“Staff Sergeant, there should be a hand-pump in one of the sidewall pockets; we need to get that water out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” Kurin said. “All of you—check the pockets nearest you. When you find it, pass it around to me. Admiral, is it safe for me to come assist in pulling him nearer?”
“Yes, Staff. Good idea. Done this before?”
“No, sir.”
“We want a steady, even pull, no jerks that might break his grip on the ring.” Ky looked outside again. The line was still attached to the first ring—she couldn’t quite see—no, there was the second ring, with Marek’s orange p-suit sticking out of it. His arms moved, but not very effectively. If his suit had leaked, he’d be wet and chilling rapidly. Even if it hadn’t, he looked exhausted. She nodded to Kurin, who took hold and adjusted to Ky’s movement. That was easier. Meter after meter of wet line added to the water inside the raft, though she could hear the whish-grunt, whish-grunt of the pump, and water spurted out the slender hose beside her. She looked to see who was working it. Sergeant Cosper. “Good work, Sergeant,” she said over her shoulder.
She and Kurin had a rhythm now. Ten meters, twenty, thirty. In came the nearest rescue ring. Ten meters more and twenty and thirty and more of the mooring line. The knot she had thrown came under her hand; she could see Marek’s orange suit clearly now, even in the blowing spray and cold rain. His face looked grayish in the dimming light; had he been poisoned, too? He hadn’t looked sick at all in the shuttle. They kept pulling, hand over hand, and finally he was bobbing in the water only a meter away, his lips purple-gray. Toxin? Or cold? No way to tell until they got him into the raft.
Ky pulled him right up to the raft. “Master Sergeant, how are you?”
“C-cold.” His voice was barely audible over the noise of the sea and the rafts. “C-ca-can’t—swim—any—”
He wouldn’t be able to get himself into the raft, either, she could tell. She looked back into it, chose the two tallest of its occupants, and pointed to them. “Cosper and McLenard: need you to help pull Master Sergeant Marek inside. He’s too cold to climb the ladder. The rest of you, space yourselves around the far side of the raft to keep it weighted evenly.”
Ky’s hands, even in gloves, were so stiff with cold that she could do nothing but hold on to the line. When the two men came up beside her, she explained what they would have to do: lift Marek’s full weight out of the water and into the raft.
“We’re in the way, Admiral,” Kurin said. “Let me help you get your suit free.”
“Thanks. I should have thought of that.”
When she was free, she and Kurin moved away from the entrance. At first Ky couldn’t unclench her hands from the line she held, and watched Cosper and McLenard struggling with Marek and the raft’s erratic movements. Finally they pulled Marek in, along with enough water to more than refill the puddle in the raft’s center. “Close it up,” she said; one of the men yanked on the zipper string of the canopy hatch and it closed; the relief from wind-blown spray made it seem warm. Ky struggled with her hands, blowing on them, and finally pried them off the line. She looked at Marek—his suit had a long gash on the sleeve nearest her, and another on the leg. He must have caught it on something as he fell out of the module hatch. Water ran out of his suit.
“Keep that pump going,” Kurin said. “We need to get this place as dry as possible.” Ky saw her point to one of the others—Corporal Lakhani, her implant informed her.
Marek lay, eyes closed, his head up on Sergeant Cosper’s knees as the sergeant wrestled the rescue ring off him. Across the raft Corporal Lakhani vomited again, and immediately two more gasped and did the same. Ky ignored the stench, struggling to make her stiff fingers work. “We need to get Marek out of that.” Staff Sergeant Kurin took over, unfastening the clasps down Marek’s chest. Underneath, his uniform was soaked; Ky laid a hand on his chest; his heart thudded against her hand.
“We should strip him down and dry him,” Cosper said. He pulled the tab on Marek’s uniform, and laid his fingers against Marek’s neck as if he knew what he was doing. “Got a pulse. Regular enough.”
“Sir, we found these blankets—” Specialist Gurton handed Ky two, blue on one side, green on the other. “Directions say the blue side goes on a wet person.”
“Good,” Ky said. “Thank you; that should help.” Kurin and Cosper stripped off Marek’s wet clothes and wrapped him in the blankets.
Now that all the survivors were aboard one of the rafts, Ky leaned back against the sidewall and tried to think what to do next, but her mind moved as sluggishly as her cold fingers. It had happened so fast: they had been dry, warm, in comfortable seats, expecting to land. And now they were being thrown around by mountainous waves, in cold that sapped strength and energy. In the dim light, the faces of most of the others looked dazed, confused, frightened.
Although sheltered from the direct blast of the wind, spray, and rain, she felt every movement of the raft under her as it rose and fell with the waves passing under it, jerking a little side-to-side as its tether to the other raft, and its own sea anchors, shifted the two rafts’ positions. The wind howled; rain hammered the canopy, and occasionally the raft smacked loudly onto a wave.
Through the canopy windows, smeared with water, she saw blurred glimpses of waves and sky, sky and waves. What can you do right now to make things better? Her father’s voice, in memory. What was the order her father had taught her in case of capsizing at sea? Raft—they’d accomplished that. Seal the canopy—they’d done that. Stop, take stock, think. She was doing that. Except she hadn’t gotten past stop.
Take stock: she knew they had no communications devices or transponders, but what did they have, besides the life rings, lines, and blankets they’d found so far? You can’t use it if you don’t know you’ve got it, her father had said. Which in his boat had meant every child knowing everything in the life raft and where it was stored.
Ky raised her voice over the noise of the storm. “We need to inventory our supplies,” she said. Cosper, Kurin, and Yamini looked up at once. “We found the pump and the survival blankets, and I know you didn’t find any nav gear or comunits—what else do we have?”
“There’s the standard survival manual,” Kurin said. “It’s right—here.” She pulled it from its pocket. “It’s got a list of supplies; there’s a stylus for checking them off.”
“Good,” Ky said. “Does it have a diagram with locations, too?”
“Yes, sir. Starting dextral from its own pocket. R-1 to R-4 contain ration packs, then R-5 to R-10 contain drinking water.” Kurin turned, opened the next pocket, and reported. “One unbroken pack, twenty individual rations, correct.” The next two pockets also held rations. In a few minutes, as Kurin directed the others which pockets to examine, they had located all their supplies: food enough for twenty for thirty days, potable water for five days, a hand-pumped desalinator to convert seawater to potable water, eight more survival blankets, fishing lines and hooks, eight plastic paddles, and more items than Ky remembered from her father’s equipment.
“We’re in good shape, then, Staff Sergeant.”
“Aside from not having any way to tell where we are or contact those who should be looking for us,” Sergeant Cosper said. “Someone should be court-martialed for that.”