Oceanic (58 page)

Then Carol, who was running the meeting, said, “Now Martin is going to give witness to the power of Beatrice in his life.”

Everyone applauded encouragingly. As I rose to my feet and stepped into the aisle, Daniel leaned toward Agnes and whispered sarcastically, “This should be good.”

I stood at the lectern and gave the talk I’d been rehearsing for days. Beatrice, I said, was beside me now whatever I did: whether I studied or worked, ate or swam, or just sat and watched the stars. When I woke in the morning and looked into my heart, She was there without fail, offering me strength and guidance. When I lay in bed at night, I feared nothing, because I knew She was watching over me. Before my Drowning, I’d been unsure of my faith, but now I’d never again be able to doubt that the Daughter of God had become flesh, and died, and conquered Death, because of Her great love for us.

It was all true, but even as I said these things I couldn’t get Daniel’s sarcastic words out of my mind. I glanced over at the row where I’d been sitting, at the people I’d traveled with. What did I have in common with them, really? Rachel and Bartholomew were married. Bartholomew and Daniel had studied together, and still played in the same dive-ball team. Daniel and Agnes were probably in love. And Daniel was my brother … but the only difference that seemed to make was the fact that he could belittle me far more efficiently than any stranger.

In the open prayer that followed, I paid no attention to the problems and blessings people were sharing with the group. I tried silently calling on Beatrice to dissolve the knot of anger in my heart. But I couldn’t do it; I’d turned too far away from Her.

When the meeting was over, and people started moving into the adjoining room to talk for a while, I hung back. When the others were out of sight I ducked into the corridor, and headed straight for the launch.

Daniel could get a ride home with his friends; it wasn’t far out of their way. I’d wait a short distance from the boat until he caught up; if my parents saw me arrive on my own I’d be in trouble. Daniel would be angry, of course, but he wouldn’t betray me.

Once I’d freed the launch from its dock, it knew exactly where to go: around the canal, back to the tunnel, out into the open sea. As I sped across the calm, dark water, I felt the presence of Beatrice returning, which seemed like a sign that She understood that I’d had to get away.

I leaned over and dipped my hand in the water, feeling the current the launch was generating by shuffling ions in and out of the cells of its skin. The outer hull glowed a phosphorescent blue, more to warn other vessels than to light the way. In the time of Beatrice, one of her followers had sat in the Immaterial City and designed this creature from scratch. It gave me a kind of vertigo, just imagining the things the Angels had known. I wasn’t sure why so much of it had been lost, but I wanted to rediscover it all. Even the Deep Church taught that there was nothing wrong with that, so long as we didn’t use it to try to become immortal again.

The monastery shrank to a blur of light on the horizon, and there was no other beacon visible on the water, but I could read the stars, and sense the field lines, so I knew the launch was heading in the right direction.

When I noticed a blue speck in the distance, it was clear that it wasn’t Daniel and the others chasing after me; it was coming from the wrong direction. As I watched the launch drawing nearer I grew anxious; if this was someone I knew, and I couldn’t come up with a good reason to be traveling alone, word would get back to my parents.

Before I could make out anyone on board, a voice shouted, “Can you help me? I’m lost!”

I thought for a while before replying. The voice sounded almost matter-of-fact, making light of this blunt admission of helplessness, but it was no joke. If you were sick, your diurnal sense and your field sense could both become scrambled, making the stars much harder to read. It had happened to me a couple of times, and it had been a horrible experience – even standing safely on the deck of our boat. This late at night, a launch with only its field sense to guide it could lose track of its position, especially if you were trying to take it somewhere it hadn’t been before.

I shouted back our coordinates, and the time. I was fairly confident that I had them down to the nearest hundred microradians, and few hundred tau.

“That can’t be right! Can I approach? Let our launches talk?”

I hesitated. It had been drummed into me for as long as I could remember that if I ever found myself alone on the water, I should give other vessels a wide berth unless I knew the people on board. But Beatrice was with me, and if someone needed help it was wrong to refuse them.

“All right!” I stopped dead, and waited for the stranger to close the gap. As the launch drew up beside me, I was surprised to see that the passenger was a young man. He looked about Bartholomew’s age, but he’d sounded much older.

We didn’t need to tell the launches what to do; proximity was enough to trigger a chemical exchange of information. The man said, “Out on your own?”

“I’m traveling with my brother and his friends. I just went ahead a bit.”

That made him smile. “Sent you on your way, did they? What do you think they’re getting up to, back there?” I didn’t reply; that was no way to talk about people you didn’t even know. The man scanned the horizon, then spread his arms in a gesture of sympathy. “You must be feeling left out.”

I shook my head. There was a pair of binoculars on the floor behind him; even before he’d called out for help, he could have seen that I was alone.

He jumped deftly between the launches, landing on the stern bench. I said, “There’s nothing to steal.” My skin was crawling, more with disbelief than fear. He was standing on the bench in the starlight, pulling a knife from his belt. The details – the pattern carved into the handle, the serrated edge of the blade – only made it seem more like a dream.

He coughed, suddenly nervous. “Just do what I tell you, and you won’t get hurt.”

I filled my lungs and shouted for help with all the strength I had; I knew there was no one in earshot, but I thought it might still frighten him off. He looked around, more startled than angry, as if he couldn’t quite believe I’d waste so much effort. I jumped backward, into the water. A moment later I heard him follow me.

I found the blue glow of the launches above me, then swam hard, down and away from them, without wasting time searching for his shadow. Blood was pounding in my ears, but I knew I was moving almost silently; however fast he was, in the darkness he could swim right past me without knowing it. If he didn’t catch me soon he’d probably return to the launch and wait to spot me when I came up for air. I had to surface far enough away to be invisible – even with the binoculars.

I was terrified that I’d feel a hand close around my ankle at any moment, but Beatrice was with me. As I swam, I thought back to my Drowning, and Her presence grew stronger than ever. When my lungs were almost bursting, She helped me to keep going, my limbs moving mechanically, blotches of light floating in front of my eyes. When I finally knew I had to surface, I turned face-up and ascended slowly, then lay on my back with only my mouth and nose above the water, refusing the temptation to stick my head up and look around.

I filled and emptied my lungs a few times, then dived again.

The fifth time I surfaced, I dared to look back. I couldn’t see either launch. I raised myself higher, then turned a full circle in case I’d grown disoriented, but nothing came into sight.

I checked the stars, and my field sense. The launches should
not
have been over the horizon. I trod water, riding the swell, and tried not to think about how tired I was. It was at least two milliradians to the nearest boat. Good swimmers – some younger than I was – competed in marathons over distances like that, but I’d never even aspired to such feats of endurance. Unprepared, in the middle of the night, I knew I wouldn’t make it.

If the man had given up on me, would he have taken our launch? When they cost so little, and the markings were so hard to change? That would be nothing but an admission of guilt.
So why couldn’t I see it?
Either he’d sent it on its way, or it had decided to return home itself.

I knew the path it would have taken; I would have seen it go by, if I’d been looking for it when I’d surfaced before. But I had no hope of catching it now.

I began to pray. I knew I’d been wrong to leave the others, but I asked for forgiveness, and felt it being granted. I watched the horizon almost calmly – smiling at the blue flashes of meteors burning up high above the ocean – certain that Beatrice would not abandon me.

I was still praying – treading water, shivering from the cool of the air – when a blue light appeared in the distance. It disappeared as the swell took me down again, but there was no mistaking it for a shooting star.
Was this Daniel and the others – or the stranger?
I didn’t have long to decide; if I wanted to get within earshot as they passed, I’d have to swim hard.

I closed my eyes and prayed for guidance.
Please Holy Beatrice, let me know.
Joy flooded through my mind, instantly: it was them, I was certain of it. I set off as fast as I could.

I started yelling before I could see how many passengers there were, but I knew Beatrice would never allow me to be mistaken. A flare shot up from the launch, revealing four figures standing side by side, scanning the water. I shouted with jubilation, and waved my arms. Someone finally spotted me, and they brought the launch around toward me. By the time I was on board I was so charged up on adrenaline and relief that I almost believed I could have dived back into the water and raced them home.

I thought Daniel would be angry, but when I described what had happened all he said was, “We’d better get moving.”

Agnes embraced me. Bartholomew gave me an almost respectful look, but Rachel muttered sourly, “You’re an idiot, Martin. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

I said, “I know.”

Our parents were standing on deck. The empty launch had arrived some time ago; they’d been about to set out to look for us. When the others had departed I began recounting everything again, this time trying to play down any element of danger.

Before I’d finished, my mother grabbed Daniel by the front of his shirt and started slapping him. “I trusted you with him!
You maniac!
I trusted you!” Daniel half raised his arm to block her, but then let it drop and just turned his face to the deck.

I burst into tears. “It was my fault!” Our parents never struck us; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

My father said soothingly, “Look … he’s home now. He’s safe. No one touched him.” He put an arm around my shoulders and asked warily, “That’s right, Martin, isn’t it?”

I nodded tearfully. This was worse than anything that had happened on the launch, or in the water; I felt a thousand times more helpless, a thousand times more like a child.

I said, “Beatrice was watching over me.”

My mother rolled her eyes and laughed wildly, letting go of Daniel’s shirt. “Beatrice?
Beatrice?
Don’t you know what could have happened to you? You’re too young to have given him what he wanted. He would have had to use the knife.”

The chill of my wet clothes seemed to penetrate deeper. I swayed unsteadily, but fought to stay upright. Then I whispered stubbornly, “Beatrice was there.”

My father said, “Go and get changed, or you’re going to freeze to death.”

I lay in bed listening to them shout at Daniel. When he finally came down the ladder I was so sick with shame that I wished I’d drowned.

He said, “Are you all right?”

There was nothing I could say. I couldn’t ask him to forgive me.

“Martin?” Daniel turned on the lamp. His face was streaked with tears; he laughed softly, wiping them away. “Fuck, you had me worried. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay.” That was it; no shouting, no recriminations. “Do you want to pray with me?”

We knelt side by side, praying for our parents to be at peace, praying for the man who’d tried to hurt me. I started trembling; everything was catching up with me. Suddenly, words began gushing from my mouth – words I neither recognized nor understood, though I knew I was praying for everything to be all right with Daniel, praying that our parents would stop blaming him for my stupidity.

The strange words kept flowing out of me, an incomprehensible torrent somehow imbued with everything I was feeling. I knew what was happening:
Beatrice had given me the Angels’ tongue.
We’d had to surrender all knowledge of it when we became flesh, but sometimes She granted people the ability to pray this way, because the language of the Angels could express things we could no longer put into words. Daniel had been able to do it ever since his Drowning, but it wasn’t something you could teach, or even something you could ask for.

When I finally stopped, my mind was racing. “Maybe Beatrice planned everything that happened tonight? Maybe She arranged it all, to lead up to this moment!”

Daniel shook his head, wincing slightly. “Don’t get carried away. You have the gift; just accept it.” He nudged me with his shoulder. “Now get into bed, before we’re both in more trouble.”

I lay awake almost until dawn, overwhelmed with happiness. Daniel had forgiven me. Beatrice had protected and blessed me. I felt no more shame, just humility and amazement. I knew I’d done nothing to deserve it, but my life was wrapped in the love of God.

3

According to the Scriptures, the oceans of Earth were storm-tossed, and filled with dangerous creatures. But on Covenant, the oceans were calm, and the Angels created nothing in the ecopoiesis that would harm their own mortal incarnations. The four continents and the four oceans were rendered equally hospitable, and just as women and men were made indistinguishable in the sight of God, so were Freelanders and Firmlanders. (Some commentators insisted that this was literally true: God chose to blind Herself to where we lived, and whether or not we’d been born with a penis. I thought that was a beautiful idea, even if I couldn’t quite grasp the logistics of it.)