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It was as startling as opening up a broom closet at the Ritz - all of a sudden, there was no expensive thick carpet, no indirect lighting, no artwork Just metal, some indoor-outdoor carpet for traction, and plain fixtures that wouldn’t have been out of place on a fish trawler Aldonza stepped over the watertight lip of the door and gestured o with us, but I stopped her with an outstretched hand "No," I said "Get to the lifeboat stations The captain’s probably going to try to get you off as quickly as possible"

"In this storm? How?"

"Trust me He’ll find a way" I shook her hand "Love youryour cabin"

"These things happen," she said, deadpan "And I hope you find a way to stop this before it goes any further"

Me too,I thought, but I didn’t even really knohat I was heading toward in the first place

Aldonza shut the watertight door and spun the lockingin that way, not now

"Come on," she said, and offered me her shoulder "You want the hold, yes? Where your friends went?"

I nodded, and off ent

The hallways here were narrow industrial constructions, and as we passed larger open spaces they were uniforh for a few dozen, with comfortable but un-fancy Sears-style furniture A computer area with banks of monitors and keyboards A mess hall with all the charm of mess halls everywhere

The place was deserted "Where is everybody?"

"Duty stations," Aldonza said "Organizing the passengers" All of thehts of narrow stairs descending into the eency-lit bowels of the ship Stairs Lovely Feel the burn, Baldwin

I wondered where David had gone

"Onebreaths "You’re sure you want to do this?"

"No choice," I said, and coughed "Let’s go"

The bottom of the stairs opened into another hallway This one held crew quarters - four narrow bunks to a room, top and bottom on each side, with small lockers in the middle on the far wall Most had hoazines to read, or books Colorful nonstandard blankets and pillows

Aldonza stopped

"What?" I asked She let go of me and took a step back I bracedfirst at her, then down the hall

Lights were going out, one by one,up the corridor toward us

"Which way to the hold?"

"That way," she said "Straight on, then go left when you must turn The crew entrance to the hold is there"

"Get out of here," I said "Run"

She stared at me in confusion for a few seconds, then sheinside me

She backed away and ran

And I went toward the darkness

And the darkness went into n was that I felt better Calmer Steadier

I shouldn’t have, not at all I was operating on threads, and yet suddenly I felt assured, in control, and powerful

The contain to turn around again, and I needed to do what I’d come to do before that happened

I wasn’t totally blind Earth Wardens can sense heat, shapes, all kinds of frequencies not usually accessible to other regular folks (or Wardens), and with ht vision, I could see the hallway, the cool shapes of closed doors, and a long empty stretch

The hallway ended in a blind T-shaped intersection, and I turned left as Aldonza instructed At the end was a big double-sized watertight door with all kinds of warnings and crew restrictions blazoned next to it

I spun the wheel and pulled The air on the other side felt heavy and thick, unpleasantly stale No fire, at least And no ocean flooding in, whichso low in the water

The hold was massive, a cave of treasures that would have taken o containers were stacked in neat, syht vision

And I saw the bright red and yellow flicker of bodies up ahead

None of theled with a fiery hot pulse of primal satisfaction, of pleasure I pushed it back

I li for breath when I had to, and the scene slowly came into focus

There, near the center of the hold, were cages where I supposed duty-free items like liquor and expensive perfu safe, too, which no doubt held all those precious goodies the rich passengers had been so loath to leave behind I wondered howin a circle near the safe were bodies Solow of Djinn, some the merely war by so h

Not for long,the darkness inside me whispered, and purred I felt it stretch its claws

I li along the edges of y field here that I really didn’t want to encounter directly

This was the teaht the skin I didn’t sense the signature of the one they’d been hunting at all, though Instead, I saw a broken heap of crystal, and souys So what had gone wrong?

Kevin was standing only a few feet from me, frozen inlike lava, so he are, if unable to move

"Hey!" I yelled One of the Djinn - Lyle, with his lead gray skin and rust-colored eyes - was closer to me than the others "Lyle, can you hear me?"

"Yes," he said He couldn’t ?"

"We are all that’s holding the ship out of the water," he said "We have to hold our concentration, or the forces won’t balance This deck will collapse The ship will sink" Instead ofs up from the blackest, coldest depths of the ocean

and it was pulling us down