Svan nodded and punched a control. The ship juddered, and spillover from the field made her face tingle. The motor now produced an AC hum and the creaking and groaning of the ship increased. Svan watched the fixings bolted into the keel of the ship. If those tore free, the motor would smash through the deck above, before it righted itself. But they wouldn’t tear free: she had done them herself. When the ship heaved again, she regained her balance before making further adjustments to the motor controls. The field tilted, and now the ship was coming level, pivoting at the point of those fixings, which loaded them even more. The gushing of water into the bows ceased for a moment, and then went into reverse. Svan made a final adjustment to the control panel, then closed the cowling over the motor. She stood up as the flooring finally levelled out.

‘I’ve set it to lift us clear by about a metre,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and look at the damage.’

She pulled her weapon and walked to the bows, Shib following a pace behind her, and it irritated her that his breathing sounded heavy with fear. He’d never seemed xenophobic before. Yes, it paid to be cautious around the lethal fauna of this planet, yet the creatures here were nothing compared to an armed human - and he had dealt with plenty of them.

Frisk reluctantly holstered her weapon when it seemed she had disposed of the last of the prill. The ship was level now and the water quite a way below the rail. She stared at it for a long while before she realized what had happened. She thought about why it had happened - thought about some of her decisions over the last few days. She cringed inwardly and pressed a hand to her throat.

‘What’s happening to me, Jay?’ she asked.

But Jay wasn’t there to answer her, nor to back her up, and sometimes she just did not understand why this was so. They had been happy on that Prador world hadn’t they? Why had he felt it necessary to leave, in the end? Why had he been so angry with her? Yes, sometimes she had behaved a bit irrationally, and of course that was to be expected: you couldn’t live together for as long as they had without sometimes encountering something like that. It had been her idea that maybe their crimes could be forgiven and that they could return to Earth which had thrown him into his rage. In retrospect she realized that had been a silly idea, but his reaction had been excessive.