Left on Paradise by Kirk Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

they went. So many passed through.
    Heather looked at her watch. It was nearly midnight. She’d told her parents she’d be out until eleven or so. Since she was bunking with them, it was mindful to give them a little privacy. After all, it was their dream being fulfilled. Now a memory of her parents came to mind—when she once heard them in the night—and she quickly suppressed it. It was unseemly to dwell on such things and Heather decided to wait outside another fifteen minutes. She sat on the deck for a time, then lay on her back. The clouds were breaking up and a half moon was clearly seen. The stars were indeed bright at sea and Heather remembered how ancient navigators crossed the oceans with little more than a sextant and an unclouded sky. Columbus and Vespuchi and ...
    The Pilgrims.
    She laughed a little to remember that she too was a pilgrim now. She closed her eyes and remembered grade school stories of idealistic ventures and misbegotten plans, of hard winters and failing crops, of friendly natives and grateful feasts, of difficulties endured and thanksgiving given, of potatoes and corn and turkey.
    It had been a long day and Heather fell asleep to the soft pitch of the seas and the gentle caress of warm winds. An hour later, a Russian-speaking sailor woke her and pointed to his back and the hard wood deck, reminding the young woman of the backache to be suffered for a night off a bunk. Heather thanked him for his consideration and returned to her room. It was past midnight when she opened the door, only to discover that her parents remained out: their bed was empty and unmade and the lamp remained lit.
    Heather kicked her shoes off, brushed her teeth, and went to bed without changing from shirt and shorts to nightgown. Just after she unfastened her bra and loosened her shorts, Heather set her alarm so she could shower before breakfast (since the Godsons had announced that a public meeting would follow the morning meal). As the young woman dimmed the lights and closed her eyes, she wondered whether the young women on the Mayflower had gazed upon the same stars and dreamed the same desires as she—whether they too longed for undying love and hoped for a good life.
    It wasn’t long before she slept.

 
    4
    The Flower of the First of May Compact
     
    One hundred and two people, not all of them adults, crowded into the unadorned state room—which was little more than an improvised mess hall never intended to hold so many guests. Elbow pressed elbow and knee brushed knee—though babies remained in the back of the room while older children sat on the floor with books and writing tablets and younger children played in a corner with educational toys purchased by Kit at an upscale toy boutique. One of the babies nursed from her mother and three others were cradled in the arms of anxious-appearing men.
    Ryan stood before a lectern at the front of the hall. A half-filled glass of orange juice sat on a stand beside the lectern and a cup of coffee was in his hand. He chewed the final bite from a breakfast roll as he surveyed his audience, then rubbed the crumbs from his fingers and spoke. His voice carried to the back of the room, so he switched off the microphone rigged to the lectern.
    “Is everyone here?”
    A few people clapped.
    “Then it’s time to begin,” Ryan said. “For today, ladies and gentlemen, is the first day of a new calendar. In what promises to be a truly great society.”
    Several people cheered and a dozen others clapped.
    “We’re going to make a new world: a progressive one.”
    A score of voices rang out.
    “And we’re going to do it now.”
    Everyone clapped and cheers rang through the room. Even on the bridge, the crew heard the roar of excitement and wondered what was afoot. Only in the engine room did the pump and grind of the ship’s great pistons prevent the crew from sharing in the moment. Only there did the fire and smoke of the world’s work obfuscate the liberal