About a year later the deck boss signaled the third deckhand to spell her, and she pulled her weary way over to the hold with arms that trembled in protest. She sat a moment on the edge, her numb hands beating some kind of response into the legs dangling into the hold, uncaring of the spray scouring the deck with a frozen hand.

"Get a move on those bait jars, Shugak!" Nordhoff barked.

A sudden rage, welcome because it warmed her, drove her to her feet and to the bait table butted up against the foredeck. At that same moment a malicious gust of wind swirled around the boat and momentarily enveloped the foredeck in a miasma of diesel exhaust.

The rage was as instantly replaced by nausea. She barely made it to the rail in time. Cereal, milk and water, all of it came up and then some, in retching, wrenching bursts that left her exhausted and trembling. Someone laughed, and it wasn't a nice laugh. It had to be Nordhoff. She hung, head down, wanting nothing so much as for the next wave to sweep her over the side and into the oblivion of a cold, wet and final embrace, anything to stop the heaving motion of her entire world.

All too soon, a voice boomed out. "Goddammit, get busy, Shugak!"

This time it was the captain's voice, bellowing down at her from an open window on the bridge, and this time when she struggled to repress her initial reply she saw Jack's face. Jack's entire body in a cast. Jack's tombstone, sans the Rest in Peace. She didn't want Jack to rest in peace. She wanted Jack to burn in hell.

Unable to summon up even enough energy to swear aloud, she called on every shaking muscle and pulled her way back to the bait table. The block of frozen herring was sliding back and forth with the heaving action of the Avilda, and she grabbed for it with one hand and for the big knife with the plastic handle with her other.