Chapter 5: John Silver; an Unfortunate Event in Correspondence with His Home

Crates—the ones John was now unloading from docking ships, and earning three incredible and glimmering goldspecies for it—were strangely different from what John had so mistakenly assumed of them before his lucky employment at the docks. John had considered crates an object of invariable size and weight; always of the same idea of geometric consistency, with no one differing proportionately or in quantity from the next. These generalizations, however, as said before, were incorrect: The crates John was now ever so exposed to were actually of different shapes, sizes, weight, height, and depth, in as much as they were different in what they carried; and John eventually came to master the ability to judge the crate's mass by its size, and which kind of ship it came from. Previously, when John was a novice at exportation, he would never fail to lay hands upon a crate too voluminous for his faculty, and one of the other sailors would stoop to aid him in his strife, always with a clement laugh.

The sailors, too, were more than what John had first fabricated. These men—who had seemed so devilish to the ignorant witness outside their inscrutable coalition—were, like the crates, different in their personalities, ages, thoughts, feelings, and species, instead of being identically matched. These men John worked and was employed with—and also, increasingly more and more, were his profound friends, whom he spent more and more time with even after his shifts—were not fiends, but little less than seraphs; and became as much tutelary to John as Jonas. Many times, when they saw John approach to fulfill his daily four-hour shift, the younger sailors would call to him with their insoluble smiles: "And what say ye for today, Will?"—for William Hamilton was indeed his name in the throngs of this dimension—"will ye fly with us on the seven galaxies, and breathe the fine space air, and come back all brown and ruddy like th' rest of us?"

And John, although his spirit glowed like the very sun when they asked him this, and when he opened his mouth, if one looked closely, the rays of it could be seen bursting forth, responded always with, "There are shores of my life yet to be flown on, sirs, before I can fly the fine space air!"

The fiends of space that John had so imagined, however, did truly exist in some instances, and when those malignant spirits were seen in John's port, the sailors he worked with stared; some with contempt, others with an odd wonderment, or they looked away. These miscreants of the Etherium reminded John of how he had imagined the devil: they wore red or black silken material that hung low from their belts or shoulders, and were adorned with scintillating knives, and some even with long rapiers at the hip. Their hair was long and gathered in filthy ponytails; their teeth were colored a dull caramel yellow; their eyes, which gleamed under their ebony-black triangular hats, beamed with an animal-like depravity. These tangible devils of the Etherium, John assumed with a grim trepidation, were even more horrible to behold than Satan himself; they were the most ghastly of all creatures John had ever seen.

There was a difference in John as well, that the young Ursid came to understand as he lived among his gentle savages of the ships. So withdrawn from the normality of what he was used to at his home, and so lost to his father's protection when he was among the ships and sailors, John inhaled a breath of his natural independence, and gained a sense of belonging, exotic to his former dimension. Among the men he was with now, John, if he wished to, could break out in feral shrieks of music from becoming restless with the stir and bustle of his port at the docks, and could expect to be greeted with plaudits, or even accompanied in the refrain. John felt as close to being a man as he had ever felt before in his seemingly preexistence at home; and he also felt exceptionally wealthy. He felt wealthier than he had ever imagined he could be in his preexistence—even wealthier than his father.

This inclination always rendered John into a state of somber concentration. How much had he left to earn to be as rich as a king? This question, sequentially, was succeeded by the revelation of all the coins he had so far obtained. Upon looking at them, however, he knew too well that kings had more money pieces than he, and so he diligently continued his secret work.

One afternoon, during one of these particular broodings of John's, and when he had done his shift and earned three more goldspecies, one of the younger sailors—an energetic, somewhat audacious canid, who took pleasure in talking to John—asked him, "What makes ye sit and think like that, Will?"

"I have a problem," answered John, responding as easily to the name 'Will' as he did his own.

The canid sailor put out his hand and rested it on one of the crates John was sitting against. "An' what sort of problem is that?" He inquired, sounding as if it were his own burden.

"How much money do kings have, Finn? How many goldspecies, d'you think?"

"Very little, I imagine."

This was a rapid, pungent offence. John's head spun up toward Finn to search his eyes for any jocularity in them, which he could usually successfully find, but he found none. "What're you talking about? They must have more than very little, or they wouldn't be kings!"

The canid sailor sat down, now, laughing somewhat, either at John's misunderstanding, or his own. "No, no… well," and here Finn knitted his brow thoughtfully, trying to string his words together. "Well… goldspecies, like those ye have thar, in yer hand," he indicated, "aren't worth… all that much. Y'see, yer planet, a long time ago, set itself on what's called a gold standard, a money standard that has a basic unit of currency that's equal in value to and exchangeable for a certain amount o' gold."

"What's that got to do with kings?" John asked, bristling slightly.

"Well, the gold standard—recently, I believe, but afore ye were born, I think—has lowered the value of yer planet's money. They never meant to, 'course… but too much money were produced, and then, to balance the planet's money, now no more money is being produced at all. So, kings don't have a lot of goldspecies, since goldspecies aren't worth a lot."

John raised his eyebrows, slowly, with dismal comprehension. "How much are they worth?"

"I c'n on'y compare them to two other currencies: the currency of the Canid and of the Terran. Now, in Canid currency, yer gold specie's worth about a pintt. In Terran currency, it's about worth of a… quarter."

John's heart, despite his exceedingly vague of knowledge for other planets' currencies, sank at the sound of the currencies the sailor named; they sounded so little of value.

"Is a quarter and a pintt bad, Finn?" He asked falteringly.

"It depends on how much ye have. How much have ye got, Will?"

John showed the Canid the three in his hand, and then explained that he kept nineteen others at his home under his pillow, and seven silverpieces and four copperpieces along with them. Finn contorted his face in thought. He then replied musingly, "Yeah, I suspect that's about as much goldspecies as kings've got."

John was suddenly overcome with a wave of despair. The irony of his plight stabbed his heart so that he nearly handed Finn the goldspecies and quit his job. If all the money he knew of was not worth even kings to boast, how could he make his father happy by making him rich? He certainly could not succeed by working the way he was.

"What makes ye wonder at kings and their goldspecies, anyway?" Finn asked lightly, and with his blithe grin, which made John's melancholy emotion swell anew.

"Oh, Finn," John cried, "I'm a fool! How could I not know of the gold standard, or how much my money truly is worth?"

"What're ye saying? So ye didn't know—who cares?"

John hung his head above the blighted goldspecies, which still glimmered radiantly as they did before, but with a new, dull, insignificant shine. "Finn… you don't understand. I wanted to… I wanted… I was supposed to earn a lot of… but…"

Finn furrowed his brow again at the boy. "Ye got plenty of money, Will."

"I've got a lot of worthless money."

The Canid sailor laughed. "T'aint worthless, boy! Why, pennies, copperpieces, and arras are at least worth something, and they're the least amounts of all three currencies we've talked about! Everything's worth something, to be sure."

"Fine, but they can't make my father and me rich."

There was a heavy pause. John pocketed his goldspecies, and decided to go home, until Finn responded again. "They can't make ye rich, but they can still buy ye things, and ye may lay to it."

John's eyes drifted sadly toward the Canid's. Certainly, his ignoble money pieces could help him purchase something, but nothing that could achieve John's hope of making his family wealthy. John did, however, wonder at what he could afford with his nugatory pieces, and wondered also that if—because he could do nothing for his family—he purchased something on a more selfish level, it would be pardonable.

"How?" John rejoined, tepidly.

Finn, in great contradiction to John's irresoluteness, grinned extensively. "Thar's a good bit o' food that c'n be bought with yer pieces. Even better, I seed a smart hat and a comely little coat in a window at one o' them shops down on the wharf. If ye go an' get yer other goldspecies and other such pieces, I'll take ye thar, if I remember where I seed it. Yer as thin as a twig for yer species, and those clothes ye always wear make ye look all the thinner. Go get yer money pieces, Will, and ye c'n buy some warm clothes!"

John's mouth watered unconsciously, as though he were going to buy himself a feast. Clothes in abundance were such a lacking commodity in John's blank little home, and the gaping opportunity to salvage what he could afford with his own dispensable earnings was nearly ineluctable for John. The young Ursid forgot completely of his father's possible deficiencies, and agreed with exhilaration.

The deal was then commenced; John returned swiftly to his home—where Jonas had yet to retire, for his employment at the pay office would not be done in another hour—and collected his money pieces.

Finn waited on the corner of the wharf, where John rejoined him with his pieces. Finn had, meanwhile, searched out the quarry and had pinpointed its whereabouts with success, so, with much furor, the two went together to buy it.

At length, and infused with an ardent spirit, John slipped on the handsome blue cloak, and fingered the velvet facings; the cap to match was brought to him, which fit amply on the top of his head. The small figure in the mirror of the shop stood like a painting, the adornments somewhat separating John from himself for a moment. With one coat draped over the shoulders, and a blue artisan cap, a pauper's boy like John could seem as though descended from the blood of sovereignty; it would have been difficult for even the most disdainful of strangers, if they had but walked in the shop and inspected John, to place him correctly in society.

The reflection of Finn appeared in the mirror through which John delightedly studied himself, and the sailor said softly, "C'mon, Will. Let's buy it afore someone else might."

John bought it lustily, and with great rush. The coat and the hat came out to demand eleven and ten—eleven goldspecies and one silverpiece—and John gave the man twelve goldspecies and told him to keep the change. As Finn was lent a mighty convulsion of laughter at this, they hastily removed themselves from the shop so the two could fly down the wharf with all the excitement they could bear. They cried with blissful, incoherent music, laughed until both their faces were purple, and danced in the streets with John's new coat and hat.

Their celebration, however, was short, and presently Finn disclosed that he was needed back at the ships at the approaching time.

"What time is it?" John asked, breathless, and enveloped warmly in his new cloak.

"Half-passed five, Will; it's getting late. Go home and show yer pap what ye bought."

John's father! Here was a new excitement that inundated inside John far more than the first. Jonas, John knew, would be proud to see that his son now wore a warm covering and a matching hat—John had never worn apparel quite like them. John could envision his face—the gladness shining from his eyes! He would gingerly take off the blue coat to examine the seams, and his face would brighten even more and his eyes twinkle with joy to find the velvet facings—the ones John would keep hidden from him until he found them.

"I'll do that, Finn. Goodbye."

"G'night, Will. I'll see ye tomorrow."

"Finn?"

"Aye?"

"Thank you."

John broke into a hard pace down the streets of the port, toward the eastern hemisphere, in the direction of the navy pay office to greet his father there and walk home with him in the setting sun. As he approached, he could see the figure inside the booth move about in the small room. John rushed around it to the left side, and knocked on the door to surprise his father.

John's grin, however, faded immediately when it was not his father who opened the door.

"Yes, young'un?" a Chameleor addressed him with a gentle voice, but a face hard and lined tell-tale of his potential aggression.

John's happiness choked within him. Confusion now churned inside him, and that acute sense of child intuition rang like ominous bells inside his head, singing that horrible yet familiar dirge of the stomach tightening and the quickness of breath that comes when something is not right. "Where—where is my father? Jonas Silver; where is he?"

The Chameleor straightened, his expressionless ferocity hardening even more. "Silver has owed me money since I gave him this job. And it hasn't been just me—there've been hundreds of thousands of people complaining about his debts to them, and I got to where I couldn't deal with it."

John's heart beat so heavily, his voice began to shake. "You fired him, then, sir?"

"I did more n' that—I got the police out here to put a stop to this money business, and they hauled him away to the debtors' prison in the square."

John's heart now smote inside him; the stillness of shock froze up through his veins, and he stood agape, as though trapped between comprehension and bemusement. His throat constricted and he began to cough uncontrollably. The energy of just minutes before was drained from him by the ground he stood on, and, as though to escape from it draining him as well, he reeled from the booth, and staggered a little ways off from the man there, as the last rays of the sun fell behind the horizon.

The Chameleor had been watching with a grotesque, incoherent look, and now muttered, more to himself than John, "Had I known he had a son, I'd have told the police to find him, too. Well, I suppose I'll tell them now…"

Upon overhearing that said, for John had quieted enough to match the dead's reticence, John exploded up from the ground with a wild, inarticulate protestation, followed by the pitiful but powerful cry for his father. The protestation and the cry was then repeated shrilly, brokenly, and then John sprinted away from the pay office, with all the force he could sustain and find within him, which seemed so very slow and insufficient to John's blackening mind.

If there was anything the Chameleor might have called out after John, the little Ursid did not hear it. All John's mind could understand was the prison, and the square, where Jonas and he had walked together many times before, which he was running toward with all the strength he might possess. His new coat—his beautiful, new blue cloak that made him sing in the street with Finn—felt heavier and heavier as he raged down the dark streets, and he finally shed it by a tree, and let it remain there.

At the prison doors, John was caught by the sleeve, and brought face to face with a guard. "What're you doin', you little imp? Come to steal something?"

John's strength was then drained again, and he fell completely limp in the guard's hands as he breathed laboriously. "Please… please… sir, I beg you to let me go," John pleaded, in the deepest of whispers. "My father… Jonas Silver… is here… please; sir… all I want is to talk with him… please…"

There was a pause that was as heavy as a mountain, and a silence as fierce as thunder.

John's sleeve was released. "Go in, then."

John lurched and toddled forth with what little strength he could suddenly find. The interior of the prison was opaque, and John could see nothing but the blue window of night sky at the end of a long hallway. "Father!"

Silence, and then: "John?"

John leapt in the direction of the response, passing cells of other inanimate members of debt that lay asleep in their imprisonment. After what seemed like a decade, John found his father gripping the bars of his cell, searching, too, for John's appearance. "John! Thank God…" he heard his father's voice as he reached out for him through the bars. "Are you all right? You're shaking…"

John could not answer him.