Half the Day Is Night (32 page)

But once in awhile one winked back at him, a flicker of reflection.

Once he started to get cold, he got cold fast. Like he always did. And time slowed down, began to creep. An hour and a half left on shift. An hour and twenty-six minutes. His fingers were getting clumsy.

But somebody must have stirred something up, or maybe he was just noticing more, because the silt was flashing more often now. Flickers bright as crystal—maybe mica or something in the silt? Was there mica on the ocean floor? He didn't know. Didn't know who to ask.

The recycs were able to deal with some silt, but he couldn't remember the silt ever being so heavy. It had to cut down on the recycs' efficiency. Maybe they would call off the rest of the shift? (In the fog around him, something winked bright. Like ice.)

His fingers were cold, he was getting clumsy. The water felt thick. There couldn't be so much silt that the water was turning to mud. It wasn't possible. Still, the water made it hard to move.

(Ice. The bright bits looked like ice. He tried to keep his eye on it but there was nothing to mark where the flash had been, just the silt, swallowing the light.)

It was colder than usual, too.

“Take a break,” Lemile said. So they stopped a moment. The site lights at the base of the structure were huge, like spotlights, and he could see the way they warmed the water so it rose, curling like smoke. There were lights in that, too. Bright bits. They looked so much like ice. The water here couldn't get cold enough to freeze, it was too deep, there was too much pressure.

The bits of brightness were like snowflakes, only they moved up the beam of light rather than down. This wasn't right, he should tell someone that it was snowing. It was so goddamn cold.

He had drifted off the beam, he hadn't been paying attention, but he was so cold that he ached and it hurt to move his arms and legs, so he didn't do anything about it right away. He would start to drift down. Then he'd do something. He should tell the American woman, what's her name, that it was snowing, because the snow was starting to get thick. He was freezing to death, he felt so sleepy. He closed his eyes.

*   *   *

“—downside pyroxin,” a woman said.

The wind was rushing past. And there was a vibration, like something mechanical. “Downside pyroxin.” What a strange thing to say. David couldn't quite assign meaning, he got stuck at “downside” which should have made sense but didn't.

Downside pyroxin … downside pyroxin. The woman's voice was soft and sibilant. Downside pyroxin, soft and sibilant music. Almost a little song. He was lying on his back on something vibrating.

“Facon is going to be angry.”

He liked the voice. Opened his eyes but everything was black. Night sky, no stars, just wind.

There was nothing to watch but he lay there with his eyes open, and then he sat up. The world was unsteady and he clutched for something. His legs were secured by a sack so he wouldn't drift in the wind. He felt light and yet thick.

He was on the sled.

There were two people at the front of the sled. One of them glanced back. “Park,” she said. “Good. He's sitting up.”

It was Patel. He couldn't see her face but he finally recognized her voice.

“You've had a pyroxin reaction,” she said. “We're taking you back.”

A pyroxin reaction. “Downside pyroxin,” he said.

The sled came into the yard.

The other diver was Rosa. Rosa and Patel moved the sack. “Come on,” Patel took his arm.

It was hard to swim, he felt stiff and awkward and woozy. The moon pool glowed ahead of him and he felt grateful, but once they broke the surface he was too heavy.

Patel pulled herself out. “Hand me your recyc,” she said. He tried to hand it up, but he couldn't get it much above water. She heaved it out, and then she took his arm and helped him heave himself out. The weight of things, he thought. He could barely sit up for a minute.

“Come on,” Patel said, “hurry.”

For what? He was so fucking tired. But she kept at him and he got to his feet, got his balance. She walked with him into the men's locker room and sat him on a bench.

“Take off your mask,” she said. She took his mask and his flippers and gloves. Then she matter-of-factly undressed him, skinning his tunic over his head, helping him pull his tights down. She ignored him when he protested, as matter-of-fact as a mother with a toddler. He felt as if he was half-witted or something, not an adult. She didn't seem angry, though. “You have to hurry,” she said.

“For what,” he said.

“Before the shakes,” she said. “You need to get warm.”

“I don't feel cold,” he said, although his skin was white with chill. But he didn't feel cold.

“You will,” she said.

She made him pull off his long underwear. He was more embarrassed by the scars on his knee than he was by his nakedness. His nakedness just didn't seem to matter in front of Patel.

He was cold. But he couldn't stand up, didn't feel as if he had the strength, and his legs were shaking from the cold. He just wanted to sleep.

“Get in,” she said.

His teeth were chattering. He was cold, so cold, and so tired. “Want to lay down,” he said.

“Get in and sit on the floor,” she said, grabbing him by his upper arm and hauling him to his feet. She was strong, and there he was, swaying for a moment, and then she propelled him into the shower. The sound of the water ricocheted off the white tiles. When she let go he sat down, skin against the bare tile.

The water was hot, too hot, but he didn't have the energy to get up and turn it down, so he sat, letting it beat against the top of his skull. Rain on the boneroof.

After a few minutes the water began to cool, and he had to palm the wall to get to his feet. He was surprised to find that the water was only set for lukewarm, and he turned it up hotter and sat back down.

He dozed, dreaming of a flat he had lived in, only the room was dark—and jerked awake when he heard voices. Fish jocks. He managed to stand up and turn the water off. He was red and wrinkled. The air was cold and he shivered.

“Kim? Hey Kim!” Santos was still in dripping gear. “Hey man, you okay?”

“Would you get my clothes?” David asked.

“Sure man. Patel tell you to take a shower?”

David nodded.

Santos disappeared, came back with a towel and clothes. “Go on and sit down. You okay, man?
Park!
I said, you okay?”

“Yeah,” David said.

“Okay.”

Getting clothes on was tedious, but he managed, and then while Santos was still showering, he made his way back to the bunks and crawled in. He was cold, and he—

“Parks. Come on, man, wake up. You gotta get up.”

“What?” He sat up and tried to run his fingers through his hair but it was ratted from lying down on it wet. He was glad he'd had it cut.

“Come on,” Santos said. “You gotta wake up. You gotta eat.”

He wasn't hungry. He'd skip dinner.

“No man, you gotta eat. You don't eat you'll feel worse tomorrow.”

Santos badgered him, getting him out of the bunk. God it was cold out from under the blankets.

Santos herded him down to the dining hall, chattering a mile a minute about how after a pyroxin reaction you had to eat. “Carbos,” he said to the cooks, “give him some spaghetti, and refrieds, and a roll, yeah.” Spaghetti and refried beans. But it smelled good. Santos got him a bowl of stew and a piece of cake, too.

“Yeah, I been downside three, four times,” Santos said. “Once time I had a seizure, you know? I mean, I don't remember it or nothing. If I throwed up in the mask, like I coulda died, you know? This guy used to be a diver here, Carlos something, Carlos, Carlos, I forget his last name, anyway, he did that, choked on his own vomit, died before they could even get him to the yard. Eat some of the stew, too. Stew sucks today, I hate the fish stew here, my mama makes great fish stew.”

Santos ate and talked and badgered him until he had eaten a lot of what was on his tray. David couldn't believe how much he ate.

And then he could barely keep his head up. He was afraid Santos wouldn't let him sleep, but Santos told him that sleeping was the best thing he could do. “You'll be okay tomorrow. You take two? You and me, man, we don't be big enough to take two. Big Andre, he got all that fat, he can take two. Facon's pissed, but Facon is always pissed. She'll dock you two shifts' pay, but it's your first time. People ask you if you take pyroxin, like Facon, you say no. She know you be lying, but if you say yes, then everybody gets in trouble, okay?”

David let the talk wash over him as he climbed back into the bunk. He remembered lying there for awhile, hearing something on the vid. And then he slept.

The alarms started going off at the usual time the next morning. He sat up. Everything ached and he still felt tired. But he stumbled out of bed.

Coffee helped and by the time they had to suit up for first shift, he didn't feel too much worse than a hangover. He looked at his pyroxin, wondered if he should take one.

He had to take one. Everybody took them. How the hell could anyone dive without them? So he tossed it back, like always.

Another day in the dark.

12

Gone to Earth

Each morning there was Sophie from the security agency who drove Mayla to work. Sophie was a young, narrow-faced girl from the fourth level. When Sophie opened her mouth it was possible to hear her whole history—a girl from the second or third level, whose good Catholic parents had sent her to school where she got an education that prepared her to work for a security agency. Mayla suspected that Sophie had earned the honorable C.

Sophie talked about her boyfriend as she drove. Her boyfriend was Haitian and his name was Albert, and he was looking for a job. Apparently Albert had been looking for a job for as long as he had been living with Sophie, and Mayla suspected he would continue to look for as long as Sophie would put up with him. Mayla listened and tried not to think about the fact that Sophie seemed even less competent than Tim.

She was not treated badly at First Hawaiian, despite the Marincite buy-out. People said “Good morning Mayla.” Sevrin Parker even said good morning to her. Sevrin Parker never said good morning unless you said something to him first. Sevrin was a bastard who everybody suspected had something on the CEO because everybody hated him. He was good with figures but horrible with people. Having Sevrin be polite to her made her feel as if she had some sort of terminal disease.

Which was probably true, least as far as her career went. Marincite Corp. owned the bank. They would leave the name, First Hawaiian, and they were reviewing to decide if there would be any changes but for now they said there would be no firings.

Her desk was clean when she came in the morning, and it was clean when she left. Before the sale, the Marincite deal had become most of her work. Now she should have been establishing new accounts, but Alex Morel, her boss, had suggested that she not worry about that until they knew what was going to happen. So she went to work about nine, looked through her existing accounts, maybe wrote a renewal note, and at about three in the afternoon Sophie picked her up and took her home.

After three weeks, she walked into Alex Morel's office and handed in her resignation.

“I'm sorry,” he said. But he didn't say, “Please stay.”

She signed a non-compete clause that said she could not work for another financial institution in either Caribe, New York or the Pacific Rim for two years. She received a reasonable cash settlement as a partner.

And she was free. Sophie came to pick her up. Sophie thought her job was first rate. “Usually, the people I work for, they have to work all these hours, unless they're with the government. Do you work at home a lot?”

“No,” Mayla said. “I just quit.”

Sophie didn't know what to say about that.

“I guess I don't need security,” Mayla said. Then she added, because it was the one day in her life when she knew she could, “Albert is a parasite, you ought to get rid of him.”

Sophie didn't look at her. Mayla thought that she'd gone to far; anglo ladies didn't really have much right to be commenting on Sophie's life. Then Sophie grinned. “Yeah, I'm knowing, but sometimes you just do.” And she chattered all the way home about what a no-good Albert was, but how'd she met him when he was a life model for her drawing class. Sophie really liked art. Which proved that there were parts of people you never guessed. “You take care of yourself, Ms. Ling,” Sophie said, when she let Mayla off. “You're good people.”

It was a day for speaking her mind. Which was good, because she had to tell her grandfather that she no longer had a job. She had to tell her grandfather what had happened to his bank.

“Grandfather,” she said. “First Hawaiian has been taken over by Marincite Corp.”

He blinked at her, an old Chinese man with a skinny wattled neck and very thick glasses.

“They haven't dismantled the bank,” she said. “Everything is the same as before, Ives Istel is still head of the board, he just reports to Polito Navarro.”

Her grandfather didn't say anything, which frightened her. Domingo waited, holding tightly on to the back of a chair. Tim stood in the doorway with Jude. They had all agreed he had to be told.

“Polito Navarro,” she explained, “is CFO of Marincite Corp.”

He cleared his throat. “You work for Marincite Corp?”

“The bank belongs to Marincite Corp., but I resigned,” she said. She didn't know what she was going to say when he demanded to know what she was going to do. She didn't know what she was going to do. She didn't know how she was going to explain what she had done, how she had caused his bank to be swallowed up.

“You resigned?” he said.