XV

THAT NIGHT, THE CAPTAIN lay under his bed and had a fitful sleep. At one point he had the strange feeling that the ship was turning almost completely around.

Then he had a terrible dream. He was still the captain, and still on the bridge, but the Glory was sailing through the thickest of fogs. He tried to turn the wheel, but it would not turn. Nothing he did had any effect whatsoever on the steering. It was as if the ship was being pulled inexorably toward some object by some unseen force. And indeed it was, for out of the fog came the silver sails for which the Admiral was known. The sails seemed to reach for the Captain, pulling him toward them with irresistible force.

In the dream, the Admiral’s distinctive silver sails were coming through the white mist with horrible and deliberate speed. The Captain tried to turn but nothing worked. He put all his considerable weight on the wheel but it had no effect. The silver sails came toward him until he was surrounded by them, by their blinding light. The Admiral’s small dark eyes stared into him with unnerving resolve, imploring him, without a word, to be better.

The Captain felt his teeth loosen and crumble; they fell from his gums and were like pebbles in his mouth. He spit them out but his tongue came with them. When he tried to scream, he made no sound. He reached for his throat but when he lifted his hands, his fingers broke, one by one, like dried clay, leaving stubs that dissolved, disappearing like ash in a gale. He looked in horror at his handless arms, and, thinking he could outrun the disassembly of his body, he put one foot forward, then the other, but both buckled, bent, and snapped off like cheap plastic.

Without feet, his ankles could not support him and he dropped to his knees, which turned to wet putty, sending his torso soaring forward and his face plunging toward the ground. And here time slowed. This part of the dream, when his head was speeding to the earth, and all the while he knew that when it struck the hard ground it would shatter, seemed to last for hours. And while his head was flying downward, all the while he sensed the Admiral watching him, without malice and yet without compassion.

The Captain woke with a start. He was soaked through and drooling, his hands were trembling, his nose was running. He’d been crying, too.

“Hello?” he said into the vent. “You there?”

After a pause the voice answered, “Of course I am.”

“Do you think I’m brave?” the Captain asked.

From the vent there was a brief fit of coughs and throat clearings. Finally the voice said, “The bravest!”

This buoyed the Captain somewhat, but he pressed on. “The Admiral fought in the war and everyone says he was courageous. Do you think people think I’m a coward just because I hid in the bowels of the ship, looking at pornographic magazines?”

“Listen,” the voice in the vent said. “No one really cares about who fought in that war. And just about everyone likes pornography.”

The Captain laughed through his tears, knowing that again the voice in the vent had spoken an undeniable truth that assuaged his most private doubts.

“And I know this sounds silly,” the Captain went on, “but sometimes I think I’m not doing enough.”

The voice in the vent gasped. “No! Don’t say that!”

The Captain continued, “I promised the passengers that everything would get better, but so far all I’ve done is write on the wipe-away board, throw a hundred and eighty-seven people overboard, and promise to give the rest of the people a dollar and fify cents, which I don’t think I ever did.”

“Which makes you by far the greatest captain who has ever captained,” the voice said. “No captain has ever done more for the ship than you.”

The Captain sniffled, smiling to himself and feeling very grateful for the voice in the vent, and very proud of himself for all he had done.