“You supposed that your husband had learned of a new source of cadavers.”
“Yes, I did. And what I had guessed was precisely right. He explained that we would have to hire a boat; apparently our destination was an island off the coast or something of the sort. Hundreds of little islands, islands of small or no importance, are omitted from all but the very best maps. No doubt you know.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t.”
“Seamen’s charts used to show them. Now they get the charts on their screens, and I would think those must show them, too. I don’t actually know that they do, but it seems probable since a ship might run aground there. Some of the little, unmapped islands are inhabited—one family or two, or even a dozen. Some once were but have been abandoned for years or centuries. I learned most of this from our boat, after Barry—after Barry…” She fell silent, visibly struggling to maintain her self-control.
“I understand.” I tried to make it sympathetic.
“After he left me. Have I told you about the boat?”
“No, nothing. Tell me about it, please.”
“It wasn’t clean or pretty, and it certainly wasn’t luxurious; but when Barry found it we had been going up and down the coast looking for something for hire that we could afford for almost two weeks. We went aboard, talked to the boat and got it to tell us how to go around and look at everything, then snapped it up. Barry paid its price, as he told me afterward. He had been so afraid of losing it that he just authorized a draft for the full amount the boat had asked.”
I said, “I understand. Tell me a little about this boat, please. Describe it as well as you can. I know you’re not a sailor; I’m not either.”
“All right. It was a fishing boat, not just a sailboat. There are laws about how long the boats can fish. Do you know about those?”
I shook my head.
“Each year they’re limited to so many days. If they can catch a lot in that time, all right. If they catch next to nothing, that’s their bad luck. Every year all the boats go out on the first fishing day. They fish day and night, no rest for the crew and no maintenance for the boat. I can’t imagine what they’re like on the last day, practically wrecked, I suppose. There are refrigerated bins down under the main deck; if a boat’s been lucky, those bins are full or nearly full of fish and the boat receives lots of money, enough to pay its crew, maintain itself, and pass a good profit up to its owners. If it hasn’t been lucky at all, the boat and its crew have worked like slaves for next to nothing. It must be a terribly hard existence.”
Completely unable to guess where this was going, I agreed.
“Most fishing boats just stay in port when the fishing days are over, but this one remained as active as it could, trying to make a little extra money here and there. If two or three people wanted to go out to one of the islands, it would take them. Whenever they were ready to come back, or whenever some island people wanted to visit the mainland, it would go out and pick them up. It took sportsmen deep-sea fishing for so much a day.” Adah Fevre paused.
When I did not speak, she said, “Sport fishing is still allowed if you have a license. It has to be hook-and-line, though.” She paused again, sighing audibly. “Electrodes and nets are not permitted.”
“Your husband chartered this boat,” I said. “Do you know the terms of the agreement?”
“Only what it told me. It was to follow the course that Barry had laid down, and tell Barry immediately about anything it saw. It was to wake up Barry if he were asleep.”
“Any land?”
“Yes. Or any other boats, or ships, or things floating in the water. Birds flying over. Anything at all.”
The list puzzled me, but I tried not to let it show. I asked, “Where did your husband get off the boat?”
“I don’t know. First, I think I ought to tell you about the cabins.” Mrs. Fevre hesitated, her head still on the pillow, her big dark eyes staring blindly up at the ceiling and never sparing a glance for me. “There were three, a large, comfortable cabin and two smaller cabins. It charged more for the big cabin, of course.”
I said, “Go on, please.”
“That one had two bunks, one above the other, a table, four chairs, a stove, and so forth. Two closets, too.”
“I take it that when you and your husband were on board there were no other fully humans, no clones, and no ’bots. No other passengers of any kind. Correct?”
Her nod was almost imperceptible. “That’s how it was. We bought two new mattresses and sheets and blankets for our bunks before we put out. The boat didn’t mind. It was glad to get them, Barry told me.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“We had brought a good deal of luggage. I, at least, didn’t know where we were going or how long we’d be gone. I brought some summer things and some warm things. A lot of cosmetics, too; soap and several towels, plus some odds and ends I thought Barry might need. I had five bags.” She paused. “A set of matched luggage.”
I nodded.
“Barry was almost as bad, three large bags. One was too heavy for me to lift. I remember that, because I had to hire a longshoreman to carry our luggage ashore for me when we came back to port.”
I said, “This was after your husband disappeared, I assume.”
“Yes. I went back to the hotel—”
“Tell me about Barry’s disappearance, please. I’m afraid we’ve skipped over that.”
“There’s next to nothing to tell. We sailed slowly at night. I was told that there’s always a danger of ramming something. We had a searchlight and radar, but even so … a big light isn’t the same as daylight, after all.”
“Didn’t your boat sleep at night?”
Mrs. Fevre shook her head. “No, never, at least as far as I know. The boat was driving itself all night, just like a groundcar.”
“I see. Go on.”
“One night I woke up and the boat was shaking Barry’s bunk. I was in the lower bunk, and Barry in the upper bunk. Perhaps I told you about that?”
I waved it away.
“It was shaking his bunk and telling Barry something. I don’t know what—I was half-asleep. Barry got up, climbing down past my bunk, and went out on deck in his pajamas.” She sighed. “It’s painful to say this, but I went back to sleep. All this had happened before, you understand, over and over. Sometimes twice or three times in one night.”
She fell silent until I said, “Please continue.”
“When I got up, Barry had gone. I thought he was out on deck, so I got dressed and went outside; we usually ate breakfast together. He wasn’t there. It was so foggy I couldn’t be sure, so I went wandering around the deck in the fog, calling for him. Eventually the boat got my attention and told me he had left. Another boat had come hours before I left our cabin, and Barry had gone aboard.”
As though she feared that I hadn’t been listening, she added, “Our boat said Barry had gotten into this other boat and sailed away. That was all I could get out of it.”
“What did you do?”
“I told the boat I wanted to keep going, I wanted it to follow Barry’s instructions. It wouldn’t listen to that. It said that Barry had given new instructions, telling it to return to Polly’s Cove, and that was what it was doing. Barry had paid it. Barry alone had signed its charter. I—well I tried half a dozen arguments. I’d prefer not tell you what they were.”