Stephen Baxter - Flood

They were in a kind of sitting room, wood panels on the walls, soft uplights casting a glow over a plastered ceiling, a carpet thick under her feet. The furniture was modern-looking, a sofa and armchairs before a big wall-mounted TV screen. Connecting doors revealed a bedroom with a big double bed and a smaller child’s cot, and a bathroom where halogen light gleamed from polished tiles. There was a real feeling of luxury, Lily thought, like the homes of the very rich in Cusco. In the bedroom there was a net sack of plastic toys, soldiers and animals, footballs and puzzles, brightly colored stuff probably salvaged from Lima or Arequipa.

In the middle of all this Manco stood holding his mother’s hand. They still wore their Inca costumes, the colorful wool with the heraldic designs, now splashed with blood and stinking faintly of cordite. They left dusty footprints on the new carpet. They looked utterly alien here, a surreal displacement.

Lily said,“Piers said there are clothes for you in the cupboards. They thought of everything, I guess. Look, toys.” She tried to smile for the boy’s sake. Manco just looked at her, eyes wide. Lily reminded herself that this poor little boy had just seen his own father gunned down, right before him.

Kristie still had her small pink backpack. She slipped this off now, rummaged, and drew out her battered old teddy bear. She handed it to Manco, who grabbed it, and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Lily asked, “Do you think you’re going to be OK?”

“OK?” Kristie looked at her blankly. “It’s all gone. My whole life. Everything I built up with Ollantay at Titicaca. Everything we planned and dreamed about. All just cut off. My husband gunned down in front of his child’s eyes.” Absently she placed a hand on Manco’s forehead. “My mother, shot dead too. OK? No, Lily, I don’t think I’m going to be OK.”

“Look, Kris, it’s just us now. All that’s left of the family. You and me and Manco. We’ve had our differences-”

Kristie laughed in her face. “Differences! We were on opposite sides in a war!”

“Not a war of my making.”

“No. Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? You’ve always been the same, haven’t you, Aunt Lily? Always off to one side. Never taking a stand, never taking responsibility. But always meddling in other people’s lives. You abducted me-”

“I saved you.”

“That isn’t how I see it. If you didn’t notice, my side won. Even without Ollantay I could have gone back to his family. They’re Manco’s relatives too. Gone back to my own life.”

Gone back to drown, Lily thought bleakly. “Kris, we’ll have to talk.”

“Just go away,” Kristie said dismissively. She was the image of her mother, Amanda in one of her stubborn moments, the set of her lips, the angle of her head, the unyielding eyes.

Lily’s heart broke. She turned to the door.

“Lily. One thing.”

“Yes?”

“Keep him away from me.”

“Who?”

“Piers. I don’t care how big or small Nathan’s damn boat is. Just keep him away.”

Lily withdrew without saying any more.

Outside, she paused in the corridor, leaning against a wall. She hadn’t stopped moving since spilling out of the chopper in Chosica. She felt breathless, exhausted, the muscles in her legs trembling, her head stuffy and full, the blood in her ears singing. She was coming crashing down from the exertions of the day, the combat, the shock of the deaths. I’m too old for this, she thought.

She hadn’t even had time to think of Amanda, of her random, unlucky gunning-down. Her sister was dead, a vivid, complex, different, unfinished life terminated in a second by a scrap of lead. Lily felt as if something had been removed from herself, an amputation. She was going to pay for this later, when she stopped moving at last. But she had one more duty first.

She knocked on Grace’s door, then let herself in with the swipe card.

Grace’s suite was similar to Kristie’s. Grace was sitting on an upright chair, perched right on the edge, as if she was afraid of dirtying it. She hadn’t changed; she was as dusty as Kristie. But she had kicked off her boots and put them by the door.

Cautiously Lily sat down opposite her.“This must be very strange for you, after Walker City.”

“I haven’t been in a room like this since I was five years old. And I don’t remember much about that.” She was shut in on herself, her hands bunched into fists and pressed into her lap. Her accent was strange, a mixture.

“There’s no need to be frightened.”

Grace just looked at her, and Lily wondered how often in her life she had heard such assurances. “I took off my boots,” Grace said.

“I noticed.”

“They always made me do that. My father’s family, in the palaces. If I came in from playing, from the gardens… I do remember that.”

“Well, you can wear your boots as much as you like in here.” Lily gestured. “This place is yours. There are clothes to change into in the cupboards. And if you don’t like them-”

“Gary passed me to you like he was handing over a parcel.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

“I was with him fifteen years. He just passed me over to you, to this.” She looked at Lily, not angry, wondering.“I know about Barcelona. How you and Gary and my mother were hostages.”

“Yes. Well, so were you. You were born into it.”

“I know. You were passed around from one group to another, a token, a trophy. That’s what you’ve done to me today.”

“We only wanted the best for you,” Lily said desolately.“We’re trying to save you. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. No harm will be done to you here. You’re safe now, Grace. I swear it.”

But Grace’s gaze became unfocused, as if she was looking inward.

Lily got up. At the door she looked back. Grace had not moved from her chair, sitting alone in the silent, pointlessly opulent room.

Lily took a walk around the ship, alone, avoiding people.

There was a pervasive stink of sawdust, lacquer, paint and fresh carpets. The floors were covered with synthetic rubber or linoleum or rush matting. Some of the walls were painted or paneled with wood, decorated with geometric designs and murals, clumsily executed. But, years after the keel had been laid down halfway up an Andean hillside, the ship was not finished, and as she walked past bare steel walls Lily estimated maybe fifty percent of the internal fitting-out was yet to be done.

Lily had never been aboard this ship of Nathan’s, the most stupendous of his many projects. Was this great beached vessel really the best use of all the resources he had commandeered? Lily had just avoided the controversy and stayed away. Well, she had been wrong, as she had been wrong about Nathan before. Now she wished she had taken up his offers of tours and training; today it would have been useful.

With difficulty she found her way back to her room.

She stripped off her filthy coveralls and took a shower. The faucet had an option she’d never seen before, for salt water. Figuring that must put less stress on the ship’s systems, she chose it. The water was hot but oddly sharp, and the briny smell made her think of seaside days as a child. She stayed under the shower for a long time. Then she rinsed off the salt with a quick flush of cold fresh water.

As she dried off, she found she couldn’t bear the thought of facing anybody else, not Piers, not Grace or Kristie, certainly not Nathan. Today had been long enough already. Though it was early, she locked her door.

She explored the room. It had a little alcove with a kettle and coffee and a miniature microwave oven, almost a tiny kitchen. Unbelievably, there was a mini-bar. She really was in a floating hotel at the end of the world. She wondered how long this kind of thing could possibly last.