Gene Wolfe - On Blue's waters

“They it maybe can explain. Them ask. Everything this young fellow to tell I want, so that careful he will be. Afraid you are that so much I will tell that not he will go?”

Marrow said, “No,” and I reaffirmed that I was going.

“You a question I ask.” Wijzer swirled what little wine remained in his glass, staring into it as though he could read the future in its spiral. “One man back can go, your letter says. This fellow Silk to bring here you want. Two you will be.”

I nodded. “Marrow and our other leaders and I talked about that. A great many people know about Patera Silk now. When he identifies himself, we believe they’ll let him come aboard their lander.”

When Wijzer only stared at me, I added, “We hope that they will, at least.”

“You hope.” Wijzer snorted.

Marrow said, “We do. Our own lander held more than five hundred. I doubt that they’ll get two hundred from other towns with their invitation, but suppose they do. Or let’s say they get a hundred, and to that they add four hundred of their own people. The lander reaches the Long Sun Whorl safely, and the hundred scatter, every man looking for his own city.”

Wijzer frowned. “It you must finish.”

“When the time to return comes, do you think a hundred will reassemble at the lander?”

Wijzer shook his head. “No. Not a hundred there will be.”

Marrow made a little sound expressive of satisfaction. “Then why not let Silk take one of the empty seats?”

“Because none there may be. Not a hundred I said. Two hundred, maybe. When about this town that you got I ask, what they say it is? You know? The first it was. The first lander from the Whorl came, and here landed. True it is?”

“No,” I told him. “Another lander left some time before ours, with a group led by a man called Auk. They were also from Viron. Have you ever heard of them?”

Wijzer shook his head. “Someplace else they landed, maybe.”

“On Green,” I said, “or so I’ve been told. There was also another lander that left at the same time ours did. One lander wouldn’t hold all of us, and we had cards enough to restore two, so we took two. It came here with us, but we’ve never learned what became of Auk’s.”

Wijzer leaned toward me, his elbows on the table and his big, square face ruddy with sun, wind, and wine. “You listen. Here twenty years now you been. For me, nine it is. Back up there,” he pointed to the ceiling, “where the Long Sun they got, what like it is, not you know. What like it was when away I went. Everybody out Pas wants. Storms, and a week all nights he gives. Even me, out he drives. Everybody! The landers up there that they got? No good! No good! You the cards had, this you said. Enough back you put, and it flies. Right that is?”

I nodded.

Wijzer directed his attention to Marrow. “Landers here you got, you say. But the wires pulled out are, seats, too. Cards, pipes glass, all that. Again to fly, not you can them make. Those landers up there? How it goes with them, you think? First of all you went so the best ones you took. The one I ride, like what it is, you thinly Forty-eight seats for us left. Forty-eight for six hundred and thirty-four. That I never forget. Up we fly, and fifteen dead we got. No food but what we bring. No water. Pipes, taps, what you sit on every day, all gone they are. When here we get, how our lander smells you think? Babies all sick. Everybody sick or dead they are. Terrible it is. Terrible! So why go? Because we got to.”

He looked back to me and pointed a short, thick finger. “Not everybody comes back, you think. So more seats there are. Maybe not everybody comes. But the ones… Family up there you got?”

“My father, if he’s still alive. An uncle and two aunts, and some cousins. They may have left by this time.”

“Or not, maybe. Friends?”

“Yes. A few.”

“Father. Uncle. Aunt. Friend. Cousin. Care I don’t. Father we say. On his knees he gets. He cries. What then will you do? About that you got to think. Ever of you they beg? Your father, to you down on his knees before he has got? Crying? Of you begging?”

“No,” I said. “He never did.”

“Twenty years. A very young man then you are. Maybe a boy when you go, yes?”

I nodded again.

“At your father you looked, your father you saw. A man not like you he was. The same for me it is when a boy I am. No more! This time your own face you see, but old you are. Not strong like twenty years ago. Weak now he is. Crying, begging. Tears down his cheeks running. Horn, Horn! Me you got to take! My own flesh you are!”

Wijzer was silent for a moment, watching my face. “No extra seats there will be. No. Not one even.”

Marrow grunted again, and I said, “I understand what you mean. It could be very difficult.”

Wijzer leaned back and drank what remained of his wine. “To Pajarocu you go? Still?”

“Yes.”

“Stubborn like me you are. For you a good voyage I wish. Something to draw on you got, Marrow?”

Marrow called his clerk, and had him bring paper, a quill, and a bottle of ink.

“Look. Main this is.” Carefully, Wijzer drew a wavering line down the paper. “We on Main here. Islands we got.” He sketched in several. “North the Lizard it is.” He began to draw it, a tiny blot of ink upon the vastness of the sea. “The Lizard you know?”

I told him I lived there.

“Good that is. Home for another good dinner you can stop.” Wijzer looked at me slyly, and I realized with something of a start that he had bright blue eyes like Silk’s.

“No,” I said, and found it not as hard to say as I expected. “I doubt that I’ll stop there at all, unless I find that I need something I neglected to bring.”

Marrow grunted his approval.

“Better you don’t. Rocks there is. But those you must know.” Wijzer added towns up the coast. “Too many islands to draw, but there these rocks and the big sandbar you I must show. Both very bad they are. Maybe them you see, maybe nothing.” He gave me another sly glance. “Nothing you see, me anyhow you believe. Yes?”

“Yes,” I said. “I know how easy it is to stave a boat on a rock that can’t be seen.”

Wijzer nodded to himself. “Coming Green is. The sea to go up and down it makes. The tide in Dorp we say. About the tide you know?”

“Yes,” I repeated.

“How more water Green makes, then not so much, I will not tell. Not till someone to me it explains. But so it is. About this tide you must think always, because bigger and bigger it gets while you go. Never it you forget. A safe anchorage you got, but in an hour, two hours, not safe it is.”

I nodded.

“Also all these towns that to you I show. At all these towns even Wijzer would not put in. But maybe something there is you need. Which ones crazy is, I will not show. All crazy they are. Me you understand? Crazy like this one you got they are. Only all different, too.”

“Differing laws and customs. I know what you mean.”

“So if nothing you need, past best to go it is. Now these two up here…” He drew circles around them and blew on the ink. “Where you cross they are. Because over here…” Another wavering line, receding to the south and showing much less detail. “Another Main you got. Maybe a name it’s got. I don’t know.”

“Shadelow, the western continent,” I proposed.

“Maybe. Or maybe just a big island it is. Wijzer, not smart enough you to tell he is. An island, maybe, but big it is. This coast? Better well out you stand.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Two or three towns.” He sketched them in, adding their names in a careful script. “What down for you I put, what I them call it is. Maybe something else you say. Maybe something else they do. Here the big river runs.” Meticulously he blacked it in. “It you got to see, so sharp you got to look. What too big not to see is, what nobody sees it is.”