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of everything.

There were about a dozen ships. Like Barry had said, the core was a trio of large ones. St. George tried to work up from the smaller boats on the edge to estimate size, and decided the tanker and cargo ship were each somewhere around twelve hundred feet long. The ship between them was a few hundred feet shorter, but loomed over the others.

The center one was a multidecked cruise ship, the kind Carnival or Disney sailed. There’d been a logo on one of the cruise ship’s big smokestacks, some kind of fish, but it had weathered away and left a blue blur. A thick carpet of dark green covered the top decks.

A cargo ship rested against the cruise ship on the side facing them. Two long staircases reached down from the cruise ship. Stacks of steel containers spotted its deck, and a dense garden covered the rest, just as Barry had said. At least two dozen people worked the plants and soil.

“The other side’s the oil tanker, right?” asked St. George.

Yeah. And there’s also a big stone foot with four toes.

“A what?”

“He’s doing the Lost thing again,” said Madelyn.

Come on, he said. How often am I going to get to make crazy island references?

They swung to the right and circled around. There was a large yacht alongside the front of the cargo ship, and an industrial-looking fishing boat with a pair of cranes crossed in front of both of them. Boarding planks and ropes stretched between the ships, and across to a larger but less elegant yacht alongside the fishing boat that extended across the cruise ship’s bow.

People on the deck of the cargo ship pointed. The wind caught shouts and cries and carried fragments of them up to the heroes. More figures appeared at the railings of the cruise ship, and some ran out of the yachts.

I see guns, said Zzzap. Shotguns. A few pistols.

“Yeah, I see them too,” said St. George. They swung around the front of the ships and headed behind the island. Many of the people scrambled along to keep them in sight. “Looks like some people have weapons. Two or three on one guy, nothing on the people around them.”

“Maybe they don’t have any exes to deal with,” said Madelyn. “Not everybody at the Mount carries a gun.”

Fair point.

On the far side of the cruise ship was the oil tanker. It faced the opposite direction from the cruise ship, so its tall bridge and towers blocked their view of its deck. The heroes sailed around and saw the long expanse stretching out alongside the cruise ship. More people were here tending to another long garden spread out across the deck. St. George noticed a raised slab at the far end of the tanker. A bright white-and-yellow target spread across the slab, and it took him a moment to recognize it as a helipad.

Small ships ran along the side of the tanker. A yacht-sized boat. The tugboat Barry had mentioned. Another fishing boat. They were connected by planks and walkways at odd angles.

“I don’t mean to sound all bitchy,” said Madelyn, “but this place is kind of a dump, isn’t it?”

Once she said it, more of the little details leaped out at him. Ropes and chains ran back and forth between the vessels like a dyslexic spiderweb. Blankets and sheets hung from railings on all the ships, making small lean-tos and tents. Alongside the elegant gangways from the cruise ship, there were extension ladders braced between the different vessels.

About two hundred people watched them from the assorted decks. St. George saw male and female faces. Most of them looked thin, but none of them seemed unhealthy.

He looked over at Zzzap. “You see anything we should know about before we land?”

The gleaming wraith shook his head. Kind of a big lack of stuff. The only major heat sources look like campfires. No electrical currents here at all. No batteries. No radio signals. No solar cells anywhere, unless they’re covered. He shrugged. There might just be a lot of stuff belowdecks. All the layers of metal make it tough to see.

Madelyn craned her neck as they flew. “If they’ve got campfires, what are they burning for firewood?”

“Seaweed, I think,” said St. George. “Or kelp, maybe? They’re drying a bunch of it on a couple of the ships.”

I’ve always wondered, said Zzzap, is there a difference between kelp and seaweed?

“I don’t know, to be honest.”

“Kelp’s a type of seaweed,” said Madelyn. “Didn’t you guys ever take a biology class?”

You can remember that but not why you woke up in a life raft?

She shrugged.

St. George nodded. “Okay, then. Where do we land?”

“I think there was a helipad back on the oil tanker,” said Madelyn. “It had more seaweed on it, but I think that’s what it was.”

They continued around the cluster of ships and swooped down toward the helipad. St. George’s boots hit the slab. Madelyn unhooked herself and bounced on the tarmac. “Oh, wow,” she said. She took a few stiff steps and shook her legs out. “Oh, solid ground feels good.” She reached back and pulled one foot up toward her shoulder blades. One of her joints popped.

St. George sniffed the air. “Is it just me, or does it smell…bad?”

The wraith waved a hand at his head. I can’t smell anything.

Madelyn sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. “I smell…something,” she said. “My nose doesn’t always work that great anymore. Sorry.”

Hey, people coming, said Zzzap. He floated a few feet higher into the air. Looks like…well, everybody.

“Anybody with weapons?”

A couple of them. Maybe half a dozen?

Madelyn went to push her goggles up onto her forehead, but St. George waved her to stop. “Hold off showing them your eyes for now,” he said. “Let’s get a better feel for everyone here first.”

She gave him a quick salute. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t joke around too much,” he told her. “You can be friendly, but remember we don’t know how long these people have been cut off out here. We

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