Michael mused on these words as he made his way through the streets of H-town. He was accustomed to scenes of abandonment and devastation; he had crossed ruined cities that contained skeletons by the thousands. But never before had the dead spoken so directly to him. In the captain’s quarters, he had found the man’s passport. His full name was Nabil Haddad. He had been born in the Netherlands, in a city called Utrecht, in 1971. Michael found no further evidence of the boy in the cabin—no photographs or other letters—but the emergency contact named in his passport was a woman named Astrid Keeble, with a London address. Perhaps she was the boy’s mother. Michael wondered what had happened between the three of them, that the captain never should have seen his son. Perhaps the boy’s mother wouldn’t allow it; perhaps for some reason the man did not feel worthy. Yet he had felt the need to write to him, knowing that in a few hours he would be dead and the letter would travel no farther than his own pocket.
But that wasn’t all the letter told him. The Bergensfjord had been going somewhere; it had had a destination. Not “a refuge,” “the refuge.” A safe haven where the virus could not reach them.
Hence the third thing in Michael’s bag, and his need for the man they called the Maestro.
If the man had a real name, Michael didn’t know it. The Maestro also had the habit of speaking in disconcertingly butchered sentences while always referring to himself in the third person; it took some getting used to. He was quite old, possessing a sinewy twitchiness that made him seem less like a man than some kind of overgrown rodent. He had once had been an electrical engineer for the Civilian Authority; long retired, he had become Kerrville’s go-to man for electronic antiquities. Crazy as a caged bird, and not a little paranoid, but the man knew how to make an old hard drive confess its secrets.
The Maestro’s shed was unmissable; it was the only building in H-town with solar panels on the roof. Michael knocked loudly and stepped back for the camera; the Maestro wanted a good look at you first. A moment passed, and then a series of heavy locks opened.
“Michael.” The Maestro stood in a narrow wedge of open door, wearing a work apron and a plastic visor with flip-down lenses.
“Hello, Maestro.”
The man’s eyes darted up and down the street. “Quickly,” he said, waving Michael inside.
The shed’s interior was like a museum. Old computers, office machines, oscilloscopes, flat-panels, huge bins of handhelds and cellphones: the sight of so much circuitry always gave Michael a tingly thrill.
“How can the Maestro be of assistance?”
“I’ve got an antique for you.”
Michael removed the third thing from his bag. The old man took it in his hand and examined it quickly.
“Gensys 872HJS. Fourth generation, three terabytes. Late prewar.” He looked up. “Where?”
“I found it on a derelict ship. I need to recover the files.”
“A closer look, then.”
Michael followed him to one of several workbenches, where he laid the drive on a cloth mat and flipped down the lenses of his visor. With a minuscule screwdriver he removed the case and perused the interior parts.
“Moisture damage. Not good.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Difficult. Expensive.”
Michael removed a wad of Austins from his pocket. The old man counted it on the bench.
“Not enough.”
“It’s what I’ve got.”
“The Maestro doubts that. Oil man like yourself?”
“Not anymore.”
He studied Michael’s face. “Ah. The Maestro remembers. He has heard some crazy stories. True?”
“Depends on what you heard.”
“Hunting for the barrier. Sailing out alone.”
“More or less.”
The old man pursed his rubbery lips, then slid the money into the pocket of his apron. “The Maestro will see what he can do. Come back tomorrow.”
Michael returned to the apartment. In the meantime he’d been to the library, adding a heavy book to his satchel: The Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas. It wasn’t one that people were permitted to check out. He’d waited for the reference librarian to be distracted, concealed it in his bag, and slipped outside.
Once again, he was called upon for a bedtime story. This one was about the storm. Kate listened with tense excitement, as if the story might end with him drowned in the sea, despite the fact that he was sitting right in front of her. With Sara, the subject of the previous night did not come up. This was their way; a lot was said by saying nothing. She also seemed distracted. Michael assumed that something had happened at the hospital and let it go at that.
In the morning he left the apartment before anyone else was awake. The old man was waiting for him.
“The Maestro has done it,” he declared.
He led Michael to a CRT. His hands scurried over the keyboard; a glowing map appeared on the screen. “The ship. Where?”