Part I
Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank—but that’s not the same thing.
—Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer
Before
In a room that is not a room, with walls that are not walls and a window that is not a window, Merriam considers her handiwork. The finished form lies on a table (that is not a table), illuminated by a divine light that Merriam dialed to peak radiance so that she could tend to the last, delicate touches. The brass call it the “vessel,” because it is both the container into which the travelers will pour themselves and the ship that will bear them on their journey. Merriam prefers a different name, one she believes the travelers themselves will use. Humana corpus. The human body.
It’s good, she thinks. Right? Anyone can see that it’s good. Everything the brass asked for and more. The blueprints were detailed, and Merriam followed them precisely, adding her own flourishes where the brass had allowed her some creative leeway. She is particularly fond of the splash of color in the irises, and—for some unknown reason—the spleen. Yes, she decides, it is good.
“Very good,” she says aloud, though her voice is no more than a whisper. The words seem hesitant to emerge, as if the lingering doubt within her were a pair of human hands tugging them back, imploring them to wait until they are sure.
Her internal dialogue is interrupted by Jollis, who appears in the doorway with a hopeful, eager air. He looks around the room, noting the stray bits of cloud in the corners, the row of brightly colored bottles on the shelf. When he sees the body, his typically discriminating aspect slips into one of guileless wonder. “Merriam, wow.” A laugh escapes him. “It’s magnificent.”
“Do you think so?”
“Absolutely.” He moves in for a closer look. “Have the brass seen it?”
“Not the final,” says Merriam. “But naturally they had a hand in it, so to speak. Everyone contributed—the brass most of all.”
Jollis circles the table, continuing his appraisal. “Good bones,” he says. “And I love what you did with the spleen.” Slowly, reverently, he leans in toward the face and gently pushes back the eyelids. He gasps. The eyes glisten, collecting the room’s divine light and amplifying it, before sending it back in a chromatic gleam. “Exquisite,” says Jollis. “They’re going to love it, Merry.”
“Really?”
“Oh, definitely. We’re talking major promotion.”
Merriam tries to hide her excitement. “This is just the prototype, of course.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, it’s finished, and fundamentally they’ll all be the same, but there will be all kinds of variations—different shapes, colors, idiosyncrasies—because obviously the travelers will want that. It’s not like they’d ever declare just one type to be beautiful and then desperately try to imitate it.”
“No, of course not,” agrees Jollis. “That would be ridiculous.” He moves toward the window. “Do you want to see where they’re going?”
Merriam freezes, her insides suddenly aflutter. She does want to see, doesn’t she? The others have been working so hard, and with such secrecy. Finally she nods, and Jollis pulls back the curtain. “Merriam,” he says, “allow me to present . . . Earth.”
There in the window is a shining, distant orb so lovely it is almost painful to behold. Crimson fires warm it from within, while a yellow sun bathes it in light. Argent clouds swirl over an intricate mosaic of tawny sands and emerald wilds. And everywhere the sparkling blue of water—gathered in vast oceans, rushing madly in rivers, falling from an ethereal sky.
Though she should be elated, Merriam feels oddly cold, almost numb. She can’t seem to find her voice, but Jollis’s expectant gaze is on her. “It’s magical,” she says.
“Pretty sweet, right? They say it can accommodate up to two billion people. Any more than that would be a disaster.”
“So, it’s ready to go?”
Jollis nods happily. “Just waiting on the vessel.”
The vessel. Merriam turns back to look at the body on the table. The lingering doubt within her finally crystallizes into a clear danger, a peril against which she might still be able to offer some defense. She begins to shoo Jollis out of the room. “Right,” she says. “The vessel. Almost there! Just one last thing.”
“But you said it was done.”
“Just about,” she says. “You can’t rush these things, after all.” Once Jollis has been successfully ushered out, Merriam returns to the body. She takes one last look at the wondrous new world shining in the window. Then she gets to work.
By the time Jollis returns, Merriam is slumped beside the table, exhausted. She rises to greet him. He gives her a nervous nod and turns his attention to the body, immediately discerning her latest and final edit—a small cavity inside the chest, shaped vaguely like a crescent, nestled beside the heart.
Jollis pales. When he finally speaks, his voice is brittle. “There’s a hole in it.”
“No,” says Merriam. “It’s—”
“What did you take out?”
“Nothing.”
“But what’s supposed to go there?” Jollis gestures urgently. “What’s missing?”
“Nothing’s missing,” says Merriam. “It’s complete.”
Jollis gapes at her as if she just proclaimed she was a jelly bean. “But there’s a hole in it!”
“It’s not a hole,” she insists. Jollis’s distress jangles her nerves, threatening her newfound certainty. “It’s . . . an empty space.”
He doesn’t seem to hear her. “You need to fix it,” he says. “Change it back.”
“It’s too late,” says Merriam. “Look.” She points to the eyes of the body. Though they remain closed, the skin of the eyelids undulates as the eyes dart and roll beneath the surface.
“What’s it doing?” asks Jollis.
“Dreaming,” she says. “First comes the dreaming, then everything else.”
Jollis begins to shake until Merriam fears he will shatter. Instead he begins to move around the room, searching. “Okay, don’t panic,” he says. “We’ll just fill the hole before it wakes up.” He gathers up fragments of cloud from the corners of the room and packs them together, then stuffs them into the crescent-shaped cavity, careful not to disturb the adjacent heart. He draws back and watches as the white mist expands to fill the space. But clouds are restless things, and this one dissipates, dissolving like fog in the morning sun, leaving the emptiness behind.
Jollis grimaces. He begins to gather the divine light of the room itself, sweeping it up in great heaps until his visage is ablaze and the corners of the room retract into shadow. He squeezes the light down, pressing it into the cavity. Illuminated now from both within and without, the crescent space is striking in its beauty. Yet, light being what it is, it cannot fill the void.
“No,” moans Jollis. He turns to the shelf full of colored bottles. “What are these?”
“Emotions,” says Merriam. “The full spectrum, but I’ve already included the prescribed amounts.”