The first mate slaps the parchment contract upon an old rum barrel and passes quill and inkpot. You sign without second thought….
Then he claps you on the back, leads you into the hold, to your hammock, and leaves. For the moment, you are alone—the crew is ashore, drinking the night away. You are more tired than you realized—the darkness here, the sway of your hammock with the slight rocking of the sea—are salve to the night’s long train ride, to the anxiety of your true goal. You curl into sleep. It is good, now, to rest: so much awaits you. You must harness your energies for storms yet to come.
In the morning, everyone is back aboard, and the ship pulls anchor and works north, paralleling the coast. The Captain is nowhere to be seen—the door to his quarters never opens. The crew is small, a group of sturdy roughnecks, strongmen with sure feet who know their way around a jib and when to duck the boom. With you they are neither friendly nor unfriendly. You are the sole new deckhand, and they have their own language, speaking words you know but in ways you don’t grasp. At some meals you eat near them but not with them; you sleep and you sail in much the same ways. There is a loneliness to this. You feel, these days, like what you are: an imposter.
You have been briefed on the ship’s simple mission: the transport of a prized possession from point A to point B. Each day you keep keen eye on two areas of the ship: the ever-sealed Captain’s quarters and, at aft, a cabin guarded by two ferocious sailors, their arms and necks swirling in black and blue inked tales of death.
You must find your chance to slip past them, to access the cabin’s prized contents, to change the events of history.
Each twilight you go the ship’s stern, and you eat two dusty oatcakes and fish jerky and drink your day’s measure of rum. As the ship sails these northern seas, the coast remains a dark band on the silvery horizon. The air is tight and dry, and chunks of ice bob thickly, pointed like the tips of frozen arrowheads. The fourth day, as you watch the sun fall off the edge of the world, you realize you’ve lost sight of land.
No turning back now.
Finally the ship breaks through the cold waters, and the ice and icebergs all melt away as the ship goes rolling through the bright Quito spring. One balmy evening you pass idly by, nodding at the guards, and immediately you could hear the growls stirring from the bottoms of their throats, the warning narrow-slit glares from their eyes. Pass on—for now. For you know that the object held captive within is your next clue. The next step in your path to complete your mission: first, to make the world a better place.
Second, to finally, finally return home.
At some point they will slip up. You just need to wait.
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