Charted Waters

by Tom Underhill

Laying back, he let the blade fall, wondering how his naked, crisscrossed body must look to the seagulls overhead. Like an irrigated field, perhaps, if the birds had ever seen agriculture, or a patchwork quilt, if they had ever swooped down near a laundry line…He closed his eyes, and hated the gulls. Briefly, he considered trying to bring one down with the knife before remembering he had lacked the strength for days. Even after the recent…indulgence. Helpless to do anything but curse their existence, he blotted the birds and everything else from his thoughts…

The sensation of something wet and miniscule splashing his face brought him back, and he reopened his eyes. With an effort, he managed to wipe his cheek with the hand that still moved. Puzzled by the white goo his index finger came away with, he sniffed it slowly and tasted. And swore at the gulls again. A parting insult: they sensed his intentions, then, knew they had scant time left to mock him. The demons had better be quick if they planned anything more.

Standing was an agonizing, multi-part process: there were several stages before sitting, many more before crouching, and too many to count before he finally looked like a biped again. It was several moments before he attempted a first step. And several more before the next.

An indeterminable time later, he found himself only a few feet from the edge. He could feel fragments of burst waves against his front, rejoice in the overflow washing around his feet… His concentration lapsed, and he stumbled. Without really knowing how, he caught himself, and in doing so glanced down and saw his reflection in the inky shine of the surface beneath him. The heinous structure that had been his support this last week…his prison…was acting as a mirror and throwing his body back upon him. The haggard, starvation pinched face. The mangled nose. The burned skin, jutting ribs, protruding hips. The deep, red grooves gridding his torso into regular compartments. The moist compass inscribed on his right shoulder. The phrase “ Atlantic Ocean ” etched in crimson lettering over and across his pectorals.

Sputtering, he surged to cover the final few feet and fell, this time without catching himself. Disoriented by the impact, he scrabbled first in one direction and then another, until by chance he came to the precipice. At last on the brink, he clawed his way off without hesitation.

The water swallowed him whole, marking his passing with only a slight, bloody hiccup.

#

The rolling of the ship lends an eerie, amoeba-like quality to the blood sloshing around the planks in front of him. Minute fissures in the wood direct the puddle's flow as it ebbs back and forth…So much…He'd never known his nose could be such a fountain, even broken as it surely was. But at least the swaying showed his Valiant was still floating in the water rather than sinking beneath it…After that horrible, jolting crash…The cannon fire had ceased. Did the Frogs consider them finished, then?

Gathering himself, he eases to a standing position cautiously enough to avoid disorienting himself again. He surveys the hold and sees several of his crew scattered about in poses similar to the one he found himself in moments earlier. None of their injuries seems serious, though the cursing is rampant nonetheless.

With slowly renewing balance, he staggers his way to the ladder, doing his best to weave around the moaning men. Such force in that last hit…it felt like it came from a collision, not a shot. But there was nothing to run afoul of here in the middle of the ocean…Unless the French had conceived some new gun of monstrous proportions…

The map that had been his reason for dashing down into the hold still clutched in his hand, he labors to climb the ladder, and succeeds on his second attempt. Above deck all is chaos and shadows: the stars lend a ghostly illumination to the turmoil, but the moon is veiled and offers little. His eyes adjusting quickly from years of practice, he finds less of his men horizontal than down below, but not by much. The French are closer…but seem to have anchored. And their guns are still silent. Why?

“Damnedest thing, Cap'n, damnedest thing…”

He turns and identifies the voice just as the face comes into focus. “What the hell happened, Davy. Did the bastards hit our powder?” Gesturing with his head towards the other ship, he winces as his nose protests the motion.

“No, Cap'n…wasn't the Frogs…best…best see for yourself…take my light…”

After a second of hesitation, he accepts the lantern and stumbles after Davy to the side of the listing Valiant . Following his cook's outstretched arm, he searches the dark.

“No…”

#

Its surface was not improved by the red veneer. The Thing's perfect blackness had looked better without the discoloration he had just added…without stains like himself…Even though a day ago he would have rejoiced to find even the smallest imperfection…Just a day ago…days ago…The sun was so hot…so blinding, so draining…

He sat with his legs dangling in the water, in the same pose he had held since waking that morning…aside from the burst of activity some minutes back…The water this close to the Split was calmer here than anywhere else along the Thing's length. It felt so soothing…so absolving…so justifying…

The blood next to him began to congeal as it baked in the sun; the Thing itself was as icy cool as ever, but its dark coloring attracted an immense amount of heat. An oven…an impossible oven in the middle of the ocean…He was cooking…broiling…If he squinted hard enough, he could almost see the steam rising from his blistered limbs. The blood leaking from the still form behind him was cooking, too…and it was steaming just like he was…

A gull winging out towards the horizon caught his eye, and he watched its ascent even when it lined up directly with the sun. Staring into the glare, he wondered if it would be better to end on a full stomach.

#

He stands next to the other captain in uneasy silence, watching the spot where the diver began descending. Repairs abroad the two ships come to a standstill, as both crews follow their commander's lead. After a fifty count, one of the English sailors mutters an oath that sounds loud in the quiet. Normally he would have reprimanded the man, but his focus refuses to tear itself away from the tiny bubbles still agitating around the point of entry.

At the seventy-seven count, a gasping head breaks the water, and cheers ring out. Few of these “hurrahs” last beyond the first seconds, however, as the diver's dejected body language is evident even as he swims to the waiting rowboat. Set against the ominous, black backdrop he was just investigating, the defeated Frenchman looks particularly insignificant; by the time the rowboat thuds against the English ship's hull, the crews are so silent the small collision carries much further than it should.

Denial winning out over decorum, the French captain bellows a question in his native tongue before the diver has even climbed halfway up the ladder. The response is short, eliciting groans from the other ship. Turning slowly, the French captain translates into impeccable English the news that has already been guessed: “It pains me to report, Captain Ryan, that my man…could find no point of termination. The…Thing…seems to keep descending…”

Ryan nods, mutters a “Thank you, Captain Martin,” and clasps his hands behind his back.

It is some minutes before the crews can be persuaded to resume repairs.

#

“Martin?...Martin?” His calls went unanswered, just as they had been for the last few hours. Martin only sat there, unclothed, unresponsive, head lowered, legs limp over the side. Motionless, lifeless, useless.

Turning away from his comrade, he visually traced the horizon again. Another boundary…it was supposed to recede as you got closer, but how could you really know? Maybe it would rise up as you drew closer, cage you in like the beast you were…

A gull flitted across his sight, and he screamed his hatred for its mobility. Its freedom…Shifting, he stared once more at his companion. The only sentient being anywhere within a hundred miles. And it was a bastard Frog, who lacked the courtesy even to respond…

His arm ached. Peeling until he came to the fresher layer of skin underneath, he amassed a large amount of shavings, and began to wonder if they could be used to tempt the gulls into knife range. It just might be done…He decided to consult Martin.

“Martin?...Martin?” No answer. Never an answer.

His hands twitched spasmodically as the anger welled up.

#

“It just goes, Captain…just goes…” His scout looks ashamed at returning with such sorry news.

“Thank you, Dan. It was brave of you…Thank you…”

Dan nods quickly and hurries out of his commander's sight.

Ryan sighs and crosses his arms behind his back before beginning his customary pacing across the main deck. No discernible end to the North…And he knew without asking that Martin's scout to the South had fared no better: watching that poor soul walk back with bowed head and slumped shoulders had been telltale enough.

The courage it must have taken the two men to volunteer not only to touch the Thing but traverse its surface for as long as a day's ration would take them…The hardship to return with such defeating reports…That the Monstrosity had no breaks…No visible stopping or starting points. No weakness….That it seemed to just stretch uninterrupted to either horizon…That it was eternal, implacable, impossible…Kyle's news had been better, though expected, as the lookouts had already commented on it: West to East, the Thing seemed to be only about a half mile wide, with fresh ocean resuming beyond it…But that was little comfort when the Behemoth blocked their passage on this side so totally…

He stops to listen to the hull repairs, in what should be their final stages. In a few hours time, the patching will be done, and they will be mobile once more…And then both crews will have to be told. An ordeal he is not looking forward too. But they were duty-bound to investigate…They couldn't just flee…couldn't just flee…

Sighing again, Ryan resumes his pacing.

#

“Are you quite done discussing your damn whore, “Captain” Ryan?” Martin did not raise his head as he spoke, his first words in hours lingering on the scorched air.

Ryan said nothing, did nothing in response for several moments, before abruptly rising and stalking off to the South. Some hours later he returned, and flopped down ten feet from Martin, who seemed not to have moved an inch.

Sitting silently for several minutes, Ryan suddenly began giggling uncontrollably. Martin's only comment was to bark out his own curt, bitter little laugh. Neither looked at the other as their mouths' closed.

The lapping of the waves against the edge below them was the only sound for some time to come.

#

“Flogging's what they need. Hard flogging, and you know it.”

“I'm aware that the English see these matters differently, but I can think of no more appropriate situation for leniency. The men are on edge, and understandably so…as are we…And the results of their transgression were punishment enough.”

Leaning against the rail of the French ship, Ryan shakes his head as disagreement makes it easier to remember Martin was his sworn enemy just a few days ago. The fact that the incident under discussion has prolonged their anchorage at this damnable spot only adds to the tension. “If we don't punish them severely, there'll only be more stupidity to come, and disaster after that.”

Martin shakes his head as well, and says nothing for several breaths. “…It will not go over well with the men. They look to us…now more than any other moment…for leadership. Not tyranny.”

Ryan laughs his incredulity and looks Martin in the eye. “This isn't about your Revolution. It's about survival: the fools fired a cannon without orders. They wasted shot and endangered all of us. And they didn't accomplish a damn thing.”

Shaking his head again, Martin mutters something in French before responding. “Granted…granted…But the sight of that ball disintegrating into dust…without so much as scratching their target…punishment enough, no?”

“No. Not if we intend to get through this without a mutiny.” Ryan looks down at the water. After hearing two heavy exhalations from his counterpart, his peripheral vision catches Martin conceding with a hand wave. Ryan acknowledges the victory with a nod, and the two fall quiet.

Inevitably, despite his efforts to avoid doing so, Ryan's gaze is dragged towards the source of their troubles, the black monstrosity they have only managed to move a hundred yards away from. Seeing the stars reflected in the Thing's sheen quickly becomes too much, however, and with a few low-toned words of parting, Ryan heads for his quarters.

#

Ryan punched the water emphatically. “Like a compass, she said. Like a bloody compass…So prophetic, she was, if only she'd known it…” He further underscored his amazement by whipping his sock as far as he could fling it.

Turning, he found Martin still crouched ten feet back, pondering his own bare legs and occasionally staring out at the ocean as if in search of clothes cast off earlier. Nonplussed, Ryan looked back at the waves.

“A bloody compass…Forwards, backwards, left, right…it's all relative…Never really sure which direction you're going when west is east for one man and east is west for another…damned arbitrary….All you know is that they meet at the middle, and then it's madness from there…” Ryan leaned over, fascinated by the transformation of the sock he had just abandoned, now a miniature, bloated wooly raft, buffeted back and forth by the churning tide.

“You see? Look there, how it flows to and fro! Taken in with one wave and out with the other…” He splashed the water again. “Is its progressing when it comes this way? Or is it that way? How do you tell? How do you bloody tell?...If we can't determine the orientation of a blasted sock, then how—“

The sounds of Martin struggling to his feet, taking a deep breath, and starting a stumbling sprint cut Ryan short. Bracing himself, he whirled and tackled the naked Frenchman to the Thing's surface. Martin struggled viciously until Ryan finally yelled out “The damn thing's sunk! It's gone! It's gone, damn you!” After verifying for himself that the sock had indeed descended below the waterline, Martin lay still.

Breathing heavily, Ryan struggled off his companion and staggered a few feet before collapsing. “You know…you know you'll die if you go out there. Neither of us has the strength to make it back.”

Martin snorted derisively. “And if I prefer a natural death to baking on this abomination?”

Ryan looked at Martin for several seconds and then turned away. They sat within arm's length of each other until they recovered enough to move further apart.

#

The room swims with smoke, permeated by a liquid fog thick enough to have its own currents and whirlpools. Ryan can only just distinguish the source, a wizened seadog already on his third pipe bowl.

“…All hones'y, Cap'n, crew's in a righ' black mood. Righ' foul one…” The old man pauses to breathe out several more tobacco ghosts before continuing. “…We were all lookin' forward ter headin' home after the repairs was done…not followin' this damn Devil's Ridge—“

Ryan holds up his hand in warning, and the old man nods an apology.

“Sorry, Cap'n…know you banned that name…Just fits, is all…But like I was sayin', crew's righ' disconten'ed. Mad, damn mad. And scare. Scare'er than they've ever been.”

Sighing, he leans back in his chair. “Thank you, Meyers. You've always had their mood better than I…” Contemplating the smoke's swirls, Ryan shifts, and wonders idly how far he would have to move before the haze swallowed his informant entirely. “Do you think they'll stay the course?”

Meyers considers this over four more smoky breaths. “Hard to say, Cap'n, hard to say…and you knows I hate ter tell you that. But…crew's damn uneasy. And bit disgrun'eld abou' the floggins,' if you don' mind me sayin' so…William's boy isn' helpin' any. Spou'in' nonsense on how this was mean' ter happen. How we've ou'grown the world or some such foolishness…Cagin' ourselves. But several are startin' to pay him some heed…or lees' his calls for turnin' back.”

His eyes narrow to slits Meyers cannot possibly see through the haze. “Outgrown the world…A cage…Are these his own ramblings or someone wiser's?”

Meyers seems to sense his captain's sudden tenseness, and responds much more promptly than before. “Hasn' said, Cap'n. Jus' assumed it was his own drivel…sodden rotten as is he is.”

Ryan nods and stares down at his boots, his hands clenching and unclenching. Some minutes later, he dismisses Meyers, who tries and fails to conceal how glad he is to leave.

#

“Why I think you will go quite mad, she said. Quite mad.” Ryan shook his head slowly as he said this. He paused to allow Martin to comment, but the Frenchman was intent on a group of gulls perched twenty yards to the north.

“She was always so philosophical. Always…Every night I went to see her, she never failed to engage me in some sort of discussion…This was her favorite topic, though…The futility of exploration she called it. The blasted futility...” Ryan fell silent for a moment and then suddenly slammed his fist against the black, unforgiving surface they rested on, yelling in frustration as he did so.

The gulls started and flew off the Thing and out of sight. Martin glared at his fellow castaway and reclined in disgust.

“What will you do when the Unknown becomes Known? she'd ask. When you've discovered everything there is to discover? she'd needle. Made the world too small for yourself? Mapped yourself a prison of certainty?...The globe now your cell…” Ryan lapsed into silence, noting with irritation that Martin was fast asleep.

#

“Did you go ashore in Lisbon , Williams?” Ryan imagines the young ensign looking quizzically at his captain's back in total confusion.

“Sir?”

“Answer the question, Sailor.” Surprised at how calm he feels, Ryan continues staring at the inky blackness they have been shadowing for four days. He keeps the French ship out of his vision, as the Thing makes it look depressingly small by comparison…Even facing away from his subordinate, he can still smell the whiskey.

“Yes, sir…I did, sir…You gave us permission, and—“

“Do you know a woman by the name of Isabelle in that port?” Ryan has never gazed at the Thing this long without flinching.

“…Sir?”

“I'll not prompt you again, Sailor.”

“…Yes, sir…A…A whore near the docks. But it was only the one time—“

With a speed he had not known he still possessed, Ryan turns and strikes the boy's face with an open palm. As his hand pulls back from William's cheek, night turns to day, and ahead of them the French ship becomes an inferno.

#

“She asked me to map her one night.” Ryan was walking without watching; he had already swerved into Martin more than once.

“Is that what the English term it?”

Laughing darkly, Ryan shook his head. “We have many names for the act, my dear Frog, but when I say map I really do mean map. ‘Chart me,' she said. ‘Measure me, plot me, grid me, label me, map me…' Best night I have ever had with her…”

“Careful, now.”

Ryan heard but did not register, and almost immediately bumped against Martin, who had slowed to study a group of gulls. The Frenchman swore, the birds took to the air, and Martin swore even louder. And then collapsed in a heap, one hand covering his eyes, the other over his shrunken stomach.

“You'd never have caught them anyways.” Sitting down five yards away, Ryan turned away from his counterpart and stared into the sun. “Gulls were her favorite animals, come to think of it. Must have admired their freedom…”

“And why, why on earth would this “Lady” ask you to transcribe her womanly form?”

Ryan looked back to stare hard at Martin before answering. “She was teasing me I suppose. Seeing how I would react once I knew her so precisely. Jesting that I would tire of her…”

“And did you?”

Turning back to the sun, Ryan said nothing further for the rest of the afternoon.

#

“Sir?”

His first mate looks desperate. Ryan has no idea what to tell him.

Martin stirs at his side, murmurs something in French. An oath, no doubt. Or a prayer. Neither of which would do justice to the absurdity before them. Nothing could…

“Sir?”

“I heard you the first time, Lucas…Let me…Just let me think a moment…”

Lucas nods his apology.

Still muttering in French, Ryan turns his eyes away from the Thing's doubling and stares in the only direction still free of its presence: South East. South East…and Ryan suddenly realizes what they need to do. What has happened, and where they need to go for certainty…

Martin chuckles sourly. “Our new heading, no?” With a flick of his right arm, the Frenchman lets Ryan know that he is not the only one to have unraveled the mystery of the Thing…Things…

Swallowing as he nods, Ryan slowly looks back at the monstrous, jet black cross now blocking them to the West as well as the North…the unholy propagation of what had been diabolical enough as a single entity…Two Things intersecting at a giant right angle, in the middle of nowhere, a phenomena no one had ever reported…

Martin mutters to himself in French again. This maddening revelation had come on top of the shock of seeing his ship blown up behind him the night before. The fools…Ryan shakes his head, an all too common motion of late. Either someone had tried to detonate a barrel of powder on the Thing and gotten it wrong…or they had given into despair and gotten it right…Martin and his cook, rowing towards the Valiant for dinner, had been the only survivors. The Thing, of course, had been completely unscathed.

“The crew won't like it,” Martin interjects at last.

“Initially they will, for as long as the damn Things are out of sight…But if we're right, and we do run up against it…” Ryan closes his eyes to blot out the Hellish crossroads before him.

“We are right, and you doubt it not. And even if we do not find the label, that would not disprove us. Who can say exactly what map these Demonspawn are going by…”

Ryan gives no answer, and Martin does not press him for one.

#

“How long do you think?”

“…If we catch one of those gulls, maybe a few days…” Ryan eyed his water skin, his small, sweating, single water skin. “…At best.”

Their legs dangling over the Thing's edge, he and Martin fell silent for several minutes, both staring out at the empty horizon. Salt misted over them intermittently as waves crashed against the black cliff, but though it irritated their already reddening skin, neither seemed to mind.

“A hunt, then? Or would you rather save your strength?”

“…Let's go.”

The pair rose to their feet and began walking to the south. Ryan avoided asking what they could possibly be saving their strength for.

#

“They realize they will hit another Monstrosity in about a hundred miles, depending on the scale our demonic cartographer is using. Whatever direction they go.” Martin offers this as a statement rather than a question.

Ryan has no immediate reply. The two sit next to each other, watching the Valiant race towards the horizon. Beneath them, the all too familiar blackness extends behind and around, an impossible vastness bounding the ocean.

“Ironic, this…” Ryan says at last. “I've always had an affinity for letters…and now I'll die on one.”

“Better than ending aboard a heathenly large line of longitude I suppose…”

Laughing bitterly, Ryan turns away from the now almost infinitesimally small Valiant and looks instead at the waves lapping against the Thing's edge. This was one structure water would not wear down…

A gull swoops low and then rises to pass overhead. Marking its trajectory, Ryan wonders idly how high the bird would have to soar before it could see “Atlantic Ocean” spelled out in all its jet black, horrible enormity. And how much higher still the gull would have to climb to take in the perfectly regular grid enclosing the monstrous words. If it could find the point his ship had first run afoul of this heinous map…

Lowering his gaze, he finds the Valiant vanished from view. Ryan laughs again, stopping only when he notices Martin muttering to himself with closed eyes.