him, a broad shit-eating grin. “Pretty well, indeed. I’ll wager that if I asked you to give me a few entries on the celestial navigation tables, you could do that sitting right there, without cracking the cover.” He stared at me. “Couldn’t you?”

  “Maybe,” I lied.

  He leaned forward. “No, you could. And I know it. And we don’t have the time or the freedom for this kind of faffing about. The plain fact is that you have a photographic memory. Oh, you’re sharp enough as well, I warrant. But see here: a captain must know all the assets at his disposal, all of the resources upon which he can count. So when were you going to do the right thing and let me know about this little skill of yours?”

  I shrugged. “Hadn’t thought about it really, sir.” And it was true. School is bad enough when you’re the pint-sized outsider who’s always getting the best grades. God knows how much worse it would have been if they’d known I was some kind of freak who remembered everything he saw and heard. Without really trying.

  The captain must have seen some of that old dread flash past in my eyes. He leaned back. “Right, then. I can see it might not have always been a skill you were glad to have. But now, we could have need of it. These are treacherous waters.” He looked away. “And this can be a dangerous world.” He paused, as though he intended to add something, but instead got up and left. Like he was in a hurry.

  It’s the first time the captain ever said or did anything that struck me as evasive. And suddenly, for reasons that I cannot fully identify, I am now terrified. If something gives the Great Ghoul of the Ocean-Sea even a moment’s pause, I figure that it has to be pretty damned serious.

  Like Armageddon. Or worse.

  June 16

  “So,” the captain resumed the next day in the pilot house, like we’d never stopped talking. “Resources. There are only two people on Voyager who can navigate her. That’s not enough. So you’re going to start training another one today.”

  I had thought about it since yesterday. It didn’t sound so bad, particularly not if it was somebody like Rodney or Giselle. They had pretty good heads on their shoulders, even if the brains inside didn’t always work to get them the best social outcomes. “Sure,” I replied. “Actually, I think that either Rodney or Giselle would—”

  “I asked you to train a navigator, not recruit one. I’ve already done that.” He called down the companionway. “Come up here.” It sounded like he was talking to a misbehaving pet.

  He moved out of the way so that the new navigator-in-training could get up the stairs and past him. It was Chloe.

  I looked at him. And this time he really did grin a little. “Have fun you two,” he said. And left.

  Chloe looked at me and I looked at her. We did that for a while. Strangely enough, she was the first one to look away.

  “Look,” I said in a low voice, “do you have any idea why he—?”

  “You’re asking me?” she said, turning to glare at me. “You’re his Golden Boy. You’d know, if anyone.”

  The notion of being the Great Ghoul’s Golden Boy left me speechless for a few seconds. Then: “Well, if I’m his favorite, he has a damn strange way of showing it. I didn’t know he even wanted another navigator, much less expected me to train one. And I can assure you, if he’d given me a choice of who—” I heard myself and stopped.

  Too late.

  She turned toward me. “The only thing worse than having you teach me is having you near me. So, let’s start with some ground rules. You stay on the opposite side of this chart table. Maybe that way I won’t puke.”

  I should have been able to shrug that off, to just smile, lean back, and say, “Whatever. Let’s get to work.” But no. Instead, I blurted out the first response that came to mind, a tit-for-tat reflex. “Of all the things you need to worry about, me wanting to get close to you is not remotely among them.”

  She wasn’t out of grade-school ammunition yet. “Why? Because you’re afraid I might pick you up and break you?”

  “No, because you’re a nasty, selfish bitch, and I wouldn’t get with you if you were the last female on earth.”

  Yes, I went there. And yes, I was totally in the wrong. And what had come out of my mouth shocked me speechless.

  Her, too. For a moment I thought the odds were even that she was either going to cry or scream. However, I could see that the odds were much better than either that she was going to smack my face—and I wouldn’t have stopped her even if I could have.

  But she stopped herself. I don’t know if it was a memory of what happened the last time she tried coming after me, her fear of the Great Ghoul, or some still vulnerable part of her that my retort had hit, punctured, and sunk. For a moment, it looked like she might fold in on herself, but then her jaw came forward and locked in place. “Right,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”

  July 6

  It turns out that Chloe had problems in school. Discipline problems, mostly, but they spilled over into her academics. If she works too long, or runs into a dead end, she gets tense, which means she gets snippy and then resentful if you try to keep her at it.

  Frankly, she’s okay at math. In fact, she’s better than average at almost everything. It’s her attitude that sucks. On the first day, she was so hostile that I figured I’d better start by finding her comfort zone. So I asked her what subject she liked best when she was in school.

  “Gym,” she answered without batting a lash. And they are very long lashes.

  Okay, I should have seen that coming. “So what made everything else so crappy? A school full of lousy teachers?”

  She shook her head. “No. I just don’t like to re—to work.”

  I shrugged and didn’t let on how I noticed that, at the last minute, she’d shifted away from saying “I just don’t like to read.” Instead, I got her started on the material we had to cover for navigation: basic math. At which she was okay, once I walked her through it. But when I asked her to go over some written instructions about procedures, we didn’t get anywhere.

  We stopped early and I went to find the captain. Who was apparently waiting for me in his cabin. “Sir, I’m not sure that Chloe is going to prove the best choice for a back-up navigator.”

  He folded his long, thin arms, and leaned back. “Is that a fact?” His tone was mild
, almost amused.

  Everything became a lot more clear. “So you already knew that she—”

  “Quiet. My question was rhetorical. And yes, I still think she’ll be a good navigator. And yes, I do think you’ll be able to teach her to read. And no, I don’t bloody care that it will take longer, or that you’re likely to consider suicide before it’s over.” The last was hyperbole. I think.

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “—But why is it worth all the trouble? Because, if you haven’t noticed, she’s healthy, reasonably smart, and jolly well the most aggressive of you all. Traits which mark her as a survivor.”

  “A…survivor, sir?”

  “Yes. The sort of person who will be useful in any situa—in any walk of life. Just needs a bit of work, a bit of fixing, to her education.”

  That was the first time that I didn’t just suspect the Great Ghoul of the Ocean-Sea was bullshitting me: I knew it. Something was wrong. Really, big-time wrong. My palms suddenly felt cold. I couldn’t call the captain on it, but I needed to find out why it was so important that Chloe was a survivor. “Well, I’ll do my best, sir. Any particular subjects you want me to push her toward, in addition to the navigation?”

  He speared me with his eyes. “Don’t be so clever, lad. I’m not her—what do you call them in the States?—her ‘guidance counselor.’ But you should know this: I get a file on each of you from the charter company.”

  I couldn’t keep my eyebrows from raising.

  “Nothing particularly revealing, usually. But in her case—” He shook his head and leaned forward. “Some of you come from pretty hard backgrounds. We get a little extra information on those. Just in case.” He waited for me to nod before he went on. “Her parents never married. Split up when she was young. Father tried, but fell down a bottle—the way only an Inuit can, according to the report. The mother either started as or became an addict; wasn’t even in Alaska, let alone Juneau, half of the time.” He stood, which, since it was his cabin, made it pretty clear that my time was up. “She had to raise—and protect—herself,” he muttered. “I just want her to have the tools she’ll need. For the future.”

  Until today, I had never heard anyone utter the word “future” like it was part of a eulogy for the present.

  July 11

  We should have been at our current location weeks ago, but the captain’s insistence on making us competent sailors has cost us speed and time. A few of us have wondered, out loud, how we’ll get back home when we’re supposed to. He just looks at the mounting swells beyond the bow and, after a few moments, recites the same tired explanation, “We’ll worry about that when Tierra del Fuego is behind us.”

  Which is really no explanation at all. Which everyone else noticed, as well.

  We’ve also noticed that he doesn’t hang on to the radio the way he used to. Now, he keeps it off. And it’s been almost a week since we’ve seen another ship, even though the Chilean coast is just beyond the eastern horizon.

  A month ago, when I first noticed that the captain was starting to say some dire stuff, everyone else thought I was nuts, that there was no need to talk about how he might be acting a little hinky.

  Now, they don’t talk about anything else.

  July 17

  So today, as soon as Tierra del Fuego disappeared behind us, the captain tried to raise Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands. What he got back was fevered gibberish. While it lasted. He turned the dial, retuned, tried to raise our destination: King Edward Point, the small sub-Antarctic station the Brits maintain on South Georgia Island. No reply.

  He turned off the radio slowly, then sat back. I waited for what was, according to the clock above the wheel, slightly more than three minutes. When he spoke, he did not look over at me. “Alvaro, we’re going to keep trying those stations. So, until someone replies, we’re not going to tell the others what we just heard—or didn’t. Your mates are far too twitchy already.”

  I just nodded. Which made me complicit in agreeing to what he was really saying: “we’re going to keep this between the two of us until and unless there’s proof that the whole world has gone to shit.” Or as he would have said, “has gone pear-shaped.”

  “Next steps, sir?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “You don’t rattle easy, do you, Alvaro?”

  “I try not to, sir.”

  “That’s good.” From him, this was unthinkably high praise. “Do you know how to fish?”

  “I know there’s a hook involved. Other than that, not a clue, sir.”

  His jaw seemed to experience a momentary tic: whether that was a spasm of disappointment or amusement, I couldn’t tell. “Well, find someone who does. I suspect Chloe will have some experience. Tell them to meet me astern at 1400. We’re going to go off prepared foods for a while.”

  “I see, sir. Anything you want moved into the ship’s locker?” Which meant, effectively, placed under lock and key.

  He nodded. “Vitamins. Bottled water. Canned goods. Spare batteries.” He stood. “There will be more. But we will take this one step at a time. Eventually, we’ll need to collect any personal medical supplies—ibuprofen, acetaminophen, aspirin—and anything else we might need to ration.” He finally looked at me. “Where’s your family, Alvaro?”

  “My mom is in England. On business. Mostly. She’s my only family.”

  He nodded, walked to the door: beyond it, the grey South Atlantic tossed fitfully, as if, far below, thousands of whales were having bad dreams. “From now on, whenever I’m not using it, the radio is unplugged and off limits. You understand.”

  “I do, sir. And yes, sir.”

  He went through to the weather deck looking like he had aged another ten years.

  July 20

  I didn’t know I’d have trouble writing this entry, but when I finally got to my bunk and picked up my pen, my hand started shaking. This is the third try. I hope I can get it all down.

  The day started normally enough. The captain was up first, as always. And he went to the place that was now his full-time station: the radio. With the exception of a short trip down to the condensers, he kept tuning through the dial, again and again. And every time he caught a scratchy snippet of some signal, he would drop the volume. As if the others didn’t know what that meant: that he didn’t want the rest of us to hear it.

  But apparently, while the captain was down checking on the condensers, and I was busy giving a hand with the sheets, Blake slipped into the radio room. It was in the compartment at the bottom of the pilot house’s companionway. He hooked up the set, fiddled with the dial himself. Then, when the Great Ghoul of the Ocean-Sea came thumping up the companionway, he realized he couldn’t get out in time, so he ducked into the bridge locker, which was mostly empty except for signal flags, spare rope, buoys, and some chandlery odds and ends.

  The first sign that something had gone wrong was Blake’s long scream: “WHAAAT? NO! That’s bullshit! That’s totally bull—” and then a thump and a long silence. I was the only one who didn’t come running.

  Not like I missed a lot by walking, though. Blake was still sprawled on the floor, staring up at the captain in shock. “You bastard,” he whispered. “You’ve been hiding it from us. All this time.”

  Chloe was frowning. “Hiding what?”

  Before Blake could answer, the captain stepped between them. “That’s enough. This is not a bloody democracy.” He turned toward Blake. “Mr. Worley, you disobeyed my express orders about the radio. You will be disciplined. When I am done.”

  Even Chloe looked worried. “Done with what?”

  “Done explaining what has been going on back home and how it bears upon our voyage.”

  Blake made a sound that was partly a bark of laughter and partly a sob of panic. “Yeah, it bears, all right.”

  The captain’s eyes were on Blake. “One more outburst and I will confine you to your cabin.”

  The pilot house was dead quiet.

  The captain leaned upon the pilo
t’s console. “A little over three weeks ago, coastal radio stations started reporting the outbreak of some new strain of flu. It started in the U.S.—Los Angeles, in fact—but shortly afterward, began breaking out elsewhere. About twenty-five percent of all infections are eventually fatal. Quite a few more never recover.”

  “Jesus,” Rodney breathed.

  “It spread through the developed nations first, but they have had better luck containing it. When it hit the less developed nations—such as those of Central or South America—it ran wild.” He paused, looked around the group. “There is no known vaccine, and it is racing ahead of conventional quarantine and isolation efforts.”

  Suddenly, all I could think of, or see, or hear, was memories of my mom.

  Rodney had raised his hand. At any other time, it would have just added to his image as a doofus and a loser, but suddenly, it seemed appropriate. The way we liked to envision ourselves—as adults—had just gone out the window. There was only one real adult aboard. He had the dope on what was going on in the world. Without him, each and every one of us were as screwed as a nymphomaniac mink. These were the simple facts, and right then, the only ones that mattered. The captain nodded at Rodney’s raised hand.

  “Captain, you said that the virus is twenty-five percent fatal, but that even more don’t recover. What happens to them?”

  The captain frowned. “I can’t tell you exactly because the radio transmissions have become so infrequent and…bizarre. It seems that more than half of those who survive suffer permanent brain damage that reduces them to mindless savagery. Including cannibalism.”

  If the pilot house had been quiet before, it was tomblike now. And because at that moment death seemed to close in all around us, I found myself making note of all the other kids on the trip in a way I never had before: as if they might be the last people on Earth.

  That in turn made me realize I have never even bothered to mention them all in this journal. Like the passersby we see in the course of any regular day, they were sort of like extras: faces that inhabit the movie of our lives without having any role to play other than populating it. Suddenly I had a sharp awareness of them as individuals, along with a tangle of feelings that mostly grouped around two opposed poles. First, horror at the thought that this handful of teenagers was going to propagate whatever grim new Eden the globe became and that I’d have to participate in that process. Second, a surge of manic relief that somehow, by the strangest of all coincidences, I happened to be among their number. That I, out of all the millions on Earth, might be one of the few who had chanced to survive.