Karp looked hurt. 'I thought you'd be pleased to see how I'd reformed and become a model worker. I hoped we could be friends, but I see you haven't changed at all.' Forgiving, he leaned closer to offer advice. 'We had a guy in camp who reminded me of you. He was political. He was an Army officer who wouldn't take his tanks into Czechoslovakia against the counter-revolutionaries - something like that. I was his section leader and he couldn't follow orders; he thought he was still in charge. You know, they'd take us out on a railroad spur and we'd drop trees and load them. A timber collective. Healthy reconstructive labour at thirty degrees below. The dangerous part is when you've got the trees on the flatbed; you don't want them rolling off. It's funny that the one guy with the education, this officer, is the one who had the accident, and he didn't even get his accident straight. What he said was he was held down on the track and somebody busted his bones with an axe handle. I mean upper arms, lower arms, hands, fingers - the works. Imagine. You've seen stiffs, the body has a lot of bones. But I was there and I didn't see anything like that. It's what happens when you make a mistake and a whole flatbed of logs rolls on you. He went crazy. He finally died of a ruptured spleen. I bet he wanted to at that point, or spend the rest of his life like a broken egg. The only reason I mention him is just because he reminded me of you, and you remind me of him, and because a ship way out at sea is such a dangerous place. That's what I wanted to tell you. You should be careful,' Karp said on the way out. 'Learn how to swim.'

Arkady's shakes came back twice as bad. Did he ever get so scared when he was an investigator? Maybe it was fitting that he'd come all the way from Moscow to sail with Karp Korobetz. Why hadn't he recognized him? The name wasn't that common. On the other hand, would Karp's own mother recognize him now?

The trawlmaster was the one who had thrown him into the fish hold; that was what his shakes were telling him. Three men had carried him and probably one had gone ahead and one had followed; that was Karp and his deck team, the well-organized winners of the socialist competition.

Sweat poured off Arkady, giving him a sheen of fear. Karp was crazy; no mere case of 'sluggish schizophrenia' here. Not dumb, though; so why would he draw attention to himself while Arkady had some temporary authority?

What had Karp said and what had he omitted? He hadn't mentioned the fish hold; why would he? But he hadn't mentioned Dutch Harbor, either. Everyone else was worried about the port call, but not Karp; he wanted to know about Hess. Most of all he wanted to spread some terror, which he'd done.

Again the sauna door opened. Arkady saw a dark foot and immediately reached behind for his knife. As cool air from the open door lifted the mist, however, he saw that the foot was a shoe, a blue Reebok. 'Slava?'

The third mate was irritably sweeping steam aside. 'Renko, I've been looking everywhere for you. I found it! I found the note!'

Arkady still couldn't get Karp out of his head. 'What? What are you talking about?'

'While you've been sleeping and taking saunas, I found the note from Zina Patiashvili. She wrote one.' Slava's face poked through a wreath of mist. 'A suicide note. It's perfect. We're going into port.'

Part Two.

EARTH.

Chapter Seventeen.

Dutch Harbor was surrounded by a green ring of cliffs covered by thick sub-arctic grasses. There were no trees, nothing bigger than a bush, but as the wind moved over the grass the effect was magical, as if the hills were a wave.

The island was actually called Unalaska, and on one side of the bay there was an Aleut village by that name, a beachside line of cottages that led to a white, wooden Russian Orthodox church. The town of Dutch Harbor, however, was out of Arkady's sight, past a tank farm and beyond the breakwater that protected a loading dock with slag heaps of rusting trawl doors and rotting snow, and gas pumps and rows of the half-ton cages called crab pots. Beyond lay a pier of catcherboats and one large ship that had become a dockbound cannery with a fence of pilings around its hull. Behind all this, the hills of Unalaska rose rapidly to vokank peaks edged in black stone and snow.

It was odd, Arkady thought, how the eye became starved for colour. The clouds were broken, so that sun-spots moved around the bay. Off the lower cliffs, puffins dropped like rocks to the water. Eagles lifted from the higher cliffs and soared to inspect the Polar Star; they were enormous birds, bear-brown with imperious white heads and amber eyes. It was like being at the top of the world.

The Americans had already gone ashore in the pilot boat. Soo-san was going home in a gift fishing jacket decorated with souvenir pins. On her way off the ship she'd distributed farewell kisses with the generosity of someone leaving jail. On the pilot boat as it came out had been a new head rep carrying a suitcase with $100,000, the Polar Star's port-call foreign currency. The entire crew had waited while the bills were counted and then counted again in the captain's cabin.

Now, after four months' fishing, Arkady's co-workers were lined along the starboard rail and moving down the steps of the gangway to a lifeboat that would bear them and their 'allotted American dollars to the port they had dreamed of all this time. Not that they showed it. A Soviet seaman dressed for special occasions did not necessarily shave. He did shine his shoes, slick his hair back and wear his sports jacket even if the sleeves were too short. He also wore his most unimpressed face, not only for Volovoi's sake but for his own, so that his anticipation showed as a wary narrowing of the eyes.

With exceptions. Under the brim of a squat peasant's cap, Obidin's gaze was fixed on the church across the water. Kolya Mer had stuffed his coat with cardboard pots; he eyed the hills like Darwin approaching the Galapagoan shore. Women wore their nicest cotton dresses under the usual layers of sweaters and rabbit-fur coats. They had their grim tourist faces too, until they looked at each other and broke into nervous giggles, then waved up at Natasha, who stood on the boat deck with Arkady.

Natasha's cheeks were almost as red as her lipstick and she wore not one but two haircombs, as if she would need extra ammunition in Dutch Harbor. 'It's my first time in the United States,' she told Arkady. 'It doesn't seem so different from the Soviet Union. You've been before. Where?'

'New York.'

'That's different.'

Arkady paused. 'Yes.'

'Well, so you came to see me off?'

Natasha looked ready to fly from sheer excitement over the water to the waiting shops. In fact Arkady had come to see whether Karp was going ashore. So far the trawlmaster hadn't. 'To thank you and see you off,' he said.

'It will be just for a few hours.'

'Even so.'

Her voice and eyes dropped. 'It was a stimulating experience for me to work with you, Arkady Kirilovich. You don't mind that I call you Arkady Kirilovich?'

'Whatever you like.'

'You're not the fool I thought you were.'

'Thank you.'

'We came to a successful conclusion,' Natasha said.

'Yes, the captain has declared the inquiry officially over. There may not even be an investigation at Vladivostok.'

'It was good of Third Mate Bukovsky to find that note.'

'Better than good, unbelievable,' Arkady said, considering he had looked under Zina's mattress well before Slava found her note there.

'Natasha!' As her friends moved along the rail they waved frantically at her to claim her place in line.

Natasha was ready to run, to sail, to fly, but there was a line on her brow because she had witnessed Arkady's earlier search of the bed.

'At the dance, she didn't seem so down in the mouth.'

'No,' Arkady had to agree. Dancing and flirting were not the usual symptoms of depression.

Natasha's last question was the hardest for her. 'You really think she killed herself? She could have done something that rash?'

Arkady gave his answer thought because he knew Natasha had lived months for this one day's excursion, yet would stay loyally on board with him if he gave her any reason to. 'I think it's rash to write a suicide note. I'd refuse to, myself.' He pointed to the lifeboat. 'Hurry, you're going to miss your ride.'

'What can I get you?' Natasha's brow was clear again.

'A complete set of Shakespeare, a video camera, a car.'

'I can't get those.' She was already on the steps leading down to the deck.

'A piece of fruit will do.'

Natasha elbowed her way to her friends just as they were going down the gangway. They were like children, Arkady thought, the kind of Moscow children you see stamping their feet outside school on dark December mornings, bundled up to their hard little faces until the warm door is opened and their eyes light up. He wished he was going with them.

The lifeboat looked like a surfaced submarine; it could seal up forty passengers fleeing a sinking ship and was coloured that crayon hue called 'international orange'. For this holiday jaunt, the hatches were open so that the helmsman and passengers could stand in the fresh air. Natasha waved again before assuming a pose of resolute Soviet sobriety. They cast off, and the entire party appeared in their drab clothes on their orange boat to be headed for either a funeral or a picnic.

The Merry Jane was approaching to take more people ashore, and a whole new line had formed along the rail. Among those waiting was Pavel from Karp's deck team. Looking at Arkady, he drew a finger across his throat.

Land did smell, Arkady thought. Unalaska smelled like a garden and he wanted to walk on dry land and leave the scow on which he'd lived for ten months, if only for an hour.

So far, he hadn't told anyone about the attack. What would he say? He hadn't seen Karp or the other men. It would be his word against six politically reliable and socially responsible seamen first class. The only provable fact was that he had been inhaling fumes and inducing hallucinations. And attempting to set fire to the fish hold.

Smoke smudged the air above where Dutch Harbor must be. How large was the town? Cleaner wisps hung from the sides of the mountains. That's where they were, mountains that rose directly from the ocean floor. He imagined soaring over them and descending into a green valley, close enough to see those precious bog orchids .of Kolya Mer's, close enough to pick up earth in his hand.

The lifeboat was now traversing the water in front of the Aleut houses; a pretty picture, the orange boat put-putting by the white church. He imagined Zina on it.

'It's ironic,' Hess said as he joined Arkady.

The fleet electrical engineer was resplendent in a shiny black parka, jeans and Siberian felt boots. Arkady hadn't seen him since yesterday morning. Of course Hess was small; maybe even small enough to move invisibly around the ship through funnels and ventilator shafts.

'What is?' Arkady asked.

'That the only member of the crew who ever could have defected, the only man whose loyalty has really been tested, is the only one not allowed off the ship.'

'In irony we lead the world.'

Hess smiled. His stiff hair leaned in the breeze but he stood with the wide, solid stance of a sailor as he gazed around.

'A handsome harbour. During the war, the Americans had fifty thousand men here. If we'd had Dutch Harbor there'd still be that many, instead of a few natives and fishing nets. Well, the Americans can be choosy. The Pacific Ocean is an American lake. Alaska, San Francisco, Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Marshalls, Fijis, Samoa, the Marianas. They own it.'

'You're going ashore?'

'To stretch my legs. It might be interesting.'

Perhaps not to a fleet electrical engineer, Arkady thought, but to an officer of Naval Intelligence, yes, a stroll around the major port of the Aleutians might be informative.

Hess said, 'Let me congratulate you on resolving the case of that poor girl.'

'Your congratulations should go entirely to Slava Bukovsky; he found her note. I searched the same place and never saw it.'

Arkady had examined the note once Slava had stopped flourishing his discovery. It had been written on half a lined page that appeared to have been torn from Zina's spiral notebook. The handwriting was hers; the prints were hers and Slava's.

'But it was suicide?'

'A suicide note definitely is evidence of suicide. Of course, being fatally hit on the back of the head and being stabbed after death is evidence of something else.'

Hess seemed to be studying the trawler as it swung alongside the Polar Star. Was he a line officer? Arkady wondered. Considering the slow promotions that Germans got, he might be no more than a captain second rank. If he stayed near Leningrad, though, close to Naval headquarters, maybe taught at one of the officers' academies, he could have the title of Professor. Hess looked professorial.

'The captain was relieved to hear that you agreed with Bukovsky's conclusions. You were sick in bed or he would have asked you himself. You seem better now.'

The shakes had chased Arkady back to his cabin, it was true, and he was better now, well enough to light a Belomor and start poisoning himself again. He tossed the match away. 'And you, Comrade Hess,' he asked, 'were you relieved?'

Hess allowed himself another smile. 'It sounded too convenient for you to have anything to do with it. But you could have corrected Bukovsky and gone to the captain.'

'And stopped this?' Arkady watched as a Portuguese crewman helped Madame Malzeva off the gangway onto the trawler deck. She stepped down daintily, shawl over her shoulders, as if onto a gondola. 'This is the reason for their whole voyage. I'm not going to ruin their two days here. Is Volovoi ashore?'

'No, the captain is. You know the regulations: either the captain or the commissar has to be on the ship at all times. Marchuk went in on the pilot boat to make sure the merchants of Dutch Harbor are ready for our invasion. I hear they are not only ready but eager.' He looked at Arkady. 'Murder, then? When we're back at sea, will you start asking questions again? Officially the inquiry is over. You won't have the support of the captain, you won't even have the assistance of Bukovsky. You'll be entirely alone, one factory worker in the bottom of the ship. It sounds dangerous. Even if you knew who was responsible for the girl's death, it might be better to forget.'

'I could.' Arkady thought about it. 'But if you were the killer and you knew that I knew, would you let me live until we returned to Vladivostok?'

Hess considered the idea. 'You'd have a long voyage home.'

Or short, Arkady thought.

'Come with me,' Hess said.

He motioned and Arkady followed into the aft house. He assumed they were going to some quiet spot to speak, but Hess led him directly out to the boat deck on the port side of the ship. A Jacob's ladder hung from the rail to another lifeboat already in the water. A lone helmsman waved up. Not for a fleet electrical engineer the crowded deck of a trawler.

'Ashore,' Hess said. 'Come with me to Dutch Harbor. Everyone else is enjoying a port call, thanks to you. You should have some reward.'

'I don't have a seaman's first-class visa to go in, as you know.'

'On my authority,' Hess said lightly, but also as if he meant what he said.

Even thinking about going ashore had the effect of a glass of vodka. Perspective changed, bringing houses, church and mountains closer. The wind freshened on his cheek and water lapped more audibly against the hull. As Hess pulled on black calfskin gloves, Arkady looked down at his own bare hands, stained canvas jacket, rough pants and rubber boots. Hess caught the self-scrutiny. 'You've shaved,' he reassured Arkady. 'A man who's shaved is ready to go anywhere.'

'What about the captain?'

'Captain Marchuk knows that initiative is the new order of the day. Also, trust in the loyalty of the masses.'

Arkady took a deep breath. 'Volovoi?'

'He's on the bridge watching the other direction. By the time he sees you going ashore you'll be there. You're like a lion who finds his cage door open. You hesitate.'

Arkady held the rail as if for balance. 'It's not that simple.'

'There is one little thing,' Hess said, and brought from his parka a sheet of paper that he spread on the bulkhead. The page bore a two-sentence acknowledgement that defection from a Soviet ship was a state crime for which an offender's family would suffer in his absence. 'Everyone signs it. You have a family? A wife?'

'Divorced.'

'She'll have to do.' When Arkady signed, Hess said, 'One other thing. No knives, not in port.'

Arkady took it from his jacket pocket. Up until yesterday that knife had lived in the closet. Now he and his knife felt inseparable.

'I'll keep it for you,' Hess promised. 'I'm afraid no foreign currency has been allotted for this unanticipated port call of ours. You don't have American dollars?'

'No, nor francs nor yen. There hasn't been the need.'

Hess neatly folded the paper and slipped it back inside his parka. Like a host who enjoys impromptu parties most, he said, 'Then you must be my guest. Come, Comrade Renko, I will show you the famous Dutch Harbor.'

They stood in the open hatches and breathed the sharp fumes of the water that was silky with oil. Arkady hadn't even been so near the surface of the water in ten months, let alone on land. As the lifeboat drew across the harbour he saw how the Aleut houses edged between mountain and bay, and how proudly they all seemed to march behind their white church with its onion dome. There were lights in the windows and human forms in the shadows, and the very existence of shadows seemed miraculous after a year's staring into fog. And the smell was overwhelming: the briny tang of the beach's grey sand and, powerful as gravity, the sweet breath of green grass and mosses. There was even a graveyard with Orthodox crosses, as if people could be buried without sinking directly to the ocean floor.

The lifeboat was built with a miniature bridge, but the helmsman, a blond-haired boy in a heavy sweater, used the outside wheel. Behind him, from a short pole, a Soviet ensign fluttered like a red hankie.

'Built for the war and then allowed to fall apart,' Hess said and pointed to a house on the crest of a cliff. Half the house had fallen in, exposing stairs and rails like the inner workings of a seashell. Looking around, Arkady saw half a dozen more Army-grey structures on other hills. 'That was the war when we were allies,' Hess added for the sake of the young helmsman.