The Three-Day Silence

“The Pale Compass sits low in the water, which means her hold is full, which contradicts the manifest the harbourmaster handed you, which lists ballast and dry goods. The crew on deck have the look of people waiting for something they cannot name to stop waiting with them. A woman with a bosun's braid watches you come up the gangplank without blinking, which is not normal, and a man near the mainmast has been coiling the same section of rope for the entire time you have been standing on the pier. The quarantine flag snaps overhead in a wind that is not blowing anywhere else in the harbor. Somewhere below deck, something shifts its weight.”