Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler

the wrists and pulled her on board. Released from his burden, Pitt climbed up a rope ladder. One of the female scientists threw a blanket around the woman and was about to guide her down a companionway when Pitt stopped her.
    He looked into those blue eyes and asked, “What’s so important in that briefcase that you almost died trying to save it?”
    She gave him an exhausted look. “My father’s lifework.”
    Pitt looked at the case with new respect. “Do you know if your father was saved?”
    She slowly shook her head and looked forlornly into the ash-coated water with its many floating bodies. “He’s down there,” she whispered.
    Then she abruptly turned and disappeared down the companionway.
     
    F inally, the boats had retrieved as many of the living as could be found. They transferred those who were badly in need of medical attention onto the survey ship, and then pulled away a short distance, carrying as many survivors as they could hold without endangering them and helping to relieve the tightly packed conditions aboard.
    Pitt contacted the boat crews through his portable radio. “We’re heading around to the bow to look for more survivors. Follow in our wake.”
    No anthill could have been more congested than the Deep Encounter when the final living survivor was taken on board. Bodies were crammed in the engine room, the scientific storerooms, the laboratories and the crew and scientists’ quarters. They were sitting or stretched out in the lounge, the galley, staterooms and mess room. Every passageway was full. Five families were crowded in Captain Burch’s cabin. The pilothouse, chart room and radio room were filled with people. The 3,400-square-foot main work deck was like an unseen street, a sea of souls packed on top of it.
    The Deep Encounter was sitting so low that water sloshed over the gunnels onto the work deck whenever the hull was struck by waves higher than four feet. Meanwhile, the crew of the Emerald Dolphin did themselves proud. Only when the cruise ship’s stern was free of the last passenger did they begin to drop down the lines themselves and board the crowded survey ship. Many had suffered burns, having waited until the last moment to see the passengers off before fleeing the consuming flames and abandoning the ship.
    No sooner had they stepped on deck than those of them who were able to began assisting the overworked scientists to make the passengers’ congested situation more comfortable. Death also came aboard the Deep Encounter. Several of the badly burned and those injured from the fall into the water succumbed and died amid the low murmur of prayers and weeping, as the bodies of loved ones were carried out and put over the side. Space for the living was too valuable.
    Pitt sent the ship’s officers up to the pilothouse to report to Captain Burch. To a man, they offered their services, which were gracefully accepted.
    McFerrin was the last man down.
    Pitt was waiting for him and caught his arm to keep the burned and exhausted man from stumbling and falling. He looked at the seared flesh on McFerrin’s fingers and said, “A pity I can’t shake the hand of a brave man.”
    McFerrin studied his burned hands as if they belonged to someone else. “Yes, I think it will be awhile.” Then his face clouded. “I have no idea how many, if any, of the poor devils who made their way to the bow are still alive.”
    “We’ll know soon,” Pitt replied.
    McFerrin looked around the survey ship, seeing the waves slosh over the work deck. “It would seem,” he said calmly, “that you are in an extremely perilous situation.”
    “We do what we can,” Pitt joked with a grim smile.
    He sent McFerrin to the hospital, then turned and shouted to Burch up on the bridge wing. “That’s the last of them on the stern, Skipper. The rest went for the bow.”
    Burch simply nodded and closed down the thruster control console. Then he moved into the pilothouse. “The helm is yours,” he said to