Sky-Water

Ascending to the Moon-Castle

"Is there any sign of the pirates?" I asked as I sat down at the dinner table in the mess deck. Even though I spoke to my uncle, I was careful to speak in Arabic instead of Kikongo out of respect for the crew.

The soft glow of the foxfire reminded me of home, but its beauty was drowned out by the large lightening bug lamps that hung above the tables. To people who lived on the continents, the lightning bug lamps were a beautiful way to light a room with a bright, yellow glow, almost iridescent as the thousands of bugs lit up at different times. Some of the sailors said it reminded them of the Aurora Borealis that appeared in the sky-water to the north. To me, it was gaudy and loud; a cheap imitation of the true beauty of the Aurora Borealis. It could never capture the sheer power or the awe-inspiring snap and crack of the mysterious lights that shimmered through the sky-water like glowing currents; or the way they lit up the giant man-o-war in rainbows of color that seemed to come from within.

"No. Not yet." My uncle picked up his silverwear with the gruffness of a sailor and the more refined posture of a well educated man. "It looks like we may have the advantage with this diver. But those pesky octopuses are determined and crafty creatures. And the sky-water is their natural home--that is, if they haven't abandoned it completely in their pride. I have sent out a few messages to the closest water patrollers. But they may still be too far away to help us in the next several hours. The good news is that if we can dock with the moon-castle without a problem, then we'll be safe, and the natural lead of the moon will pull us away from them faster than they can follow."

"It should no be long," said Captain Akash, who sat next to me. His contribution to the conversation surprised us both. I rarely heard him talk, at least not in Arabic. He was much more comfortable speaking Bodo to a few of his native crew members. But neither I, nor my uncle could speak Bodo (though, I had picked up a few words on the ship), so he spoke to us in Arabic, with such a thick accent that it sounded like his words were stuck in his mouth. "We should be at moon-castle when kitchen is clean." He wasn't just saying that to give us comfort. The tone in his voice made it sound as if the topic of pirates was as boring and tiresome as my little sister's talk of dolls. He showed no signs of worry or stress. He was too old and too experienced to be ruffled by some English-speaking pirates hired by greedy business men—or octopuses, to be exact. He came from one of the largest ports in the Himalayas and had been navigating the sky-water since he was younger than me. In his mind, I imagined, the giant sea turtles would be more to worry about, as they had a tendency to hang around the moon-castle looking for food and had come very close to breaking our diving bubble before.

After dinner, I followed my uncle into his cabin to construct a series of responses for the pirates, thinking through all of their possible strategies and our responses to each. Then I spent another hour or so rehearsing the lines—not for any lack of English fluency, but to ensure a smooth and commanding negotiation with the pirates. If we were forced into a bribe, I had permission to offer everything we had on the ship if it should help save lives, but the trick of the negotiation was to ensure we lost as little as possible. At times, it felt as comfortable and familiar to me as bargaining in the market. But to say things like "How much do you value a human life?" to my uncle, who played the part of the pirate, made me feel sick somewhere deep in my stomach.

By the time I left his office, assured that I had mastered all the plausible conversations, our ship had ascended deep into the sky-water and made a slow turn to avoid the sweet-water currents that flowed in the area, which could pull our ship away from our goal. Those were always a joy to see through the port windows. The fish that swam in them were much more dull in color and shape than those that swam around the moon-castle, but it was the other creatures—the alligators and the manatee—that caught my attention.