I hadn't touched that table since Brendan had died.
"How long has it been since you've taken the Seawind out?" Bottle said boldly.
"You know the answer to that!" I snapped back. The boat itself was now inside a shed at the Yard, gathering dust.
He nodded glumly. "That I do. But you were always so happy out there." His eyes suddenly lit up. "What about that time when you finally got out of the Strait and into Caernarfon Bay? How long did you spend out there? Two days?"
I managed a small smile, not very sincere. "And dolphins with us all the way. I'd always wondered if you were among them. They shadowed us through the entire trip." The memory was a good one, I had to admit. I got a couple cups of tea from the kitchen and brought them into the study, with a bit of sourdough bread to munch on. I set the tray down on the table and sat down in the padded chair across from Bottle. "You didn't come here just to chat, did you?"
"Partially. I'm genuinely concerned about your health, Michael. Your mental health, that is. I think you need some companionship, and I have a proposal for you."
"I guess it can't do me any more harm. I'm quite mad already." I meant it, too. "What did you have in mind?"
"The amount of Disciples that are coming through here has doubled. There are also some Guardians who are putting out Disciples for the first time. This makes things rather difficult. We're running out of space in the University dorm."
"So you want me to take a few in?"
Bottle nodded, sipping his tea. "Yes, but they won't know about your particular ability. The object of this is to have them learn to be human again. If they knew of your particular quirk they'd see it as an excuse to act as they normally do as their real selves."
I considered it a while, finishing my tea in the process. "I can't see how it can do me any harm. I have three empty bedrooms. It might at least give me a bit of variety in my life. I've been lacking that."
Bottle pointed at the drafting table. "Perhaps we can even get you to start working again, Michael. Your insightful ideas have been sorely missed." He got up and walked over to the table, picking up an issue of Shipbuilder. "I see you've at least been keeping abreast of current developments. Have you been putting anything down at all?"
"Here and there," I admitted. There were actually several drawers stuffed with paper scraps I'd collected over the years. A mast here, a spar there, a scribble of some hull lines. There was so much more possible nowadays with iron, I thought. Some of the new windjammers were at least twice the size of their clipper forebears. And they were still the best way to move things on the Sea, I realized. For the first time since Brendan's death I actually smiled.
"There's something I want to tell you about Brendan," Bottle said from behind me. I hadn't noticed that I'd gotten up and was staring in one of those drawers. I looked back up at Bottle. He continued. "I should've told you this years ago, but neither he nor I was sure how you'd have taken it. Since about the time you first got your job in R&D he was one of our Acolytes. That is, one of the humans who know of us and help us, as I explained..." He broke off as he saw me nod. "You're not surprised?"
"I'm nothing if not observant, friend. I noticed the difference between his Echo and those of others before you told me about your whole organization. I'm just disappointed that you didn't trust me enough to let him tell me..."
"It was his decision. He thought you might be able to deal with your own 'problem' better if you didn't know what he was doing. He was teacher of sorts, really. And a really tough one at that."
"So now you want me to 'teach', too? Though not in any 'official' way. Sure, why not?" I walked over to my drafting corner, lighting a few chimney-covered candles, and to my surprise the oil lamps lit without trouble. Mia, my maid, had thoughtfully kept them topped off. "I've been away from this too long..."
Bottle interrupted me. "Before I leave you alone to your work, may I assume that I can send over three likely candidates in the morning?"
"Give me a day or so to put the place in order. Brendan's room hasn't been cleaned in ten years, and I'm sure there's a few inches of dust." I got up and walked with him to the door, and then wished him good night.
Before turning in that night, my thoughts turned towards a person whom I only thought about on my birthday. "You would have liked Bottle, Henry. He's a true friend, human or not," I muttered to myself. For the first time in years I slept soundly, and with dreams of tall ships sailing upon the Seas.
Bottle was waiting for me the next morning at my office door. He was dressed for sailing. "Forgive me if I'm being too forward, my human friend, but I believe you need to spend some out on the water."
I felt a brief moment of rage. How dare he! I detached my carry-pouch from my right "hand" and set it on the table, nearly picking it up and hitting him with it! I had to take a deep breath, and when I let go, my rage vanished. "Let me get my things together."
Somebody had spent a while restoring the Seawind to seaworthiness. Which was fitting with Bottle's overly-optimistic personality. He'd probably been planning to talk to me on my birthday for weeks. I had to admit, he'd chosen just the right moment. He was also an expert seaman, which was more or less a given, considering his true form. I handled the tiller while he trimmed the sail. We were out in the middle of the Strait and heading towards the Bay. As always, there were dolphins swimming exultantly alongside. I looked back at my finny friend. "Looking at them, and looking at you, makes me wonder what it's like to swim underneath the waves with such ease."
Bottle settled in next to one of the cleats that secured the mainsheet, holding he line in his hand and adjusting the sail with a practiced eye. "It's really hard to explain to a non-dolphin. The best I can compare it to is what we're doing right now."
I watched a bottlenose leap just off the port bow. "I find that a rather inaccurate comparison." I sighed, looking again at my friend and concentrating on him. Then I got a surprise. "Funny. Your last life wasn't human. It was a songbird of some kind... Hmm... red-tipped crest, rather dull coloring overall, large beak. Cardinal? And female." I'd long since gotten comfortable with the idea that there was an even chance that one could be the opposite sex in another life. After seeing Jacques as a doe and an overly-feminine woman that I knew as a bull rhinoceros, one gets used to anything!
He blinked. "I thought you couldn't see that sort of thing with us. You're correct, I should say. We Disciples have a lot of control over our past life memories. We see Echoes of ourselves in the same way that you see Echoes of others."
"So you've told me before," I replied, turning the tiller a bit to starboard. "When were you last human, if I may ask?"
"You may ask--as if you already haven't. The last I was human was 'round about the seventh century. I was some Frankish commoner. I had quite the rapier wit, as I recall." He smiled, then sighed. "I died in my thirties from some disease."
"'Rapier wit,' eh? Sounds like you were always a dolphin, no matter your form."
That got a laugh out of him, something that was easy to do. "You're probably right, Michael. One of the things we've discovered is that one's personality--and sometimes name--changes very little from life to life. Don't get me wrong, though. A person can change very drastically. It's just not very common."
I looked at my one hand, gazing into it as hard as I could, yet once more I saw no Echo of myself. "I just wonder what I've been... I remember when you opened that door in my mind all those years ago."
Bottle looked reluctant. "I don't think I should do that again. You have an Ability that might interact in such a way with your past lives that it might drive you insane." He paused, noting the look on my face. "I need to talk to my own Guardian about this again. No promises, but I'll see what I can do."
"That's all I ask. Thank you."
The next morning the three Disciple candidates were brought over by Indri, the tiger-man whom I'd seen the first time my adopted father and I had arrived at the Yard. "Hello Mr. Bates," he seemed to growl, "I would like to introduce Horatio," a tall, thin man with black hair and pale skin, "Chan," An oriental man with a proud bearing, "and Margaret," a rather rotund woman with blond hair and a maternal look on her face.
I found out their individual quirks, as well as their species, as I got them settled in their rooms. Horatio was the oddest of them all. His true form was that of a squid. And the only English he remembered was from the days when he acted in Shakespeare's plays with the Bard himself. He quickly gave me a headache with all his thees, thous, hasts, and forasmuches. Chan seemed rather... lonely. He was used to the huge flocks of his fellow Canada geese, rather than the small groups of humans. Than lastly was the matronly Margaret. I decided to make it a point not to get her angry. A charging elephant is not something I wanted to deal with. Ever.
When word got out that I was working again I started to get letters in the mail from certain well-to-do people. The Company no longer worked in wood on a regular basis, but they prided themselves on the fact that they still had the specialists and facilities to build wooden ships. So I started designing luxury yachts.
But when I was asked if I could make her be steam-powered, I declined. Steam could only mean death. Only wind power was life. And soon steamers wouldn't need sails at all. Even now they were much larger than in the past ten years, and only had a schooner rig at most. No, not much time left at all.
Progress marches on if one wants it to or not, I reflected.
The years rolled by, passing much quicker then during my years of depression. I hadn't realized just how deeply I'd sunk into self pity until the day that Bottle decided to leave me alone for a few hours on the Seawind. "It's a calm day, you can handle this boat one handed. You designed her well." Then before I could utter a rebuttal he dove over the side and changed into his natural form. I watched him make a single leap about a hundred feet off the stern, and I didn't see him again for hours.
But it was something I needed very much. Just the Sea and I, alone together. And nothing between us but a thin plank of wood. It was certainly the closest I could ever get to being a dolphin or a whale.
In the summer of 1895 I was sent a telegram from a man in Cambridge who insisted that I have dinner at his house just outside the city. I hadn't left Gwynedd since I'd arrived, over thirty years before. The amount of money he was offering was flattering, but I was reluctant to leave the place that I considered home for even a little while. I asked Bottle for advice. "The travel will do you good, my friend. I suggest you at least go and see what the man is like. Did he say what kind of yacht he wanted?"
I looked at the telegram. "With the money he's offering, he could afford a good-sized schooner. He's insisting on a pure sailing vessel. At least that counts in his favor..."
In the end, I decided to go. What harm could it do?
The carriage that met me at the train station was pulled by four white horses that had Echoes of a crocodile, a shark, some odd insect with transparent wings, and a tiny rodent. A hamster, perhaps. The driver was a small lizard, and acted rather like one, I thought. He scampered over to open the door, then when I got in, seemed to scamper back to the seat. And we were off.
I got an increasingly uneasy feeling as we got closer and closer to the country house. It was like there was something inside that I could probably do without seeing or doing. But I was on my way and there was nothing I could do about it. A gate made of black iron, with a pair of ornate griffins on the top, fronted the property. Rather predatory, I thought. I wondered what kind of Echo this man would have.
The foreboding feeling grew by degrees as the carriage approached the house. My stump itched and I felt a chill up and down my spine. I began to wonder if this was a good idea. The chill wasn't a physical one, but more something that a part of me deep inside felt. A man in a butler's suit who had the Echo of a ladybug opened the door from the inside. "Mr. Wadsworth will be with you in a moment, sir. Please enter the second door to the right down the hall."
With great reluctance I stepped inside. Just inside the foyer was a HUGE stuffed grizzly bear, in the classic rearing pose. The sight made my heart thump in my chest so I quickly found the door to the Study.
I wished to God for the rest of my life that I'd never opened that door.
The chill intensified until I was nearly shivering, even thought it was just the start of summer. The feeling seemed to emanate off the dozens and dozens of animal heads that lined the upper part of the ceiling, as well as the smaller animals posed in what the man probably thought of as "natural" positions.
Against the dark oak paneling I saw lions, tigers, deer, moose, elk, bears, antelope, wildebeast, and zebra. Elephant tusks decorated the walls in gigantic arcs, bearskin rugs all over the place, game birds from pheasants to eagles, stuffed and mounted. A couple fox pelts draped on the arms of chairs. The room was lit by a fire, even though it was beastly hot outside in the noonday sun.
Utter. Speechless. Shock.
"I say, old man. Are you feeling quite all right?" The disturbingly young voice broke me out of my stupor. "Can I have my butler help you to a chair?"
I turned to face a young man who looked to be about eighteen. He was holding a lemonade in a cold glass. For the first time when I looked into that face I started to feel my age. "No... no. But thank you." I slowly moved over towards a large, padded chair that looked comfortable. To my surprise the room was cool enough that I wasn't sweating. When I sat down I realized that there was no way to avoid seeing the macabre spectacle above my head.
There was a pervading feeling in that room that was hard to put to words. It was the sense of deepest loss. The death of a hopeful future. The sense of one's purpose in life stopped before it could be fulfilled. And that feeling came most from the head of a young zebra mounted above where the young man was sitting. He gave me a cordial smile. "I'm Fenton Wadsworth the Third. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bates." We shook hands. "I hope you find my Study comfortable. I certainly do."
"It's very... homey," I lied.
"Thank you. Most of the trophies you see around you were shot by me, you see. I've had a gun in my hand ever since I was nine." He gestured with the hand that was holding the glass. "Goes to show where Man is in the scheme of things, doesn't it?"
I merely nodded slowly and made a show of opening the pouch that carried the rolled up plans of a few basic ship designs and interiors. I concentrated, preparing to see what kind of Echo this young upstart had. "I have a few basic types of smaller ships for you to look at, Sir. Perhaps that would be the best place to start."
I laid out three different kinds of small ships that were my personal favorites. The smallest was a fifty-foot staysail schooner, a rather simple rig that could be handled by a small crew. The next, about ten feet longer, was what was called a topsail schooner. Her mainmast had two square sails near the top so she would go faster in a following wind. The most complex I dared go was a brigantine. About eighty feet long, she had square sails on the mainmast and a fore-and-aft rig on the mizzen. That is, triangular sails made for following closely to the wind.
When I looked up to see the youngster's Echo, what I found was something I'd never seen before. There was simply the face of another human male wearing clothing that looked to be the uniform much like I had worn during my brief stint as a Union soldier.
It was then that I noticed another aspect to that cold feeling in the room. A familiarity, coming from his direction. My God! Could this be... Henry? No... Couldn't be. The timing was all wrong. This youngster was too young. If Henry was immediately reborn as a human then the man he was would be near my age. No. The feeling of familiarity was coming from above him. From the head of the young zebra...
I broke off from looking at Fenton and looked up at the head. There was no Echo of Henry's face as I expected. Just that feeling of death and familiarity.
I couldn't stay here any longer. I felt sick to my stomach. But I couldn't just get up and leave. I had to have some sort of excuse. What could I use? A tug on my sleeve startled me out of my train of thought. "What? Oh, I'm sorry. When you get to be my age, your mind tends to wander." I said it in as neutral a tone as I could. "You were saying?"
"I was saying, sir, that none of these mere dinghies will do! I want something larger! I want more masts! More sails!" He left the room for a moment. "You can bring it in, Jenkins." He stepped back into the room, followed by two men carrying a rather large painting of the clipper ship Cutty Sark. "That is what I want. Father said I could have whatever I wanted, and I want that."
She was probably one of the best clipper ships ever built. But for a private yacht? Intolerably uneconomical. But to top that, the young upstart continued. "This is only the start. I want a few changes, like..." Over the next sixty minutes he awkwardly used terms he clearly didn't understand, and talked to me like he was the shipwright and I was the client.
It was intolerable, and gave me the excuse I needed to get up and leave. I started to roll up the plans. "Mr. Wadsworth, I'll be frank. If I do as you ask it would be akin to putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. She would break in two as she was being framed. You have no understanding of how things work. You also treat me like you would your dog. Worse, even." I stood up. "I thank you for your interest in me and my work, but you'll just have to ask somebody else. I can refer you to Harland and Wolff if you wish. I've a friend or two there."
His expression turned dark and stubborn. "Father said you'd build a boat for me. So you're going to build a boat for me." He looked like a little spoiled brat, even though he was eighteen.
I turned to leave. "I've signed no agreement, Mr. Wadsworth. You cannot force me to do something I do not wish to." I walked over towards the door. Fenton looked like he was about to throw a temper tantrum. "Good day."
It didn't at all surprise me that once I left the house, I could still her him yelling like a child as far as halfway down the quarter-mile long driveway to the road. Oddly, I felt nothing but pity for him.
I would always remember my fifties as the happiest time of my life, despite that one incident with Fenton Wadsworth. Not that nothing bad ever happened in that time, but the good well outweighed the bad.
Two years after the incident I was deep at work in my study when my maid interrupted. "There's a Darius Orcan at the door to see you, sir?"
I looked up from my work. "Who? Oh... I've heard of him. Let him in."
The manner of the man was a vast difference over Fenton's, even though he was about three times as wealthy. He wore casual clothing that didn't make him look too different from the average man on the street, nor did he carry himself with the haughty airs of the rich. He had slick, black hair and was graying at the temples, and a dark complexion for an Englishman. Perhaps he had a bit of Indian in him? He extended his hand. "Michael Bates I assume?"
"I don't know of any other one-armed shipwrights in the business, so that has to be me." I smiled. "What can I do for you, sir?"
As it turned out he had quite a job for me. "I want you to design a floating school for me. It'll have to be at least a windjammer, I imagine. Perhaps we can discuss the details over lunch?" He phrased the question in hopeful manner, not like a command. I accepted.
Over the next two years, over about two dozen dinners and lunches, Darius and I worked out the design and detail of what became as much a passion of mine as his. The worry that the process sometimes created eventually turned my hair completely white. But then, I'd been going gray since my thirties, anyway.
The keel for the hull that still bore only a number. She was Hull #1899Ac, where the number was the year, and the letters were a simple sequence. Darius hadn't decided on a name, though he continually said that one would come to him.
As was my custom when a new ship of mine was being built I could often be found at the Yard, walking around and around where she was arising from her keelplates. Even I was impressed as I saw her take shape. I couldn't wait until she would take to her element, her masts would be installed, her sails unfurled, and she would sail off towards the horizon.
The night before the launch Darius and I decided to go to the café where he and I had spent so much time in our discussions that eventually resulted in the new ship's birth. Those thoughts brought up the one subject that was still bothering me. "What are you going to name her, Darius? It's getting kinda late to not have made a decision."
He leaned back in his chair, twirling the handlebar mustache that he'd grown. He stared at the glass in front of him that had the name of the inn and café. "I think it's a foregone conclusion that here is only one name possible, Michael. Considering where we've spent all our time." He held up the glass in toast, something I mirrored. "To the good ship SS Sothesby!"
Gwynedd, Wales. March 1, 1912.
I awoke with the distinct feeling like I had been drunk the night before. That in itself felt wrong. But it was nothing compared to the images that still floated in my head.
Images of a pair of long, white-feathered wings in place of arms. The fact that I had both arms was rather telling that it'd been nothing but a dream. When I looked forward what greeted my vision was a long yellow beak. I could feel the wind through my tail feathers. Webbed feet tucked up against my body. Skimming effortlessly above the waves with others of my kind. Seagulls.
A vague image of surprising one of the Disciples-in-training. A young man by the name of Webster. A very nervous type. I'd followed him into the backyard to see if he was looking in the shed, and the next moment I was in the sky, flying!
I'd been given a warning about the Disciples of Gull. They were often very jumpy and had too many Abilities activated too soon. One of those Abilities seemed to be the ability so transform others... Not that I cared as I scanned for food along the ground. Any food.
There was no sense of having a human mind. And thus no way to tell how long I was a seagull. At least, not until this morning. I looked at the calendar on my desk. Almost a full year! I pulled myself out of bed, aching all over. Then there was a knock on the door. I walked carefully down the stairs and opened it to see Bottle standing before me. And he wasn't smiling. "Glad to see you up and around, Michael. Did you have a nice holiday?"
His eyes seemed to bore into my mind. "Holiday?" A vision of vacationing in the southern France with some friends suddenly replaced the one of skimming above the Sea. I blinked. "Ah. Yes. It was quite relaxing. Thank you so very much for helping me sail across the Channel in the Seawind. I'm not as young as I used to be." The trip to France was my last voyage on that trusty boat. I was too old, and so was she.
My department at Cetacan now had merely three people. And none of them had the talent to be my successor. We were the last of the sail specialists at the Company. We knew there would be no other after us. For when I retired the department would be dissolved.
Progress. I hated it.
Three weeks after my arrival home there was a knock on my door. It was rather late in the evening. So I expected it to be one of my friends; instead it was a man holding a letter. "Telegram, sir. Sign here, please?" I signed the paper and took the letter inside. I was reading it in the Study before I thought to see who it was from. Thought he subject of the letter was very painful, I was compelled to read:
From: The Law Offices of Herbert and Shuster. St. Louis, MI.
To: Michael D. Bates. Gwynedd, Wales.
Regret to inform you of the death of Alex O'Malley on April 20 1902 stop Come to St.Louis by April 20 1903 or farm will be sold stop Please reply end
I stared at the telegram for hours and hours, not eating, not moving. A light bulb above me burned out with a pop and a shower of glass. I didn't notice. The decision I made was inevitable, though. There was only one choice to make. I heard the front door open and close quietly, and heard a rustle of cloth. I looked up to see Bottle's serious-yet-smiling face. There was an unasked question in his expression. I sighed deeply. "I'm going home, Bottle. I have to." Then I realized something. There was only one way to reach home in time to beat the statute of limitations. "And I need you to help me book passage on a steamer."
Bottle merely nodded.
After a bit more correspondence I found out some more details. Alex O'Malley was a cousin of mine who undoubtedly would've been thrilled to inherit the farm. He'd been my only other family, however. I was the only one left in my line.
Two days later my friend returned with the ticket. I was to leave on April 3 on the White Star Line ship H. M. S. Baltic. "She's a good, reliable ship, Michael. She'll get you there in good enough time. Things have changed in fifty years. Perhaps you'll even change your opinion about them, if you just listen."
Then the worst thing in my life since Henry had died happened. The Sothesby ran aground in the strait and was barely saved from being sunk. Darius was angry. "I'm going to have that harbor pilot fired! How he got that job I'll never know." He gave me a hopeful look. "How long until she's repaired?"
I looked at the damage report prepared by one of the dry dock Yard Supervisors. "At least a month, judging by this. But I'm afraid I'm not going to be here to supervise."
"Oh?" He looked genuinely surprised. "Why, may I ask?"
"A family matter. I'm going back home for a while to put some affairs in order. And when I come back, I'm retiring." I sighed and rolled up the plans. "The Age of Sail is over, Darius. I don't see why I should continue if one windjammer in three years is built here. Which has been the norm for the past decade."
"When are you going?"
"The Baltic is scheduled to leave Southampton on the ninth. I should be back in Missouri within two weeks."
"Ah..." he said, speechless. "I wish you luck, then. I'm going to New York on the Adriatic, myself."
I nodded my thanks. And the waiting began.
I arrived in Southampton on the boat train, only to learn that the Baltic's voyage had been cancelled. "How am I supposed to get to New York?!" I growled at the bear-Echoed ticket handler.
"Simple, sir. We'll just transfer you to the Titanic. She's a new ship, and the most luxurious afloat. Surely you've heard of her."
I had, actually. I'd read the articles in Shipbuilder about how she was declared to be "unsinkable". That flew in the face of Nature, I thought. "When does the next ship leave for New York?" If there was any ship other than Titanic I would take her. It was hard enough for me to take a steamer in the first place.
"The next ship doesn't leave until about five days from now. Coal strike, you understand. We needed to appropriate the coal from other steamers in order to get the fuel the Titanic needed."
Five days! I didn't have that much time. "Give me a second class ticket."
The ship was everything he said it would be. Large. God was it huge! It smelled of new paint and carpet. I was greeted by the purser's smiling face (underneath I saw an Echo of a green parrot), and helped to my cabin as if I couldn't remember what it said on my ticket. I hated being treated like an old man.
My cabin was D-62, right next to the second class dining saloon. So it was very easy for me to take food back to my stateroom at mealtimes. And I never had to go far to the head, either. When I first stepped aboard I'd found my room quickly and hadn't left it since. I tried to forget the fact of where I was.
Until the day when we'd left Queenstown I remained there. Nearly in tears from the almost physical pain this was putting me through. Every Echo I saw seemed to have some element of Brendan in it, just for setting foot on the ship. His face appeared to me behind several of the pets brought aboard by passengers. In the animal faces of those I saw in the saloon.
Why was I doing this? Having to deal with the fiftieth anniversary of Henry's death was hard enough without my surrogate father's ghost turning up at every corner. So I stayed in my room. Away from people, waiting for the ship to pull into New York.
I spent my time looking over the damage report from the Yard Supervisors about the Sothesby. The damage was more extensive than I had thought, and it would take a long time to get the right parts. When I wasn't doing that I was tossing and turning in my bed, unable to find a place in the new mattress that wasn't stiff as a board. My stateroom was in the stern of the ship behind the huge reciprocating engines. The past day and half were nearly sleepless from the all-pervading sound of the huge steam engines below my feet. I enjoyed the comparative silence while the ship was at anchor off of Queenstown.
I was once again concentrating on the plans of the Sotheby, pondering how best to fix the tear in the hull plating, when I heard and felt the engines start up again. I tried to go back to my work, but there was something in the thrum of the engines that prevented me from doing so. A quality that astounded me, and shook me down to my core of being.
Impossible! No steamer could feel that way! Brendan wouldn't have it! And yet...
I had to know. I grabbed a pencil and a sheet of paper as I left my stateroom for the first time in hours, heading towards where the sounds of the engines got louder. I found the crew passages very easily, moving past members of the crew who let me pass without a word. I barely noticed them in my purposeful march into the bowels of the ship.
There are no words to describe that feeling of first discovery. Like the Actaeon had fifty years before, this ship of dreams filled an empty place in my soul that I'd never known was there. Tears filled my eyes and an incredible, exultant music filled my world.
Titanic lived!
With automatic efficiency I put my vellum down on a cool pipe and started to sketch what I saw. Time passed. By the time a tap on my shoulder interrupted me I had almost half of the engine completed. I looked back to see the face of a black-haired man wearing a suit. In one hand he carried a rolled up bundle of plans. He saw what I was doing and smiled. "So you're a shipbuilder, are you?" He had an Irish accent. "I can tell by the look on your face. I'm Thomas Andrews." He extended his right hand, then balked when he saw I didn't have a hand to return on that side.
I confidently reached out and shook his other hand. I'd ceased being offended long ago about my "disability." "Michael Bates of Cetacan, Inc.. Happy to meet you, Mr. Andrews." We could barely hear each other over the music of the engines, but neither of us noticed. "You designed her, I take it?"
The man smiled and put on modest airs. "I had a large part of it, sir. But not all." My sketch had fallen to the floor. He picked it up for me. "You did this without a straightedge?"
Now it as my turn to be modest. "When one gets as old as I am, one learns a few tricks. I'll teach you, if you like."
"I think I'd like that."
He and I became good friends. He gave me a tour of the ship from prow to stern, showing me more than any crewmember would ever know. I spent my copious free time in my stateroom drawing my first real steamer design. She was much smaller than Titanic, but then she had to be. The Company didn't have the facilities to build something nearly so large.
On the morning of the fourteenth Andrews came to my door. I'd worked all night and had finally gotten the rough hull lines done. "Come in," I said absently, giving all of my attention to my work. I was especially proud of the bow. When a ship cuts through the water there is a space where a vacuum forms just behind the immediate bow. I knew this while testing models of my own designs in a tank back home, but had never been able to think of a solution.
Until last night.
I'd settled into bed, taking time to look at an interesting pendant I'd been given by a young woman from third class. She had been very insistent for some reason. The pendant was of a stylized orca, not unlike an Indian from the Pacific Northwest might make. When I'd put it on I'd felt a rush of sudden dizziness. I'd gone to bed not too long after.
The details of the dream I had were lost to me, but for one thing. Music. A song of welcome such as no human had ever heard before. And yet, the part that recognized it wasn't human.
When I awoke, I had the solution.
When Andrews walked in I managed to pull myself away from my work. I stepped back from the table and explained what I had done. He listened to me carefully, nodding. "If you're right, than this could save many tons of coal as well as speed up the passage. Can I ask why you're sharing this with me? I do work for a rival company."
Andrews was an odd man in many ways. He had no Echo, for instance. I could only surmise that he was one of those "New Souls" that Bottle had told me about. I'd noticed quite a few of them among humans. Bottle had told me once that as more humans are born, more souls come in to fill out the numbers. An interesting number of these people were among First Class, as well as those with human Echoes.
I looked at the design and sighed. "I could drop dead tomorrow and nobody would know about this, my friend. I want somebody else to know just in case. I'm not a young man any more. Though how I'm going to explain this to my boss is going to be interesting."
Andrews got up to leave. "You're welcome back in the engine room if you wish. I was able to get Captain Smith to grant you permission. Perhaps you'll find more inspiration."
I took that advice.
I was fast asleep at my desk when a shudder awoke me. The sound and rumble of the engines going full reverse startled me into wakefulness. I was getting out of my chair when I felt a second shudder that sent a ripple of chill up my spine.
Something suddenly felt... wrong.
I left my stateroom to find a steward. Somebody who could tell me what was going on. But nobody seemed to know. "We've probably dropped a propeller blade, sir. We might be delayed a day getting to New York, but not much longer." Three stewards told me this before my own doubts finally pushed me to go find Andrews.
What I found I will never forget. Swirling waters on the lower decks, near the forward part of Third Class. A location where the ship would surely sink to the bottom. Dazed by the sight I started to wander back upward. Third Class was in a horrible mess. There were stewards pounding on doors, often resulting in misunderstandings when the person behind those doors didn't speak English.
In Second Class it was more of a knocking on doors. I became more conscious once I reached my room, and sat down in my chair to think of what to do next.
There weren't enough lifeboats. Sixteen normal plus four collapsibles weren't enough for over 2,200 people! That realization hit me like being hit on the head with a shovel. At least seven hundred people were going to die.
A pounding on my door broke me out of my sad contemplation. A steward walked in and took down some lifebelts from the closet. "Please put this on and come out to the Boat Deck, sir. It's only a precaution," he said. I glared at him until the fake smile left his face. "I suggest you find your way onto a lifeboat, sir."
I was putting on the lifejacket when I a sudden realization hit me. I was an old man, now. I had no family to go home to. Everybody I ever cared for was dead or immortal (in Bottle's case). I'd done more in life than I ever thought was possible. What reason did I have to continue it?
I went up to the boat deck as the steward told me, and found it crowded and noisy. I started to look for a quiet place to sit and wait for the end to come. I found it in the First Class Smoking Room. I wasn't alone in that room. There was one who played solitaire, one who read the bible, others who just looked around at the detailing in the wood paneling. Waiting for the end.
I started to feel numb. Not numb in body, but in spirit. Numb with the certainty that I was going to die, and there was nothing that I could do about it. My whole world contracted to just myself, the couch I was sitting on, and the ever-increasing tilt of the deck.
The band was playing ragtime. I listened as they played one of my favorite songs. A hauntingly familiar voice somehow penetrated my attention to the band. "So, even after all you've learned in the past fifty years, you're still afraid." I turned around to see...
...Brendan?
After a moment of pure shock, I realized that it wasn't him. It wasn't an Echo that I saw, but a young man in his early twenties. His face merely resembled my surrogate father's features to such a degree that it'd set my heart pounding. What made me answer that question I would find out much sooner than I would have thought. "Afraid?" I said, incredulous. "How can you even ask that?"
The young man sat down next to me on the couch. "Sheer unmitigated gall, I guess." He sighed and gave me a rueful look. "I've been full of that since I was born." The ship seemed to moan in pain as water filled her bow. We both had to lean on the sofa to make ourselves level. "But you are afraid, aren't you?"
"Back at Shiloh I was so sure of myself. So damned sure I wouldn't get a bullet in the gut like so many thousands of others did in that blasted war. Even..." my throat tightened suddenly, and I had to swallow. "Even after Henry got blown to bits.
"Even being in the middle of a battle it wasn't a sure thing I was going to die."
The young man nodded sadly. Except he didn't look quite so old any more. In his eyes was reflected the visions of a million battles in a million different places. For a moment he looked old, wizened, regretful. It was only a flicker, but it wasn't an Echo, either. "I've seen it all before. Too many times.."
I didn't doubt it for an instant.
The ship creaked rather loudly all of a sudden. The numbness turned into genuine panicking fear. I felt like a small child again. "Why did it have to be him instead of me?"
He held me in his arms in a fatherly way. "Even after all you've seen, you're still afraid of it?"
I knew that he was right. Even after all the Echoes I had seen, the people I had met, the knowing that ever after death a new life awaits, I was still so afraid of what might come after that final heartbeat might be the true End.
I felt like a ship being dashed into the rocks again and again! I saw Henry's face every time I closed my eyes. Racking sobs flowed through me. I was shaken to break me out of it, but nothing seemed to work. The man who looked like Brendan let me sit there for what seemed like forever. Then his voice took on a tone that dug deep into my soul. "That's enough, Michael. Stop it." But I didn't want to. "STOP IT!!!"
Silence, but for the increasing creak of the Titanic. He continued. "Endings. Death is not an ending. It never has been. You know that. Why won't you admit it to yourself?"
I just stared at him. He was right, after all. I realized that it wasn't actually death I was afraid of.
I was afraid I would forget Henry. The thought of that I couldn't bear.
"Let him go, Michael. Would he want you to live in pain all your life? I think not."
It was an almost-physical snap inside of me. My heart skipped a beat and I nearly passed out.
It still hurt. But it was the kind of pain of a wound that has freshly healed, leaving only a scar where it had once been.
There was something about this person. In his presence, there was a certain feeling of familiarity. More than just looking like Brendan. More than... something. There were no words for it. He gave me a serious look. "I want you to do me one last favor before the end." The ship was staring to list alarmingly. The bow was taking a plunge, lights flickering on and off. He pointed towards a familiar figure standing in front of a fireplace. "Take him and yourself off this ship."
"Why? Death is death, no matter where you meet it." I looked closer at the man who stood, looking at the painting mounted above the fireplace. He was familiar. "Thomas?" I said. He didn't respond, just stood there as if a statue of himself. I turned to face my benefactor, the young man who had brought me out of my own stupor, but he was gone. Vanished as if by magic.
I didn't have time to ponder what had just happened. Titanic was starting to feel the pull of thousands of tons of water in her bow. I walked up and shook Thomas. "Wake up, man." He didn't respond. It was starting to become difficult to stay on my feet. "Come on!" He still didn't respond.
I pulled him by the shirt collar with little resistance, trying to make it to the door. The deck was becoming increasingly tilted, the groan of straining metal growing louder and louder.
Then the lights went out, leaving both of us in darkness. I heard glass shattering as the strain on the ship started to bend and distort the Smoking Room. Even in the darkness I could the ceiling start to break up, the sound of cracking wood filled my world. I thrust my friend and I towards the door.
From deep inside the ship came a sound that was disturbingly like a woman screaming in pain and terror! Andrews and I slid down the deck outside into the Sea. The cold was like a thousand knives being driven into one's body. The snapping sound grew into a thunderous roar, joining the screams of terror from the passengers clinging to the stern.
I struggled to get the both of us way from the ship, but to no avail. The whole Sea seemed to be vibrating with the whine of bending metal. Finally, no longer to stay in one piece due to the thousands of tons of water in the bow, Titanic broke in half!
The wave as the stern fell back into the water pushed Andrews and I away, by sheer luck neither of us was hit by the flying debris.
Like some of the paneling from the smoking room.
My attention was once more pulled to the Titanic's stern. She was vertical against the stars, blotting out most of them with her huge bulk. Then, down she went.
Minutes later, with hardly more than a gurgle, Titanic slid gracefully under the waters of the North Atlantic.
With the ship gone, the cold and darkness seeped into me. I heard the cries of over a thousand people at least, screaming and yelling for help. The Sea had us in her freezing arms. I could feel the warmth seeping out of me. Andrews groaned. I managed to shove him onto the debris, then hung on myself. He moaned and sobbed in the darkness.
Numbness was spreading throughout my limbs and crotch. My teeth clattered together in a violent shiver. My leg muscles joined in the dance and for a while I was nothing but a mass of rattling bones. The cold deepened. Andrews stopped groaning. There was ice forming on my eyebrows. The stars glowed brightly down upon us.
My eyelids grew heavy, there was only the fatigue. All was numb. I was nothing but a mind floating in the arms of the Sea. So this is how you want me, it it? I thought to her, my lips twitched for a moment in an almost-smile. Perhaps it's not a bad thing after all to die in your arms.
There was only the waiting, now. I became acutely conscious of my own heartbeat. Thumthump..... Thumpthump......... Thumpthump. It was becoming slower, weaker. The cries had died down around me.
Thumpthump....... Thumpthump......... Thumpthump.........
It wouldn't be long now. What was next for me, I wondered? Perhaps a bird, like the sparrows that had a nest outside my bedroom window. I'd love to have that sweet voice of theirs.
Thumpthump........... Thumpthump.............. Thump...thump...............
Perhaps a fish, like a tuna. Able... to move through the water with expert movements of... caudal fin. The greyhounds of.... the Sea.
Thump....thump......... Thump......thump.....
Or... perhaps.... a horse. Maybe....
Thump..... thump.... Thump.... Pause.
My heart did not stop. It merely paused during the final beat. I felt a tingle throughout my body, centered on my chest, where I felt a warmness from within starting to grow.
I floated, lifeless, motionless. In a horrible agony of wondering what was keeping me from dying; from finally passing into that place between lifetimes. Was this Hell? Time passed at a glacial pace.
With nothing better to do, I waited.
The warmth from within didn't cease, but grew stronger. There was a barrier within me that was being melted away until there was nothing but a thin sheet of ice.
And then, out of nowhere, the voice came... "AWAKEN, MY ADOPTED CHILDREN. IT IS TIME!"
The voice caused a surge of warmth from inside. Deep inside. So deep that in the last moments before my thoughts themselves began to change, I recognized where it came from.
It wasn't physical heat that I felt. This warmth came from the Soul.
The ice instantly shattered into a myriad of melting pieces, absorbed into my mind. A part of my soul buried and sleeping for eons was awakening from a long slumber. It surged up out from the Depths of Mind like a geyser, forceful, dramatic, beautiful. My humanity joined with this new sense of Being, becoming one with it.
This body suddenly felt... wrong. It must change! The instant the thought occurred to me my eyes snapped open. I was surrounded by a blue glow that tingled all over my too small body. I took a deep, shuddering breath that cleared the last of the cold from my person. I was ready.
I single mental push outward was all it took. My clothing dissolved away under the pressure of my soul. My body gained mass, became smooth-skinned, countershaded in black and white. A tall dorsal fin grew on my back. My right stump grew directly into a flipper, while my left fused and grew. My legs shrunk away into nothing while a tail erupted from the end of my spine, tipped with the flukes of my kind.
My humanity had not vanished, it had merely been added to. I still remembered Andrews, Henry, Bottle, all of the people I'd known in my entire life. I saw my mother, smiling at some gift I'd given her when I was a little boy. The hardened expression of the regiment's sergeant changing to horror, his scream of pain at the fact of the bullet wound in his chest. The sneer of Fenton Farnsworth as I refused to do what he told me. The astonished look on Bottle's face the time I told him about the Echoes. The smile of a satisfied customer as I presented her new schooner to her. The only on-the-lips kiss by a woman I'd ever had.
Other memories had bubbled to the surface to join those. The first stroke of my flukes, and the first breath of air. Doing playful breaches above the waves with my siblings in the pod.
The day I'd chosen my own name! Mi-call!
The warm nuzzle of my mate as I watched her give birth to my own sons and daughters. The ache of bones as my age started to work against me.
My final breath, as my life expired under the care of my great grandson.
But I wasn't dead. I had merely been reborn dozens of times, into bodies so different that they didn't make any sense, if seen side by side. In one life, I was a frog, who ate a fly... Then I was a fly, who was eaten by a frog.
If that wasn't Nature's sense of irony, I didn't know what was.
A sudden thrashing in the water next to me finally broke me out of my self-reflective mood. I wasn't the only one transformed! A short squirt of sound reflected back to me the outlines of hundreds of other whales! What was going on?
The new me and the old me had yet to come to any kind of settlement about who was in control. Was my name "Michael" or "Mi-Call?" What was a "human", anyway?
In my confusion another orca came and started to try to calm the panicking one I knew had a name like "A-Drew" or something. He was a good friend of mine, so I helped the other whale calm him.
Eventually, it took a third who must have been one of Orca's Disciples! A-Drew calmed down immediately, and I turned my attention to the one who had first come to help.
A sudden physical shock rippled though me as I felt that I KNEW this person! I knew him! It hit me so hard, I forgot my own name, but curiously, other things remained clear. The Disciple turned to me. "I want to thank you, sir. You seem to be getting used to things rather quickly."
I replied, calmly. "I'll panic later, I think. I kept myself calm though the whole sinking. I'm not about to start now. I just wish I could remember my name..."
The answer seemed to haunt him as much as it did me. "Your name is Michael Bates. You're from Rock Falls, Missouri. Born on May 21, 1843."
Mid-Atlantic, April 16, 1912
Full circle. Where all stories eventually lead. An ending is merely a new beginning. A new story waiting to be told.
As Michael told me his, we supported Thomas Andrews on our backs, taking turns when we had to breath. Hundreds of orcas surrounded us, talking incessantly. The largest Gathering I'd ever been to! We both felt the a lift to our spirits, though at times Michael's story was a bit dark.
But then, so was mine, wasn't it?
Andrews never recovered from his depression. He died during the night on the sixteenth. Darius called it "Broken Soul Syndrome". When the soul is broken, loses its will to live, the body soon follows. "When he's reborn, what'll happen to him?"
"Nobody really knows, not even the Guardians." He looked at the body of the Titanic's designer. "Let him go, you two. It's just a shell, now."
Michael and I sent a single click of agreement to him, and let the body of Thomas Andrews drift down to join his ship.
Orca appeared beside us moments later. "What has happened to you two over the years is beyond any kind of rational explanation." He looked at myself. "But there is a problem of sorts."
I let a few bubbles out of my blowhole. "Oh? What?"
"Mother has placed a silly restriction on how many Disciples a single Guardian can take. In my case it's thirty. All positions are filled."
I didn't even need to think about it. "In that case, Orca, I..."
"Don't make any hasty decisions, Henry." The voice that interrupted me came from nowhere. "I think I have a solution that will work for all of us."
The voice was coming from the surface. We saw a medium-sized schooner that hadn't been there before. Michael gasped, no mean feat for a whale. "That's one of mine! I designed it for a woman named Andrea Winthrop about twenty years ago! She kissed me!" My brother seemed embarrassed by that admission.
I spyhopped to look to see who was talking. The man standing on deck looked rather nondescript, but for his relative youth. He was clean-shaven and had a very haunted look in his eyes. A rope ladder was dropped over the side.
Michael paused. "I know that voice! I spoke to him on the ship before she went down! Who is that?"
"It's my brother, Ape. The Guardian of primates," Orca replied. "You're looking much better now, brother. Much more dignified," he said to the man on the boat.
He blushed. "Well... thanks. But I didn't come here to chitchat. We need to talk. All of us, up here." He looked in Michael's direction. My brother vanished from the water, and reappeared on deck. Michael now looked exactly the way he did the day we'd left to join the army!
I changed to human form and climbed up the ladder as fast as I could. Lana joined me by my side, having finally completed her duties with the new belugas. I hugged her, gave her a kiss on the cheek. I loved her very much, and it pained me to have to tell her that I was giving up my Discipleship. My brother was at least as important to me as she, it'd been a very hard decision.
Darius was looking at us with a sad expression on his face. He sighed and turned to look in the direction we'd come, back towards the sight of the disaster. Orca spoke to him for a moment in a voice too quiet for me to hear. My fellow Disciple dove back into the water. Orca motioned for Ape and I to join him forward, which I did. Orca gave Ape a puzzled look. "What did you have in mind, brother?" he said.
The Guardian of humans looked in my direction. "I know what you're thinking, and it's completely unnecessary." He looked at Orca. "Remember our talk aboard the Titanic? About me taking on Disciples of my own?" He looked at Michael. "Well, you're it."
I was amazed that after all that'd happened to him, that my brother was even capable of feeling more shock. Being suddenly young again looked to be startling enough. "Me? Why me?" He blinked, staring at the boat that we were on. "And where did you get this? I'm sure Andrea would never have parted with her willingly. The Prometheus was her only dream!"
Ape nodded knowingly. The next instant he was enveloped in a golden light that reminded me a lot of the color of fields of wheat ready for harvest. His body flowed into new curves, hair growing long and changing from straight brown to wavy blonde. Standing before us was a very beautiful woman of maybe thirty years old. She smiled. It took me a moment to realize this person was still Ape. "Andrea loves what you've done for her, Michael. Because as you can see, she's me."
My brother's reply was rather like an automaton. "I can see that very much, now..." Pause. "You're a very good kisser, you know."
Ape laughed girlishly. "I'm glad you think so. I've had a few eons to practice." She changed back into a he. "But as you might remember, Andrea didn't take very much seriously."
Michael nodded. "I remember. She acted very much like a child. It caused me no end of frustration. But she was respectful, at least."
The young Guardian nodded sadly. "Until not too long ago I was like that. Then Mother decided to teach me a lesson. Not the first time she's done so, let me assure you. But this time...
"This time I've learned my lesson." His expression was resolute. He turned to Michael again, his expression grave. "So you see, my son, I need you." There were tears in his eyes. "Badly. I've been so neglectful over the centuries that my own Children have forgotten me. I fear that if I don't take things in hand within the next century or so Mother will just cause another ice age and I'll have to start over."
I watched my brother carefully. He went over to the lee rail and gazed out upon the ocean. The rolling swells came out of the west, lapping up against the sides of the schooner with a slurping sound. He turned back towards Ape. "If it means that my brother and I won't ever be separated again, then why not?"
Epilogue
Quincy, Massachusetts. July 11, 1986
"She's your ship, Mike. You take her out."
Darius was perhaps in the best mood I'd ever seen him in. The Titanic had been found the year before, and with it, the chance of rescuing somebody very special to him who was imprisoned in the wreck. Just how that happened he still hadn't told me.
After the "death" of Darius Orcan, his ship had been bought and sold many times. Though she'd always been owned by the same person (Darius under different names), the Sothesby never stayed in one place for very long. Then in 1960, when the rust and in her hull had become too great, she'd been retired to become a floating museum. I'd spent the last decade or so overseeing her refitting. She was now in better condition then when she'd first been built.
I'd been very busy myself over the years. Ape had many, many Tasks for me. True to their words, Henry and I were never separated. I watched Lana give birth to their children over and over again.
And once, about twenty years ago, I watched my twin sister Henrietta give birth to a (cetacean) child of her own, her husband Lando looking on.
Not like I hadn't been female a couple times myself, anyway. Ape had required that I live at least a decade as the opposite sex. Just my luck that I chose the 1950s to do it in.
I gleefully burned all my bras in the sixties.
I looked at my brother, who was up with the rest of the crew, unfurling the sails. We'd been towed out to a point in Boston Harbor where it was possible to sail without bumping into things. That done, Henry moved expertly down the ratlins and back to me.
I rested my hands on the wheel of the ship. Watching the sails carefully so I wouldn't strain her masts.
The sails billowed with the wind, and the Sothesby came alive.