My Last Continent: A Novel(73)

I HEAR A waterfall in the distance, a peaceful sound that evokes mountains and meadows, but when I open my eyes I see only the garish gold of an oversize chandelier. I realize in a panic that I’d gotten knocked out in the fall, and I don’t know for how long. The Australis is now on her side, let loose from the ice, and sinking fast.

My head aches, and when I reach up to my temple to find the source of the pain, I feel a rising bump, and my glove comes back bloody. I try to stand but collapse as my left leg fails me. At first I think it has fallen asleep, but then I reach down and feel that my foot is swelling rapidly, painfully, against my boot, and as I try to stand again, my ankle can’t support my weight. I loosen my bootlaces and straighten up again, putting a hand to my stomach. No pain there, no cramping—it seems my ankle, and perhaps my head, now throbbing, took the brunt of my slide down the tilting ballroom floor.

I fight off the blackness that nudges at my consciousness; I call out again, as loudly as I can, for Keller, for help. No one answers. I crawl a few feet to a doorway and tumble into a passageway. The ship’s power is gone, and, despite the light from the portholes and from the emergency lighting, it’s hard to see; my vision’s blurred, wobbly. I have no idea whether I’m getting closer to an exit or simply going deeper into the ship.



I OPEN MY eyes in a darkened, slanted passageway. The glow of the emergency exit signs turns everything a muted red. I can’t remember passing out and can’t tell how long I was unconscious. When I raise my head, I see water pooling below me, lapping at my feet, rising past my ankles. As I try to sit up, the pain in my ankle explodes, shooting upward; at least the water has numbed it a bit. I twist my head to look up the sloping floor, toward light.

At the end of the passageway, I see something red on the ground. I pull myself upright, ignoring the pain this time, and start crawling toward it. Using my arms and my one good leg, I move slowly, crab-like, toward the spot of color.

When I get closer, I see that it’s only a scarf, a red scarf. It’s absurd to think I could find Keller in this mess—and now I’m not even sure I’ll be able to make my own way out.

I wrap the scarf around my ankle, yanking it tight, gritting my teeth against the pain. Then I sit up straight and draw a deep breath into my lungs. I shout as loudly as I can, calling for Keller, for help, hoping that there’s still someone, anyone, on board who can hear me.

But there is no one here.

With a burst of renewed energy, I get to my feet, pain searing through my ankle, though at least it’s stable now. At the rate the Australis is sinking, I’ll have to climb quickly, against gravity, and somehow make it out to the starboard side—the only side still above water.

Using the handrail, I begin to drag myself up first one companionway, then another. Eventually I reach a long passageway that leads to a narrow deck. I struggle to haul myself up the steep incline, using the side railing for support as the ship wavers, rapidly filling.

Finally I manage to crawl out onto the deck, where I observe, with an odd sort of detachment, that I’m almost completely trapped. The ice immediately surrounding the ship is broken and churning, and the nearest floe is five, ten feet away. If I were able-bodied, the distance might be swimmable, but right now it looks like the English Channel. In order to do what I know I have to do, I can’t allow myself to think—about Keller, about the baby, about the black water below, about anything.

I drag myself to the edge of the railing, and I lower myself over the side, where I hang for a long, dreadful moment. The ship suddenly shifts with an enormous sigh, and I let go, tumbling twenty feet down along the side of the vessel and into the sea.

The cold rips the air from my lungs, and immediately I force myself to move. I paddle toward the ice floe, my life preserver keeping me afloat. I focus on moving steadily; I don’t let myself flail, don’t let myself waste energy on unnecessary movement. I have mere moments to make it to that ice, and every second counts.

It amazes me how time slows during moments like this. I think of Keller, of the look on his face when I left McMurdo, the sound of his voice when we last spoke. Of our argument last season, how I should’ve been kinder, more understanding—and how I only seem to realize such things when it’s far too late to take anything back.

My limbs are quickly numbing—and by the time I reach the ice, I can only grasp and hold on. The floe is large and solid, but the edge I’m gripping is slick, and I don’t know how I’ll drag myself out of the water.

Scanning the ice, I glimpse a small hummock rising a few feet away from where I’m holding on. Hand over hand, I slide across the floe and take hold of the ridge of ice, which gives me the leverage to heave myself up.

I lie there a moment, shivering, then turn my head toward the Australis. All I can see is the underside of her hull, dark and curved like a whale floating on the water. Bubbles run alongside as she exhales her last breaths.

I see no signs of life. Floating past are empty parkas and life jackets, gloves and earmuffs—the hollow shells of passengers who once inhabited them. I smell diesel fuel and smoke. I curve into the fetal position, to save what body heat I still have, to try to protect this baby, who may be all I have left of Keller.

I don’t have much time before the shaking stops, before hypothermia sets in, before my limbs cease to respond to my brain’s commands. I think I hear the sound of a motor, and I lift my head. But I don’t see anything resembling a Zodiac, and there’s no movement in the water except the gurgling of the sinking ship and the flow of debris and bodies.