Kennedy caught the movement and said, "Do you want me to shoot you?"

"I'll take my chances, Major. See you on the lifeboat."

Kennedy crouched down too, more for balance, as the bow dipped further towards the water.

"Joseph?"

"What is it?" Kennedy's eyes, hooded in shadow, revealed nothing.

There was a sudden gurgling noise as the ocean began boiling over the forwards railings. It swept towards the bridge.

"May your dance bring good cloud."

Kennedy gave him the broadest smile. "Good cloud, Darren."

The ship lurched suddenly. Then Kennedy was running, Wells at his side, towards the upright lifeboat. Morgan, stumbling, gave chase.

Someone had cut the falls of the collapsible and it was sliding forwards. Passengers and crew pitched themselves desperately into the retreating boat. A crest of water crashed over the boat deck, spilling most of the collapsible's occupants. It careened into a davit and began drifting against the forwards funnel. The bridge slipped beneath the water.

Smith had cast aside the megaphone. Morgan caught a last glimpse of him diving over the ship's side.

Kennedy and Wells were lost to sight.

The lifeboat slipped by, yards away. Morgan felt the cat scratching wildly within his coat. He scanned for a deckchair or a barrel, seeking a dry way to safety. A crowd of people poured from the first-class entrance. They dashed aft at the sight of the oncoming water, only to find themselves blocked by the promenade railing. They swarmed over the barrier or climbed to the irrational safety of the quarters' roof. The air was rent by their screams.

A woman tore past him, the woollen bundle of a child pressed to her chest. Two men fought over a lifebelt. It split, sending them both off balance and skittering along the deck.

The ship tilted forwards in preparation for her plunge.

Morgan reached for the side railing. Bodies slammed past him, hurled to the waves below. He dragged the hem of his coat as high as the lifebelt permitted, bringing his burden up to his neck. He gave the sloping deck a final search for Kennedy. The collapsible bobbed amid a throng of black bodies.

All along the ship the lights flickered and went out as one.

Morgan leapt out into the void.

XXVII.

Kennedy flailed. A thousand blades pierced him.

He rose only to be drawn down again. The cold pinioned him. He twisted and turned-each frantic movement a paroxysmal spasm.

He broke the surface yards away from the collapsible. He searched for Wells and Morgan. A plank struck the side of his head and he was thrown into the arms of another passenger. Hands scraped his face, hooking under his belt. He lashed out viciously and reached into the darkness. His fingers scrabbled over the edge of a deckchair, tearing at the material.

He tumbled with his prize, seeking balance. The ocean foamed.

The Titanic was an impossible shuddering cliff face towering above him. It loomed there, casting an avalanche of bodies and debris. Gutted and torn from within, it trumpeted the Apocalypse; an unearthly, ear-splitting clamour that drowned out the cries of those in the water. It hung there, tottering for long moments, while overhead the vast black finger of her funnel clawed at the sky.

His breath came as rapid stabs. He kicked out towards the collapsible. One chance in twenty. Thrashing bodies churned the ocean in fierce eddies. Astor's face, a haggard knot of terror, flashed into view. Slipped past. He reached out and his hands closed around a gnarled end of rope. Benumbed, he began pulling himself along its length, only sure of his grasp by the sight of his own frozen fingers shifting along its twining cable.

A crescendo of noise threatened to crack open his skull. He twisted, staring up. The funnel had curved forwards on itself as if seeking severance from the ship. It broke from its mooring, plummeting, filling the night.

The collapsible was a body's length away.

His hand clutched its side, fingernails tearing at the wood. One in- The sky fell in an explosion that flung him bodily into a cloud of ash as the funnel struck water inches away. He was spinning, borne on a soot-capped wave, turned over and over.

He gasped for air, swallowing brackish water.

His chest was caught within a vice of frost-tipped jaws.

He knew nothing save this ice-clad, endless, wave-tossed existence.

He broke the surface.

He spun, searching the waters for a lifeboat. The Titanic towered within an expanding circle of her waste. Her stern reared back, slapping the ocean in harsh, futile protest. The wave reached him, a swell that lifted him high above the devastation for a brief moment.

He sought the ruins for a boat. He found the staves of a barrel and propped himself partially out of the water, snatching at the frigid air for sustenance. The cold worked its way through his bones. Despite the pain, his eyes were drawn back to the ship. Her stern rose again: majestic, terrible. Silently she began to glide, forwards and down, in a final approximation of her earlier grace.

The waters closed over her. Bodies, near and far, jerked among the fragments. Their cries were one long dirge. He lent his own cracked voice to the proceedings without knowing it.

Arms closed around him. Sluggish, pulling him away from the barrel and down. His own reflexive retaliation was lethargic; shrugging and twisting slow. A fist connected weakly with his jaw. An open hand tugged at his belt. He kicked, swinging broad sidewinders. Grabbed a handful of thick hair, yanking Wells' pale face into view.

He released him.

Wells hurled himself back, treading water and staring at Kennedy.

Kennedy panted, floundering. Other bodies, still, glided between them.

"Easy," Wells mouthed, spluttering water. "Slow it down."

Kennedy couldn't catch his breath. He reached for one of the staves.

"Easy. Easy. Don't wear yourself out." Wells gripped a splinter of wood.

Kennedy's lungs were raw. He tried to speak.

Wells was making slow movements, paddling towards him. Further out, others remained locked in intimate embraces. Their short-lived meetings, a flurry of dying reflexes; slow-dancing amid the wreckage.

"She's gone." Kennedy's racked mind couldn't distinguish the subject of his loss. He mourned everything.

"She'll be okay."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

They kept the remains of the barrel between them. Their faces were separated only by the haze of their laboured breaths.

"I almost made it," Kennedy wheezed.

Wells was nodding. "Same."

"Lifeboat. Where?"

Wells shook his head.

"One in twenty."

"Was being generous." Wells coughed out the words.

The cold snaked its way through Kennedy. It coated veins and nerves. He looked down. Wells had him grasped firmly by the sleeve. He tried to cover Wells' hand with his own. His fingers fumbled, feeling nothing.

A body passed by them, face down, drifting slowly. It made a languid turn, as if performing some elaborate routine. The rictus of Astor's smile was interrupted by a shattered corolla of split skin and bone. Some last kiss, imparted in the ship's departure. His face returned to the water.

It was growing quiet again. The ocean was a flat calm. Tranquil.

Kennedy felt himself slipping on the wood.

"Easy," Wells said.

Kennedy nodded. He had never been so tired.

"Carpathia. One hour."

Kennedy nodded.

"Keep your head up."

Kennedy nodded. He wiped his face against his sleeve, trying to dislodge the frozen moisture that crusted beneath his eyes. "Patricia."

"You're a father in December."

Kennedy nodded.

An hour. He looked at his wrist. His Einstein was frozen at two-twenty. He fumbled with the clasp. The pulp of his fingers tore open. The watch slipped off his wrist and into the water. He reached down.

It wasn't so cold now. He tugged at his holster, releasing it.

He turned back to Wells. He tried to talk. His lips were strips of skin flapping uselessly.

Wells' face was a blue-tinged mask of repose.

"Wells," Kennedy croaked.

He made no reply.

"Jonathan?"

There was no reply. No thin wisps of respiration.

A mist must have risen elsewhere, because it was getting harder to distinguish any shapes in the water. Something nudged against him, nestling against the crook of his arm. He tried to turn but the attempt barely elicited a ripple.

The echo of a thousand, thousand days and nights pressed themselves upon him. He followed them to where they coalesced and saw a multifaceted jewel, each edge a petrified moment. An infinite number of possibilities, awaiting his decision. Light flashed a brilliant rose red across its surface, drawing him in.

He made his selection, choosing here and there among the dazzling hues.

Is everything okay?

Everything's okay.

They sat closer now, almost touching.

I had the worst nightmare, Patricia.

Just a dream, Joseph.

I killed them all.

You imagined the whole thing.

John. David. Martin. Wells.

Dreams...

A chill had taken the air, seeming to issue from the desert floor below them rather than the darkening skies above.

Do you prefer sunrise or sunset?

His sense-of being here before-faded.

His sense of being faded.

I'm tired, Patricia, so very tired. But you're here now.

There was the soft promise of life beneath the swell of her abdomen, tight against her shirt. She kept still, letting his hand complete the caress.

Is it because I forget everything?

Forgetting will be a good thing, don't you think, Joseph?

Shifting hues, bronze and orange, spiralled above the chequerboard sand, darkening.

I like this part of the day. The sky changing colour with each passing moment.

It's all just fluid. Look up, look away, look up again and it's a whole new world.

There was the soft touch of something penetrating his insensate shroud. Some last quiver of her salved his broken lips.

That's a sunset, Joseph.