The Face of the Waters by Robert Silverberg
"What'll happen to us if we drink salt water, doc?" Neyana Golghoz asked. "Will we die? Will we go crazy?"
"We already are crazy," Dag Tharp said softly.
"We can tolerate a certain amount of salt water," Lawler said, thinking of the amount he had consumed himself lately. But he wasn't going to say anything about that. "If we had any fresh water, we could actually stretch the supply by diluting it ten or fifteen per cent with ocean water and it wouldn't hurt us. In fact it would help us to replace the salt we're sweating out of ourselves all the time in this hot weather. But we can't live on straight sea water very long. Our bodies would manage to filter it and turn it into pure water, but our kidneys wouldn't be able to get rid of the salt buildup without pulling water out of other body tissues to do it. We'd dry up pretty fast. Fever, vomiting, delirium, death."
* * *
Dann Henders set up a row of little solar stills, stretching clear plastic over the mouths of pots partly filled with sea water. Each pot had a cup inside it, placed carefully to catch the drops of fresh water that condensed on the underside of the plastic. But that was a tortuous business. It seemed impossible to produce enough usable water this way to meet their needs.
"What if it doesn't rain soon?" Pilya Braun asked. "What are we going to do?"
Lawler gestured toward Father Quillan. "We could try praying," he said.
* * *
Late the following evening when the heat held them as tightly as a glove and the ship was standing almost perfectly still in the water, Lawler heard Henders and Tharp whispering in the radio room as he headed back to his cabin to go to sleep. There was something irritatingly abrasive about the scratchy sounds of their voices.
As Lawler halted in the passageway for a moment Onyos Felk came down the ladder and gave him a quick nod of greeting; then Felk went on to the radio room too. Lawler, pausing outside his cabin door, heard Felk say, "The doc's out here. You want me to ask him in?"
Lawler couldn't hear the reply. But it must have been affirmative, because Felk turned and beckoned to him and said, "Would you come over here for a minute, doc?"
"It's late, Onyos. What is it?"
"Just for a minute."
Tharp and Henders were sitting practically knee-to-knee in the tiny radio room with a guttering candle casting a sombre light between them. There was a flask of grapeweed brandy on the table, and two cups. Tharp ordinarily wasn't a drinker, Lawler remembered.
Henders said, "Some brandy, doc?"
"I don't think so, thanks."
"Everything going all right?"
"I'm tired," Lawler said, not very patiently. "What's up, Dann?"
"We've been talking about Delagard, Dag and I. And Onyos. Discussing this idiotic fucked-up mess of a voyage that he's dragged us off on. What do you think of him, doc?"
"Delagard?" Lawler shrugged. "You know what I think."
"We all know what all of us think. We've all known each other too goddamned long. But tell us anyway."
"A very determined man. Stubborn, strong, completely unscrupulous. Totally sure of himself."
"Crazy?"
"That I can't say."
"I bet you could," Dag Tharp put in. "You think he's out of his fucking head."
"That's very possible. Or then again, not. Sometimes it's not easy to tell the difference between singlemindedness and insanity. A lot of geniuses have seemed like madmen, in their times."
"You think he's a genius?" Henders asked.
"Not necessarily. But he's unusual, at least. I'm not in a position to say what goes on in his mind. He may well be crazy. But he can give you perfectly rational-sounding reasons for what he's doing, I'd be willing to bet. This Face of the Waters thing may make perfect sense to him."
Felk said, "Don't pretend to be so innocent, doc. Every lunatic thinks that his lunacy makes perfect sense. Isn't a man in the world who ever believed he was crazy."
"Do you admire Delagard?" Henders said to Lawler.
"Not particularly." Lawler shrugged. "He's got his strong points, you have to admit. He's a man of vision. I don't necessarily think his visions are very admirable ones."
"Do you like him?"
"No. Not in the slightest."
"You're straightforward on that, anyway."
"Look, is there a point to all this?" Lawler asked. "Because if you're simply having a good time sitting here over a bottle of brandy telling each other what a miserable bastard Delagard is, I'd just as soon go to bed, okay?"
"We're just trying to find out where you stand, doc," Dann Henders said. "Tell us, do you want the voyage to continue the way it's been going?"
"No."
"Well, what are you prepared to do to change things?"
"Is there anything we can do?"
"I asked you a question. Asking me a question back doesn't amount to an answer."
"You planning on a mutiny, are you?"
"Did I say that? I don't remember saying that, doc."
"A deaf man could hear you saying it."
"A mutiny," Henders said. "Well, now, what if some of us did try to take some active role in deciding which way the ship ought to be travelling. What would you say if that were to happen? What would you do?"
"It's a lousy idea, Dann."
"You think so, doc?"
"There was a time when I was just as eager as you are to make Delagard turn the ship around. Dag knows that. I spoke to him about it. Delagard was to be stopped, I told him. You remember that. Dag? But that was before the Wave brought us way the hell out here. Since then I've had plenty of time to think about it, and I've changed my mind."
"Why?"
"Three reasons. One is that this is Delagard's ship, for better or for worse, and I don't much like the notion of taking it away from him. A moral issue, you might say. You could justify doing it on the grounds that he's risking our lives without our consent, I suppose. But even so I don't think it's a smart idea. Delagard's too tricky. Too dangerous. Too strong. He's on guard all the time. And a lot of the others on board are loyal to him, or afraid of him, which amounts to the same thing. They won't help us. They're likely to help him. You try any funny stuff with him and you very likely will find yourself regretting it."
Henders' expression was a wintry one. "You said you had three reasons. That was two."
Lawler said, "The third is the thing that Onyos was talking about the other day. Even if you grabbed the ship, how would you make it take us back to Home Sea? Be realistic about it. There's no wind. We're running out of food and water faster than I want to think about. Unless we can somehow pick up a westerly wind, the best we can hope for at this point is to keep on heading toward the Face on the chance that we'll be able to reprovision ourselves when we get there."
Henders gave the mapkeeper a quizzical look. "You still feel that way, Onyos?"
"We're pretty far in, yes. And right now we do seem to be becalmed most of the time. So I suppose we really don't have a lot of choice but to continue on our present course."
"That's your opinion?" Henders asked.
"I suppose it is," said Felk.
"Continuing to follow a lunatic who's leading us toward a place we know nothing about? One which very likely is full of all sorts of dangers that we can't even begin to imagine?"
"I don't like that any more than you do. But like the doctor says, we need to be realistic. Of course, if the wind should change-"
"Right, Onyos. Or if angels should come down from the skies and bring some nice cool fresh water with them." There was a long prickly silence in the small cramped room. At length Henders looked up and said, "Okay, doc. This isn't accomplishing anything. And I don't want to take up any more of your time. We were just inviting you in for a friendly little drink, but I can see how tired you are. Good night, doc. Sleep well."
"Are you going to try it, Dann?"
"I don't see how that concerns you one way or another, doc."
"All right," Lawler said. "Good night."
"Onyos
"Whatever you want, Dann," Felk said.
The mapkeeper sounded as though he was ready to be convinced.
* * *
A bunch of fools, Lawler thought, as he went to his bunk. Playing at being mutineers. But he doubted very much that anything would come of it. Felk and Tharp were weaklings, and Henders couldn't deal with Delagard by himself. In the end nothing would be done, and the ship would stay on course for the Face. That seemed the likeliest outcome of all this planning and scheming.
Somewhere in the night Lawler heard noises from above, shouts, some heavy pounding, the sound of feet running across the deck. There was an angry yell, muffled by the deck planking above him but nevertheless clearly a cry of rage, and he knew that he had been wrong. They were doing it after all. He sat up, blinking. Without taking the time to dress, he rose and made his way into the passageway and up the ladder.
It was almost dawn. The sky was grey-black; the Cross was low in the sky, hanging in that weirdly askew fashion that was its way in these latitudes. A strange drama was being enacted on deck, near the fore hatch. Or was it a farce?
Two frantic figures were chasing each other around the open hatch, yelling and gesticulating as they ran. After a moment Lawler focused his sleep-blurred eyes and saw that they were Dann Henders and Nid Delagard. Henders was doing the chasing, Delagard the fleeing.
Henders had one of Kinverson's gaffs clutched in his hand like a spear. As he followed Delagard around the perimeter of the hatch he stabbed the air with the weapon again and again, with the clear intent of putting it through the ship-owner's back. There had already been at least one hit. Delagard's shirt was torn; Lawler saw a thin jagged line of blood seeping through near his right shoulder, like a red thread sewn into the fabric, widening with every moment.
But Henders was going it alone. Dag Tharp stood near the rail, goggle-eyed, motionless as a statue. Onyos Felk was close by him. In the rigging were Leo Martello and Pilya Braun, frozen also, looks of astonishment and awe on their faces.
"Dag!" Henders yelled. "For Christ's sake. Dag, where are you? Give me a hand with him, will you."
"I'm here-over here-" the radioman whispered, in a hoarse husky tone that could barely be heard five metres away. He stayed where he was.
"For Christ's sake," Henders said again, disgustedly. He shook his fist at Tharp and leaped wildly toward Delagard in a frantic lunging attempt at reaching him. But Delagard managed-only barely-to elude the sharp tip of the gaff. He looked back over his shoulder, cursing. His face glistened with sweat; his eyes were inflamed and bright with fury.
As Delagard passed near the foremast in his frenzied circular flight he looked up and called out in a whipcrack voice to Pilya, suspended just above him on the yard, "Help me! Fast! Your knife!"
Swiftly Pilya unfastened the scabbard that held the blade of sharpened bone she always wore strapped around her waist and tossed it, scabbard and all, to Delagard as he went by beneath her. He snapped it out of the air with a quick fierce swipe of his hand, pulled the blade from its holder, gripped its haft tightly in his hand. Then he swung around, unexpectedly striding straight toward the astounded Henders, who was plunging along behind him at a pace too swift to check. Henders ran right into him. Delagard brushed the long gaff to one side with a stiff, brusque motion of his forearm and came in underneath it, bringing his arm upward and sinking the blade to its hilt in Henders' throat.
Henders grunted and flung up his arms. He looked amazed. The gaff went flying aside. Delagard, embracing Henders now as though they were lovers, clamped his other hand to the back of the engineer's neck and with weird tenderness held him close up against him with the blade firmly rammed home.
Henders' eyes, wide and bulging, glistened like full moons in the grey of dawn. He made a thick sputtering sound and a spurt of dark blood shot from his mouth. His tongue came into view, swollen and lagging. Delagard held him upright, pressing hard.
Lawler found his voice, finally.
"Nid-my God, Nid, what have you done-"
"You want to be next, doc?" Delagard asked calmly. He pulled the blade out, giving it a savage twist as he withdrew it, and stepped back. A torrent of blood came springing forth once the knife was out. Henders' face had turned black. He took a shaky step, and another, like a sleepwalker. The look of astonishment still gleamed in his eyes.
Then he tottered and fell. Lawler knew he was dead before he reached the deck.
Pilya had come down from the rigging. Delagard tossed the blade across the planks to her. It landed at her feet. "Thanks," he said offhandedly. "I owe you one for that." Scooping Henders' body up as if it were weightless, one arm around the dead man's shoulders and the other under his legs, Delagard strode quickly toward the rail, lifted the body high over his head, and flung it into the sea as though it was garbage.
Tharp hadn't moved during the whole thing. Delagard went over to him and slapped him in the face, hard enough to send his head rocking back.
"You cowardly little fucker, Dag," Delagard said. "You didn't even have the guts to follow through on your own plot. I ought to throw you overboard too, but it isn't worth the effort."
"Nid… for God's sake, Nid…"
"Shut your mouth. Get out of my sight." Delagard wheeled around and glared at Felk. "What about you, Onyos? Were you part of this thing too?"
"Not me, Nid! I wouldn't! You know that!"
" 'Not me, Nid!' " Delagard mimicked savagely. "Cocksucker! You would have been if you'd had the guts. A coward from the start. And how about you, Lawler? Will you stitch me up, or are you part of this fucking conspiracy too? You weren't even here. What did you do, sleep late for your own mutiny?"
"I wasn't in it," said Lawler quietly. "It was a dumb idea, and I told them so."
"You knew, and you didn't warn me?"
"That's right, Nid."
"If you're not party to a mutiny, then it's your obligation to notify the captain of what's going on. Law of the sea. You didn't do that."
"That's right," Lawler said. "I didn't."
Delagard considered that for a moment. Then he shrugged and nodded. "All right, doc. I think I get your meaning." He looked around. "Somebody clean up the deck," he said. "I hate a messy ship." He gestured to Felk, who looked dazed. "Onyos, take the wheel, as long as you seem to be awake. I've got to get this cut fixed. Come on, doc. I guess I can trust you to stitch me up."
* * *
At midday a wind came up between one moment and the next, as if Henders' death had been a sacrifice to whatever gods ruled the weather on Hydros. In the vast quiet of the long calm there abruptly appeared the deep roaring of gusts that had travelled a long way: all the way from the pole, in fact, a sharp southerly blow, cold and crisp.
The sea grew high. The ship, stilled for so long, tumbled into a trough, heeled back, dropped into another. Then the sky darkened with a suddenness that was almost startling. The wind was bringing rain with it.
"Buckets!" Delagard bellowed. "Casks!"
No one needed to be urged. The watch below came awake in an instant and the deck was alive with busy hands. Anything that could hold water was set forth to catch it, not simply the usual jars and casks and pots, but also clean rags, blankets, clothes, whatever was absorbent and could be wrung out after the storm. It had been weeks since the last rainfall; it might be weeks until the next.
The rain was a distraction, easing the shock of Henders' abortive mutiny and violent death. Lawler, naked in the cool rain, rushing back and forth like everyone else to empty the smaller vessels into the larger storage containers, was grateful for it. The nightmare scene on deck had affected him in a wholly unexpected way, stripping him of layers of hard-won defences. It had been a long time since he had felt so naive, so callow. Spouting gouts of blood, raw torn flesh, even sudden death, they were all everyday things to him, part of his professional routine. He was accustomed to them; he took them casually. But a killing? He had nev
Archaic was the right word for it. The efficiency and indifference with which Delagard had rid himself of his pursuer had been positively medieval, if not downright prehistoric: a hand had risen up out of the shadowy past, a dark act out of mankind's primeval dawn had been reenacted on the deck of the Queen of Hydros this morning. Lawler would hardly have been more surprised if Earth itself had appeared suspended in the sky, hanging just above the masts with blood dripping from every teeming continent. So much for all those centuries of civilization. So much for the earnest common belief that all such ancient passions were extinct, that raw violence of that bloody kind had evolved out of the race.
The rainstorm was a welcome distraction, yes, as well as a much-needed source of water. It washed the deck clean of the stain of sin. What had happened here today was something Lawler would just as soon forget as quickly as he could.
4
In the night came troubling dreams, dreams filled not with murder but with powerful erotic passions.