The dead man’s fingers did not wish to part with their prize.
Rigor mortis had begun its work in the cold salt water. The tendons of the scout’s right wrist were hard as seasoned oak cords, binding the knuckles tight against the palm. Qiao Ming knelt in the knee-deep water, the cold of the dark rock flags seeping through his grease-soaked trousers into his kneecaps. With steady, patient thumbs, he massaged the stiffened joints, pressing the base of each hand bone until the frozen joint padding yielded with small, dry clicks.
One by one, the pale fingers opened.
Resting in the curled palm was a circular instrument of heavy brass.
It was four inches in width, three inches thick, forged from an unfamiliar, pale alloy that lacked the warm reddish copper tones of deep-sea bronze. Its surfaces were crusted with dark, dried blood that had hardened into a brittle enamel along the rim. Embedded within the outer bezel were thirty-six tiny gear teeth, each meshed with a tiny gear catch gearwork that was ticking—a dry, rhythmic scritch-scratch that sounded like an insect chewing through dry thick parchment.
Qiao Ming lifted the foreign disk from the dead palm.
In his hands, the object felt unnervingly cold. It was a star compass, yet it violated every sacred principle of the instruments he had carried for thirty years.
