collecting in pockets where the air-conditioning could not reach, just as both Levkas and Martyr had feared it would; silent, invisible, odorless, deadly.
Still laughing quietly to himself, Hajji closed the Pump Room door and began to creep down the corridor. He had gone less than ten feet when Malik called his name.
Salah Malik stood, watching the man with distaste. At first he had seemed an excellent seaman, worthy of the pilgrim’s title his parents had given him as a name: Hajji—one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca; but it had soon become clear that this was an illusion created by the fact that he always worked in a team with Kerem Khalil, who was seaman enough for both of them. “Go to the Engine Room, Hajji,” he ordered now. “You are late for your watch.”
This was not true, but Hajji went anyway, muttering viciously, unaware that Malik had just saved his life.
C HAPTER T EN
The last evening in July found Robin hanging over the port bow of the supertanker, twenty feet below deck level, suspended from the forecastle in a boatswain’s chair. In spite of the curve of the tanker’s stem, she was close enough to inspect the rust-blistered area a foot or two in front of her. The stem of a supertanker, never riding over the seas but always punching through them like a mobile pier, took unimaginable punishment. The slightest flaw down here had to be checked—even a rash of rust blisters. Kerem Khalil had reported it when he was repainting the ship’s name earlier in the afternoon. Robin had come down to inspect them: as was her duty and her pleasure. Behind her, on the darkening horizon, lay the purple mountaintops of Madagascar, dark as thunderheads. Around her lay the massive beauty of the nightfall, making even this routine inspection almost unbearably pleasurable.
Kicking against the side, she pushed herself out like a kid on a swing, feeling the bustle of life around her—something
Prometheus
normally managed to keep at a distance. A cormorant passed low overhead, having just launched itself from a Sampson post. The big black birds used
Prometheus
as an island, to the cheerful resignation of the seamen they kept swabbing day in and dayout. Above the lonely cormorant, varying from specks to individual crosses, the gulls wheeled all the way up into the crystal sky. And if she twisted to look down into the equally clear, smooth sea, she knew she would see a school of dolphins playing in the great bow wave whose roaring filled her ears to the exclusion of all other sounds except the occasional keening of a low gull and the song of the wind in the ropes by her head. A warm, gentle south wind that had blown into their faces now unvaryingly for days; ever since they had pulled in toward the coast of Africa. This time of year there was a wind that seemed to blow from the Cape to the Gulf with hardly a break, following along the line of the coast; and even in midwinter at the Cape, the wind was rarely anything but warm. In Durban it might be as cool as sixty degrees Fahrenheit now. Here it was seventy-five.
Her reverie was broken by a muffled thump that made her jump as something hit the metal by her head and fell flapping into her lap. She had caught it with automatic revulsion and was just about to hurl it away when she stopped, realizing what it was. It was a flying fish. Holding tightly on to it now, she looked down over her shoulder just in time to see the whole shoal break surface and skim along the side of the ship, glittering like a golden rainbow, pursued by dolphins or a passing shark. As abruptly as they had appeared a foot or two above the swells, they were gone, sides glinting deeper and deeper until they vanished.
She swung back, looking up toward the tumblehome above, calculating whether or not she could lob the fish up and over the side. Probably not. It twisted in her hands again and she nearly dropped it so she thumped its head against the plank she was sitting on and it laystill, stunned.
Still laughing quietly to himself, Hajji closed the Pump Room door and began to creep down the corridor. He had gone less than ten feet when Malik called his name.
Salah Malik stood, watching the man with distaste. At first he had seemed an excellent seaman, worthy of the pilgrim’s title his parents had given him as a name: Hajji—one who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca; but it had soon become clear that this was an illusion created by the fact that he always worked in a team with Kerem Khalil, who was seaman enough for both of them. “Go to the Engine Room, Hajji,” he ordered now. “You are late for your watch.”
This was not true, but Hajji went anyway, muttering viciously, unaware that Malik had just saved his life.
C HAPTER T EN
The last evening in July found Robin hanging over the port bow of the supertanker, twenty feet below deck level, suspended from the forecastle in a boatswain’s chair. In spite of the curve of the tanker’s stem, she was close enough to inspect the rust-blistered area a foot or two in front of her. The stem of a supertanker, never riding over the seas but always punching through them like a mobile pier, took unimaginable punishment. The slightest flaw down here had to be checked—even a rash of rust blisters. Kerem Khalil had reported it when he was repainting the ship’s name earlier in the afternoon. Robin had come down to inspect them: as was her duty and her pleasure. Behind her, on the darkening horizon, lay the purple mountaintops of Madagascar, dark as thunderheads. Around her lay the massive beauty of the nightfall, making even this routine inspection almost unbearably pleasurable.
Kicking against the side, she pushed herself out like a kid on a swing, feeling the bustle of life around her—something
Prometheus
normally managed to keep at a distance. A cormorant passed low overhead, having just launched itself from a Sampson post. The big black birds used
Prometheus
as an island, to the cheerful resignation of the seamen they kept swabbing day in and dayout. Above the lonely cormorant, varying from specks to individual crosses, the gulls wheeled all the way up into the crystal sky. And if she twisted to look down into the equally clear, smooth sea, she knew she would see a school of dolphins playing in the great bow wave whose roaring filled her ears to the exclusion of all other sounds except the occasional keening of a low gull and the song of the wind in the ropes by her head. A warm, gentle south wind that had blown into their faces now unvaryingly for days; ever since they had pulled in toward the coast of Africa. This time of year there was a wind that seemed to blow from the Cape to the Gulf with hardly a break, following along the line of the coast; and even in midwinter at the Cape, the wind was rarely anything but warm. In Durban it might be as cool as sixty degrees Fahrenheit now. Here it was seventy-five.
Her reverie was broken by a muffled thump that made her jump as something hit the metal by her head and fell flapping into her lap. She had caught it with automatic revulsion and was just about to hurl it away when she stopped, realizing what it was. It was a flying fish. Holding tightly on to it now, she looked down over her shoulder just in time to see the whole shoal break surface and skim along the side of the ship, glittering like a golden rainbow, pursued by dolphins or a passing shark. As abruptly as they had appeared a foot or two above the swells, they were gone, sides glinting deeper and deeper until they vanished.
She swung back, looking up toward the tumblehome above, calculating whether or not she could lob the fish up and over the side. Probably not. It twisted in her hands again and she nearly dropped it so she thumped its head against the plank she was sitting on and it laystill, stunned.
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