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soon. Without gloves, his fingers instantly ached. He knew, once inside, his ears would sting again when that incongruous heat of supercooled flesh returned to normal temperatures and his knuckles would swell and stiffen. He’d have to sit awhile holding a cup of something hotter than the coffee he’d set on the rail before he could move them well enough to unzip his fly or set up a chessboard. He hesitated, thinking about going inside to gather his jacket and gloves from the change room. No. He was here now, alone with the craft. Any future adventures out of doors were going to require full weather gear, but he could handle this short task. He set to accomplish his inspection as quickly as possible, stuffing his fingers in his armpits until he needed his hands.
    The cold reminded him of a friend in Seattle who was a fitness trainer. He seemed to burn calories just breathing. He radiated warmth like a space heater and lived in shorts and, if it was real cold, maybe a long-sleeved shirt. Like Noah’s first year at UDub had proved he couldn’t coast on his native intelligence, Noah had quickly learned there was no such thing as not minding the cold in the Arctic. Fit or not, you dressed properly. Valuing his fingers and nose, he set to work quickly.
    As well as he could tell, the port Fast Rescue Craft was as ready as the starboard one. His ability to tell, however, was limited. The other men were quick to point out his experience deep sea fishing in the Atlantic with his father “meant exactly dick,” as they would put it, in Alaska’s high seas. They were right, too. He was constantly playing catch-up to the demands of working on a ninety-meter heavy cargo transport as opposed to a seventy-five-foot fishing trawler. The others knew every move required to keep things running smoothly and safely by habit and good instinct. He wasn’t green, but he wasn’t exactly seasoned, either. Noah existed in a shadow space in between. If he had his druthers, he’d rather spend any day on dry land rather than on board a ship. But he didn’t have his druthers. He had to work. And finding work that paid the bills was no easy feat in the present economy—not with his skills, anyway. No more part-time grocery store clerking or university work study jobs.
    Finishing his inventory of the lifeboat, he hazarded a peek over the side of the ship hoping to catch a glimpse of the water below. Bending over the rail, he bumped his cup and sent the coffee over the side. It fell into the fog and disappeared without a sound. The thrum of the engines drowned out the splash. “God damn it.” He leaned farther over the edge trying to get a look. The fog remained too thick; he could only see halfway down. He strained and thought he could hear the water slapping at the hull. Yep, he could hear it. It splashed. And banged. And scraped. There was ice in the water.
    A vision of a giant white and blue cliffside into which they were about to crash loomed in his mind. The mental picture of it made his stomach tighten. He felt the first touch of nausea he’d ever felt at sea in his life. The fear of it clawed at him, ripping at his courage. A gust of wind blew, tightening his skin and making his muscles tremble. It blew the mist swirling below him in an eddy and away from the hull. For a brief moment, he saw the water and what was scraping against the side of the ship. Thousands—or maybe millions, depending on how far what he was seeing extended into the fog—of spiky ice crystals reached up from the water like perfect white stars flaring in space. Each one resembled a small explosion frozen and preserved at the moment when it was most beautiful before revealing blackened crater and scorched death beneath. Frost flowers. He remembered they were called frost flowers. They were pushed away by the ship’s wake, pulled under and crushed, broken on the side of the hull tearing through their quiet field