“I saved you.”
“That isn’t how I see it. If you didn’t notice, my side won. Even without Ollantay I could have gone back to his family. They’re Manco’s relatives too. Gone back to my own life.”
Gone back to drown, Lily thought bleakly. “Kris, we’ll have to talk.”
“Just go away,” Kristie said dismissively. She was the image of her mother, Amanda in one of her stubborn moments, the set of her lips, the angle of her head, the unyielding eyes.
Lily’s heart broke. She turned to the door.
“Lily. One thing.”
“Yes?”
“Keep him away from me.”
“Who?”
“Piers. I don’t care how big or small Nathan’s damn boat is. Just keep him away.”
Lily withdrew without saying any more.
Outside, she paused in the corridor, leaning against a wall. She hadn’t stopped moving since spilling out of the chopper in Chosica. She felt breathless, exhausted, the muscles in her legs trembling, her head stuffy and full, the blood in her ears singing. She was coming crashing down from the exertions of the day, the combat, the shock of the deaths. I’m too old for this, she thought.
She hadn’t even had time to think of Amanda, of her random, unlucky gunning-down. Her sister was dead, a vivid, complex, different, unfinished life terminated in a second by a scrap of lead. Lily felt as if something had been removed from herself, an amputation. She was going to pay for this later, when she stopped moving at last. But she had one more duty first.
She knocked on Grace’s door, then let herself in with the swipe card.
Grace’s suite was similar to Kristie’s. Grace was sitting on an upright chair, perched right on the edge, as if she was afraid of dirtying it. She hadn’t changed; she was as dusty as Kristie. But she had kicked off her boots and put them by the door.
Cautiously Lily sat down opposite her.“This must be very strange for you, after Walker City.”
“I haven’t been in a room like this since I was five years old. And I don’t remember much about that.” She was shut in on herself, her hands bunched into fists and pressed into her lap. Her accent was strange, a mixture.
“There’s no need to be frightened.”
Grace just looked at her, and Lily wondered how often in her life she had heard such assurances. “I took off my boots,” Grace said.
“I noticed.”
“They always made me do that. My father’s family, in the palaces. If I came in from playing, from the gardens… I do remember that.”
“Well, you can wear your boots as much as you like in here.” Lily gestured. “This place is yours. There are clothes to change into in the cupboards. And if you don’t like them-”
“Gary passed me to you like he was handing over a parcel.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”
“I was with him fifteen years. He just passed me over to you, to this.” She looked at Lily, not angry, wondering.“I know about Barcelona. How you and Gary and my mother were hostages.”
“Yes. Well, so were you. You were born into it.”
“I know. You were passed around from one group to another, a token, a trophy. That’s what you’ve done to me today.”
“We only wanted the best for you,” Lily said desolately.“We’re trying to save you. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. No harm will be done to you here. You’re safe now, Grace. I swear it.”
But Grace’s gaze became unfocused, as if she was looking inward.
Lily got up. At the door she looked back. Grace had not moved from her chair, sitting alone in the silent, pointlessly opulent room.
73
Lily took a walk around the ship, alone, avoiding people.
There was a pervasive stink of sawdust, lacquer, paint and fresh carpets. The floors were covered with synthetic rubber or linoleum or rush matting. Some of the walls were painted or paneled with wood, decorated with geometric designs and murals, clumsily executed. But, years after the keel had been laid down halfway up an Andean hillside, the ship was not finished, and as she walked past bare steel walls Lily estimated maybe fifty percent of the internal fitting-out was yet to be done.
Lily had never been aboard this ship of Nathan’s, the most stupendous of his many projects. Was this great beached vessel really the best use of all the resources he had commandeered? Lily had just avoided the controversy and stayed away. Well, she had been wrong, as she had been wrong about Nathan before. Now she wished she had taken up his offers of tours and training; today it would have been useful.
With difficulty she found her way back to her room.
She stripped off her filthy coveralls and took a shower. The faucet had an option she’d never seen before, for salt water. Figuring that must put less stress on the ship’s systems, she chose it. The water was hot but oddly sharp, and the briny smell made her think of seaside days as a child. She stayed under the shower for a long time. Then she rinsed off the salt with a quick flush of cold fresh water.
As she dried off, she found she couldn’t bear the thought of facing anybody else, not Piers, not Grace or Kristie, certainly not Nathan. Today had been long enough already. Though it was early, she locked her door.
She explored the room. It had a little alcove with a kettle and coffee and a miniature microwave oven, almost a tiny kitchen. Unbelievably, there was a mini-bar. She really was in a floating hotel at the end of the world. She wondered how long this kind of thing could possibly last.
She tried the TV system. It showed a patchy US government news channel, broadcast from Denver. Behind the live feed was an on-demand movie service, including some titles that went back to the 1930s, when this boat’s original was launched. She glanced at King Kong and Things to Come; their monochrome images were digitally enhanced. But she had lost interest in movies when they stopped being made, when every movie ever made became an old movie, set in an unreal world that didn’t matter anymore. She snapped the system off.
She made a dinner of a chocolate bar and then worked her way through the little bottles of gin from the mini-bar. By the time she fell asleep, she wasn’t sure if she was crying or not.
The next morning Piers came for her. He said they had an hour to spare before some kind of maiden-voyage ceremony to be hosted by Nathan. “Attendance compulsory, of course.” In the meantime he offered to take her on a tour of the ship. “Welcome to your new home.”
“Welcome to the madhouse, more like,” she snapped, hungover, grieving.
“We must each make our judgment about that.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I’m functioning.”
“Most of the time, that is all one can hope for,” Piers said dryly. “Come on. The VIP experience…”
They found their way to a grand staircase that punched through the upper decks like an elevator shaft in a mine. They climbed up to the very top deck. This was the smallest in area; the boat’s upper levels were tiered in a stepped effect.
The bridge was up here, a roomy pillbox with tinted picture windows. Around the feet of three towering red funnels utilitarian buildings clustered, like a small industrial facility. Radar dishes turned silently. Over their heads were big solar panels that could be tipped and tilted independently, like the slats of a Venetian blind; their upper surfaces sparkled in the sun.
Lily walked to the edge of the deck and looked toward the shore. They were only half a kilometer, less, from where the water lapped around the rooftops of Chosica. She could hear gunfire, but the battle that had accompanied the Ark’s impromptu departure was already over. Some of the offshore rafts drifted close to the Ark, and a few small powerboats buzzed back and forth on the water, probing, but, deterred no doubt by the Ark’s
