Rite of Passage

I’d always wanted to see an ocean, since they’re even rarer on the Ship than stores. “Could I take a look?”

“Sure,” Ralph said. “Why not?”

First there was a stone wharf and warehouses stretching away on either hand. The harbor stretched two great arms around to enclose a large expanse of water. At the sides were wooden docks on pilings running out like fingers into the harbor. Close at hand were boats of all sizes. Nearest were the great giants with several masts, big enough to have smaller boats tied on board. There were medium and small boats tied up at all the docks.

Even in the harbor, the water ran in white-crested peaks and slapped noisily at the stone and wood. There were birds of white, and gray, and brown, and black, and mixtures of all these colors, all wheeling around and crying overhead, and some of them diving down at the water. The air down here smelled strongly — of fish, I think. Outside the harbor the water was running in mountains that made the peaks inside look small, and it stretched away farther than I could see clearly, to join somewhere in the distance with the gray sky overhead.

I might have made comments about all the things I saw, the odors, the men working, but I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t strike Ralph and Helga as amusing, and by that time I was starting to be a little cautious about exposing myself. I was seeing them as something less than the allies they had been when we were running from George. We walked along the waterfront and off the quay and onto the wooden docks. Ralph led us out onto a little spur and we stopped there.

He pointed down at a little craft tied alongside. It was about twelve feet long, with a mast that stood up high enough to reach above the dock. It had a boom that was lashed in place. It was painted a serviceable white with black trim, and had the odd name Guacamole painted on it.

“What do you think of her?” he asked.

“It’s a very nice ship,” I said.

“It isn’t a ship. It’s a boat, a sailing dinghy, and it’s ours, Helga’s and mine. We go sailing all the time. Want to go for a sail?”

Helga looked at him, obviously pleased. “Oh, can we?”

“If she’ll go,” Ralph said. “It’s up to her. Otherwise we’ve got to do what Daddy said and stay with her.”

“Oh, do come on,” Helga said to me.

I looked at the water and tried to make up my mind. The water looked rough and the boat looked small. I really didn’t want to go at all.

Helga said, “We’ll just stay inside the harbor.”

“It isn’t dangerous,” Ralph added, looking at me.

I didn’t want him to think I was scared, so after a minute I shrugged and started down the wooden ladder that reached from the dock down to the rear of the boat. The ladder stood about two feet above the dock at its highest point, and I grabbed it and backed down. I seemed to be seeing more of ladders lately than I really cared to. Ralph and Helga started down after me.

The boat was rising and falling on the water as the swells came in to break on the docks and the quay. I waited until the boat was rising and then stepped in. I almost slipped, but I held my feet and then moved carefully to the front, grabbing on when I had to. When I got by the mast, I sat down on the seat that ran across the front. Helga dropped into the boat as I was sitting, and Ralph was right behind her.

I blinked a little as a trace of spray wet my cheek. “Aren’t we going to get wet?” I asked.

They didn’t hear, and I repeated my question in a louder voice.

“It’s just spindrift,” Helga said. “You’ve got to expect that. We won’t get too wet.”

Ralph said, “Besides, the water will get you clear. I know you don’t see much water in your Ship.”

That was another thing that irritated me about Ralph and Helga. They had all sorts of misconceptions about the Ship which they insisted on trotting out. Ralph was worse, because he was dogmatic. I thought at first he was being malicious until I realized he actually believed what he was saying, like that bit about going naked — that wasn’t completely wrong; some people do go without clothes in the privacy of their own apartments, but I would like to see somebody trying to play soccer while completely bare. The point is that what he said wasn’t quite right, either, and he wouldn’t listen. He would just say his misconceptions flatly and expect you to agree with him.

Right at the beginning he’d said something about how it was too bad we had to live in crowded barracks — something along that line — and didn’t I like all the space here? I tried to explain that that was only the way it used to be on the Ship, right at the beginning, but then I made the mistake of bringing in the dormitories, which are a little bit that way, trying to be honest, and that only confused the issue. Ralph finally said that everybody knew what things were like, and I didn’t have to try to explain.

Helga was a little more bearable because she only asked questions.

“Is it true you don’t eat food on your Ship?”

“What do you mean?”