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  Chapter Two

  I stare frozen into the water mesmerized by Karther’s mauled body that is slowly undulating in the ships wake. It has a gaping neat wound down the front of the torso and a deep scratch running from the forehead to the cheekbone. How quickly I refer to his body as ‘it’ instead of him, as if the fibre, spirit or whatever it was that made Karther him is already gone, leaving only meat behind. The thought repulses me more as I see the body violently tug to the right then submerge before bouncing back to the surface with the left leg missing. ‘Meat’ it is for some ocean dwelling creature that saw an opportunity for a meal in the body of the boy I cursed for his annoying singing habit only an hour ago.

  Death is not something new to me. I’d seen many people waste away with Age-Sickness. I had cut the ropes that held my parents by the neck from their bedroom ceiling after Max found them hanging. Death I am familiar with. But this is the gruesome murder of someone who I was supposed to be doing sentry duty with. I should have been opposite Karther on the other side of the dome. I could have heard something unusual and stopped Karther from being dragged overboard into the murderous clutches of... what? I know for certain it was not an animal. The silver I saw wasn’t the underside of a fish. It was man-made, it had an artificial perfection to it and in the quick glimpse I had I saw what looked like a seam where two parts connected. If that isn’t enough, a ravenous animal could not have made the precise cut down the torso. It was a sharp blade and a sure hand. I can’t think any further than that before guilt washes over me in uncomfortable waves. If I wasn’t so arrogant to dismiss the need for sentry duty and seek the company of someone other than Karther, if I just did the job I had agreed to do and guard the dome, Karther could now be singing about a close call with whatever or whoever it was that so brutally mutilated him.

  Tomas raises the alarm and alerts the others about what has happened. I can’t bring myself to move away from the wall of the ship. I know there are people gathered around me, trying to retrieve what is left of Karther’s body with some sort of net. I can hear Renka and Fiona talking about there being no signs of damage to the ship or clues as to how Karther was pulled overboard, but it isn’t until I hear a voice behind me mutter Max’s name that I snap out of it and run towards the stairs that lead to the cabins below. I feel my whole body tense with the instinct to protect Max. Irrational as it is I feel Max is in danger when really he is probably in the safest place on the ship.

  I barge into my cabin to find Max curled up fast asleep on the pile of blankets on the floor, he must have had a nightmare and gone back to sleep. My body starts to shake, a response born out of frustration at being called into action only to be deemed useless. I walk softly across the cabin and lift Max back onto the bed, brushing aside his scruffy fringe, then leave for the common cabin.

  Tomas is the first one I see standing in the middle of the group explaining the events that led up to Karther’s murder. Really there’s not much to tell. I decided to skimp on my duties because I was arrogant in my opinion that they were stupid, and intolerant of Karther, then we heard a noise and found the body.

  Tomas stops what he is saying when he sees me, and the others look my way. It looks like everyone is there except Mayther and Isabella who I assume are taking up sentry duty and maybe dealing with what was retrieved of Karther’s body, if anything.

  I describe what I saw a hundred times, answering the same questions over and over. Tomas had been just a second too late to the side of the ship to see the metallic shine of silver in the water so he isn’t bombarded with as many questions as me. He didn’t miss the bloodied water sopping up against the ship and the slow rise and fall of Karther’s body though, and that is enough for me not to question my sanity about what I saw. I don’t get any questions about why I wasn’t at the dome with Karther so I assume Tomas had cleared that up before I got here.

  The discussion turns to speculation about why and who and what our course of action should be after I exhaust my internal thesaurus for the words ‘silver’ and ‘metallic’.

  “I think we should assume the dome was the target, I mean there’s a reason why the Committee wants us to guard it twenty-four hours a day and it can’t be a coincidence that Karther was attacked at night when the deck is at its most deserted”, suggests Mickael. 

  “I agree, what about beefing up sentry duty, having three of us at a time?” Renka puts in enthusiastically. He must come from Commune C, he has that sturdy musculature that I saw in the guards at my commune Communication Office and his immediate response to army style tactics seems akin to the nature of that commune.

  “Wait a minute, it’s a bit drastic to jump to the dome being the target, maybe it was just some sea creature that smelt a meal”, says Linton. He is a small snivelly boy who looks about thirteen and has the appearance of a mouse, squinty eyes, a tiny nose that seems to be able to move independently from his other facial movements and the biggest buckteeth I have ever seen. The callousness of this statement reverberates around the cabin, with Gerla, who had apparently struck up a friendship with Karther, turning her previously quiet weeping into a loud sobbing. Fiona moves to her side and puts an arm around her shoulders.

  Renka is the only one in the cabin who seems to take what Linton said as a strategic suggestion instead of a completely ill timed distasteful comment.

  “Does it matter if it was a creature? Either way more eyes on deck are what are needed. I say we stick with an extra sentry duty, maybe leaving two on the dome and one doing the rounds on the outskirts of the ship wall”. Renka says with an enthusiasm that seems a bit off in light of what happened only hours ago. The others don’t seem to think so because there is a general hum of agreement among them.

  For my part, I feel like I have no right to take part in this decision-making. For one thing, I haven’t really interacted with the others since we left and don’t know what the group dynamics are. After two weeks of training together and a week living in close quarters, I assume they have fallen into some sort of rhythm that allows everyone to get along together without killing each other. Who are the dominant personalities? The ones who pretend they are involving others in decision-making when really they direct everyone to their opinion? Or the submissive members of the group who just follow what everyone else does?

  But more than that I am so wracked with guilt that I slackened off on my sentry duty and Karther has died as a result. If I am honest with myself the others never really take sentry too seriously either. I’ve seen Mickael sleeping on duty and both Diego and Vonteuse spend most of their duty in the control room. In fact, the only one who really takes the whole sentry thing seriously is Renka, who will march up and back along the side of the dome the whole three hours he’s on duty. Maybe our attitudes would be different if the stupid Committee told us what exactly we are guarding. I know all of this but it doesn’t make a difference because it was on my duty that Karther was killed.

  I contemplate suggesting we release one of the homing pigeons the Committee has sent with us to let them know what has happened. They are kept in Mayther’s cabin. He volunteered to look after them for the journey. That will take a bit of pressure off everyone in deciding what to do from here, but we were only given two pigeons with strict instructions to release one with a message when we get to the docking port and the other when we get to The Refuge. Besides, didn’t we all expect something bad to happen, some dangers along the way? Maybe that’s why the Committee wanted one volunteer from each district, to ensure some of us get there? What can they do to help us anyway?  

  “I think Diego and I should be relieved from any extra sentry duty to spend more time working out the control board. We think we found a sequence of codes that are somehow linked to the ships defence mechanism. If we can work it out it might be useful”, Vonteuse says in his newly deepened voice.

  “Wait a minute, who knows what you two are doing in there. It could be a complete waste of time and none of us would know about it because the codes
, switches, buttons or whatever it is that you use to operate the board mean nothing to us. You could just be trying to get out of the extra work for all we know”, Linton accuses waving his mousy hands to emphasise his point.

  “Why would we do that? Do you think we have so much to do on this stupid ship that we need more rest? We’re not so stimulated by the company to want to spend more time with you. The control board is working nowhere near its potential, if we could find out what else it’s capable of our time would be much better spent there than on your stupid sentry duty”, Diego roars back.

  He obviously has a propensity for hotheaded responses. I did see him fly at Mickael on the first day of training. Mickael knocked over Diego’s cylinders domino style in an attempt to impress Gerla and Merva who were looking on so Diego dished out an impressive verbal bashing Mickael’s way. When Mickael flippantly told him to ‘get over it’ Diego charged at his mid drift, head down like a charging rhino.

  Diego’s speech obviously offends a few people because an argument breaks out with most of the group yelling over the top of each other. Since I haven’t spent much time socialising, I’m not sure if this is the usual direction a discussion takes or a result of emotions running high after what happened to Karther. Either way, it is completely counterproductive and I don’t want to buy into the maelstrom of voices that collide with each other. I do think that Vonteuse’ suggestion has some credit and even though Diego’s manner is a bit out of line – although, a verbal bashing seems pretty much in the order of what Linton needs - I agree with him. If the control board can offer something else in the way of defence then maybe more time put into working it out is what is needed. We’re only at the beginning of this sea journey after all. Surely any defence mechanism from BAS will be far better than one extra person on sentry duty.

  “I’ll take Diego’s and Vonteuse’ extra sentry duties”, I call over the top of the noise causing the cabin to fall into silence.

  “You? You couldn’t even manage the duties you had, why should we put our safety in your hands?” Merva hisses through her teeth. I’ve had very little to do with Merva and now I know why, she is a bitch.

  “Don’t act like we all haven’t bludged on sentry. It could have been anyone who was on with Karther tonight”. Mickael quips at Merva, before winking at me.

  “I said I’d do the extra duties. I’m going to bed. Discuss it amongst yourselves”. Exhaustion and annoyance at the conversation get the better of me. I turn to leave. Just before the door closes behind me I hear someone, I think it’s Fiona, say that I can’t do all the extra duties myself, but I don’t stay to hear the rest.