Page 220

The great wall of steel slid heartlessly by. In another few seconds, the Bergensfjord would be gone. There was no way to board. Peter saw something hanging off the side of the ship: the fallen gangway, still attached at the top. Two people were clinging to it.

Caleb. Greer.

With one arm crooked around the gangway rail, his son was calling to them while pointing at the end of the pier. The drydock door had been nudged away from the ship; it now stood at an acute angle to the moving hull. When the gangway passed the end of the door, the gap between them would narrow to a jumpable distance.

But Amy was no longer beside him; Peter was alone. He spun and saw her, standing a hundred feet behind him, facing away.

“Amy, come on!”

“Get ready to jump!” Caleb yelled.

The virals had reached the far end of the pier. Amy drew her sword and called to Peter over her shoulder, “Get on that ship!”

“What are you doing? We can make it!”

“Don’t make me explain! Just go!”

Suddenly he understood: Amy did not intend to leave. Perhaps she never had.

Then he saw the girl.

Far out of his reach, she was crouched behind a giant spool of cable. Strawberry hair tied with a ribbon, scratches on her face, a stuffed animal gripped tightly to her chest with arms thin as twigs.

Amy saw her, too.

She sheathed her sword and dashed forward. The virals were charging down the dock. The little girl was frozen with terror. Amy swung her onto her hip and began to run. With her free hand she waved Peter forward. “Don’t wait! I’ll need you to catch us!”

He raced down the drydock door. The bottom of the gangway was thirty feet away and closing fast. Caleb yelled, “Do it now!”

Peter leapt.

For an instant it seemed he had jumped too soon; he would plunge into the roiling water. But then his hands caught the rail of the gangway. He pulled himself up, found his footing, and turned around. Amy, still holding the girl, was running down the top of the wall. The gangway was passing them by; she was never going to make it. Peter reached out as Amy took five bounding strides, each longer than the last, and flung herself over the abyss.

Peter could not remember the moment when he grabbed her hand. Only that he’d done it.

—

They had cleared the dock. Michael ran down from the pilothouse and dashed to the rail. He saw a deep dent, fifty feet long at least, though the wound was high above the waterline. He looked toward shore. A hundred yards aft, at the end of the dock, a mass of virals was watching the departing ship like a crowd of mourners.

“Help!”

The voice came from the stern.

“Someone’s fallen!”

He raced aft. A woman, clutching an infant, was pointing over the rail.

“I didn’t know she was going to jump!”

“Who? Who was it?”

“She was on a stretcher, she could barely walk. She said her name was Alicia.”

—

A coiled rope lay on the deck. Michael pushed the button on the radio. “Lore, kill the props!”

“What?”

“Do it! Full stop!”

He was already wrapping the rope around his waist, having shoved the radio into the hand of the woman, who stared at him in confusion.

“Where are you going?” the woman asked.

He stepped over the rail. Far below, the waters swirled in a maelstrom. Kill them, he thought. Dear God, Lore, kill those screws now.

He jumped.

Toes pointed, arms outstretched, he pierced the surface like a spike; instantly the current grabbed him, shoving him down. He slammed into the mucky bottom and began to roll along it. His eyes stung with salt; he could see nothing at all, not even his hands.

He fell straight into her.

A confusion of limbs: they were both tumbling, spiraling along the bottom. He grabbed her belt and drew her body into his and wrapped his arms around her waist.

The slack ran out.

A hard yank; Michael felt as if he were being sliced in two. Still holding Alicia, he vaulted upward at a forty-five-degree angle. Michael had already been in the water for thirty seconds; his brain was screaming for air. The screws had stopped turning, but this no longer mattered. They were being pulled along by the boat’s momentum. Unless they broke the surface soon, they’d drown.

Suddenly, a whining sound: the screws had reengaged. No! Then Michael realized what had happened: Lore had reversed the engines. The tension on the rope began to soften, then was gone. A new force gripped them. They were being sucked forward, toward the spiraling props.

They were going to be chopped to bits.