“WE ARE DYING. That is what I need you to understand. We are growing more fragile every day. The more you starve us, the more we will fall sick and be unable to work. At first it will only affect the weakest among us. Son, for example: He is already ill. He won’t last long. But soon enough, all of us will be sick. Then there will be nobody to work. Do you understand? And that will do you no good. This punishment of us needs to stop, or there will be no one to process the fish when they do come in.”

Eiko paused. What reaction could he expect from the hardened glass of the wheelhouse? From its reinforced steel-plate door? From the mind beyond? It was a mind full of sonar images of the seafloor, full of maps of banks and shoals, full of trawling methods and market prices. A mind in which the relative value of their lives was just more data.

More data. But that was what Eiko was trying to get the ship to understand. What the data said. That feeding them wasn’t about mercy; it was about value. The crew had a value to the ship that needed to be protected. There was a cost to killing them.

“If you kill us, you can replace us. But you will have to turn back from wherever it is you are going, to one of the factory ships, for a new crew. How far away is the nearest of them? If it were close, you would have turned back after the guards were killed. It will be a waste of time, of fuel. An unnecessary waste. But I can help you. If you return us to full rations, I will make sure the rest of the crew work hard. Every able-bodied person will work his assigned shifts. They trust me. I’ll talk to them, make sure they do a good job. But to do that, they need their strength. So please—help me. If you do, I promise I will help you.”

He looked at the stencil over the armored steel door of the wheelhouse: WOLF LARSEN, CAPTAIN.

Someone’s joke, unintelligible to him.

“Please, just consider it.”

At lunch, half rations were distributed again.

In the barracks Son lay in his hammock. His face was gaunt, the cheekbones jutting. He had a low fever, as well—something no more serious, in normal conditions, than a flu. Full rations had, to begin with, been barely enough to keep the crew alive. On half rations all the remaining crew had grown thinner, weaker. But Son—Eiko did not think he would last long like this. He needed more food, good water, rest. Medicine, which was also no longer being dispensed, would help. With those things, he might recover. Without them, it was only a matter of time before he went over the side, into that endless grave.