Full Vessels (6 page)

They emerged from the servant's stair back
into the main hall of the hotel to find the staff glued to the
windows. Hess squeezed between them to scan the courtyard for
whatever held their interest. He saw nothing unusual. The circular
drive sat empty, the unpaved road radiated rustic charm, trees
luxuriated in the sunlight.

“What are we looking at?”

One of the desk staff noticed Hess and pulled
away from his soot-stained clothing. “The mountain.”

Hess stared at the distant peaks. “Why?”

“To make sure it's still dormant.”

Behind him, Erik grunted. “Well, ain't this a
fucking pickle.”

Hess ignored him. “Is the ship that brought
us here still in port?”

The man nodded. “Not that it does you any
good. It snagged the reef pretty good on the way into harbor.
They're going to scuttle it soon as they strip everything of
value.”

Hess and Erik stepped away from the windows
by unspoken agreement. “I give it ten to one odds that fucking
mountain blows at the end of our week. Creator's sending the
Observers out with a bang.”

“Seems likely,” Hess said. “Which means we
need a ship.”

Erik nudged him in the ribs. “Look at us
conspiratin' together. We're totally BFF's. Wanna go ship shopping
together, buddy?”

“Let's clean up first.” Hess didn't wait for
a reply before marching to the baths, stopping only to grab a
change of clothing from his room. He scrubbed for ten minutes with
cold water before judging himself presentable, then dressed and
hurried outside to where Erik waited.

They rented horses from the stable and set
out for the main port along the harbor road. An hour at a canter
brought them from the town on the scenic ridge hosting their resort
down to the sea level harbor. The winding road, adhering to a
religious observation of the path of least resistance, caused their
travel time to be thrice what it should have been. Hess suspected
the trip could be made on foot in the same time if one were to go
off road.

Of the several available piers, only one held
anything larger than a catamaran. A two-masted schooner, a
steamship tug, and a yacht docked to that pier. “Not much of a
selection,” Erik mumbled.

“Not really. Unless you fancy crossing an
ocean in a dinghy or a rowboat.” Hess noticed a guard post at the
entry to the pier. His eyes scanned the line of buildings facing
the water. “Looks like there is a fish market. We can start asking
questions there.”

They proceeded to the market building,
secured their horses, and separated to mingle with the locals. Hess
chose a direct approach. He asked the proprietors of individual
booths if they knew of any boats departing for the mainland. Time
and again, the answer was no.

Apparently, the incompetent governor of the
island had ignored complaints from shipping companies and locals
alike that the channel markers had drifted and needed
re-positioned. After a number of ships had dragged their bellies
across the barrier reef, the flow of visitors had slowed to a
trickle. The island's economy had stagnated. And in the wake of the
governor refusing to pay for the loss of the last coal barge, they
couldn't even hire out a vessel for supply runs.

The arrival of a passenger ship full of
tourists would have been cause for hope if it hadn't snagged the
reef on its way in. As it was, the port was all but empty. The only
ocean-worthy vessels were the governor's private ship and the
schooner that a local corporation used to trawl beyond the harbor.
Neither ship rented passenger space.

Each person dismissed his mention of the tug
with the same objection: “out of coal.” The saltpeter refinery's
insatiable appetite had driven the price of fuel too high to waste
it on a mere steamship tug.

Finally, Hess asked several people if they
were concerned about the earthquake. The responses were all
negative, but Hess detected a hint of concern beneath the gruff
bravado. The mountain had been inactive for hundreds of years, they
told him. Once every few decades it snored in its sleep – no big
deal, their husband or wife did the same thing.

When he met Erik back at the entrance, Hess
shrugged. “The owners don't rent out their ships.”

“Guess we got to steal one.”

“The yacht would be more manageable for the
two of us,” Hess said.

“Always liked yachts. This one time, I went
shark fishing with human bait. Too hard to reel them in before they
bled to death, so I only did it the one time. Fun, though.”

Hess fixed Erik with a level look. “Enough of
that. We need to decide when we leave.”

“Right, we got business.” Erik scrunched up
his face in thought. Finally, he clucked his tongue. “Volcano's
gonna behave for a few more days. We give the Creator a full week
of conferencing and sail out of here at the last minute. Everyone
wins.”

Hess nodded. “I agree. Give me a night to
think. Tomorrow we'll figure out our plan for stealing the
yacht.”

The next morning, he arrived early to the
conference room. He sat with Greg in the empty room until nine
o'clock, when the others converged from various directions to take
their seats. Greg waited until everyone settled before beginning.
“By popular vote, we have decided to enact a courtesy rule. No one
should interrupt our speaker. Further, insults and personal attacks
are forbidden. We're here to serve the Creator, not our egos.”

A near-unanimous rolling of eyes was the only
response to his declaration. Greg cleared his throat. “You're up,
Drake.”

Drake reclined back in his seat, the hint of
a smile evident by a tightness in his cheeks. “
Fear.
That's
what's behind everything the people do. I been around a lot of
different types. Some of them pretty hairy, y'know? But they're all
afraid of something.

“Fear is the source of all emotion. Think you
love something? No, you're just afraid it won't be there some day.
Think you hate something? You actually fear its potential. Think
you are curious? You're just afraid that everything's going to stay
the same. Everything comes back to fear.

“Ever watch a baby? They only got two modes:
afraid and not-afraid. People like to call not-afraid 'happy'. It
makes them feel better about life to think that fear is the
exception, because they're afraid of fear. Kinda funny, right? The
people get confused as they get smarter, start believing their
different emotions are distinct. Makes them feel better about
themselves.

“Adult emotions are all twisted up on
themselves. Too much repressing and controlling and thinking. They
can't untangle the mess to figure out what they're feeling. You
have to start by observing babies, then toddlers, then kids, then
teens, then adults. When you finally get to the elderly, dementia
cuts down on the thinking part and, all of a sudden, the fear's
front and center again. Fear is biology. All the other emotions are
abstract. Think of them as fancier ways to interpret fear.”

His self-satisfied smirk faded as he glanced
at his audience. “What? All of you think I'm wrong? Is that it? I'm
not.” He pointed at Mel. “Afraid of eternity.” San. “Afraid of
boredom.” Ingrid. “Afraid of pain.” Greg. “Afraid of Erik.” He
smirked at them. “You're all afraid of something.”

“Hold on a sec,” Erik said. “Not everyone's
got a case of scaredy pants syndrome. Yours truly ain't scared of
nothing. Anyone remember last Iteration? I had to take my own
medicine for years and I never let it bother me much. Hell, those
punishers were more afraid of me than I was of them. When the posse
came by to save my ass, I smack-talked 'em so bad they almost left
me behind. So you see, shit-for-brains, I'm not scared.”

Drake's shoulders drooped and he licked his
lips. “Actually, that's not true, Erik. You're afraid to die.”

For a moment, Erik froze, his face eerily
empty. Then he threw a snarl at Drake. “That's not fear. I'm
pissed off
, you idiot.”

Natalia perked up, spinning in her chair to
look Erik in the eye. “You're not afraid of death?”

“Course not, you dumb twat.”

A look of pure condescension touched
Natalia's face before her features fell back into the absent-minded
bemusement that was their custom. “Very well, then.”

“
Very well, then
,” Erik mimicked.

Elza interjected herself into the
conversation before Erik could continue. “A couple of flaws. First,
you're generalizing from a sample of one. While the rest of us take
into account to some extent how our perspective skews our
interpretation of others’ mental states, you don't appear to be
making that effort. You can't assume that other people's minds work
the same as yours. Second, the fact that everyone has fear does not
prove fear is the fundamental emotion. Without evidence of a causal
relationship, you are committing a non sequitur.”

Drake shook his head. “You just don’t want to
believe that your thing with Hess isn’t special. Lasting so long
together just means both of you are crazy insecure. What do you
think love is? How do you describe your relationship?”

“As none of your business,” Elza said.

Erik chuckled to himself, but kept
silent.

“Anyone can answer,” Drake said. “I don’t
have all that much to say, really. But if everyone’s so sure I’m
wrong, then try to tell me what love is besides fear.”

Chairs creaked as faces unanimously
reoriented towards Hess. He sighed. “I suppose I’ve been nominated.
What is love? Honestly, I have no idea. But I can tell you that it
sure as hell isn’t an escape from fear. Loving someone is the most
terrifying thing you can do. It leaves you vulnerable in ways I
doubt any of you could imagine. It’s deciding to live for someone
else and putting their happiness above your own. It’s tangling up
your identities to the point where you don’t even know who you are
without referencing the other.”

“That’s all bull,” Drake said. “You’re
thinking about it wrong. Just because you’re scared of doing
something doesn’t mean you’re not more scared not to do it. You
might even do the thing that scares you more by mistake. It’s all
twisted up, remember.”

Hess shook his head. “It sounds like your
theory has a built-in defense mechanism. Any dissenting opinion is
wrong because our minds are too twisted to understand our own
emotions. I learned the hard way over the years that any idea that
cherry picks its evidence is most likely a folly with delusions of
grandeur.”

Drake scowled at Hess. “You think it’s my
fault you can’t disprove my idea?”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Elza snapped. “You
presented us a tidy little tautology dressed up as philosophy and
now you are being evasive when questioned. The burden of proof is
on you. And referencing your theory as evidence of your theory
doesn’t count.”

“Why do you get to make the rules? This is my
presentation.”

“I didn’t make the rules of logic. I don’t
think even the Creator has the ability to change how causality
works. You’ll have to resign yourself to playing by the rules of
reality.”

Drake folded his arms in silent protest.

“I suppose that ends this session,” Greg
said. “Let’s take a half-hour break.”

The intruders picked through his possessions
as he watched them from his hiding place. They took everything of
value, including the ramshackle tent that held the rest, then
departed.

He climbed down from the tree to inventory
what remained. Not much. The supply of acorns, pine nuts, and
tubers he had stockpiled for winter were gone. As were the
blankets, the fire-bow, and even his collection of pretty rocks.
All that remained to him were the frame of his tent and a stack of
firewood.

It was forty summers since the start of the
world, and he had not aged a single day. His body still presented
itself as the child of fifteen summers it had been on the first
day. A malnourished and stunted fifteen summers that people often
mistook for even younger.

His original tribe had driven him away when
he failed to mature. They had apologized one moment and threatened
retribution should he ever return the next. He hadn't tested their
goodwill, instead hiking away from their lands.

The first tribe he encountered killed him as
a foreigner. He learned his lesson and avoided people after that.
He figured he had observed enough already. The Creator could send
him into a nicer world if watching people was so important.

He died many more times on his own. Once from
wolves. Three times from the weather. At least ten times from
accidents.

The second tribe he encountered took him
captive, cut off his manhood, and made him work for them. They made
him do both men's work and women's work since they thought he was
neither. He hid the fact that his flesh had regrown. For seven
summers, he stayed with that tribe. They worked him to exhaustion
and taunted him daily, but at least he had food.

Then a man took him to bed and discovered he
was whole. They cut him apart again, then checked him the next
morning. Amazed, the tribe butchered him to consume his healing
properties. He escaped before they realized he didn't stay
dead.

The third tribe he encountered killed him in
passing. The fourth tribe he encountered only threw rocks at him
until he ran away. The fifth tribe he encountered stole his
possessions while he watched.

He did not want to encounter a sixth tribe.
With no worthwhile possessions left to him and his campsite
discovered, he chose a direction and walked. Starting over was
hard, but he could do it. He would need to live in a lean-to of
sticks stacked against a tree until he collected enough hides for a
tent. The forests produced plenty of food in warm weather, so he
would be fine once the cold departed. He could build his camp in a
thicket again so people had trouble sneaking up on him.