Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15
LucasArts Fiction

CHAPTER 3: THE BOAT

The next morning I woke up early, my stomach growling like a feral cat. For a moment everything seemed to be normal, then I remembered what had happened last night and struggled out of bed.
Downstairs I poured myself a big bowl of cereal, and gulped it down. Soon Dad and Wendy came downstairs, and joined me at the table. I got myself a second bowl.
Today was a school day, so normally I'd be rushing back upstairs and getting dressed, while Dad took a shower in the bathroom. But today, like yesterday, was no ordinary day, and so after we'd all finished eating Dad went into the living room and turned on the TV. He sat down to watch some show about dead trees while I went back upstairs and got dressed. It wasn't until ten o'clock that we finally all piled into the car and drove away from the house.
Our house is pretty much in the centre of the city, and it's a long drive to the dock part of town. We livened up the journey by playing I-spy, and twenty questions. I won I-spy, but Wendy was as invincible as ever when it came to twenty questions.
Soon I could smell salt coming through the open window - we were getting near. Sure enough, minutes later Dad turned off the road, and parked in a wide open asphalt area. All around there were wire fences and dusty wooden boxes.
We got out of the car and followed Dad, who was walking across the asphalt to a small wooden building. Me and Wendy looked up at the huge skyscrapers towering above. I don't think we'd ever been in this part of the city before.
Inside the small building there was just a small waiting area with chairs and magazines, a woman sitting behind a desk, and a doorway behind her. Dad talked to the woman, who looked up from her typing, and I thought we were going further inside the building. But they just said a few words and then we sat down.
About five minutes later the door opened. A tall, old man in a dark suit came in. I didn't recognise him, but Dad got up and shook his hand. "Hello, Mr. Jenson," he said. "These are my children, Matt and Wendy."
Mr. Jenson looked down at us, and smiled. "Delighted to meet you," he said warmly. Then he looked back at Dad. "It's this way," he said, indicating the door.
We walked back across the wide asphalt area, past our car, and then into a maze of tiny concrete lanes and shipping crates. The ground was wet, and we could hear the whine and buzz of heavy machinery. Now and then I caught a glimpse of the sea through the concrete alleys. Men in grimy overalls walked along them, carrying boxes or equipment or just whistling to themselves.
Eventually we stopped at a huge metal hangar. There was a tiny door in one corner, padlocked. Mr. Jenson unlocked it and let us inside.
We were on a timber walkway, above the sea. After the daylight glare outside, it was dark in here, and sound of the waves was magnified and echoed by the walls of the hangar. It was an indoor ocean.
Along the walkway, all sorts of modern yachts were anchored. Mr. Jenson led us down the walkway, and I looked at the yachts. Was our ship somewhere among all these?
I looked at Dad. He had a strange expression on his face. Kind of eager. Wendy, on the other hand, didn't look excited at all. But that was just her. I think she was pretty excited, underneath.
Mr. Jenson stopped, and I realised we'd reached our ship.
It was the largest ship in the hangar, which was kind of a shock. Dad said it was a caravel, and smaller than most sailing ships, and I guess he might have been right, but it was larger than every single one of those yachts beside it. And whereas the yachts were sleek, modern machines made of metal and fibreglass, our ship was a huge rough beast made from dark timber boards, inset with grill windows. It had two separate masts, and from them hung, unfurled, huge canvas sails. It seemed like there must have been a dozen sails, at least, all jammed up in a huge twisted mess. In amongst the sheets hung the ropes, strung and wound together into ladders.
I craned my head upward, and saw at the top of the largest mast the crow's nest. Looking back down, I saw two words carved onto the hull of the ship - Que Sera.
What a wreck, I thought. The Que Sera was completely out of place among these modern yachts. It looked old, dusty and useless.
Wendy's face was blank. She must be reserving her judgement, I thought.
"Well, this is the Que Sera," said Mr. Jenson. "Some say it was the fastest caravel ever built." He was taking us to a ramp which led up to the deck of the Que Sera. Dad came after him, then Wendy, with me coming at the end, a bit reluctantly.
"I thought you might want to take a look over it," Mr. Jenson said, standing on the deck, "so I had a crew come in here yesterday and tidy the ship up."
I wasn't really listening. I was looking straight up, at all the sails above us. They were huge. And there was rope everywhere. Incredible. There was no wind inside the hangar, but every now and then a tiny breath of air would make the sails rustle, straining against the ropes with a buffeting noise, and when they did that I realised that in the open air, under a good wind, this ship would really sail. Even now the sails seemed to bend and twist above me.
Then I realised it wasn't the sails bending and twisting, but the ship itself. We were on the sea, and the waves, though tiny and powerless here, still gently rocked the ship from side to side. The motion wasn't alarming at all - it was like being cradled by somebody.
"When was the ship last used?" Dad asked Mr. Jenson.
"Almost two centuries ago, would you believe? And everything's in mint condition, I'm told."
I managed to tear my eyes off the sails and took a look around the deck. There wasn't much to look at. We were standing on the middle of the ship, just near the main mast. At both ends of the ship, the deck was raised to a higher level, and underneath was space for several rooms. The middle deck was flat, and bare, except for a trapdoor in front of the front upper deck. The deck was about the same size as half a basketball court.
There was a wooden ladder in the trapdoor. We climbed down after Mr. Jenson, who went forward and lit a couple of oil lamps. The flickering, orange light of the lamps illuminated a narrow passage stretching out in front of the trapdoor, with doors leading off left and right. The ceiling was not very high. I could touch it with my hands, if I jumped. Mr. Jenson had to bend over a bit.
While Mr. Jenson told us all about the history of the Que Sera, we walked along the passage. The first door we came to opened onto a bare wooden room containing four bunks, stacked next to each other. There were two portholes on one wall. Our bedroom, I thought. I could see Wendy was thinking the same thing.
The next room smelt a bit, and was larger. It had a huge dented table in the middle, cupboards and shelves stacked all along the wall, and in one corner a huge soot-stained oven. The kitchen. Bare, for the moment.
The next room after that was smaller, and full of ropes and metal equipment that looked completely unfamiliar. We didn't stop here long, because we'd come to the end of the passage. There was another trapdoor, dropping down deeper into the bowels of the ship.
We climbed down, into a room of almost total darkness that felt big. The darkness was little bit worrying, accompanied as it was by a musty, ancient smell. I thought I could hear the waves again, muffled but present.
Mr. Jenson lit a few lamps, and I saw we were in some huge storeroom. The floor was all ragged and uneven, with timber jutting up in ridges at regular intervals. Apart from a couple of boxes huddled in one corner, the room was empty. This whole ship was empty, it seemed.
"This is the main storeroom," he said. "We're standing right on the hull down here. All the cargo got cleaned out on its last run, so there's nothing down here now. Of course, back in the early days of its run, this storeroom was often full of gold and chests of treasure."
I perked my ears up. Treasure? Gold? Mr. Jenson didn't say anything else, and I started to wish I'd listened to some of the earlier stuff he'd said. Was this a pirate vessel? I wondered.
After about a minute, we all climbed back to the surface, and had a look through the rooms underneath the upper decks. One was a bedroom built for a captain, with a huge billowy bed, arched windows to let the sun in, and walls inlaid with thin gold lace. Another was a library, full of ancient parchments and stacks of old dusty books. Wendy started to look interested in these, but she didn't dare touch anything with Mr. Jenson looking on.
If there was anything else to see, we didn't see it, because Mr. Jenson led us off the ship. Looking back at the Que Sera now, with glowing lamplight coming from some of the windows, it didn't look nearly so hopeless and broken down. Now it had a welcoming, warm air. I started to feel hopeful about the upcoming journey.