by David Walton
"I've always believed you," Parris said. "It's the officers and crew you have to worry about."
"They need to obey, not understand," Sinclair said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a ship to run."
He threw the door open and strode out of his cabin, only to trip over a pail that had been left in front of his door. It was one of those used by common sailors, who took turns preparing their meal rations with three or four others. The pail smelled bad and was half full of greasy liquid. In the center of the liquid floated a chunk of pork fat.
"What is the meaning of this?" he said.
Three midshipmen, standing nearby at attention, sprang to his side. "It's a cooking pail, Captain."
"I can see what it is. I want to know how it got here."
The man scraped his bare foot against the deck. "It's a . . . a protest, my lord."
"A protest?"
"This was the supper provided to the men after their work last night. I don't know who left it here, but perhaps they thought if you saw what they were given to eat . . ."
"It's outrageous." In fact, it was disgusting, and it turned Sinclair's stomach just to look at it. His command that the sailors be given the same portions as the officers obviously hadn't extended to the quality of the cut of meat. That wasn't good— it meant the officers were following the letter of the law while violating the spirit— but it wasn't as dangerous as the insubordination that this pail implied.
Parris appeared at the door, his face creased in worry. "Throw a feast," he said. "Invent a holiday and celebrate it with a big meal. Lift their spirits."
Sinclair gritted his teeth. He was surrounded by idiots. "We can't have a big meal. We don't have enough food. That's why we have rations in the first place."
"We'd lose a day's worth of food, maybe two. But you'll lose more than that if you don't have the sailors' loyalty."
"This isn't a matter of loyalty. It's a matter of obedience."
He couldn't afford to show sympathy anymore. The time to sit and pass the bottle with the sailors was gone. There wasn't enough to eat, and smiles and promises weren't working anymore. Parris was right. He couldn't keep going on like this. The sailors had to fear him more than they feared hunger. More than they feared death.
"Spread the word," Sinclair said to the midshipman. "If the man who left this pail by my door does not give himself up by sundown, I will flog every fourth man until he is apprehended."
The midshipman paled. "Yes, my lord."
"No!" Parris said. "They'll hate you for it."
"They hate me already. This will give them good reason for it."
SINCLAIR stood sourly on the main deck as the men gathered in rows. The only sounds were the shuffling of bare feet and the creak of the boards. The gigantic sun encompassed most of the western sky, but when it slipped from sight, it left nothing behind but the endless desert of blue- black ocean. There was no moon, and the only light came from scattered lanterns swinging on decks around them. To Sinclair, it gave the impression the ship was just a fragile bubble of light floating in an empty universe.
Beside him, the red-bearded Oswyn Tate stood in a wide stance and fingered a cowhide whip trailing nine knotted lines.
"Some of you think yourself ill- treated," Sinclair said. "You think you aren't getting what you deserve. Well, it's going to get worse. If you toe the line, do your work, and accept your fair share, you'll come home richer than you ever dreamed. If you cross me, you'll wish you'd drowned the day you were born. One of you"— he looked from man to man— "isn't satisfied. He doesn't care how much the rest of you suffer, so long as he gets more. Master Collard, every fourth man, if you please."
"It was me!" A boy, no more than eighteen years old, scrambled forward out of line and cowered at Sinclair's feet, and Sinclair recognized the apprentice seaman who had been so frightened by stories of wild men and mermaids. He doubted the boy's fellows would have turned him in— they would have taken their chances at the lash rather than turn rat— but they would have known who the culprit was, and that he had kept silent. That pressure had been enough to force the boy to confess.
"It was my pail, my lord. I thought . . . I hoped . . . Forgive me. I'm so hungry, my lord."
"What's your name?"
"Merton."
"Merton, then. Twenty-five lashes."
The boy's eyes grew wide with terror. "Twenty-five . . . !"
Two of Tate's men grabbed the boy's arms in sudden violence and tied him over a raised hatch cover before he could resist. He was already shirtless, his back red and filthy like most of the men's, and he cried and pleaded as they made the knots tight. Tate stretched the whip's cords in his hands and loosened his arms. His face was grave.
Tate lifted his arm and let the whip fly. It struck with a wet snap and the boy screamed.
"Captain!" Bishop Marcheford scrambled down from the quarterdeck, then ran up to Sinclair, breathless. "You must stop this at once."
Sinclair glowered at him. "This is not your affair."
"He's just a hungry boy. He works his hands raw for you every day with nothing to eat but rancid fat, and this is how you treat him?"
"Close your mouth, or I'll put you under the lash."
"He deserves your praise, not—"
"Enough!" Sinclair rounded on him. Marcheford backed away, and Sinclair drove him farther with his arm, pinioning him against the rail. "You don't understand what you're talking about," he said, his voice intense yet too low to be heard by the crew. "This is the open sea. A hundred people boxed up in a wooden prison that feels smaller every day, and yes, food is scarce and tempers are frayed and many fear we're headed to our doom. But the only way— the only way— to get this ship safely to Horizon is for my authority to be absolutely unquestioned."
Marcheford stared at him, mouth open. Sinclair gave him another shove and turned back to the flogging. As the blows landed, the gathered sailors began to murmur, a sound that grew to an angry buzz.
"Collard," Sinclair said. "Silence this noise."
Collard didn't move.
"Master Collard, I gave you an order. Silence your men."
"Apologies, Captain," Collard said. "I don't hear anything."
"Pass along my order," Sinclair said. "The men are to make no noise."
Collard held his gaze for a beat, but he turned and called the command to the bosun, who shouted it down the ranks. The noise stopped.
When the flogging was over and his bonds untied, Merton collapsed to the deck. Sinclair ordered him carried to the infirmary. "Dismiss the men," Sinclair said to Collard. "Any sailor not on duty is to be in his bunk."
The men obeyed, but their faces were hard and their looks cold as they filed past him. They thought him a tyrant, but they didn't understand it had to be done, for the good of everyone.
Except, perhaps, for Merton. The boy moaned piteously as they maneuvered his torn body through the hatchway. Sinclair turned his back. It had been necessary. It was the only way.
IN the dim lamplight of the infirmary, Parris soaked a rag in vinegar and salt water and bathed the flogged boy's wounds. His skin hung in ribbons, and blood still oozed darkly from dozens of ragged cuts. The vinegar and salt only inflicted more pain on the boy, but they were necessary for him to heal cleanly. The boy whimpered, his throat already scraped hoarse from screaming.
The infirmary was crowded with the undernourished, many of them too weak to talk. Gibbs was one of the few who had recovered and grown strong again. He and Kecilpenny still visited often to argue natural philosophy with Parris, a welcome distraction from the dying. Scurvy was now so advanced with some that their teeth fell out of soft, bleeding gums. Fifteen men and one woman had already succumbed to the disease and been buried at sea, sewn into canvas bags.
It was hard to keep faith. Sinclair's authority seemed to slip more every day, and with it everyone's confidence that he could actually bring them to Horizon alive. Parris dreaded the nights, when the pains in his stomach and joints kept him awa
ke, but he hated even more waking to mornings without enough to eat or drink and nothing but endless water as far as the eye could see.
After bandaging the boy's wounds as best as he could, Parris left him in the infirmary to sleep and climbed the ladders to the main deck. He was exhausted, but unwilling to face his bunk just yet. At least on deck a cool wind blew and he could think in peace for a while.
A group of sailors stood fishing from the quarterdeck, murmuring softly together as they leaned on their lines. Shifts of men fished all hours of the day and night to supplement their meager stores, though they seemed to catch fewer and fewer the farther west they sailed.
A shout from one of the men drew his attention. The men exclaimed and pointed over the starboard rail. One of the sailors had a striped fish, no bigger than his foot, dancing on the end of his line. Despite its tiny size, he strained to lift it as if it took all his strength, the line as taut as if there were a whale on the other end.
The fish dangled, thrashing, just above the waves, but the sailor couldn't raise it. His fellows laughed and urged him on. Finally, by bracing the rod against the deck, he began to inch it higher, but before it was halfway up, the rod snapped, and fish, line, and broken rod disappeared into the waves.
The sailors burst into fresh laughter, but the fisherman was grave.
"The devil's in these waters," he said.
Parris frowned, the omen disturbing him. He didn't believe in portents and signs, as a matter of course, but something odd had just happened. The little striped fish had pulled on the line as if it were made of cast iron, and Parris doubted it was incompetence on the part of the fisherman.
He retreated to the forecastle and gazed into the west, thinking about the fish. He supposed if Horizon had beetles and tamarins with special properties, it might be surrounded by unusual sea creatures, too. If they were starting to see them, it meant they were close.
He squinted into the distance, willing a shoreline to appear. The dark horizon shimmered, an effect often mistaken by green conscripts as the evidence of distant land, but there was nothing there. There was never anything there.
Yet it was the only thing that could save them. No matter how many fish they caught, no matter how severe Sinclair's punishments became, the only way they could survive was if this endless ocean finally gave way to the one word that echoed in everyone's minds and hovered on the tips of their parched tongues.
Land. Land. Land.
Chapter Sixteen
IT wasn't land.
It appeared almost directly to port, a hazy green spot in the far distance. The lookout atop the mainmast saw it first, and his excited cries were echoed through the crisp morning air. Parris felt the swell of anticipation as those on deck pointed and shouted and hugged each other. Kecilpenny's wife, Mary, had tears on her cheeks as she held little Elizabeth high and showed her where to look.
The rigging sprang to life as sailors rushed to obey the bosun's shouted commands, adjusting the angles of stays and sails to point the ship in the right direction. Soon even Elizabeth could see the green smudge— too small to be Horizon, but any island with food and fresh water would be welcome.
The passengers crowded the forecastle, straining to see the spot grow more distinct. For once, the wind and currents cooperated, drawing them quickly the way they wanted to go. Cheers and applause broke out spontaneously and bottles of spirits were passed around.
The closer they sailed, however, the more concerned Parris became. Something bothered him about the shape, something that didn't look natural. For another thing, despite their speed, it didn't seem to be getting closer very fast. By the time they caught up to it, everyone could see the truth.
It was an animal so large it defied belief. A shapeless mountain of flesh scored with deep wrinkles, it floated not in the water, but above it, through the air. It had no legs, no ears, no tail, and no wings— nothing that explained how such a massive creature could stay aloft. A giant snout stuck out from one end, pitted with cavernous nostrils and topped with eyes the size of wagon wheels. The creature was a rich variegated green, as if covered with algae, and from one side its only limb lifted toward the sky like the stump of an arm, stretching an acre of loose skin it seemed to use as a sail. Or perhaps, Parris thought, as a sun shade during the searing brightness at the end of each day.
Sinclair named it the behemoth. Though it showed no interest in the ship whatsoever, the response among the sailors and passengers was universally hostile. They shouted at it and cursed it, and there was even talk of trying to kill it. At first Parris thought it was a reaction to the bitter disappointment that they had not reached land after all. After a time, though, he realized that it was the very wrongness of the thing that prompted such rancor. It floated impossibly through the sky, apparently free from the laws of nature that kept them bound to the water. They didn't understand it, and so they hated it.
Despite its great size, the behemoth moved slowly and seemed docile, occasionally drifting down to the surface of the water to scoop vast quantities of seaweed into its maw. For the next day and night it followed the ship, driven by the same winds, and caused no problems beyond the occasional sleep- destroying thunder of its grunting call.
Parris decided another meeting was needed. He invited Sinclair, of course, as well as Gibbs, Kecilpenny, and half a dozen others who seemed most interested in discussing and understanding the Horizon mysteries. Catherine insisted on coming along. It seemed odd to Parris to include a girl in an intellectual gathering of men, but he had to admit she had more experience with the mysteries of Horizon than most of them.
He produced the chart and added the behemoth to the Transmutation section, reasoning that it must change the flesh of its body into a material lighter than air.
"That's a big assumption," Gibbs said. "We don't know how it flies. I think we should make a new category."
Kecilpenny naturally disagreed, and a long argument ensued that came to no conclusion. Parris eventually interrupted and told them all about the striped fish he had seen that broke the sailor's fishing rod. Whether it should be categorized as Transmutation or not, he suggested it was similar to the behemoth's ability to fly. The behemoth altered itself to be lighter than seemed possible, while the fish— which he dubbed an ironfish— altered itself to be heavier than seemed possible when it was pulled out of the water.
"A fish like that would give a seabird a hard time," Catherine said.
"It certainly would," Sinclair said. "No doubt it was to foil predatory birds that it developed the ability in the first place."
This prompted a new round of debate as to whether animal abilities were learned, like a horse was trained to pull a cart, or endowed by a benevolent Creator who knew what the animal needed. Predatory instincts were, Kecilpenny said, the result of the Fall and the intrusion of sin into the world, so perhaps God had, in his mercy, given some prey animals the means to resist. The explanation didn't entirely sit well with Parris, who didn't understand how an animal like a tiger, every inch of it designed to hunt and kill, could have been originally created by God for any other purpose.
Parris took to watching the behemoth from on deck whenever he wasn't needed in the infirmary. It didn't do very much— it seemed to spend most of its day gliding down to the water's surface to feed— but it was so large and unusual that it drew his eye. Which was probably why he was the first to see a small striped fish leap out of the water and bite the underside of the behemoth, holding on with its teeth.
Parris laughed out loud to see it— the tiny ironfish had certainly set its sights high if it thought it could eat such a meal. But the fish was followed by another, and another, until a dozen fish hung by their teeth from the behemoth's flesh. It hadn't occurred to anyone on the ship that an ironfish might use its ability, not to avoid predators, but to catch its own prey.
Another dozen ironfish attached themselves, and the behemoth began to list. When its bulk touched the water, a frenzy of fish splashed at the sur
face, and the water turned red. The behemoth bellowed and rolled its eyes, but it had no defense. Over the course of the next hour, the school of ironfish, hundreds strong, dragged it under the waves, devouring it as it sank.
Scavengers arrived, other kinds of fish in countless colors and variety, to share in the bounty. The press of fish attracted larger predators that surged and cut through the masses, gorging themselves. From nowhere flocks of seabirds appeared, diving into the water to snap up pieces of meat. On deck, sailors and passengers alike dropped fishing lines, pulling up fresh fish almost as soon as their hooks touched the water. By evening the deck was strewn with meat, and while it was trimmed and salted, two sailors played merry jigs on pipe and fiddle while passengers danced. Both groups feted and cheered Sinclair, their miseries temporarily forgotten.
