We walk quickly to Sara's cabin without running into any other Rads or crew members. Seeing the ship so quiet, so calm, when so much is happening right under the surface is unsettling. The hairs on the nape of my neck are at constant attention, waiting for the next blow to fall.
I knock on the door and Sara answers a few minutes later. Her face is creased where her bed linens pressed into her skin, making the red pustules there stand out even more. The Nukeheads suffered so many deformities as a result of the War. But now that Sara and I are friends, I barely notice these disfigurements at all.
"Vika?" She blinks, as if to make sure she isn't dreaming, and rakes a hand through her patchy, frizzy hair. "What's happened? Is it the baby?"
I shake my head and tighten my grip on Ceres's arm. After her catatonia when I woke her up, I don't dare leave her alone.
"Get Alexander and rouse Lucas." I keep my voice low. "We have to disembark."
"Disembark?" She looks at me a long moment in confusion before stepping aside so I can enter.
Before the door is fully closed behind me, I motion to the lantern bolted to the desk. Sara clicks it on and the light struggles to a low glow while I shut the door all the way. Across the room, Lucas sits up in his bed. When he sees Ceres, he smiles, but his smile quickly fades at the expressions on our faces. He stands and comes to listen.
"The Rads intercepted a radio message," I begin. "The Chinese have been informed that New Amanian fugitives are present on this ship. They want to do a check when we dock tomorrow. It's supposed to be a surprise so they can catch us out, but obviously, we can't let that happen." I take a deep breath. "There are fishing boats waiting for those of us who want to risk jumping from the ship. We swim to the boats, and they'll take us to land, give us cover until something else is worked out."
Sara and Lucas are transfixed by my words. They have the look of people waiting for more information, people who are thinking, Surely this isn't the end of the story. Surely there is something else she will say that will show us another way out. But I see the moment they realize there isn't. There is only one way out of here and it is to jump.
Sara puts one hand to her swollen mouth and looks at Alexander, her three-year-old boy. He is curled up on the bed much like Ceres was, lost in the peaceful land of his slumber.
"He can't swim," she says.
"Then you'll have to tie him on your back." I put my hand on her shoulder. "Shale is on the bottom deck, gathering rope and other supplies we'll need. But we don't have time to waste. We have to disembark in less than twenty minutes. Come on."
◊ ◊ ◊
We walk to the lowest deck, Alexander asleep and unaware in Sara's arms. I wonder if I look as wide-eyed, as afraid, as Sara does. I don't feel that afraid. I am strangely calm, as if my body and mind have melded, as if nothing else exists except the sea I have to swim and the boat to which I have to get myself and Ceres.
The breeze is cold and wet, the salt burnishing my skin as I watch a few Rad men and women mill about. It seems as though Captain Jerome has ensured the legitimate passengers are kept off the deck for the time being in order to protect our identities. It wouldn’t be too hard to do so late into the night anyway. The captain himself is nowhere to be seen, but I imagine him in the bridge at the helm, his senses on full alert as he waits for us to leave. I wonder if he will feel our flight—if the ship will feel lighter, less dangerous once we are gone. I thank him silently for keeping my family safe for three weeks, for jeopardizing his life for a cause he thinks is worth something.
The Rads’ faces are impassive at first glance, but if you know to look, you can see the tightness in their shoulders, the way their jaws clench even when they talk. With so many passengers already having perished during the journey from disease, it won’t be that much of a stretch for the captain to say we, too—or rather the fake passengers whose identities we carry—didn’t survive. It is not without risk, but it is our best option now.
Shale walks up, studies Ceres's face. Satisfied by whatever he sees there—perhaps that at least there is a hint of animation about her—he turns to me.
"Here." He hands me one end of a thick length of hemp rope. "We'll tie this around our waists so we can stay together after we've jumped. Once we’ve made sure everyone has resurfaced, we’ll swim to the boats. They should be waiting a few meters out. This rope will ensure that we don’t leave anyone behind."
I look down at the rope. This is what's meant to keep us all together, after twenty-one days adrift at sea. A single length of twisted fibers.
Slowly, silently, we take turns looping it around our middles. I make sure to tie the rope above my lower stomach where the baby resides, the stiff fibers threatening to pierce my skin. Shale is careful to tie above his injuries, though he must know that once he hits the sea, the pain will be almost unbearable. But that's nothing compared to what will happen to him—to any of us—if we're still on the ship when it docks in the morning. Around us, the other Rads who’ve decided to jump are also tying their groups together with rope. Some of them, especially the sick ones, are openly weeping, their fevered eyes shining with misery while the healthy members of their group try to calm them.
Sara ties the rope around herself and Alexander, who she's now positioned on her back. The jarring movement wakes him, and looking around at our faces, he begins to cry. She bounces on the balls of her feet, making soothing noises. I brush the hair back from his forehead and force a smile.
"It's okay," I say softly. "We're going on an adventure. We're going swimming."
He looks at me, wide-eyed, his toddler imagination likely flaring at the word adventure.
A Rad bustles by, and as he passes I hear, "Five minutes. Offload in five minutes."
I look at Shale and he looks at me. In that moment, I remember the way we were once. I remember his hands on my face, tracing my collar bone. I remember his mouth on mine. But then he blinks and looks away, and the moment dissipates into the sea breeze.
Shale takes one of my hands and one of Ceres's. Seeing what he means to do, I hold Sara’s hand with my free one, and she, in turn, takes Lucas’s. Lucas completes the circle by holding Ceres’s hand. Shale says, "‘You should be free indeed when your days are not without care nor your nights without a word and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked, unbound.’” He pauses so we all have a chance to absorb the meaning. “A prophet wrote those words more than a century ago. Let’s live them tonight.”
We walk to the rusted railing, still hand in hand. I wonder whose hand I feel trembling, mine or Sara’s, mine or Shale’s. Before I climb over, I take a moment to look down at the dark sea. It churns restlessly beneath us, eager and willing to swallow us whole. The moonlight-dappled waves, so beautiful when observed from the deck, now seem sinister. If I plunge through to the ocean’s deep, cold depths, I am certain I will find a parallel universe: a sister, a Husband, a would-be mother, waiting for me with open arms.
◊ ◊ ◊
Standing on the other side of the railing, held back only by my hands on the cold metal behind me, is exhilarating and terrifying at once. It feels wrong in the most intense way; my body crying out to be released from such imminent danger, my mind telling me there is no going back if the fifteen meter drop manages to shock my heart into stopping. There is nothing I can do if the fall damages the baby, causes me to miscarry.
I wonder if I should feel sorrow or fear at that last thought. But standing here, staring out into the vastness of nature, I am only reminded of how insignificant I am. If the ocean chose to swallow me whole, would the world be any different? Ceres has lived years without me; she'd learn to live so again. And perhaps Shale and I shared something once, but we don't anymore. When those bullets ripped us apart, they tore something fragile, something not yet fully formed that, possibly, can never be repaired.
The wind whips through my hair, flinging it backward as if my body is, in a last ditch attempt, attempting to clamber back on board. I inhale the sea breeze—salt and moonlight and mystery. My eyes seek out Ceres. She looks down into the depths of the water, seemingly unafraid now. I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back weakly.
There are other people on the wrong side of the railing, other groups who've tied themselves together with rope. I turn just in time to see one of the sick men in the group next to ours lose his handhold and fall, arms pin-wheeling as he disappears into the churning sea. There isn’t even time for his group to scream before his unexpected weight yanks the rest of them off the railing and they plummet one by one into the frigid water below. All that hints at the horror that has just transpired are the soft splashes as they are swallowed by the sea, barely audible over the ship’s turbines. Though awful, I am thankful the details of their impacts are lost in the inky darkness. I turn to Ceres, wanting to reassure her, but her eyes remain steadfastly on the waves below. “G-gone,” she whispers. I read her lips to understand what she’s saying. “Th-the s-sea took...them.”
“But it won’t take us.” I keep my voice solid and strong, as if I am sure of this fact. Inside, I tremble.
Shale’s voice is soft but firm, carrying across the wind and the grating whir of the ship's turbines. He is directing our attention away from the group in the water. "When we jump, we will swim east, as discussed. Ready?"
Sara and I nod. Lucas has his eyes closed, his mouth moving as he recites something to himself.
Alexander has begun to cry again, but this time, I don't try to comfort him. It seems to me that he should be allowed to feel fear and insecurity and the real possibility that life will never be the same after this. Children are the most honest of us all; they feel what must be felt in any moment without worrying how they must appear to other people.
"Five. Four." Shale's eyes are steady as he gazes out toward the horizon. "Three."
I take a deep breath; prepare my body and the baby for the cold that it will feel in two fleeting seconds. I force my mind to think only of unfurling my fingers from the metal railing when Shale counts to zero. One step at a time—it is all I can manage at the moment.
"Two."
"One."
We fly.