Page 216 of Carousel

He should be going home.

“He’s in range. So, doesn’t seem like he is.”

“He is like a child,” Dezeeves wheezes. “An idiotic child!”

At last, Cosmer’s voice – still repeating Dezeeves – is at a normal volume. Meg thrusts a band over her head.

“Cosmer,” she snaps. “I mean this with respect. But you are really becoming a thorn in our side⁠—”

“Finally!” he yells over her. “Thought I was following a ghost ship⁠—”

“You’re following us?”

“Yes!” I can hear the smirk in his mouth. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Hope none of you were considering careers in reconnaissance.”

“Turn back. Now.”

“I’m guessing, by that attitude, you’re still not going to open a pod for me?”

“No!”

“I thought so. Okay,” he says, as if steeling himself. “Then one of you is just going to have to let me in through the airlock.”

Her composure cracks. “Cosmer. That would be madness⁠—”

“I’m going to depressurise now. Start slowing yourself down, too, Meg. Don’t hit my ship. Bumble is a tank. I honestly think The Emperor would come off worse.”

The frequency dies just as I finally get a band over my own head. My hands were shaking too much. I throw it back off.

“What is he doing?” I shout at them all.

Dezeeves turns the helm rapidly, his face an ugly grimace. Meg is already forcing down a lever, making us grind towards a stop. The whole ship keels to one side, cannisters and crates sliding across the floor.

Everyone seems to be understanding something I don’t yet. It’s making me panic more. The palpitations in my chest are physically hurting me.

And then my hands fly to my mouth. I’m unravelling.

Because directly in front of us, the ship I know is Cosmer’s is falling out of the sky.

I bend right over the table. Watch it plummeting, right until the slivers of glowing clouds below us consume it.

“He was supposed to go h-home,” I stammer, gripping the table. “He was supposed⁠—”

“He is not dead,” Drake says decisively, from right behind me. “Yet.”

“No one can say he isn’t persistent,” Meg states, flatly. “Who’s going to get him, then?”

“No one,” Dezeeves says. “If this is how he wishes to die.”

No, I think. Cosmer is not going to die today.

I repeat the conversation I just heard back in my head to understand what I need to do.

He crashed his ship deliberately.

He’s going to climb up to the airlock.

It sounds ridiculous. Reckless.