Wrestling it over the lip of the building, I jumped in, pushed away.
The rain was relentless, soaking, cold. As the boat slewed from the building, it spun in the currents, its nose rose on a great wave, then smashed back down, almost throwing me into the sea.
Blinking and sputtering, I got my bearings, took the oars and began to row.
My pace was manic, but the combined forces of wind and water made my progress maddeningly slow. Without Cassie there to navigate, I had to steer by lightning alone, taking stock of my situation in brief, flash-lit images, like snapshots viewed one after another.
The boat slewed left and right, pitched forward and backward, took on water. There was simply too much rain, too much ocean spilling into it. I could feel the boat growing heavier, more unresponsive under me as I rowed. Were there holes, leaks I wasn’t aware of?
At intervals, despite the rain, the wind, the thunder, I called her name, called her name over and over, even though I couldn’t hear it in my own head.
Even though I was sure she couldn’t hear it, either.
Still, I pressed on, persevered.
What else was left for me?
An empty penthouse.
A shattered world.
But the weather was growing harsher.
The bass boat was built for rivers, for ponds, not for the fury of a manic ocean. My feet were covered with at least six inches of water, and the boat was sitting lower and lower in the waves. The ocean poured over its sides, threatening to swamp it.
Again. Just like before.
A staccato burst of lightning blinded me, and I momentarily stopped rowing.
The wind ripped one of the oars from my hands, sent it hurtling into the night.
The boat listed, settled, listed, wavered, capsized.
For a moment that might have been an eternity, I didn’t know up or down, left or right. Everything in every direction was cold, was wet, was darkness. I opened my eyes onto nothing, let my body go limp in the hopes that it would simply float to the surface.
I was buffeted against something hard, either the boat itself as it hurried to the distant bottom or something else, I couldn’t tell. It struck me hard enough to knock the air from me, which escaped in a huge blurt that left my lungs empty.
Oh, Connie, I tried.
Cassie, I tried.
I was drowning, this was drowning.
This is how Connie had felt, how she had died.
At first, I was panicky and afraid.
Then, in the space of a heartbeat or two, I accepted it. I closed my eyes, and despite the searing in my lungs, the pressure in my head, I relaxed.
The cold seemed to push in from all sides, forcing out all of the air, all of the oxygen.
Let it happen. Your job here is done. There’s nothing more to do. You have nothing left to offer.
But as bright phosphenes exploded across the darkness of my vision, I saw the scene being acted out, the scene from my dream. A light burst overhead, rippling gold in the black water.
A hand reached out for mine, down for mine.
My hand reached up for it.
And I knew, finally, that though this was my dream, it wasn’t.
It wasn’t me, not me saving my wife and failing.
The dream had been her hand all along, reaching down, down to save me from sinking, from drowning.
Not my hand reaching to her, to my wife.
It was Cassie’s hand, reaching down to save me.
To save me.
Her entire life had been about saving me, I had just been too blind to see it.
It wasn’t a conscious thing on her part, not like my single-minded protection of her had been. No, it simply was. Her life in this new world was meant to illuminate a new purpose for me, a purpose far beyond the simple preservation of my daughter’s life. Not that this wasn’t admirable, to be desired.
But in saving me, Cassie had unwittingly helped to save her new world, too, by preserving a bit of the old. In much the same way that preserving an ember of a great fire, reduced to ashes now, can be used to start a new fire, a greater fire.
I am that ember, at least one of them.
That knowledge ignited some store of energy within me that the cold waters hadn’t yet doused, that I hadn’t tapped.
With the last of that strength, the last of my oxygen, I reached up, toward that hand—
—grasped it, took it.
I worried momentarily about the intent of that hand, about the gunshots I’d fired earlier that day.
And then there were more, more hands reaching down, clasping mine, grabbing my shoulders, lifting me from the cold water, lifting me into a boat.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Not just one hand now, but dozens of them, lifting me.
Not to punish me.
To save me.
* * *
There were twenty-three of them, all told, not counting their two newest members.
Most were in their twenties, young, so young. Like Cassie, they had been only small children when the waters rose, so they had little knowledge of the old world, the way things were. Unlike Cassie, though, they didn’t seem to care too much about that.
There were six children, ranging in age from five to twelve years old, born—conceived—après le deluge. Only one couple, a man and his wife, were as old as, actually older than, me. They were in their sixties, snowbirds probably, had accomplished a lot in keeping this little group alive.
They’d done a great job actually, housing them all, feeding them all. But I could almost feel the palpable waves of relief coming from them; relaxing a bit at my presence, at my potential to take some of the responsibility off them.
I’d swallowed a lot of water, aspirated some of it, caught pneumonia. Between bouts of vomiting and shaking so bad I feared my bones would crack, I told them where to find the Physicians’ Desk Reference and the stash of medicines back at our place, told them what and how much to give me.
They put me in a room on the penthouse of their high-rise. For uncounted days, they came and spoke with me, each of them, fed me soup, tended to my needs. The older couple told their story, I told mine.
We came to an agreement.
Cassie and I would stay with them. We’d become part of their group.
When Cassie eventually came to see me, she was shy and embarrassed at first, tentative, as if I would be angry with her, disappointed.
But I wasn’t.
And I told her why.
I was her father, and I knew I had unintentionally hurt her.
I was her father, and I was willing to admit that I had been wrong.
I was her father, and I loved her. I just wanted her to be safe, be happy, to live her life.
In the end, I realized that I had to give her room to do all that.
I had to give her world to her.
And I had to give her to the world.
* * *
I am now the ember.
I am the keeper of the flame.
I have learned that the best way to protect my daughter is to remember the world, as it was, as we were—the things we did, the things we built, the way we lived. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly.
My job now is to remember it, share it, pass it down to her world, the new world.
So that they can remember the old world, live in the new.
So that they can learn.
So that they can live.
So that she can live.
It is, I think, the best job I’ve ever had.
* * *
For my friend, Chris Frisella
Fenlan Daulk stood in the foyer of his quiet house, reading and re-reading the message displayed on the tablet held in his nerveless hand. His briefcase dangled from the other, his house keys already on the table in the little ceramic sculpture that one of his wife’s students had made for her.
Congratulations, Mr. Daulk.
Your name has been drawn in the annual G
alactic Lottery. Your permit and travel voucher to Visitation have been confirmed. Please contact your personal Retreat Coordinator immediately to make the necessary travel preparations. As you can no doubt appreciate, time at Visitation is at a premium. So we thank you for taking care of the arrangements as soon as practicable.
It is our honor to assist your healing in this time of grief.
The words refused to gel, to mean anything substantive. They swam in and out of his vision, until he realized that he was weeping.
The briefcase clattered to the tile floor, and his hand, suddenly free, trembled on its way to his face, scrubbed the tears from his eyes.
Congratulations.
Grief.
Yes, his mind made those words out clearly, even as the other swam into view.
Visitation.
This, above all else, fired synapses he thought had died a year ago, burned out in a supernova of sorrow.
They weren’t. They never would be.
He sank to his knees, clasped the tablet to his chest.
* * *
Through a sophisticated and system-spanning lottery, Fen had been awarded fourteen days planetside, in a small bungalow in a compound on the northern continent of Visitation.
The bungalows were grouped loosely in communities of about 1,000, but so widely spaced that there was no contact between them. Besides, that’s not the contact a visitor was looking for on this exclusive, mysterious planet.
You went to meet your dead.
Your ghosts.
Only 150 years ago, Visitation was just Ophion B-2, a speck on the charts: ordinary, uninhabited, unremarkable. Located along the Interior Run, it was tucked into a dense star cluster that lit its night sky.
Miners, freighters and explorers, though, referred to it as Shade’s Planet, Grimland or just Haunt. Ophion B-2 was said to be the most haunted planet ever found. It became the preferred setting for ghost stories, campfire tales and urban legends throughout the systems.
Until a research team from a small university out in Vega—a no-account academic institution on a backwater world—funded a small expedition to survey the planet, study the rumored phenomena.
They found something.
But before they could publish their results, the Galactic Union stepped in, imposing a quarantine on Ophion B-2 until it could make sense of what these scientists from the sticks had stumbled onto.
There was something about the planet—the energy it emitted or the energy it was bathed in— something unexpected, profound, that allowed the spirits of the dead to come through, to speak to the living.
Ophion B-2, it seemed, was the galaxy’s haunted house, its Ouija board and its séance all rolled into one. Suddenly this obscure ghost story of a planet became the spiritual center of the Galactic Union, more important than ancient Vatican City, heavenly Archon or even stern and dour Colloquia.
Ophion B-2 was rechristened Visitation, put under the stewardship of a research institute run by the GU and representatives of the various religions protected under the GU Charter. It would continue to study the strange effects produced on the planet. To further this research, a select number of people would be chosen annually through a great lottery to experience a 14-day retreat on Visitation, providing the researchers with a vast, random pool of subjects to study.
For who in the universe doesn’t have someone they have loved and lost?
Who in the universe wouldn’t give all for a moment with that soul, to speak to it, to hear it one last time?
Who wouldn’t want a final chance to say goodbye?
* * *
Fenlan Daulk quickly made his arrangements for the trip. It meant one month travel aboard the chartered liner Eidolon, two weeks planetside on Visitation, one month back to his home world, Aquilla.
He thought most about that last thirty days, the return. Did he really want to come back to Aquilla? Would he still want to live here, where he was born, raised, married? Where she lay buried? Back on this planet his memories were as thick as ghosts, as unwanted as tears.
Perhaps it was time to move on. The universe was a big one, filled with many worlds on which he had thought—they had thought—about living. Perhaps forested Appalachia? Or a house atop the globe-spanning sea of Azure Prime. Or one of the megacities on Pendulex or Majipoor? Something idyllic and pastoral on Zizermane or Djoser or Phylladra?
It was too much to consider in too short a period of time; he was still reeling from her death, the conflicting elation and fear elicited by the issuance of his voucher for Visitation. So, Fen decided not to decide just yet. He’d leave that decision for his return trip.
He spent his last two nights on Aquilla in a hotel in downtown Amberjin, adjacent to the dock where the Eidolon was berthed. Outside his window, he could see the sleek ship, operated solely to carry passengers to Visitation. Its slim lines, its bulbous engines, its illuminated ports; nothing about it betrayed its function, its destination.
Only its name, Eidolon—ancient Greek for “apparition”—gave any hint as to where its passengers were bound.
Fen sat in his hotel suite in Amberjin, sat there and thought of Katmin, of her straight, dark hair, her wide, dark eyes, her smooth, dark skin.
Thought of seeing her again.
Of saying hello.
Of saying goodbye.
Finally, goodbye.
* * *
The servitors took his luggage from him as soon as he exited the gangway onto the main deck of the Eidolon. A representative from Visitation was there—polite and appropriately somber—to greet him and relay brief details of the voyage and the layout of the ship.
Aquilla was the second-to-last stop on a route that carried the Eidolon through this sector, then back to Visitation. One more stop, this one at Ankara, and the Eidolon would open its entanglement drive full throttle for the trip back to its home.
This information had floated atop his turbulent mind only for as long as it had taken him to find his stateroom. Fen’s room aboard the Eidolon was first-class, a level of luxury he was unaccustomed to. By the time Fen opened the door, the servitor had already unpacked, hung his clothes, put his socks and underwear in the dresser at the foot of the huge bed. Fen was unsure how he felt about a robot handling his underwear, but quickly forgot it.
A basket of fresh fruit was on the small desk at the rear of the room, next to a lamp, environmental controls and a small food printer, suitable for drinks and snacks.
As he surveyed his quarters, he saw that the servitor had unpacked his picture of Katmin, too, and placed it on the nightstand to the left of the bed. Fen felt a twinge in his chest, crawled onto the bed and lay there for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
Somewhere far below him, behind him, the ship’s massive engines accelerated particles, entangled them, performed a science that was eerily magic. As Fen fell asleep, only a soft chime over the intercom gave any hint that the Eidolon now accelerated toward Ankara.
* * *
She died on a Tuesday afternoon when Aquilla’s sun shone brightly in a clear, blue-violet sky. It was a beautiful day, a greeting card day.
A perfect day.
Except, of course, for the death of his wife.
Three days earlier, they had been in the market at the center of their village. The market was an open-air throwback to earlier times, with stalls where vendors sold everything from fresh produce to used servitors, from local antiques to exotic off-world curiosities.
They had strolled through the market holding hands, talking about plans for dinner, plans for work on the house, perhaps a weekend to see a concert in Amberjin. As they walked, Katmin stumbled, twisted her ankle on the discarded husk of a pomegranate.
It was a stupidly simple accident. The slick rind had probably fallen unnoticed from the sticky fingers of some small child.
Katmin fell to one knee, cried out. He’d kept hold of her arm, knelt to her, checked her ankle. It didn’t appear broken, but was already swollen and disc
olored. She cried a little at the pain, a little more in embarrassment.
Fen helped her to her feet, slung her arm over his shoulder. He wanted her to see a doctor, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
A day later, her ankle was purple-black, hot, and she couldn’t walk.
Two days later, she was in the hospital with a blood clot.
Three and she was gone, the doctor telling him that the clot had broken loose, gone directly to her heart. It was quick.
Fen remembered laughing at the man, laughing.
What a stupid thing to say.
Of course it was quick.
The doctor, of course, had meant her passing.
Fen, of course, had meant her life, their life.
Too quick.
So quick, he had no time to tell her goodbye, to tell her that he loved her, to thank her for her love, her presence in his life, to ask forgiveness for the many, tiny hurts he’d caused her.
To tell her he could not imagine living without her.
* * *
The first week of the voyage was uneventful, agonizingly dull. Fen wasn’t ready to socialize aboard the ship. The few times he did come out of his room, meals mostly, he noticed that his desire for privacy was evidently shared by his fellow passengers.
The dining room was empty most of the time, and after a few days spent in his room, he felt comfortable taking his meals there, knowing that he would be left alone. On the tenth day outbound from Ankara, he showered and dressed, left his room to get breakfast.
It was early and the ship’s corridors were quiet. He made his way to the dining room without seeing one person, just a servitor vacuuming the carpet. It stopped as he passed, inclined its head to him.
Fen nodded back, passed without a word.
The dining room, as if taking the mood of the passengers into account, seemed designed to discourage communal eating. Instead of groupings of large, circular tables, there were individual seats at single tables, small booths that sat only two. Fen chose a booth, set his tab on the table, flicked the button to begin aggregating his news sites from the Feed. The servitor moved across the room toward him as he sat.
The End in All Beginnings Page 18
