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Part 4: CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS
The captain’s quarters were behind the helm, situated slightly above like a child on their parent’s shoulders. They were separated into two sections: at the front was the sleeping quarters, a luxurious space compared to the crew berths, with a double bed and some bedside tables. There was an en-suite bathroom next to it, with a small stall for showering. Behind it, with an enormous bay window of dozens of colours, was the Captain’s Station. An expansive oak desk had been installed in here which took up most of the space, and a wheeled office chair was jammed into a corner. There were a couple of smaller chairs in here too, But they were nailed to the floor on the other side of the desk. Maira walked around the desk, stroking the rough wood and taking in the play of light across the room. She didn’t sit – her father, she knew, rarely sat in this room. According to the stories he’d preferred to stand, gazing pensively across his ship from the mosaic stained-glass window.
There was a disc of gray embedded in the far side of the desk, and Maira looked at it quizzically. It was beneath a strange assemblage of metal and coloured glass which looked for all the world like a child’s mobile. She stroked the disc, feeling the unnerving sensation of the hair on the back of her hand standing on end. She withdrew, shooting a glare at Ham.
‘What’s this?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think the stories mentioned it.’
‘They wouldn’t have done,’ Ham said. ‘It was installed after your father grounded the Fallen Star permanently. Well, until he gave it to you.’
He approached the desk and took an old, somewhat rusted-looking coin from his pocket, and held its edge against the disc. Then he spun it inexpertly. The coin spun listlessly and looked as though it would fall instantly, but some unseen force righted it and it began to spin faster. As it began its rotations around the rim of this disc, light and sound began to play through the mobile. The metal struts rotated, sending light beaming across the room until it resolved into an image of a sunlit tree in a forest glade. Birdsong could be heard, and a strong breeze which rattled the branches. A deer wandered into view, nibbled on the grass, and then froze, staring towards the disk. As it darted off, the image blurred once again and the sounds devolved into the high-pitched humming of metal on metal as the coin slowed and ended its spin.
Maira stared, dumbstruck. She took some shaky breaths before seemingly realising she was still in the room, and turned to Ham.
‘It was like we were outside,’ she said, ‘in a forest. It felt so real. What was that?’ Ham shrugged.
‘I don’t know how it works,’ he said. ‘Something to do with magnets. And you can only record something very still because it needs a steady surface to record onto the coin. But it uses resonance and moving light to create an image and sound. Ingenious, but very rare. Your father went to the creator directly to get this installed.’
‘But why show me this?’ Maira asked. ‘You said it was time to see this – I mean, it’s very cool, better than any theatre I’ve been to – but it’s not convinced me to take dad up on his offer. It’s ostentatious and it’ll probably get in the way, if anything it’s incentive for me not to take the ship!’
‘I’ve not shown you everything yet,’ Ham said. He rummaged in his pocket and took out another coin. This one was silvered and looked almost new, and he passed it to Maira.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You give it a try.’
Maira took the coin. With one last backward glance at Ham, she spun it expertly. It rotated rapidly in the centre of the disc, before whatever magnetic machinations took it towards the edge. Maira stood back as she heard the high-pitched drone reach its fever pitch, and then the mobile spun and the light revolved fast, until it revealed her father, sitting on the edge of the desk. He was wearing his robes of office, but as casually as he could: the robes were open and half-falling off his shoulders, and he had a casual shirt and jeans on beneath them.
He looked older – his hair was grey and thinning on top, and there was a certain weight about his gut. But what got Maira most was the eyes: she could recall when they were filled with energy and fire. Now they were tired and far away.
He looked off camera and nodded to someone.
‘Are we ready?’ he asked. There was a response, too quiet to hear, and he nodded and cleared his throat. When he began he was staring straight ahead, and Maira felt almost as though she could see him from all those years distant.
‘Hi Maira,’ he said. ‘I’d hoped to talk to you one last time before I died. But I don’t know if I’ll get the chance, so I’m putting it all here for you instead.
‘There’s so much I wanted to say to you. I wish I’d had the chance. I wish I could’ve been there for you when you needed me: to have your back when you made mistakes; to cheer you on when you succeeded. Maira, you deserved a father who was able to do more for you. I wanted to bring you up on this ship just once before I was gone, but I was weighed down.’ He reached down and took hold of the chains of office, gleaming gold; lifted them half-heartedly in his hand and let them drop with a rattle.
‘People look at the chains of office, and they only see the office – they don’t see chains. That’s how they got me in the end, Maira: no Umbrella Men, no fleet of ships; they gave me a pardon and a parcel of land and they anchored me in obligations.’
Dorian Deanfleet looked up, staring his daughter in the eye from beyond the grave, and Maira’s breath caught as she fancied she could see the fire gleaming in his pupils one last time. He stood tall, hands spread wide, and grinned.
‘That’s why I’m giving you the ship,’ he continued. ‘The Fallen Star as she was in all her glory! Because I saw it in you the night you left: all the fire and fight that was in me as a smuggler. Oh, if I’d known myself half as well as you do at your age…
‘But I didn’t. I still look in the mirror and I don’t know who’s looking back. Who is Dorian Deanfleet? The administrator? The smuggler? The pirate and brigand or failure of a father? I never knew who I was and that stopped me being who I could be. Oh sure: seeing my face on wanted posters gave me a sense of recognition. But I never felt like I was looking at myself when I saw them.
‘So here I stand: Pirate. Father. Lawmaker. You stand where I stood decades before, taking my first excited steps into the world. So much has changed – I know in its present state the ship is illegal once it leaves the ground. But I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The truth is, you deserve better, Maira: better family; better prospects; better laws! And none of that happens without breaking a few rules.’
Here he sat, seemingly exhausted, on a chair that was somehow out of shot. It put him below Maira, and she saw the old man her father had become without her by his side. For a moment, she wished she could have gone back. But the smile played about his lips still – this was one of his big jokes somehow.
‘I know you, Maira,’ he said. ‘If I’d given you a ship that complied with the regulations, you’d have sold it and drunk away the profits. But I’m giving you the Fallen Star because I know you’ll hate it. You hated every decision I ever made for you; you don’t want to feel forced into this! And I’m here to tell you: you’re not. Ham will take it off your hands for a fair price. Because this ship is an albatross, and it always will be – you’ll be flagged up as a smuggling vessel everywhere you go.
‘But the reach of the authorities only extends so far. And you’ll have my name, and the ship’s name, to trade on. You won’t be hurting for work, and it’ll be your work. The state will see you as an enemy, but when doesn’t it?’
At this he stood again, and he regarded the desk fondly. He brushed his fingers over it, and retreated behind it, and he looked out of the window one last time. He glanced over his shoulder, still smiling.
‘I pray you take my ship, Maira,’ he said. ‘Take it and make it your own. You can hate me for it, but it’s my gift to you. You showed me just who I could’ve been, had I known better. I want to give you a chance to see who I was instead.’
He stared out of the window, the sun almost obscuring him. It seemed almost real, as though she had been thrust back in time to talk to her father, and she moved to reach for him. But then he turned, and he asked, ‘did we get it?’ There was a chorus in the affirmative, and with a final sigh of relief from Dorian Deanfleet, the image faded. The bright sunlight flooding into the room was replaced by the leftover dregs from Deanfleet manor, filtered through the dusty windows. Maira sighed, because her only other option was to sob, and she let her hand drop. She bit her lip, clenched her fists. Suddenly she was back to the choice.
‘Do you need some time?’ Ham asked, already moving for the door. ‘Come on, pick up your coffee and we’ll head back to the office, we can discuss the-’
‘No.’ Ham started. Maira’s voice was quiet, but it broke through the distant sounds of everyday life. She had not moved yet.
‘No? You mean you-’
‘I mean,’ Maira said, turning around, ‘that the bastard has done it again.’ Ham could see the tears stinging her eyes, but her countenance was different. His instincts told him to run, but he stood firm.
‘Maira, are you okay?’
‘He’s done it! Don’t you get it, Ham? He’s got me over a barrel!’ Ham shook his head.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘He was offering you a choice, is all.’
‘But the problem with the choice is, he’s right!’ Maira cried. ‘He’s right, he’s right, he’s right! It’s not about my family; it’s not about the law; it’s not even that he should have been a better father all those years!’
She paced around the room now, frantic, and as Ham moved to take her by the shoulders she brushed him off.
‘If he’d given me a normal, regulation ship I’d be off like a shot,’ she sighed. ‘But he couldn’t do that, could he? He gifted me a millstone to hang around my neck, one with its own problems that no amount of work will erase. And I’ll take it. Because the other choice is to turn my back on my one chance to experience the freedom I so loved in my father’s stories.’
‘Sooo… you’ll take it?’ Ham asked. He was still unsure what Maira was getting at.
‘Yes, damn it! I’ll take the ship. It’s either this or I go back to a life living under someone else’s orders. A chance for me to build a better life for myself. That’s what this is, in the end.’ She sounded almost bitter about it. She sighed.
‘Come on,’ Ham said. ‘We’ll go back to the office and you can sign the papers.’
‘Yeah, alright.’ She returned to the desk, fingers scratching its surface. The coin lay flat on the gray disc; she stared at it, willing it out of existence. When it didn’t work, she groaned and pocketed it.
‘I’ll figure this out later,’ she muttered.