Rickie looked wistful, but shook it off. “You can’t get away from the system. My way is how you prosper. How long have you been living in a tuna can?”
“Too long.”
“Then join up with me. Make a new life for yourself.”
Noah looked his friend over. Fancy clothes, probably cash and a knife in his pockets, lots of friends and girls and nice things. But there was a rot to him too, in the way he slithered around and kept looking sideways like he expected the cops. Noah could be like that too. He could have the world in his pocket. It was him and Jesus who cared what he chose.
“You all right?” said Rickie. With the door closed and the air conditioner off, the room was getting hot, the air starting to ripple. Or maybe Noah was seeing things.
“What if I ran away?” said Noah. “What if I left town?”
“Things are the same everywhere. You can’t get a break if you’re a black man, unless you play minstrel as an actor or a sports star.”
Noah sweated and he lurched to the A/C to turn it on. Rickie’s hand flew to his pocket when Noah moved so quickly, then relaxed. Reflex. Cold air washed over Noah but he still felt sick, heatstruck. Without Rickie he’d keep tumbling off the roof till he missed. With him, he’d change and die and go to Hell. “There’s got to be a way to break the pattern, to keep from doing something till it kills me. Maybe this ocean place is something I was meant to do. Something different.”
Rickie laughed. “I’m offering to get you into the business as a favor, and here you are all moonstruck.”
“I don’t know about this. I’ve got cold feet.”
“Hot feet are what I need. Someone who can do some walking on the street, maybe some running. Come on, what about all your crazy dancing?”
“Shut it!” said Noah, his voice ringing in the little room. “How can you talk like that? Haven’t you got respect for yourself?”
Rickie gave a little hiss of a laugh and spread his hands. “Look at me. Don’t I look like I’ve got it all?”
No, thought Noah. But what he said was, “Give me a week.”
“A week for what?”
“I’m going to do it — to ask those island people if they’ll hire me for something. I don’t care what.”
“You ever even been to the beach? There’s nothing for anyone out on the water. What’s the point?”
“I can make something of myself. I can be somebody.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” Rickie said, patting Noah on the head. “So I’ll talk to you in a week. But I can’t keep waiting forever. Be a man and tell me yes or no next time.”
Noah watched him go, then punched the wall so hard it rang. Being Rickie’s delivery boy or an independent dealer would be stupid and wrong. The only dumber thing would be to spend his life hanging out on the roof.
He looked up the ocean group’s contact info. What the hell; he’d ask them. If he heard nothing in a week, he had Rickie to take him along another road in style.
Either way, he’d be moving.
8. Garrett
He was in the water when Phillip radioed him. “They’re gambling!”
Garrett was teaching some of the Pilgrims about fish cultivation. It was strange to see the Pilgrims swap their costumes for wetsuits, but at least these guys listened to him. He’d never understood how people could have enough sense to survive while believing that logic didn’t matter, like the Creationist lab partner he’d had in a biology class. Their minds were bisected somehow. “Excuse me,” he told them. “I have a call. Why don’t you try installing the next fish cage yourself?”
He swam a few meters off, one hand to his fancy new radio earpiece. “Who’s gambling, now?”
Phillip’s voice was strident. “Those divers you brought are playing poker for money. I won’t stand for it. They’re polluting our aura.”
Garrett bit his lip. “Have you tried asking them to stop?”
“They didn’t listen.”
“I’ll have Martin talk to them.”
“No, no, you’re the secular authority! They need to be told from the top so there’ll be no further dispute.”
Garrett sighed. “I’m in the water right now, training your people. Can you come here?”
He had to admit that the cult leader had done his homework. When Garrett had started training the Pilgrims he found they knew how to calculate dive times, repair nets, and so on. It was hastily-studied book learning, but these people weren’t the drooling idiots he’d feared.
“Brother Jack, higher on your side!” one said.
“Sorry there, sister.”
Soon Phillip swam out, breathless. “How goes the work?”
All of his people shut up and faced him. Garrett wondered why none of them were answering, then realized that they expected Garrett to do it. Can’t they even talk for themselves? He tapped someone’s shoulder and said, “You tell him.”
Like a wind-up toy the man responded to Phillip. “Very educational, sir. We’ll make this operation productive.”
“Excellent. Captain Fox needs to deal with matters elsewhere.” To Garrett, Phillip said, “Lay down the law for those gamblers.”
Garrett stood dripping when he reached the docks. He tapped his radio and said, “Hey, Tess — seen the divers?”
“Yes, and I’m up twenty bucks. We’re in Dockside.”
They’d named the room beyond the iron door, which was the easiest to reach from the water. Garrett entered, and saw Tess and the divers sitting around a table stacked with chips. The crew had carved out a sort of living room from what was supposed to be a cargo storage area, defining the relaxation space with a rug and stacks of boxes. The effect of having this unwalled room here among the hardware was surreal, not what he’d planned for.
Garrett stepped into the living room and feigned a lazy drawl. “I’ve been called in on a report of an aura pollution in progress. You’re playing for money?”
“Yeah,” said Tess. “So?”
“Phillip’s complaining. Says it’s immoral, I think.”
One of the divers dealt another hand. Tess tossed a chip into the middle. “Who cares what he thinks?” said Tess. “He doesn’t have to play.”
The dealer upped his bet, said something in Portuguese that made his friends laugh, then looked at Garrett. “What’s the law here, anyway?”
“What law? We’re a farming station.”
“But is this Cuban territory?”
Garrett said, “We’re technically in Cuba’s Exclusive Economic Zone.” The divers looked blankly at him. “It’s not any country’s property. No one owns the ocean.”
“No laws?”
Tess said, “I guess we’re under United Nations law. Right?”
Garrett shook his head. “We didn’t sign any treaties. As US citizens we’re subject to American jurisdiction, and unless Martin has done something clever with our corporate structure we can be sued as an American company. But the UN doesn’t own the sea.”
The dealer said, “What happens if I steal something?”
Garrett felt apathetic in the face of abstract nonsense about legal jurisdiction, but the fact that Castor was no longer inhabited just by his friends made the speculation too annoying to ignore. “I guess we’d report you to your home government.”
The man went back to the card game, but talked some more to his friends. Garrett told himself to stop thinking they were scheming. He felt exposed without a government to back him up. Scary, like having a hulking bodyguard and then noticing that he’s vanished. He stood there in his wetsuit, trying to figure out what the rules were. “I guess everything is legal here by default,” he said, “but be nice or I’ll tell your country.” What more could he say?