The swell dies away. Tara moves slowly under a slack curve of sails, accompanied by the languorous rattle of blocks and lines. Hannah and Michael prepare a hot, thick stew, boiling barley, carrots, and potatoes together with meat from a can before spooning the mixture into blue metal bowls. Hans and Harky take turns steering and eating, holding the bowls in their laps. “Feels good,” rumbles Harky, wrapping his hands around the heat of the bowl. Dutch stirs under a bundle of blankets, grunting a disinterest in food. The last limb of the sun drops out of sight, and Hans points to a first star shining low in the east, a bright sparkle of blue near the edge of the horizon. The temperature drops rapidly. Slowly at first, then with increasing frequency, random stars begin to pepper the sky, filling in the dark spaces. Michael sorts a certain star from the constellations and points. “That’s Polaris, the North Star,” he says, going on to explain that this is the pole star, fixed in position directly above the axis of the Earth.
