Andrew Stewart - We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep

“You can equalize the pressure in this air lock,” he said, showing us the valves, how they worked. “This is how raids are sometimes done when we swim up while submerged. You can float right out if you ever get stranded below the surface.”

He spoke hushed to us, knowing this was something we should not be taught.

“But what if we’re too deep?” I asked him.

“Even at a depth of one hundred fathoms, a float or life vest will carry you right up to the surface—”

“What about air?” Lazlo asked.

“You’ll have plenty in your lungs,” Brother Calvert said calmly, answering our questions, seeming to understand our apprehension, our confusion. “Too much. You’ll have to blow out as you rise.”

“But should we survive?” I asked him, and everyone looked at me. “Should we try to survive?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, considering his words, lowering his kind, warm eyes, rubbing together his big hands. He did that when he was contemplating. “Yes, I think you should always try to survive. It’s in our nature.”

“And what about after we launch the Final Judgment? The last days?”

Again, a long reach of silence.

Eventually, he said, “When that times comes, we won’t need to worry about being saved, will we? We’ll be lifted up into his Glory.”

I see it now, the careful way in which he responded.

Is that what Caplain Amita believed as well? In the end?

That we should try to survive?

Lights spring on overhead, the red, flashing bulb cut off. The boat, still groaning unhappily, levels out.

One hundred and thirty-two fathoms.

It is as though all of us release a held breath at once. The very compartment sighs.

“ Return to your stations, ” the voice calls out over the squawk, distorted. “Remain in readiness. Observe silence.”

And that is all.

The red bulb flashes.

“We’re not rising,” Lazlo whispers, the last of us to stand, adding a glumness to the otherwise leavened mood.

“It’s that interloper we brought aboard. It’s his fault. He’s a Jonah,” St. John whispers in response. “Going to curse us all before we can complete our mission.”

“We’ll surface and vent soon,” Ephraim assures, but appears to provide little ease for the dispersing crew.

Lazlo grabs my hand, staying me, pulling me back, eyes burning, frightened or curious, I am not certain. He swings the hatch shut after the last of the line of brothers has exited.

“What?” I ask, heart sinking just looking at him. “What is it?”

He wants to speak, to say something, but he won’t. I see fear in his eyes.

“What happened up there?”

“They’re not our enemy!” he says, speaking low—almost inaudibly. I think, at first, I must have misheard him.

“Who?”

He points up. “ The Topsiders. They don’t want to kill us.”

“But… they’ve tried. They’ve dropped charges… They killed Silas. You were there…”

“I was there. I think this is only… retaliation. Because of what we did to the crew of the first ship.”

“What did you do?” I ask, seeing the shadow fall across his face.

“We… we slaughtered them,” he says, voice thin, high. He looks away. Shameful.

“They were Topsiders. The wicked…”

“But it wasn’t a warship,” he says, whispering, pulling me away from the door. “They called it a . . . research vessel. A ship called the Janus .”

“But they shot Silas…”

“They were defending themselves. We climbed up over the side—we struck fast—most weren’t armed. We didn’t kill them all at first…” He is shaking now as he grips both of my arms, the story spilling from him as though in one long breath. “Ex-Oh Goines gathered them all up on the deck, on their knees, tied cloth over their eyes. Asked each of them who was… who could work with the electrics, like. I had already done what was asked of me—I was shown these… circuit boards, here on the ship. Caplain Marston laid out different types for me to look for before we set out—told me where I should find them. In certain kinds of machines on board. So, that’s what I do, once everyone is rounded up. Pick up some other equipment I was supposed to take if I could find. Time I come back on deck, most of the crew of the Janus has been killed. Blade at the back of the neck. The deck was all… It was bloody. It was pooled up. Pouring off the sides. Only a few left alive when I showed up. Ex-Oh was killing them, one by one, looking for this… specific kind of technician. And then…” Lazlo draws me even closer—swallows. “I heard them. They were crying, begging for their lives. They were saying things like… like the war was over. That the world isn’t all poisoned. That they had kids back home. They were pleading for their lives, see?”

Lazlo finally lets me go, turns away to wipe his eyes.

“They’re deceivers,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder.

But he brushes me away.

“I don’t think so. They said they knew about us…” he says, eyes red with anger now. “Said they had been trying to track us, been trying to get in contact with us. Trying to tell us that they weren’t the enemy. That we don’t have to starve. That there’s plenty of uncontaminated food. Enough for everyone, but Goines had each of them cut down anyway.”

I brace myself against the bulkhead.

I’m suddenly aware of a gulf between us. A divide. Me, standing at the precipice of safe territory, and he, my best friend, on the brink of something altogether unknown and dangerous.

“No,” I say, speaking through an uncomfortable tightness clenching in my chest. “It was deception, Lazlo. If they were contacting us, it was only a trick to get us to surface. To board us, to stop us from fulfilling our mission.”

“I was watching from the hatchway,” he says, shaking his head, seeming not to have heard me at all. “I saw it all. When the interloper—the one we brought on board—finally confessed that she was a technician…”

“She?” Have I heard him right?

He nods.

There has never been a woman brought on board.

I swallow.

“They’re trying to keep it secret,” he says.

“I can understand why.”

“Ex-Oh says there was no choice. Once this woman said she was a technician, they killed the other two crewmembers.”

There is no consoling Lazlo now. “He referred to Caplain Amita by name, one of the prisoners. Before he was killed. Called him ‘Captain’ Amita. Said that peace was at hand… that they wanted to talk. To meet.”

“How did they know the caplain’s name?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone any of this. Ex-Oh warned me. But… I couldn’t. I couldn’t not say something to someone.”

Now it’s my heart that sinks. Heavy with its own, myriad secrets.

“What if we’ve been wrong ?” he asks, a dangerous whisper. He takes in a great, shuddering breath. “What if the war is over? What if it wasn’t the end of times?”

A clash of metal startles the both of us.

It came from the other side of the sealed hatch, followed by a muffled clapping, like the sound of retreating footsteps.

Lazlo and I share a lightning-fast, dread-deep look before I spring to the hatch and fling it open.

Down the corridor, into the mess and beyond, the lower deck is still active with the crew attending their duties. But no one retreating. No one near enough to have heard us.

On the deck, a wrench that must have been left on a small outcropping beside the hatchway.

We’d just imagined the footsteps. That’s all.

“Come on,” I say. “They’ll have noticed we’re missing.”