Lament for the Fallen (30 page)

‘The directions and instructions are mapped on this console. I have not been able to add much in terms of automation. There are hazard warning sensors that will alert you to obstacles, but they will not give you much time to respond. I’m afraid that you will need to remain awake as best you can for most of the journey.

‘My friend, thank you.’

The console shows a sea chart with Ewuru marked as their present location. Icons indicate that they are stationary and facing roughly due west. There are 2,688 kilometres to go. The battery is fully charged.

Joshua stares at the console. He turns to the others, relief and hope lighting his face. ‘He knew?’

Esther nods. ‘Of course he knew.’

‘Then we must take him home. Where is he?’

Abishai smiles. ‘Jason and David carried him down a few minutes ago when Esther went to call you. There is a hatch in the front.’

Joshua climbs out of the cabin and on to the deck. He can see two compartments, one over each of the hulls. The left is bolted closed, but the right has a set of flush handles. It is a tight fit and he tugs. The lid comes up.

Samara is below, covered in a blanket, straps holding him in place on a narrow stretcher.

‘He left instructions,’ says Dala, ‘that we would need to add weight to balance the battery. We took out some from that chamber once we laid him there.’

She indicates a small pile of boulders on the shore.

Joshua replaces the cover, tapping it down with his foot. Esther climbs on to the deck alongside him. She takes his hands. ‘You are a good man. All you have to do is help Samara return to his people and then return to me.’

He kisses her softly on the forehead.

Daniel answers before he is able to ask. ‘We have packed sufficient food for a few days. The craft is ready.’

‘Father.’ Isaiah is standing on the jetty, his face a mixture of pride and terror and excitement.

Joshua jumps down beside him, folding his son into his arms. He holds him there, the child matching his breathing.

He stands, looking at each in turn. ‘If not now?’ he says. Esther smiles. He takes her hand, then returns to the cabin.

They stand on the jetty. Isaiah is waving madly, Esther hanging on to his other hand. Abishai releases a rope tied to the stern, David the one at the bow.

Joshua places his hand on the throttle and pushes the lever gently forward. The craft glides into the centre of the river. He looks over his shoulder and waves. His face is light with hope for the first time in days.

He nods to Esther, looks down the river and presses the throttle forward.

The acceleration is tremendous, forcing him back into the seat.

He whoops at the thrill and jets down the path of the river. Soon Inikoi Island, at the mouth of the river, is ahead. The river is already thickening with oil, and the boat is labouring.

An icon on the console is flashing, ‘Pull up,’ and indicating the lift. Uncertain, he pulls the right-most lever back.

The wings on either side of the boat begin to curve, and the boat starts to rise out of the water. Beneath it, an inverted T-shaped wing begins to emerge. It is centred with the turbine in its transom cradle and leaves only a slither of the craft in contact with the oil.

The turbine lifts out of the water, and the craft is in danger of stalling. Joshua realizes in time and pushes forward on the thruster.

Joshua has never come down this part of the Akwayafe. The water sits, like a smooth black lake.

Near now to Inikoi, he can see an old village, abandoned and blackened. There are no trees. The shore is barren. The smell of the oil is overwhelming.

The river opens up into the mouth of the delta, uniting the Cross and Calabar rivers and all the canals and streams draining into the sea. All he can see is blackened: the sea, the shore and the distant landscape. All is dead.

Somewhere, deep on the ocean floor, the oil continues to flow, adding continuously even as time and nature eat it away. The smothering mass cannot grow, but it will not die until someone is able to entomb it for ever.

He looks at the console. It will take a few hours to cross the Bight of Bonny and into the Gulf of Guinea. On the chart he can see a series of islands. Looking up, towards the south-western horizon, he recognizes the loom of the first.

‘Bioko,’ he reads off the chart. He has heard of it, but no one in memory has been there. The seas are poison, there cannot be anyone still living there, can there?

He corrects his course, matching that on his chart. They are going quickly: twenty-five knots according to the console display.

All around him is stillness and silence. There are no birds.

Ahead he notices a slight ridge in the sheen of thick black oil. To be safe, he cuts a wide arc around it. As he passes, he sees that it is a cluster of shipping containers all rucked together in an old net. Many are rusted and buckled, but the mass still floats.

The concentration is tiring. The sun is over the bow of the boat, glare in his eyes making it harder to see. Unending blackness and the nauseating smell of oil.

The day passes, and the sun fades to purple on the horizon. Does he imagine it? Can he smell a strange freshening hint of salt and iodine?

He does not know the smell. One would have to travel far down the coast from Ewuru to find coast untainted by oil.

He smells the open ocean.

He feels the pressure of the oil lifting from the boat. The console indicates that he should drop the wings. He already realizes that, is pushing the lift back to neutral, reducing the throttle.

The turbine bites into the water, and he feels the boat tempo change.

He is exhausted and hungry. There are no lights anywhere in sight. The ocean is soft, ripples reflecting in the moonlight. He checks the chart and corrects his course. Noticing a bracket beneath the wheel, he finds that he can clip it in place and leave his seat for the first time in many hours.

His fingers are stiff, and he flexes them open and closed to ease the cramp out of his joints, rubbing gently at the micropore stitches over the groove on his hand.

Beneath the control, to the left, is a sealed cupboard door. He pulls back on the heavy lever and it opens. Inside is a refrigerator packed with small, tightly wrapped bowls. He opens one: egusi. Others contain fruit, vegetables, fufu.

To the right, below the two levers, are a rounded opening protected by a net, and a water tap beneath. Inside the opening are a blanket and toiletries.

He eats and washes. Returning to the seat, he covers himself with the blanket and prepares himself for a long night.

He can see little in the shrouding dark and hopes that the sensors work. All about him is nothing but ocean. He has no idea where he is, or where he should be going. The console reassuringly still displays his position and his course. He is still on track.

After a few hours, his eyes become heavy and he dozes, snapping awake as his chin hits his chest. Barely alert, he sings to himself. Describes what he is seeing to Isaiah. Hours later, he falls asleep again.

An alarm: the console is lit up, showing a warning just ahead. He swerves, hoping he is going the right way to avoid it. The alarm stops. He is trembling, his heart pounding.

He cannot see anything, has no idea what it may be or how large, and waits a few minutes before correcting his course. He clutches the blanket to himself.

Gradually, the ocean turns dusty green as the dawn, orange and streaked with purple cloud, rises behind him.

The battery indicator shows that seventy per cent of the charge is gone. A day and a half to go. They used considerable power aquaplaning over the oil. He hopes what remains is sufficient.

He eats some fruit, washes, cleans the cabin. Sits. Waits.

He is exhausted beneath the monotony of the unchanging horizon. He tries staring into the water, imagining shapes there in the depths.

Wakes suddenly. An alarm on the console.

He looks out: a tangled skein floating in the ocean. He changes course, slowing as he passes. It is a small island of plastic, netting and floating debris. Beneath the water, a ghostly mass hanging down, immense and irregularly shaped.

There are sea plants and kelp growing on it, and small fish darting in and out.

Soon evening settles, purple and warm, and he eats. There are two meals left. Fruit for breakfast, and a bowl of chicken stew for lunch. Twelve per cent charge left on the battery.

He sleeps in short snatches. Alarms sometimes wake him. More often he comes alert suddenly, fearful shapes in his dreams.

He looks up, realizing he can see stars, and – something else – looming in the sky.

Joshua climbs out of the cabin, up on to the deck and stares. It is indistinct, small, but he can see a hazy blob floating in space. Achenia, he wonders, feeling relief and awe at the same time.

In the morning, he jolts awake to dolphins swimming next to the boat. They play alongside, staring up at him curiously through the water. They are grey and larger than the pinkish dolphins in the Akwayafe. Then they disappear into the deep.

He is delighted. My wife, I wish you were here, you would love this.

Achenia is larger in the sky. A faint white outline high in the blue.

He eats his last fruit. Feels the fatigue in his hands. The water is deep and dark here.

If he squints, he thinks he can see a thin line hanging in the sky, leading from the horizon up towards Achenia.

Towards midday the boat slows, stops. The console flickers. The battery is almost dead. He can see the sea-base of the space elevator on the chart, still an aching few hours away. Then it goes blank.

The boat is adrift, powerless, on the ocean. This was always a one-way trip, but did we make it far enough?

He waits. Eats lunch. Falls asleep. Wakes again. Looks to where the sun is tilting down to the horizon. Samara, all your calculations? Did you make a mistake?

Joshua does not realize it, but he has been inside Achenia’s connect, and so within the gaze of the Nine, for six hours.

He sees a flash of silver on the horizon and then, flying just above the waves, is a teardrop-shaped craft. It heads straight for him and stops, instantly, alongside.

It is dark and reflective, like black glass. The entire bulb of the front canopy shimmers and dissolves. A man rises from his seat. His face is young, his skin of matt titanium. He is wearing a lightly coloured, loose-fitting cloak that clings as he moves, as if made from cobwebs. His trousers are tucked into long fabric boots. His eyes glow, but the expression on his face is one of relief and genuine warmth.

He leaps easily on to the deck, which rocks deeply under his weight, and swings himself into the cabin. He embraces the alarmed Joshua, holding him firmly and close.

The man says something. The words running together.

‘I am sorry,’ says Joshua, ‘I do not understand.’

‘No, please forgive me. I was unsure what language you would be speaking.’ The man stands with his hands on Joshua’s shoulders.

‘Thank you, you have brought our brother home.’ His eyes glow brightly, and Joshua is suddenly overcome by his own foreignness, his ordinariness. He clenches and unclenches his hands.

‘My name is Fodiar. Please, you must be exhausted,’ and he takes Joshua’s arm, guiding him into the craft. At the back, behind the pilot’s seat, is a long, sculpted sofa flowing from the skin of the walls and beneath a low ceiling.

Fodiar leaps back on to the boat. He pulls off the right-most hatch cover on the deck, unties the straps and gently lifts Samara out. He touches Samara’s face, pauses, as if to commune, then carries him up to the craft. A hatch dissolves in the ceiling above Joshua, revealing a body-sized module. A slender platform slides out.

Fodiar places Samara carefully on to it. The platform slides back and the hatch resolves.

‘You are of the Nine?’ asks Joshua.

‘Yes,’ says Fodiar. ‘And you are Joshua, of the people of Ewuru.’

Joshua starts. ‘You are speaking with him? He is with us?’

‘He is alive, dear Joshua, but not yet with us. Only hints. We will care for him. We owe you and your people a great debt.

‘Come, there are others who wish to meet you and thank you.’

The canopy of the craft shimmers and returns.

‘Wait,’ says Joshua. ‘What of the boat?’ It is his link between his world and Samara’s.

Fodiar smiles. ‘We will not be leaving it behind. Look.’ And Joshua sees another silver shape, approaching on the horizon.

‘Come, it will be six hours until we are in Achenia. Please, rest if you can. I realize you will have many questions, and there are others who will give you better answers.’

Fodiar settles in the pilot’s seat, his arms comfortably on the curving wings at his sides.

[He has suffered greatly.]

‘Joshua? Yes, this has been an unfortunate journey.’

[Both. I don’t believe either will return unchanged.]

Fodiar nods.

[How did he get to Ewuru?]

‘Joshua is exhausted and overwhelmed. Patience.’

Fodiar does not move as the ship lifts and turns on its length. It rises vertically, heading towards Achenia.

[Fodiar, Nizena wishes to speak with you.]

‘Nizena, he is safe.’

‘Thank you, Fodiar. We will be waiting for you outside Tswalu Bay.’

Fodiar transmits a short burst of information, permitting preparations to be made. He turns to Joshua. ‘Is there anything I may do for you during our journey?’

Joshua shakes his head, nervously sitting on the edge of the sofa. He feels clumsy, awkward, his hands bulky and crude. His fingers open and close.

Fodiar notices but has not the words to reassure him. He steers the craft towards the space elevator, merging the craft’s field to it and accelerating upwards.

The sky fades to black, and then they are in a shielded tunnel. The outside is shaped by the vague hurtling fog of passing debris.

Joshua stares out through the canopy. Achenia fills the sky. He can see the outer layer of rubble and bursts of dust where debris, moving faster than he can see, flows into and around the city in a deadly stream.