by E.W. Pierce
*
Joha woke shivering. He'd fallen asleep slumped against the back wall. His pants were wet to the skin. He thought about taking them off, but there was little point. There was no getting dry in here, not with five inches of standing water.
He ate slowly, careful to pick the glass splinters from the creature. His teeth chattered. Was he getting sick? He felt so cold. He thought of the sun, so bright and warm and nearly cried again. He was tired of crying.
He removed the engine's access panel and checked for signs of water. There was none that he could find, but that didn't mean water hadn't gotten inside somehow. The only way to be sure was to disassemble and dry every piece and then put it back together again. A difficult task under the best circumstances, it was an impossible undertaking in the cramped diver, with dry surfaces in short supply.
Joha turning the problem over in his head, looking for an angle he'd not considered already. He recalled the distinct popping noise, and the burnt smell. He knew water had a way of burning all the electricity out of something and ruining the components in the process. Maybe water had gotten into the controls when the creature had squeezed the diver.
He folded the satchel open, taking inventory. His welder and goggles. Bolts and screws. A nest of wires. His data pad, long dead since he'd left it in the satchel, forgotten. His multi-tool. That was the entirety of his store, plus the electric light.
Joha sat up straight. The electric light had a power source. A small one, sure, certainly much smaller than what the diver was using. But maybe it would be enough to get the diver moving again, the electrical equivalent of a push.
Joha disengaged the diver's power source and removed the wiring connecting the battery to the diver's various electrical systems. Taking the cables from his satchel, he rewired the entire system, being careful not to let any of the cables dangle into the water.
The multi-tool whirred softly as Joha removed the screws holding the electric torch's casing together. Lifting the two halves away exposed the inner workings - including the power supply. Now came the tricky part.
His chapped hands trembled. Joha took a deep breath that caught in his throat. He hunched over, racked by coughs. He wondered if he was dying. The thought calmed him. If he was to die, let it be with the sun's warmth on his face, not in the cold depths with monsters for company.
Joha slipped the goggles back on and lit his welder. It cast a faint blue light. It'd need to serve as his only light, making an already difficult task incredibly harder. He spent a few moments studying the electric torch's power supply, trying to memorize the positioning of the leads. Then, with a hand that shook only slightly, he disconnected the power. The light immediately switched off, plunging the diver into darkness once again. Joha fought the urge to reconnect the light.
After a moment his eyes adjusted to the dim, enough so that by the faint light cast by the welder he was able to make out the basic shape of things. Leaning over the torch, he brought the welder in close. He worked by touch, connecting the torch's battery to the wiring he'd run between the various systems.
He snapped the welder off and sat back. Finger poised over the button to wake the diver but Joha hesitated. What if it didn't start? He'd be trapped down here, waiting for his air to run out. Then he'd die. Would it be an easy death, like sleep? Or would he die, mouth gaping ineffectually for air, as the sea creatures did? Would it hurt?
He pushed the button. Nothing happened.
"No, no... you must work." He pressed the button, again and again and again. The diver did not respond, did not even give the faintest indication that it considered starting up.
Joha slumped to the floor, not noticing the water as his bottom splashed down. He'd given it his best try. The diver was not something he could mend.
The realization that he was going to die settled on him. He lay down to wait. Sleep would not have him. He rolled about the cabin, restless. He wanted to get up and walk around, but of course that was impossible, the diver was much too small. Pa sometimes took to pacing when sorting out a problem in his head. Joha had never tried it. Why did his legs think now was a good time to start?
He thought of their workshop at home. A cone of yellow light shining down on the old metal bench with the dented and pitted tabletop. Drawers hanging half-open, overflowing with hardware and tools. Bits of machinery lying about, in various states of repair. The smell of grease and sweat.
He imagined himself sitting on the stool, feet swinging. The electric torch lay on the table, the outer shell set aside. He saw wires connected to the power source; the cables snaked off the side of the table, disappearing into a dark corner. He wondered briefly what was on the other end of the wires but immediately recognized that it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered, in the whole of the world, was the power source.
He wiggled the connections and found them stable. Yet something was off, he could feel it, a certainty born of instinct. He leaned back, taking in more of the table. Following the coil of cable across the metallic tabletop. They worked at a metal table so that they could properly ground themselves when working, and therefore minimize the risk to the ancient components.
Joha's eyes snapped open. He'd taken the precautions to ground when he'd removed the torch's power and attached it to the wires. But if one of the new wires was stripped, it would ground the signal. After carefully wiping his hands dry, he felt along the wires starting from the power source all the way into the diver's control systems. His finger skipped over a gap in the smooth cable.
Joha shifted the cable so that the stripped section of wire no longer rested on metal. His finger found the start button. With a weak murmur, the diver struggled back to life. A single external lantern blinked on and off before settling into a faint, flickering light. Joha surged to his feet, whooping with delight. In his delirium he nearly dropped the cable.
The diver responded sluggishly, slowly lifting off the sea floor. It was still upside down, and Joha thought it best to leave it that way. Flipping the diver would also reorient the pool of water - and likely would undo what meager success he'd just made. Joha wondered if the monster was nearby, if the light and noise might bring it back to finish what it'd started.
The creature did not return during the long crawl to the surface.
The sun was low in the East. Joha popped the door open. The air tasted fresher than he'd remembered. He wondered how long he'd been down there. Had it only been one night? He thought that impossible.
One thing is certain, he thought as he closed his eyes to the sun's warm rays. I am never going down again.
*
Joha stood on the cabin's roof, studying the horizon as the sun sank behind him. White Skies floated among the clouds somewhere to the West. Out of sight if not completely out of mind; on clear, cloudless nights, he could sometimes see its lights.
He saw lights in the East too, and these interested him far more than anything he saw in the sky. These lights were on the water.
They're closer today, he thought, if only slightly. It seemed obvious now that the sea was pushing him toward something. For the first time, he wondered what came of the other skylands that crashed to the sea. He'd always thought the sea had claimed them. That was Pa had always told him, and he'd never had cause to question. Now he knew different.
He would never go under the surface again, but that didn't mean the diver was useless. He'd wondered of late if he could mend it into something that rode the waves. It was time to go east and have a look. Tomorrow, he resolved. Tomorrow for the mending. And then, perhaps, on tomorrow's tomorrow, he'd go east.
Pa had never come to rescue him. Fear had kept him rooted to the clouds. It could do the same to Joha, keeping him safe inside Uncle Emmitt's fence, safe but alone. It'd be easier to stay on the island and let the sea push him where it would. Easier, yes, and safer. But better? Joha wasn't sure.
Sleep did not come for him that night; he lay awake in the grip of a waking dream. He picture
d skylands joined one to the other on the sea, just as they'd been in the sky.
Joha thought that most sky-people who came to the sea died within two turns of the Mother, many probably with ample stores still on hand. Hope was in short supply on the sea. It was not something they'd find in their pantry, and was rarer still than food.
Joha knew how to live on the sea. He could teach them. He could give them hope.
His mind awhirl with everything he'd need to do, he drifted off to sleep.
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About the Author
Raised on a steady diet of Star Wars, cowboy movies with his great-grandfather, and lots of pretend, E.W. Pierce developed an early interest in the making of make-believe. He now writes Fantasy and Science Fiction stories, sometimes with an element of horror.
He lives in Michigan with his wife and their two children. You can follow him at https://ewpierce.com, where he blogs about fantasy books, roleplaying games, and other geeky pursuits.
