“When we’re at sea, when we’re safe, I will become the man you want me to be, I promise you,” Derek said.

“Just leave it all to me,” said Dertu.

The brandy was liquid fire. But he loved it, loved the warmth in his throat and his chest. His eyes began to water. He took another swallow, some of the brandy spilling down his face.

Dertu climbed a short flight of narrow wooden steps and entered the upper control room, or bridge, or cockpit, or whatever they called it.

Derek followed, attempting to show support, but the whole venture terrified him. Dertu was excited. He sat down in one of two large white leather chairs and examined the wheel, the dials and gadgets and levers.

“And what if we drown at sea,” Derek said. It was as if the words came out on their own. “Defeated again, both of us this time, and it’s years before we come to the surface?” He took another gulp of the brandy. He felt elated suddenly. It was so good that the fear was almost entirely and instantly gone.

“Father, stop worrying,” said Dertu. “I can get this ship to Northern Ireland. That’s where our problems begin, because without picture identification we can’t travel in this world.”

“I thought you said Oban,” said Derek.

“To throw the old man off, of course.”

Derek thought again of how time consuming and difficult it had been for him to create his earlier identities, the identities that had taken him through three-quarters of the twentieth century. He thought of friends he’d made in the modern world, friends who’d never known a particle of truth about him, if they had missed him or ever searched for him. There had been a woman….He hadn’t thought of these things in years. He was weeping again. Oh, this was so awful, this crying. Other memories came back to him of those earlier times when he’d opened his eyes on a more primitive world. He took another deep drink of the brandy. Kapetria would be angry if she knew he’d been drinking this brandy.

“Well, maybe we can reach the others from Derry,” said Dertu. He appeared to be calculating. “We’ll manage. It’s getting to the mainland from here that is our first problem.”

They heard the call of the old man.

He and his white-haired wife had come on board and were loading bags full of fresh food into the refrigerator. The wife set a brand-new packaged laptop computer on the built-in table. And several new cell phones still in their wrapping.

Dertu hit the man with questions.