Chapter Text
You make landfall later that afternoon. The lot of you disembark on the sturdy sun-bleached docks, balance unsteady without the rocking waves. Still, the crew hides their disorientation better than the emissaries, who stumble drunkenly in their well-pressed suits.
“Ten weeks,” the harbormaster informs Captain DeMettrie. That was how long the C.S. Levant has been at sea. The voyage was supposed to last twelve. For the sake of your crewmates, many with vacant eyes, twitchy hands, you are pleased by this turn of events. But for yourself….
For yourself, you’re unsure.
While the diplomats hammer out a new treaty, the crew is put up in simple accommodations. Your lodgings are a thin room with watercolor still-lifes, a creaky boxspring, and a view of lush vines that crawl the neighboring building. In the open window frame sits a glass vase with a cluster of forget-me-nots—a welcome gift from the Moralintern, just so you all remember whose soils you’re on.
The Moralintern doesn’t need to worry where you’re concerned. You’ve only left the accommodations once in the past two days, and that was to visit the local bookstore. In your rucksack, there is now a pocket chess set, a copy of Christiane Escoffier’s A CONTEMPORY HISTORIES: FROM PRE-DOLORIANISM TO THE NEW, and a novel concerning a hard-boiled Vespertine detective that, despite curling your nose, reminded you of someone.
There is one other book you purchased, however. It’s open on your bed where you now sit squinting at the instructions for a fanning card flourish. Mainly, you’re struggling to fan the cards evenly without beveling the deck at the start. This time you’re going to get the trick, though.
You pin the deck between your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers, focusing, and—
“Hello?”
Your thumb slips and half the deck spills out.
Behind the door, the same person knocks, unaware that you’re sighing over your cards. You go to answer it.
“Ah, so you are here!” Alice greets. She’s in plainclothes, bracelets clinking as she lowers her hand from your door frame. Her hair part is less exact that it normally is, but by and large, you would be unable to guess she is only a few days out of the Pale. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me for a trip around town,” she says. “And by that, I mean I’m bunked with Ingrid again and am dying for ear plugs.”
Ah. That explains her restless coiffure.
You should accept the invitation. You are in a foreign country, and it would do you well to broaden your horizons beyond the local bookstore. If you recall, Alice speaks more Vespertine than just volta recitations. You will not find a better travel companion.
“I’m afraid I’m not in the mood for company tonight,” you say instead. “It was a long trip.”
Alice smiles. “I understand. We’re getting lunch tomorrow, though, yes?”
You nod, waving to her as she goes, and close your door. There is no one inside waiting for you, grinning around a billiard pipe. Shaking your head, you put away your playing cards, grabbing your box of Drouins, your lighter, and your notebook, and you recline in a rickety chair by the window.
There are three cigarettes in the box today. One of them finds your lips, and you flick the lid to your lighter. The flame wavers far from the end of your cigarette. Orange. Blue. Breathing, you track its trembling.
Is the light hitting your face? Is it as loving as you recall?
In your hesitancy, the sea breeze carries the flame away. Extinguished.
You sigh, then set the lighter down. There’s a phantom warmth around the metal when you let it go and trade it for your Mnemotechnique A6 on the sill. You’re back to log #85. All things considered, it’s impressive how close your daily log kept to the 70 days you actually spent in the Pale. Your circadian rhythm aboard the Levant was only slightly faster than reality.
Right. This is reality, not….
Warm air. Doting hands. A man curls into you within the sleepy quiet.
Your pen tip scrapes a page. In your notebook, the future entries are empty again, and you wish, belatedly, that you’d read them. Is the log #85 that you’re penning now the same as the one you saw on the ship? You’ll never know. All you do know is what came before: pages and pages of the same name scrawled like sheaves of wheat.
Against your better judgment, you reach up and remove your cigarette. You could still light it; the filter’s not wet yet. But you rest the cigarette on the sill by the vase, running your hands through your hair.
Ultimately, you close your notebook and stand. You needed to stretch your legs anyway.
The sea is navy blue. It’s odd to see color in it, to look around, too, at the lime-stucco buildings around you with their orange and pink pigments. The saturation nearly hurts your eyes after three months of monochrome. The air is livelier here as well, smelling of salt, mud, and seasoned pan-cooked foods.
In the streets, you spy some of your crewmates drinking and singing. Most, though, remain in their rooms, unresponsive as they watch the clock hands move at a reliable tick-tick-tick.
The waves have the same effect on you. Sea foam spills into pock-marked sands. Recede. Return.
You’re holding your boots in one hand, pants hiked to your calves, and sand slots between your toes. Closer to the waves, kelp tangles in heaps and is swarmed by flies. The sky is satiny black.
In the distance, you spot a fishing dock. A lantern comes into view beside a low-slung house boat, and a form is resting on the dock with their feet dangling over the waves—a woman. She looks up when she notices you on the beach.
“Ah, a Revacholian sailor,” she observes, fish-hook earrings jangling. It is a surprise to find her speaking Suresne. You feel, somehow, that she is of your country men. “How are you enjoying your stay?”
“It’s a nice town,” you say neutrally. “Thank you for hosting us.”
The fisherwoman laughs lightly. “A nice town?” She nods. “And yet, you’re here by the sea.”
You snap your jaw closed. Caught.
The fisherwoman’s eyes remain crinkled. “It’s all right,” she says. In her lap is a flax net, and she picks seaweed from the notches. “I know the type. My husband was the same. Always one for the waves.” Behind her, her boat rocks. The lantern pulses. Seaweed collects on the water below. “The sea still brings his voice to me—on quiet nights like this, telling me the waves will calm. It’s always full of surprises, you know. Washing up things.”
Through the silence, waves come, then go. The fisherwoman smiles sadly at her net. “That old fool," she says. "I couldn’t help but love him.”
Six weeks later, you stand at parade rest by the pier leading to the C.S. Levant. The other high-ranking officers form a line on either side of you, greeting the crewmates who are joining you on the return voyage. Some fidget. Others keep their heads down.
At the start of the crowd are the Revacholian emissaries. Talks were unproductive as they always are. Hands were shaken. Drinks were shared. A new trade agreement is set in motion for next year, each stipulation favoring the Moralintern. But naturally, the diplomats are well fed and happy, a flock of cowbirds abandoning their young in other birds’ nests. They remain entirely unaware that a tenth of the original crew has been left at port, many of them still too mentally unfit to board.
Between the swarm of polished shoes, an entropenetics kit rumbles on its wheels. Soona drags it toward the entrance, lingering when she spots you. She smiles. “Another round, Lieutenant?”
You nod warmly, and you help her lift her kit into the entry hatch.
The ship leaves port a few hours later. At the base of your skull, the vibrations of the Pale latitude compressors thrum. You rest your elbows on the railing outside your cabin. Behind the walls, sailors are already murmuring voltas, preparing to go mad. You inhale and feel the opposite, staring out at the miasmic porch collapse bordering the Pale. There is something out there for you, something beautiful.
Right here, so close, you remove a cigarette from your coat pocket. You bring it to your lips, lighting it.
And you wait.