Titanic
By Jon Sleeper
Part I: Southampton
"When anyone asks how I can best describe my experience at nearly forty years at sea, I merely say; uneventful. I never saw a wreck, and never been wrecked, nor was I in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. You see, I'm not very good material for a story."
--Capt. E. J. Smith, 1907
Apr. 10, 1912 10:45 a.m.
Once I saw that my luggage had been loaded, I ascended the first class gangway with confidence that my belongings would reach my stateroom. I met the purser, and a steward showed me the way to my cabin. "A man was looking for you earlier, sir," the steward said. "A man by the name of James Bottleman? He said he was to be your servant. And he did have a first class ticket, so we let him on."
"Ah, yes. Thank you my good man." I replied. "Where is he, by the way?"
"He said he had to meet someone else as well. He'd been waiting here some time for you, but when you did not appear went looking for that person." Strange.
"Well, I am just a bit late…" Then I saw him coming down the hall, dressed in a proper butler's uniform. With that smile he always seemed to have…
"Good morning, sir!" he said in his cheerful tenor voice. He was also carrying a tray with a cup of hot tea resting on it. That made up for that he was not here when he was supposed to be.
"One more thing before I leave sir," said the steward. "May I have your full name to give the purser?"
"Ah, yes. Darius Orcan. Owner of the windjammer Sothesby. The steward nodded, then politely opened the door to the stateroom and gave me the key.
When I stepped inside I discovered that they'd already delivered my luggage. "Fast, aren't they?" I said.
"Well, I have a friend among the crew, sir." Bottleman's smile grew, if possible, wider.
"Thank you. One question, Mr. Bottleman. I always like to give my servants a nickname, but calling you James does not seem to fit. What do you suggest?" For some reason it seemed right and natural to be asking him this. There was a strange tonal quality to his voice, and I could not quite place it. I already trusted the man completely.
"My friends call me 'Bottle', sir. And everyone's my friend." His voice seemed a bit high for a man, though it was unmistakable as male. I was also noticing he had a tendency to speak fast.
"Well then, Bottle." I smiled, his grin was very infectious. "Why don't you help me unpack a might so I can prepare for tonight's grand entrance in the reception room? We can't disappoint the ladies, can we?"
"Nossir." Then I noticed the pendant around his neck, it was shaped like a dolphin. For some reason the sight of that made me trust him even more.
A few minutes later I changed into something a little more comfortable, it was only eleven after all, and we were not due to be off for another hour or so. I wanted to be on deck for the departure.
"By the way, who were you waiting for?" I asked.
"My cousin Emily. With what you're paying me, I had enough to get her a third class ticket. She's always wanted to visit my family in America…"
I was late, and I could blame it on my own body.
It's been very difficult getting used to this tiny thing with arms and legs instead of flippers and flukes. Makes me wonder what Orca sees in humans. But the strangest thing of all are these bags of flesh hanging from my chest. They make me feel front heavy all the time. Then there are these "hips" (I think they're called) that sway from side to side if I want them to or not. Human males seem to like it, though. I still wonder how human females deal with it.
In the six months I've had to get used to this shape, I've had to adjust more than my way of thinking about humans. I also had to learn to use the human memories tucked away in this mind of mine. I often don't know which are from the real me.
A few nights I awoke in confusion, almost panicking because both memories, Orca tells me, are really my own. I just could not tell the difference… [[You are the few among my Children that has both a human and a whale side.]] He'd mind-sent. [[Your soul had a potential to be human, as you have been in past lives, but went to the Singer body you were born with instead. Therefore it is really no problem to change that Potential into a kind of pseudo-reality. You are the human you might have been born as.]] All I could do was smile and nod (now that I had a neck and mobile lips), but he did banish my nightmares.
I just hope my smiling "cousin" is where he is supposed to be. As I stepped onto the quay near the ship, I heard a call, "All ashore that's going ashore!" Damn! was my un-ladylike thought. I ran up to a gangway just as they started to draw it away.
"Sir! I have a ticket! Please let me aboard!" I yelled. My baggage had been brought aboard by my "cousin". I waved my ticket in the air. The crewman just looked at me and said, "Sorry, that is a third class ticket, and this is the first class gangway." And continued to retract it.
I was saved by a man wearing semi-casual clothes who had just walked up the crewman, next to him was a familiar smiling face. "I say! Let that woman aboard right now, or I shall have to report you to the Captain!" The crewman was so startled that he did so, and put it back just enough so I could leap (quite hard in a long, heavy dress) through the entrance.
"And this, sir, is my cousin Emily O'Donnell. And thank you very much again for doing that, sir."
"Well, Bottle, I could not let her miss the boat, could I?" I knew by the Tone of his voice that he was the other I'd met when the Task had started. He extended a hand, "I'm Darius Orcan." The name confirmed it. Orca was often not the most subtle Guardian… I shook it. And when I touched his hand I knew it for sure.
"Pleased to meet you." I said. And he kissed the back of my hand. But he seemed not to react to anything from me. He turned to Bottle, "Now, you may take your cousin to her cabin, and I'll meet you on the portside promenade deck near the gymnasium. See you later, my friend. And perhaps I'll see more of you later, Ms. O'Donnell" With that he strode off.
I turned to my "cousin" as we walked down the corridor. "'Bottle'?" I said. "Isn't that a tad obvious?" I said to him. And of course he just smiled back.
"I know it is. But it's just the way I am." Bottlenoses are such individualists.
"What about 'Mr. Orcan?'" I asked. "Doesn't he remember anything?" Frankly, I was quite concerned about that.
"Orca does that sometimes. It supposedly makes it easier for our rich friend to move among human society if he has no surface memories to bother him. I suspect he knows what he is somehow. Orca will reveal to him his True Form in due time. Though I can't say I like his methods." We rounded a corner and almost ran into a crewman. For a moment I was afraid, I still had the third class ticket in my hand…
"Well, if it 'tisn't me finny friend Bottle!" he said. "Good to see ya gov!" And extended a hand.
"Marcus!" replied Bottle. "You made it! You nearly spent too long in that pub, you know."
They shook hands, then the big man looked at me, "Me pleasure, milady," and he made a florid bow, a big smile on his face. "Is she one of the…?"
"Yes, yes. But let's catch up on old times, shall we?"
Bottle, it turns out, had rescued Marcus when he fell overboard once in the Bahamas. Somehow a few months ago Marcus realized that Bottle was his rescuer, and seeked him out. So he was now our Helper among the crew. "I was floundering around, never learned to swim, when this bloke buoyed me up like a life vest. When 'e was finny, of course. 'Ve been wanting to pay him back ever since, but he give me this when I try to," he held up a pendant not unlike the one Bottle wore. "Says to always keep it close to me heart, that I might need it one day. Beatiful, init it?"
"It is indeed," I said. For one fleeting moment while he held the pendant, I saw a strange double image of a smiling dolphin face over his head. The eye in the pendant gleamed merrily, and so did Marcus' eyes. His smile grew almost a wide as Bottle's, and the skin on his face briefly had a blue/gray tint to it.
And suddenly I knew what my Task was. In my steamer trunk were all kinds of small trinkets and jewelry, all for giving to as many steerage passengers as I could, and all resembled some species of whale or dolphin. A mind-voice spoke to me, [[I knew you'd understand, my child.]] Orca had done something to them… But I suddenly knew there would not be nearly enough for me to save everyone. So my Task is not as easy, or as pleasant as it seemed. No matter what I did there were still going to be deaths.
[[I have every faith in you, and in your orca counterpart. Good luck, my Child.]] and he was gone.
Bottle was looking at me. His face became serious, he stopped smiling. And when a bottlenose's face, no matter the shape, loses that smile you know the gravity of the situation. We stood a while in my small cabin, then started to lay out what was in my trunk. Suddenly I felt the ship start to move, "And so it begins," he said. "So let us begin."
Before we were due to depart I had time to enjoy the gymnasium. While there I met a few men who were of my acquaintance, like Col. Archibald Gracie, and Isador Strauss. "Darius Orcan!" Said Col. Gracie. "I thought you despised steamers?" We shook hands.
"I do. But the Sothesby is in dry-dock at the present time. Ran her aground a week ago, I'm afraid. Seems the charts I'd been sold were out of date. Bad luck." That, and the harbor pilot who was handling her at the time had assured me that he knew the bay, but he was wrong. I did not sue him, but I did have his company demote him.
"That is too bad," said Mr. Strauss. "I rather liked her."
"She'll be back up in a year or so. No worries. But I have to get back to New York forthwith."
"Tell me this, sir." Asked Col. Gracie. "Why do you hate steamships so?"
"Well sir, it's not that I don't like steamers, it's that that I don't like." I pointed the billows of smoke starting to come from the four funnels.
"The smoke? Why is that?"
"Just smell for a moment. It's dirty and fouls the air. My company has designed filters for steamers that will cleanse that out. But other than that, liners tend to dump all sorts of nasty things overboard into the sea. It may seem so gentleman, but the Sea is not infinite. We must conserve what we have for the seventh generation, or it won't always be here."
The two men did not know how to react to that. Hell, neither did I. I have no idea where that thought came from. Strauss changed the subject. "So, what do you think of the ship itself?"
"It's big, and that's all I can say about it. If not for the coal strike I would of been on the Adriatic. And as for it being 'unsinkable'… I really don't like to think about that. Nature will not stand for it." And where did that come from?
The lines were cast off, and the ship started to move down the river Test towards the sea. We were passing by two ships moored together, when one of them (called the "New York") suddenly snapped from it's lines! The engines momentarily reversed, and we very narrowly missed colliding with the other steamer, which was taken away by tug boats. Captain Smith seemed unruffled by the event. "That's a bad omen, gentlemen. Mind what I said." And I went back to my stateroom.
On the the next part
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