Harry Turtledove The Best Alternate History Stories Of The

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

having just lost a deckhand to a nice-looking fellow in the English colony of
Annapolis Royal, and it was my turn to do some double duty. So, there I was,
routing traffic on the ship when I saw this little rounded station wagon go by
and saw her in it.
I still almost missed her; I hadn t expected her to be with another person,
another woman, and we were loading the Vinland existence, so in July they were
more accurately in a state of undress than anything else, but I spotted her
all the same. Jackie Carliner, one of the barmaids and a pretty good artist,
had sketched her from the one time she d seen the girl and we d made copies
for everyone.
Even so, I had my loading duties to finish first there was no one else. But,
as soon as we were underway and I d raised the stern ramp, I made my way
topside and to the lower stern deck. I took my walkie-talkie off the belt clip
and called the Captain.
Sir, this is Dalton, I called. I ve seen our suicide girl.
So what else is new? grumbled the Captain. You know policy on that by now.
But, sir! I protested. I mean still alive. Still on board. It s barely
sundown, and we re a good half hour from the point yet.
He saw what I meant. Very well, he said crisply. But you know we re
short-handed. I ll put
Caldwell on the bow station this time, but you better get some results or I ll
give you so much detail you won t have time to meddle in other people s
affairs.
I sighed. Running a ship like this one hardened most people. I wondered if the
Captain, with twenty years on the run, ever understood why I cared enough to
try and stop this girl I didn t know from going in.
Did know, for that matter?
I
As I looked around at the people going by, I thought about it. I d thought
about it a great deal before.
Why did
I care about these faceless people? People from so many different worlds and
Page 98
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
cultures that they might as well have been from another planet. People who
cared not at all about me, who saw me as an object, a cipher, a service, like
those robots I mentioned. They didn t care about me. If
I
were perched on that rail and a crowd was around, most of them would probably
yell Jump!
Most of the crew, too, cared only about each other, to a degree, and about the
Orcas
, our rock of sanity. I thought of that world gone in some atomic fire. What
was the measure of an anonymous human being s worth?
I thought of Joanna and Harmony. With pity, yes, but I realized now that
Joanna, at least, had been a vampire. She d needed me, needed a rock to steady
herself, to unburden herself to, to brag to.
Someone steady and understanding, someone whose manner and character suggested
that solidity.
She d never really even considered that I might have my own problems, that her
promiscuity and lifestyle might be hurting me. Not that she was trying to hurt
me she just never considered me.
Like those people going by now. If they stub their toe, or have a question, or
slip, or the boat sinks, they need me. Until then, I m just a faceless
automaton to them.
Ready to serve them, to care about them, if they needed somebody.
And that was why I was out here in the surprising chill, out on the stern with
my neck stuck out a mile, trying to prevent a suicide I
knew would happen, knew because I d seen it three times before.
I was needed.
That was the measure of a human being s true worth, I felt sure. Not how many
people ministered to your needs, but how many people you could help.
That girl she had been brutalized, somehow, by society. Now I was to provide
some counterbalance.
It was the surety of this duty that had kept me from blowing myself up with
the old Delaware ferry, or jumping off that stern rail myself.
I glanced uneasily around and looked ahead. There was Shipshead light, tall
and proud this time in the darkness, the way I liked it. I thought I could
almost make out the marker buoys already. I
started to get nervous.
I was certain that she d jump. It d happened every time before that we d
known. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, in this existence she won t.
I had no more than gotten the thought through my head when she came around the
corner of the deck housing and stood in the starboard corner, looking down.
She certainly looked different this time. Her long hair was blond, not dark,
and braided in large pigtails that drooped almost to her waist. She wore only
the string bikini and transparent cape the
Vinlanders liked in summer, and she had several gold rings on each arm, welded
loosely there, I
knew, and a marriage ring around her neck. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki