Eric Brown - Starship Summer

Maddie just stared at me, her expression ravaged, then pushed past me and fled into the night.

I stood on the threshold and stared into the lounge.

Matt lay on the floor, face down, unmoving. I stared at the body in disbelief, going over the events that had led to this… And then it hit me, and it was too much of a hope to harbour.

I stepped forward, towards the body, reached out, sick lest my hand should encounter real, solid flesh.

I should have known. I should have known that Matt was too wise to let himself be killed by an aggrieved alien lover, too intelligent not to know how to stage the tableau of revenge—and save himself in the process.

My hand reached out and passed through the body’s chest as if it were a ghost.

A voice spoke from the door. “I had to do it like this, David.”

I turned. It was Matt, standing in the entrance and staring at me. I thought that he would have been triumphant, or at least relieved, but his expression was defeated, deadened. After all, how often is it that we are chased to the ends of the galaxy by an ex-lover, and to all intents and purposes assassinated?

Now I knew why Matt had claimed to Hawk that there was no room in his life for romance…

“Maddie!” I cried, leaping to my feet. I pushed past a startled Matt, out into the storm. Visibility had decreased, Delta Pavonis totally blotted by storm clouds. I looked right, along the beach to the Mantis, but there was no sign of Maddie. I set off in the opposite direction, towards the Fighting Jackeral, thinking that she might have sought refuge there.

I was halfway towards the Jackeral when I saw her. She was a miniature figure in the distance, mounting the steps to the jetty and running along its length.

I called her name again and gave chase.

The wind was an inimical physical force, and in the frenzied minutes that followed it came to me, like the improbable notion of a nightmare, that the wind was indeed hostile to me and my attempts to save Maddie. It was no longer a mindless force of nature but a force possessed of evil intent. I reached the jetty and ran up the steps, slipping on the slick, wave-washed boards.

Maddie was a wind-blown shape approaching the end of the jetty. I sprinted, screaming at her in desperation, but the wind snatched at my words and flung them in the opposite direction.

She had come to a halt at the very end of the sodden stretch of lumber, teetering on the edge as she stared oblivion in the face.

I cried out, “Maddie! Matt’s okay! He’s alive! Maddie—please listen!”

She didn’t hear a word. As if in slow motion she pitched herself into the raging maelstrom of the bay—and seconds later I reached the edge and peered over.

She was a storm-tossed doll, battered by the waves, temporarily kept afloat by the chance inflation of her cape. But even as I watched, the swollen garment withered and Maddie was dragged under.

Seconds later she emerged again, further out, a panic-stricken whirl of arms and sodden hair.

Fear stopped me diving in, fear and the nightmare in my head. I was on the ferry again, and it tipped, and took from me everything I loved, and—despite everything I had told my friends—I had been too weak, too ineffectual, to do anything about it. Now I could act, but something stopped me—a fear that gripped like a fever—until a voice in my head soothed my nightmares and told me that I could do it, I could atone by saving Maddie, or attempting to save her.

I hesitated, but the voice insisted. And I dived.

The muscled might of the salt water was a shock. It grabbed me, tumbled me over and over. I was dragged under, spluttering, and then resurfaced far out. I attempted to orient myself, work out in which direction was the shore, and from there guess where Maddie might be. I caught a glimpse of the looming jetty, and turned—and there was Maddie, perhaps ten metres from me.

I fought my way through the waves, my progress a frustrating process of two metres forward and one back as the waves dragged and flung me. But I was gaining, even though Maddie was dragged under again and again. She disappeared, then bobbed up again, screaming.

I reached where she had been, but she was gone, and in a terrible second it came to me that my efforts had been futile. Not only would Maddie die, but in attempting to save her I would suffer the same fate.

At that moment I saw her, two arms’ lengths away. Gagging, I lunged and made a frantic grab for the cape, caught it and dragged Maddie towards me—and she struggled and screamed at the thought of the hell to which salvation would commit her.

Shouting at her in frustration, I snagged her around the neck in a desperate embrace, and the contact of flesh on flesh—the surge of my fear, anger, and sudden joy—hit her and she ceased to struggle.

Then, as if ordained by some miracle, the storm abated and the Ring of Tharssos appeared between the darkened clouds and illuminated the bay, and I kicked out through the waves towards the safety of the shore.

Matt was on the beach and helped me carry Maddie back to the ship. We hauled her into the lounge. She was spluttering salt water and crying, and she saw Matt and reached out for him, touched his hand and cried out as if burned and pulled away. Matt, tears in his eyes, gripped her shoulder through the cape as I fetched towels to dry her, and a bottle of brandy.

“I thought you were dead!” she wailed at Matt.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Matt will explain everything later, okay?”

Not longer after that, with Maddie wrapped in towels and shivering before a heater, Hawk appeared in the doorway and limped across to us. He seemed not to notice the tousle-haired Maddie, was unaware of the drama recently enacted—too occupied, no doubt, with his own conflicting emotions.

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” he said at last, staring at each of us in turn, “and I’ll do it. I’ll fly the ship.”

Maddie was the last to leave the Mantis that night. Hawk and Matt said goodbye around midnight, solicitous for Maddie’s welfare, but she assured them she was fine now.

Maddie huddled on a lounger, holding a big brandy glass in both hands—the glass swaddled in the protective cuffs of her blouse.

I must admit that I wondered when she might leave. I had the feeling she wanted to be alone with me, maybe to thank me for saving her life, and the thought made me uncomfortable.

Now she looked up from her glass and stared at me. “Back then…” she said, sounding as uncomfortable as I felt. “In the water—”

I waved her words away. “Maddie… Let’s not talk about it, okay? You were drowning. I had to do it—”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean… Look, when you grabbed me, I felt everything, your pain, your grief…”

I nodded. “Of course, I realise that.”

“David, I also experienced the truth. What really happened on that ferry.”

I stared at her, my mouth open.

She hurried on. “I’m not here to point the finger, David. There’s no blame involved. What you did, or didn’t do… who knows how anyone else might have reacted in the circumstances? You’ve suffered enough grief and guilt over the years.” She smiled at me. “I just wanted to tell you that I understand, okay?”

Unable to find the words to respond, I merely nodded.

I had told my friends what had happened that fateful day aboard the ferry, but it had been an edited version of events, a scenario tailored to avert blame and castigation.

For when the tanker had sliced into the ferry and pitched Carrie into the sea, I had remained on the listing deck, paralysed by terror, watching my daughter being swept away—and only the accidental spilling of the deck and its contents into the water had thrown me into the sea after her. I had tried frantically to reach Carrie, but by then it had been too late. The churning waves had carried her under, and unconsciousness came to me like blessed oblivion.