‘Boris calls them “long thoughts”, because if you think too deep you lose sight of the point. Full of daft comments like that is Boris,’ said Ambel.
‘He hurt you,’ said Erlin.
‘It hurt, but I expected nothing else. I’m surprised that Anne and Pland still call me Captain and still act friendly. Either they feel no betrayal or they’re just waiting for their chance to shove me over the side.’
‘I doubt that. You’re not surprised at Peck still calling you Captain?’
‘Nothing Peck does surprises me. The Skinner turned his skin inside out and turned his head inside out as well. He stepped off the far side of weird long ago.’
‘He’d kill for you.’
Ambel turned his calm gaze upon her for a long moment, then faced forward, nodding slowly. Erlin moved a little closer and rested a hand on his arm.
He said, ‘I’d best have a little talk with Peck. Don’t want him doing anything drastic.’
‘Do you want to know why I came back?’ Erlin asked.
Ambel turned to look at her. ‘I guessed you’d get round to telling me in your own time,’ he said.
Erlin pulled her hand away, annoyance flashing across her face. ‘Do you even care?’ she asked.
Ambel glanced at her. ‘Of course I care. The critical question has to be: do you?’
She took a breath and started again. ‘Then you know why I’ve come back,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Ambel, his hands resting easy on the helm, his face almost tranquil, ‘but it’s best you tell me all about it.’
Erlin took another slow shuddering breath, but all her rehearsed words dissipated like smoke. ‘I came back because it gets so empty out there,’ she said. Sometimes I can’t see the point of going on. Achievement or failure? After a time you don’t care about the difference…’ Erlin trailed off and stared at Ambel in the hope that he might understand.
Ambel nodded. ‘I’ve felt that too, and I’ll feel it again maybe. In the end, you find a calm centre and you just keep on living. You live for friendship and a bright sunrise, for a cool breeze on your face or a peppered worm-steak. You take as much pleasure in the taste of sea-spray as in the discovery of the hyper-light drive or the saving of a human life. Because you can live for ever you take pleasure in the now. You don’t have to rush about living on account of having only a finite span. That’s trite, but true,’ he said, his words rolling out as rhythmically as the slow splash of waves against the hull of the ship.
‘I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t feel it,’ said Erlin.
Ambel regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I can’t help that. It comes with the years or it doesn’t come at all. There’s twenty-three of the Old Captains here, and that don’t mean just the ex-slaves of Hoop. The Old Captains are those of us that have managed to “live into the calm” as they say. Some are only five or six centuries old. Including those off-planet, we reckon on there being a hundred or so of us. The rest…’ Ambel shrugged.
‘It’s why I need to be with you.’
Ambel waited.
‘I need help. I need a guide. I already know the figures: it’s fewer than one in a hundred who “live into the calm”. Those same figures apply to people stretching all the way back to Earth.’
‘You want to live, then? That’s the best point to start from,’ said Ambel straight-faced.
‘I’m not sure I do,’ replied Erlin.
‘If you don’t, you’ll probably regret it later,’ said Ambel.
Erlin laughed. Out of the corner of his eye, Ambel noted the abrupt easing of her tension. He continued to steer the ship, content in silence, at his still point.
‘Janer…’ Erlin began hesitantly.
‘I know,’ said Ambel. ‘Nothing lasts, you know. Even we change over the years. There’s joy and pleasure in that, if you think about it the right way. Stay with him for a while then come see me. Anything that keeps you interested keeps you alive, and right now you need to accumulate years. In my experience, most suicides occur before the three-century mark. Deaths after that are usually due to accident or someone else’s intent. Survive that mark and you’ll likely carry on, unless you’ve got some enemies I don’t know about.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Good,’ he glanced at her. ‘In a way this is academic. I myself might not be around in the near future. I might be back in the sea, or in a fire… Can we make a pact here and now?’
‘What do you want?’ Erlin asked apprehensively.
‘If the judgement is in my favour, I promise to do everything in my power to help you to live: to bring you to your calm and still point. In return I want a promise from you, should the judgement go against me.’
‘Tell me.’
‘In my cabin are some crystals of sprine. You must bring me a crystal before they throw me in the sea or roast me. I came here out of a world of pain, and it’s not somewhere I wish to return to.’
‘I can promise you that.’
‘Good, Erlin. Go to your hornet man now.’
Erlin smiled and went off to do as he told her. Ambel watched her go, and smiled as well. The breeze was cool on his face and he could taste the salt of sea-spray on his tongue.
14
Whelks, as they grow in size and calorific requirements, descend deeper and deeper into the ocean, their bodies adapting to the intense pressure there. Its slow ascent, of hiding in crevices and clamping down hard to rock faces whenever the heirodont got near, and a long concealment in that final crevice until the heirodont grew impatient and went away, had enabled this particular whelk to slowly adjust to the decreasing pressure, and not experience the whelkish equivalent of bends. Unfortunately, due to other conditions, such as differing salinity and temperature, and the extreme change of diet, the giant whelk was now beginning to feel rather queasy, and wished it had just returned to the depths in search of filter worms. So thinking, it began to slide towards the edge of the trench. It was a few metres from its goal when the heirodont rose out of the depths before it — even more irritable now that leeches had begun attaching to its body.
Boris tried, without much success, to accept that his life had changed now and that there was really nothing to regret. Because of his tetchiness resulting from his failure to come to terms with it all, Goss had kicked him out of her bunk.
‘And don’t come back until you’ve figured out what you really want!’ she’d shouted, then turned over with her back towards him.
As he climbed up on to the deck of the Ahab, he wondered just what exactly she had meant by that. He greeted Gollow and a couple of Ron’s juniors, who were sitting playing cards below a deck lantern, and then went to the port rail to urinate over the side. When he was rebuttoning his trousers, he glanced over at Roach, standing at the helm, and the man gave him a knowing grin.
Boris turned away. Obviously the man had heard Goss shouting at him. He decided then that he would try to patch things up with her, rather than talk to this weasely man. He didn’t like Roach. He didn’t like this ship — felt uncomfortable aboard it. Did he really like Goss all that much? Most importantly, did he really hate Captain Ambel? Regret was there — there was no escaping it. He stood on the crux of indecision, and while he pondered, he noticed the approach of the other ship.
‘Vessel to starboard!’ he yelled at Roach, and reformed his attention on the ship. There was something wrong with it, its lights had a much whiter tint than was usual, and they lit a wake that indicated the ship was travelling at a hell of a rate. Yet there was little wind, and from what Boris could see of its sail, it was hanging in the wrong direction.