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The way Laise described the traditional means of lifting a sunken ship
sounded exhausting and time-consuming. Their ancestors would have sunken
barrels and tied them to the bottom. To make them buoyant, they would push
buckets down and transfer air pockets little by little until the last barrel
was enough to lift the boat. They didn’t have time for that. They had no
freshwater, and as it turns out, no food. The barrels weren’t airtight. Each
had a hole on the side, presumably to let air through, but when the boat
sank, they all flooded with seawater. Most of the fruit had spoiled before
they even showed up. The coconuts were okay. They floated on their own, so
once that barrel was opened, they were easy pickings. That was what they ate
during their break periods.
The first thing they did was rip all of the heavy metal and other
unnecessary pieces off of the vessel. They pushed them over the side, and
let them drop down to the shelf that the boat was on. This made it as light
as it could possibly be.
After clearing the spoiled fruit mush, they tied ropes around the barrels
one at a time, and created a makeshift pulley system around the bulwark and
other parts. Then they stood on the crow’s nest and pulled the barrel up.
Once it was on the surface and full of air, they closed it back up and
plugged the bunghole securely. Now they had to reverse the process, which
was even harder. The air-filled barrel wanted to float, so five of them had
to stand on—or even hang off of—the crow’s nest. That was as many as they
could fit before they ran out of leverage. The sixth person freedove down
with the barrel, and held it in place so it didn’t wobble around like a
watermelon.
While the pullers tied off the rope to hold it in place, the freediver came
back up to recapture air for themselves. Then they would go back down with
the seventh person to tie the barrel to the bulwark, and untie the original
rope. Each barrel took about an hour, factoring in break times and errors.
They were so tired, blistered, achey, hungry even with the coconuts, and
absolutely thirsty. Rain would make their job harder, but it would at least
give them something to drink to survive another day. They were able
to learn from their mistakes and get into a good rhythm, but they were also
losing energy with each one, so they never ultimately sped up the process.
It took them two days to get through the lifting phase, but man was it worth
it. As soon as that sixteenth barrel was in place, before the pulley rope
could even be removed, the boat let go of the shelf, and rose. The people
who were on the crow’s nest all jumped off to make it that much lighter, and
watched the mast fly up above them. It was glorious to behold.
Now the boat is close enough to the surface to stand without drowning. It’s
still totally filled with water, but bailing it out will be the easy part.
At least they think it will. They obviously start with the wet deck, which
is the most appropriate term for it today. They think it’s going pretty
well. Some water is splashing back in since the surface is so close to the
railing, but it seems to be working. Then they realize their mistake. The
boat didn’t simply sink on its own. There must be damage. Sure enough, when
they swim down to a small storage room, they find the hole. It’s not
particularly big, but it has to be patched first. That isn’t even their
biggest problem, though. They’re about to tip.
“Three people on starboard side and three people to port side!” Rage orders.
Five of them run to one while Elise is alone on the other. Rage stays in the
center.
Rage points. “That’s starboard, and that’s port. Minotaur, Zelda, join
Elise. Okay. The water is out but the boat is unstable. Does anyone have any
idea why?”
Jolanda raises her hand. “I don’t have any sailing experience, but I’ve been
on more than one boat. One thing they all have in common is this thing
called a ballast. You don’t actually want it to be super light, unless it’s
a speedboat or jetski. You want some weight to keep it in the water so you
don’t tip over. Modern boats use water itself. Don’t quote me on this, but I
believe in the olden times, they used metal.”
Rage looks over at the water. “We just sank our metal to make it lighter.”
“I did not want to do a seventeenth barrel,” Minotaur contends. “Dumping our
heaviest stuff was the right call. We just need to bring some of it back up.
I wouldn’t mind having some chains anyway. Chains come in handy in mazes all
the time.”
“Well, I’m glad we dumped everything onto the shelf, instead of the depths.”
Rage sighs and centers herself. “Okay. We did this once, we can do it again.
Zelda, Colley, please stay on the boat on opposite sides to maintain
balance. Hopefully that will be enough. The rest of us need to get in the
water so we don’t literally rock the boat.”
“Our pulley rope has been through quite a bit by now,” Laise says. “I don’t
think it’s gonna make it. It might snap. We need to use a different rope.”
“We don’t have more rope,” Rage points out. “We’ve already snapped two.”
Elise looks up. “Take it from the sail. It’s long enough that we can double
up and distribute the stress. Then we’ll put it back up where it belongs.”
“So many concessions and compromises,” Rage laments. “Very well. Do it.”
So they add another phase to the work even though they thought they were
done. They pull up the bars and grates, but they leave the cannons. Their
combined strength isn’t enough to make that happen, and the rope probably
isn’t strong enough either. They’re into their third day before they feel
like they’re ready to learn the ropes, so to speak. Laise knows some history
of sailing, as does Colley, but none of them knows how to sail. They spend
the rest of the day trying to figure it out methodically. They still don’t
have any regular water, but they’ve been drinking coconut water, and it
won’t matter how long it takes to find land if they sink or crash before
they even get there. It’s smarter to take their time, and do this right.
Everyone is drained, but they’re not stopping.
“We don’t even know where we’re meant to go,” Minotaur reasons. “I’m not
used to that. I mean, of course I’m used to being lost, but I always have
something to orient myself. This dome has a diameter of 3,300 kilometers,
and we could be in the very center of it. Sure, if we sail in one direction,
we’ll eventually hit the wall, but that’s assuming we don’t die of thirst,
starvation, or exposure before then. Everything else is ocean or an island,
and those are notoriously hard to target, even with a map.”
“I have a map.” Jolanda is climbing up from below deck holding a piece of
paper.
Colley doesn’t have to ask, she hands it to him. He examines it a little
before looking up at the sky. “We’re gonna need to orient ourselves again.
For that, we need the stars back.” He returns to the map. “Narratively, I
know where this thing set sail, and I know where it’s going, but it may have
gotten knocked off course. Even if it didn’t, I have no idea how far the
original crew supposedly made it before they sank.”
“Rest up,” Rage instructs. “We set sail tonight. Once again, I hope it
rains.”
It doesn’t rain, but that night, they are given an opportunity to
find out what happened to the original crew when their ghosts appear. Or
they’re zombies, or something else like that, because they can make physical
contact with the living. That’s exactly what they do by attacking too,
because as one might expect, they were pirates.
