The Wine Dark Earth

by | Wayne Kyle Spitzer-2

Thanks for the great service through

the years. And for letting me loiter.

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I look at the shadow of the Sarpedon’s conning tower, rippling through the waves like a boxy, black sail, its periscopes and radar like spikes on a war helm. Because it hurts my mind to stare at the illuminated cloud above—the Flashback Borealis, as they call it—which hangs over Seattle like a shroud, for very long, I have again diverted my eyes; this time to the water—the dark, roiling, whitecapped water—which, reflecting the cloud’s ephemeral light, has become the color of wine, the color of blood.

Atop the sail are three shadowy figures: a tall, thin man in a pea coat and captain’s hat (Captain O’Neil), a shorter form with long, windswept hair (Beth), and yet another—bearing what is called in Korea the 2-block haircut—a figure so short that only her head is visible.

A figure, I suppose, which is me. Pang In-Su. Survivor of the Bainbridge boat fire. Teen member of the Delta Dawn excursion force, which will go ashore soon. American-raised Korean deafmute whom, because of her big ears (never let it be said that God doesn’t have a sense of humor), they call “The Mouse.”

The Captain offers me his binoculars, which I take—they are heavier than I expected—and I look through them: at the towering office buildings and mirrored condos, black against the red haze, and the multicolored lights, which flicker, specter like, amidst the stoic, wine-dark clouds. Amazing, I sign. That they can see so close. I focus on an American flag—which is blowing from the mast of a sleek, blue-white tower with an angled roof. It’s almost like you’re there. Right up against the buildings. I look at Beth, incredulously. How?

She moves to sign but pauses, as though realizing she doesn’t know, then exchanges words with the Captain—which I am unable to read.

He says it’s because they contain prisms, she signs—even as the hair whips frenziedly about her face, stabs at her eyes. Little crystals, which serve to bend and refract light.

I hesitate, shaking my head. I don’t know anything about that. About prisms.

I watch as she communicates with the Captain—verbally—but look away as he begins to explain, down through the plexiglass shield in front of us, to where the great, domed snout of the sub is parting Elliott Bay like a torpedo.

At last, she signs, A prism is a faceted block of glass that splits light into its constituent colors. When light enters a prism it is refracted so that all the colors of the spectrum are dispersed—spread out—and you can see them.

I look at the cloud, like a scaled-down interstellar nebula only right here in Earth’s atmosphere, and the many-colored lights, which pulse and flash. And what then? Do they ever recombine? I mean, do they ever become one again?

Beth only smiles, as though seeing something in me I could not possibly see myself, and lolls her head toward the Captain, at which I can read: “She asks if the colors are ever reunited.” And she winks at him.

She translates as he speaks: They can be, yes. By using a second, parallel prism, an inverted one, which recombines the colors of the spectrum.

I think about this but can only shake my head. But—I don’t get it. How is the light refracted in the first—

There is a commotion and I look down to see Engineering Officer Puckett, who has stuck his head up through the hatch, and watch as they talk back and forth. It’s hard not to notice how thread-worn he looks, how pale. I worry over how exhausted he must be: keeping everything functioning, everything up and running, and with only a skeleton crew to help him. Keeping us all afloat, literally—with ten men instead of one-hundred. More, he seems upset—although about what, given the darkness of the tube and my insufficient skill at reading lips, is hard to say.

Beth signs (as if noticing my confusion): He’s upset that he can’t go ashore with the rest of us; that he’s been chosen to remain on the ship. But the Captain says the same rule applies to him as it does to himself: That he is essential personnel and cannot be risked. That it’s for everyone’s safety; and that we all agreed to it.

I watch as the fur lining of her hood, which is bunched up at the back of her head, undulates in the wind. I sign, Am I still going?

Yes, she says. We’ll still need you to get us past the retina scan—into the storage facility. But he’s not too happy about it.

I sign, feverishly. Who else?

Just Will, myself, CS Beasley; Petty Officer Slater ... He doesn’t want to risk any more than is necessary.

I breathe a sigh of relief, feeling suddenly strange, suddenly buoyant. Because I like Will. I trust Will.

What I am less confident about is getting us into the storage area of what was once my uncle’s company; i.e., Patriot Foods and Life Preserves (suppliers of ready-to-eat, freeze-dried meals to survivalists and preppers worldwide; people whom, though he’d made a fortune off them, he didn’t seem to actually like). Or that an eye-scan made when I was 12-years-old—so he could watch my delight when, visiting the factory months later, the door to the vault suddenly unlocked (without my hand ever touching it) and swung open like a magic portal—might remain in the system; or that I might have changed so little that it will recognize me fully five years on, or that we will find a truck that still runs—and the keys will be in it—or, failing that, that Benny (CS Beasley) will be able to “hotwire” one (because he grew up in East L.A. and knows how to do those things); or any of it. Any of the things that we’ve planned and wargamed and rehearsed—but still are not remotely prepared to do. Not in this world, at least; the world left us by the Flashback. Not in Primordia; this Savage and Primeval Garden.

I watch the Captain as he unhooks his mic and studies the shore—then says something into it; which Beth translates. We’ll dock at Pier 59, on the south side of the aquarium.

I look at the shore: at the gray and white aquarium building and the Ferris Wheel on the adjacent pier, which is hung with moss and vine; at the green and white Washington State Ferry—derelict; a ghostship, floating idly next to that.

Beth speaks as she signs: “We should get ready.”

The Captain nods.

And then we follow Puckett: down through the hatch and into the cold, dark tube. Into the bowels of the ship.

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