Cold Silence

The rescue cutter's lamps find you days later, huddled in the Sovereign's frostbitten hull. Her boilers are dark, her copper veins silent, and the comet recedes behind you — its pulsing heart dimming, its secret sealed forever beneath ancient ice.

You survived. Others did not. Their names will be etched in brass on a memorial wall, read by mourners who will never know what you nearly touched.

Years later, in quiet observatories, scholars whisper of the night a steamship met something miraculous in the dark — and turned away. You alone know they are right.