“I think so,” he said. He cocked his head to the side. “That man betrayed me! I want his body brought aboard.”

“We can talk about this inside!” she said.

“You don’t understand,” the man said. “He’s a traitor! You need to fingerprint him, find out what else he may be involved in.”

“We’re low on fuel,” Loh told him. “There is a patrol ship on the way. They will collect his remains.”

The officer ducked lower. The man seemed to hesitate. Then, reluctantly, he tried to raise his left arm. Loh reached back with her right hand to pull it around her neck. He clutched her collar with weak, bleeding fingers. She shifted slightly and hefted him a little higher. Then they started climbing. The man was not exactly dead weight, but neither was he as helpful as she had hoped. About halfway up she really began to feel the strain. Each rung was twice as difficult as the one before. The man was trying to climb with her. But each time he reached with his good arm, he rested his full weight on her back. She was surprised at how difficult this was. At the naval academy’s annual fitness review, FNO Loh was still able to climb a rope thirty feet without using her legs. Of course, she did not try the escalade, as it was called, with a man on her back.

“Officer Loh, pass him up!”

Someone was shouting down at her. FNO Loh looked up. Bob Herbert was sitting in her seat. He was holding on to the strap and leaning out. His right arm was extended. She had to climb another three rungs to reach it.

The officer looked ahead and pulled herself up another rung.

“Officer, stop or we’ll lose you both!” Herbert yelled. “Help him climb over your back onto the ladder. I’ll grab him. I promise.”

Loh did not acknowledge. She did not want to give up before the job was finished. That was not how she lived, and it was not how she had been trained. She looked straight ahead, at the landing strut. She tried to climb another rung. Her arms were so weak they were shaking. She stopped.

“Dammit, my legs may not work but I can curl fifty pounds with each arm,” Herbert said.

The man leaned close to Loh’s ear. “I’m going to try to reach your friend,” he said.

“All right,” Loh replied.