He carried the wire in his skin.
They ate like men paying a bill, not winning a feast. Steam fogged the galley lamps and then forgave itself. Andrew slid bowls with a gambler's confidence and a host's pride.
"Fuel," he said. "Then we insult geology."
"We insult whatever is in front of us," Pelly said. He set his ash dish down like a treaty and tapped chopsticks—once, twice. "Fifty heartbeats."
Gray read and ate at the same time, the logbook open beside his elbow like a second mouth. He wrote without looking down.
[FOOD: SHORT. RULES: HOLD.]
No one thanked anyone. Debts lived where they belonged. They took the corridor back to the light—wanted posters and nailed photographs laughing the same laugh to wood. The deck received them with bright mercy and cold manners.
"Status," Pelly said.
Alder's hum: "Helm steady. Breath from port."
Abel: "Horizon is cliffs, teeth, and private arguments. No flags. No lanterns."
Charles sat cross-legged by the coil, cup and beads still. "Hinge left, talking like it doesn't want to be a hinge."
"Words, not poetry," Pelly warned.
"A door," Charles translated. "It's breathing through a lie."
"No cloud," Gray told Andrew.
"I am obedience," Andrew said, wounded and proud.
"Rules," Pelly said, because the air gets easier when you remind it. "Don't widen. Choose one. Deck stays a deck. Cloud on order. Lines first. No one falls. Don't say names. Smile at fate."
The ship slid forward into an alley of rock where the light grew thin and the sound got fat. Ahead, a low wall of stone wore a slick of water that looked like a face trying not to inhale. On its exhale the sheet tightened and dragged the surface toward a black seam.
"Not a wall," Charles said softly. "A throat sideways."
"Choose one," Gray said.
Ace stepped to the rail. He watched the lip—not the shine, the seam where water married stone and pretended it was always happy. He waited for the blink when the sheet forgot its lie—a tiny back-step between suck and slack—and laid one needle into the seam, not proud, angled to steal space from the heat so the bite belonged to the lip and not the wall.
The exhale missed a step. The drag came late and sloppy.
"Again," Gray said, and Ace set a second pin, a thumb's width from the first, so the two agreed. The sheet breathed wrong on purpose now, which was better than breathing right by accident.
Alder trimmed a degree the moment the breath miscounted. Damon leaned a brace into honesty. Teuton put one hand near a coil like a threat with patience.
They passed where the wall had wanted a mouth.
[LOGBOOK][SIDE THROAT: LIP KISSED TWICE. SOG LOST ITS MANNERS. PASSED.]
The alley widened in the manner of men who move their shoulders so they can keep their pride. A white curtain fell from a slot ahead—no waterfall, a falling skin the width of a yard, silent and heavy as a kept promise. It didn't hit the water hard enough to brag; it made a sheet that wanted to be a wall.
"Door that pretends not to be a door," Gray said, pleased.
"Translation," Pelly said.
"Down-rush," Charles muttered. "Blink is when it thins to think about itself."
Ace watched the sheet forget itself at the neck—a flick where water goes from fall to flow. He put a single point there, not to cut but to split. The curtain seamed down its center for the length of a breath. The ship slid through the new window like a rumor refusing to explain.
"Acceptable," Gray said.
Andrew made a low noise of admiration and didn't ask for cloud, which was growth.
[LOGBOOK][FALLING SKIN: ONE POINT SPLIT. WINDOW MADE. RULES KEPT.]
The alley took a turn that wanted to be polite and failed. Ahead lay a dead patch—water so still it looked like mercy. A faint comb rode its far lip: tooth-marks too tidy to be chance.
"Rotating plate," Damon said under his breath, professional disgust staining the word. "Seen them in bad harbors."
"Choose one," Gray said, softer.
Ace didn't flirt with the comb's teeth. He looked for the axis—that quiet depression in the center where spin keeps its secrets. When the blink arrived—an intake the plate made after it forgot to be still—Ace pressed smaller right through it. He did not widen; he did not perform. The plate stumbled. The teeth at the rim lost their scold.
Alder eased; Teuton shifted; Pelly watched the deck and judged it innocent for another minute.
"Acceptable," Gray said. He tapped the logbook with the back of his knuckles and wrote.
[ROTATION TRAY: AXIS MARKED. RIM MADE BORING.]
Ace's fingers started to tremble, polite and late. He turned them palm-down in the shadow of the rail and told the shake its name. Cost, not failure.
Pelly saw and pretended not to. "Kitchen in ten if you keep being dull," he bargained with fate.
"Five," Gray countered, amused.
They cleared the alley into a small bowl that had forgotten how to hate. White lines sulked along black plates and then gave up. From a black slit to starboard leaked cold air that smelled like iron left outside in rain. A faint metallic echo knocked twice and pretended it was the cave settling.
Charles tilted his head. "Hinge that belongs to a person," he said.
"Words, not—" Pelly began, then stopped himself. "Fine. Translation?"
"Someone used that slit the way we use doors," Charles said. "It breathes like a habit."
Gray's grin sharpened the way knives do when they remember work. "Don't widen," he told Ace, gentle as blade oil. "Bite when it breathes."
Ace lifted his hand.
He did not widen.