It had been a day now, he thought. The ship had been attacked shortly before sunset, and it had been night and then another day since then, the sun starting to dip again towards the horizon. Score one for him – but he’d barely survived the night intact, cold doing nothing for the agony in his side, and although the sun had meant warmth, he had also now been a day without water.

He snorted at the irony, that he would die of dehydration while surrounded by water – but then, the wound might well kill him first. Almenia would never know what had happened to him; all the intelligence he’d gathered, his entire mission, useless.