Nearby, I saw, trapped under one of the emergency bulkheads, there was a pair of legs - just that. The rest of the body must have been chopped away, gone drifting off with the rest of the debris from Brightly. But I recognised those legs, from a garish pink stripe on the sole of the right boot. That had been Halle. She was the only girl I had ever screwed - and more than likely, given the situation, the only girl I ever would get to screw. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about that.

Jeru was watching Pael, and me. ‘Tar - do you think we should all be frightened for ourselves, like the Academician?’ Her accent was strong, unidentifiable.

‘No, sir.’

‘No.’ Jeru studied Pael with contempt. ‘We are in an escape yacht, Academician. A bit of the lifedome, carved out by the emergency bulkheads when the Brightly was attacked.’ She sniffed. ‘We have air, and it isn’t foul yet. But we’re still closing on that Ghost cruiser.’

I’d managed to forget where we were going, and how little time we had. Fear pricked.

Jeru winked at me. ‘Maybe we can do a little damage to the Ghosts before we die, tar. What do you think?’

I grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’

Pael lifted his head and stared at me with salt water eyes. ‘Lethe. You people are monsters.’ His accent was gentle, a lilt. ‘Even a child such as this. You embrace death—’

Jeru grabbed Pael’s jaw in a massive hand, and pinched the joints until he squealed. ‘Captain Teid grabbed you, Academician; she threw you here, to safety, before the bulkhead came down. I saw it. If she hadn’t taken the time to do that, she would have made it herself. Was she a monster? Did she embrace death?’ And she pushed Pael’s face away.

For some reason I hadn’t thought about the rest of the crew until that moment. I guess I have a limited imagination. Now, I felt adrift. The Captain - dead? I said, ‘Excuse me, Commissary. How many other yachts got out?’

‘None,’ she said steadily, making sure I had no illusions. ‘Just this one. They died doing their duty, tar. Like the Captain.’

Of course she was right, and I felt a little better. Whatever his character, Pael was too valuable not to save. As for me, I had survived through sheer blind chance, through being in the right place when the walls came down: if the Captain had been close, her duty would have been to pull me out of the way and take my place. It isn’t a question of human values but of economics: a lot more is invested in the training and experience of a Captain Teid - or a Pael - than in me.