Soldier John was already up, and was sitting near the edge of the cliff staring out to sea. When you looked at it from this side, with all of that empty water behind it, the Jellyfish was nothing really. It was a blob of whitish stuff, hardly that different from the grey of the sea and the foamy tips of the waves. It was strange to believe we’d spent so long on it and that it had been our whole world, when there was all that vastness out there.

On board, there was no sign of movement, or of any human life. There was debris, and darker objects laid out on the mesoglea which could be people. But they could also be wet chunks of wood, or clumpy seaweed, or just a shadow. The Jellyfish was calm again now, at least. Its tentacles were barely visible above the water, and the lighter water surrounding its body was the only clue that something lay underneath. The sea was quiet, and the early morning sun glistening off the waves gave a hint of a nice day to come. ‘Hey,’ I said softly. ‘Are they still alive?’

Soldier John turned to me as though startled, but I think he probably knew I was there and just didn’t want to talk to me. Soldier John isn’t the kind of person you can sneak up on without him knowing. If you sneak up on him, it’s because he’s letting you.

‘Can’t be sure,’ he said.

‘How long have you been watching?’ I asked.

‘I took over the watch just before dawn.’

‘How come it’s calm now?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘When did it change?’

‘Don’t know. It was like this when I took over.’

‘Do you think . . . does that make it safe to go out again now?’

Soldier John paused before replying, more softly. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Was there anything out in the town last night?’

‘No.’ He turned to face the sea again.

Other people had risen as well, and there were another couple of groups sitting, hunched in blankets and quietly talking. A few people had new clothes on and they looked startlingly bright. I’d forgotten about colours on the Jellyfish. I knew them, obviously, and remembered them, but I think they’d got paler and more washed-out in my mind, alongside the memories. When you’re used to just seeing greys, whites and browns, you do forget, and the perfection and amazement of a colour like orange, or red, is difficult to describe. You can’t just imagine it from just me telling you about it, you have to see it. I just wanted to stare and stare, and I think I could have done that all day, if only I’d felt safer.