He thought of many things. Days in the Sanctuary. Elton’s blind, rigid face and the hot, cramped quarters of the battery hut. The gassy stink of the refinery, where he had left boyhood behind and found his course in life. He thought of Sara, whom he loved, and Lore, whom he also loved, and Kate and the last time he had seen her, her compact youthful energy and easy affection for him on the night when he had told her the story of the whale. All so long ago, the past forever retreating to become the great internal accumulation of days. Probably his time on earth was reaching its end. Maybe something came after, beyond one’s physical existence as a person; on this subject, the heavens were obscure. Greer certainly thought so.
Michael knew that his friend was dying. Greer had tried to conceal it, and nearly had, but Michael had figured it out. No one thing in particular had told him this; it was simply his sense of the man. Time was outstripping him—as, sooner or later, it did everyone.
And, of course, he thought about his ship, his Bergensfjord. She would be far away now, somewhere off the coast of Brazil, churning south beneath the selfsame starry sky.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Alicia said.
She was sitting across from him, reclining lengthwise on the bench, a blanket covering her legs. Her head, like his, was tipped upward, her eyes glazed by starlight.
“I remember the first time I saw them,” she continued. “It was the night the Colonel left me outside the Wall. They absolutely terrified me.” She pointed toward the southern horizon. “Why is that one so bright?”
He followed her finger. “Well, that’s not a star, actually. It’s the planet Mars.”
“How can you tell?”
“You’ll see it most of the summer. If you look closely, you can see that it has a slight red tint. It’s basically a big, rusty rock.”
“And that one?” Directly overhead this time.
“Arcturus.”
In the dark, her expression was hidden from his view, though he imagined her frowning with interest. “How far away is it?”
“Not very, as these things go. About thirty-seven light-years. That’s how long it takes the light to get here. When the light you’re seeing left Arcturus, we were both a couple of kids. So when you look at the sky, what you’re actually seeing is the past. But not just one past. Every star is different.”
She laughed lightly. “That kind of messes with my head when you put it that way. I remember you telling me about this stuff when we were kids. Or trying to.”
“I was pretty obnoxious. Probably I was just trying to impress you.”
“Show me more,” she said.
He did just that; Michael traced the sky. Polaris and the Big Dipper. Bright Antares and blue-tinted Vega and her neighbors, the small cluster known as Delphinius the Dolphin. The broad galactic band of the Milky Way, running horizon to horizon, north to south, bisecting the eastern sky like a cloud of light. He told her all he could think of, her interest never wavering, and when he was done, she said, “I’m cold.”
Alicia scooted forward from the transom; Michael crossed over and wedged himself behind her, his legs positioned on either side of her waist. He pulled the blanket up, wrapping the two of them, drawing her in for warmth.
“We haven’t talked about what happened on the ship,” Alicia said.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want.”
“I feel like I owe you an explanation.”
“You don’t.”
“Why did you come in after me, Michael?”
“I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. It was a heat-of-the-moment thing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He shrugged, then said, “I guess you could say I don’t much like it when people I care about try to kill themselves. I’ve been down that road before. I take it kind of personally.”
His words stopped her flat. “I’m sorry. I should have thought—”
“And there’s absolutely no reason you would have. Just don’t do it again, okay? I’m not such a great swimmer.”
A silence fell. It was not uncomfortable but the opposite: the silence of shared history, of those who can speak without talking. The night was full of small sounds that, paradoxically, seemed to magnify the quiet: each shifting touch of water against the hull; the pinging of the lines against the spars; the creak of the anchor line in its cleat.
“Why did you name her Nautilus?” Alicia asked. The back of her head was resting against his chest.
“It was something from a book I read when I was a kid. It just seemed to fit.”
“Well, it does. I think it’s nice.” Then, quietly: “What you said, in the cell.”
“That I loved you.” He felt no embarrassment, only the calm of truth. “I just thought you should know. It seemed like a big waste otherwise. I’ve kind of had it with secrets. It’s okay—you don’t have to say anything about it.”
“But I want to.”
“Well, a thank-you would be nice.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Actually, it’s exactly that simple.”
She fit the fingers of one hand into his, pressing their palms together. “Thank you, Michael.”
“And you are most welcome.”
The air was damp, mist falling, beads clinging to every surface. At an indeterminate distance, waves were hissing on the sand.
“God, the two of us,” she said. “We’ve been fighting our whole lives.”
“That we have.”
“I’m so … tired of it.” She drew his arm tighter around her waist. “I thought about you, you know. When I was in New York.”
“Did you now?”
“I thought: What is Michael doing today? What is he doing to save the world?”