Page 219
The sound increased in intensity, humming through the ship’s plating. Rand yelled over the din: “Pressure’s holding! Two thousand rpm! Four! Five! Six thousand!”
Michael snatched the radio from the floor. “Engage the screws!”
A groan. A shudder, deep in the bones.
The Bergensfjord began to move.
—
They skidded into the loading area. Amy leapt from the back of the truck before it stopped moving.
“Amy, stop!”
But the woman was already gone, racing toward the causeway. “Caleb, take Lucius and get on that boat.”
Standing by the cargo bed, his son seemed stunned.
“Do it!” Peter ordered. “Don’t wait!”
He took off after her. With every step he willed himself to go faster. His breath was heaving in his chest, the ground flying beneath him. The gap between them began to narrow. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten. A final burst of speed and he grabbed her around the waist, sending both of them rolling on the ground.
“Let me go!” Amy was on her knees, fighting to break free.
“We have to leave right now.”
There were tears in her voice. “They’ll kill him!”
Carter coiled. He flexed his fingers, claws glinting. He flexed his toes, feeling the taut wires of ligaments. Blueing moonlight doused him like a benediction.
Reaching one hand forward, Amy released a wail of pain. “Anthony!”
He charged.
—
They had to clear eight hundred feet.
At the rear of the vessel, a wall of foam churned up. Shouts rose from the dock: “They’re leaving without us!” The last of the passengers rushed forward, shoving themselves onto the ramp, which had begun to scrape along the pier as the Bergensfjord pulled away.
Standing at the rail, Pim watched the scene unfold in silence. The bottom lip of the gangway was inching toward the edge; soon it would fall. Where was her husband? Then she saw him. Supporting Lucius, he was racing at a quickstep down the pier. She began to sign emphatically to any who might see: That’s my husband! And: Stop this ship! But, of course, no one could make sense of her.
The gangway was clotted with people. Crammed between the guardrails, they squeezed forward onto the deck of the ship only one or two at a time, ejected from the squirming mass. Pim began to moan. She was not aware that she was doing this at first. The sound had emerged of its own volition, an expression of violent feeling that could not be contained—just as, twenty-one years ago, in Sara’s arms, she had wailed with such ferocity that she might have been mistaken for a dying animal. As the volume increased, the sound began to form a distinctive shape altogether new in the life of Pim Jaxon: she was about to make words.
“Caaay…leb! Ruuuuunnnn!”
The lip of the gangway halted. It had lodged against a cleat at the edge of the pier. Under the pressure of the ship’s accelerating mass, it began to twist on its axis. Rivets were popping, metal buckling. Caleb and Greer were steps away. Pim was waving, shouting words she couldn’t hear but felt—felt with every atom of her body.
The gangway began to fall.
Still chained to the ship, it cantilevered into the side of the hull. Bodies plunged into the water, some wordlessly, their fate accepted, others with pitiful cries. At the bottom of the ramp, Caleb had hooked an elbow through the rail while simultaneously holding on to Greer, whose feet were balanced on the lowest rung. The Bergensfjord was gathering speed, dragging a roiling whirlpool. As the stern passed by, the ones in the water were dragged under, into the propeller’s froth. Perhaps a cry, a hand reaching up in vain, and they were gone.
In the bowels of the Bergensfjord, Michael was running. Deck by deck he ascended, legs flying, arms swinging, heart pumping in his mouth. With a burst he flung himself into open air. The point of the bow was passing the end of the drydock door.
They weren’t going to clear it. No goddamn way.
He took the stairs to the pilothouse three at a time and charged through the door. “Lore—”
She was staring out the windscreen. “I know!”
“Give it more rudder!”
“You don’t think I did that?”
The gap between the door and the ship’s right flank was narrowing. Twenty yards. Ten. Five.
“Oh, shit,” Lore breathed.
—
Peter and Amy were racing down the dock.
The ship was departing; she was gliding away. Gunfire spattered from the fantail, bullets whizzing over their heads; the virals had broken through.
A crash.
The side of the hull had collided with the end of the drydock door. A long scraping sound followed, the irresistible force of the ship’s momentum meeting the immovable object of the door’s weight. The hull trembled even as it failed to decelerate, thrusting forward.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219 (Reading here)
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286