Free Invasive Species by Joseph Wallace Page A

is not our concern.” His canny eyes were cold. “Look at us,” he said. “Look at our boat. Can we take on more passengers? Even one more? No. We would just sink as well.”
    Everybody looked. He was right: There was no space.
    â€œWe will make room for some,” the old man insisted. “We cannot leave them all.”
    Already they could see that the captain was guiding their boat away from the dhow. “Which ones?” he said. “Which will we choose? No. They will all try to climb aboard, and we will all die.”
    Behind them they heard a splash, another. Two of the young men had abandoned the dhow and were swimming toward the
Sophe
. But they were too far away, much too far, and how much strength did they have? If they were like Mariama, they had been eating little but rice and plantains for days—weeks—on their journeys.
    The captain didn’t look back, though Mariama saw his mouth tighten at the sound of the splashing. The old man’s gaze caught Mariama’s, but he did not speak again, and nor did anyone else.
    Behind the swimmers, beyond their pumping arms and kicking legs, Mariama could see the ones that had stayed behind. Some were bailing, throwing water off the dhow’s deck with their cupped hands. But others, the old and the children, were still waving, and some were just sitting there, staring at the departing
Sophe
.
    It happened quickly. First the two swimmers gave up. One turned back, but the other, perhaps the victim of cramps or dizziness, began to splash around in circles. Soon he was thrashing in one place, and then, as they watched, he slipped below the surface, leaving behind only a tiny crease in the water, and then nothing at all.
    The boat itself followed just a few moments later. Echoing over the water came a dull cracking sound, followed by a puff of black smoke that rose a little way into the air before being blown away by the wind. The front of the boat rose from the water, as if it were being pushed upward by a hand. It stood still for a moment, looking like the fin of some sea creature. Then it slid down and back, smoothly as a blade, and was gone.
    Mariama had twisted around to see small forms leaping into the water before the dhow disappeared. Now she turned away and looked up at the captain.
    But he stood straight, staring at the western horizon.
    *   *   *
    AS THE SUN sank, the swells grew larger, the clouds thicker, the winds sharper. The boat labored forward against the confused currents. Even the ocean itself was fighting to keep them in Africa.
    The old man beside Mariama had fallen into a kind of wordless trance after the sinking of the dhow. On her other side, the mother, a tough, wiry woman from Mauritania, tended to her daughter, who looked about six.
    The girl seemed unwell. She’d spent most of the journey with her eyes closed, and her dark skin seemed underlain with gray.
    â€œShe does not like the motion of the boat,” the woman said. “She will be fine when we reach land.”
    Mariama did not speak. She knew the truth, but there was no point in sharing it.
    The woman said she was headed to London, where she had family. She shook her head as she said it: In this small boat, miles and miles from land, it was hard to imagine a place like London even existing.
    â€œAnd you?” she asked Mariama.
    â€œNew York.”
    â€œSo far away. Why?”
    Mariama hesitated for a moment before saying, “There is a man I need to find.”
    â€œIn that whole big city?” The woman laughed at her. “Good luck!”
    It seemed impossible to Mariama as well.
    *   *   *
    ON THE AFTERNOON of the fourth day, as they shared the last of their water, Mariama spotted a brown stripe on the horizon to the north. “Fuerteventura,” the captain said.
    Their destination.
    No. Their way station.
    As the sun headed toward the horizon, the stripe grew larger, longer,