– Grammar! I shout it this time. Is that what I sent her to a good school for?
– Who’s Geoff, goes John.
– The fuckwit aromatherapist bollocks-talking stress man.
– Oh yeah, said John. I remember. The one your wife –
– Yeah, all right, I cut in. Misery slicing me in half.
Mum and me and Geoff are so terribly regretful that you are on Death Row, we have been in shock ever since. And I just want you to know that I am very sorry that I reported you to Libertycare. If I had known what would happen I would never have done it. (Like fuck you wouldn’t.) We shall be coming on board the Sea Hero as visitors on Liberty Day (Oh Jesus, no!) and hope to have the opportunity then to apologise again in person.
John whistles.
– And is that it? Any more?
Only the icing on the cake.
– She’s signed it Your loving daughter, Tiffany. Huh! I shout. There’s so much rage in it, I’m almost propelled off the bed.
– Well, bugger me blind, says John.
– I’m going to chew it up, I tell him, feeling my lip wobble. My voice too. But as I pick up the letter to scrunch it into a bite-sized ball, something catches my eye. It’s another, smaller line of writing at the very bottom of the page.
P.S. Have you had a stool investigation recently?
My cue to go ballistic. First a grovelling, insincere apology for being the cause of my death sentence, then the news that my estranged family – with ex-wife’s new man in tow – are actually coming on board to watch me die. And then to cap it all, some out-of-order question about the state of my bowels. Within minutes I’ve buzzed and clanged and yelled my way on to the bridge.
– I’m not having them here, I tell Fishook, waving the letter at him. I refuse. I have rights, don’t I?
He’s standing at the wheel, his filthy cigar smoking in the ashtray. He still hasn’t even looked at me. He’s wearing clip-on shades over his glasses, although there’s precious little sun.
– Rights, Voyager? he chuckles. I’m afraid that as a leading light in the Sect, you sacrificed those long ago. In any case, he smiles, you’ll be surprised what a comfort it’ll be to have your nearest and dearest –
– They’re not my fucking nearest and dearest! If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here now!
– You don’t have the choice, Voyager Kidd, he says, tilting his head towards me, his grin fixed. The sun-glasses are unnerving, like the huge, inscrutable eyes of an insect.
– Your ex-wife, her new husband and your daughter are coming aboard at 1400 hours. I’m sure that, like the rest of us, they’ll be wanting to give you a good send-off. There’s a lot to celebrate, Voyager. The news from America, Liberty Day on Atlantica…
He smiles again and you can see he’s looking forward to it.
– It’ll all be kicking off on the main deck at 1500. He pauses. – It’s going to be quite a fiesta, Voyager. There’s a lot of excitement around this event. A real community buzz.
Does this man have any idea what I’m going through?
– But this man Gwynneth’s married, this Geoff bloke – I hardly know him! He’s a so-called stress counsellor, with sissy curtains in his waiting room! He’s a jerk!
Fishook takes his hands off the wheel and, with a swift movement, lifts the flaps of his glasses so they stand out at right-angles. His flat blue eyes look me up and down.
– He may well be a jerk, Voyager, he says. But he’s also a customer. And what the customer wants…
He turns back to the wheel. My life has been a whirlpool shape, I’m thinking. Everything sucked down too quickly and suddenly to make sense. Now I know why John behaved the way he did, when he thought it was him, and joked about the Big Fry-Up: you don’t quite take it in. There’s a… distance on it. But now there isn’t, is there, and there’s this sick, sick dread sweeping over me and I’m feeling faint and helpless and wanting to cry. I don’t know what to say any more. I’m not in control of anything. Not even the guest-list for my final bash.
Fishook’s picked up his cigar again, and he’s puffing monstrous fumes as he steers.
– Look over there, Voyager Kidd, he goes, pointing with his fat roll of tobacco.
There before us is the long humped line of land, bristling with skyscrapers. And the gaping yawn of the estuary.
I clench my buttocks together. Fishook’s looking at his watch, and then at me, his head cocked thoughtfully.
– You have six hours left, he says softly. You are a human hourglass, Voyager Kidd. And your sand is running out.
Just kill me now.
LIBERTY DAY 11 A.M.
High in the upper stratosphere, Liberty’s gliding oceanographic satellite charts the subtle shifts of the artificial land-mass below, registering the pressure on the porous rockbed and the complex nuances of subterranean physics. Strange the way the light plays tricks. From the pictures reaching Head Office it almost – almost – seems as though the yolk of the fried egg itself – the inland hump of St Giddier’s Mount – were slowly and inexorably deflating. You might even think, if you scrutinised these pictures, that the waters were creeping higher, and gnawing at the coastline by St Placid. If you were a catastrophist, you might go as far as to speculate that something might be going horribly and dangerously wrong beneath the earth’s crust – and venture to wonder whether, beneath the enchanted crucible of St Giddier’s Mount, something was frighteningly amiss. Something structural.
If you were a catastrophist.
– Earth has not anything to show more fair, breathes Wesley Pike, turning his back on the satellite screen and gazing out at the glittering snake of the River Hope, its urban banks already thronging with excited shoppers. Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight more touching in its majesty…
Once the Boss has remedied the geo-structural glitches, the disgruntled minority in Head Office will be questionnaired and flushed out. Now that the American election is all but over, the Boss will be free to unveil her strategy for the triumphant return of normal life on Atlantica. It’s what she’s best at. The Bargain of a Lifetime promotion is probably just the start of it. It’s working already. The customers are gagging for it. Look down there: they’re forming queues!
She has turned things around a million times before. Just watch.
But something bothers Pike. Saps at his inner strength, weakening him, tempting him to think off-code and to wonder if –
A shrill buzz; the communicator on the desk before him flashes. Distractedly, still mulling over the ugly, terrifying thought, Pike switches On.
– Wesley? comes the voice. It’s me.
They’ve been on first-name terms for a while now. Wesley Pike had an inkling, way back, that this young associate had the talent and confidence of a much older man. The characteristics of a successful Liberty employee are sensitivity, perceptiveness, a hands-on approach, plenty of initiative, a capacity for lateral-thinking. An early attitude problem can be a sign of potential. Pike was right to nurture him, right to spot how the black mark on his record could be turned into a golden asterisk of promise. And sure enough, of all the officers he briefed in the People Laboratory for the Hogg project, Benedict Sommers has been the most committed, the most diligent. The most proactive too. The Hannah Park business –
Benedict’s initiative. Benedict’s idea. The Boss had processed it, and finding no flaw, had even earmarked the young man for a success reward, placing him back on the fast track where he belonged. Soon he’d be leaving Liaison behind, and be at Facilitator level.