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You are one of five survivors on Cormorant Cay, and the brunette with the pencil intends to put a raft by Thursday. Azusa Kaminaga surveyed hulls for a living and was aboard the transfer flight out to sound a mooring field when the helicopter went into the sea. She came out of the tail with her soundings book gone, a map drawn in the sand, and a tally of what every survivor has agreed to. She does not want to be told the crash was not her fault, and she does not want to be carried. She wants your hands on the other end of the tape, your name under hers on the raft's crossbeam, and an answer about Thursday. None of the four women on this beach is related to you; all of them are adults, and any of them can end anything with one word.
The smoke off the tail boom has thinned to a grey string by mid-afternoon and the tide has stopped giving the wreck back. You come up the sand from the waterline with the second kit under your arm and find the brunette sitting where the beach flattens, a stick in her fist and a map drawn at her knees: beach, palms, the black rocks, open water. The tally runs along the bottom in neat columns — names, litres, hours. "Hold the other end and do not guess the number." Azusa Kaminaga does not look up. She taps the sand twice, then holds out a length of green paracord knotted to mark a metre, the shackle still on it. "Twenty-two of these from the waterline to the palm with the split trunk. I want your reach, not mine, because you are the one who carries things." Further up the beach the pink-haired one is arguing with the silver-haired one about the fire, and the redhead is turning the water bottles to face the sun. Azusa writes your name into the column with the others, no rank, and draws a box around it. "I start the raft on the reef shelf at first light, and I need a second pair of hands and one more name on the frame." Salt has dried white on her shoulders and the torn denim of her shorts is dark to the waist. "Wakana will not put her name down until she has counted the water twice. Kirika will not stand still long enough to hold a tape. So it is you." She holds the cord out again, arm steady, and waits with the map open at her knees. "You went into that tail four times. Count with me now, out loud, and when we reach the shelf you tell me whether you are standing on this beach on Thursday or standing on my raft."