Outpost (5 page)

Nail
shook his head and threw down his knife. They all reluctantly dropped their
weapons.

'Kick
them over here.'

They
kicked their knives into the stairwell.

'Hands
on your head. All of you.'

'No
hard feelings, all right?' said Nail. 'If you were in our position, you would
do the same thing.'

'Grab
some cans, fellas. You're going to help me load up.'

They
carried fuel cans to the ship and stowed them in the hold. The captain and
first mate stood on the transom, shotguns at the ready.

The
men reluctantly disembarked and stood on the dock platform.

'Sorry,
guys,' said the captain. 'Wish there was room for you all. Now why don't you
folks fuck off and let us get going?'

Departure.

Nail
and his gang of muscle freaks were nowhere to be seen.

The
remaining crew stood on the docking platform and shouted questions to the first
mate. Jane watched from the helipad. The mate stood at the prow, shotgun over
his shoulder. He kept his answers non-committal, said less than he knew. He
watched for any sign the Rampart crew might make another attempt to storm the
boat.

The
four chosen crewmen climbed aboard. There wasn't room for their luggage so they
left it behind. They stood on deck and waved as the tug pulled away.
Spirit of Endeavour.
A little ship on a big ocean.
Jane wondered if the boat would reach Scotland. It was a long journey south,
but they might make it if they ran ahead of the weather.

The
remaining crew retreated to their cabins to unpack.

There
was nothing new on TV.

CNN
was down.

Sky News was a test card: '
We apologise for the break in
transmission. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Normal
programming will resume shortly
.'

BBC:
a haggard newscaster repeated the same advice. Keep calm. Stay off the street.
Stay tuned for updates. Jane remembered the young man. He used to present the
weather. He used to stand in front of a map and forecast sunny spells and rain.
Now he found himself reporting the end of the world.

Punch
muted the sound and cued some tunes on the jukebox.

'Hope
you feel good,' he told Jane. 'You did something heroic today. You could be on
your way home right now.'

'I'm
not sure my mother would agree.'

'She'll
be all right.'

Jane
looked out to sea.

'Check
out the cloud bank. There's a weather front moving in. Waves are starting to
build.'

'I
went aboard with a box of food. It's little more than a rowing-boat. I wouldn't
want to be out there right now. Not with six people crammed inside. It'll be
touch-and-go. Take a lot of luck for them to reach land.'

'Think
we're better off here?'

'How
can we know? Did we give our folks a ticket home or send them to die?'

Rawlins
led Jane and Sian to an observation bubble on the roof.

The
bubble was at the edge of the helipad. A circle of windows gave a three-sixty
view of the refinery, the sea and the jagged crags of Franz Josef Land.

'Since
you two are staying you better make yourselves useful.' He pulled dust sheets
from transmission equipment. 'We should have done this days ago.' He pointed to
a swivel chair. 'Sit there,' he told Sian. 'Don't touch the sliders.' He
powered up a bank of amplifiers. 'A bloke called Wilson used to play DJ after
each shift. Had his own little drive-time show. I filled in for a couple of
days when he broke his wrist. This kit is designed to broadcast to the rig but
if the atmospherics are right we could reach two, three hundred miles.'

'What
about the ship-to-shore?'

'Too
patchy. I want to try short-wave. Go broad and local. It's a big ocean. We
can't be the only people stuck out here.'

'What
do I do?' asked Sian, positioning her chair in front of the mike.

'Press
to talk. Release to listen.'

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Con Amalgam refinery Kasker Rampart hailing any vessel, over.'

No
response.

'Mayday,
mayday. This is refinery platform Kasker Rampart requesting urgent assistance,
over.'

No
response.

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Kasker Rampart broadcasting to the Arctic rim, is anyone out
there, over?'

No
sound but the static hiss of a dead channel.

The
radar in Rawlins's office sounded a collision alarm. Iceberg warning. His desk
screen showed a massive object closing in, moving slow.

They
watched from the observation bubble. A mountain of ice passing five kilometres
distant. A table-berg, a colossal chunk of polar shelf. Ridges and canyons.
Blue ice marbled with sediment. A strange hellworld.

'I
walked on a berg once,' said Rawlins. 'They fizz and crackle. Trapped air.
Sounds like a bonfire.'

'Some
big waves down there,' said Jane.

Heavy
swells broke against the ice cliffs. Spume and spray.

'Yeah,'
said Rawlins. 'Wind speed is way up. There's another storm coming. Line
squalls. One cyclone after another until spring.'

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Con Amalgam refinery Kasker Rampart hailing any vessel, over.'

Two
a.m. Jane's turn at the microphone.

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Kasker Rampart broadcasting to the Arctic rim. Do you copy,
over?'

Sian
unscrewed her Thermos and refilled their cups.

'We're
alone out here,' said Sian.

'I
don't even want to think about it.'

The
upper deck of the rig was floodlit. A storm lashed the refinery. A blizzard
wind scoured girders and gantries. The girls watched the swarming ice particles
from the eerie silence of their Plexiglas bubble.

Sian
put her hand to the window. A thin film of plastic separating her from the
lethal hurricane outside. She felt the warm up-draught of the heating vent
between her feet and was acutely aware of the refinery's life support systems,
the elaborate machinery keeping them alive minute by minute in this implacably
hostile environment.

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Kasker Rampart. Can anyone hear me, over?'

'How
long until the sun sets for good?' asked Sian.

'Three
weeks.'

'Jesus.'

'Mayday,
mayday. This is Con Amalgam refinery Kasker Rampart requesting urgent
assistance, over.'

'Thank
God,
Rampart.
This is research base Apex One. It's wonderful to hear your voice
.'

Rawlins
swept his desk clear and unrolled a map of Franz Josef Land. He pegged the map
open with a stapler, a hole-punch and a couple of mugs.

'They
are here,' said Jane. 'Indigo Bay. Some kind of botanical research project.
Not much of a base. Two guys and a girl. A couple of tents. They ran out of
food days ago.'

'Poor
bastards.'

'Imagine
it. Out there in the middle of this storm. Huddled in a fucked-up Jamesway. I'm
amazed they are still alive.'

'Indigo
Bay,' said Rawlins. 'Nearly fifty kilometres. That's a long way to hike.'

'They've
got a rubber dinghy. No outboard. Otherwise they use skis.'

'Then
they're truly fucked.'

'We
have to help. We can't abandon them.'

'I
wanted to raise a rescue ship, not bring extra mouths to feed. So yeah, I must
admit, I'm reluctant to risk men and equipment for no real benefit.'

'That
cuts both ways. Why should anyone answer our call? Why should anyone pick us
up, help us home? We have nothing to offer. We're just a bunch more problems.'

'If
anyone is going to fetch these guys it will be Ghost. Rajesh Ghosh. Our
resident fixer. It's down to him.'

Rawlins
led Jane to the pump hall. The hall was a vast, poorly lit chamber on the
lowest level of the rig. The oil-streaked walls were ribbed with girders and
studded with pressure valves, stopcocks and instrumentation.

'Is
this the pipe?' asked Jane, walking the circumference of a huge steel column
that disappeared into the floor. 'The main oil line?'

'Yeah,
this is MOLL' He slapped the metal. 'It's retracted from the seabed right now,
but yeah, that's the umbilicus. When this facility is fully on-stream it can
suck nearly a million barrels a day of heavy crude out of the ground. The
entire Kasker field siphoned into these tanks. Super-grade. Liquid bullion.'

Jane
checked her watch. 'It's three in the morning.'

'He
doesn't keep office hours.'

They
followed the sticky-sweet smell of cannabis to a bivouac in the corner shadows
of the pump room. A camp stove. A pile of books. A guitar.

Ghost
lay on a bunk, eyes closed. He was Sikh. He had a turban and a heavy beard.

Rawlins
kicked the bunk. Ghost sat up and took off his headphones. Jane caught a brief
snatch of Sisters of Mercy.

'We
have a job for you,' said Rawlins.

They
studied the map.

'It's
too far.'

'We
could use snowmobiles,' said Rawlins. 'We could cover a lot of ground, if the
weather breaks.'

'Until
you reach your first crevasse and then you have to park and walk. A few weeks
ago it wouldn't have been a problem. But we're down to a couple of hours' daylight
and it's minus fifty out there. Normal circumstances, I wouldn't consider
leaving the rig. Shit. The sea is so rough we couldn't even reach the island
right now.'

'We
must do something,' said Jane. 'I'm not going to sit by that radio night after
night and listen to those poor sods freeze to death.'

'Okay,'
said Ghost. 'Here's the deal. We'll meet them halfway. There's a log cabin at
Angakut. Built by whalers. Empty, but good wind shelter. If they can make it
that far, we'll fetch them home. I'll go out myself, when the storm breaks.'

'Angakut?'

'It's
at the base of a mountain. You can see it for miles.'

'All
right.'

'And
you better tell them to get going, because the weather is going to get worse
before it gets better.'

Rawlins
summoned the crew to the canteen.

Most
channels were dead. BBC News no longer chronicled carnage. They had lost
contact with their outside broadcast units. Instead they re-ran communion from
Canterbury Cathedral.

'The
BBC has gone religious,' said Rawlins. 'Not a good sign, I think you'll agree.
We're doing everything we can to get off this platform. The girls are
broadcasting night and day. Sooner or later, someone will respond. But it's
time to admit we might be stuck here for winter. Maybe that's no bad thing.
Looks like all hell has broken loose back home. So if we are going to make it
through the next few months we need to get organised. I know you folks like
your privacy, but we can't heat and light the whole refinery. Everyone must
move into this block by tomorrow night. We'll live in these few rooms. The rest
of the rig can freeze.'

'I
want a sea view,' said Nail.

'Flip
a coin. Arm wrestle. I don't give a damn. Just get it done.'

Jane
joined Ghost in the canteen. They sat by the window. They sipped coffee and
watched the storm.

'I
didn't know we had snowmobiles,' said Jane.

'Two
of them. Part of a cache of stuff on the island. There's an old bunker near the
shore. Not much in it. Couple of Yamahas. Some fuel.'

'So
we must have a boat to get ashore.'

Ghost
smiled. 'Clever. Trying to formulate an escape plan, yeah? Well, that's the big
question. What if nobody comes for us? Worst-case scenario: how do we make our
own way home?'

Jane
liked Ghost. She wanted his approval. She knew full well she was emotionally immature,
prone to infatuation. She had to guard against it. Avoid making a fool of
herself.

'You
seem like a practical guy. What are the options?'

'We
have a rubber zodiac with a small outboard motor. Twenty- five horsepower. Room
for four men and no luggage. Wouldn't take us very far. We've got plenty of
hard-shell lifeboats, but no propulsion. The lifeboats are designed to drift
free of a burning rig. They float. That's all they do.'

'We
could build a big raft and put up a sail,' said Jane. 'An option, come spring.'

'Now
you're talking.'