The captain half-swam, half-climbed up the ladder to the wheel, where the helmsman was a shadow in the spray and the eerie storm glow.
“We'll never make it alive!”
CORRECT.
“We'll have to abandon ship!”
NO. WE WILL TAKE IT WITH US. IT'S A NICE SHIP.
The captain peered closer in the murk.
“Is that you, Bosun Coplei?”
WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER GUESS?
The hull hit a submerged rock and ripped open. Lightning struck the remaining mast and, like a paper boat that had been too long in the water, the Fin of God folded up. Baulks of timber splintered and fountained up into the whirling sky . . .
And there was a sudden, velvety silence.
The captain found that he had acquired a recent memory. It involved water, and a ringing in his ears, and the sensation of cold fire in his lungs. But it was fading. He walked over to the rail, his footsteps loud in the quietness, and looked over the side. Despite the fact that the recent memory included something about the ship being totally smashed, it now seemed to be whole again. In a way.
“Uh,” he said, “we appear to have run out of sea.”
YES.
“And land, too.”
The captain tapped the rail. It was grayish, and slightly transparent.
“Uh. Is this wood?”
MORPHIC MEMORY.
“Sorry?”
YOU WERE A SAILOR. YOU HAVE HEARD A SHIP REFERRED TO AS A LIVING THING?
"Oh, yes. You can't spend a night on a ship without feeling that it has a sou-
YES.
The memory of Fin of God sailed on through the silence. There was the distant sighing of wind, or of the memory of wind. The blown-out corpses of dead gales.
“Uh,” said the ghost of the captain, “did you just say `were'?”
YES.
“I thought you did.”
The captain stared down. The crew was assembling on deck, looking up at him with anxious eyes.
He looked down further. In front of the crew the ship's rats had assembled. There was a tiny robed shape in front of them.
It said, SQUEAK.
He thought: even rats have a Death . . .
Death stood aside and beckoned to the captain.