Avery sat up blearily, confused and nauseous with the stink of stale cigarette smoke. Somewhere Janx snored in the dark. A bottle clinked, rolled off the bed and clattered to the floor.
More sounds spilled in from outside. Voices. Running feet.
Blinking, Avery sat up and flipped on the light. Janx didn’t so much as twitch. Avery threw on clothes and stepped outside. Sailors pounded down the hall and around a bend, and he moved after them. Around the corner a group had formed around something, and people were calling for a doctor.
They parted for Avery, and when he saw what it was they’d gathered around his breath caught in his throat. The body of a man lay on the floor, throat slashed, blood pooling around him. His legs still kicked, and his eyes rolled in their sockets, but Avery instantly saw there was nothing that could be done for him. Well, almost nothing.
He knelt beside the man and held his hand. The man squeezed back, but, gradually, as blood pulsed from his wound, the pressure slackened until at last the hand dropped away, and, by the time the paramedics arrived with a cot to take him to the infirmary, he was gone. It wasn’t until the body was almost out of sight that Avery realized something.
“Wait.” He rushed back to the dead man for a closer look.
“What is it?” one of the paramedics asked.
Turning to two nearby officers, Avery explained, and they agreed. Sheridan’s room was searched, yielding the results Avery had expected.
“The captain,” he said. “Take me to him quickly.”
The officers escorted him to the bridge, where Avery breathlessly told Captain Greggory what had happened.
“Are you sure?” Glowing screens blinked in the dark room behind the captain. The sea heaved and crashed through the great windows, and lightning flickered up from the waters to the east.
“I’m sure,” Avery said. “These men will confirm it.”
“It’s true, sir,” one of the officers said. “It was Melvins, the one tasked with watching that—woman.”
“Sheridan,” Avery said. “He was Sheridan’s keeper. He was different from the one on duty a few hours ago—they must have switched shifts—and at first I didn’t recognize him.”
“We searched her room,” the second officer said. “She’s gone.”
A sailor burst in, panting against his face-plate. Water dripped from his environment suit from where he’d just sprayed himself off in the buffer chamber. “Captain, there’s a boat missing. Someone’s abandoned ship.”
Avery swore. But I just saw her hours ago. In fucking panties!
“It’s her,” he said. “She’s slipped the net.”
The captain made a fist of one gloved hand. He wore most of an environment suit, but without the helmet, to enable him to move outside at an instant’s notice. Avery had entered the command deck through interior routes and didn't wear an environment suit, and he admired the captain for being able to tolerate one of the hot, bulky things for hours at a time. Greggory may not keep the neatest ship, but he was dutiful.
“Radar,” the captain said, addressing those tasked with monitoring the radar screens. “Report. There should be a boat making away.”
They analyzed their readings tensely.
“She’s mad,” the captain said, while the rest of them waited. “Out there on a night like this! She’ll die if she’s lucky.”
Thunder erupted from port, along with a flash of lightning so bright Avery had to mash his eyes against it.
“Sir,” said one of the radar operators, “we’re reading her. She’s bearing east by northeast.” He read off the bearing.
To the helmsman, the captain said, “Make it so.” To Avery: “Any idea what her game is?”
Before Avery could answer, another sailor entered. “Major Rowlings is dead, sir. He was just found in the crow’s nest. Throat opened ear to ear.”
“Shit!” The captain slammed his hand against a wall, then wheeled to Avery. “I never should have taken you lot aboard.”
To the newly arrived sailor, Avery said, “What’s in the crow’s nest? Radio equipment?” Duplicate radio equipment was often kept high so that the signals would not be drowned out by interference from the sea. When the sailor confirmed it, he said, “So she sent off a message before she left.”
“To whom?” Greggory said.
Avery had no answer. Greggory dismissed the sailor and frowned thoughtfully, staring out at the dark vastness of the ocean. Red-glowing jellies swept in a school over the waves, and something in the waters leapt up in a spray of water—Avery saw what looked like a giant centipede-like being, gills pulsing, snatch one of the jellies and submerge as quickly as it had come. He squinted, searching for the tiny figure of Sheridan on her stolen boat, but saw nothing.
“Does the boat have a motor?”
“Aye,” the captain said. “They all do.” He snorted. “Some of ‘em work better’n others, though. Mayhaps she picked the wrong one.”
The image of Sheridan’s motor dying entertained Avery, but also, annoyingly, caused a hitch of worry in his chest.
“Distance?” Greggory said.
“Five knots, sir,” one operator said. “And closing.”
The captain grinned tightly, and Avery saw several thick wooden teeth. One had cracked halfway down, and another looked rotten. “We’ll run the bitch down, see if we don’t.”
Something white drifted against the stars, visible through the windows, and Avery let out a breath. So.
“Squid,” he said softly. The specimen was particularly giant.
Some of the others had seen it, too, and called out their readings to the captain.
Greggory scoffed. “We killed one already today. We’ll have no worries from the likes of this one.”
