Poseidon's Wake

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What were we thinking? Goma wondered to herself. Why did we ever think that elephants needed to be more like us and less like themselves?

Soon the hour was upon Agrippa. They had moved the blankets again and again, but during the course of the afternoon her breathing had grown progressively less detectable, her eye responses weaker, her trunk almost still. They continued their ministrations, sponging her skin and eyes, offering what solace they could with the gentle laying on of their hands. Until the moment when Ru said: ‘She’s gone.’

Goma had felt it, too, but not had the courage to say so for fear that voicing her suspicion might be enough to make it real.

‘Yes, she is.’

Ru could not stop moving the sponge across Agrippa’s face. Feeling the same impulse, Goma shifted the blankets again. There had been no convulsive final breath, no obvious marker of life’s passing. It had simply happened, as steadily and irrevocably as the movement of the sun.

But she noticed a shift in the other elephants’ behaviour. The laying on of trunks had become more desperate. They were touching and prodding her with trunks and feet now, evidencing a forcefulness that to a human’s sensibilities appeared almost indecent. It was as if they were angry at what she had done and wished to scold her back to life. They know, she thought again. They know but they do not fully understand. That will take time.

‘Thank you,’ Ru said, and for a moment Goma thought her words were addressed to the matriarch. Then Ru added, ‘I wanted you to be here. I hoped you’d come, but I wasn’t sure you would.’

‘I’m glad I made it in time. I’m so sorry, Ru. We knew this day was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘She was a good elephant. Whoever accepts her place will have a lot to live up to. I’ve changed my mind, by the way — I’m coming with you.’

Ru barely drew breath between sentences. Goma heard the words, but her natural reaction was to doubt them, or search for a different meaning.

‘With me where?’

‘To Gliese. I made my mind up a couple of days ago, and I would have told you sooner or later.’ Ru was at last able to rise from the ground, scuffing dirt from her knees. ‘I suppose I wanted to live with my decision for a while, to see if I still liked it.’

‘I’m… sorry.’ Goma barely knew how to respond. ‘Of course I want you to come, but I don’t think it’s possible now. They’ve filled all the slots.’

‘I’ve already spoken to your uncle. He was the first person I discussed this with.’ Ru gave an easy shrug. There were dark patches under her armpits, inverted triangles like two little maps of Africa. ‘I know I was meant to be removed from consideration, but I think leaving me on the list was Mposi’s way of giving us a chance of reconciliation.’

‘I don’t—’ Goma started.

‘They had offered my slot to another candidate, but it turned out there was a question over his commitment — when push came to shove, he didn’t want to go, so they’ve been scrambling around to find someone else. When I asked Mposi if I could be allowed back onto the expedition, he said it would solve a number of difficulties.’

Goma shook her head, caught between joy and irritation. ‘I talk to Mposi almost every day — he never said a thing!’

‘I told him not to until I’d thought things over. He was just doing as I asked. You can be cross, if you like, but don’t blame him.’ She squinted at Goma with her tired, dirt-kohled eyes. ‘You are pleased, aren’t you?’

‘I’m… shocked. And pleased, yes. More than pleased. I’m delighted. This is… the best news I could have hoped for. Please tell me you’re certain about this. I couldn’t bear the disappointment if you change your mind.’

‘When I make my mind up about something,’ Ru said, ‘it tends to stay made up.’

‘But medically—’

‘Mposi arranged for Doctor Nhamedjo to visit me. There’s not much he doesn’t know about Accumulated Oxygen Toxicity Syndrome — the man practically wrote the textbook on AOTS. Saw exactly how screwed-up my nervous system is, too. But he says with the right medicines, the right care, I could make it through skipover like the rest of you.’

‘It was the Tantors, wasn’t it? What I told you about Travertine’s theory?’

‘I don’t know whether to believe in that possibility or dismiss it out of hand. All I know is that if there’s even the faintest chance of it being true, I want to be part of that.’

Goma looked at Agrippa’s body, wondering if the matriarch’s death had been the decisive factor in Ru’s change of heart. Perhaps she had not truly made up her mind until now.

‘You’ll miss the herd, watching how they move on,’ Goma said.

‘Not really. We haven’t left yet and, in any case, it will be years before we totally lose contact with Crucible. I intend to stay awake for as long as they’ll let me.’

Goma hardly dared ask the next question, the one uppermost in her thoughts. If Ru had committed to the expedition, did that mean she had also renewed her commitment to their relationship? To ask now, even in the most indirect of ways, would be unforgivable. There was opportunity enough for that, in their last months on Crucible.

Goma felt herself beginning to cry, an expression of both joy at Ru’s news and inexpressible sorrow at the loss of the elephant. But the joy and sadness mingled, each colouring the other, and she knew all would be well, given time.

‘I could never have faced this without you.’

‘Yes you could,’ Ru said. ‘Because you’re strong and stubborn and you don’t need me as much as I need you. But that’s all right. You get me as well. And if it’s okay with you, I’d still like to be your wife.’

Soon the last months were upon them, and then the last weeks. Goma expected Ru to express misgivings as the day of departure approached, but in fact she was resolute, refusing to admit to the slightest of doubts. Perhaps it was a bluff, but if so it was an exceedingly persuasive one.

Goma wished she shared the same resolve. As the days counted down, the prospect of departure began to take a steepening toll on her emotions. She found herself dwelling on aspects of her world that she had until then taken for granted, appreciating them anew now that she knew they would be taken from her: the specific seasonal tang of the sea breezes at this time of year, heavy with their cargo of microorganisms; the swollen sun at dusk, ripening as it met the horizon; the horsetail patterns of clouds; the glint and glimmer of the rings, which — their origin aside — were unquestionably beautiful. Even the constellations, disfigured and displaced from their classical forms — they would suffer a further estrangement from the vantage of Gliese 163. Soon there would be a final morning, a final afternoon, a final sunset. She measured her life by these thoughts and then reprimanded herself for not simply enjoying such pleasures while she still could. The thought of leaving Crucible left her numb with self-recrimination, stung by a sense that she was committing an act of grave betrayal to the world itself.

She usually felt better after speaking to Ndege.

‘You adjust,’ she told her daughter. She had said the same thing, time after time. ‘That’s what happens. My mother left Earth and never saw it again. But she lived a life, and she never looked back over her shoulder. You’ll do the same.’

‘It’s going to tear me apart, the day I go.’

‘It will. But you’ll heal. We all heal.’

They had been allowed to walk in the park, under discreet surveillance, but for some reason Ndege had insisted on Goma coming back to the house. Now they were alone at her table, Goma quietly aware of the hour and the fact that she wished to be at the elephant sanctuary before evening.

‘I have to be in Namboze tomorrow,’ she said, ‘but I’ll be back in Guochang in a few days.’

‘I’m sure you will. But before you go, there are a few things I’d like to give you.’

‘You don’t have to. I won’t be able to take very much with me on the ship.’

‘Won’t be able to, or won’t want to?’

Goma did not have an answer for that.

Set on the table was a dark wooden box which Goma did not recognise. Ndege opened its lid, disclosing a nest of tissue paper. She pulled the paper away carefully, setting the wads down next to the box, and then produced six individually wrapped forms. She peeled each from its tissue cocoon and set them down on the table in order of size. They were a family of six wooden elephants, each mounted on a rough black plinth.

‘Have you seen these before?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘They’re very old and very well travelled. They belonged to Eunice, and then Geoffrey, and then my mother, and then me. They’ve never been split up before, this family. But I think the time is right.’ Ndege grouped the elephants into three pairs, each of which consisted of a larger and smaller elephant. She stared at the permutation for a few seconds before making a substitution between two of the pairs.

‘Two will remain with me. Two will go with you, and two will go with Mposi. Good luck charms. I hope the universe bends itself to bring the elephants back together one day. I’m not inclined to mystical thinking, but I’ll allow myself this one lapse.’

‘Thank you,’ Goma said, quietly relieved that the gift was nothing likely to embarrass her. The elephants were small and charmingly carved, and she appreciated the gesture.