Colony

by Benjamin Cross

  “Yeah, well, trust me,” Callum replied, “Jonas would want me to drink this whiskey. Every last drop.”

  “Even if you are throw it all back up again and waste it?”

  The logic was sound and Callum couldn’t help laughing. “Jonas would’ve liked you. I’m sorry you never got to meet.”

  “Yes, but then I would never have met you,” she said.

  Their eyes met, but before Callum could reply, she released his hand and stood up. “I know what you need.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You need distraction,” she answered. “Go and put on your boots and jacket and meet me on the deck. Ten minutes.”

  She strode off towards the door.

  “But, Darya, I’m drunk,” he shouted after her.

  “Not for long,” she called back.

  Emerging from the deckhouse in his outdoor gear, Callum checked his watch. Nearly half past one in the morning. The sun was up – as ever – and the sky was clear and blue. Over the last few weeks the ice had largely melted from the bay. Where there had been fissures, there were now vast polynyas, areas of open water with only a few diminutive icebergs lolling on their surfaces. The water itself seemed unnaturally dark, as if its long winter concealment had been enough to shield it from the bleaching effects of the sun.

  He stared over at the island. Even though it was no longer new, the sight of the mysterious hunk of twisted rock, with its coves like hatchet gashes and its peaks like worn molars, still sent a shiver down his spine, half-excitement, half-fear. The image of Ngana’bta fleeing from Tansu Taibaa flashed before his eyes. He could think of no more fitting a place for an ancient monster’s lair.

  Darya was waiting for him. He followed her along the deck, past the row of lifeboats strung along the funnel-house wall and towards the helipads. Then they descended a long staircase onto the lower deck.

  The asphalt platform, on which the two helicopters were perched, now formed a canopy overhead. Its considerable girth was supported by a row of thick, white-painted steel girders. Darya strode towards the first of these. A small control panel was mounted centrally at head height. She tugged the lid open to reveal a confusion of switches.

  “What are you doing?” Callum whispered.

  She said nothing but reached out and tapped the black button in the centre.

  “Darya?”

  There was a low clunking sound before the stern ramp uncoupled itself and began to lower onto the water’s surface like a drawbridge. Callum stared down at the water lapping against the end of the ramp. “If it’s all the same, I think I’ll stick to the pool.”

  “Come and help me,” she replied, heading for the vehicle bays.

  Callum followed her to the end compartment. The tambour door rattled as she slid it up to reveal one of the two Czilim hovercrafts that Mr Volkov had mentioned on the tour. Callum had seen them on more than one occasion over the last couple of weeks, patrolling around the island manned with Spetsnaz.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “No, not that,” she replied, with her half-smile half-frown, “that.”

  He followed the line of her finger to the roof above the hovercraft. There, upside down, hung a wooden canoe. It looked to be at least four metres long, and it was suspended from the ceiling by a system of elastic cables.

  Callum turned to her. “Okay, now you really are joking! I haven’t been in one of those things since I was a lad.”

  “Then the distraction begins now.”

  “But can you even… I mean, do you know how to—”

  “Of course. It is not difficult.”

  “But we’re supposed to have a guide with us,” he said, casting around for new excuses. “What if we run into a bear?”

  “Hah!” She laughed. “Please to trust me. The most dangerous animals on that island will be you and me. And besides,” she reached back over her shoulder and patted the top of her rucksack, “I have my bear spray.”

  5

  The sea was like a millpond, calm and still. With a little guidance, Callum soon got into the rhythm of paddling, and with every stroke the island seemed to grow. The canoe was surprisingly nifty, dodging in and out of the remnant ice, skirting around the larger chunks that glistened and rocked like buoys from side to side.

  As the exertion burnt away the alcohol from his system, it was replaced by the feeling of intense jet-lag that came with continued exposure to the midnight sun. Light-lag, Peterson had called it at dinner one night. “Anyone else feel like there’s a goddamn balloon inside their skull?”

  When they were only a few hundred metres from shore, they turned and began to follow the lie of the east coast northwards. There was no breeze. The current was gentle but insistent, urging them towards the shoreline and forcing them to maintain momentum.

  “How deep is the water here?” Callum asked.

  “It is shallow,” Darya replied. “Perhaps only fifty metres.”

  When Callum and his brother had paddled across Loch Ness as children, the water had been over four times deeper. Yet it had felt no more than a shallow pool. This was different. Fifty metres or not, it was fifty metres of Arctic Ocean. He focussed on paddling. “Are you going to tell me where we’re headed?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They continued on in silence, with nothing but the sound of the oars patting into the water to either side.

  There was a sudden splash and something broke the surface up ahead. Callum stopped paddling. Scanning around, he thought he could make out a confusion of shadows, mostly dark, some pale, all clustered in the same area. But as the canoe drifted closer, they melted into the depths.

  “We have arrived,” Darya said.

  Callum was about to ask where exactly they had arrived, when a brownish-white spiral, two metres long, pierced the water to his left and scraped across the prow. He dropped his paddle in shock, almost causing the canoe to capsize as instinct drove him up onto his feet. “Did you see that?”

  “Sit down!” Darya yelled. “Do you want us to go over? It is a narwhal. They will not harm you.”

  Callum dropped back onto his seat and watched as the horn re-emerged, joined by another four, five, six. As if choreographed, the creatures dove together and then resurfaced, their horns aloft.

  Fear turned quickly to wonder as more and more of the porpoise-like creatures revealed themselves. Each of their horns was a different shade and size, and there must have been twenty or thirty now piercing the air around the canoe.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Darya called out.

  “They’re fantastic,” Callum answered. He reached out to stroke one of the passing horns, trilling his fingers across the grooves before it pulled away.

  “Some people think that this is where the myth of the unicorn is coming from,” Darya said.

  “Yes, I’ve heard this one,” he replied. “Norse seafarers would hunt them and sell their horns, then the connection with the sea would become lost over time and inland communities developed the unicorn myth to explain them.” He peered over the side and watched the dumpy, mottled-marble shadows gliding beneath them. “It’s not surprising,” he added. “Most landlubbers would never have seen the ocean in their entire life, let alone a narwhal.”

  “They are tusks, not horns,” Darya said. “A narwhal’s tusk is just an elongated tooth. Sometimes they will even grow two, one from each incisor.”

  “I’ve heard something about this too. Lungkaju was telling me an old Nganasan myth, and the hero’s ski poles were made from a double-tusk narwhal. I’d imagine they’re pretty rare?”

  “Extremely rare. I have seen it only once before, and I have studied the narwhal now for many years.”

  There was a loud slap as one of the creatures, small enough to still be a youngster, smashed its tail down beside Callum and showered him as if on
purpose.

  “This is a young female,” Darya said. “She is very playful. She must like you.”

  Callum wiped the freezing spray from his face. “No, I have that effect on all the girls. Only, they usually throw the water from a glass.”

  She laughed. “We are lucky. The narwhal can be shy animal and usually there are not so many together at once. Three different pods are together here to feed. During winter they live out in the deep water a long way from shore. They only move to the shallow water here in summer. These three pods have maybe made the same migration to Harmsworth for many, many years now, and they will stay here until the ice starts to form again.” She pointed to a particularly large narwhal, much paler than the others. “This one I call Grandfather because I think that he may be the oldest.”

  Callum watched as the creature turned on its side as it glided past the canoe and examined him with one eye. “How can you tell how old he is?”

  “It is simple. They turn paler as they grow older, and you can see his colour is very light. Also I know that he is male because usually the females do not have a tusk. Some of them do, but it is shorter. I have also seen him tusking. Look.”

  A short distance from the side of the canoe, several of the larger animals had congregated. They were busy grinding their tusks together, high above the water.

  “They look as if they’re sword-fighting,” Callum said.

  “This is tusking. The males rub their tusks together like this. Nobody knows why, but it is probably a way to decide who is in charge and attract a mate.”

  “So they’re sizing each other up? My tusk’s bigger than yours?”

  “Yes, this is what they do. This is how I know that Grandfather is a male, because I see him do this often.”

  “He must have a complex,” Callum said.

  After staying with the pods for a while longer, they continued northwards. The current had driven them to within fifty metres or so of the shore, so they moved back out to sea and held their course. Several of the younger narwhals continued to follow alongside them before turning as one and heading back to the safety of their family.

  “We can head back also, whenever you like,” Darya called to him.

  “I’ll be okay for a while yet,” Callum replied. “I thought you were mad when you suggested this, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

  “You are doing very well, solnishko. If you are feeling strong then we can go and see the bird colony at Svayataya?”

  “Okay,” he replied. “Svayataya it is.”

  Soon the shoreline began morphing into the northern cliffs. A succession of coves bore their way inland. Seals lolled on the outcrops and the tooth-like headlands were interspersed with pocket beaches and pebble shores, strewn with silver driftwood. Beyond, the Hjalmar Ridge towered over the coast, the ever-present peaks standing guard at the island’s heart.

  On one of the beaches, something had caught the attention of a couple of dozen gulls. Some of them scuffled over it, while others circled patiently above them on the breeze.

  “What do you suppose it is?” Callum asked.

  “The birds are little auks,” Darya replied. “I am trying to see what they are feeding on.”

  Callum looked around to see that she was already examining the shore through a pair of expensive-looking lightweight binoculars.

  “Anything?”

  “At first I thought it was a dead seal,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “But actually,” she stared intently into the eye-pieces, “I think it may be a bear.”

  She handed him the binoculars.

  The birds themselves were black on top with white underbellies, and through their strobe of wings he could make out nothing more than the odd flash of yellow-white. When he looked back, there was an ominous expression on Darya’s face. Her lips were pursed, almost pouting.

  “You want to check it out, don’t you?”

  She flashed him an embarrassed grin. “It would be very useful for me to take some photographs and a few measurements. I have only seen one of these animals so far this season, and he was far away. It is not very often that I have willing subject.”

  “Do you mean me or the bear?”

  “If you would like not to stop then we can carry on.”

  He sighed. “Okay, but you owe me.”

  She leant forward and kissed gently at the side of his mouth. “This is down payment.”

  6

  As they approached the shoreline, the seabed got shallower and shallower until their paddling gave way to punting and the gentle surf finally eased the canoe up onto the beach. The gulls took off and hovered at a respectful height as they arrived at the carcass.

  It lay on its side, soggy and bloated. The ribcage had been picked open by the gulls and a horrific smell emanated from the stomach. It was the first time Callum had ever seen a polar bear outside of the zoo. Dead, desiccating, with its tongue lolling out, it was not exactly the way he’d imagined.

  “You’re not going to touch it, are you?” he asked, trying his best not to gag.

  “Unfortunately I must. But it is okay.” She slung her rucksack off and delved into it, withdrawing a box of single-use hygiene gloves and a tape measure.

  “I love it when a girl comes prepared.”

  With a roll of her eyes, she pulled on a pair of the gloves and handed another pair to him.

  He stared at them and then at her.

  “It will be a lot faster if you can help me with some measurements, please.” She produced a small Dictaphone and attached it to her lapel. “Then we can get away from this horrible stink as soon as possible.”

  Her argument was compelling. They set to work taking measurements, Darya dictating a record of them and presumably any other observations. They measured the limbs, head and paws. Darya then forced back the creature’s jowl to examine the gums and teeth. As she came to measure across the chest area, she stopped suddenly to inspect a number of holes made by the probing of the gulls’ beaks.

  “They were making quite a meal of him,” Callum said.

  “It is her,” she replied, “and…” she hesitated, digging her fingers into the neatly circular wounds one after another, “…this was not the gulls.”

  “What was it then?”

  She turned and looked at him, her eyes suddenly aflame. “Somebody has shot this animal. She died recently, no more than a few weeks.”

  “But there’s been nobody else on the island. Only us and the security forces.”

  “Her tissues are swollen,” Darya continued, ignoring him. “Whoever shot her must have put her body into the sea afterwards and now it has come back to shore. Look, the fish have nibbled at her tongue.” She knelt back down and re-examined the bear’s head, pointing to another wound behind its ear. “You see. This is bullet hole too!”

  She stomped back to her rucksack, grabbed a digital camera and began to photograph every last inch of the swollen carcass as if it were a homicide victim. “I will show these to Mr Volkov and make him find out who is murdering this creature!”

  As she strode around the animal, muttering to herself in Russian that even Callum could understand, a tendril crept its way down the shore and out over the surf-line. Before he had time to react, it was followed by another, thicker tendril and then by a dense blanket of grey-white, which poured over the top of the cliffs encircling the beach and tumbled towards them like an avalanche. Within seconds the sudden mist had reduced the daylight to a haze overhead and visibility to no more than a few metres. In her fury, Darya seemed not to notice.

  “Oh, great! Come on,” Callum ordered her, “we need to leave before we get stranded.”

  She looked up at last, face shrouded in white. “You are right,” she said. “We must be quick, before it goes too far out.”

  The temperatu
re had dropped and only small pockets of visibility remained. Callum shouldered her rucksack and they raced along the beach to the canoe. Barging the vessel down into the surf, he slung himself back into the front seat and felt a thud as Darya leapt into the back. Then he punted the canoe back out into deeper water and began to paddle.

  As he fought against the current, he could feel the mist overtaking them. It was riding the wind out across the water and thickening by the second. “We need to break through it or we’ll lose the ship!”

  At that moment a mechanical splutter sounded behind him. He turned around to see that Darya had dislodged a wooden cover to reveal a concealed outboard motor. She had thrown the propeller over the back and was now tearing at the pull-cord. A final yank and it roared into life.

  “I think that we should not fuck around any longer,” she shouted, noticing the look of disbelief on Callum’s face.

  “Fuck around? You mean we’ve been paddling all this time for no reason?”

  “Not for no reason,” she shouted. “You needed a distraction!”

  Callum gripped onto the gunwale as the canoe burst forward.

  Chapter 5

  Zero Hour

  1

  Everything was ready.

  The improvised explosives.

  The remote detonators.

  A route through the engine room.

  All of it.

  Zero hour was meant to be the following night, but the last half hour had changed everything. Mist had descended around the Albanov. In an instant it had turned the entire outside world into one large smoke chamber.

  With the help of Finback’s intelligence, Ptarmigan’s every movement had been meticulously planned. The only element that relied more on luck than judgement was the very first: accessing the observation room. It was from here that security surveillance was maintained for all areas of the ship, making it the necessary first port of call for anybody wishing to sneak around with a pack full of explosives. To access the room, he would have to make his way to the door at the front of the deckhouse and punch in the code. This was an immense gamble in plain view, so the cover of mist was an opportunity not to be wasted.