Chapter six

I have no memory until I stood before the doors to the broad ship’s aftercastle with its hideous tangle of wreckage blocking them off, tearing at them with my bare hands, the dagger naked in my clenched teeth.

It was all a long time ago and four hundred light-years distant, a drama played out on a distant sea beneath the lurid fires of the twin suns of Antares; and yet — and yet!

Water slopped about my thighs, pouring in an ever-thickening flood over the gunwales. I heaved timber aside, used the keen dagger edge to s***h through water-soaked ropes. I reached the door and now I became aware of the yells and shouts from the swifter.

“It is too late!” “Come back!” “You will be drowned!” and — “My Lord — the chanks!”

I ignored the jabberin……