Outpost (30 page)

'Reckon
she and Ghost are actually fucking?' asked Gus. 'Not a pretty picture, is it?'
said Nail.

Jane
and Ghost spent a night in the observation bubble. They laid sleeping bags on
the deck. They lay naked and looked at the stars.

'You
think they can see us from here?' asked Jane. 'Who?'

'Guys
on
Hyperion.
We'd better keep the lights off.
They might have found binoculars.'

'Tempted
to give them a flash.'

'You
should stay here,' said Jane. 'I don't know why you hang out with those idiots on
Hyperion.
Brain-dead as the passengers.
They haven't raised the average IQ a single point.' 'Shitty thing to say about
Punch.'

'You
know what I mean. You guys should come over here. You, Punch, Sian.'

'It
would be a cosy little club, but if we let that kind of us- and-them situation
develop things could get nasty pretty quick.'

'So
you're going to leave me out here with Mal?' 'Lock a couple of doors if it
creeps you out.' Mal's body had been brought back to Rampart prior to burial at
sea. The guys took a vote. The rig had been his home. It seemed appropriate to
stand between the great floatation legs of the refinery and commit his body to
the waves.

'Come
back with me,' said Ghost. 'The staterooms are spectacular. The upper-echelon
crew lived like kings.'

'And
thousands of lunatics the other side of the door.' 'It kept me awake nights at
first. But this is our life now. Europe is overrun. If we get back home we will
have to spend the rest of our lives behind castle walls, one way or another.
Might as well get used to the idea.'

'I
can't help feeling it is a honey trap, a gilded cage. We'll fritter away our
time. Get fat. Get drunk. Die out here at the edge of the world.'

Nail
and Gus sat strapped in their seats as the DSV was lowered into the sea. Winch-judder
made the flesh of their faces tremble. Nail hugged his bandaged arm.

Jolt
and scrape as the submersible broke through the ice crust. Clunk of the winch
release.

Nail
and Gus unlatched their harnesses and sat forward.

Brief
vent from the buoyancy tanks. Water bubbled past the portholes as the vehicle
submerged.

Gus
took control of the fly-by-wire control column and vectored forward and down.

'Kick
in the arcs.'

Nail
flipped a switch and the arc light array at the front of the vessel lit
incandescent. Blackness beyond the portholes was replaced by swirling sediment,
and air bubbles rippling like globules of mercury.

'Down
fifty. Trim good. Forward point five.'

Gus
checked an overhead screen. An acoustic beacon mapped their bearing from the
rig.

Nail
zipped his sweatshirt. He pulled on a woollen hat and fingerless gloves.
Condensed breath trickled down the chilled metal of the pressure hull.

'Heading
hold.'

The
sub ran on auto-pilot.

Gus
sipped water. Nail swigged from a hip flask.

'You've
been hitting the sauce pretty hard these past few days,' said Gus. 'Better if
you kept your head.'

Nail
toasted him with the flask.

'L'chai-im'.

'Is
it Mal?' asked Gus. 'Is that what's eating you up?'

'Fuck
Mal.'

'Is
it Nikki?'

'Just
drive the fucking sub.'

'You're
losing it. You're out of shape. Yeah, you broke your arm. But you're drunk all
day, every day. The guys look up to you. They don't give a shit about Jane and
her little gang. They're waiting for you to take a lead.'

'Fuck
you,' said Nail. He took a long swig. 'Fuck the lot of you.'

They
monitored the system screens. They didn't speak.

'Damn,'
said Gus, breaking the silence. 'Take a look at this.'

A
slow pass of D Module.

Buckled
walls. Empty windows. The DSV thrusters stirred swirling debris.

'That's
my old room,' said Gus. 'That one there.'

Nail
took another swig. Gus looked at him in disgust.

'Jesus.
Just sit back there, all right? Just keep out of the way.'

Jane
and Ghost sat in Rawlins's office.

'Rampart
to DSV, do you copy, over?'

'Go
ahead
.'

'How
are you boys doing?'

'Approaching
Hyperion.
We should reach it any minute
.'

'Can
you give us a camera feed?'

'Should
be coming through now
.'

Jane
switched on the desk screen. Blue murk. Darting particles of sediment. They sat
back and waited for the sub to reach
Hyperion.

'I'll
give you another reason to move to the ship,' said Ghost.

'What's
that?'

'The
ice around Rampart has reached the island. Those fucks from
Hyperion
are right beneath the refinery.
We can't zip back and forth between the rig and this ship without risking our
necks. You're marooned.'

'All
right. You sold me.'

Jane
wanted to move in with Ghost, but she didn't want to seem too eager. She wanted
to be wooed.

'DSV to
Rampart.'

'Go
ahead.'

'Big
sonar hit. Coming up on
Hyperion
.'

Jane
and Ghost leaned closer to the screen.

'Well,
there it is,' said Ghost.

'Jesus.'

A
massive, bronze propeller, as high as a house, emerged from the sediment fog.

The
DSV passed the length of
Hyperion's
keel. Gus and Nail looked through the overhead
porthole. Nail sipped black coffee from a flask.

Riveted
hull plates. Nail held up a video camera. Additional footage for review when
they got back to Rampart.

Gus
checked range estimation. The ping of the Sunwest sonar increased frequency until
it became a steady tone. Collision warning.

'Here
comes the rock wall.'

A
jagged basalt cliff emerging from the gloom.

'Full
stop.'

Gus
brought the sub to a standstill.

'All
right. Let's take a look.'

Gus
re-angled the arc lights so they could check for damage below the waterline.

'There,'
said Nail. 'A big split in the plates.'

Gus
swivelled the thrusters and tilted the DSV to face the hull. Nail squirmed
closer to the cockpit bubble and filmed the damage. Weld-seams had torn when
Hyperion
hit the refinery.

'Get
us closer,' said Nail.

They
approached the fissure. Plates peeled back like petals.

'Can
we get more light in there?'

'Probably
looks worse than it is,' said Gus. 'If this split ran the length of the ship we
would be in trouble. Jane, are you getting this?'

'Yeah, we see it. Looks like we lost a couple of
compartments, but it's still sound. If we wait until the spring thaw, then
throw the engines in reverse, it might float free
.'

'What's
that?' said Nail, pressing closer to the glass.

'Where?'

'Right
there.'

Gus
re-angled the arc lights.

'Christ.'

Beyond
the fissure, deep in the shadows of the flooded compartment, was a body. It
floated, arms outstretched. A man in a boiler suit. Some kind of mechanic.

'Drag
him out the way,' said Nail. 'Let's see how deep the damage runs. I'd like to
check for structural issues.'

Gus
shifted position and took hold of a joystick. He unfolded the starboard
manipulator arm. The multi-jointed limb reached inside the hull. Titanium tweezer-claws
swivelled and opened. Gus gripped the dead man's head and pulled him through
the fissure.

Gus
brought the mechanic closer to the cockpit window. The dead man's hair swirled
in the current. His face was framed by steel fingers.

'He
hasn't been dead long,' said Gus. 'I doubt he was killed when
Hyperion
ran aground. I bet he stumbled
into the flooded compartment during the last couple of days.'

'No
sign of infection.'

The
dead man opened his eyes and stared directly at Nail. Jet-black eyeballs.

Gus
pressed Close. The claws scissored shut. The mechanic's skull popped in a cloud
of blood and brain tissue.

Nikki
rode the swells. Seven days at sea. Seven days of perpetual starlit darkness.
It was like sailing through space.

She
had barely slept. Snatched moments of rest. She worried she would fall asleep
at the tiller and quickly freeze.

The
boat was frosted with ice. Fierce cold. Gentle waves. The weather had begun to
turn. The brilliant dusting of stars was slowly eclipsed by cloud. Turbulence
chasing her from the north, gaining fast. The boat was designed to survive a
storm. As soon as bad weather hit, she could lower the sails and seal herself
below deck. She would bob like a cork as the boat rode mountainous waves and
troughs. If the bolts and welds held fast, she would survive.

She
stood in the cockpit and ate dry cereal from the packet, washed down with sips
of water. The rudder was locked in position with nylon cord.

A
cold, blue haze began to lighten the southern sky. Somewhere, far over the
horizon, it was daytime. Navigation was easy. No need for a compass. All she
had to do was head for the light.

Nikki
wore three fleece jackets and a foil blanket. Two weeks at sea. She stank. She
couldn't wash herself or her clothes.

She
rode the swells. Later, if the weather stayed calm, she would seal herself
below and snatch an hour of sleep. The steel and aluminium hull of the boat had
been lagged with polystyrene packing blocks to trap heat.

Grinding,
growling plates of ice.

'Nikki?
Nikki, can you hear me?'
Jane's voice
.

The
radio was hung in a canvas bag beneath the hatch. Nikki spoke into a handset
like a Bakelite telephone.

'How's
it going, Jane?'

'The
crew transferred to
Hyperion.
I'm alone on the refinery
.'

'Nobody
cares about your little gestures. Get over there and have a good time.'

'Got
a name for it yet?'

'The
boat? It's a pile of nuts and bolts. Things are what they are.'

'A
boat has to have a name
.'

'I
don't want to find the poetry in my soul. I don't want to rediscover my lost
humanity. I'm trying hard to keep things real, which is probably why I'm part
way home and you're still trapped in that steel tomb.'

'What
will you do when you reach land? Have you thought about it
?

'Survival.
The sovereign state of me. It'll be bliss.'

'How's
the weather
?'

'Calm
enough. The wind cuts like a knife. Seem to be making good time. Hard to judge
speed, but the current is strong.'

'
Position
?'

'By
my reckoning I'm north-west of Murmansk. The current should funnel me past
Norway the next few days. I'll be out of radio contact long before then.'

'Keep
well. Keep lucky. Ill speak to you tomorrow
.'

Nikki
slept in her bunk. The hull was packed with supplies. Boxes of food, bags of
clothes. She had shoved them aside to create a tight coffin space in which she
could stretch out in a sleeping bag. The aluminium roof of the hull was
directly above her head. She lay in the dark and listened to her breath, loud
and harsh in the confined space.

An
impact. A metallic scrape against the side of the boat. A second impact. An
iceberg? A whale?

She
flipped open the hatch. There were strange shapes in the water, clustered
boulders like drifting chunks of ice. She switched on her flashlight and
scanned the surface of the ocean. The sea was full of floating cars. White
Nissan Navaras. An undulating vista of gloss metal reflecting the moonlight.
Some of the utility vehicles were upside down. Water washed over galvanised
chassis and alloy wheels. A cargo ship must have spilled its load. Freight
containers washed from the deck, smashed open as they hit the sea. The cars
held enough trapped air to keep themselves afloat.