by Peter Knyte
We were back, I’d no idea how we’d made it, I was just glad we had. Feeling around my neck for my lenses so that I could see through the darkness I was shocked not to find them, and then remembered them being taken from me before I was locked in my cabin. Without them it was too dark for me to figure out where we might be at first, and then the lightning came to my aid and revealed the startlingly close skyscrapers of what could only be New York.
There were cables and ropes trailing all over the place, some of which were clearly snagged around one of the nearby buildings, and along it, the unmistakable shape of a man climbing hand over hand toward us. It was a fleeting glimpse that also highlighted the sheets of pouring rain which were cascading off the ship all around.
The cabin door was still locked from the outside, and I knew if I tried to force it, I’d only speed the work of the poison in my system, so I waited and watched. The darkness punctuated by the occasional flash of light, in which I saw the figure moving closer and closer. I willed him on, willed strength into what must’ve been tired and frozen, rain slicked hands. Whether he had some kind of safety line I couldn’t tell, only that with each flash he moved further along that wind-blown hawser, until eventually with noticeably tired movements he made it over the railings to safety, just a few yards away from my door. Now was my moment, I hammered on the door, until I saw him start and look over, and then move toward me.
I don’t know what I was expecting when he unlocked the door and I saw his rain sodden face, perhaps joy or sorrow at our return, obviously some kind of concern at the state of the ship, in fact almost anything except fear, mistrust and incomprehension. He was shorter than I’d thought but clearly muscular, and immediately reminded me of an acrobat.
It was only after I’d explaining to him who we were for the third time, with the last of my life ebbing within my body, that he managed to understand that we needed help urgently, or many of those aboard would die, and he agreed to help me toward one of the cradles.
I could feel the toxins clawing at my brain again as we moved. I didn’t even dare to stop along the way to see to anyone else in any of the other cabins, I just forced my legs to move, then showed him how to operate the cradle in case I lost consciousness on the way down and we ended up crashing into the ground.
And then we were down and someone who must’ve been a doctor was asking me questions, and I was trying to explain what little I knew of how we’d been poisoned, and how the force generator had been activated before the ship or crew were ready, and the Expanse, and the betrayal. I realised I was trying to tell him too much, but by then the poison had me, and the fog descended upon my mind once again.