Who was crying?
France opened one eye. It didn’t help. The room was black. For a second he thought he’d dreamed the sound, but then he heard the sobbing again.
He was in the lower bunk. Hans Bachmann was above him, thoroughly asleep. France rolled out of bed and crouched in the dark. The deck moved up and down beneath him. The old Carleton was pitching up and down like a carousel horse.
Who was crying?
The sound was fainter, more muffled than before. France realized he had been hearing it through the wall. He crept to the wall and listened. Someone was sobbing in the next cabin.
He was wearing pajamas. His parents always insisted he sleep in pajamas, winter or summer. Anything else was disreputable.
France opened the door. It was a light wooden panel with louvers in the bottom half. The corridor outside was dimly lit and completely empty. He stepped out. Just as he did, the ship staggered sideways, throwing France against the facing wall. Was there a storm? He didn’t hear thunder or pouring rain.
The Carleton righted herself. France went to the door of the cabin next to his. He tapped lightly on the painted wooden panel.
“Hello? Hello?” In English he said softly, “Is everything all right?” When no one replied, he repeated the question in French. To his surprise, he heard a choked reply in his native tongue.
“Va-t’en, connard!” More of the same followed, a gasped torrent of curses and abuse.
That was more than rude. France hit the door with his fist.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Come out here and say that to my face, lâche sale!”
Silence. All sympathy gone, France noted the number on the cabin door, B14. He’d find out who was in there.
Back in his own cabin, he dressed with angry haste in total darkness. Hans never stirred, not even when France stubbed his toe and cursed aloud. France stalked up to A deck, then to the weather deck. Along the way, he passed a wall clock that read 03:22.
Out on deck, wind was blowing. The old steamer plowed steadily ahead, pushing her bow against rough seas. Overhead, stars flitted between gaps in the clouds and a brilliant moon washed everything in pale light.
There were people in the lounge. France ducked in and saw they were crew members eating dinner, having come off their watch. He asked how he could find out who was in the cabin next to his.
The men smirked. Was she hot, une bébé?
“No, he’s a loudmouthed bastard!” The crewmen laughed.
The fellow with a closely trimmed gray beard said, “Go up to the signals room on the boat deck. There’s always an officer there. Don’t bother the bridge watch, though.” France thanked him curtly and left.
Higher up on the ship, the motion of the seas were worse. Climbing the steel steps to the boat deck was actually hard. Once there, there was nothing above him but Carleton’s massive streamlined smokestack, some pole masts with antennas, and assorted ventilator hoods. Forward was the ship’s extensive bridge. France found the signals office at the rear of the structure. He didn’t knock but simply threw open the door.
It was dark inside, with no light visible but the glow of a dozen thin monitors. Most of them were blank and blue. One played a snowy scene of static. Another was covered with marching lines of random letters and numbers.
“Hello?” he said. The blank silence of the place took the anger right out of him.
Someone stirred in the shadows.
“Who’s there?” the voice challenged in English.
“François Martin. I-I am a passenger.”
“Passengers aren’t allowed in signals.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m having a problem with my neighbor.”
A woman in the blue jacket of the merchant service emerged from the darkness. She was about forty, pale, with eyes shot with thready blood vessels. Her name badge read Señales.
“What problem?”
“He’s making noise.” Mad as he was, France couldn’t bring himself to accuse anyone of crying like a baby.
“Did you ask him to stop?” France admitted he had and was insulted for trying.
“I’m too busy for this,” Señales said, waving him off. “Find the chief steward. He’ll help you.”
She turned away. France said, “What’s going on here?”
“Go back to bed. Everything will be fine . . . “
That’s what they told people on the Titanic. France came two steps into the room.
“Is every computer on the ship out?” he said, gazing at the empty screens.
Her voice came from the shadows. “No, the systems on the ship are old, but they work. It’s the outside connections that have failed. We’re cut off from everything—satellite navigation, Your/World net, telephone, radio . . . radar is out, too.”
France’s complaint suddenly seemed very childish. He said, “How are you steering the ship?”
“By the sun and stars. At least they haven’t left us.”
“Will we make it to Canada?”
Officer Señales gave a weary sigh. “If we don’t run into Ireland or Greenland first!”
France left her surrounded by blank screens and a wall of electronic silence. By the time he descended to the lounge, the crewmen had finished their meal and gone to bed. The ship felt deserted.
Down on B deck, he paused in the passage outside his door. The door of the cabin next to his, B14, was ajar. France tapped on it firmly.
“Hello?” he said. The door swung inward halfway and stopped.
The cabin was weirdly lit by a lamp fallen to the deck. Half the LEDs were out and the shade was bent, throwing what little light that was left at an odd angle from the floor up. The lower bunk was a tangle of stark white sheets.
France stepped in. “Hello?”
Something crackled under his shoe. He picked it up. It was half a Globus chocolate bar. The gold wrapper was folded back, exposing the chocolate. France saw more candy bars scattered around the cabin, wrappers torn open and stomped into the carpet. Milk chocolate and crispy rice covered the floor.
He checked the washroom. No one was there. There were no bags or cases in the room, no stray clothing, nothing. Nothing but ruined candy bars, all by the Globus Company of Ghent, Belgium.
Belgium? France had a revelation. He set the broken lamp upright and sat down in an armchair, facing the half-open door. There he waited. Before long, he fell asleep. In his light, undreaming state, he easily heard soft footsteps enter the cabin.
“What are you doing here?” Emile Becquerel demanded. His voice was low, but his tone was not friendly.
“Trying to get some sleep,” France replied, yawning. “Someone was crying.”
“You were dreaming. Go back to your own room!”
France remembered the insults shouted through the closed door. He was half a head taller than Emile and obviously stronger. He was no bully, but the Belgian kid had been really insulting. He could have knocked the smaller boy down, or blasted him with all the insults he’d learned listening to his father’s underlings. But no.
He stood close, too close. Emile did not back away. France slapped a broken candy bar against his chest.
“Here. Eat your family’s junk more quietly next time!”
He pushed Emile out of the way and went out. A moment after he passed through the door, half a Globus bar hit the corridor wall behind him.
“You’re welcome!” he called out. The door of B14 slammed shut.
Back in his bunk, he heard Hans Bachmann grunt, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
“Are systems still out?”
“Oui. Ja.”
“Don’t worry,” said Hans, rolling over to face the wall. “I have the answer.”
“You do? Are you a systems expert?”
“No. My folks sell antiques . . . “
Soon he was asleep again, breathing deep and slow. France tried to sort out the strange mix of events in his late night wandering. He couldn’t, gave up, and joined his cabin mate in slumber.
When day came, the sea was much calmer. Without the diversion of their PDDs and Your/World, the passengers spent a lot of time on deck. Jenny Hopkins and Mr. Trevedi led a band of hopeful joggers around the Carleton. Julie Morrison was among them, much to her brother’s surprise. She’d never been into sports before, but she did love celebrities, and an Olympic hopeful and a professional cricket player were the most the Carleton offered in that line.
Not long after breakfast ended, Hans Bachmann went to his cabin and returned with a flattish wooden box. It was heavy, whatever it was, and he carried it in both arms. France saw him take the steps up to the boat deck. He caught Leigh Morrison’s eye, and they got up together to follow. Eleanor and Linh saw them go and started after them. Mr. Chen, the lady in the lifter chair (her name was Mrs. Ellis), and other passengers joined the parade.
Hans went up the bridge deck. He was stopped by the purser before he reached the bridge. Leigh stopped on the steps below them, waiting to see what happened. Curious passengers piled up behind him.
Hans and the purser had a quiet, earnest conversation. Finally the ship’s officer raised the lid of the box and peered inside. He reached in and took out a gleaming triangular brass instrument.
“What is it? What are they doing?” Eleanor called from several places behind Leigh.
“It’s one of those ship-thingies from the old days,” Leigh said. He struggled to recall its name. “A compass?” That wasn’t right.
“An astrolabe?” Linh suggested. Leigh had no idea what an astrolabe was, but the name didn’t spark any recognition.
“It’s a sextant.”
Everyone turned to stare at Emile. Looking rumpled and red-eyed, he was by the ship’s rail, out from under the overhang of the bridge deck.
“Sextant!” he repeated crossly. “For navigation!”
Hans came down with the empty box. He was surprised at the crowd waiting for him.
“What’s all this?”
“We were wondering what you were taking to the bridge,” Leigh said awkwardly. He couldn’t believe the weird kid knew what the instrument was, and he didn’t.
“It’s a sextant, once used on the great sailing ship Preussen,” Hans said. It was from his parent’s antiques inventory. The Bachmanns thought it would increase interest (and value) in the old instrument if it crossed the Atlantic on the last steam-powered cargo ship. Captain Viega was old-school enough to know how to use it. Soon enough, he was seen by the rail outside the bridge, aiming the brass sextant at the sun while a mate stood by to record his readings. At lunch, the captain appeared in the lounge to share his findings.
“Ladies and gentlemen! I know you’ve all been concerned since we lost communications yesterday. First, let me assure you everything on the Carleton is working as it should,” Viega said.
“Then the problem is out there?” said a woman, pointing vaguely out to sea. “Is the world system down?”
Viega laughed. “No, I don’t think so. Ms. Señales has found traces of the usual carrier signals, but they are too weak to reach us.”
“What does that mean?” France Martin asked.
Viega rubbed his hands together. “Something is blocking the signals. They’re not getting through to us.”
From the lounge door, Jenny Hopkins said, “What would cause that?”
The captain had no answer. After a long silence, someone called out, “Sunspots?”
Viega spread his hands wide. “Sunspots! Who knows, it could be! Be assured, my friends, that the ship is well and on its way. Thanks to young Herr Bachmann, I have been able to fix our position this morning.”
He snapped his fingers and a waiting crewman stepped forward with an old paper chart pinned to a large sheet of cardboard. Captain Viega pushed a pin in a spot in the open sea, southwest of Ireland.
“This was our position: 49 degrees, 21 minutes, 13 seconds North by 13 degrees, 47 minutes, 55 seconds West.”
Tension in the room seemed to evaporate like dew on a hot morning. They were not lost. The tiny pin in the map was reassuring. It gave them a place to identify and understand.
Not everyone was comforted. Eleanor Quarrel tucked her hands into her armpits. A red pin on a paper map? She shuddered.
Standing close by, Jenny saw her and said, “It’s all right. We’re not lost. It’s the Atlantic! There must be hundreds of ships nearby!”
“Yes, hundreds,” Eleanor said. “Are their electronics jammed, too? Maybe next time we see a ship, it will crash into us.”
Those around her turned to stare. “Don’t mind me!” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just sunspots, after all!”