"Do not—" Kuznetsov looked helplessly at Maura, who couldn't stifle her laugh.
"Wiggle," she said.
"Yes," Kuznetsov sighed. "Do not wiggle so much. Your ship, she listens, is no need to shout at her."
"Well, Captain, I'm sure I'd feel better if I knew what it was I was tellin' her," Brenda frowned, her knuckles white around the hard plastic of the steering wheel.
"You only suggest," he said, placing his rough hand on hers, helping smooth out Brenda's jerky pulls on the wheel. "You ask her to tell you what the sea says, and if you do not like it, then you may . . . wiggle."
"I don't think I'm cut out for seafarin'," she grumbled after a few more patient-but-anxious adjustments from Kuznetsov.
"We are not all," he said gravely. "For some of us, it is best to be on the land."
"Maura, you want to drive the boat?" Brenda sighed, dropping her hands from the wheel. "Since I'm a land animal and all."
"Oh no," Maura said automatically, though Brenda clocked the way her eyes listed to the wheel.
"Come on, it's not like you'll be bad at it."
"I've only ever driven sailboats," Maura blushed, looking down. "And then only on lakes. I almost piloted a cutter on the Mediterranean but we were called back to the Embassy that morning."
"Is more boats than Chief Brenda," Kuznetsov grinned, holding his hand out to her.
"He's right about that," Brenda chimed in, settling herself in a vinyl chair. "Go on, Maura. It's like the captain inviting you to fly the airplane."
"I am not an air pilot," Kuznetsov frowned, as Maura said "my father never allowed our pilots to speak to me."
"Lord," Brenda muttered. "And here I thought I spoke enough languages already, gotta add 'humorless' and 'rich.'"
"I'm not humorless!" Maura cried, as Kuznetsov added "you say rich? After you have been in my country?"
"First of all," Brenda sighed, "Maura's the rich one and you," she grumbled at Kuznetsov, "have laughed at maybe three of my jokes in a whole year."
"Perhaps if they were funny I would laugh more," Kuznetsov said seriously, causing Maura to giggle.
"See, that was a good joke!" she crowed as Brenda rolled her eyes.
"Steer the boat, Ariel," she muttered, leaning back against the wall of the wheelhouse. "Listen to the sea."
"I'm afraid I lack what many would call a poetic soul," Maura said, ignoring Brenda and glancing at the captain. "So I must rely on our instruments."
"Milostivaya gospozha," Kuznetsov said gently, resting his hand lightly on Maura's, "your soul is pure poetry. It lives in you. If others cannot see this, it is to their sorrow."
Brenda held back the impulse to make a snappy retort as she watched Maura's eyes brighten, a brilliant smile on her face as her hands relaxed on the wheel. Felt instead a warm rush of adoration swell through her as Maura stared intently out across the low, rippling waves.
"Da," Kuznetsov said quietly after a moment. "You hear her, Doctor. The sea speaks to you."
"I think I understand," Maura whispered. "The boat can't tell the water what to do, but the water can't entirely tell the boat, either. It's . . . it feels a bit like dancing."
"You see?" Kuznetsov smiled, his voice rich with pride. "You are a sailor in your deepest heart."
"What's that?" Maura said suddenly, Kuznetsov's hand darting out to keep Maura from unconsciously steering hard to starboard. "Is that—"
"Looks like a raft," Brenda said, standing and pressing her face against the window. "Real rough one, though."
"Please," Kuznetsov said, his voice suddenly loud, cutting through the atmosphere. "My friends, please do not look so close."
"Bodies," Maura whispered, her face paling.
"It's not a raft," Brenda breathed. "Is that—is that a fishing net? Wrapped around a pool toy?"
"Bodies do not sink for—"
"—several days, depending on injuries, cause of death, and environmental conditions," Maura finished Kuznetsov's sentence briskly. "Decomposition in relatively cold salt water can take even longer, as both the temperature and the salt act as preservatives for soft tissues which can prevent decompositional gases from escaping, leading to excessive bloating and unusual buoyancy."
Kuznetsov didn't reply, merely stared straight ahead.
Brenda found herself unable to look away from the tangled mass; thick knots of nylon netting and chunks of neon-green foam supporting at least three grotesquely swollen figures, faces mercifully directed away from the boat.
"We will see more," Kuznetsov said, his voice flat. "We are close to mouth of the channel now. There will be much . . . debris. We must be careful. I will contact the other ships and advise them."
"Yes," Maura replied, and Brenda found herself blinking at Maura's abruptly cool, controlled tone. As though she'd suddenly remembered what it was they were there to do. "Captain, if it's all right I'd like to go re-check our supplies to make sure we're ready to help people the moment we arrive."
"Very good, Doctor," he replied, not looking at either of them as he reached for the radio handset.
"Shall I instruct Thomas to start preparing as well?"
"Yes, thank you, Doctor. Chief," he said. "It would be very good for you to stay and speak with the others again about our plans for the next few hours. By nightfall we will have found what we are looking for, and we must all be ready."
Brenda swallowed hard, nodded, tried to find that little switch inside herself that used to be so easy to flip. Back before she had so much depending on it.
She watched Maura duck out of the wheelhouse, down to the cargo area. Felt her heart clench again. Felt again the cold, metallic emptiness of everything she had to lose.
Arcturus swallowed hard as he watched intently for Orionis to emerge from the foggy trailhead that led to the jagged granite cleft in the Great Stone Peak they all knew as the Deep Cache. The final lines were being produced. Would be read. And he—he—had been chosen to deliver them directly to Polaris.
He rubbed at the glossy stump of his little finger like he always did when he felt a surge of inappropriate emotion, even though it was always joy or awe, never doubt, never fear, not once.
Not even when that woman had called out a name to him as she lay prostrate on the rough planks of the Hub. He hadn't flinched as he watched the life—the meaning—trickle slowly out of her slack mouth, her rapidly-dulling eyes. She was nothing to him. Less than nothing. The name she had said was lost, shed, as useless as a milk tooth. Nothing. Less than nothing.
Ursa. The bear mother. Polaris had named her for her fierceness, though it was her fierceness that had been her end, in the end. He knew that was simply Polaris knowing more, seeing more, understanding more. Polaris would not have named Ursa if she had not been fierce. And it was her fierceness, in the end. Her stubbornness. Her singular focus. On him. That name.
It wasn't his fault. It wasn't Polaris, could never be. It was her. Her blindness. Her misguided loyalty. Her fault.
Her fault.
A branch cracked and Arcturus immediately stiffened, looked intently at the entrance to the trail. Through the fog a dim shape. Orionis. Holding something.
He rubbed again at the stump of his finger, keeping his face perfectly calm, perfectly still.
As Orionis walked out of the pines, she lifted the bundle she carried above her head slowly, reverently.
"The final lines," she said, and he held out his hands to receive them. A small thing, something hard, cool, wrapped in slippery plastic and swaddled in cloth.
He nodded and bowed low as he accepted the bundle, his hair dragging along the hard earth. Orionis bowed in return.
"Go to Polaris," she said. "It is time."