Islanders : Chapter Seven

Retirement

The third time that week he had pulled dandelions out of the same spot. Daniel cursed thinking of his son as he pulled out the weed. Assisted living Brian had called it. He had brought with him glossy brochures praising a new retirement home in Perth.

“You’re eighty-three, Dad,” Brian had reminded him, not for the first time during his visit.

The brochures had gone into the recycling bin.

  Assisted be damned thought Daniel as he yanked another weed.  He should have assisted Brian out of the house. Anyway how could he take care of the garden all the way from Perth? Amanda had always fretted about her plants. He had promised that he would see to them and see to them he would. 

“Hard work?”

    Mei Ling Foley leaned over the front gate of his yard. A red toque had been pulled down over her hair. The collar of her blue windbreaker had been turned up to keep out the chill of the late May morning.

Daniel stared at her. “Mei Ling Foley?”

 She smiled. “I might have a job for you Daniel, if you’re interested?”

  He pulled off his garden gloves. He had first met her three days after being dismissed by the agency. She had been seated next to him on the plane taking him from Wellington to Vancouver. During the layover in Vancouver for their next flight she had offered him a position with her father and Benjamin Dzingira. During the years that followed Daniel had gone back to teaching in Toronto while maintaining a safe home for Home’s agents, a job that had remained unknown to Amanda and their two sons. He had closed the home once he had retired and resettled in the village of Kilmarnock. Seventeen years had passed since.  Now Mei Ling had reappeared looking as young has she had been the first day that he had seen her. And himself? A withered up old man

 “What kind of work?”

 “Pulling up something else besides weeds.”

 So Daniel found himself sitting in The Royal Arms nibbling at a roast beef sandwich and worrying about Amanda’s plants. Since her death three months before, he had been conscientious in his caring for them. In those blooms he thought he had found a way of keeping his wife alive.

They left the Royal Arms. He next stepped out of the car at a gerontology clinic on the Island of Penang in the hills overlooking a small fishing village. He spent two weeks there having his cells rejuvenated, dieting and exercising on the beach. As guest of a Kuala Lumpur firm, the Dat Lee Hong Trading Company, he had a suite of rooms to himself.  This form of assisted living he could become used to he thought as he lay on the beach sipping a pineapple latte. All very well he thought, eyeing two young bikini clad girls but the fact remained that he was too old for this nonsense.  He might not admit it to others but he could not deny it to himself    

“Something is troubling you?” Mei Ling asked peering at him from underneath a broad brimmed straw hat.

          “It’s not important.” murmured Daniel trying not to look at her slim young body. She could be his grandchild he scolded himself.

         “Don’t you think you could have found someone younger?”

          “You believe that your age takes away your ability to be useful?” Mei Long in her excursions into North American society of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries had encountered this phenomenon before. Advanced age had its physical inconveniences to be dealt with by appropriate treatments but the attitude that these inconveniences somehow negated decades of accumulated experience had left her puzzled and sad. “I should point out that I was born twenty centuries before you. I do not feel useless.”

                 She patted his right hand. “We would not have brought you here if we did not think you suitable. Believe me Daniel, you are important to us. Very important.”

                Daniel kissed the side of her cheek. “I wish that I had known you forty years ago.”

Mei Ling smiled. “You did.”

She walked with him back to his hotel room. At the door she whispered, “If you would like some company, I would be glad to stay the night with you.” Bishop made a half-step towards her but stopped. What would Amanda think? “Thank you but no.”

He had done the right thing Daniel told himself as he watched her walk away. He had done it for both for himself and Mei Ling. He almost believed it.

***                             

Matthew Foley always prided himself upon choosing with care how and where he would meet with potential recruits. To create the maximum possible positive effect he tried to choose each site to match the newcomer’s personality and past history. For Daniel Bishop he chose Dicken’s Lane in Kingston, just outside his old family home. There he waited on a cold October morning. The large maple tree in front of him was shedding its gold and red leaves drifting down to the ground. He shivered. Matthew missed the warm air of home. He may have been born in this city but in the years that lay ahead or behind him depending upon which temporal plane he was viewing his life from he had developed, or would develop, a taste for a more tropical climate.

Mei Ling’s MG stopped beside him.

“You shouldn’t keep him waiting,” she said. “This cold air isn’t good for him.”

Daniel looked at the old man standing beside the roads but he was also looking out of a van window. Beside him sat Joanna. All those years ago he thought.

Foley smiled at his daughter and strolled on waiting for Bishop to join him.

The treatments had done Daniel good. He looked and walked like a healthy fifty year old.

“I am sorry about Amanda, Daniel. She was a good woman.”

“Yes.” They both knew that was not why they were here.

“Good to see you again Daniel. You remember the house?” he asked.

“I remember.”

“Many years ago you tried to help two children who lived in that house. It cost you your job.”

“Didn’t seem to have done much good, did it?”

“Still the intent was there. I have never thanked you for that. Neither have I ever thanked you for your assistance in providing our people with shelter.”

Daniel shrugged. “Just bed and breakfast.”

“It is a bit late I know but I would like to make amends. I would like to offer you another position, one you might find less distasteful than the one you held with the agency.”

“Which is?”

“To gather colonists for the North American settlements. You’ll be in charge of retrieval and of establishing your own settlement.”

“My home?”

“You’d have to give it up I’m afraid. We can make suitable arrangements. We synthesize a body fitting your appearance suitable fingerprints, etc., found dead of heart seizure.”

“And if I don’t want the job?”

“We send you back, a little refreshed from your holiday.”

 “Just like that?”

“Just like that. But do you truly want to go back to being eighty-three again?”

“I have no objection to being eighty-three. I just don’t like being told that my life is over.”

“No one does. We’re not gods Daniel. We can’t save them all. We’re just trying to give people a second chance.”

“I know. There was a man in Kilmarnock once who believed in doing the same.”

“Usually we can’t save the ones we care for the most. Even so … are you willing?”

“I’ve always believed in second chances doctor.”

Foley nodded. “Good. How would you like a sea voyage?”

                                                                                *** 

Captain Benjamin Brigg, his wife Sarah Elizabeth his two year old daughter Sophia Matilda daughter and crew of seven sat huddled in the lifeboat watching the brig Mary Celeste her sails half-furled drift away from them. Seated at the stern the captain still awaited the explosion that he knew would come.  Seventeen hundred barrels of wood alcohol would flare engulfing the ship and all souls within in her. The scent of fire had sent himself his wife and daughter and crew of eight scrambling into a lifeboat, pausing only to grab a small basket of bread and barrel of water. Perhaps he should have hesitated to determine the cause of the fire but the presence of his wife and child had forced his hand. No time to examine the cargo. No time to furl sails. Scramble for the lifeboats and get away as fast as possible.

“Why doesn’t it blow,” twenty-eight year old Albert Richardson, first mate, asked. He cursed. He should have known better than to sign on for this voyage. An unlucky ship, this.  Once the Amazon, now the Mary Celeste, as if changing the name would help? Some ships like people were just born unlucky. Changing a name, only made it worse as if they trying to hide the ship-‘s past from God and men.

 It will blow, Benjamin told himself. It has to once the flames reach the cargo. Yet he could see no sign of smoke. Could he have been wrong? My God, he begged. Let me not be wrong. He had been having his breakfast in his cabin having just split open a boiled egg when Nash had come to him reporting the smell of smoke coming from the cargo hold. Should he hesitate? Once the cargo caught flame it would be all over. He had looked over at Annie working at her sewing machine doing up a pinafore for little seven year old Amanda.

He looked at the sailor’s eyes. Even an experienced mariner like Gilling could not conceal the fear. Twenty years as a seaman from ship’s boy to captain had taught Briggs that hesitation in a crisis could mean death.

“Abandon ship.”

The small boat lifted under the growing swell of the sea. The Mary Celeste had dwindled to a dot. Apart from that dot the ten people in the lifeboat were alone.

“Someone will find us,” Benjamin had told Sarah. He tried to tell himself that it was not a lie. She had looked up at him, had smiled and had turned back to comforting Sophia. Benjamin watched the darkening of the eastern sky. He estimated that the squall would hit within the hour. How long could eleven people in an open boat hope to survive a North Atlantic squall? My God, what had he done?

“A whale, captain.”

The ship’s cook Edward Head was pointing to the starboard.

Through the growing hills of water Briggs could see a large gray forehead with a black eye peering at him.

“Never seen a whale swim like that,” said  Richardson.

The “whale” had turned its snout towards the life boat. Benjamin told himself to dismiss the whale and concentrate on the more immediate need for survival. “There’s a blow coming. Tie everything down.”

No one was listening. The whale had swelled in size growing to that of a young upright, but unlike any that Benjamin had ever seen. His command faded tossed away by the growing wind.

The whale surged to within a few yards of the boat and then stopped. By now the frightened group in the boat could see that this was no whale. The sides where made of metal plating. The hissing of air could be heard and the top of the whale’s head opened. A human head popped out. Despite the black cap protecting it the eleven huddled in the boat could recognize its features. 

 “A bloody woman” said Richardson

“Bloody Chink.” said Ed.

“Do you need any help?” she asked.

                                                                                ***         

Daniel watched the North Atlantic roll away beneath the stern of the RMS Titanic. Except for a couple standing off to one side he was alone. Dressed as a steward, he had stepped out of the four bed cabin in steerage to give the three engineers more space in which to work. Besides he had felt the need to be alone with his own thoughts. Having walked the length of the ship, he slipped out of steerage strolling past decks emptied by the coldness of the night. Somewhere beyond the bow the ice waited to bring it back to life for a few terrible moments. Below him a thousand people were settling into sleep. For most of them it would be their final rest but not for all. Many would escape upon the too few lifeboats. Others, who would never be found, those were the ones that he would have to concentrate upon saving. Deep within steerage slept hundreds of immigrants, Irish German, Slav; they could form the nucleus of a new colony, his colony. Within the midst in a tiny fourth class cabin three technicians had assembled a portal. 

The first attempt at Maritime rescue, which of the crew of the Mary Celeste, had been based upon the use of a submersible had worked well although they did have difficulty in persuading Captain Briggs that they could not return him to his ship. Borrowing a leaf, if not a few chapters form Jules Verne they had persuaded the captain and his companions that the submersible’s survival had depended upon absolute secrecy. While still feasible for small craft, the Nemo, could only take on small numbers of people.  For the larger ships of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries better results would be derived from placing a portal upon the ship itself.

Once the link was made agents disguised as uniformed White Star Line officers would cross. They would fan out through the narrow steerage class corridors, armed with lists of the dead. Awakened, drowsy from sleep, confused passengers, intimidated by uniforms, would be herded towards the portal.

He would be eighty-four in two more months. He knew that he looked and had the physical strength of a man of forty but he felt eighty-four. Some things could not and should not be changed. Every time Mei Ling brushed against him, he time he saw her smile, he had felt a resurgence of sexual desire that he had not felt for many years. He told himself that a man his age could not fall in love. Amanda had been his life. They had enjoyed a log life together, physically, emotionally. He could not just …..

A soft beeping sounded in his left ear. Daniel turned away from the stern. “Yes?”

Chief Engineer Patricia Mekarski pressed the on switch. The portal hummed and the back wall of the tiny cabin vanished. “We’re ready here, sir.”

“I’ll be right there.”

                                                                ***

Three weeks after leaving the Titanic Doctor Foley asked Daniel to accept a new commission. Daniel had savoured the success of the Titanic mission. Three hundred saved, sent through the portal to begin a new life in the new colony of America. Only one dark moment had sullied that accomplishment. An Irish peasant woman had slapped Mei Ling for having the temerity of daring to touch her.

Mei Ling had shrugged it off. “We don’t save them because they are the best. We save them because they are human. We have to expect that they will share in the weaknesses of their time.”

Daniel had nodded and had agreed to say nothing more about it but he could not forget the hatred in the Irishwoman’s eyes.

The air redolent with the smell of ripe grapes, Matthew Foley sat in his garden. Sharing the small round table were Louise and Daniel. Between them sat a holoviewer which projected the image of the sunken remains of a ship. What had once been a great ship lay upon its side on the muddy bottom of the Saint Lawrence. Its bow reared up out of the mud as if after centuries it still strained to rise towards the sun.

“The Empress of Ireland,” said Matthew” switching off the holoviewer.

“The Empress?” Louise asked.

Matthew nodded “Over a thousand people went down on it in 1914, just off Rimouski in the Saint Lawrence. Can you do there what you did on the Titanic, Daniel?”

Daniel hated what he was about to say. The old man seemed so intent upon repeating the success of the Titanic. He had asked the same question a week before giving him time to frame an answer. Everything that he had learned about the Empress led to one answer. 

“Impossible.”

“Why?” asked Matthew, disappointed but not willing to abandon the idea.

“The Empress went down in fourteen minutes at night in conditions of almost zero visibility only a few hours after leaving Quebec City. We wouldn’t have the time to assemble a portal. Besides that the Titanic stayed upright. The Empress turned turtle trapping hundreds in their cabins.”

The holoviewer showed the Empress being struck towards the rear. It listed, turned over onto her stern and plunged towards the bottom of the Saint Lawrence.

“Personal portals?” asked Matthew.

Daniel shook his head. “We couldn’t take out more than two or three people at most.”

“The Nemo?”

“Might pick up a few in the water but we would have to separate those who survived from those who didn’t. Given the time span, it’s just not feasible.”

“Personal portals then. Even if we can only bring out a few, that would be something.”

Daniel nodded. “And the rest?”

“Given enough tries Daniel, we might be able to save most of them. For now I want you to look for two.”

“Who?”

“Colin Brightman and his daughter, Alice.”

A grainy black and white photo of three people dressed in formal Edwardian attire appeared on the holoviewer. “The only picture I’ve ever been able to find of them,” said Matthew. “Taken in 1911.”

 The pictures showed a young moustachioed man wearing a straw boater, a woman her hair tied in a bun wearing a mutton leg jacket and a little girl her hair topped by a ribbon. 

“Why them?” Louise asked.

“They’re family. My family. At least they were.”

The Titanic expedition had caused Matthew to flip through his holoviewer searching for other possible wrecked from which survivors could be extracted. Under the Es he found the Empress of Ireland. As he had read about the great liner memories had seeped up, memories of an old woman lying in a hospital bed, of the last words that she had spoken. 

“This is most…irregular,” said Louise.

In expressing dislike Louse was not given to displays of temperament. Anger she considered undignified. A brief emphasis on a syllable or simple silence was enough to indicate disagreement to her listeners.

Foley smiled. “Your choosing me was once considered to be irregular.”

Louise sniffed. “That was different.”

“Was it? If you were given the chance would you not tried to have saved Tom?”

She looked away as was her wont when felt herself to be uncomfortable.  “He would not have wished it,” she muttered. “Anyway I don’t see how that applies. However, if you are so intent upon doing this, then so be it. Just don’t expect me to agree with it.”  

At least thought Daniel, as he lay on his bunk deep within the bowels of the Empress, they would not have to worry about separating survivors from the dead. This deep within the ship no one had survived.

Dressed as a Quebec City policeman Daniel stepped out of his cabin at three minutes after eleven. A list of passenger manifest had given him the third class cabin number for Colin Brightman and his daughter. Behind him his companion Francois LeClerc, also dressed as a policeman, stopped to knock at the cabin door next to their own.  While Daniel saw to the Brightmans Francois would try to bring out as many as he could with his portal. Bring them out first.  Answer questions later. He wished that he could have brought Mei Ling but in 1914 how many police women were there, least of all of Chinese origin.

Daniel could feel the floor vibrating beneath his feet as he walked down the passageway. It reassured him reminded him that the ship still possessed life.

The Reverend Colin Brightman lay on his cot, his wife Elizabeth sleeping next to him.   He looked up at the cot upon which his daughter lay. He thought of the great adventure that lay ahead, the journey to London and then south through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal along the coast of Africa. He would be doing God’s work in the African wilderness.  He is thoughts were interrupted by a firm knocking on his cabin door and the calling of his name.

Colin staggered to his feet and stumbled into his trousers.

Some emergency he wondered. He opened his door to see a policeman.

“Mister Colin Brightman?”

“Reverend Colin Brightman. May I help you officer?” He wondered how a police officer had gotten aboard the empress.

“I must speak with you sir. A matter of some urgency. Best to discuss it out in the corridor sir, so as not to waken the young lady.”

“Excuse me but I thought all Quebec City police officers were French speaking.”

“Not all sir.” “What is your name constable?”

“Bishop sir, Daniel Bishop.” No point lying about that thought Daniel  ”“As I said sir, if we could discuss it in the corridor?”

“Very well.” Colin stepped forward.

Daniel placed a hand upon his shoulder. The air shimmered. He and a surprised Reverend Brightman were gone. A minute late Daniel reappeared. He stepped into the cabin where Alice still lay sleeping. As gently as he could he picked her up wrapping the blanket around her.

She murmured in her sleep. “Mama.”

“She’ll be coming as well.” Daniel murmured. From beyond the cabin came the faint sound of the engines driving the ship on through the dark. He lifted Alice up and stepped back from the bed. Daniel told himself that he would have to pop back to fetch Elizabeth after dropping off Alice. Then they vanished.

The treatments had done Daniel good. He looked and walked like a healthy fifty year old.

“I am sorry about Amanda, Daniel. She was a good woman.”

“Yes.” They both knew that was not why they were here.

“Good to see you again Daniel. You remember the house?” he asked.

“I remember.”

“Many years ago you tried to help two children who lived in that house. It cost you your job.”

“Didn’t seem to have done much good, did it?”

“Still the intent was there. I have never thanked you for that. Neither have I ever thanked you for your assistance in providing our people with shelter.”

Daniel shrugged. “Just bed and breakfast.”

“It is a bit late I know but I would like to make amends. I would like to offer you another position, one you might find less distasteful than the one you held with the agency.”

“Which is?”

“To gather colonists for the North American settlements. You’ll be in charge of retrieval and of establishing your own settlement.”

“My home?”

“You’d have to give it up I’m afraid. We can make suitable arrangements. We synthesize a body fitting your appearance suitable fingerprints, etc, found dead of heart seizure.”

“And if I don’t want the job?”

“We send you back, a little refreshed from your holiday.”

 “Just like that?”

“Just like that. But do you truly want to go back to being eighty-three again?”

“I have no objection to being eighty-three. I just don’t like being told that my life is over.”

“No one does. We’re not gods Daniel. We can’t save them all. We’re just trying to give people a second chance.”

“I know. There was a man in Kilmarnock once who believed in doing the same.”

“Usually we can’t save the ones we care for the most. Even so … are you willing?”

“I’ve always believed in second chances doctor.”

Foley nodded. “Good. How would you like a sea voyage?”

                                                                                *** 

Captain Benjamin Brigg, his wife Sarah Elizabeth his two year old daughter Sophia Matilda daughter and crew of seven sat huddled in the lifeboat watching the brig Mary Celeste her sails half-furled drift away from them. Seated at the stern the captain still awaited the explosion that he knew would come.  Seventeen hundred barrels of wood alcohol would flare engulfing the ship and all souls within in her. The scent of fire had sent himself his wife and daughter and crew of eight scrambling into a lifeboat, pausing only to grab a small basket of bread and barrel of water. Perhaps he should have hesitated to determine the cause of the fire but the presence of his wife and child had forced his hand. No time to examine the cargo. No time to furl sails. Scramble for the lifeboats and get away as fast as possible.

“Why doesn’t it blow,” twenty-eight year old Albert Richardson, first mate, asked. He cursed. He should have known better than to sign on for this voyage. An unlucky ship, this.  Once the Amazon, now the Mary Celeste, as if changing the name would help? Some ships like people were just born unlucky. Changing a name, only made it worse as if they trying to hide the ship-‘s past from God and men.

 It will blow, Benjamin told himself. It has to once the flames reach the cargo. Yet he could see no sign of smoke. Could he have been wrong? My God, he begged. Let me not be wrong. He had been having his breakfast in his cabin having just split open a boiled egg when Nash had come to him reporting the smell of smoke coming from the cargo hold. Should he hesitate? Once the cargo caught flame it would be all over. He had looked over at Annie working at her sewing machine doing up a pinafore for little seven year old Amanda.

He looked at the sailor’s eyes. Even an experience mariner like Gilling could not conceal the fear. Twenty years as a seaman from ship’s boy to captain had taught Briggs that hesitation in a crisis could mean death.

“Abandon ship.”

The small boat lifted under the growing swell of the sea. The Mary Celeste had dwindled to a dot. Apart from that dot the ten people in the lifeboat were alone.

“Someone will find us,” Benjamin had told Sarah. He tried to tell himself that it was not a lie. She had looked up at him, had smiled and had turned back to comforting Sophia. Benjamin watched the darkening of the eastern sky. He estimated that the squall would hit within the hour. How long could eleven people in an open boat hope to survive a North Atlantic squall? My God, what had he done?

“A whale, captain.”

The ship’s cook Edward Head was pointing to the starboard.

Through the growing hills of water Briggs could see a large gray forehead with a black eye peering at him.

“A porpoise” Ed asked.

“Never seen a porpoise swim like that,” said  Richardson.

The “porpoise” had turned its snout towards the life boat. Benjamin told himself to dismiss the porpoise and concentrate on the more immediate need for survival. “There’s a blow coming. Tie everything down.”

No one was listening. The porpoise had swelled in size growing to that of a young upright, but unlike any that Benjamin had ever seen. His command faded tossed away by the growing wind.

The whale surged to within a few yards of the boat and then stopped. By now the frightened group in the boat could see that this was no whale. The sides where made of metal plating. The hissing of air could be heard and the top of the whale’s head opened. A human head popped out. Despite the black cap protecting it the eleven huddled in the boat could recognize its features. 

 “A bloody woman” said Richardson

“Bloody Chink.” said Ed.

“Do you need any help?” she asked.

                                                                                ***         

Daniel watched the North Atlantic roll away beneath the stern of the RMS Titanic. Except for a couple standing off to one side he was alone. Dressed as a steward, he had stepped out of the four bed cabin in steerage to give the three engineers more space in which to work. Besides he had felt the need to be alone with his own thoughts. Having strolled the length of the ship he had slipped out of steerage strolling past decks emptied by the coldness of the night. Somewhere beyond the bow the ice waited to bring it back to life for a few terrible moments. Below him a thousand people were settling into sleep. For most of them it would be their final rest but not for all. Many would escape upon the too few lifeboats. Others, who would never be found, those were the ones that he would have to concentrate upon saving. Deep within steerage slept hundreds of immigrants, Irish German, Slav, they could form the nucleus of a new colony, his colony. Within the midst in a tiny fourth class cabin three technicians had assembled a portal. 

The first attempt at Maritime rescue that of the crew of the Mary Celeste, had been based upon the use of a submersible. It had worked well although they did have difficulty in persuading Captain Briggs that they could not return him to his ship. Borrowing a leaf, if not a few chapters form Jules Verne they had persuaded the captain and his companions that the submersible’s survival had depended upon absolute secrecy. While still feasible for small craft, the Nemo, could only take on small numbers of people.  For the larger ships of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries better results would be derived from placing a portal upon the ship itself.

Once the link was made agents disguised as uniformed White Star Line officers would cross. They would fan out through the narrow steerage class corridors, armed with lists of the dead. Awakened, drowsy from sleep, confused passengers, intimidated by uniforms, would be herded towards the portal.

He would be eighty-four in two more months. He knew that he looked and had the physical strength of a man of forty but he felt eighty-four. Some things could not and should not be changed. Every time Mei Ling brushed against him, he time he saw her smile, he had felt a resurgence of sexual desire that he had not felt for many years. He told himself that a man his age could not fall in love. Amanda had been his life. They had enjoyed a log life together, physically, emotionally. He could not just …..

A soft beeping sounded in his left ear. Daniel turned away from the stern. “Yes?”

Chief Engineer Patricia Mekarski pressed the on switch. The portal hummed and the back wall of the tiny cabin vanished. “We’re ready here, sir.”

“I’ll be right there.”

                                                                ***

Three weeks after leaving the Titanic Doctor Foley asked Daniel to accept a new commission. Daniel had savored the success of the Titanic mission. Three hundred saved, sent through the portal to begin a new life in the new colony of America. Only one dark moment had sullied that accomplishment. An Irish peasant woman had slapped Mei Ling for having the temerity of daring to touch her.

Mei Ling had shrugged it off. “We don’t save them because they are the best. We save them because they are human. We have to expect that they will share in the weaknesses of their time.”

Daniel had nodded and had agreed to say nothing more about it but he could not forget the hatred in the Irishwoman’s eyes.

The air redolent with the smell of ripe grapes, Matthew Foley sat in his garden. Sharing the small round table were Louise and Daniel. Between them sat a holoviewer which projected the image of the sunken remains of a ship. What had once been a great ship lay upon its side on the muddy bottom of the Saint Lawrence. Its bow reared up out of the mud as if after centuries it still strained to rise towards the sun.

“The Empress of Ireland,” said Matthew” switching off the holoviewer.

“The Empress?” Louise asked.

Matthew nodded “Over a thousand people went down on it in 1914, just off Rimouski in the Saint Lawrence. Can you do there what you did on the Titanic, Daniel?”

Daniel hated what he was about to say. The old man seemed so intent upon repeating the success of the Titanic. He had asked the same question a week before giving him time to frame an answer. Everything that he had learned about the Empress led to one answer. 

“Impossible.”

“Why?” asked Matthew, disappointed bit not willing to abandon the idea.

“The Empress went down in fourteen minutes at night in conditions of almost zero visibility only a few hours after leaving Quebec City. We wouldn’t have the time to assemble a portal. Besides that the Titanic stayed upright. The Empress turned turtle trapping hundreds in their cabins.”

The holoviewer showed the Empress being struck towards the rear. It listed, turned over onto her stern and plunged towards the bottom of the Saint Lawrence.

“Personal portals?” asked Matthew.

Daniel shook his head. “We couldn’t take out more than two or three people at most.”

“The Nemo?”

“Might pick up a few in the water but we would have to separate those who survived from those who didn’t. Given the time span, it’s just not feasible.”

“Personal portals then. Even if we can only bring out a few, that would be something.”

Daniel nodded. “And the rest?”

“Given enough tries Daniel, we might be able to save most of them. For now I want you to look for two.”

“Who?”

“Colin Brightman and his daughter, Alice.”

A grainy black and white photo of three people dressed in formal Edwardian attire appeared on the holoviewer. “The only picture I’ve ever been able to find of them,” said Matthew. “Taken in 1911.”

 The pictures showed a young mustachioed man wearing a straw boater, a woman her hair tied in a bun wearing a mutton leg jacket and a little girl her hair topped by a ribbon. 

“Why them?” Louise asked.

“They’re family. My family. At least they were.”

The Titanic expedition had caused Matthew to flip through his holoviewer searching for other possible wrecked from which survivors could be extracted. Under the Es he found the Empress of Ireland. As he had read about the great liner memories had seeped up, memories of an old woman lying in a hospital bed, of the last words that she had spoken. 

“This is most…irregular,” said Louise.

In expressing dislike Louse was not given to displays of temperament. Anger she considered undignified. A brief emphasis on a syllable or simple silence was enough to indicate disagreement to her listeners.

Foley smiled. “Your choosing me was once considered to be irregular.”

Louise sniffed. “That was different.”

“Was it? If you were given the chance would you not tried to have saved Tom?”

She looked away as was her wont when felt herself to be uncomfortable.  “He would not have wished it,” she muttered. “Anyway I don’t see how that applies. However, if you are so intent upon doing this, then so be it. Just don’t expect me to agree with it.”  

At least thought Daniel, as he lay on his bunk deep within the bowels of the Empress, they would not have to worry about separating survivors from the dead. This deep within the ship no one had survived.

Dressed as a Quebec City policeman Daniel stepped out of his cabin at three minutes after eleven. A list of passenger manifest had given him the third class cabin number for Colin Brightman and his daughter. Behind him his companion Francois LeClerc, also dressed as a policeman, stopped to knock at the cabin door next to their own.  While Daniel saw to the Brightmans Francois would try to bring out as many as he could with his portal. Bring them out first.  Answer questions later. He wished that he could have brought Mei Ling but in 1914 how many police women were there, least of all of Chinese origin.

Daniel could feel the floor vibrating beneath his feet as he walked down the passageway. It reassured him reminded him that the ship still possessed life.

The Reverend Colin Brightman lay on his cot.  He looked up at the cot upon which his daughter lay. He had tried to think of the great adventure that lay ahead, the journey to London and then south through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal along the coast of Africa. He would be doing God’s work in the African wilderness. He should be concentrating on what lay ahead and yet he could not keep thinking of Elizabeth, of the colour of her hair of her lying beside him in the night. He turned his head at the knocking on his cabin door and the calling of his name.

Colin staggered to his feet and stumbled into his trousers.

Some emergency he wondered. He opened his door to see a policeman.

“Mister Colin Brightman?”

“Reverend Colin Brightman. May I help you officer?” He wondered how a police officer had gotten aboard the empress.

“It’s about your wife, sir,” said Daniel latching upon the first thing that came to mind.

Colin stared at him for a moment. Was she ill? Had something happened? He remembered what he should say.  “My wife?”

“I must speak with you sir. A matter of some urgency.”

“Is she ill,” Colin whispered.

“Best to discuss it out in the corridor sir, so as not to waken the young lady.”

“Excuse me but I thought all Quebec City police officers were French speaking.”

“Not all sir.” “What is your name constable?”

“Bishop sir, Daniel Bishop.” No point lying about that thought Daniel.

“You have news about … my wife?”

“Yes sir. As I said sir, if we could discuss it in the corridor?”

“Very well.” Colin stepped forward.

Daniel placed a hand upon his shoulder. The air shimmered. He and a surprised Reverend Brightman were gone. A minute late Daniel reappeared. He stepped into the cabin where Alice still lay sleeping. As gently as he could he picked her up wrapping the blanket around her.

She murmured in her sleep. “Mama.”

“There’ll be mamas enough where you’re going” Daniel murmured. From beyond the cabin came the faint

sound of the engines driving the ship on through the dark. He lifted Alice up and stepped back from the

bed. Daniel told himself that he would have to pop back next to his own cabin to help Leclerc after

dropping off Alice. Then they vanished.