“We’re going to ditch,” I say.
The escape trunk at the top of the balneary. That’s the only way off this ship. The only way to survive.
We’ve pushed through the crowd, past Brother Alban, Brother Henry, bent over, kneeling, praying.
“Come on!” I shout to them. “Come follow us!”
But they do not.
Behind us, a wrenching burst. A watery roar.
The bulkhead to engineering has breached.
Two of the missile tube access ports have blown at the far end of the compartment. Frothing, boiling water floods, washing away the wooden dais. Electronics sparking, components hissing angry steam.
“Hold on!” I say, anchoring myself and Lazlo against one of the missile tubes. Ephraim does the same. When the first rush of seawater gushes forward, it almost sweeps us away.
But this is the direction we must go. And fast.
“Come!” I shout, letting go my handhold, trying not to be sucked through the hatch. Bracing the edges of the entryway, I duck through, then swing around to catch Lazlo as he shoots in. Then Ephraim.
“We should seal the compartment!” Ephraim shouts.
But the force of the water is too great. I’ve lost my grip. The jetting current carries us down the corridor, past mission control, past the radio room, into the mess hall, where flailing bodies and debris have been pushed by the current. The hatchway to the balneary is just ahead, through the chaos of screams and choking and coughing. The water is up to our waists and rising.
I look back to find Lazlo still behind me, and Ephraim.
Lazlo’s hand is thin, slippery in the cold water, but still I pull him along, not letting go, grabbing pipes, cables, anything along the ceiling to grab to keep our heads above the fast-rising water.
“Follow us,” I shout, seeing Brother Dumas’s face in the near darkness. “A way out.”
But he doesn’t seem to hear. He is swimming aft, in the opposite direction, toward the ladder to the upper deck.
The Leviathan groans, squeals. A fresh influx of water tells me there’s been another hull breach.
We’re almost to the balneary hatchway when I hear Lazlo shriek behind me.
I spin around to find that he’s being pulled under, being pulled back. I struggle to keep my grip on his hand. It’s Marston, face bloodied. He’s latched onto Lazlo, is forcing his head beneath the water.
“I told you what I would do!” the old man spits, his chin only just above the rising, frothing seawater.
I fling myself at him, the tall man, trying to pull at his arm, grappling, scratching. But his grip is strong and his reach so long. He is both able to hold Lazlo under and keep me at a distance.
“Let him go!” I hear Ephraim shout. He’s tackled the caplain as well, has wrapped his arms around the older man’s neck.
This has surprised Marston. He loosens his grip. Lazlo surfaces, sputtering, gasping, blinded by the salty water. I reach out, pull him away from the caplain’s reach, push him through the hatchway to the balneary.
I see Ephraim still struggling with Marston, unable to overtake the man. The caplain is able to keep his nose and mouth just above the surface of the water, while Ephraim is not.
“Let him go!” I shout, about to swim into the fray once more when a sound like the tolling of the hammer against the hull but louder, deeper, rings out. The water level suddenly recedes. The Leviathan’s position on the sea floor must be shifting, sliding. Marston and Ephraim are swept backward, downward. I cling to a pipe on the ceiling and reach out. Ephraim reaches for me but does not find my hand before he is sucked away.
The lights go completely out now. Batteries blown. Total darkness.
Chaos. Cacophony and darkness.
“Remy!” Lazlo calls out.
“Here,” I say, turning. If we’re going to survive, we have to leave now. I know it.
I hate it, but I know it.
The water level, momentarily lowered, is rising again, the torrent of cold seawater still spilling in through the breaches on this level, and now from above.
Into the balneary. I see two bodies floating, both facedown in the water. Both with shorn heads. Matching robes. They could be anyone. Any of the brothers.
Something else is floating in the rising water. The inflatable life raft from the Janus. New life vests, also pillaged from Adolphine’s ship.
“Climb!” I say, forcing Lazlo up the ladder first, into the open hatch of the escape trunk. I follow behind him with the uninflated life raft in hand, seal the hatch behind me.
Inside the tight compartment, an auxiliary light still glows. Casts us both in lurid red.
I think back to the lessons that Brother Calvert taught me—how to escape. How to equalize the pressure in the hatch in order to make the water level rise to the level of the escape hatch at the top of the compartment.
I turn the red valve that controls the pressure. There’s a hissing, and water begins flooding the compartment.
“Remy!” Lazlo says, fearful.
“We have to flood the chamber if we want to escape,” I say, trying to calm him.
All the while, the boat continues to shift beneath us, groans, pops, hisses—the water line tilts.
“I… I can’t swim,” he says, gasping.
“Neither can I. Here,” I say, fitting a life vest over his head, fastening it around his middle before securing my own. “Remember what Brother Calvert told us. These will keep us afloat. These will send us to the surface. We’ll shoot right up!”
He stares at the rising water, breathing fast.
“Just remember to blow out…” I say, panting myself. “Blow out all the way up. You’ll have more than enough air in your lungs.”
He isn’t hearing me. Isn’t hearing anything, his eyes hollow and pale, shaking. In shock.
“It’s time,” I say, taking his face in both my hands, forcing him to acknowledge my words.
He nods once. I shut off the valve just after the rising water clears the hood for the hatch, leaving us a small pocket of air remaining at the very top of the compartment. Then I duck under and open the hatch, which swings down on its hinge. “Okay, you first,” I say after surfacing, wiping the water from my eyes.
The boat groans, tilts even more to the port. The pocket of air shrinks.
“Now!” I say.
He takes a deep breath, then disappears beneath the hatch hood.
I follow, first grabbing the life raft, then ducking under and out.
I’m shooting up, rocketing through the water, blowing out the air in my lungs, even though that seems like the most unnatural thing to do.
But my lungs do not deflate—no, there is more than enough to expel and still be full. The oddest feeling.
Up and up—my eyes burn from the water, but I keep them open, looking down, beneath me—this ocean is nowhere near as black as I imagined—I see the dim shapes, retreating in the darkness—the Leviathan—the massive black vessel, bleeding bubbles—and what must be the missile—the Last Judgment, its white shell seeming to glow in the dimness, expelled from its missile tube upon impact. It did not launch. It did not reach the surface.
I finally must close my eyes from the stinging, but even behind my eyelids, head now tilted upward, I see a light. A growing brightness. The water grows warmer on my skin. My ears pop—it feels as though my head may burst from the pressure, but, finally, finally, I breach the surface, splash into open air and open my eyes to daylight—the brightest light I have ever seen. My eyes, utterly blinded by it.
It should be night, I realize.
We had only just finished with Compline, the night prayer. But up here, it is day.
I cough. Suck in a breath of clean air.
A rush of wind upon my head, my cheeks.