."
". . . f-l-o-w-e-r?"
"Good job, Roger," says Stephen.
"I read it," the boy explains indignantly, pointing straight ahead with the collective fingers of his right mitten.
Fifty yards away, moored between an oil tanker and a bait shack, a battered freighter rides the incoming tide. Her stern displays a single word, Mayflower, a name that to the inhabitants of Boston Isle means far more than the sum of its letters.
"Now can we go home?" asks Roger.
"No," says Stephen. He has taught the story countless times. The Separatists' departure from England for Virginia . . . their hazardous voyage . . . their unplanned landing on Plymouth Rock . . . the signing of the covenant whereby the non-Separatists on board agreed to obey whatever rules the Separatists imposed. " Now we can go on a nice long voyage."
"On that thing?" asks Willy.
"You're not serious," says Laura.
"Not me," says Claude.
"Forget it," says Yolanda.
"Sayonara," says Tommy.
"I think I'm going to throw up," says Beatrice.
"It's not your decision," Stephen tells his stepchildren. He stares at the ship's hull, blotched with rust, blistered with decay, another victim of the Deluge. A passenger whom he recognizes as his neighbor Michael Hines leans out a porthole like a prairie dog peering from its burrow. "Until further notice, I make all the rules."
Half by entreaty, half by coercion, he leads his disgruntled family up the gangplank and onto the quarterdeck, where a squat man in an orange raincoat and a maroon watch cap demands to see their ticket.
"Happy Saint Patrick's Day," says Stephen, flourishing the preserved blossom.
"We're putting you people on the fo'c'sle deck," the man yells above the growl of the idling engines. "You can hide behind the pianos. At ten o'clock you get a bran muffin and a cup of coffee."
As Stephen guides his stepchildren in a single file up the forward ladder, the crew of the Mayflower reels in the mooring lines and ravels up the anchor chains, setting her adrift. The engines kick in. Smoke pours from the freighter's twin stacks. Sunlight seeps across the bay, tinting the eastern sky hot pink and making the island's many-windowed towers glitter like Christmas trees.
A sleek Immortality Corps cutter glides by, headed for the wharfs, evidently unaware that enemies of the unconceived lie close at hand.
Slowly, cautiously, Stephen negotiates the maze of wooden crates – it seems as if every piano on Boston Isle is being exported today – until he reaches the starboard bulwark. As he curls his palm around the rail, the Mayflower cruises past the Mystic Shoals, maneuvering amid the rocks like a skier following a slalom course.
"Hello, Stephen." A large woman lurches into view, abruptly kissing his cheek.
He gulps, blinking like a man emerging into sunlight from the darkness of a copulatorium. Valerie Gallogher's presence on the Mayflower doesn't surprise him, but he's taken aback by her companions. Angela Dunfey, suckling little Merribell. Her cousin, Lorna, still spectacularly pregnant. And, most shocking of all, Father Monaghan, leaning his frail frame against his baptismal font.
Stephen says, "Did we . . . ? Are you . . . ?"
"My blood has spoken," Valerie Gallogher replies, her red hair flying like a pennant. "In nine months I give birth to our child."
Whereupon the sky above Stephen's head begins swarming with tiny black birds. No, not birds, he realizes: devices. Ovulation gauges sail through the air, a dozen at first, then scores, then hundreds, immediately pursued by equal numbers of sperm counters. As the little machines splash down and sink, darkening the harbor like the contraband tea from an earlier moment in the history of Boston insurgency, a muffled but impassioned cheer arises among the stowaways.
"Hello, Father Monaghan." Stephen unstraps his sperm counter. "Didn't expect to find you here."
The priest smiles
". . . f-l-o-w-e-r?"
"Good job, Roger," says Stephen.
"I read it," the boy explains indignantly, pointing straight ahead with the collective fingers of his right mitten.
Fifty yards away, moored between an oil tanker and a bait shack, a battered freighter rides the incoming tide. Her stern displays a single word, Mayflower, a name that to the inhabitants of Boston Isle means far more than the sum of its letters.
"Now can we go home?" asks Roger.
"No," says Stephen. He has taught the story countless times. The Separatists' departure from England for Virginia . . . their hazardous voyage . . . their unplanned landing on Plymouth Rock . . . the signing of the covenant whereby the non-Separatists on board agreed to obey whatever rules the Separatists imposed. " Now we can go on a nice long voyage."
"On that thing?" asks Willy.
"You're not serious," says Laura.
"Not me," says Claude.
"Forget it," says Yolanda.
"Sayonara," says Tommy.
"I think I'm going to throw up," says Beatrice.
"It's not your decision," Stephen tells his stepchildren. He stares at the ship's hull, blotched with rust, blistered with decay, another victim of the Deluge. A passenger whom he recognizes as his neighbor Michael Hines leans out a porthole like a prairie dog peering from its burrow. "Until further notice, I make all the rules."
Half by entreaty, half by coercion, he leads his disgruntled family up the gangplank and onto the quarterdeck, where a squat man in an orange raincoat and a maroon watch cap demands to see their ticket.
"Happy Saint Patrick's Day," says Stephen, flourishing the preserved blossom.
"We're putting you people on the fo'c'sle deck," the man yells above the growl of the idling engines. "You can hide behind the pianos. At ten o'clock you get a bran muffin and a cup of coffee."
As Stephen guides his stepchildren in a single file up the forward ladder, the crew of the Mayflower reels in the mooring lines and ravels up the anchor chains, setting her adrift. The engines kick in. Smoke pours from the freighter's twin stacks. Sunlight seeps across the bay, tinting the eastern sky hot pink and making the island's many-windowed towers glitter like Christmas trees.
A sleek Immortality Corps cutter glides by, headed for the wharfs, evidently unaware that enemies of the unconceived lie close at hand.
Slowly, cautiously, Stephen negotiates the maze of wooden crates – it seems as if every piano on Boston Isle is being exported today – until he reaches the starboard bulwark. As he curls his palm around the rail, the Mayflower cruises past the Mystic Shoals, maneuvering amid the rocks like a skier following a slalom course.
"Hello, Stephen." A large woman lurches into view, abruptly kissing his cheek.
He gulps, blinking like a man emerging into sunlight from the darkness of a copulatorium. Valerie Gallogher's presence on the Mayflower doesn't surprise him, but he's taken aback by her companions. Angela Dunfey, suckling little Merribell. Her cousin, Lorna, still spectacularly pregnant. And, most shocking of all, Father Monaghan, leaning his frail frame against his baptismal font.
Stephen says, "Did we . . . ? Are you . . . ?"
"My blood has spoken," Valerie Gallogher replies, her red hair flying like a pennant. "In nine months I give birth to our child."
Whereupon the sky above Stephen's head begins swarming with tiny black birds. No, not birds, he realizes: devices. Ovulation gauges sail through the air, a dozen at first, then scores, then hundreds, immediately pursued by equal numbers of sperm counters. As the little machines splash down and sink, darkening the harbor like the contraband tea from an earlier moment in the history of Boston insurgency, a muffled but impassioned cheer arises among the stowaways.
"Hello, Father Monaghan." Stephen unstraps his sperm counter. "Didn't expect to find you here."
The priest smiles
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