Okwembu’s eyes fly open. She sits bolt upright, so quickly that she nearly hits her head on the underside of the bunk above her.
She listens hard. There: distant, humming bursts of gunfire. The Phalanx gun.
Okwembu kicks the thin blanket off her legs and slides off the bed. She’s been given her own room, a tiny space on one of the upper levels of the ship, with low ceilings and a bunk bed bolted to the wall. She has to hammer on the door three times before the guard outside unlocks it. Okwembu ducks under his arm and strides down the corridor, only stopping when he grabs her above the elbow.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the guard says. He’s in his thirties, with blond hair and an angular, almost blocky face. His voice is alert, but Okwembu can see the fog of sleep in his eyes.
She shrugs him off. “I’m going up to the bridge,” she says.
“Get back inside, right now.”
Okwembu has a sudden, surprising urge to reach out and wrap her hands around his throat, to squeeze until that bright voice is extinguished. She shakes it off. “I’m going up to the bridge,” she says again, her voice cold. “Touch me, and you’ll have to answer to Prophet.”
Another burst of muted gunfire rumbles down through the ship. The guard must see something in her eyes, because he stays rooted to the spot. She starts walking again, not looking back. He follows, but at a discreet distance, and after a few steps she forgets that he’s even there.
The bridge is at the top of a central tower on the deck of the ship. Okwembu pushes herself up the last flight of stairs, ignoring her protesting legs, and pushes open the door.
The space reminds her of the main control room on Outer Earth. It’s longer, and wider, but it has the same banks of screens and uncomfortable wheeled chairs, the same sickly fluorescent lighting. There are three large tables in the centre of the room, spread with yellowing maps and charts. Floor-to-ceiling windows line the wall to her right, looking out across the deck of the ship to the ocean beyond. Through the glass she can see the first faint glimmerings of dawn.
The bridge is packed with people, most of them still blurry with sleep. She picks out the alert ones instantly. They’re the ones holding rifles, the ones who were on nightshift, or whatever these people call it. She can feel their eyes on her, hear their whispered, angry mutterings. Ray and Iluk are there, hunched over one of the tables. Ray’s eyebrows almost touch his hairline when he sees her.
She spots Prophet immediately, standing before one of the windows. He’s holding something up to his face, using both hands–some kind of binoculars, black and bulky. It’s still dark outside, so Okwembu supposes they must have some kind of night vision.
She strides around the bank of screens, ignoring the suspicious stares. “What’s going on?” she says, when she’s standing next to Prophet.
He glances at her, irritation slipping on and off his face in a microsecond. “You should be sleeping.”
“Just tell me.”
He doesn’t speak. She’s about to ask again when he says, “An aircraft came in over the water. Our gunner caught it.”
“Aircraft?” Okwembu squints, looking out over the water.
“Seaplane. Haven’t seen one of them in years. Could be Nomads.”
“Did you shoot them down?”
“Not sure. Definitely hit ’em, though, Engine be praised.”
The words are taken up by the others on the bridge, rippling out from Prophet. Just as before, Okwembu can’t help but notice a few people who conspicuously fail to praise the Engine.
She turns back to the window. “Who were they? Do you know?”
“Prophet.” The voice comes from one of his men, standing off to their right. He has an identical pair of binoculars, and he’s leaning forward, resting them on the window glass. “Got something.”
“Where?” Prophet raises his own lenses again.
“Over by the island.”
The murmuring on the bridge drops even lower. Prophet scans the horizon, tracking right to left.
He shakes his head, lowering the binoculars. “I don’t see anything.”
“Could have sworn,” the other man says. “Right around the rocks on the western point.”
“Nothing could have survived a fall from that plane,” Prophet says, more to himself than to anyone else. “Not even if they hit the water.”
He falls silent, still holding the binoculars at chest level, staring out across the water.
Janice Okwembu has always trusted her instincts. Sometimes, she thinks that they are all that has kept her alive. They’ve led her here, up to the bridge, and now she understands why. Despite the belief in the Engine, despite the military uniforms and the rudimentary chain of command, Prophet and his followers aren’t good at reacting to the unknown. They’re fine as long as new workers keep coming in, as long as there’s a constant stream of supplies. She’s an anomaly: a potential worker who somehow managed to avoid her fate, to position herself next the ship’s leader. That seaplane is an anomaly, too. It’s upset the balance, disrupted the status quo.
Which gives her the perfect opportunity.
“You need to send some men out there,” she says, careful to address herself to Prophet–she’s not at the stage of giving orders. Not yet.
Prophet looks at her, his eyes wide. “You forget your place.”
She pushes on. “You need to be sure. If there’s someone on that island, they might be able to tell you about where the plane came from.”
“She calling the shots now, Prophet?” says someone from behind her. Prophet’s eyes are dark, but Okwembu holds his gaze. Strength over weakness.
After a moment, he turns away. “The Engine has brought her to us for a reason. We’ll take her advice, for now. Ray: take Iluk and get out there. Bring Koji with you–if there’s any debris, I want him to take a look at it first.”
Okwembu turns back to the window, looking back out into the darkness.