Sometime after the bonnitier had passed, she had unlocked and let drop the useless safety belt, which had been rubbing her belly raw. She still clung to the plastic container, emptying it when she had to. It was buoyant, as long as she kept water out of it. Her jacket was becoming soggy and losing its lift. She preferred not to think of that.

She played a game which asked little effort and wasted no heat. She would lie back, face to the sky, and promise herself in the valley that at the peak of the next swell she would raise her head and find his sails bearing down on her. Sometimes he would be forward, orange life-ring in hand and ready; sometimes he would be slicing past, unaware, and she would bring him to life with her whistle: that was even better, and seemed to make up for her stupidity at falling in.

As darkness deepened, the game lost credibility. She tried another. She would lie back in the jacket and become driftwood, a log, capable of floating forever until she starved or died of thirst. That would be a long, long time. She was not hungry in the least, only very thirsty.

Log or not, she was freezing. She began to shake uncontrollably. Now it was pitch black.

She began again to raise her head on the crests. All day long she had cherished an orphan hope, that the faraway flash she had glimpsed after she fell in had been the strobe.

So darkness was not all bad. She began to look for the flash again.

Braced in the red glow of the chart table lamp, he plotted his evening starsights: Achernar, which he had been sure of, Altair to the west, which he could have confused; then Peacock, uncertain, nebulous, flirting darkly behind a dead-black veil of cloud. Last, Deneb, which might not have been Deneb at all. He had not found Nunki, but he needed only three stars, crossing on the chart in a triangle, and the size of the triangle would be a clue to his accuracy.

Achernar and Altair crossed not far from his dead-reckoning position. Peacock was impossibly off. His hands began to tremble. He plotted Deneb and let out a yell of joy.

He would have settled happily for a triangle a half-inch on a side. The triangle he got, he could have covered with the eraser of his pencil. He could hardly believe his results.

He rubbed his eyes. Something had helped him pick from the mottled skies three of the stars he had been looking for. Whatever it was, he thanked it. If his luck had truly changed, they would be sipping champagne in the Tahara’a Hotel on Christmas Eve.

For the second time that day he found himself on his knees. A childhood reflex, maybe, but he didn’t care. He rose, ringed the fix on the chart with a circle triumphantly small.