Nowhere Land Read online

  It made Violet a little jealous. It occurred to her suddenly that she had formed no attachments to anyone here, not really. She should be close to her mother, but that was hopeless. 2Face was the right age and gender, but 2Face was much more like Wylson they should be mother and daughter. Or father and son, she added dryly.

  Tate? Well, Violet hadnt really spent any time with Tate, didnt really know her.

  Ill go, Violet said, surprising herself as well as everyone else.

  That silly dress nearly drowned you the last time, Wylson snapped.

  Yes, I know, Mother, I should be dressed like a man, Violet muttered. She slipped out of her dress, not an easy thing since it was sopping wet. She was rewarded with the sight of Jobs staring fixedly out at the water and a horrified MoSteel blushing bright red.

  Oh, for crying out loud, Mo, its no different than a two-piece bathing suit, Violet said.

  Uh-huh, he said in a strangled voice.

  Wylson sent her daughter a doubtful look, like she wasnt quite sure whether she was proud or concerned. Violet gave her nothing back.

  Okay, then, Wylson announced, Its MoSteel, 2Face, Tate, and Dallas.

  My name is Violet, she grated.

  Anyone know how to stop that ship and launch the boats? Burroway wondered.

  Didnt anyone read C.S. Forester or Patrick OBrian? Olga asked.

  Every word, Shy Hwang said with a grin. I know the names of everything. But I have no idea how to do anything.

  Its a machine, Jobs said, head cocked, gazing thoughtfully at the approaching ship. Its a beautiful machine, but its just a machine.

  MoSteel frowned. Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe you should come with us, Duck. All those ropes and stuff . . .

  Ill try not to drown, Jobs said.

  The ship drew closer, slowly, slowly but inexorably. It was tilted over in the breeze, sails filled, ropes drawn taut supporting the three masts, rows of gun ports closed. It would not hit the Dancer . But neither would it conveniently come to a stop alongside David and allow everyone to simply hop aboard.

  I guess we better get going. We have to get in front of it, MoSteel said.

  Violet stared at the expanse of water and remembered the paralyzing chill. If they didnt get aboard the ship, they would drown before they could get back.

  Stupid to volunteer? Probably.

  Bye, Violet said, not looking at her mother specifically.

  Good luck, honey.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN WE NEED TO SLOW THIS BIG GIRL DOWN.

  It was not easy.

  Twenty minutes hard swim, full tilt, the five of them going on sheer adrenaline. Then, waiting, treading water, exhausting themselves while the ship bore down on them.

  It had seemed to barely move relative to David s pedestal. But down here in the water it was like a tanker going by, high-walled, dark-hulled, crashing and wallowing through the waves.

  2Face waited with the others, worried by the way Jobss eyes kept rolling up in his head like he was about to fall asleep and by the eerie purple of Violets lips. Violet had violet lips, 2Face thought and didnt find it at all funny.

  She was annoyed by Yagos chattering complaints, and more annoyed by the fact that he really was a strong, competent swimmer, seemingly tireless. 2Face prided herself on her strength in the water. She was willing to admit MoSteel to equal status, but not Yago.

  There were, however, better things to worry about. Especially the fact that she couldnt seem to keep the feeling in her fingers.

  The ship had three masts and a very long bowsprit pointing up and ahead, like a unicorns horn. A massive anchor hung, well-secured by cables and pulleys, from the left side, the port side of the bow. That was going to be her way in. If she could grab it without being run down. If she could grab it with numb fingers and haul herself up on the anchors flukes and hold on as the ship continued to smash its way through the waves.

  It meant treading water right in front of the ship. Like standing on a train track and hoping to hop aboard the onrushing train before it killed you.

  Mo, she chattered. Why dont you and Violet try one side and Yago and Jobs try the other? She didnt want to split Jobs and MoSteel up, but Violet seemed to be in slightly worse shape than Jobs now, and she could count on MoSteel to try to save her.

  No one argued. No one was all that anxious to take her chosen position away from her. If she missed, shed be run down by the ship.

  They began to drift away in opposite directions, staying close enough to the path of the ship, they hoped, to grab onto a rope or whatever, and just far enough out to avoid being run down.

  2Face waited alone. The ship came on.

  Countdown.

  Closer.

  It was massive, huge, a gold-highlighted behemoth. And it was so, so much faster down here, right under the bow.

  2Face judged her moment, turned, and began to swim away from the ship. It was chasing her as she tried to match speed. The bow wave caught her and she rode it, arms windmilling wildly. The bow would crash through a wave and for a moment be exposed all the way down to the copper sheathing, then bottom out in the trough and nearly bury the anchor, before bobbing up to smash the next wave.

  2Face tried to time it but her brain was in slow motion. All the energy she had went into her limbs as she fought to gain speed.

  Then, all at once, she was under the water, swirling. A solid wall hit her so hard she bounced. Then it hit her again. The air was knocked from her lungs. She swallowed seawater and flailed madly. Her arms bruised against the rough oak of the anchors stock. She grabbed on and now the bow was rising, rising, and up she went, up into the sunlight.

  A massive rope cable led from the anchor through a round hole into the interior of the ship. Could she squeeze through that hawsehole?

  The wave caught her off guard and nearly plucked her off her perch. She was plunged underwater, held down there till her lungs were screaming.

  Then the elevator ride up and she could breathe. Breathed and scrambled, hand over hand, legs wrapped around the wire-brush texture of the massive rope cable. The hawsehole was just ahead.

  Breathe!

  Under the water, down and down, and all the while pushed and pummeled against the timbers of the bow, then up and up and move, move, move!

  Head into the hawsehole. Too tight. No, shed heard somewhere if you can get your head in a hole you can get all of you through.

  She was halfway in when the next wave shot her through like a champagne cork. She landed hard on a wooden grate. The water sluiced around her. She took one breath, two, then jumped up.

  The interior of the ship was dark, almost totally. She banged her toe into a bulkhead and instantly banged her head into a low timber.

  No time to do anything more than curse, she moved as fast as she could, looking for anything that would lead upward. Stairs. She ran up them, oblivious to danger, her brain swimming, eyes unfocused.

  Now, a broad staircase led up. Up she ran. Up again, past a hulking cannon.

  She emerged on deck, outside, sunlight and air. The boats were there, but way too big on closer inspection to just gaily toss over the side.

  Where were the others?

  2Face!

  It was MoSteel, just dragging himself up over the side.

  Mo!

  Violet, he gasped. Get a rope.

  2Face searched, found a neatly coiled rope, grabbed an end, and followed MoSteel at a run toward the stern. They had to run up a short set of stairs to a new deck.

  Give me the rope, MoSteel yelled. He tied it quickly around his waist. Wrap it around that cleat, itll give you leverage. Bye!

  MoSteel leaped off the railing and dropped into the sea. The water swept him back along the ship. Leaning over as far as she dared, 2Face saw Violet clinging desperately to a half-submerged gun port. The lid was slightly ajar and banging down on Violets already damaged hands.

  MoSteel wrapped an arm around her waist and pried her loose.

  2Face was suddenly aware of Jobs
and Yago standing beside her, drenched but unhurt.

  Grab on, she said harshly.

  The three of them hauled on MoSteel and helped hand him and Violet up over the side.

  MoSteel and Violet collapsed on the deck.

  Now what? 2Face wondered.

  We need to slow this big girl down, Yago said. He alone seemed to have all his wits about him. Everyone else was exhausted.

  Step on the brake, 2Face muttered.

  Jobss eyes opened. He gazed stupidly up at the sails. Then down the length of the ropes. The ropes there, the ones on pulleys? I think if we loosen them up, the sails will just kind of flap in the breeze. Thatll be a start. Kill momentum first.

  Yeah, no problem, 2Face muttered. Theres, like, a million sails.

  No, Jobs said. Not all the sails are up. Just the ones on this forward mast and the one up on top of the middle mast.

  MoSteel hauled himself up. Lets get to it.

  2Face saw David and all the anxious humans on the pedestal drift by. They waved. 2Face waved back.

  It took half an hour to loosen the sails and slow the ship.

  It took three hours of backbreaking labor to launch the smallest of the boats.

  It took another hour of rowing to reach the David .

  Night was falling by the time 2Face looked up and saw Burroway glaring down at her.

  Its about time! Burroway snapped.

  2Face was about to say something really, really cutting and clever, but she pitched facedown in the boat and did not wake up for many hours.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ANOTHER METAPHOR FOR LIFE.

  The U.S.S. Constitution. Old Ironsides.

  Theyd found the name on the stern in gold letters. It was the fabled frigate of the early U.S. Navy.

  There was no crew. There was food. Not good food, but food. And water. And wine.

  Mother had done her research well. She had reconstituted the U.S.S. Constitution with every rope and sail and barrel of rancid salted beef. Just no crew. Why no crew? That was a mystery. Had Mothers sources been inadequate?

  Shed surely used a painting for part of her source material, then perhaps a set of plans for the ship. Everything but people to steer and reef and swab the decks.

  It was unnerving, but then, Jobs admitted, hed seen crazier stuff since hed awakened from the big five-century sleep.

  The ship was just a machine. Definitely just a machine. Thats what he had said before hed seen it up close. Still, Jobs found it insanely hard to figure out. There were about a thousand ropes of differing diameters, all heading from the deck up to the stratosphere of sails. Ropes, sails, masts, yards, the rudder, they all worked together in some mysterious synthesis with the wind and the tide and the currents.

  It was like trying to rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time. Times ten.

  The ship should have had a crew of at least a hundred. It had a handful, and most of those were fairly useless. For running up and down the rigging, furling or unfurling sails, only MoSteel, 2Face, Roger Dodger, Edward, and Anamull were much use. Violet, Tate, D-Caf, and Billy were all willing, but not surefooted enough. Yago could be induced to help occasionally, but not often.

  Tamara would have been the best, of course, but the Marine sergeant was concerned with carrying her baby and ignoring everyone else. As for the baby, it had developed a habit of following Billy Weir with what should have been its eyes. It made Jobss flesh creep.

  Olga would pitch in readily where she could. Wylson would help out grudgingly, only after making it clear that she was in charge. The other adults, Shy Hwang, Burroway, and T. R., were basically useless, though Shy at least tried.

  No one but MoSteel readily accepted Jobss orders. Everything was questioned, everything disputed.

  Like trying to get a bunch of cats to drive a car, Jobs muttered.

  Nevertheless, he was forming a serious affection for the Constitution . It was an amazingly complex but fundamentally logical problem, and he did love a complex problem. The ship rose and fell, rocked back and forth, creaked and leaked, and all of it was data. The sails filled or slackened, the ropes went taut or slack, and all of it was part of the logic problem.

  Easy enough to run with the wind. But what if he needed to turn the ship? If he simply turned the rudder, the sails would turn as well till they lost the wind or were even reversed. Not like driving a car. The sails, too, had to be turned. There were long ropes that held the crossbeams, the yards, in a certain position. He could pull on the ropes and shift the position of the two sails currently deployed. Then the ship would lean way over, or begin pitching forward, or, if the rudder wasnt handled right, suddenly shoot up into the wind.

  It was a logic problem and one of the most beautiful creations Jobs had ever beheld. The ship managed to combine Jobss two great passions: poetry and problem-solving.

  It was so cool.

  It was just amazingly cool.

  Jobs had managed to raise just enough sail to give the ship headway. He had posted Yago and T.R. to man the wheel Yago liked the illusion of being in control. Olga and Burroway were down in the holds looking for food and water and anything else that might be useful. Shy claimed to be able to cook, so he was in the galley with Violet, doing what he could to produce an actual hot meal, the first in forever.

  And up in the rigging, a hundred feet or so above the deck, MoSteel was playing like a young monkey in need of a tranquilizer. Edward and Roger Dodger were there, too, racing up and down the ropes, enjoying themselves.

  Billy Weir stood with his back against a rail and looked up at them. MoSteel let loose a whoop of insane laughter and Billy smiled for the first time in Jobss memory.

  Violet appeared through a hatchway. She was carrying two mugs in her four-fingered hand, using the other hand to hold onto anything that would give her support.

  Hey, she said. You drink coffee?

  Never used to, Jobs admitted. But I just started.

  He took the cup. The smell caught him unprepared. In a flash he was home, back on Earth, back in Monterey in his kitchen and it was morning and his father was grumpy and his mother was asking everyone if theyd taken their vitamins and Edward was cranking the volume up on the TV, watching cartoons, and Jobs was pouring himself a big bowl of cereal and wondering if hed forgotten to do any homework.

  Jobs took a shaky breath.

  Violet nodded. Its the smell, she said. Its very evocative.

  Jobs nodded. Yeah.

  Its probably not helpful to think of all the things weve lost. Coffee being just one. Chocolate. Ice-cold milk. Our dignity.

  Jobs smiled. You havent lost your dignity, Miss Blake. He sipped the coffee. It tastes like coffee. Mother must have re-created the chemical formula.

  She created beans. We had to grind them up. Were hoping Mother has some idea what beef tastes like, too. Mr. Hwang is cooking a stew.

  My God, is that coffee? Olga moaned, approaching like a zombie chasing fresh meat.

  Theres a whole big pot down in the galley, Violet said. Just go down these steps and

  Ill follow the smell, Olga assured her.

  Violet pointed with her mug. Thats Picassos horse. Its in Chicago. The real one. I mean, it was. Back when there was a Chicago.

  Jobs nodded. The statue was as big as all the weird statuary theyd passed through, more abstract than many, less creepy than the Sphinx theyd drifted past.

  This is really quite amazing, Violet said. You realize that if we could control Mother, or at least communicate with Mother, she could create an absolute fantasy world for us. She could re-create Earth, I suppose. Or a version of it.

  Only with Riders and Blue Meanies, Jobs noted. And maybe others, too. Yeah, its an amazing ship. Hard to remember sometimes thats all it is, a ship. The illusion is so perfect.

  Can you steer this ship?

  He shrugged. Steer it where? Wylson . . . I mean, your mom, she hasnt exactly said where I should head.

  She doesnt know. And she cant admit she doesnt know. I
guess no one knows. She shifted her gaze to look at Tamara and the baby. Or at least, if someone knows, that someone isnt telling the rest of us.

  Jobs nodded. In answer to your question, no, I cant really steer. I mean, a little left, a little right, I can avoid running into the statues. But this ship should be able to move not just with the wind, but against the wind, or at an angle to the wind, anyway. I think I get the theory, but it would take a lot more people than we have. And if theres a storm . . . Im worried about that. The wind is picking up again.

  Another metaphor for life, Violet said dryly. We can steer, but only a little, and only until a storm blows. Were in partial control of a ship that is, itself, inside of a much larger ship over which we have no control. I wonder if Mother is some sort of philosophy teacher.

  Hey! Down on deck there! Ahoy! MoSteel yelled down from the lofty heights.

  Ahoy, Jobs repeated with a wry look. Ahoy back at you! he yelled.

  Look up ahead, Duck, MoSteel yelled down. Theres some kind of statue, but it looks different.

  Okay, Jobs replied, not terribly interested.

  Hey, Jobs, man. I think theres Meanies flying all around it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN I THINK THATS COMING THIS WAY.

  Wylson came up on deck in response to the shouts. Everyone was staring forward with an expression of concern. She noticed that Jobs was looking the other way, back.

  Ahead, a statue like nothing Wylson had ever seen. It might have been a head of some sort, but nothing human, that was for sure. It seemed taller than the other eerie statues theyd passed. Taller, broader, in some way more solid and substantial. There was a sense of age to the object, a sense of age that had never been a feature of the other statues, even those meant to represent creations a thousand years old or older.

  There was a battle going on around the statue. Blue Meanies, without a doubt. Their blue Mylar suits gleamed and flashed in the sunlight. Their hind legs glowed red where the rocket exhaust blazed.