Blackfish City(90)
“We can’t leave,” Ora said. “We have work to do. People to heal. Kaev most of all.”
“And then we go,” Masaaraq said.
“Why?”
Masaaraq opened her mouth, like it was the easiest question she’d ever heard, the most obvious answer, but then she said nothing. She looked out at the open sea. She must yearn for it the way her orca does, Ankit thought. “We’re nomads,” she said, finally. “Home is where we make it. Where we’re together.”
“Exactly,” Ora said. “That’s the great gift of living life as a nomad—you don’t get attached to things, don’t believe that you’re safe because you have a roof over your head today. You don’t put your faith in a physical space when home is something you can take with you. But it also means that you accept what comes your way. You make the most of the places you end up in. And now we’re here. In Qaanaaq. Maybe it isn’t forever. But maybe it is.”
Masaaraq did not respond. Ankit wondered if she knew already, that the argument was over, the battle won, and not by her. She loved Ora. That was the most important thing. Every other consideration was secondary to that.
“Forgive me if I’m out of line,” Ankit said to her, to this person who was one of her mothers, “but you really never stopped? Twenty years, thirty years, you never said fuck it and spent a decade or so living on a beach or working in a steel mill or something?”
“Odd jobs here and there,” Masaaraq said. “Waiting out the winter, or saving up money when I couldn’t find any syndicate shipments to raid. My hands didn’t stay clean, mind you.”
“Polar bear kibble is expensive,” Ora said solemnly, and Masaaraq shocked everyone by chuckling.
“And you?” Ankit asked, her heart full and glorious, unspeakably happy. “Did you ever stop believing she’d come?”
“I stopped waiting for it,” Ora said. “For the longest time, I was certain that it would happen. Eventually I stopped being certain. I stopped thinking to myself, If not today, soon. But I still woke up every morning and thought, Maybe today. Before I thought anything else.”
Soq said, “I hated it, at first. City Without a Map. Didn’t know what you were trying to do. But now I love it. I don’t know if that’s maturity, or it’s just because . . . well, because the person who gave me the breaks loved it. I can feel him, sometimes. Hear him. Not like memories. Like something still alive. Is that possible?”
“They live in us,” Ora said. “We carry them in our hearts, even after they are gone. Our ancestors do not depart. Our people knew that long before the breaks.”
“Can I ask you a question about the broadcast?”
Ora smiled, touched her grandchild’s hand. “Of course.”
“Who are you talking to? Who’s your audience? At first I—he—we—thought it was intended for immigrants. New arrivals. Then I thought it was about people with the breaks. Now . . .”
Ora shrugged. “I don’t know, either. In the beginning I was talking to other people in the Cabinet with me. People who were struggling. Sick, sad, hungry. Then I realized . . . it’s more than that.”
Soq awaited additional information. Ora’s smile was deep and distant. Snow made the city into a shadow, a jagged mountain ridge studded with light. The four of them huddled closer in the boat, around Kaev, each with one hand pressed to his body. They made a square, a circle, a coven, a brigade, and Ankit felt confident that there was nothing they could not accomplish when they stood together.
“Tell me a story,” Soq said, leaning back to rest between Ora’s legs. “I bet you’re full of them.”
“I am,” Ora said. Her eyes were on Qaanaaq, and they saw so much more than Ankit did. Ora saw the city as a hundred different people had seen it, arriving at twilight or departing at dawn, as exiled kings and political prisoners and wide-eyed children. She shut her eyes and began to speak.
“People would say she came to Qaanaaq in a skiff towed by a killer whale harnessed to the front like a horse . . .”
Acknowledgments
Books have big families. Here are the people who helped make this one happen:
Seth Fishman, again, and always. The most magnificent man and agent and writer all in one. The Gernert Company team of Will Roberts and Rebecca Gardner and Ellen Coughtrey and Jack Gernert.
Zachary Wagman, who loved this book—and whose editorial eye and ear made it much more worthy of being loved. Big love too to Ecco comrades Meghan Deans, Emma Janaskie, Miriam Parker, and Martin Wilson.
Neil Gaiman, who knows why.
Bradley Teitelbaum of White Rabbit Tattoo, who put a gorgeous permanent orca on my arm to commemorate this book. Look him up before you decide where to get your next—or first—tattoo. Kalyani-Aindri Sanchez, genius photographer, for the mind-blowingly awesome author shots. James Tracy—role model in organizing, role model in writing, and one hell of a model American.
Sheila Williams, wise and magnificent editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction, who published “Calved,” the short story that was my first visit to the fictional floating city of Qaanaaq. And Gardner Dozois, Neil Clarke, and Jonathan Strahan, for including “Calved” in their best-of-the-year anthologies.
Lisa Bolekaja, who slapped some sense into me about the title of that story when absolutely everyone else wanted me to call it “Ice Is the Truth of Water” (which, besides being an objectively less-awesome title, would almost certainly have earned me a cease-and-desist letter from Ted Chiang’s attorneys for straying too close to his titles “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” and “Hell is the Absence of God”).