“We’ll all just keep moving, that’s all. In the end it doesn’t matter.”

“Look, you’ve got kids, how can you say that? Is that all you want, just to ‘keep moving’?”

“I want to see the war over in the Pacific so that I can go home. Since you ask. It’s the season of the plum rains now, the Bai-u, when all the plums are ripening. I want only to be with Michiko and our girls, and once I’m there, never to leave Hiroshima again. I think you’d like it there. It’s a city on Honshu, on the Inland Sea, very pretty, a perfect size, big enough for city excitement, small enough for the serenity a man needs. But these people are not returning, they are leaving their homes you see—”

But one of the knots securing the rain-heavy awning to its frame has given way, white small-stuff unlacing rapidly, whipping around in the rain. The awning sags, funneling rainwater at Slothrop and Morituri, and they flee below decks.

They get separated in a crowd of newly-risen roisterers. There is hardly a thing now in Slothrop’s head but getting to Bianca. At the end of the passageway, across a score of empty faces, he spots Stefania in white cardigan and slacks, beckoning. It takes him five minutes to thread his way to her, by which time he’s picked up a brandy Alexander, a party hat, a sign taped to his back urging whoever reads it, in Low Pomeranian, to kick Slothrop, lipstick smudges in three shades of magenta, and a black Italian maduro someone has thoughtfully already lit.

“You may look like the soul of conviviality,” Stefania greets him, “but it doesn’t fool me. Under that cheerful mask is the face of a Jonah.”

“You mean, uh, the, uh—”

“I mean Margherita. She’s locked herself in the head. Hysterical. Nobody can bring her out.”

“So you’re looking at me. How about Thanatz?”

“Thanatz has disappeared, and so has Bianca.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Margherita thinks you’ve done away with her.”

“Not me.” He gives her a quick rundown of Ensign Morituri’s tale. Some of her élan, her resilience, go away. She bites a fingernail.

“Yes, there were rumors. Sigmund, before he vanished, leaked just enough to titillate people, but never got specific. That was his style. Listen, Slothrop. Do you think Bianca’s in any danger?”

“I’ll try to find out.” He is interrupted here by a swift kick in the ass.

“Unlucky you,” crows a voice behind them. “I’m the only one on board who reads Low Pomeranian.”

“Unlucky you,” Stefania nods.

“All I wanted was a free ride to Swinemünde.”

But like Stefania sez, “There’s only one free ride. Meantime, start working off the fare for this one. Go see Margherita.”

“You want me to—come on.”

“We don’t want anything to happen.”

One of the General Orders aboard this vessel. Nothing shall happen. Well, Slothrop politely sticks the rest of his cigar between Mme. Procalowska’s teeth and leaves her puffing on it, fists jammed in her sweater pockets.