The Ark is hot and crowded; nobody’s bothered to invent proper ventilation. Lucidiannah’s berth is near the livestock. Her father didn’t bother to invent proper cabins, either, in a hundred and twenty years.

Sweating at her obvious chores, she contemplates the nature of their vessel: a boat with no rudder, no oars or sail. It’s meant to go nowhere. If the deluge ever begins to falter, will they even try to get back home?

Two of a kind. Lucidiannah groans and straightens to toss another shovelful out the porthole, and feels the growing weight of the drowned man’s daughter inside her.