Lost Republic (4 page)

Dinner was subdued. Without the constant background chatter of the lounge TVs and people's personal data devices, the dining room was remarkably quiet. To France Martin it was like the quiet that fills a room after someone had died.

Hans Bachmann, for one, did not mind it at all. He was one of only four passengers who took the offered tour of the
Carleton
's engine spaces. He admired the turbines, the diesel auxiliary motors, pumps, injectors, and Gorgonian mass of pipes, large and small. The chief engineer, a Panamanian named Pascal, knew his engines and plainly loved them.

“After this trip, it's no more,” he said, speaking loudly over the deep hum of the turbines. “No more steam.”

“And no more pollution,” said one of the tourists, a Canadian woman in her forties.

Pascal shrugged. “With our modern stack scrubbers, my engines' emissions meet current UN levels,” he said. “We're not carbon-free like
Sunflyer,
but we impact but little the air.”

“Then why are they shutting you down?” Hans asked.

A bitter smile creased the old engineer's face. “Don't you know? The company, they sold the ship to the
Sunflyer
people, to take us out when the sunship sailed.”

“You mean, this whole last voyage business was arranged?” asked the Chinese man. His name was Chen. He and his brothers were from a shipping company in Shanghai. Hans wondered if they were on board because they were interested in buying the old
Carleton
.

“Por supuesto!”

The Canadian woman said there was nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't the
Sunflyer
's owners hail their success by arranging the retirement of the last polluting vessel at sea?

Engineer Pascal's face darkened. “Polluting?”

“Burning is death,” she said.

Hans interrupted a budding fight. “Are the boilers gas-fired or oil burning?”

Pascal said something in his native tongue. It did not sound nice. Turning to Hans, he said, “As built, they burned fuel oil, but we converted to natural gas in 2029.”

Later, at dinner, Hans sat alone in the corner of the lounge reading about Parsons turbines on his PDD. Like everyone else, he had lost his Your/World connection, but he had over two hundred terabytes of print on his device, more than enough for ten trips across the Atlantic.

A shadow fell across the screen. Hans looked up and saw the American, Leigh Morrison, standing over him.

“Excuse me, my sister wanted me to ask if you had an outside connection.” Hans's eyes flicked back to the screen, where Parsons' experimental speedboat,
Turbinia,
slashed through a slow-moving line of British warships in 1897.

“No. This is stored data.”

Leigh sat down. His voice dropped. “I knew you didn't, but she made me ask.” In a room full of bored, nervous people, Hans seemed to be the only one with something interesting to do.

“What are you watching?”

“Reading.”

“Oh. What are you reading?”

“About the history of the nautical turbine.” He spun his notebook PDD around so Leigh could see the screen. Seeing all the lines of printed text made his eyes quickly glaze over.

“Are you into machinery?”

“‘Into—?' I am not inside machinery.” Leigh laughed and explained his expression. “Yes,” Hans said, “I like anything old.”

He held up a piece of tableware. “This is from the
Queen Mary 2,
the last of the ocean liners. My parents are dealers in antiques. Since the
Carleton
did not have plates, forks, and things for so many passengers, the company rented these relics from my family.”

Suddenly the ship's horn blared a deep bass blast that rattled Bachmann's antique plates on every table in the room. Half the passengers present stood up, twisting this way and that to spot the cause of the alarm.

Someone shouted, “Out there! Look!”

There was a rush to the starboard side. Sliding doors slammed open, and the passengers surged out.

It was fully dark and easy to see the lights of the other ship, a big one, and close. Leigh felt Julie slip in close beside him.

“What's up? What's happening?”

He didn't know. It was just another ship cruising through the calm sea. Patchy clouds allowed stars to shine through. The moon had set, so it was not easy to see any detail on the other vessel, just a lot of navigation lights and the black outline of the hull.

The horn blasted again. The passengers shrank from the punishing wail.

An officer—not the captain or purser, but a woman with gold stripes on her sleeve—hurried by. Some of the more agitated passengers blocked her path.

They bombarded her in several languages, but they were all saying, “What's going on?”

“It's all right! We're sounding the horn to warn off the other ship,” she said. She tried to get by, but some men refused to budge.

“Why use the horn? Can't you radio them?” one asked.

Another said, “Is their radar out?”

“How close are we?”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Captain Viega appeared, hatless, in his shirtsleeves. “There is no problem. Please return to the dining room. Allow Ms. Señales to go about her duties!”

Slowly the passengers filed back into the lounge. Trapped by the crowd by the rail, Eleanor Quarrel had been recording everything on her PDD. She was about to turn it off when she caught the captain and Ms. Señales exchanging hushed words in Spanish. She slipped by, avoiding their gaze. Inside the lounge, she quietly shut off the recording app.

What did they say? Eleanor knew a little Spanish, tourist phrases, but not enough to follow the officers' urgent conversation.

The big, well-lit ship drew away from the
Carleton
.

“She's moving off,” a man said.

Danger averted, everyone went back to their tables. The hard questions were unanswered though. In this day and age of radar, satellite tracking, and instant communications, how could two ships almost collide in the wide waters of the North Atlantic?

Eleanor scanned the room. She didn't know any of her fellow passengers well enough to know who spoke Spanish. Most of the crew did, but she didn't want to share her eavesdropping with them. She'd met the French fellow, the German guy, the American brother and sister—and the creepy kid in black. For some reason Eleanor decided to ask him. He probably spoke all sorts of languages.

Just her luck, Emile wasn't in the lounge. She circled the room and didn't see him. Jenny Hopkins was there, eating dinner with the cricket player and some of the football team. The French girl, Linh Prudhomme, was by herself. For that reason alone, Eleanor slipped into a chair across from her.

“Hi,” she said. “How's the food tonight?”

She didn't speak much English, apparently. Linh smiled and said, “Not so good. Everything is cooked too much.”

Eleanor made nervous small talk for a short while, gradually bringing up the subject of language.

“Where did you learn English?”

“I have not learned it.”

Eleanor's eyes widened. “But you're speaking it to me!”

Linh put a hand to her ear. “I have—what is it—
un entraîneur
, a teacher?”

She removed the pink bud from her left ear. It was an Info-Coach, a nice one. At Linh's quiet urging, Eleanor put the device in her ear. Linh said something in French. After a very brief delay, Eleanor heard her words translated in her ear.

“This allows me to speak,” she said.

The Info-Coach formulated likely responses, and all Linh had to do was repeat her choice aloud. Eleanor wanted to try it. Linh asked in her native tongue where Eleanor was born?

“Je suis né en Afrique du Sud,”
which meant “I was born in South Africa.”

“Dijjy!” Slang baffled the Info-Coach. “Dijjy” meant “cool, neat, novel.”

Eleanor returned Linh's device and leaned close. “Can it translate from a recording?”

“Certainly.”

She tapped the PDD on her wrist. “I caught the captain and the officer on deck talking about our situation. They seemed worried. Will you help me translate it?”

Linh stood up. “Come with me.”

No one paid them any notice as they took the inside stairs to the deck above. It turned out Linh had a stateroom in the superstructure, a suite in fact, with a sitting room, private bath, and paneled bedroom.

“Oh, posh!” Eleanor said as the lights brightened.

It took some fiddling to link the PDD output to the Info-Coach. The usual wireless connection would not work, probably due to the same interference that had cut the ship off from Your/World. Linh had to hard wire a connection using the earphone jack.

Eleanor played the recording. In a low voice, Linh repeated what she heard her device translate.

Captain Viega said, “Why are you away from your post?”

Ms. Señales replied, “All communications are out. Am I to sit and stare at empty screens?”

“The blockage may clear at anytime!”

“I was on the boat deck signaling the bulk carrier,” Ms. Señales said.

“How?” the captain demanded.

“By flashlamp.”

Señales said the other ship was a bulk carrier out of Gdańsk,
Dzien Kolyska
. They apologized for the near miss, but claimed they couldn't see the
Carleton
's lights.

Linh put a hand to her lips. “Here the captain says a crude word.”

“Couldn't see our lights?” Eleanor was puzzled by that. The
Carleton
was at least as brightly lit as the Polish freighter, if not more so.

Señales warned the captain Eleanor was near. He said, “The English kid won't understand us. Go back to the communications center until relieved.” Sullenly, the signals officer obeyed.

“That's all.”

Linh disconnected the Info-Coach from Eleanor's PDD. “Nothing new here,” she said. The slight delay in her speech made her seem thoughtful, reserved. “Everyone on board knows communications are out.”

“But why couldn't the other ship see our lights?”

Linh had no idea. With the recording done, there suddenly felt like there was nothing else to say. Eleanor got up to leave.

Linh looked lost in the spacious sitting room, scuffing her feet on the newly laid carpet. Why was she alone, Eleanor wondered?

At the door, she said, “I guess my mother's helicopter will find us in daylight.”

“I hope so.”

Her hand rested on the unopened door handle.

“If you're not doing anything, you can come down to my cabin. Your/World is out, but I have a deck of cards and some print books.”

Linh smiled. “Cards?” Eleanor nodded. Linh wrapped a fine lace shawl around her shoulders. “That sounds fun. What do you play?”

“Oh, hearts, spades, bridge if there's four—”

“Poker?”

Being asked by the slender, dark-haired girl if she played poker was almost as odd as the Belgian boy loaning her mom a high-value credit card.

“I know how to play some types of poker,” Eleanor said. Linh went to the dresser beside her bed and took out a slim, stainless- steel case, too flat for makeup and too thick for a laptop.

“What's that?”

Linh popped the latches and opened the case. Nestled inside were rows of shiny disks in different colors.

“You have your own poker chips?”

“It's my hobby,” Linh said with a gleam in her eye.

I've made friends with a card shark, Eleanor decided. At least Linh did not give off the creepy aura Emile Becquerel did.

They played until two in the morning. Linh taught her several new games, and for a while Eleanor forgot the
Carleton
losing all communications, the mystery of their near collision, and the fact that with every hour the coast of France fell farther and farther behind, making any rendezvous with her mother more and more unlikely.

Who was crying?

France opened one eye. It didn't help. The room was black. For a second he thought he'd dreamed the sound, but then he heard the sobbing again.

He was in the lower bunk. Hans Bachmann was above him, thoroughly asleep. France rolled out of bed and crouched in the dark. The deck moved up and down beneath him. The old
Carleton
was pitching up and down like a carousel horse.

Who was crying?

The sound was fainter, more muffled than before. France realized he had been hearing it through the wall. He crept to the wall and listened. Someone was sobbing in the next cabin.

He was wearing pajamas. His parents always insisted he sleep in pajamas, winter or summer. Anything else was disreputable.

France opened the door. It was a light wooden panel with louvers in the bottom half. The corridor outside was dimly lit and completely empty. He stepped out. Just as he did, the ship staggered sideways, throwing France against the facing wall. Was there a storm? He didn't hear thunder or pouring rain.

The
Carleton
righted herself. France went to the door of the cabin next to his. He tapped lightly on the painted wooden panel.

“Hello? Hello?” In English he said softly, “Is everything all right?” When no one replied, he repeated the question in French. To his surprise, he heard a choked reply in his native tongue.

“Va-t'en, connard!”
More of the same followed, a gasped torrent of curses and abuse.

That was more than rude. France hit the door with his fist.

“What's the matter with you?” he demanded. “Come out here and say that to my face,
lâche sale
!”

Silence. All sympathy gone, France noted the number on the cabin door, B14. He'd find out who was in there.

Back in his own cabin, he dressed with angry haste in total darkness. Hans never stirred, not even when France stubbed his toe and cursed aloud. France stalked up to A deck, then to the weather deck. Along the way, he passed a wall clock that read 03:22.

Out on deck, wind was blowing. The old steamer plowed steadily ahead, pushing her bow against rough seas. Overhead, stars flitted between gaps in the clouds and a brilliant moon washed everything in pale light.

There were people in the lounge. France ducked in and saw they were crew members eating dinner, having come off their watch. He asked how he could find out who was in the cabin next to his.

The men smirked. Was she hot,
une bébé
?

“No, he's a loudmouthed bastard!” The crewmen laughed.

The fellow with a closely trimmed gray beard said, “Go up to the signals room on the boat deck. There's always an officer there. Don't bother the bridge watch, though.” France thanked him curtly and left.

Higher up on the ship, the motion of the seas were worse. Climbing the steel steps to the boat deck was actually hard. Once there, there was nothing above him but
Carleton
's massive streamlined smokestack, some pole masts with antennas, and assorted ventilator hoods. Forward was the ship's extensive bridge. France found the signals office at the rear of the structure. He didn't knock but simply threw open the door.

It was dark inside, with no light visible but the glow of a dozen thin monitors. Most of them were blank and blue. One played a snowy scene of static. Another was covered with marching lines of random letters and numbers.

“Hello?” he said. The blank silence of the place took the anger right out of him.

Someone stirred in the shadows.

“Who's there?” the voice challenged in English.

“François Martin. I-I am a passenger.”

“Passengers aren't allowed in signals.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm having a problem with my neighbor.”

A woman in the blue jacket of the merchant service emerged from the darkness. She was about forty, pale, with eyes shot with thready blood vessels. Her name badge read Señales.

“What problem?”

“He's making noise.” Mad as he was, France couldn't bring himself to accuse anyone of crying like a baby.

“Did you ask him to stop?” France admitted he had and was insulted for trying.

“I'm too busy for this,” Señales said, waving him off. “Find the chief steward. He'll help you.”

She turned away. France said, “What's going on here?”

“Go back to bed. Everything will be fine . . . “

That's what they told people on the
Titanic
. France came two steps into the room.

“Is every computer on the ship out?” he said, gazing at the empty screens.

Her voice came from the shadows. “No, the systems on the ship are old, but they work. It's the outside connections that have failed. We're cut off from everything—satellite navigation, Your/World net, telephone, radio . . . radar is out, too.”

France's complaint suddenly seemed very childish. He said, “How are you steering the ship?”

“By the sun and stars. At least they haven't left us.”

“Will we make it to Canada?”

Officer Señales gave a weary sigh. “If we don't run into Ireland or Greenland first!”

France left her surrounded by blank screens and a wall of electronic silence. By the time he descended to the lounge, the crewmen had finished their meal and gone to bed. The ship felt deserted.

Down on B deck, he paused in the passage outside his door. The door of the cabin next to his, B14, was ajar. France tapped on it firmly.

“Hello?” he said. The door swung inward halfway and stopped.

The cabin was weirdly lit by a lamp fallen to the deck. Half the LEDs were out and the shade was bent, throwing what little light that was left at an odd angle from the floor up. The lower bunk was a tangle of stark white sheets.

France stepped in. “Hello?”

Something crackled under his shoe. He picked it up. It was half a Globus chocolate bar. The gold wrapper was folded back, exposing the chocolate. France saw more candy bars scattered around the cabin, wrappers torn open and stomped into the carpet. Milk chocolate and crispy rice covered the floor.

He checked the washroom. No one was there. There were no bags or cases in the room, no stray clothing, nothing. Nothing but ruined candy bars, all by the Globus Company of Ghent, Belgium.

Belgium? France had a revelation. He set the broken lamp upright and sat down in an armchair, facing the half-open door. There he waited. Before long, he fell asleep. In his light, undreaming state, he easily heard soft footsteps enter the cabin.

“What are you doing here?” Emile Becquerel demanded. His voice was low, but his tone was not friendly.

“Trying to get some sleep,” France replied, yawning. “Someone was crying.”

“You were dreaming. Go back to your own room!”

France remembered the insults shouted through the closed door. He was half a head taller than Emile and obviously stronger. He was no bully, but the Belgian kid had been really insulting. He could have knocked the smaller boy down, or blasted him with all the insults he'd learned listening to his father's underlings. But no.

He stood close, too close. Emile did not back away. France slapped a broken candy bar against his chest.

“Here. Eat your family's junk more quietly next time!”

He pushed Emile out of the way and went out. A moment after he passed through the door, half a Globus bar hit the corridor wall behind him.

“You're welcome!” he called out. The door of B14 slammed shut.

Back in his bunk, he heard Hans Bachmann grunt, “What's the matter?”

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“Are systems still out?”

“Oui. Ja.”

“Don't worry,” said Hans, rolling over to face the wall. “I have the answer.”

“You do? Are you a systems expert?”

“No. My folks sell antiques . . . “

Soon he was asleep again, breathing deep and slow. France tried to sort out the strange mix of events in his late night wandering. He couldn't, gave up, and joined his cabin mate in slumber.

When day came, the sea was much calmer. Without the diversion of their PDDs and Your/World, the passengers spent a lot of time on deck. Jenny Hopkins and Mr. Trevedi led a band of hopeful joggers around the
Carleton
. Julie Morrison was among them, much to her brother's surprise. She'd never been into sports before, but she did love celebrities, and an Olympic hopeful and a professional cricket player were the most the
Carleton
offered in that line.

Not long after breakfast ended, Hans Bachmann went to his cabin and returned with a flattish wooden box. It was heavy, whatever it was, and he carried it in both arms. France saw him take the steps up to the boat deck. He caught Leigh Morrison's eye, and they got up together to follow. Eleanor and Linh saw them go and started after them. Mr. Chen, the lady in the lifter chair (her name was Mrs. Ellis), and other passengers joined the parade.

Hans went up the bridge deck. He was stopped by the purser before he reached the bridge. Leigh stopped on the steps below them, waiting to see what happened. Curious passengers piled up behind him.

Hans and the purser had a quiet, earnest conversation. Finally the ship's officer raised the lid of the box and peered inside. He reached in and took out a gleaming triangular brass instrument.

“What is it? What are they doing?” Eleanor called from several places behind Leigh.

“It's one of those ship-thingies from the old days,” Leigh said. He struggled to recall its name. “A compass?” That wasn't right.

“An astrolabe?” Linh suggested. Leigh had no idea what an astrolabe was, but the name didn't spark any recognition.

“It's a sextant.”

Everyone turned to stare at Emile. Looking rumpled and red-eyed, he was by the ship's rail, out from under the overhang of the bridge deck.

“Sextant!” he repeated crossly. “For navigation!”

Hans came down with the empty box. He was surprised at the crowd waiting for him.

“What's all this?”

“We were wondering what you were taking to the bridge,” Leigh said awkwardly. He couldn't believe the weird kid knew what the instrument was, and he didn't.

“It's a sextant, once used on the great sailing ship
Preussen,
” Hans said. It was from his parent's antiques inventory. The Bachmanns thought it would increase interest (and value) in the old instrument if it crossed the Atlantic on the last steam-powered cargo ship. Captain Viega was old-school enough to know how to use it. Soon enough, he was seen by the rail outside the bridge, aiming the brass sextant at the sun while a mate stood by to record his readings. At lunch, the captain appeared in the lounge to share his findings.

“Ladies and gentlemen! I know you've all been concerned since we lost communications yesterday. First, let me assure you everything on the
Carleton
is working as it should,” Viega said.

“Then the problem is out there?” said a woman, pointing vaguely out to sea. “Is the world system down?”

Viega laughed. “No, I don't think so. Ms. Señales has found traces of the usual carrier signals, but they are too weak to reach us.”

“What does that mean?” France Martin asked.

Viega rubbed his hands together. “Something is blocking the signals. They're not getting through to us.”

From the lounge door, Jenny Hopkins said, “What would cause that?”

The captain had no answer. After a long silence, someone called out, “Sunspots?”

Viega spread his hands wide. “Sunspots! Who knows, it could be! Be assured, my friends, that the ship is well and on its way. Thanks to young Herr Bachmann, I have been able to fix our position this morning.”

He snapped his fingers and a waiting crewman stepped forward with an old paper chart pinned to a large sheet of cardboard. Captain Viega pushed a pin in a spot in the open sea, southwest of Ireland.

“This was our position: 49 degrees, 21 minutes, 13 seconds North by 13 degrees, 47 minutes, 55 seconds West.”

Tension in the room seemed to evaporate like dew on a hot morning. They were not lost. The tiny pin in the map was reassuring. It gave them a place to identify and understand.

Not everyone was comforted. Eleanor Quarrel tucked her hands into her armpits. A red pin on a paper map? She shuddered.

Standing close by, Jenny saw her and said, “It's all right. We're not lost. It's the Atlantic! There must be hundreds of ships nearby!”

“Yes, hundreds,” Eleanor said. “Are their electronics jammed, too? Maybe next time we see a ship, it will crash into us.”

Those around her turned to stare. “Don't mind me!” she said, shaking her head. “It's just sunspots, after all!”