They had to: he had to see Karen again.

He set about trying to clamber up.

It was easier than he'd expected: the steel ramp was ridged to provide grip for military vehicles and troops. Little by little Anawak pulled himself up. The temperature rose as he ascended, and he felt warmer. Now he was plagued by thick, sticky smoke, which settled in his lungs. The higher he climbed, the denser it became. Now the roaring noise from the flight deck was audible again.

The fire had already been blazing when he'd heard Crowe's shouts for help. If she'd survived the start of it, she might still be alive.

Coughing, he hauled himself up the final few metres and was surprised to find that visibility on the hangar deck was better than it was on the ramp. The tunnel had trapped the smoke, while up here it could circulate, entering through one gateway and escaping through the other. The air in the bay was as hot and oppressive as a furnace. Anawak covered his nose and mouth with his forearm and ran across the deck. 'Sam?' he shouted.

No answer.

'Sam Crowe? Samantha Crowe?'

He had to be mad.

But it was better than living like a dead man. Greywolf had been right: he'd been no better than a corpse.

'Sam!'

Well Deck

Johanson was alone.

He had no doubt that several of his ribs were broken, thanks to Floyd Anderson. Every little movement hurt like hell. During their efforts to retrieve Rubin's body and load it into the Deepflight, there'd been several occasions when he could have screamed, but he'd gritted his teeth.

His strength was running out.

He thought of the Bordeaux in his cabin. What a waste! He could have used a glass of it now. So what if he had to drink it by himself? He was the only bon vivant left on board. In fact, among all the people he'd met over the last few months not one had shared his taste for the finer things in life.

He was probably a dinosaur.

A Saurus exquisitus, he thought, as he lowered Deepflight 3 until it was level with the jetty.

The idea appealed to him. Saurus exquisitus. It described him exactly. A fossil who was happy to be just that. . . exhilarated by the future and the past, which filled his dreams squeezing out the present.

Gerhard Bohrmann would have known how to appreciate a glass of Bordeaux, but otherwise there was no one. Sure, Sue Oliviera had enjoyed it, but she would have enjoyed a supermarket bottle just as much. Among all the people who'd worked together in the Chateau, there was no one whose tastes were sufficiently cultivated to appreciate a fine vintage Pomerol. Except perhaps…

Judith Li.

He tried to block out the pain in his chest as he jumped on to the Deepflight. Landing upright, he groaned, knees quaking. Then he crouched, opened the control flap and activated the mechanism to unlock the pods.

The domed tops rose slowly into the vertical position. The pods lay open at his feet. 'All aboard,' he trumpeted.

It was odd. There he was, balancing on top of a submersible, left alone in a well deck that was tilting out of the sea. You never could tell where life would take you next.

And as for Li…

He'd rather pour his wine into the Greenland Sea than give a drop of it to her. Sometimes the only way to do justice to the finer things in life was to make sure certain people couldn't have them.

Li

She ran up to the hangar deck, panting for breath. The bay was shrouded in smoke. She stared at the sooty clouds, trying to discern what lay beyond them.

Then she heard the voice: 'Sam? Samantha Crowe?'

Was that Anawak shouting?

There didn't seem much point in killing him now. Besides, the bow's remaining bulkheads might give way at any moment. The vessel was in danger of splitting, and when that happened, the Independence would go down in seconds.

She ran to the ramp and peered into a smoke-filled cavern. Her stomach turned. Li wasn't easily scared, she wasn't cowed by the need to go down there, but if she let go of the torpedoes, they'd end up in the water.

She edged down the ramp, feet turned sideways, taking one small step at a time. It was dark and oppressive and the smoke was smothering her. The soles of her boots made empty clunking noises on the metal.

All of a sudden she lost her balance and sat down with a thud, legs stretched out in front of her. Still clutching the torpedoes, she slid painfully over the uneven surface of the ramp. The ridges hammered against her spine and the water rushed towards her.

The ramp fell away and she splashed down, then surfaced, gasping for air.

She still had the torpedoes.

A muffled groan shook the tunnel walls. She pushed off and swam through the passageway, round the corner and towards the well deck. The water wasn't as cold as she'd expected. It must have come from the basin. The lights had gone out in the tunnel, but the well deck had its own power supply. She could see it getting brighter ahead. As she got closer she could make out the outlines of the jetties sticking up into the air, then the stern gate looming menacingly over the basin, and two submersibles, one of which was dangling at the height of the jetty.

Two submersibles?

Deepflight 2 had vanished.

And someone in a wetsuit was balanced on Deepflight 3. Johanson.

Flight Deck

Apart from supplying Crowe with cigarettes, the Pakistani cook wasn't proving very helpful. Huddled wretchedly at the far end of the stern, he was in no fit state to make plans. Her own attempt had been no more successful. She stared helplessly at the raging flames. Everything inside her rebelled at the idea of giving up. As someone who'd spent decades listening for signals from space, the idea of resigning herself to death seemed absurd. It just wasn't an option.

All of a sudden there was a thunderous bang. A fiery cloud spread over the island, crackling and bursting like a firework display. Powerful vibrations shook the deck, then plumes of flames shot out of the inferno, stretching towards them.

The cook screamed. He jumped up, took a step backwards, stumbled, and toppled over the side. Crowe tried to grab his outstretched hands. For a split second he steadied himself, face twisted with fear, then fell. He hit the rising stern gate, then disappeared. Crowe heard a splash, drew back from the edge in horror, and glanced around.

She was surrounded by flames. Everywhere around her the asphalt was burning. It was unbearably hot. Only the starboard quarter had escaped the shower of fire. For the first time she was seized with real despair.

The heat forced her to retreat. She ran to the starboard quarter and continued along the side.

Past the equipment for the elevator.

What now?

'Sam?'

Great, now she was hearing things too. Or had someone just called her name? Impossible.

'Sam Crowe?'

Someone was calling her name.

'I'm over here,' she veiled.

Where was the voice coming from? There was no sign of anyone on the flight deck.

Then it dawned on her.

She leaned cautiously over the edge and saw the outline of the platform, tilting towards the sea.

'Sam?'

'I'm here! Up here!'

She was screaming her heart out. All of a sudden someone ran on to the platform, looking up at the deck.

It was Anawak.

'Leon!' she called. 'Leon, I'm up here!'

'Jesus, Sam.' He stared up at her. 'I'll come and get you.'

'How?'

'I'll run up.'

'There's nowhere left to run,' she shouted. 'It's a mass of flames; the island, the flight deck, everything.'

'Where's Murray?'

'Dead.'