Диана Дуэйн - Lifeboats

“Okay. God is the One, more or less. Or the other way around. Anyway, this guy said, ‘I trust God, God’ll keep me safe and see me through this.’ And then he felt better.”

“This would be a good time for another cracker,” the sibik said.

“Of course it would,” Kit said, and gave the sibik another, and looked sadly at the emptying package. Four…

“So then it started to rain,” Kit said. “And there was more and more water, and it got deeper and deeper. All the ground down by the river got flooded. And then water started rising up from where the river was, and flooding everything nearby. And pretty soon it rose up so high it was all around the guy’s house. And some of the people from the National Guard—those are some people whose job it is to protect other people in their area,” Kit added hurriedly, because he could feel the sibik twitching with the next question—“they drove by his house in a big vehicle. And one of them shouted to him, ‘Hey buddy, the water’s not gonna stop rising. So come on with us, jump in our truck and we’ll get you out of here!’ And the guy said, ‘No, it’s all right, God’s going to see me through this, I’m okay. You go ahead and help someone else who needs it.’ So when they realized they weren’t going to be able to get him to go with them, the National Guard people went away.”

“The crackers are going away too,” said the sibik, not entirely mournfully.

“Yeah, I see that,” Kit said, and gave the sibik another. Three… “So all that night the flood waters kept rising, and they rose so high that they came in the doors and the downstairs windows of the guy’s house, so that he had to go up to the second floor. And later that day some people came along who were from the Coast Guard. They usually take care of people who go out on the water on purpose. Now, though, because it was an emergency, they came along in a boat—” Kit paused. “You know what a boat is?”

“It goes on top of the water,” said the sibik. “My person has a small one he plays with.”

“Well, imagine a bigger one, like twice as long as this stone, okay?” Kit said, indicating the seat of the Stone Throne. “And maybe twice as wide, with room for people in it. So the Coast Guard people came and called to the guy in the house. They said, ‘Buddy, come on, the water’s going to be rising all night and all tomorrow and the day after; you can’t stay here or you’ll drown! Get in the boat and we’ll get you out of here.’ But when the guy looked at them, he thought, ‘I don’t know—this doesn’t look all that much like God saving me.’ So he called back to the Coast Guard folks from his upstairs window, and he said, ‘It’s okay, God’s going to see me through this, so I don’t need a lifeboat! You should go on ahead and help somebody else.’ And they couldn’t get him to come with them, so they revved up the motor of the boat and went away.”

“Like the crackers…”

Kit took the hint and gave the sibik another one. Two… “So then the water rose and rose even faster than it had before. And it got so high that it started coming into the man’s house through the second-floor windows. So to get away from the water, the guy climbed up on his roof—”

“What’s a roof?”

“Uh, the top of his house.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, he sat there for a while, and late in the day he heard something noisy in the sky, and he looked up and saw a helicopter coming. That’s a flying craft,” Kit said, feeling the sibik start twitching again. “It came from the local TV station—”

“What’s a TV station?”

Kit covered his eyes for a moment. “Something you don’t need to know about. Have a cracker.” One… “Anyway, a man from the TV station leaned out of the helicopter and yelled to the guy who was sitting on top of his house, ‘Buddy, we thought everybody was evacuated from here! The water’s going to keep rising, so here, climb up this ladder and we’ll get you out of here!’ But the guy said, ‘No, it’s okay, I have faith in God, He’s going to see me safely through this! You go ahead and help someone else if they need it.’ And they couldn’t convince him to come with them, so the helicopter flew away.”

The sibik sat looking at the last remaining cracker. Then it said, “What happened to Buddy next?”

Kit sighed. “Well, the water rose and rose, and it rose over the top of the guy’s house, so he had to swim away. But he couldn’t keep swimming forever, so finally he sank in the water and he drowned. And after he was dead, there he was all of a sudden standing before the One. And he was very disappointed: the guy, I mean. He said to God, ‘You know, I had faith in you! I waited for you to save me, to see me through! What went wrong?’”

Kit snorted softly, partly because his Pop had at this point in the story. “And the One said to the guy, “Well, I sent you a truck. I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter. How obvious do I have to be?…”

The sibik rustled. The sound might have been laughter.

On the other hand, Kit thought, it might have more to do with the last cracker— On which all the sibik’s eyes were presently fixed.

He sighed, pulled the cracker out of the cellophane sleeve, and handed it over to the sibik.

The sibik munched it up. “And then what happened?” it said.

Kit stared at it for a moment… then began to laugh helplessly as he looked out toward the plain and the gating complex. “I don’t know,” he said. “Honestly. It’s how what’s going on here might end, if somebody doesn’t do something!” Kit rubbed his face, feeling his eyes start to sting again. “And that would be really sad, because whether everybody’s of one mind or not, when it comes down to dying or living, in a situation like this, life is better!”

And his shoulders sagged and the breath went out of him. “Life’s just better,” he said, almost inaudibly.

A moment or so later he realized the sibik was looking at him very intently. “What?” Kit said.

The sibik was regarding the cellophane that was tightly crumpled up in Kit’s fist. “Is that good to eat?”

Kit stared at the cellophane. “Uh, not for me. You want to try it?” He held it out.

The sibik took it from him in two tentacles and introduced it carefully to its eating stoma, nibbled at it. Then it said, very clearly, “Bleah,” and spat it out.

All Kit could do was laugh.

“Can you take me home to my person now, please?” the sibik said.

Kit glanced at the gate-monitoring matrix display in his manual. All was quiet, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t do maintenance on the gates from anywhere in this neighborhood. “Sure, why not?” he said. “Up you come.”

He boosted the sibik up onto his shoulders and let it hang onto him with its tentacles. “Don’t strangle me again, now!” Kit said as it settled in place. “I breathe through this throat.”

“What’s a throat?” the sibik said.

Kit sighed. “Yeah, that would’ve been the cause of that problem…”

It was just then that Cheleb popped out of his puptent, glanced around with an air of concern, and spotted Kit. “Cousin, how long been here? Didn’t Djam say to wake me? Shouldn’t be on shift now!”

“Chel, don’t worry about it, everything’s all screwed up since last night,” Kit said. “And you had three shifts one after another yesterday, nearly. Djam probably just forgot to mention. But would you take over monitoring now? I have to take Wandering Boy here back to his people.”

“Feel free,” Cheleb said, eyeing the sibik with some concern. “Surprised to see him back.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Crackers.”

“Crackers?” said the sibik brightly.

“Not the slightest chance,” said Kit. “You are going home.”