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On a blustery sundrenched day in April, the good ship Titania set sail for destinations far flung.
Jack Dawson was not on the ship.
As the Titania furled her solar sails, and as the crowds on the cosmic quay hurled banners and confetti, Jack Dawson was running along the wharf, shouting, "Stop! Stop! Shit." He stopped, hands on knees, and gasped. His left hand curled around the silver-coated chip that he'd won off the Swedes in the pub.
It had been a daring gamble. Jack Dawson liked daring gambles. Jack liked to have fun and while he was having fun, he liked to win. He liked to charm people and he liked not so much to trick people but to unleash a charm offensive so potent that it put the other party on their backfoot, lowered their defenses and allowed him to exploit moments of inattention and jollity.
And luck. There was a hefty dose of luck involved, always.
Jack Dawson had no money but he was born with a golden spoon of good fortune in his mouth.
Except now his good fortune had run out. He had won, of all wonderful things, a chip that was a fare on the Empyreal Space Schooner Titania. It was a one-way voyage, no return, but Jack wasn't planning on returning. Or rather, he did want to return but he wasn't going to plan it. Jack didn't generally plan life. He trusted that life would take care of itself. And it always did.
Except now he'd missed the damned ship.
Jack had been on Earth for two solar years now, bumming across the European continent. He'd ended up in Paree, city of artists, dreamers and wild women. Wild men, too, for that matter. Jack's sketchbook was full of it all, the city, the dreams, the women. He'd come to Southampton on a whim, because Fabrizio had wanted to go. He'd met Fabrizio in Napoli. They'd hit it off straight away and been travel companions since, room mates in Paree, trip mates across the Canal. Fabrizio had plumped Jack for stories of Newmerica, and it was Fabrizio who'd found out about this newfangled, super-speedy, titanium-coated ship that could make the voyage to the new worlds in record time.
They could never afford it, of course. By the time they reached portside, Jack had all of ten eurobucks in his pocket, and Fabrizio had a button and a prayer. But they could loiter on the quay; they could mingle with the crowds; they could smell the copper and pepper off the ship's flanks; they could point out her railings and portholes and airlocks; they could evade porters and cart mules and cranes hauling crates; and they could stumble across that pub at the end of the wharf and across the poker game going on inside it.
Jack's hair was damp and flopped into his eyes. He blew it away and stared with disbelief and with smarting eyes at the departing Titania.
She looked magnificent in the late afternoon sun. Her titanium flanks were bathed in rosy light. Her triple funnels left long plumes of iridescence behind them. Jack didn't know what caused them nor what they were made of but the plumes were ethereal against the rosy-blue heavens.
And so far away from him.
He pressed his hand against his chest and felt for the chip. The Swedes with their cards, what merry sorts they'd been. And Fabrizio with his bad fool hands, what a lark. On the table between them, those two silver chips: two tickets to home and adventure. One of the Swedes was an open book, and after the jokes and the banter and the several pints of lager, Jack had clocked the other one's tell. In fact, he'd charmed that tell right out of the fellow, and when the right moment had come, Jack had called the Swede's bluff, and the tickets were theirs!
Fabrizio had rushed off to the ship right away. Jack had thrown back his head and laughed and cried, "Be right with you", and then, fool that he was, he'd looked back at his adversary, the Swede with that tiny tell, a shit hot tell, if truth be known. The whole card game through, there had been this undertone, and Jack couldn't help himself. He wanted to test it. He wanted to taste it.
Jack was not good at resisting adventure. It was, after all, what had got him to where he was now.
And the Swede, dark-eyed, with a shock of blonde hair and a bony adam's apple, had got up, as if to leave. And Jack had got up, as if to follow. And at this very moment, as Jack brushed the perspiration from his brow, Fabrizio was probably settling into his berth and wondering where his shipmate was. Up until twenty minutes ago, his shipmate had been held flat against the walls of the gents' cubicle at the Star and Comet, his palms flat against the tiles, his woollen trousers pooling around his ankles, and the dark-eyed Swede hilt-deep inside him.
"Sure you want to go?" the Swede had groaned, his fingers hot against Jack's hips.
"Course," Jack had panted. "Don't stop, you bastard."
"You know it's bloody dangerous out there. Cosmic flares. Space pirates."
"Cool," Jack had bitten out. "Now fuck me, you lightweight."
This was why Jack was late. This was why Jack was still somewhat wobbly on his legs as he stumbled along the jetty and wrinkled his forehead at the departing ship. This was why he at first did not even notice the quayside commotion. Until it was more or less upon him.
"Oi, look out where you go," came a male voice, and Jack found himself shoved so roughly aside that he almost dropped his duffel bag. There was something familiar about that voice, something about that rough hand against his shoulder. He looked around but the man had passed from view.
A few yards ahead, a narrow canyon opened up between two high stacks of crates. Jack peered around the corner.
"I knew it," he murmured to himself.
It was the Swede. He'd donned a broad-brimmed hat, pulled deep down over his nose, and he'd thrown on a scuffed leather coat. Jack was just about to hail him when a man entered the canyon from the other side.
This man was handsomely dressed, in a three-piece suit, smart bowler hat and neatly-pinned tie. A fob chain peeped from his waistcoat pocket. A vermilion mask obscured his face.
Jack withdrew out of sight but he could hear both the men's voices, low and urgent at first, then more loudly and high-pitched, the Swede's: "But he has the ticket! I could not get it back from him, even not in the toilet!" Ah, so that's what that had been about. Jack grinned to himself and patted his inside pocket where the chip securely resided. Then he heard a thump, and a cry of pain, and the slow drawl of a voice saying, "You fucking fool."
Jack tiptoed away. That other man had sounded right angry, and then Jack thought of Fabrizio, how Fabrizio would now be feeling, without Jack at his side, and he almost ran face-first into the winged hood figurine of a Rolls.
The chauffeur honked Jack out of the way. A procession of other vehicles drew up and screeched to a halt.
A car door opened and a person stepped out.
Black three-strap sandal boots. A kid-leather gloved hand. Slim fingers around the ebony knob of a lilac parasol. A tightly-belted hobble dress. A purple hat, as large and round as a millwheel, trimmed with an enormous bow.
"Excuse me," the woman said and strode past him. Her voice rolled in the rich cadence of the New Worlds.
"My pleasure," said Jack, emphasising his own Red Stone drawl, and tipped his cap to her.
The woman's gaze briefly met his, flitted up and down his person, then veered into the distance. "Careful with the paintings!" she called out.
Paintings? Jack noticed two porters who manoeuvred a number of large flat wooden cases from the back of a vehicle. They piled them onto the flag stones, next to a heap of band boxes, brass-handled trunks, leather portmanteaux, suede valises, bags and sacks. Jack snorted and clutched his own battered kit bag.
Several more persons spilled out of the car: a stern-faced lady of middling age, a woman in a maid's bonnet, a suited man with a vigilant face. The lady stepped past Jack without so much as a glance. Her clothes left a scent of lavender and camphor on the air. Her voice when she spoke was rich with money.
"Rose," she said. "Didn't Cal say he'd meet us here?" She looked around, tugging at her gloves.
"Yes, mother, he'll be here somewhere," said the one called Rose with a distracted air, and then shouted again, in the direction of the porters, "No, no, hold them by their edges! They are fragile!"
"Sweetpea," came a male voice, deep, smooth, confident. "Leave your trinkets. The men will see to them."
Jack whirled around. There was no doubt about. This new arrival, this man in a three-piece suit, with his tie pin and walking stick, hatless now, with dark hair shining with brilliantine and combed into a sharp side parting, was the same man who had spoken to the Swede in the canyon. Now that he could see his face, Jack noticed it was olive-skinned, heavy-lidded and disdainful.
Jack's eyes swept down to the man's knuckles but they were cased in black leather gloves.
"Oh, there you are," said the stern-faced lady. "We were wondering where you'd got to." She laughed a self-conscious tinkle of a laugh.
"Just some business I had to attend to." The three-piece man took out his fob, flipped it open and glanced at it. He turned to the one with the vigilant face. "Lovejoy," he said. "Slight hiccup but no matter." Then he came close to the woman called Rose and put his hand on her lower back. Was it only Jack who noticed how that woman twisted away from his touch and out of his reach?
The disdainful man and the stern-faced lady swept past but the woman Rose didn't follow them. She continued to command the porters. "Over there, thank you. No, not on top of one another; lean them side by side. Sorry, that's the Picasso, that needs to go into the cabin with me."
"Excuse me, miss." Jack cleared his throat. "Are those paintings?"
She flicked an irritated gaze at him. "What?"
"As it happens, I'm an artist myself."
She stopped to look at him. "Well, are you now?" Her skin was as smooth and clear as alabaster. Autumn-coloured ringlets crept out from under her hat. But she was already turning away from him again and addressing the porters. "The ones marked DWB are to go in the DeWitt Bukater staterooms, the rest into the hold."
Jack forged on. "Miss, did I hear you say Picasso?"
The woman stopped. "I'm sorry, do you know that artist?"
"Pablo Picasso? Sure."
She touched a gloved finger to her throat and took a step closer. At this distance, Jack could see the beauty mark on her cheek, the moisture on her lower lip, the star-shaped spark of her irises. "How," she said and cleared her throat. "How do you know of Picasso?"
"As I said, I'm an artist. Arrived from Paree only a couple of days ago. I know Picasso, Braque, Madame Morisot, Mistress Mary Cassatt."
"I... really? That's quite remarkable. I have works by all of those."
Jack doffed his cap. "Jack Dawson, by the way. At your service."
"Well, Jack... Mister Dawson." She held out a stiff arm. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Jack gripped her hand, perhaps a tad too forcefully because he felt her fingers twitch within his grasp, the kid leather smooth and warm. "It's an honour," he said. "It's nice to meet a fellow New American out here on the Old World."
She withdrew her hand and shook her head. "How do you know where I'm from?"
"That's not hard. The accent, you see. Nuova Philadelphia, I reckon?"
"Why, that's very astute, Mister Dawson."
"Call me Jack. Please."
"Rose!" came a voice behind them. "What's keeping you?"
"I'll be right there, mother." She adjusted her hat. "Perhaps we might see each other again aboard the ship, Jack?"
"The ship? Are you sailing on the Titania?"
"Of course." Her parasol's furule made clicking sounds on the ground. "The pilot leaves in a quarter."
"The pilot?" Jack's heart leaped.
"We always take the pilot shuttle," she said as she moved away. "It's so much more convenient, don't you find?"
"I do!" cried Jack. "I do find it so much more convenient!" He hurried up the ramp after her.
She blinked her eyes at a scanner and disappeared inside the vessel. An auto-barrier wooshed shut and stopped Jack in his tracks. A light flashed and a display informed him of the price for shuttle services. It was exorbitant.
"Aw, c'mon," said Jack. But automated machines were, alas, impervious to his charms and to any amount of pleading in general. Jack tried ducking underneath the barrier but a laser beam shot out and prevented ingress. "Look," cried Jack, "I have a ticket for the Titania, you stupid bot." He fumbled for his chip.
A human controller with a freckle-sprinkled nose appeared. "What seems to be the trouble, sir?" he enquired in a cut-glass accent. His gaze travelled down Jack's person, taking in, no doubt, the crumpled cap, the collarless and cravatless shirt, the baggy corduroy trousers, the workingman's jacket with patched elbows, the paint-stained fingers, tousled hair, down-at-heel shoes.
"Oh, hello," Jack said and conjured a winning smile onto his face. "I'm with that family, actually."
"What family?" The man's brow furrowed. "You're with the DeWitt Bukater - Hockley party?"
"The-- yes, absolutely, that's the one. Miss!" Jack waved and hallooed.
Miracle of miracles and luck of lucks, the woman Rose turned around.
"They're not letting me through!" Jack called. "Even though I told them I'm with you!" He tried to telegraph his thoughts to her via his urgent voice and wide-open eyes.
Rose hesitated for an agonisingly long moment, then she gestured with her parasol. "Do let him in," she said, her voice assuming a tone of command. Jack couldn't help but shiver at that tone. "He's my... art assistant."
Jack flashed his brightest smile. "Art assistant. See? And here's my ticket."
The collector took out a hand-held scanner and passed it across Jack's proffered chip. He cast him a suspicious glance. "This is for a berth in steerage."
"I see," said Rose DeWitt. She gave a short cough. "That's right. He needs to be close to the hold, to check on the art. And on the... antiquities. Let him through."
And just like that, Jack was on board the shuttle boat.
"Ten minutes until lift-off," a generated voice said over an intercom. "Make your way to your seats."
"Thank you." Jack said to Rose and winked.
Rose raised her eyebrows. There was a strange twinkle in her eyes and her mouth which was, Jack became aware, really quite generous, quirked in amusement.
Emboldened, Jack continued, "I'll be sure to give you regular reports on the state of the art and the, er, antiquities."
Was it his imagination or did she blush, just ever so slightly? "Are you really an artist?" she said.
Jack tugged his duffel off his shoulder and drew out his sketchbook. "I am, miss."
"Rose," she said, "Just Rose." And now her gaze also travelled down his body, and back up again.
Jack felt positively objectified, like one of his French models, but at the same time, her gaze sent a strange shiver up his spine. "Rose," he echoed, with heat rising along his nape. "Just Rose."
His gaze found hers and sort of hooked onto it, and there they stood, just outside the gangway to the seating compartments, with a yellow light pulsing above a low doorway and hauliers, porters, stewards clanking up and down the hatches. Pipes creaked. Metal clanged.
"May I see?" She reached for the sketchbook. Jack pulled it away; she stepped forward and snatched it out of his hand.
Rose leaned her parasol against a crate and opened the book, leaning it against a railing. She turned the pages slowly; it took her a few instants to grip each one with her gloved fingers. Jack leaned against the wall, his heart thumping inside his chest, waiting for her response as if she were his drawing tutor.
"These are good," she said after a while. "These are rather good."
"You sound suprised," he said. "Rose, Just Rose."
"I suppose I am," she said. "Surprised." She looked at him. "Jack, Just Jack."
For a beat, they looked at each other, then her ears flushed pink and she dropped her eyes and turned another page. "Oh," she said.
Jack craned his neck. It was the leaf with Marie-Claire on it, reclining on that shawl on that moth-bitten fauteuil up in his tiny garret in the fifth arrondissement. Her hair was loose across her shoulders, her breasts bare, one hand across her sex. Looking at it again, Jack thought that he'd got her arm too long; the elbow was out of proportion, and the foreshortening not quite right, and the hatching was off just underneath her chin.
"Well," Rose said. "These are from life, I suppose?"
"That's one good thing about Paree," Jack said.
"What? Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off?"
"Lots of girls needing money," Jack said. "So they model."
She shut the sketchbook with a clap. "I see. And you," she cast him a glance again, "you had money to pay them?"
He grinned. "I'm poor. It's true. And to pay my models," he quirked one eyebrow, "I had to do some modelling myself."
"Indeed?" She tucked a curl behind her hair. The light above them changed from yellow to red.
"Five minutes to lift-off. All remaining passengers are requested to proceed to their seats and harness themselves in immediately." The tannoy's sound vibrated into the space between them.
Jack took back his sketchbook. His fingers brushed the back of her hand; she jumped.
"We'd better head up," she said.
"Yes, we had better."
"And... and maybe you can come and give me reports on the art and the... antiquities?"
His grin broadened. "I'd be delighted."
"Here." She pulled up her glove and bared her wrist. An implant pulsed beneath the arteries. "My deets."
"I don't have..." Jack waved his naked wrists.
She patted her hips pulled forth a small digital pencil from what was presumably a hidden pocket. She placed a finger on a leaf from his sketchbook and scribbled something on the corner of the paper. "There," she said and thrust the book back at him. "And now I must really go." Her parasol slipped. Jack bent to hand it to her. As Jack straightened, the hat's rim grazed his forehead.
"And by the way," Jack said by way of parting, "I did model in the nude."
"You are really very..." She seemed to cast around for the right word. "Annoying," she finished up saying.
"Not a stitch on me," Jack grinned. "Only the cap on my head."
She blinked. "Very, very annoying." She gave a haughty shake to her head. Her hat swayed. "I really must go."
"Rose," he said. He liked the feel of her name in his mouth. "Just one more thing. I wanted to say, are you with that man?"
"What man?"
"That one with the tie," he gestured to his bare throat, "and the fob watch, the one with your mother just now."
"You mean Mister Caledon Hockley?" She drew herself up. "What business is it of yours?"
"It's just, I saw him down there, between some crates. He was behaving in a very odd manner. And he was with someone; I don't think that other fellow can be trusted." He stopped and restarted. "Just take care, Rose. That's all."
Her face had closed up. She withdrew into herself, like a closed eye. "You are not making sense, and you are being impertinent." Her voice shook. "That is my fiancé you are talking about. You have crossed a line, Mister Crawson. Good day."
"Dawson," he said. "Jack Dawson."
But she'd already turned her back and disappeared into the elevator labelled 'Luxury Class'.
She had not demanded the return of her scribbled note.
Jack pulled out the page from his sketchbook. "Upper Deck," he read out to himself. "Section 14." He hid a smile and made his way down the ladder to the economy seats.
~~~
The Titania was beautiful in the outer stratosphere. There were no portholes in economy but Jack could follow the visuals on the screen set into his chair's console. The planet curved blue against the rim of the atmosphere, and then everything shivered into black. The gravity well clutched at his guts. "United Worlds, here I come," Jack muttered and couldn't help but give a little gleeful laugh. He was truly the luckiest man alive, and having got that ticket at the very last moment and this shuttle in the very nick of time was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him out of the string of lucky events in his life. Soon he would meet up with Fabrizio, and what eyes his friend would make! Fabrizio dreamed of making his fortune in the New Worlds. Jack had left home a hapless but hopeful boy, working his passage in the hold of a container ship, months among steaming furnaces and dank funnels, and now he was going to return in style, aboard the universe's fastest, bestest, most modern, most amazing star ship!
This was Titania's maiden voyage, and he was going to be able to tell his grandkids and grandkids' kids about it.
Once aboard, it took Jack a full thirty minutes to locate his cabin, the ship was that big and its passages that convoluted but when he finally poked his head round the corner of number 122, he was rewarded with Fabrizio's beaming shout. "Giacomo, you made it!" Jack was enveloped in a huge hug. "Merda, Jack, don't do this sort of thing to me, man." Fabrizio pulled back and squeezed Jack's cheeks, hard. "What the prick happened?"
Jack's potted and somewhat redacted summary was interrupted by their cabin mates, two lanky blonde guys from Sweden, both good-looking in an outdoorsy kind of way. Jack was about to wink at one of them, the one with a patch over one eye, when they gave each other a kiss, smack, on each others' lips and outed themselves as a couple. Though no couple was entirely exclusive, as Jack knew all too well. They introduced themselves as Kalle and Lars.
"Where's Sven?" said Kalle, the one with the eye patch.
"And where's Olaf?" said the other one.
"We're Sven and whatsisname!" crooned Fabrizio. He waved his chip in their faces. "Sorry, but was won square and fair!"
"Right," said Lars and glanced at his eye-patched boyfriend.
Jack was just about to wonder what that glance meant and what exactly the relationship was among those Swedes and that fiancé of Rose's, when Kalle clapped him on his back and offered him a sip from a flat hip flask. "Down the hatch!" he cried, and "ho ho ho and a bottle of rum!" chimed in Lars and took a swig from his own flask.
Kalle adjusted his eye patch and pointed to the paper, rolled up on his bottom bunk bed. "Did you read today's horoscope?" he said. "The planets are not aligned auspiciously, and it says to beware of embarking on a voyage."
"Don't mind Kalle," said Lars. "Gloom and doom, always."
"What can happen?" laughed Jack. "This is the safest ship in the solar system."
And if to underline his optimism, the ship gave the tiniest of lurches, the most unobtrusive of hums, and slipped into hyperdrive.
"Wow," said Fabrizio. "That was smooth."
"We have never been in space," said Kalle who was looking a bit queasy now. His one visible eye twitched. "What is it supposed to feel like?"
Jack said, "From what I remember of the voyage out, there was an almighty shriek and a crazy shuddering and my ears popped and I couldn't eat anything for two days, I felt so sick. But then, I was on a decrepit hulk of a cargo ship." He spread his arms. "But this is totally different! I mean, what was that? A burp?"
"A belch?" cried Fabrizio.
"A little sniff?" laughed Jack.
"A kiss of a slip into hyperdrive!" shrieked Fabrizio. And with that, the two friends linked arms and started jumping around their cabin in a madcap ring-a-rosies. One-eyed Kalle slowly relaxed, and Kalle's boyfriend Lars beat a rhythm on the metal-veneered door until some neighbours knocked and enquired what was the party, and somebody broke out an ice shaker and a firkin of whisky, and someone else produced salty snacks, and from further down the corridor, a woman appeared with a ukulele in tow, and before long, they were all dancing and hooting and slapping their thighs and the walls of the cabin.
Until there was a jolt and the lights went out.
They fell helter skelter over each other's feet and legs. Somebody's elbow landed in Jack's rib cage. "Ow," said Jack, "what the heck?"
They all lay still for a moment, not moving, listening.
The ship groaned. Metallic girders ground against other metallic bits. In the distance, far away, an alarm horn hooted.
Jack scrambled to his feet.
A beeping started up outside in the corridor. Doors opened up and down the gangway. Footsteps sounded. Voices rose, a cacophony from all sides, "What is going on?" "Are you okay?" "Did we crash?" "Where are my spectacles?" "Someone call security!" "Where's the emergency button?"
The ship gave another lurch, and there was a thump. "Cazzo," swore Fabrizio and fell against Jack. The beeping turned into a howling siren, the lights in their cabin and along the corridor flashed on and off, there was a rushing noise, and then a voice sounded through the intercom.
"Good evening, gentlemen, ladies, children."
It was a deep and sonorous man's voice, distorted a little by the communication system but nevertheless clearly audible. The voice had an accent that Jack couldn't quite place, somewhere between New Boston and Old New York, somewhere between Earth and the United Worlds. It sounded confident, disdainful, cruel. "You may have noticed a slight disruption to your journey but pay attention."
Jack pushed Fabrizio off himself and paid attention.
"As long as you stay calm and follow instructions, nothing will happen to you," continued the voice. Someone in the cabin let out a brief scream. "Please be aware that this ship has been commandeered by myself and my crew. I will now take over as captain of this vessel. You are my hostages."
"Oh my god, space pirates," breathed Fabrizio in Jack's ear.
"Please also be notified that the course of our voyage has been slightly altered," continued the announcement in that same sonorous tone. "All those in first-class cabins, kindly be advised to return to your quarters. We will be around shortly to collect your belongings." A crackle interrupted the transmission which resumed, "... remain calm and below decks."
A click announced the end of the announcement.
A full minute's stunned silence ensued.
Then a chaos of cries and chatter erupted. "What the hell!" "Pirates!" "Help!" "Keep calm, keep quiet." "O my god." "Döden!"
"Well, it's good that we don't have any belongings," quipped Jack to Fabrizio.
"Serve them right, cut-throat rich bastards in first class!" yelled the ukulele woman. "Power to the people and the pirates!"
"What does it mean, course altered?" cried the man who'd brought the ice shaker.
"I have four children!" wailed another man. "They're innocent and asleep in their berths!"
Abruptly, the lights came back on and the door swung open with a hiss. Jack looked about himself. People had fallen to the floor and onto the bottom bunks. Fabrizio's brown hair stood up in wild tufts. Something nagged at Jack's memory.
Jack thought of Rose up in first class. He remembered the way her eyes had sparked when she had said "Picasso". He recalled the hand of her fiancé in the small of her back and how she had flinched away. He thought of a thump and a crash and a voice snarling, "you fucking fool."
"Where are the Swedes?" Jack asked.
"Who?" said Fabrizio who was crouching down besides a young person who appeared to have fainted.
"The Swedes. Lars and that other one, with the eye patch."
"Here, have a drink of this," said Fabrizio to the fainted person.
"Right," said Jack.
"What?" said Fabrizio but Jack was already out of the cabin, weaving his way among clamouring and gesticulating passengers, wailing children, laughing children, weeping grown-ups, an elderly gent combing his beard with trembling fingers, a pater familias among a brood of infants, a youth yanking off his fob watch and frantically stuffing it into a crevice between wall and ceiling.
Jack tried to remember everything he'd ever heard or read about space pirates. The Titania, all the newspapers and radio reports had trumpeted, was uncatchable, unassailable, too fast for any other vessel, safe from natural disasters with its titanium-thick sheath of outer skin to defend against meteorite debris and its triple-strength magnets to detect and avoid black holes. She was also safe from being boarded. This was the safest, the most secure, luxury liner ever built.
And now she had been entered. Shipnapped, it seemed. Jack knew nothing of ship mechanics or navigation but there was a sharp sting of suspicion and anger in his stomach.
He ran lightly along the next corridor, which was empty. It seemed to be some sort of service hallway, with doors marked 'No Entry' along the route and strip lighting along the floor. He came to a vertical shaft at the end with a ladder in it.
Without a second thought, Jack grabbed hold of one of the rungs and started climbing. Doing things without thinking: it was his modus operandi, really. He pulled himself up, hand over hand.
Was it his imagination or did the ship seem to be rattling and shaking? The smooth silence of earlier appeared to have been replaced by something altogether more sinister. Or was that just Jack's heart beating in his chest? His palms were slippery against the ladder. Was he the first person ever to climb this ladder? It was the ship's maiden voyage, after all. Everything was virgin; everything was unused. Unused, untried, untested. And now: untethered, unmoored, unleashed.
Jack thought, 'I want to see this damned pirate captain'. He wanted to put a face to that voice, a body to that disembodied speech. The face of Rose kept entering his thoughts. Just Rose. He imagined her in her quarters, waiting for the pirates to pass through and to steal all her things, her hat, her jewels, and above all, her paintings which she clearly loved. And maybe the pirates would steal more than just her worldly belongings. No doubt, they'd steal her virtue and her honour along with all the rest. Jack gritted his teeth and kept climbing.
The walls of the ladder shaft were dank and of a pastel blue colour. At intervals, big round metal knobs were set into the walls. At one point, Jack passed a patch of wall that felt hot to the touch. A few rungs onwards, the air cooled and then, for a spell, it became so chilly that Jack's fingers began to feel numb. He kept doggedly going.
He reached a bit where there was a ceiling. He'd got into such a trance of climbing that he almost bumped his head. He stopped and caught his breath. Small yellow lights, flush with the walls, cast a fitful light. He felt about for an opening of some kind and found a latch. It was mechanical. He didn't need any fingerprint ID or key card. He could just apply pressure with his thumb and a hatch swung open outwards.
Jack took a deep breath and crawled through it.
He entered another tunnel. Would this never end? Had he happened into some sort of infinite loop inside the service passages of this forsaken ship? On and on, he crawled. His elbow patches were starting to fray. Maybe his second-hand coat would come apart at the seams and unravel, leaving him bare-skinned and vulnerable.
The lights changed from yellow to biting blue, and then the tunnel abruptly ended, and he was looking out and leaning across its lip onto what looked like a vast engine space. Gigantic spiral columns twisted from the metal floor to a ceiling that was many metres above him. Pistons stamped up and down. Steam belched forth from large round contraptions. Among a medley of clanging and hissing noises, human voices rose. There were men here, men with hard hats, also women, all dressed in coveralls, denim onesies, with blackened foreheads and thick-gloved hands. They were shovelling glowing minerals into the mouths of ovens, and they wore face masks.
Nobody took notice of Jack.
He dropped to the floor, glimpsed a gate at the far end and hurried towards it, buffeted by vibrations and hot air. In the hallway, he faced an elevator with antiquated metal gates.
Surely, this wouldn't be operative? Surely, this was a matter of not entering the lifts while there was a fire alarm? This situation must certainly count as a kind of fire alarm, no?
He looked around for a staircase but there wasn't one.
Jack took heart and pressed the 'up' button of the elevator.
At once, the door clanged open.
Jack peered inside. The cubicle was empty. A wooden folding-stool was along one wall, one of those old-fashioned seats for lift operators. Surely this must lead him up to the posh decks? Surely only the very wealthy had actual lift operator seats in their lifts?
Jack stepped inside and pressed the button with the highest number. Button number 14. There was no 13.
The doors clattered shut. For a moment, nothing happened, and Jack feared that he was trapped yet again. He glanced at the axe in its glass case, marked 'emergencies'. Then the elevator gave a shudder and started to rise. Jack felt his stomach sink towards his shoes. The lift was going fast, at top speed, and before he knew it, the elevator car had spewed Jack out into what looked to be a sort of ballroom area.
Before him swept a grand double staircase. The walls were panelled in expensive-looking real wood. There were oil paintings in elaborate frames, Bouguereaus, Gérômes, Alma Tademas, but Jack's practised eye could tell they were copies. Still, they made the place look grand. Ornamental pillars bore urns filled with actual fresh flowers and foliage. Jack could smell their sweet and musty plant aromas. It was as if he had stepped into a different world, a world of gardening and luxury and discreet staff gliding to and fro with silver salvers.
Except there was no staff. There was nobody. A large chandelier loomed from a back-lit dome. Its crystals tinkled in what must be a ventilator breeze.
Jack listened.
There were voices in the distance.
He headed towards them.
He grasped the banister and headed up the left side of the grand staircase. His shoes made no sound on the carpeted floor. He imagined the space filled with adults dressed in gorgeous garments, feather boas, hats heavy with berries and bric-à-brac, gentlemen in tail coats and chapeaux clâques, perhaps twirling ebony-headed walking sticks, and in the background the swelling strains of a musical band, violins, celli, a grand piano. The wooden banisters felt smooth under Jack's hand, and the air shivered with the scent of moth balls and eau de cologne.
Jack passed through what appeared to be a dining saloon. Round tables covered in crisp white table cloths groaned under bewildering arrays of cut-crystal glasses, porcelain plates, bowls, épairgnes, spice shakers, ceramic jugs, caviar spoons, snail forks and lobster tongs. Jack recognised them from Dutch still ifes and Fantin-Latour's portraits of people at dinner. Many of the tables had half-eaten meals on them.
Jack glided past and picked up an olive here, a crouton there, and kept his ears pricked.
At the far end of the hall, velvet drapes billowed. Jack undid the tassels that held them back. The curtains fell apart to reveal French doors and through their glass, a holodeck that was awash with simulated sunlight. Actual real sea gulls preened themselves on the railings. Along the side of the deck, on wooden benches, next to a row of mocked-up life boats, sat and crouched the illustrious members of the upper crust, the upper-class wealthy passengers. Amidst them were the people Jack had been seeking.
None of the officers was there. Jack assumed that other villains were holding them hostage somewhere else aboard the ship. These were clearly the richest of the rich, the ones who were about to be robbed.
The mother was there, sitting ramrod straight. Jack had to admire her gumption. Next to her sat someone Jack had not seen before, a plump lady with extravagant shawls around her shoulders and spectacles pinching her round nose. On the mother's other side sat Rose. She was without her hat, revealing her full head of luxuriant auburn hair, done in an elaborate updo with strings of pearls throughout her hair and ringlets curling around her ears. Her cheeks were pink, her mouth set, her hands, in satin gloves that reached all the way up to her elbows, were flexed on the edge of the bench.
And before them, strutting up and down, was a ragtag bunch of persons, both women and men and hard-to-categorise inbetween characters. They did not look at all as Jack had imagined pirates to look. None of them wore cybersabres or knee-high boots; there were no floppy hats, ankle-length coats, peg legs or dangling earrings. Their weapons were ordinary stun guns and laser pistols which they held trained upon the seated passengers. Their suits, shoes, collars and caps were unremarkable. The only unusual accessory was one man's eye patch.
"You," muttered Jack. It was the Swede from G-60. Sven's mate.
Jack clenched his fist.
At the helm of the gang strode a broad-shouldered man. Slicked-back brown hair, a sharp side parting, a sneer on his lips: it was him. Rosé's fiancé.
"You cad," muttered Jack.
"Cal," said Rose's mother and rose to her feet. " I ask you one last time. Cease this absurd business and let's talk sensibly."
"I told you," the Cal the cad in a low but dangerous-sounding voice that sent shivers down Jack's spine, "to sit down and to stay seated."
"Mother." Rose leant forwards and laid a satin-sheated hand on the lady's arm. "Sit down. Please. It's for the best." Her voice was calm and decisive.
Cal turned to Rose. "Sweetpea," he said, and Jack clenched his fist at hearing her being addressed so familiarly. "Don't you worry. Nobody here will come to any harm as long as they do what I say."
"I'm not worried," said Rose. "I'm not worried in the slightest."
"Rose," said the mother. "Don't antagonise him. He's clearly having a turn of some sort."
"No, mother." Rose's voice rang out across the deck. "I will not humour him. I'd rather throw myself off this ship into wild outer space."
"My darling," said the pirate cad and grinned in a lewd manner that Jack wanted to find distasteful but that set his skin tingling. "If you fear that our engagement will be annulled before I've had my way with you and your juicy--"
"Enough!" cried Rose and leaped to her feet. Jack thought she looked magnificent, like a proud figurehead on a Baroque ocean-going vessel. "You go too far, sir. Leave our engagement out of it. You know as well as I that--"
"Hush, dearest bride-to-be," said Cal and stroked one finger along his laser pistol. He gave a mock bow. "Of course, our engagement will not be annulled. After all, what better way for a buccaneer to redeem himself than by marrying into the illustrious family of the DeWitt Bukaters? Illustrious," and at that, Cal casually picked at some dust on his fingernails, "if impoverished."
The mother gasped. Her neighbour, the bespectacled woman, drew up her eyebrows.
"Did you think I hadn't realised?" Cal drawled. "All those paintings, all that so-called art. Buying tat that is cheap and worthless but making it look cultured."
Rose cried, "You're a cad, sir, and I'd rather die than marry you!" And with that, she plucked a folded-up ostrich feather fan from her bosom -- Jack's mind reeled for a moment while he imagined the warmth of her skin still on those feathers -- and flung it to the floor of the holodeck, at the feet of cruel Cal.
Jack held his breath, waiting, and even hoping, for the woman to tear off more accessories and possibly even items of clothing in her vengeful tirade: but Rose had stopped. She stood stockstill, her breast heaving, her eyes aglitter.
"Ah, my pretty wench," said the brigand Cal. "Such passion, such wildfire. It'll be a pleasure to fight with your pretty hands and your sharp little teeth."
"Never!" cried Jack on an impulse, surprised at himself, and jumped out from behind the curtain.
Rose whirled towards him. Her eyes widened.
For a moment, the world seemed to hang in the balance. Jack froze, his eyes fixed on Rose. Rose's bosom heaved and her eyes flashed. Behind her, Cal's face was a mask of stunned wrath. The passengers and the pirates were extras, suspended in no motion.
Then Rose let out a yell, gathered her skirts and sprinted away from the holodeck, towards Jack.
"Stop!" cried Cal, hot on her heels.
For an instant, Rose's startled face was right besides Jack's, so close that he could smell her sweat and feel her damp breath on his neck, and then, with a grunt, she was off. Her gathered-up frock revealed her stockinged calves, and as she ran across the dining saloon, chairs, ice buckets and ornate ashtray stands toppled in her wake.
"Stop, Rose!" cried Jack and darted off after her.
So there they were. Rose ran in front. Cal ran after her, like a hunter. And in the middle, there was Jack, his brain racing as fast as his feet. Jack called out, "Stop!" again, and behind him, the ex-fiancé huffed, "Good man, you'll be promoted to first mate," a sentence that made little sense to Jack but he hoped fervently that his pretense in chasing Rose in order to give her up to the pirate would succeed in him catching up with Rose and saving her. Somehow. His mind had not caught up with the logistics of that eventual rescue but something would come to him. Something always did.
Rose, meanwhile, was rushing towards the double doors at the other end. Her gown caught on a table cloth and the whole lot, glasses, silverware, plates, flowers in a vase, came tumbling to the floor. Wine spilled red across the carpet.
The doors banged shut behind her, a tip of her beaded shawl caught between them. When Jack reached there, he saw that she had discarded the shawl and, on an impulse, he bent to pick it up and draped it over his shoulders. Its silken tassels tickled his chin, and there was an oceanic scent in it.
"Faster!" the cad behind him shouted, amid the clatter of many heavy footsteps. A whole band of henchmen must be following, to judge from the exchange of angry words. "Back, you fools, guard the hostages! I'll deal with this one. She's not even rich!" Another voice squeaked, "What of the lower decks?"
And then Jack heard something that chilled him to his core.
"Forget about them. Not worth their weight in coin. Shut off the lower decks and open the evac doors."
The evac doors? Jack wasn't entirely sure what these could be but the prospect of opening them did not sound good. It sounded as if the worst fate imaginable on any long-haul voyage would be unleashed. These wicked men, these terrible outlaws, would open the doors to the outside; they would breach the vacuum-sealed sheaths that enveloped the ship's hull; and then all of those people down there would be sucked out into the bleak airless void.
Jack had once binged a box set about some people being marooned in space. Their ship's hull had been breached by a passing meteorite which their systems had not picked up in time. Jack couldn't remember all of the plot points but there'd been some sort of sabotage which resulted in the radios being jammed. At any rate, the remaining crew and passengers, huddling in the captain's cockpit, had been obliged to uncouple the rest of the vessel. The production's special effects had been spectacular, with rockets blasting into the ether, sails flapping and ripping off their masts, chimneys belching black smoke, comets whirling, and some very graphic shots of stunt people imploding into smithereens as they made contact with the outside.
"No," panted Jack as he galloped down the sweeping staircase. Rose was on the other side of the staircase; she'd taken the route along the top and as a result, they both reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time. "No, I won't have it. No!"
"You bastard!" screamed Rose and she rushed at him, her fists hammering his face. Jack reeled back in surprise. "Your fine talk of art and sketching! All to smuggle yourself on board! You were with him all along!"
"No, Rose, stop."
"Don't you dare address me by my first name!" She plunged her hand down her décolleté and withdrew a small knife. It was as slender as a paper opener which was possibly what it was, and she lunged at him.
"I'm on your side!" cried Jack. "I want to save you!"
"Oh, bollocks you are!"
But then the knife was knocked out of her hand. A male hand closed around Rose's wrist, and the pirate was there. Jack, ready to spring into rescuing action, tensed his muscles but before he could do anything, Rose's teeth were clamped around Cal's arm. She was biting down, hard; Cal yelped; Rose rushed away.
Cal turned to follow her. Jack clasped his arms around Cal's waist and pulled. Both tumbled to the ground and rolled against one of the ornamental pillars whereupon a decorative plaster bust toppled off and knocked Jack on the head, and after that everything went dark and he blacked out.
When Jack came to, he found himself in a small chamber with a dim strip of butter-yellow lighting casting odd shadows on his surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of storage cabinet. There was some cleaning apparatus stacked against the wall, and shelving filled with boxes and bottles. His shoes ay on their sides on the floor, tangled up in his socks and in Rose's torn shawl. A red alarm lamp rotated in full emergency mode above a low doorway. The air smelled damp, as if the room was underwater, and there was a rushing sound, as if waves were crashing past the door on the other side. Jack moved his tongue around inside his mouth; his teeth tasted of blood.
He dove towards the door and found himself being brought up short.
His hands were tethered to a pipe on the ceiling by metal cuff links.
He braced his bare feet against the wall and pushed. But all he succeeded in doing was to bruise his toes and bang his head.
The pipe did not budge. The cuffs did not break.
"Fuck!" yelled Jack.
He kicked the wall again. He was now thrashing, he knew it; it was pointless; he was wasting his energy. But he couldn't help it. And with panic rising like bile in his throat, he realised where he was: back in the lower decks.
At this very moment, those evil men could be uncoupling the decks and opening the valves or whatever one opened, and that would doom them to oblivion, him and everyone else down here.
He thought of all those people, that woman with the ukulele, that small child, the elderly gent in the hallway. Fabrizio, hoping to make his fortune in a new life.
"No!" he shouted. "Take me, if you have to! But leave them be! Let them live!"
He struggled against his restraints again, and then the door burst open and somebody came in.
"Help!"' shouted Jack.
"Ah, my friend," jeered a dreadfully familiar voice. Cal's face hove into view. "No help for you, I'm afraid. And for trying to be of help yourself--" and now the voice took on an aggrieved undertone -- "and trying to help that fool of a woman, you'll not only die but you'll suffer before you die."
"What," spat Jack, "what have you done with Rose?"
"Rose now, is it?" said Cal and twirled the ring on his finger. "My dear young man, don't you worry your pretty head about that girl. She's not for the likes of you."
Jack shouted in inchoate fury. What had they done with Rose? What were they about to do? Had they confined her with the others in steerage? "Just because we're poor," he spluttered. "We haven't got any gold or jewels or minted platinum, no precious furs or feathers, no endangered seeds, and the pictures that Rose bought are by unknowns -- and that's why we all deserve to die, is that it? We're not powerful; we haven't got friends in high places--"
"You make my heart bleed," said Cal, "and now shut up." And with that, he punched Jack full in the stomach.
Jack doubled up on himself, coughed and fought for breath. Tears started to his eyes, and dots were dancing in his field of vision.
"There" cooed Cal. "Now be a good little boy and just stay still."
Through bleary eyes, Jack saw Cal reaching into his jacket and pulling forth a long thin knife. It looked for all the cosmos like some sort of antique, like a sword from the props department of a very bad third-rate action historical. How in the heck had this ever got past security? Or any of those pirates' arms, for that matter?
Cal angled the sword and let its tip tickle the bottom of Jack's chin.
Jack did not stay still. He wiggled and shimmied and tore at his manacles. All that this got him was a sore pair of wrists, the skin coming off in strips. He could see blood trickle down past his elbow, a thin snaking rust coloured spoor.
"Now, now, that's being silly now, isn't it? That won't do any sort of good," said Cal in a snake-smooth voice. The whites of his eyes glinted under the harsh lighting.
"What do you want?" Jack managed to bite out. "How can I be of use to you?"
"My dear young chap." Cal allowed the tip of his sword-like knife to stroke along Jacks jaw and down Jack's throat. Jack gulped and closed his eyes in an involuntary response. "You are of use to me now. Of immense use."
"How?" Jack croaked. That single syllable caused his throat to convulse against the blade.
"By being just as you are, my friend," intoned the pirate. "I have noted that a certain lady of my acquaintance has taken a, what shall we call it, a shine to you."
"No," Jack said. The sword tip moved from his throat down to his breast bone. It hovered above the buttons of his rough cambric shirt, collarless, bought at a flea market stall in the fifth arrondissement for a handful of eurocents. "She has nothing to do with me. Nothing."
"As you say." With that, the knife slashed downwards and tore right through Jack's shirt. The buttons popped away one by one and landed, plink, plink, on the metal floor where they spun and wheeled in a gravity dance. Jack felt cool air on his naked chest. The blade's tip scraped along his breast bone, down along his linea alba. And as it scraped, he could feel the edge open up a thin strip of a tear, a fine rip in the universe of his being. He looked down and saw a gossamer line of red. His skin had gone numb. There was no pain, just that thread of blood.
Jack blinked. He was not a violent man. He had never been in a fight, not even in a schoolyard tussle. He was an amiable artsy kind of guy. When he was younger, twelve, thirteen years old, he'd belonged briefly to a boxing club. That was about the extent of it. But boxing, as his teacher had repeatedly reminded the boys in his charge, was a gentleman's sport. The fighters had wrapped their hands in lengths of gauze, and there were strict rules about where one was allowed to hit and how one was permitted to go about it. No blood was to be drawn, not on purpose anyway, and ideally not even by accident.
"Lovely," said Cal. He lifted one forefinger, licked it and let it slide down through the trail of blood.
Jack writhed his body and managed to knock Cal's hand aside. "Fuck you," he snarled, "fuck you and all your ilk." The one hope he had was that Cal was here with him, wasting time it would seem, and not attending to fleecing the hostages or attending to the mechanics needed in order to uncouple the lower decks from the rest of the ship. That was all he could hope for: biding some time.
Cal twisted his neck around to the door. "Lovejoy," he said.
A character popped his head around the corner. "Yes, cap'n?" It was the security detail with the vigilant face.
For the first time in his life, Jack wished that he were rich and had enough money to pay off these men and to save all the people.
Somewhere, a pipe clanked. The innards of the ship groaned, and the ground lurched briefly beneath Jack's bare feet. A flame of fear went through him: were they already doing it? How easy was it to destroy half a ship? Had anyone been able to alert the authorities? Was a mayday message going out even now? Or had the evil-doers disabled all communication?
It was hard to think while Cal's blade seared a slow line of blood down his body. Down from his rib cage, down from his navel, and nudging along the tops of his trousers. Cal grinned, and with two snaps of the knife, he sliced off the suspender braces that were holding up Cal's trousers. The trousers did not slide off; the waistband held, but now the sword was cutting along the top of that, too, and the cloth gave a groan and the fabric tore, threads dangling loose, and then they fell down around his ankles, and he was exposed in only his underwear.
"Shall we go further, my dear chap?" said Cal.
Jack collected the blood-steeped saliva in his mouth, properly hawked it, and spat at Cal.
Cal jumped back and wiped at his collar. "Oh now, that will not go unpunished." Cal sliced again, this time more viciously, and Jack gave a yelp of pain. Blood streamed down, hot against his thighs; his underwear was in shreds, and he was naked, exposed to Cal's savage gaze.
"Lovejoy."
"Yes, cap'n?"
"Have we got the lady?"
There was a moment's hesitation, and then Lovejoy replied, "Aye, we sure do."
Jack struggled against his manacles again, even though he knew how futile it was. He tried to kick out against his tormentor but his feet were all knotted up in his cut-up trousers and he only managed to trip himself and ended up hanging from the manacles with no foothold. His wrists were almost wrenched out of their sockets.
"Let her go," Jack panted. "Let her go at once. I'll do whatever you want. I don't know what that is but I'll do it."
"Well, aren't you just the hero," said Cal but he said it almost absentmindedly as the point of his knife scratched its way down Jack's cock.
"D'you wanna fuck me? Is that it?" spat Jack. "Go ahead. Go right ahead."
"Boss," said Lovejoy. "We actually don't have time for this."
"I decide how much time we have." Cal cast a deliberating look up and down Jack's body. "Hold this," he said and handed over his blade. Lovejoy took it and let out a shrill, oddly maniacal laugh.
And as Cal set about unbuttoning his own trousers -- they were so tight-fitting that it took him quite a while --, Jack started knocking his manacles against the pipe again. But this time, he did it slowly, systematically. He didn't know morse code but he knew SOS. He remembered it from the boy scouts. Short short short, long long long -- or was it the other way round? No matter, as long as it sounded like a deliberate message.
Jack counted. One, two, three. Pause. One, two, three. Blood continued to trickle down the insides of his leg. His insides churned from the earlier gut punch. Cal stepped out of his tight breeches. Lovejoy twirled the blade.
And then, just when Jack's wrist were rubbing themselves raw, when his cock shrank in apprehension, when the red emergency light sputtered and an alarm howled -- just in that instant, the air buckled and Jack floated abruptly upwards. Cal was flung at the ceiling; his head thunked against a light fitting. Lovejoy was horizontal, holding on to a shelf. Brooms, mops and buckets swerved past, clanking against one another.
"What the," snarled Cal.
Bags, bottles, iron shavings, all whirled in a slow maelstrom.
It was gravity. The gravity had been shut off.
"Stupid fucking idiots," grunted Cal. He grasped a pipe and hauled himself towards the door. "Move, Lovejoy."
But before Cal could get to the hallway, a heeled shoe connected with his chin and threw him backwards. He whirled head over heels, banged against a shelf, ricocheted to the other wall and ended up floating upside down.
"Hands up, motherfucker," said a voice. "Or I'll shoot the crap out of you."
Jack blinked at the vision before him.
It was Rose. She hovered in the doorway like an avenging angel, a revolver in her gloved hand, her hair dishevelled and hanging around her face, her eyes ablaze, her cheeks flushed and behind her, a crowd of floating heads.
"Jack!" called a familiar voice. "You all right, mate?"
"Fabrizio," said Jack. His voice was faint.
"Duck," said Rose.
"What?" said Jack, but Rose shoved his head down and then set her pistol to the chain that attached his manacles to the pipe and shot straight through it. The pipe broke in half; air hissed out; and Jack broke free. He was thrown straight into Rose's arms and crushed against her chest.
"Rose," he said.
"And that," said Rose and gave Cal another kick, "is the end of our engagement." She turned her head. "Spicer, cuff him."
"Lovejoy, don't you dare--" Cal started.
"Shut up," Rose said. "He's with me, don't you see. Now, Jack." She pushed herself along the ceiling with one arm, and her other arm was around Jack's waist.
"I was never with them; you believe that, don't you?" said Jack.
"I never doubted it," said Rose. "But I had to put them off my scent."
"You are extraordinary," said Jack. "And I'm so sorry to be, to be like this."
"You mean, dressed for a modelling session?" She looked at him and laughed. She smoothed the hair out of his eyes with her satin-gloved fingers and then she pressed a long hot kiss to his mouth. They were floating in mid-air; her lace dress scribbled against his naked skin; her other hand still held the revolver; and life was glorious.
"Listen," he whispered in her ear. "Winning that ticket is the best thing that ever happened to me. Because it brought me to you. And as soon as the damn gravity is back on, let's celebrate all over this ship."
"I have a better idea," said Rose. "Let's celebrate up in the cockpit look-out. The captain owes me one."
So that's where they ended up: in the crow's nest above the control room, surrounded by the swirl of the stars and the cosmic rain of space dust, with nothing between them and wide eternity but five inches of reinforced plexiglass.
Rose raised a flute of Moët & Chandon. "We're going to have such adventures, Jack! We'll go ice-fishing on Cloudy Water! We'll go horse-riding across the rings of Orion! We'll fly a bi-plane and work the squid boats in King's Mountain Bay! You can draw me with clothes and without; and together we'll conquer the moons!"
Jack grinned. "And guess what? Those paintings you bought? I know they're not worth much now but they're brilliant and you know it. One day soon, those artists are going to be famous and you're going to have so much money."
"Who needs money when I'm with you?" said Rose. "And also, the reward for saving the Titania: it's likely to be substantial, don't you think?"
Jack put his arms around Rose from behind and buried his nose in her nape.
Rose spread her arms wide and tipped her face into the star shine all around. "Jack!" she cried. "I feel like the queen of the world!"
The End.
Completed 17 December 2023.