Modern Classics of Science Fiction

by Gardner Dozois

  “I remember. Can I come into bed with you?”

  “Hell, no,” Stephen said.

  “He’s only a child,” Esme said as she moved over to make room for Michael, who climbed in between her and Stephen. “Be a sport. You’re the man I love.”

  Stephen moved closer to Esme so that Michael could come into the bed. They discussed the transmigration of souls. Michael was sure of it, but Esme thought it all too confusing. Stephen had no real opinion.

  * * *

  They finally managed to lose Michael by lunchtime. Esme seemed happy enough to be rid of the boy, and they spent the rest of the day discovering the ship. They tried a quick dip in the pool, but the water was too cold and it was chilly outside. If the dirigible was floating above, they did not see it because the sky was covered with heavy, gray clouds. They changed clothes, strolled along the glass-enclosed lower Promenade Deck, looked for the occasional flying fish, and spent an interesting half hour being interviewed by the woman from Interfax. Then they took a snack in the opulent first-class smoking room. Esme loved the mirrors and stained-glass windows. After they explored cabin and tourist class, Esme talked Stephen into a quick game of squash, which he played rather well. By dinnertime they found their way into the garish, blue-tiled Turkish bath. It was empty and hot, and they made gentle but exhausting love on one of the Caesar couches. Then they changed clothes again, danced in the lounge, and took a late supper in the café.

  He spent the night with Esme in her suite. It was about four in the morning when he was awakened by a hushed conversation. Rather than make himself known, Stephen feigned sleep and listened.

  “I can’t make a decision,” Esme said as she carefully paced back and forth beside the desk upon which Poppa rested.

  “I’m still scared,” Poppa said in a weak voice. “Just give me a minute, this was so sudden. Where did you say I am?”

  “The Titanic,” Esme said angrily, “and I have to make a decision. Come to your senses.”

  “You’ve told me over and over what you know you must do, haven’t you?” Poppa said. His voice sounded better; the disorientation was leaving him. “Now you change your mind?”

  “I think things have changed.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Stephen. He –”

  “Ah,” Poppa said, “so now love is the escape. But do you know how long that will last?”

  “I didn’t expect to meet him, to feel better about everything.”

  “It will pass.”

  “But right now I don’t want to die.”

  “You’ve spent a fortune on this trip, and on me. And now you want to throw it away. Look, the way you feel about Stephen is all for the better, don’t you understand? It will make your passing away all the sweeter because you’re happy, in love, whatever you want to claim for it. But now you want to throw everything away that we’ve planned and take your life some other time, probably when you’re desperate and unhappy and don’t have me around to help you. You wish to die as mindlessly as you were born.”

  “That’s not so, Poppa. But it’s up to me to choose.”

  “You’ve made your choice, now stick to it or you’ll drop dead like I did.”

  “Esme, what the hell are you talking about?” Stephen said.

  Esme looked startled in the dim light and then said to Poppa, “You were purposely talking loudly to wake him up, weren’t you?”

  “You had me programmed to help you. I love you and I care about you. You can’t undo that!”

  “I can do whatever I wish,” Esme said petulantly.

  “Then let me help you, as I always have. If I were alive and had my body I would tell you exactly what I’m telling you now.”

  “What is going on?” Stephen asked.

  “She’s fooling you,” Poppa said gently to Stephen. “She’s using you because she’s frightened. She’s grasping at anyone she can find.”

  “What the hell is he telling you?” Stephen asked.

  “The truth,” Poppa said. “I know all about fear, don’t you know that?”

  Esme sat beside Stephen on the bed and began to cry, then, as if sliding easily into a new role, she looked at him and said, “I did program Poppa to help me die. Poppa and I talked everything over very carefully, we even discussed what to do if something like this came about.”

  “You mean if you fell in love and wanted to live.”

  “And she decided that under no circumstances would she undo what she had done,” Poppa said. “She has planned the best possible death for herself, a death to be experienced and savored. She’s given everything up and spent all her money to do it. She’s broke. She can’t go back now, isn’t that right, Esme?”

  Esme folded her hands, swallowed, and looked at Stephen. “Yes,” she said.

  “But you’re not sure,” Stephen said. “I can see that.”

  “I will help her as I always have,” Poppa said.

  “Jesus, shut that thing up,” Stephen shouted.

  “He’s not a –”

  “Please,” Stephen said, “at least give us a chance. You’re the first authentic experience I’ve ever had, I love you, I don’t want it to end…”

  Poppa pleaded his own case eloquently until Esme told him to shut up.

  * * *

  The great ship hit an iceberg on the fourth night of her voyage, exactly one day earlier than scheduled. Stephen and Esme were standing by the rail of the Promenade Deck. Both were dressed in the early twentieth-century accouterments provided by the ship – he in woolen trousers, jacket, motoring cap, and caped overcoat with a long scarf; she in a fur coat, a stylish “Merry Widow” hat, high button shoes and a black-velvet, two-piece suit edged with white silk. She looked ravishing and very young, despite the clothes.

  “Throw it away,” Stephen said authoritatively. “Now.”

  Esme brought the cedar box containing Poppa to her chest, as if she were about to throw it forward, then slowly placed it atop the rail again. “I can’t.”

  “Do you want me to do it?”

  “I don’t see why I must throw him away.”

  “Because we’re starting a new life together.”

  At that moment someone shouted, and as if in the distance, a bell rang three times.

  “Could there be another ship nearby?” Esme asked.

  “Esme, throw the box away!” Stephen snapped; and then he saw it. He pulled Esme backward, away from the rail. An iceberg as high as the forecastle deck scraped against the side of the ship; it almost seemed that the bluish, glistening mountain of ice was another ship passing, that the ice rather than the ship was moving. Pieces of ice rained upon the deck, slid across the varnished wood, and then the iceberg was lost in the darkness astern. It must have been at least one hundred feet high.

  “Oh my God!” Esme screamed, rushing to the rail.

  “What is it?”

  “Poppa! I dropped him when you pulled me away from the iceberg.”

  “It’s too late for that –”

  Esme disappeared into the crowd, crying for Poppa.

  * * *

  It was bitter cold and the Boat Deck was filled with people, all rushing about, shouting, scrambling for the lifeboats, and, inevitably, those who had changed their minds at the last moment about going down with the ship were shouting the loudest, trying to be permitted into the boats, not one of which had been lowered yet. There were sixteen wooden lifeboats and four canvas Engelhardts, the collapsibles. But they could not be lowered away until the davits were cleared of the two forward boats. “We’ll let you know when it’s time to board,” shouted an officer to the families crowding around him.

  The floor was listing. Esme was late, and Stephen wasn’t going to wait. At this rate, the ship would be bow down in the water in no time.

  She must be with Michael, he thought. The little bastard has talked her into dying.

  * * *

  Michael had a stateroom on C-Deck. Stephen knocked, called to Michael and Esme, tried
to open the door, and finally kicked the lock free.

  Michael was sitting on the bed, which was a Pullman berth. His sister lay beside him, dead.

  “Where’s Esme?” Stephen said, repelled by the sight of Michael sitting so calmly beside his dead sister.

  “Not here. Obviously.” Michael smiled and made the rubber-lips face.

  “Jesus,” Stephen said. “Put your coat on, you’re coming with me.”

  Michael laughed and patted down his hair. “I’m already dead, just like my sister, almost. I took a pill too, see?” He held up a small brown bottle. “Anyway, they wouldn’t let me on a lifeboat. I didn’t sign up for one, remember?”

  “You’re a baby –”

  “I thought Poppa explained all that to you.” Michael lay down beside his sister and watched Stephen like a puppy with its head cocked at an odd angle.

  “You do know where Esme is, now tell me.”

  “You never understood her. She came here to die.”

  An instant later, Michael stopped breathing.

  * * *

  Stephen searched the ship, level by level, broke in on the parties where those who had opted for death were having a last fling, looking into the lounges where many old couples sat, waiting for the end. He made his way down to F-Deck, where he had made love to Esme in the Turkish bath. The water was up to his knees; it was green and soapy. He was afraid, for the list was becoming worse minute by minute. The water rose even as he walked.

  He had to get to the stairs, had to get up and out, onto a lifeboat, away from the ship, but on he walked, looking for Esme, unable to stop. He had to find her. She might even be on the Boat Deck right now, he thought, wading through a corridor. But he had to satisfy himself that she wasn’t down here.

  The Turkish bath was filling with water, and the lights were still on, giving the room a ghostly illumination. Oddments floated in the room: blue slippers, a comb, scraps of paper, cigarettes, and several seamless, plastic packages.

  On the farthest couch, Esme sat meditating, her eyes closed and hands folded on her lap. She wore a simple white dress. Overjoyed, he shouted to her. She jerked awake, looking disoriented, and without a word waded toward the other exit, dipping her hands into the water as if to speed her on her way.

  “Esme, where are you going?” Stephen called, following. “Don’t run from me.”

  An explosion pitched them both into the water and a wall gave way. A solid sheet of water seemed to be crashing into the room, smashing Stephen, pulling him under and sweeping him away. He fought to reach the surface and tried to swim back, to find Esme. A lamp broke away from the ceiling, just missing him. “Esme,” he shouted, but he couldn’t see her, and then he found himself choking, swimming, as the water carried him through a corridor and away from her.

  Finally, Stephen was able to grab the iron curl of a railing and pull himself onto a dry step. There was another explosion, the floor pitched. He looked down at the water, which filled the corridor, the Turkish bath, the entire deck, and he screamed for Esme.

  The ship shuddered, then everything was quiet. In the great rooms, chandeliers hung at angles; tables and chairs had skidded across the floors and seemed to squat against the walls like wooden beasts. Still the lights burned, as if all was quite correct, except gravity, which was misbehaving. Stephen walked and climbed, followed by the sea, as if in a dream.

  Numbed, he found himself back on the Boat Deck. Part of the deck was already submerged. Almost everyone had moved aft, climbing uphill as the bow dipped farther into the water.

  The lifeboats were gone, as were the crew. There were a few men and women atop of the officers’ quarters. They were working hard, trying to launch Collapsibles C and D, their only chance of getting safely away from the ship.

  “Hey,” Stephen called to them, just now coming to his senses. “Do you need any help up there?”

  He was ignored by those who were pushing one of the freed collapsibles off the port side of the roof. Someone shouted, “Damn!” The boat had landed upside down in the water.

  “It’s better than nothing,” a woman shouted, and she and her friends jumped after the boat.

  Stephen shivered; he was not yet ready to leap into the twenty-eight-degree water, although he knew there wasn’t much time left, and he had to get away from the ship before it went down. Everyone on or close to the ship would be sucked under. He crossed to the starboard side, where some other men were trying to push the boat to the edge of the deck. The great ship was listing heavily to port.

  This time Stephen just joined the work. No one complained. They were trying to slide the boat over the edge on planks. All these people looked to be in top physical shape – Stephen noticed that about half of them were women wearing the same warm coats as the men. This was a game to all of them, he suspected, and they were enjoying it. Each one was going to beat the odds, one way or another; the very thrill was to outwit fate, opt to die and yet survive.

  But then the bridge was under water.

  There was a terrible crashing and Stephen slid along the floor as everything tilted. Everyone was shouting. “She’s going down!” someone screamed. Indeed, the stern of the ship was swinging upward. The lights flickered, there was a roar as the entrails of the ship broke loose: anchor chains, the huge engines and boilers. One of the huge, black funnels fell, smashing into the water amid sparks. But still the ship was brilliantly lit, every porthole afire. The crow’s nest before him was almost submerged, but Stephen swam for it nevertheless. Then he caught himself and tried to swim away from the ship, but it was too late. He felt himself being sucked back, pulled under. He was being sucked into the ventilator, which was in front of the forward funnel; he gasped, swallowed water, and felt the wire mesh, the air-shaft grating that prevented him from being sucked under. He held his breath desperately.

  Water was surging all around him, and then there was another explosion. Stephen felt warmth on his back, as a blast of hot air pushed him upward. Then he broke out into the freezing air. He swam for his life, away from the ship, away from the crashing and thudding of glass and wood, away from the debris of deck chairs, planking, and ropes, and especially away from the other people who were moaning, screaming at him, and trying to grab him as a buoy, trying to pull him down as the great ship sank.

  Swimming, he heard voices nearby and saw a dark shape. For a moment it didn’t register, then he realized that he was near an overturned lifeboat, the collapsible he had seen pushed into the water. There were almost thirty men and women standing on it. Stephen tried to climb aboard and someone shouted, “You’ll sink us, we’ve too many already.” A woman tried to hit Stephen with an oar, just missing his head. Stephen swam around to the other side of the boat. He grabbed hold again, found someone’s foot, and was kicked back into the water.

  “Come on,” a man said, “take my arm and I’ll pull you up.”

  ‘There’s no room!” someone else said.

  “There’s enough room for one more.”

  “No there’s not.”

  The boat began to rock.

  “We’ll all be in the water if we don’t stop this,” shouted the man who was holding Stephen afloat. Then he pulled Stephen aboard. He stood with the others; truly there was barely enough room. Everyone had formed a double line now, facing the bow, and leaned in the direction opposite the swells. Slowly the boat inched away from the site where the ship had gone down, away from the people in the water, all begging for life, for one last chance. As he looked back to where the ship had once been, Stephen thought of Esme. He couldn’t bear to think of her as dead, floating through the corridors of the ship.

  Those in the water could be easily heard; in fact the calls seemed magnified, as if meant to be heard clearly by everyone who was safe as a punishment for past sins.

  “We’re all deaders,” said a woman standing beside Stephen. “I’m sure no one’s coming to get us before dawn, when they have to pick up survivors.”

  “We’ll be the last pic
kup, that’s if they intend to pick us up at all.”

  “Those in the water have to get their money’s worth. And since we opted for death –”

  “I didn’t,” Stephen said, almost to himself.

  “Well, you’ve got it anyway.”

  * * *

  Stephen was numb but no longer cold. As if from far away, he heard the splash of someone falling from the boat, which was very slowly sinking as air was lost from under the hull. At times the water was up to Stephen’s knees, yet he wasn’t even shivering. Time distended or contracted. He measured it by the splashing of his companions as they fell overboard. He heard himself calling Esme, as if to say goodbye, or perhaps to greet her.

  By dawn, Stephen was so muddled by the cold that he thought he was on land, for the sea was full of debris … cork, steamer chairs, boxes, pilasters, rugs, carved wood, clothes, and of course the bodies of those unfortunates who could not or would not survive – and the great icebergs and the smaller ones called growlers looked like cliffs and mountainsides. The icebergs were sparkling and many-hued, all brilliant in the light, as if painted by some cheerless Gauguin of the north.

  “There,” someone said, a woman’s hoarse voice. “It’s coming down, it’s coming down!” The dirigible, looking like a huge white whale, seemed to be descending through its more natural element, water, rather than the thin, cold air. Its electric engines could not be heard.

  In the distance, Stephen could see the other lifeboats. Soon the airship would begin to rescue those in the boats, which were now tied together in a cluster. As Stephen’s thoughts wandered and his eyes watered from the reflected morning sunlight, he saw a piece of carved oak bobbing up and down near the boat, and noticed a familiar face in the debris that seemed to surround the lifeboat. There, just below the surface in his box, the lid open, eyes closed, floated Poppa. Poppa opened his eyes and looked at Stephen. Stephen screamed, lost his balance on the hull, and plunged like a knife into the cold black water.

  * * *

  The Laurel Lounge of the dirigible California was dark and filled with survivors. Some sat in the flowered, stuffed chairs; others just milled about. But they were all watching the lifelike, holographic tapes of the sinking of the Titanic. The images filled the large room.