Chapter 7
The investigating officer asked me to show him where my hands had been.
We stood at the rail on the port side, midships, where the paint was worn smooth by gloves and weather. The ship made a low, constant thrum under our feet. It was just after 0900 and the sky was still that flat, bright gray that made everything look closer than it was. Lieutenant Reyes held a small digital recorder in one hand and a notepad in the other. He didn't turn the recorder on yet.
"Take your time," he said.
The antagonist stood two feet behind him, arms crossed over his chest. Commander Hale. He hadn't been asked to be there, but no one told him to leave.
I put my right hand on the rail. The metal was cold.
"It was here," I said. "I was facing the dome. He told me to step back."
Reyes looked at Hale, then back at me. "And then?"
I stared at the water. From the deck, the hull dropped straight down, gray to a darker gray, then the blue-black of the ocean. The thick twisted rope hung where it always hung, vertical against the hull, coarse and salt-stiff. I could hear it knocking lightly against the steel.
"I didn't jump," I said. My voice was flat. I made myself breathe. "We were arguing. He came forward. His chest hit my shoulder. I lost my balance."
Hale made a small sound. Not a word. Reyes didn't look at him.
"Describe the contact," Reyes said. He finally clicked the recorder on. Red light.
"He stepped into me," I said. "Leading with his shoulder. I had my back partway to the rail. My hip hit it. My feet slipped. I went over."
"You slipped," Reyes repeated. Not a question.
"My hands caught nothing. Then I was in the water."
Hale shifted his weight. "She's remembering it differently than it happened," he said. His voice was even, practiced. "She was agitated. She climbed."
I didn't answer him. I kept my eyes on the rope.
Reyes wrote something down. "Petty Officer, did you try to swim away from the ship?"
"No, sir."
"What did you do when you hit the water?"
The second scene came back so clearly I felt the cold again. The shock of it, how it knocked the air out of me and the sound changed all at once. The flat gray light went dark blue and muffled. My uniform went heavy instantly, dragging at my shoulders. I went under, came up gasping, and the hull was right there, a wall sliding past my face.
"I grabbed the rope," I said. "It was right there. I got it with my right hand and I held it."
Reyes nodded. "You grabbed it right away."
"Yes, sir. I wasn't trying to get away. I was trying to stay."
"Why that rope?"
"It was fixed. It didn't move." My hand tightened on the rail without me telling it to. "If I'd let go, the ship would have moved past me. I wouldn't have been able to get back."
Behind us, Hale said, "Which is exactly what someone trying to escape would do. Grab anything to keep from being left behind."
Reyes held up a hand, just slightly, without turning around. Hale went quiet.
We went below to the interview compartment then, because the wind had picked up. It was a small space with a bolted-down table and two chairs. Reyes offered me water. I took it with both hands so they would stay still.
He played back his notes. "For the record, you're stating your entry into the water was caused by physical contact and loss of balance during a confrontation at the rail, not a voluntary jump. And that you immediately seized the fixed vertical rope to remain alongside the hull."
"Yes, sir."
"And you did not at any point attempt to swim away from the vessel."
"I didn't," I said. "I looked up the whole time."
That was the third thing I needed him to understand. I told him about the waterline view. How hazy everything looked from below, the light blown out and foggy. How I could see the rail and the horizontal cables and the silhouette of a figure standing there.
"Who was at the rail?" Reyes asked.
I glanced toward the passageway, where Hale's shadow cut across the little window in the door.
"He was," I said, quieter. "Commander Hale was at the rail. Looking over."
"What was he doing?"
"Nothing," I said. "He was just standing there."
Reyes frowned. "Did he call for help? Throw a line?"
I shook my head. My throat was dry. "No, sir. He didn't call out. He didn't reach. He watched."
The recorder hissed a little in the silence. I could hear the ship's ventilation and the water against the hull somewhere far off.
"How long?" Reyes asked.
"I don't know. It felt long," I said. "I was holding the rope with one hand. Looking up. Waiting for someone to do something. My eyes were open." I paused. My breath caught. "I thought he would help."
Reyes wrote for a long time after that. He didn't ask me if Hale had pushed me. He just wrote.
Hale knocked once on the door and opened it without waiting. "Lieutenant, you have what you need? Petty Officer has duties."
Reyes didn't turn off the recorder. "We're not done, sir."
Hale's jaw tightened. He looked at me, and for a second his expression slipped. Not anger. Assessment. Like he was deciding how much trouble my version would cause.
"She went over the rail on her own," he said again, to Reyes, not to me. "We all saw agitation. Escape attempt is the simplest explanation."
I finally looked up at him. "I didn't try to escape anywhere," I said. My voice was barely above a whisper, but it was steady. "I grabbed the only thing that kept me with the ship."
Reyes clicked the recorder off. He looked between the two of us.
May you like
"Thank you, Petty Officer," he said. "That's enough for now."
But it wasn't enough. I could feel it. My account had changed the word from escape to incident. And now everything depended on whether anyone believed that a rope could be something you held to stay, not to leave.
