Saiman tied himself outside. When I asked the crew to check on him, they assured me that the ship needed a forward lookout and this was his favorite thing to do. I made it to the bridge and caught a glimpse outside. The world looked like a nightmare, with wind and water locked together in a furious primal combat. Saiman stared into the wind with a big smile on his rain-splattered face, while the ocean pretended it was a moving mountain range. The waves would crest and drench the deck, and he would disappear from view behind the curtain of water.

While Saiman was getting his freak on outside, the rest of us huddled belowdecks. One by one we all gathered in the mess hall. It was either safety in numbers or misery loves company—either one would do. Eduardo and Barabas seemed to be having the worst time of the lot. Eduardo paled and prayed quietly, while Barabas hugged his bucket and looked green. Finally Barabas informed us that it was fitting that he would die here after being dumped and he was sorry he was taking us with him. Eduardo told him to shut up and offered to throw him into a lifeboat, and then Barabas demonstrated that weremongooses did go zero to sixty in less than a second and offered to amuse himself by playing with Eduardo’s guts. They had to be told to go and sit in separate corners of the mess hall. I curled up next to Curran and fell asleep. If the ship decided to sink, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

The magic drowned the technology soon after midnight. By morning the ocean had smoothed out and the ship had stopped trying to impersonate a drunken sailor at the end of his first night of liberty.

We got some breakfast and I escaped the mess hall and climbed onto the deck. The sea lay perfectly calm, like an infinite translucent crystal, polished to satin smoothness. The magic engines made almost no noise and the ship glided over the bottomless blue depths. The ocean and the sky seemed endless.

I surveyed the sea for a few long minutes and moved on to explore the deck. In the rear I found a large clear space marked by an H. A helipad. No helicopter in sight. I walked out onto the helipad. Such a nice clear space. I felt slightly off after sleeping on the floor. A little exertion would do me good. I stretched, turned, and kicked the air. And one more time. I launched a quick combination, jumped, and smashed my foot into an invisible opponent’s chin.

“A knockout,” Curran said behind me.

I jumped in the air about a foot and managed to land with some semblance of dignity. He had managed to sneak up on me again. Time to save face. “Nah. That wasn’t a knockout. I just staggered him a bit.”