The corridor itself is tilting, sliding to one side, like the world itself has gone wrong. Okwembu forces herself to keep moving, leaning on the wall. She’s still coughing, and her nose is still plugged and sore, but her eyes have stopped streaming.
The ship is going down. Okwembu knows this, knows it in her bones, and it’s all she can do not to start slamming her fists into the corridor wall.
The light changes. She looks up–without realising it, she’s come out onto one of the loading platforms in the side of the ship. There are a few discarded crates and tarpaulins, piled in one corner. Daylight is streaming through the opening, and she can see the ocean stretching beyond.
And there’s a boat, hanging on the wall.
It’s barely worthy of the name–a tiny dinghy, its tubes flat and deflated. The bottom of the boat is punctured in several places, and the whole thing looks like it’s about to fall apart.
Okwembu stumbles to the drop. Her legs are starting to ache from the effort of staying upright on the tilted floor. She slows as she approaches, wanting to recoil from the edge.
But where else is she going to go?
She could try and find another dock, but the chances are that the boats will be gone, taken by the escaped workers. There’s no point finding somewhere to hide–whatever just happened, the Ramona is sinking, and fast. What about Hale? Could she go back and finish what she started? She shakes her head, the frustration bitter in her mouth. There’s no way she’d get the drop on the girl again.
She leans out over the edge, then immediately pulls back. It’s thirty feet to the ocean below, right into the slate-grey water. Okwembu can’t help but think of when their escape pod smashed into Eklutna Lake–how cold the water was, how it felt like it was draining her strength.
She’ll have to take the boat. With its tube walls deflated, there’s a chance it might not stay afloat, but it’s the only chance she’s got.
The ship lurches underneath her, almost knocking her off her feet, and Janice Okwembu raises her head to the ceiling and roars.
The sound trails off, and she stands there, silent, her shoulders rising and falling.
She stumbles to the wall. It takes almost all her strength to lift the boat off its storage hooks and drag it to the edge. She pushes it over, and it smashes into the water, bobbing in the swell and bumping up against the hull.
Okwembu takes one last look over her shoulder. It’s not too late. I could go back, find Hale.
The thought barely has a chance to form, and then she steps off the edge. She screams all the way down.