The City of Mirrors

Michael looked up. High above, the surface shimmered. What was the source of this mysterious, beckoning light? The sound of the screws abruptly ceased; now he understood Lore’s intentions. She was creating enough slack in the line for them to ascend. Michael began to kick. Alicia, don’t give up. Help me do this. Unless you do, we’re dead. But it was no use; they were sinking like stones. The light receded pitilessly.

The rope went taut again. They were being pulled.

As they broke the surface, Michael opened his mouth wide, sucking in a vast gulp of air. They were beneath the stern, a mountain of steel soaring above them; the light he’d seen was the moon. It shone down upon them, fat and full, spilling across the surface of the water.

“It’s all right, I’ve got you,” Michael said. Alicia was coughing and sputtering in his arms; from high above, a lifeboat floated down. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

* * *

77

Carter’s eyes were full of stars.

He lay on the causeway, bloodied and broken. Some parts of him felt as if they were absent, no longer attached. There was no pain; rather, his body felt distant, beyond his command.

Brothers, sisters.

They stood around him in a circle. Toward them, he felt only love. The ship was gone; it was streaming away. He felt a great love for everything; he would have wrapped the world with his heart if he could. At the edge of the causeway, moonlight skittered across the water, making a glowing road for him to travel.

Let me do this. Let me feel it coming out of me. Let me be a man again, before I die.

Carter began to crawl. The virals stepped back, allowing him to pass. There was in their comportment a feeling of respect, as if they were pupils, or soldiers accepting the sword of their enemy. Across the roadway, Carter made his passage. His left hand, reaching out, was the first part of him to touch the sea. The water was cool and welcoming, rich with salt and earth. A billion living things coursed through it; to them he would be joined.

Brothers, sisters, I thank you.

He slipped beneath the surface of the water.

* * *

78

Dawn at sea.

The Bergensfjord lay at anchor, her great engines at rest. The sky was low, the water blank as stone; far away, a screen of rain fell into the Gulf. Most of the passengers were sleeping on the deck. Their bodies lay in disorder, as if felled all at once. They were a hundred miles from land.

Amy stood at the bow, Peter beside her. Her mind was drifting, refusing to attach to any thought but one. Anthony was gone. She was all that remained.

The little girl’s name was Rebecca. Her mother had died in the attack, her father years ago. Amy’s feeling of her—her body’s weight and heat, the desperate force with which she’d clung to her as they had soared through space—was still palpable. Amy did not think it would ever depart; the sensation had become a part of her, stitched to her bones. It had defined the moment, making the choice for her. It was not only Rebecca that Amy had seen on the pier but her own little-girl self, who had, after all, been just as alone, abandoned by the great heaving engine of the world and in need of saving.

For some time, perhaps ten minutes, neither she nor Peter spoke. Like her, Peter was only half present, staring into space—the pale dawn sky, the sea, limitlessly calm.

It was Amy who broke the silence. “You better go talk to her.”

In the small hours of the night, a decision had been reached. Amy could not go; neither could Alicia. If the survivors were going to make a new life for themselves, all traces of the old terrors needed to be left behind. What mattered now was for others to accept it.

“She didn’t do this, Peter.”

He glanced at her but said nothing.

“Neither did you,” she added.

Another silence. With all her heart she wanted him to believe this, yet she knew it was impossible for him to think otherwise.

“You need to make peace with her, Peter. For both your sakes.”

The sun was rising unremarkably behind the clouds; the sky was devoid of color, its edges blended imperceptibly into the horizon. The rain kept its distance. Michael had assured them that the weather wouldn’t be a problem; he knew how to read these things.

“Well,” Peter said with a sigh, “I suppose I better do this.”

He left her and descended to the crew’s quarters. The air belowdecks was cooler, smelling of wet metal and rust. Most of Michael’s men were snoring in their racks, using this brief hiatus to rest and prepare themselves for what lay ahead.

Alicia lay on a lower bunk at the far end of the corridor. Peter pulled up a stool and cleared his throat. “So.”