To my astonishment, a Spanish warship was waiting in Santander to collect me. I was politely welcomed aboard the Santa Maria class frigate, which promptly set sail for New York. I gathered from the Captain that a visit to the USA for a joint training exercise had been planned anyway, so I wasn’t being given quite such favoured treatment as I had first thought.
A cabin was provided for my use and there were exercise machines to keep myself in shape, but there was of course no swimming pool. The Captain was under orders to get to his destination as quickly as possible, so I had some difficulty in persuading him to stop for an hour to let me swim.
When I plunged into the Atlantic it felt both familiar and strange. Familiar in the sensual freedom of planing down through the water, the salt taste in my mouth. Strange in the vast scale that I sensed; the great depths beneath me, with glimmers of life like lights flickering in the dark. A huge sperm whale thrust its body forwards a thousand metres below, a rising chirrup of sound as its sonar pinned the giant squid it fed on. Around it all there was a sense of slow movement and I realised that I was detecting the north-east flow of the Gulf Stream and, just at the edge of detection far below, the cold return flow from the Arctic to the Caribbean. My mind slowed to match the long rhythms of the ocean and I hung there, just absorbing.
When I reluctantly returned to the ship the efficient bustle of naval life seemed frantic and mechanical, irritating me and jarring my thoughts. I went to my cabin and spooled up my mind again, feeling a mixture of curiosity and concern about the effect the deep ocean had on me. It was like a drug that slowed my thoughts but expanded my perceptions, as if to match its own vast scale and huge, slow, rhythms.
I lay on my bunk, aware of all of the life around me. With a little concentration, I found I could locate and identify every member of the ship’s crew. They hung in my mind like little lights, some stationary, some moving, some asleep and dreaming, coloured by their various moods and emotions. I felt that I held them all cupped in my mental hands. The memory of the contorted bodies behind the sea wall jumped into focus and I hastily dismissed the thought and returned my mind to the everyday.
I had become conscious of the power which hummed through the ship, and with some effort was able to focus on it. The electrical circuits were raw energy, running like arteries and veins throughout the ship, powerful far beyond my ability to influence. I felt a severe headache building and quickly turned my mind away. With careful retuning, I found I could block out the power supplies and select only electronic circuitry. This was much weaker and more delicate, and I discovered I could trace its patterns, even influence its flow, although this took considerable effort and left me tired and with a dull throbbing in my head.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, the weather pleasant and the sea relatively calm, with only a long swell, the memory of a distant storm, to disturb the ship. I felt withdrawn from human contact, speaking to the crew only when necessary. At night my dreams were dominated by visions of the dark ocean depths, a vastness from which I slowly surfaced each morning.
New York was torture, of course. Long before the ship arrived I became aware of the thunderous mental roar gradually building up over the horizon. I had not felt comfortable in cities since my accident, and my recently enhanced sensitivity made the assault on my senses that much harder to bear. On top of that, the city’s mental signature seemed harsher, more frenetic than London’s. I spent the last hour of the journey building defences, shutting down as much of my mind as I could, so that I sensed only people close to me. By the time the ship docked I felt like an invalid, half deaf, half blind, and noticed nothing of the journey to the United Nations headquarters.
I was given some clothing; trainers, jogging pants and a soft, zip-up jacket, before being ushered into the presence.
The Secretary-General was courtesy itself, only his mental signature reflecting his intense curiosity. After some diplomatic pleasantries and generalities we agreed that I would explore with his staff possible ways in which I might be able to contribute to the work of the UN. He had nominated a liaison officer to work closely with me, and brought her in to introduce her before leaving. Her name was Freya Torsdottir, an Icelander. She was tall and lean, with a crop of short white-gold hair and the kind of uneven tan which is acquired the hard way, by spending much time out of doors. The laughter-wrinkles around her eyes crinkled up as we met. I judged her age to be around forty, though I find it very difficult to tell women’s ages these days.
‘A follower of the old religion?’ I teased.
She smiled slightly. ‘Not really, but my parents like the traditional names.’
‘Can we go somewhere else to talk?’
‘Where would you like?’
‘Iceland?’
She laughed. ‘That would be nice, but a sea trip might take a little time to arrange.’
‘Then I’d like to take a boat to somewhere quiet, away from the city.’
‘That we can do, today. If you’ll excuse me, I will go and arrange the details.’
“Somewhere quiet” turned out to be a secluded beach-front house on Long Island near Sands Point, facing west across Long Island Sound. There was a jetty for the fast motor cruiser which had brought us from Manhattan. It was early autumn but still hot, and sailboats skimmed past in the distance as we relaxed on the wooden veranda of the deceptively plain brick-built house which Freya told me was regularly used by the UN. Inside, it was considerably larger and more luxurious than it had first seemed.
Fruit, nuts and bottled water had all been in place by the time we arrived, and as I satisfied my hunger I found the mental tension caused by the raucous city easing, like a knot slowly unravelling. Only a handful of people were in close range, and I could allow my sensitivity to expand until it covered a wide area in detail. The security guard I detected by the front gate and the housekeeper inside the building had kept discreetly out of the way. The nearest neighbour was at least a hundred metres away, and New York was a distant murmur over the south-western horizon.
Freya finished demolishing her cold platter with enthusiastic thoroughness and raised a glass of mixed fruit juices. ‘Better?’
‘Much! You can book me in here whenever I have to visit the UN. I don’t want to go near New York again.’
She grinned. ‘I sympathise. I’d like to work out here too.’
‘So what comes next? What miracles am I supposed to perform?’
‘As you can imagine, we’ve given some thought to that, but didn’t want to come to any firm conclusions before seeing you.’ She settled back in the chair, bringing her hands together under her chin in what I was soon to realise was a characteristic posture whenever she was thinking carefully. ‘Basically, there are several different fields in which we are active, as is well known. Conflict resolution is one, humanitarian aid another, human rights a third. Of course, these are often interlinked; a conflict in Africa, for example, may lead to human rights abuses and result in famine and a huge refugee problem. We try to avoid or end such problems using diplomacy, sometimes send in troops to stabilise situations, and organise aid where it’s needed.’
‘And how effective do you think all that is?’
She grimaced, wrinkling her nose. ‘Not as good as it should be. We are often hindered by countries which have their own agendas and reasons for wanting us to move slowly or not at all. And we are perpetually short of money and other resources, because many countries are reluctant to provide what they are supposed to.’ She sighed. ‘And, if I am honest, we are like any other big, long-established bureaucracy. We are often slow to move, and much of our energy is absorbed by internal politics and careerism.’