I watched the ripples gnaw the edge of the Hobo’s mostly submerged upper surface, and shrugged. None of this was our concern; all we had to do was recover the bodies, living or dead, and get them back to Camrose Station. When that had been done, other people—safety investigators and claims adjusters—could worry about the specific causes of the accident.

“What about the rest of the ship?” I asked.

“Still filling with water. I estimate no more than fifteen minutes until it finally submerges.”

“How deep’s this water?”

“Fifteen hundred metres, and bristling with life.”

I peered over the edge. Fish-like shadows skittered and scattered beneath the water. Their flanks flashed like silver knives. Larger shapes stirred in the depths below.

“Okay.”

“Plus, there’s a storm front coming in from the east. No more than ten minutes.”

“Then I guess we’d better get a move on, huh?” I turned my attention back to Alva Clay. “Did you hear any of that?”

Clay had tied back her dreadlocks with a frayed and oily bandana. She wore heavy gauntlets to protect her hands and wrists, but her arms were bare, displaying the tattoos she’d acquired during the Archipelago War, as a foot soldier in the sentient jungles of Pelapatarn. Her dark goggles reflected the actinic flare of the torch in her gloved hands. Where the flame touched, sparks fountained from the hull.

“I’m cutting as fast as I can.”

“Cut faster, unless you want to get your feet wet.” Even after all this time, her tats still bothered me. I had my own share of ghosts, but I kept them to myself; I didn’t feel the need to parade them for the entire world to see.

The knocking from inside the stricken craft had ceased. If the people trapped in the compartment below had any sense, they would be cowering away from the flame, and the fifty-centimetre-wide plug of hull metal that was going to fall inward when Clay finished cutting her circle.

George Walker un-shouldered his medical pack and began to unroll a pair of self-inflating stretchers. His thinning grey hair appeared pink in the russet sunlight. Water lapped at his scuffed plastic boots.

“Careful,” I said. “Don’t get too close to the edge. I don’t want to have to pull you out.”