Steven E Cook
Prologue
The boat had no footprints in it.
Dr. Mara Velez noticed that before she noticed the man. Snow lay in the bottom of the little vessel, undisturbed from the stern to the soles of his bare feet. He sat upright on a thwart with his hands resting on his knees, as if he had been waiting for someone to collect him.
The Meridian’s searchlight held him in a white circle. Around the boat, scraps of ice turned in the black water.
“Tell me that’s a survival suit,” Jonah Reed said beside her.
It was a coat. Thin gray cloth, open at the throat.
Mara lifted the binoculars again. The man’s head moved. Slowly, he looked up at the railing where she stood.
“He’s alive.”
Jonah was already unclipping the radio from his shoulder.
Beyond the searchlight, Antarctica lay under cloud. They had spent the afternoon working north along the coast, trying to get clear of a weather system Captain Mercer had described as expensive. The little boat had appeared off the starboard quarter nine minutes ago. No distress call. No light. Nobody had seen it approach.
There were no oars.
Mara went below for her medical bag.
At the accommodation door, she nearly collided with Leila Haddad, who had come out wearing her life jacket over her pajamas.
“Are we sinking?” Leila asked.
“Picking someone up.”
Leila looked past her at the sea. “He couldn’t have booked the spring trip?”
“Get blankets. The warmed ones.”
Leila’s hands steadied enough to pull the door open.
By the time Mara returned, the deck crew had brought the boat alongside the recovery platform. Ben Holt waited at the bottom of the access ladder, clipped to a safety line, one hand extended toward the stranger.
The man would not take it.
“He understands us,” Ben called. “Just won’t move.”
Mara crouched behind the platform rail. The boat rose below her, then dropped, its hull knocking against a fender. Its wood was pale beneath the waterline. She could see no engine well, no provisions, nothing a person could use to cross even a few miles of that sea.
“I’m the doctor,” she said. “We’re going to get you somewhere warm.”
The stranger glanced at Ben’s hand. A narrow black band circled his own wrist. Something was engraved on it, although Mara could not read the marks.
“How many?” he asked.
His English was careful. His lips were cracked, but he did not slur.
“How many what?”
“People. On your vessel.”
“Twenty-three.”
He looked along the side of the Meridian, toward the stern.
“Have you counted them?”
“They’re on the crew list.”
“Count them.”
Ben shifted his weight. A wave washed over the edge of the platform and soaked his boots.
“You can do a census upstairs,” Mara told the stranger. “Right now, take his hand.”
For a moment he seemed about to refuse again. Then the boat swung away, tugging hard against the line the crew had secured to its bow. He looked down into the water.
Mara saw his expression change.
He caught Ben’s forearm.
They got him across the gap on the next rise. He was taller than she had expected and much heavier than his thinness suggested. When the platform dipped again, he put an arm around Ben and held him until both men had their balance.
“Up,” Mara said.
The stranger climbed.
Halfway to the deck he stopped so abruptly that Ben almost struck his bare heel.
Mara followed his gaze. There was a round drainage opening in the ship’s side, just above the water.
Three small knocks sounded inside it.
Ben turned his head.
“Keep moving,” the stranger said.
“Loose valve,” Ben muttered, although the opening had no valve that Mara knew of.
Three knocks came again. The first two close together. The third after a pause.
The stranger climbed the rest of the ladder without looking back.
On deck, Leila wrapped a blanket around him. He seized its edges and, for the first time, began to shiver.
“Leave the boat,” he said.
Mercer’s voice came over the radio. “We can’t leave a hazard alongside. Ben, secure it clear of the—”
“Do not lift it out of the water.”
Something in his voice stopped Ben reaching for the next line.
Mara took the radio.
“Captain, let it trail for now. I need him inside.”
There was a brief silence.
“Aft tow point,” Mercer said. “Nobody climbs into it. Ben, report when you’re clear.”
The stranger let Mara guide him through the accommodation door. Beneath the blanket, his arm felt warm.
She told herself it was the cold in her own hands.
In the infirmary, she sat him on the examination couch. Leila brought more blankets, then stayed, uncertain, by the door.
Mara asked his name.
“Kaelen Thorne.”
“Where have you come from, Kaelen?”
He looked at the small window above her desk. Beyond it, the searchlight swept across the sea.
“South.”
“A station? Another ship?”
“Neither.”
She let that answer rest. People pulled from the water often needed a simpler question.
“How long since you ate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
He hesitated, then opened the coat.
Leila made a small sound.
Rows of old scars crossed his ribs. The marks were too even to be accidental. At his left side, beneath the lowest row, a fresh wound had bled through the lining of the coat.
Mara pulled on gloves. “Who did this?”
“That one was a man named Silas.”
“And the others?”
“You should count your people.”
“We’re going to look after you first.”
His hand closed around her wrist. His grip was firm enough to stop her, gentle enough not to hurt.
“Please.”
The word changed her mind.
She passed the radio to Leila. “Tell Captain Mercer he believes somebody else may have come aboard. Ask her to check.”
Kaelen released her.
While Leila spoke, Mara cleaned the wound. He watched her hands with an attention that made her wonder whether he had ever seen dressings before. He did not flinch when she touched the torn skin.
“You’re safe in here,” she said.
He looked at the door.
She almost asked what he was afraid of. Then she felt the ship turn beneath her feet and reached to steady the instrument tray.
The tray slid farther than it should have.
Kaelen caught it before it went over the edge.
“Thank you,” she said.
He set it down carefully. His fingers lingered on the edge.
Leila lowered the radio. “Captain’s checking everyone. She wants to know if there was another boat.”
“No,” Kaelen said.
“Another person in yours?” Mara asked.
“No.”
From the corridor came a scrape of metal against metal.
The three of them looked toward the open door.
“Cargo shifts,” Leila said, too quickly. “You get used to it.”
Kaelen reached for his coat.
“Stay where you are,” Mara said.
He took a short length of white cord from an inside pocket. One end had been burned. He wound it once around the black band on his wrist and tightened it with his teeth.
Then he held the wrist against his chest.
Mara saw that his hands had begun shaking much harder.
“What is that?”
“Something they left me.”
“Who?”
He would not answer.
The radio crackled.
“Infirmary, bridge. Twenty-three accounted for. Twenty-four with your patient.”
Mara reached for it, but Kaelen spoke first.
“How?”
Leila pressed the button for him.
“Physical checks,” Mercer said. “Watch officers checked their stations. The rest mustered in the mess.”
Mara waited for the stranger’s shoulders to ease.
They did not.
“Close that door,” he said.
Leila moved toward it. Before she reached the handle, somebody knocked on the other side of the corridor, inside the little laundry room.
Two knocks together. A pause. One more.
Leila stopped.
“That room empty?” Mara asked.
“I got the blankets out of it.”
“After that?”
Leila shook her head.
“Mara?”
Ben Holt’s voice.
It came through the laundry door, low and breathless.
“Mara, can you give me a hand?”
She picked up the radio.
“Ben, where are you?”
Something bumped against the laundry door.
“Slipped,” his voice said. “I think I’ve cut myself.”
Kaelen got off the couch. The dressing fell from his side. Mara put a hand against his chest to keep him from walking into the corridor.
“Sit down. You’ll open that wound.”
He was staring past her.
The radio hissed, then Ben answered.
“Aft deck, Doc. Securing the tow. What do you need?”
Mara looked at Leila.
The young woman’s mouth was open. She raised her own radio and then seemed to forget what she meant to do with it.
“Who’s with you?” Mara asked.
“Jonah. We’re just coming in.”
“Stay there.”
“What?”
“Both of you. Stay together.”
From the laundry room, Ben’s voice said, “Please. There’s a lot of blood.”
Mara had spent nineteen years responding to that tone. In corridors and car parks, through bathroom doors, down telephone lines. A person tried to keep the fear out of their voice until they could no longer manage it.
She took one step.
Kaelen caught the back of her sleeve.
“It heard him,” he said.
A dark line appeared beneath the laundry door. Water crept across the floor, carrying a single white splinter of wood.
Mara stopped breathing.
Behind her, the radio clicked. Jonah was speaking, asking why she wanted them to wait. She could hear the wind around him. Ben said something about the towline. Their ordinary voices made the voice behind the door worse.
“Doc?” it said.
Kaelen reached past her and drew Leila into the infirmary. He shut the door quietly.
There was no lock.
Mara pushed the desk in front of it. Leila helped without being asked, her socks sliding on the floor. Kaelen braced one end while they moved the chair out of the way.
“Captain,” Mara said into the radio. “Nobody comes down this corridor. Nobody comes alone.”
Mercer began asking questions.
Across the hall, a handle turned.
Mara held the radio against her chest. For a moment, she could hear every small noise in the room: Leila trying to breathe quietly, the loose wheel on the desk settling, her own pulse.
“What did we bring aboard?” she whispered.
Kaelen looked at the white cord around his wrist. A black stain had appeared beneath it and was spreading through the fibers.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The laundry door opened.
No footsteps followed. Water moved under the infirmary door, slowly filling the scratches in the floor.
Then something leaned against the other side.
The wood gave a soft, prolonged creak.
“Kaelen.”
The voice was no longer Ben’s.
“You were sentenced alone.”
End of prologue. © 2026 Steven E Cook. All rights reserved.