Loka (The Alloy Era), page 26
We hung in the water, suspended. In addition to the breathers and dive vests, we carried small lanterns with internal mirrors to illuminate anything that seemed interesting. Halli trained theirs toward the atoll. I spotted the long face of an eel before it pulled back into its cave. A large round shadow swam above me, and one oblong flipper passed through the beam of my light. A sea turtle!
Startled, I reached out and grabbed Halli’s shoulder. They turned, waved at the turtle, and took me by the hand. As our bare skin met, I felt a spark of happiness. I held tight as we swam forward into the dark waters, away from the eyes of the world, and trusted Halli to guide me. The world of the surface disappeared from my thoughts, along with all concerns for the future.
DAY 118
We passed the boundary of Loka on the third day out of Hawai’i, and four days later, we crossed the equator for the first time. Rune made us lemonade to celebrate, and we raised our glasses for a double toast over dinner. Not only had we checked off an important requirement for the Anthro Challenge, but Somya could walk without pain. They had climbed down into the cabin earlier that day.
The wind picked up after our meal, and Halli supervised while I let the Svapna heel to a forty-five-degree angle for the last hour of their shift. Rune had gone to bed a little while earlier, but he gave us his blessing, saying that he would use a hammock so that the conditions didn’t bother his sleep. After a couple of hours, Halli went off duty and Somya took a shift for the first time on the Pacific.
“I’ve got my sea legs back,” Somya crowed.
I laughed and eased up on the sails. The two of us lacked the skill and experience of Halli and Rune, so I let the boat resume a more upright stance. The wind had grown relentless, gusting to thirty knots, and clouds began to stream across the stars.
I watched the barometer drop and warned Somya. “I think we’re heading into a storm. We need to change course.”
We reefed both sails and tried to get ahead of the low-pressure system, like we had on the way to Nitaynoa. After half an hour of bearing away, we failed to find calmer conditions. In the moonless night, we could only see as far as the circle illuminated by our bow light. Walls of gleaming onyx loomed over us as we crested wave after wave. The boat rose and fell with sharp lurches. I guessed that the swells had risen to at least four meters, maybe five. The wind battered the sails, which were already down to a third of their full height.
Somya yelled something that I could barely hear over the noise. I assumed they were telling me that we should take the sails down fully. I agreed and grabbed a harness from its storage bin. I slipped it on, clipped myself to the deck rails, and took the jib down. Somya did their best to steer into the barely visible waves, but the deck pitched and rolled under my feet. Before dealing with the main, I staggered back to the bin and pulled out a second harness.
“Put this on,” I shouted and thrust it at Somya.
The wheel was an angry creature that fought their grasp. I left them to battle it and took down the main sail.
I returned to their side and yelled into their ear, “I’ll go get Halli.”
Somya nodded. At least it wasn’t raining. Without the sails, the ocean would take us where it willed. I unclipped my harness and pushed my way through the cabin door, holding on to the ladder rails with a death grip. The door swung into my shoulder with a crack. I winced and latched it closed. Halli and Rune stood over a table looking at a print map that showed our recent positions and headings. The sea roared as loudly below as it had above. I lurched over to them.
“We took down the sails,” I said. “Can’t see a thing out there. What should we do?”
“We’ll have to ride out the storm,” Rune said. “Drop the sea anchor.”
“I’m not sure how—”
“I’ll do it,” Halli said.
I followed Halli up the ladder because I wanted to learn. The gale tore at me as soon as I stepped through the cabin door. I grabbed my harness line and clipped on. Through squinted eyes, I watched Halli flip two switches. Under my feet, a motor rumbled to life, winching the anchor down, I presumed.
Rune braced against the cabin doorway and peered up. The clouds had thickened. Stars shone through a countable number of gaps. The Svapna tipped from side to side like a child’s toy. Halli kept a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. Somya dropped to their knees on a port-side bench and threw up over the railing. A whooshing noise came from the same direction, and the rest of us turned toward it.
A wall of glossy black rushed at the side of the boat.
“Som!” I cried in warning.
The rogue wave crashed into the Svapna and sent it careening to one side. I fell backward. My tailbone hit the deck with a sharp crack. A body slammed into mine. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around it, and we slid until the clip line yanked me to a stop. My arms strained around the bony frame—Somya.
The water receded, and the boat returned to a more vertical position. That was a knockdown, whispered a voice in my head—a term we’d learned from Isin back on the Zephyros that meant a sail or mast had touched the water. We hadn’t practiced dealing with one because Isin thought we’d never need to. I pushed dripping hair from my eyes and looked around. The cabin door flapped. The steering wheel spun freely. Rune and Halli were nowhere in sight.
Somya crawled out of my arms. A hole gaped in their harness where the clip line had torn free.
“Don’t!” I yelled. I grabbed at their arm and pointed at their torso. “You’re not attached to the boat anymore.”
They turned. Their eyes gleamed white and round. I had never seen such terror on Somya’s expression, not even at the Euphrates.
“Go below!” I pointed at the door.
Somya nodded. We lurched upright, leaning upon each other for balance, and I helped guide them to the doorway.
“Rune? Halli?” I called down as Somya climbed down. “Are you all right?”
“Here,” a voice answered—Rune. “Bumped my head, but I feel okay. Watch your step when you come down. It’s a mess.”
Water reflected the dim glow of the bioluminescent lighting in the cabin. Somya staggered as they stepped off the ladder and splashed onto their knees. Paasha warbled in distress from the bed at the bow.
“We’ll have to pump this place out,” Rune said. He peered up at me as he helped Somya up. “Where’s Halli?”
“I thought they were down here,” I said.
Rune’s expression told me everything I needed to know. With a set jaw, he climbed toward me.
“Get me a harness,” Rune said, one hand clutching the doorframe.
I moved cautiously to the storage bin, making sure my clip stayed secure, though after seeing Somya’s harness, I knew I couldn’t count on it to save me if we were knocked down again. Rune waited at the top of the stairs until I handed him the gear. I moved to the starboard side and worked my way along the railing, searching the water. A voice in my head said it was impossible. Look at those waves. You’ll never find Halli in that. I ignored it and headed toward the bow. From the corner of my eye, I saw Rune do the same from the other side.
The Svapna heaved under our feet. We had given up on trying to steer. Perhaps the rogue wave had damaged the rudder. We wouldn’t know until we’d passed through the storm. Rune’s hand fell on my shoulder. He turned me to face him and shook his head. He gestured to go back to the cabin.
I repeated the painstaking walk aft. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sea. Just in case. My stomach hardened to stone. Rune stood at the stern with a lamp held aloft like a prayer.
Could we get the alloys to help us? Nothing mattered more at that moment—not the Anthro Challenge, not exile reform, not Meru—nothing except rescuing Halli.
I put my mouth close to Rune’s ear. “Can we get network access? Call for help?”
And then I remembered that we were in the Out of Bounds. Even if we could find a connection in this storm, would they come?
Rune turned toward the cabin door without a reply. Next to the door, the round life buoy hung like an empty promise. I flung it out behind the boat in an act of desperation and hope. Rune nodded and motioned me down the ladder. He followed and latched the door behind him.
Two grim expressions bore into me in the dim glow. Seawater lapped at my ankles. In the background, the bilge pump wheezed, and the Svapna kept up a steady chorus of creaks, groans, and judders.
Rune took my hands in his. The warmth of his fingers contrasted with my chilled ones.
“We could probably get network access,” Rune said, “but even a watercrafter would struggle to swim in these conditions. By the time they got here . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Somya let out a choked sound of denial. I freed myself from Rune’s gentle grasp and sat on a bunk. I should have felt a tempest inside me, with ten times the rage of the one outside, but all sensation had fled.
Rune looked as if he were going to be sick. He had an arm around Somya, whose shoulders shook with quiet sobs. Something nudged at my foot. I looked down and saw the green sketchbook. It had flipped open to a water-logged drawing of a pelican. I picked it up, closed it, and held it against my stomach.
Halli couldn’t have disappeared. Not really. They would step through the cabin door at any moment with a mild expression and chide us for our distress. Or maybe they had grabbed a breather before being washed overboard. They could ride out the storm underwater. Maybe they were swimming beneath the Svapna at that very moment. It would explain why we saw no sign of them. They would come aboard in the morning, when the sun shone and the Pacific lived up to its name once more.
The breathers are inside a latched storage bin, said a traitorous voice in my head. Even if Halli had thought to grab one, the wave passed in seconds. They could’ve knocked their head on a railing as they went over. An unconscious person can’t swim. I told the voice to shut up. I wouldn’t give up on Halli. I couldn’t.
DAY 119
The rain ended overnight, and dawn brought low clouds and a steady breeze. The voracious waves of the previous night subsided and left behind a messy gray churn with excellent visibility. Beams of sunlight broke through the overcast sky like spotlights. I wanted one of them to reveal a small figure clinging to the life buoy, but no miracles occurred. Halli did not appear. Instead, an isolated mass of white clouds rose on the horizon—a sign of land.
The rudder had taken damage, along with the boom and the freshwater filter. Somya and I helped Rune with makeshift repairs, enough that we could steer our way to shore. We worked in grim, monochromatic silence. Halli’s loss had leached all color and muted all sound, and yet somehow, impossibly, we had to live. My mind insisted on seeing them everywhere on deck, a ghost more solid than reality. A thousand whys and what-ifs overflowed my thoughts, and I kept telling myself to focus on the task at hand. Sometimes it worked, but more often I would realize after a few minutes that I’d frozen while holding a tool, lost in a black hole of thoughts. I’d catch Somya and Rune in similar positions of stillness.
We eventually figured out that the storm had thrown us off course only slightly, putting us less than half a day behind schedule. We arrived at Arariki, a small island in the middle of the Pacific. The lone human outpost had a tiny pier with a cluster of homes that barely constituted a village. Rune went ashore first, and nobody mentioned anything about the show or the pledge or the protest, so Somya and I followed to help him. We stocked up with some jugs of fresh water, fruit, and coconuts. In exchange, we left a few items of clothing that we didn’t need. Rune insisted that Somya and I eat. I forced myself to chew and swallow, but I tasted none of it. After a while, I noticed that Rune didn’t touch any of the food himself.
I overheard him telling a few of the residents about Halli and how to reach Rune or Halli’s family if they came across anything. The listeners’ faces wrinkled with sympathy, but they offered no words of assurance. The storm had flooded the island and brought damage with its winds. They didn’t say it out loud, but it was clear they didn’t think anyone could have survived it.
I didn’t see a single alloy anywhere, not even in the ocean. Would they have come to help if we had called them the night before? Life in the OOB was risky. Everyone knew that. Unlike exile in space, where other alloys would take care of you, on Earth, you had no guarantees outside the boundaries of Loka. Maybe they wouldn’t have endangered themselves to save a lone human washed away during a voluntary activity.
We gathered natural materials that would help repair the Svapna, even if it meant cutting down trees. We had arrived at a place so remote that the people relied on skills and ways of life from the Human Era. Residents had more leeway to use the land as they wanted. Rune seemed familiar with the lack of constraints, but he moved as if he felt the weight of his years in every motion. He gave instructions to me and Somya, and we did as he asked. We worked until nearly sunset.
“Enough,” Rune finally said.
He carried a basket of flowers and led us to the far side of the breakwater. Waves lapped at the stones as gently as Paasha’s tongue. You would never know that a ferocious storm had blown through less than a day earlier.
“It’s time we acknowledge Halli’s death,” Rune said.
“No,” I whispered. The sea breeze snatched the word away.
Rune’s lined face sagged further. “I’m sorry. I had hoped”—his voice broke—“I hoped that Halli would take the helm of the Svapna in the coming years. They were one of the kindest and cleverest sailors I have had the privilege of knowing, and their absence leaves a void in my heart.” He flung a handful of flowers into the sea.
“They were my friend,” Somya said. Tears trickled from their eyes. “They taught me to sail and dive, and they cooked excellent fish.”
Somya gave their offering to the water and passed me the basket. I didn’t want it, but I took it anyway. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t cry. I felt numb and blank and empty. Somya’s arm wrapped around my shoulder. Their gaze, like Rune’s, was not on me but fixed to the horizon.
I opened my mouth. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t done the Anthro Challenge, if I hadn’t wanted to avoid Meru so badly, none of this would’ve happened. Halli would still be alive.”
“I agreed to the challenge, too,” Somya said.
“And Halli was my responsibility,” Rune added. “I should’ve come up on deck with them. I thought I’d taught them well enough, but the fact that they didn’t use a harness—I failed.” After a few seconds of silence, he sighed. “Accidents happen, even in Loka, but especially here in the OOB. It’s part of life. We can spend our days in regret and what-ifs, blaming ourselves for everything we could have done differently, but that won’t bring Halli back to us.” He cupped my chin and gently turned my head to face him. “They would not want you to spend your time on self-reproach. The best way to honor Halli’s memory is to get back on the sea, to keep sailing, and to finish the challenge.”
I heard Rune’s words, but I couldn’t feel them. I grasped the remaining flowers in the basket, cast them into the waves, and watched them disappear.
That night, Somya and I shared the double-wide bed in the bow. Rune took a hammock. I awoke from a deep sleep with my heart pounding. I sat upright and peered around, but I saw nothing. After a few seconds of stillness, I heard a low moan. Somya slumbered quietly beside me, so I knew it must have come from Rune. I considered whether to go to him. He’d known Halli a lot longer than I had. What comfort could I give?
I heard the telltale creak of wood followed by the click of the cabin door. I scooted out of the bed and stuck my head into the darkness of the cabin. Rune had left. Had he heard me? Maybe he was avoiding us, trying to look strong so we wouldn’t worry.
“Aks?” Somya said softly from behind me. “Everything okay?”
“Nothing’s okay.”
“Yeah.” After a minute, Somya spoke again. “Was there—did you and Halli—I mean, were you more than friends?”
I let my phores do the talking in the dark.
“I’m sorry,” Somya whispered.
And somehow that was enough. The tears began as a trickle and grew to a flood. Somya wrapped their arms around me as I shook with sobs so violent, I thought I might vomit.
I had never experienced true grief before then. My mother had. Her best friend, Sunanda, had died when I was eight years old. I hadn’t known what to do with my mother’s anguish, but I could recall the first three or four days after the funeral—her frequent crying, the long hours in bed, my maker sitting by her side and holding her hand, the pain crisis that followed a couple of weeks later.
“Me too,” Somya said.
We sat that way until fatigue overwhelmed the waves of emotion. My breathing slowed. We lay back down in wordless agreement, and Somya draped their arm over me as they had during our sleepovers in Chedi. Somehow, I would have to get up in the morning and keep moving forward, even though I wanted the world to stop. When I closed my eyes, I saw that moment—Halli fighting the steering wheel, the rogue wave crashing over us. My body shuddered. Somya hugged me closer. The images played over and over in my head while sleep receded into the horizon. I wondered if I would ever sleep again.
DAY 124
We pushed on from Arariki the day after we finished our repairs. We headed south toward Vanua Levu, the first major island back inside the bounds of Loka. The Svapna held together. We hadn’t mended the boat so much as cobbled together solutions to keep it going. I felt the same way—on the brink of falling apart and yet moving forward. The smaller OOB Pacific islands used old methods of shipbuilding. They didn’t have replacement parts for the Svapna, nor could they produce them. Rune thought the odds of finding what we needed on Vanua Levu were slim, but it was the most populated island in the area and a destination for people sailing from Australia, so we had a better chance there than anywhere else.
