The ache in Joe's stomach was now competing with that in his balls. This was, he knew, no time to be persnickety about his options. He shrugged and strode out into the water. It was balmy wartn, which came as a pleasant surprise, and if he hadn't known better he'd have said it was eager to have him in its midst, the way it curled around his shins, and leapt up towards his groin. The fish were everywhere, he saw; and they came in a number of shapes and sizes, some as large as salmon, which surprised him given the shallowness of the waters, others tiny as hummingbirds and almost as defiant of gravity, leaping around him in their glittering thousands. He had to exert almost no effort at all to catch hold of one. He simply closed his hand in their midst, and opening it again found he'd caught not one but three-two a reddish silver, the third blue-all flapping wildly in his palm. they didn't look remotely appetizing, with their black, black eyes and their gasping flanks. But as long as he and Noah were trapped here he had little choice. He either ate the fish, or went hungry.
He plucked one of the reddish variety off the plate of his palm, and without giving himself time to regret what he was doing, threw back his head and dropped it into his mouth. There was a moment of disgust when he thought he'd vomit, then the fish was gone down his gullet. He'd tasted nothing, but what the hell. This wasn't a gourmet meal; it was eating at its most primal. He took one more look at his palm, then he popped both the remaining fish into his mouth at the same time, throwing back his head so as to knock them back. One slipped down his throat as efficiently as the first, but the other flapped against his tonsils, and found its way back onto his tongue. He spat it out.
"Bad taste?" Noah said, wading into the surf beside Joe.
"It just didn't want to get eaten," Joe replied.
"You can't blame it," Noah replied, and strode on until he was hip deep in the waters.
"You're feeling stronger," Joe yelled to him over the sh of surf.
"All the time," Noah replied. "The air nourishes me." He plunged his hands into the water and came up not with a fish, but something that resembled a squid, its huge eyes a vivid gold. "Don't tell me to eat that," Joe said.
"No. No, never," Noah replied. "This is a Zehrapushu; a spirit-pilot. See how it looks at you?"
Joe saw. There was an eerie curiosity in the creature's unblinking gaze, as though it were studying him.
"It's not used to seeing your species in flesh and blood," Noah said.
"If you could speak its language it would surely tell you to go home. Perhaps you want to touch it?"
"Not much."
"It would please the Zehrapushu," Noah said, proffering the creature.
"And if you please one you please many."
Joe waded out towards Noah, watching the animal watch him. "You mean this thing's connected to other... what'd you call them... Zehra-what?"
"People call them 'shu, it's easier." He pressed the creature into Joe's arms. "It's not going to bite," he said.
Joe took hold of it, gingerly. It lay quite passively in his hands, its gaze turned up towards Joe's face.
"The oldest temples on the twelve continents were raised to the 'shu," Noah went on, "and it's still worshipped in some places." "But not by your people?"
Noah shook his head. "My wife was a Catholic," he said. "And I'm... I'm a nonbeliever. You'd better put it back before it perishes. I think it'd happily die just watching YOU." Joe stooped and set the 'shu back in the water. It lingered between his palms several seconds, the gleam of its eye still bright, then with one twitch of its boneless body it was away, out into deeper waters. Watching it go, Joe could not help but wonder if even now it was telling tales of the black man to its fellows. "There are some people," Noah said, "who believe that the 'shu are all parts of the Creator, who split into a billion pieces so as to pilot human souls in Quiddity, and has forgotten how to put the pieces back together again."
"so I just had a piece of God in my hands?" "Yes." Noah reached down into the water again, and this time brought up a foot-long fish. "Too big?" he said. "Too big!"... Me little ones slip down more easily, is that it?"
"Much easier," Joe said, and reaching into the waters plucked out two handfuls of the tiny fish. His encounter with the 'shu had taken the edge off his pickiness. Plainly these blank-eyed minnows were of a much lower order of being than the creature that had studied him so carefully. He could swallow them without concerning himself about the niceties of it. He downed two handfuls in as many seconds and then found himself something a little larger, which he bit into as though it were a sandwich. The meat of it was bright orange, and sweetly tender, and he chewed on it careless of how the thing thrashed in his grip, tossing it back only when one of its bones caught between his teeth.
"I'm done for now," he announced to Noah, working to ease the bone out.
"You won't drink?" Noah said.
"It's salty," Joe said, "isn't it?"
"Not to my palate," Noah said, Lifting a cupped handful of Quiddity's waters to his lips and sucking it up noisily. "I think it's good."
Joe did the same and was not disappointed. The water had a pleasant pungency about it. He swallowed several mouthfuls and then waded back to the shore, feeling more replete than he'd imagined possible given the fare.
In the time he and Noah had been discussing fish and God, the entire procession had arrived at the crack-which was indeed growing larger: It was half as tall again as it had been when he'd stepped through it-the members of the procession now gathered at the threshold.
"Are they going through?" he said.
"It looks that way," Noah replied. He glanced up at the sky, which though it had no sun in it was darker than it had been. "If some of them remain," he said, "we may find our crew among them."
"For what ship?"
"What other ship do we have but this?" Noah said, amming his palm against The Fanacapan.
"There are others in the harbor," Joe said, pointing along the shore towards the city. "Big ships. This thing doesn't even look seaworthy. And even if it is, how the hell are we going to persuade anyone to come with us?"
"That's my problem," Noah said. "Why don't you rest a while? Sleep if you can. We've a busy night ahead of us."
"Sleep?" Joe said. "You've gotta be kidding."
He thought about getting a blanket and a pillow out of one of the cabins, but decided it wasn't worth being lice ridden for the little snugness they'd afford, and instead made himself as comfortable as he could on the bare stones. It was undoubtedly the most uncomfortable bed he'd ever attempted to lie upon, but the serenity of the sky made a powerful soporific, and though he never fell into a deep enough sleep to dream, he drifted for a while.
Around four on Friday afternoon, while Tesia and Phoebe were getti ng to know each other in Everville, and Joe was lying under a darkening sky on Quiddity's shores, Howie Katz was sitting on the doorstep with Amy in his arms, watching a storm coming in from the northeast. A good rainstorm, he thought, maybe some thunder, and the heat would break.
The baby had not slept well the night before and had been fractious for most of the day, but now she lay contentedly in his arms, more asleep than awake. Jo-Beth had gone up to bed half an hour before, complaining of an upset stomach. The house was completely quiet. So was the street, except for the neighborhood dogs, who were busier than ever right now, racing around with their noses high and their ears pricked, all anticipation. When he'd found a better place for them all to live, they'd get a mutt, he decided. It would be good for Amy to have an animal around as she grew up, as a protector and a playmate.