He hobbles upright along the angle where wall meets deck, all the while trying his best to distance himself from the buzzing swarm. Attracted to a blue emergency light flickering ahead in the darkness, he moves toward it, his brain progressively relearning how to engage his limbs, his right arm still dangling uselessly by his side—a piece of raw meat.

He shivers in his nakedness. The new world spins in his vision. He locates a rising row of steel bars. Using his legs, he manages to push himself up the angled ladder rungs, climbing to another level.

He sniffs the air, detecting the earthen scent of a rainforest. Self-preservation demands he find water, and so he hurries through the tilting gray darkness—tumbling through the open galley doors and down the slanted deck, crashing sideways into a barrier that had once been the computer’s automated ordering counter.

He climbs over the angled wall, past scraps of broken machinery and empty sorting bins to a strange object angled downward at forty degrees. He sniffs the cool surface, smelling food originating from within.

Gripping the handle with his functional left hand, he stands awkwardly, attempting to lift the heavy hinged aluminum door to access the walk-in refrigerator. He grunts, only he’s too weak to budge the ninety-pound barrier with only one functional arm.

A second effort causes the topsy-turvy galley to spin in his head and he passes out.

*   *   *

He awakens to a coughing seizure. He is naked and freezing and thirsty and hungry—Cro-Magnon man lost in Oz. Crying out, he stands and forcibly drags open the enormous aluminum door, lifting it just enough to wedge his knee and shoulder along the inside panel.

With a primal yell, he heaves the barrier sideways, gravity handling the rest of the job.

He peers inside the wood-paneled rectangular hole, still humming with emergency power. The scent of food hits him like a wave and he slides down the frigid floorboards into a pile of plastic pouches and beverage cartons. Locating a box filled with liquid, he tears it open with his teeth and drinks.

*   *   *

He leaves the galley twenty minutes later. He has hydrated and kept down enough food to satisfy his immediate energy needs. In the process, he has reengaged his kidneys. He observes with curiosity that his urine stream is tainted with blood.

Fuel has returned some clarity to his survivor instincts. His mind teases him with shards of memory, his thoughts colored with images that seem familiar but lack purpose. Armed with a serrated steak knife held between his teeth, his quivering body desperate for warmth, the chimpanzee walks up the angled galley decking to access the main corridor.