to tread water when he took her in his arms and held her upright against him. He brushed back the wet hair plastered to her face. Taking a deep breath, he forced her mouth open, placed his over it, and blew. He pressed in hard on her ribs to force her to exhale.

He took another breath and blew it into her lungs, and repeated the cycle. Twice, three times, four times. He was doing it too fast, driven by the frantic need to sense in her some sign of returning life. Slow down, damn it, he told himself harshly; it has to be the same rhythm as natural breathing. Keep going. She’s not dead. She can’t be. Please, she can’t be.

He looked around at the numbing emptiness of the horizon and wondered if he were already mad. So after he had revived her, they’d have a scared and shaky laugh at what a close call it had been, get in the car, and drive home. Why the hell couldn’t he leave her alone? She was free, already beyond the agony and the consciousness of dying; why condemn her to go through it again? He didn’t know. She just had to open her eyes.

He had his lips against hers, blowing inward, when he felt her move. There was a little shudder, and a gasp, and a hand brushed against his side. He pressed, and she exhaled, and when he started to force breath into her again, her rhythm caught and she inhaled herself. He was suddenly aware then of the intimacy of the way he was holding her, as if they were kissing or making love, with his mouth over hers and her breasts pressed tightly against his chest. The bra had gone, apparently ripped away by the force of her plunge feet-first into the water or when she was whirled through the maelstrom of the wake.

He cursed himself for a voyeur and a ghoul, but he was aware at the same time there was nothing erotic about it; he just wanted her to open her eyes. When she did, and saw him, and said something, he would no longer be alone. Admittedly, this made no sense, but as far as he could see that was why he’d come back here. He freed the life ring, put it over her and under her arms, and held an arm across it behind her to keep her in it and to support himself. She gagged and retched and was briefly sick from the salt water she had swallowed. He washed her lips and continued to hold her while her breathing became stronger, and in a moment she opened her eyes.

There was no comprehension in them at first. She looked blankly at him, and then around at the lonely expanse of sea and the squall bearing down on them. He expected her to cry out, or become hysterical, or faint, but she didn’t. Perhaps it couldn’t penetrate fast enough to slug you all at once. She turned her eyes back to his face, still seeming more bewildered than anything. ‘You—’ She gagged, and tried again. ‘You didn’t jump in—after me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘They threw me over.’ He explained briefly how he happened to have the life ring. She said nothing. Her chin trembled for a moment, and he could sense her struggle for control.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘No.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘It was my fault. If I’d stayed behind you—’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ His gesture included them and all the empty sea. ‘You had it made, if I’d left you alone.’

‘Oh. You’re apologizing for saving my life?’

‘Saving?’

‘Well, all it ever is is a postponement.’ She choked, and began to cough. ‘And the ship might come back if the others know about it.’

‘The others haven’t got guns,’ Goddard said. He told her of Mayr’s running out into the well-deck. ‘Either the smoke drove him out or they’d already moved him to another hiding place and somebody discovered him.’

‘Well, it’s failed now. Everybody knows he’s still alive. What can Lind do?’

'I don’t know,’ Goddard said. The thing that baffled him was that Lind could have saved himself any time in the past two days if he’d wanted to, simply by getting rid of Mayr. He’d apparently sacrificed Krasicki without a qualm; why not Mayr too? When he saw the illusion was coming apart at the seams and they were all going to be exposed it would seem the simplest way out, for a man