by Adam Baker
'Jesus,' said Ghost. 'Fucking berg.'
He killed the engine.
'That's no berg,' said Jane. She shone her flashlight across the white cliff face. Rivets. Weld seams. Steel plate. She looked up. An anchor the size of a bus.
HYPERION.
Jane ran up the steps to the observation bubble. 'Punch, wake up.'
She unzipped the tent. Punch and Sian sat up, shielding their eyes from the flashlight glare.
'Fuck's sake,' muttered Punch.
'Get up. Grab your coat. We just got lucky.'
They hurried to fetch rope from the boathouse.
'It's drifting,' said Jane. 'A superliner. Fucking big. Dead in the water. No running lights. We'll have to be quick. It'll pass out of range in a few hours. We have to get aboard and take control. This is our ticket home.'
'We should get the lads together. Ferry everyone across.'
'No time. Ghost is upstairs pulling the legs off a chair to make a grappling hook. Where's Ivan? We'll need him too.'
'Why him?'
'Ghost is running round like he has fully recovered. I need you two to help him out, slow him down. We don't want to provoke a relapse.'
They ran through the canteen kitchen. Jane unlocked a refrigerator. Punch held her torch.
Shotguns laid across a shelf. Jane tugged the weapons from their nylon sleeves. She slotted shells into the receiver. She swept boxes of ammunition into a backpack.
'I'll tell you right now,' said Jane. 'There will be no negotiation. I don't care how many people are hiding on that boat. They are sure as hell going to stop for us.'
They found the ship drifting twenty kilometres south of its previous position.
'The current is pretty strong,' said Jane. 'No time to fetch the boys. Three or four trips in the zodiac. Guys would get left behind.'
'Jesus. Look at the size of it.'
'Bring us round the stern,' said Ghost. He hurled the grappling hook upward and snagged railings.
'Maybe I should go,' said Punch.
Ghost ignored him. He shouldered his backpack and gun, gripped the knotted rope and began to climb. He hauled hand over hand, walking his way up the side of the boat. Punch tried to keep the zodiac beneath him. If Ghost fell in the freezing water the shock would kill him.
Ghost reached the deck. He climbed over the railing. He caught his breath, coughed and spat.
'Looks pretty dead,' he shouted. 'No one around.'
Jane grabbed the rope and hauled herself up the side of the boat. Weeks ago, when she was fat, she couldn't have managed the climb.
She tipped over the railing and fell on to the deck.
The ship was ten storeys high. Six rows of portholes in the main hull, and four stacked decks like the concentric tiers of a wedding cake.
Jane found herself on a teak promenade laid out for an Arctic pleasure cruise. Whale-watching loungers and curling stones.
She looked up and down the walkway. Every cabin window was dark. They un-shouldered their shotguns. Safety to Fire. Ghost chambered a shell.
'Let's find the bridge.'
They walked towards the prow. A couple of cabin doors were open. Scattered possessions. Jane wanted to investigate, but there wasn't time to explore.
Ghost's flashlight lit vacant lifeboat davits, rope swinging in the breeze.
'Couple of lifeboats missing,' he said. He kicked scattered lifebelts. 'Looks like everyone left in a hurry.'
They reached the prow. Jane pointed to windows high above them.
'That must be the bridge.'
They entered the ship. They were in a functional, crew-only zone of the liner. Bare corridors. Linoleum floor. No heat.
Jane was spooked by shadows. Once in a while she swung her torch beam down the passageway behind them to make sure they were not being followed.
Ghost tried a light switch. He pointed at the red, winking LED of a ceiling smoke detector.
'The power is shut off but some basic systems are active. I guess the generators still work. All we have to do is throw the switch.'
Offices, store cupboards, crew quarters. Corridor floors cluttered with toilet supplies and discarded uniforms. Signs of hurried departure.
They climbed narrow stairs and pushed through doors marked Tillträde Förbjudet.
They reached the bridge. Ghost tried the light switch. Dead.
'Thought it might be on a separate circuit or something.'
Jane moved to enter the bridge but Ghost put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. There was someone sitting in the captain's chair.
'Hello? Bonjour?'
A slumped figure in a white cap and greatcoat, collar turned up. Ghost and Jane cautiously approached.
'How you doing?' asked Jane. Her boot crunched on broken glass.
The captain was a big man in his fifties. He had a white moustache. He had been dead a long while, but the sub-zero temperature had preserved his body from decay.
Green glass in his hand. He had cut his throat with a jagged piece of wine bottle. The front of his uniform, a brass-buttoned tunic, was glazed with frozen blood.
'Help me get him out of the way,' said Ghost. 'Watch yourself. The guy doesn't look infected, but you never know.'
They dragged the man from the chair. He was rigor-stiff. Crackle of frozen blood. They hauled him into a side room.
The bridge looked like the flight-deck of a starship. Three padded chairs facing the sea. Banks of switches, dials and screens, powered down and inert. The steering column was a horseshoe control like the joystick of a passenger jet. Acceleration governed by a central thrust lever.
'I was expecting a big wheel,' said Jane.
'Look at this,' said Ghost. 'A keyhole. What do you reckon? An ignition?'
He ran to the side room. He crouched by the captain's body and searched his pockets. Handkerchief. Coins. Asthma inhaler. No key.
'Search the place. Let's see if we can find some kind of key locker. If we can get this ship to drop anchor we'll have all the time in the world to figure out the rest.'
Jane looked around. Desks at the back of the bridge. Charts and, maps. She tugged at the door of a red cupboard.
'Brandsläckare. What the hell is that? You'd think the signs would be bilingual. I mean English is the international language of pretty much everything.'
'There must be a spare set of keys somewhere, but we're running out of time.'
'Hey,' called Jane. 'Check this out.'
A door at the back of the bridge led to a stairwell. They leaned over the railings and shone their flashlights downward. A jumble of furniture heaped against a steel hatch. Chairs, tables, a bed frame. A big, red 'X had been sprayed on the door.
'Someone was very anxious to keep that door closed,' said Jane.
Jane called Punch and Ivan on the radio.
'Get aboard, folks. Meet us at the prow.'
Ghost showed them to the bridge.
'We need the master key to this thing, okay? We need to get the ship's systems back on-line. Let's fan out and see what we can find.'
Ghost and Ivan checked the officers' quarters.
'This is living,' said Ivan. 'Plasma TV. En suite.' He picked an officer's cap from a sofa and tried it on. He checked his reflection in a mirror. 'Fuck oil rigs. I need a Cunard gig.'
'Imagine sailing south in this palace,' said Ghost. 'The presidential suites. Gym, Jacuzzi, sauna. We've got to make this work for us.' 'I've never been in a Jacuzzi.'
'This ship is a fucking gold mine.'
'The freezers have been shut off a long while,' said Ivan. 'Most of the food will have spoiled. Lobster will be off the menu.'
'Think of the bars down there. Champagne, vintage malts, any cocktail you care to mix. Imagine how much beer they must have stowed below deck. You could fill a bath.'
They descended a flight of stairs. Another barricade. A fire axe slotted through the crank-handles of a door to keep it closed. A big, red 'X sprayed on the hatch.
'This is f
ucking creepy,' said Ivan. He crossed himself.
Ghost examined an exterior door at the end of a passage. Sooty scorch marks and bubbled paint. He pushed open the door. Someone had built a large bonfire on the promenade deck. A pile of charred debris. A mound of scorched lifebelts and bench-slats. The fire had long since burned out. The cinders were dusted with snow.
Ghost knelt by the debris and prodded the ashes with a stick.
'What have you found?' asked Ivan, joining Ghost on deck.
'Bones. A ribcage. At least two skulls.'
He hooked a can with his stick and read the scorched label. Kerosene.
'I wish there were a few more of those guns to go around,' said Ivan.
'Let's find those keys.'
The administration corridor. A row of offices.
A splash of blood on the corridor floor.
'Steer clear,' advised Jane. 'Assume infection.'
Faint white-noise fizz from a side office. Jane nudged the door open with her foot. The radio room. The radio operator had died at his desk. His body was slowly melting into a telex console, upper body completely absorbed like the workstation was eating him head first.
Jane yanked the power cable from the wall. The satellite console sparked and died. The hissing stopped.
They found the purser's office.
'We could be millionaires,' said Punch. 'All those rich old ladies on a Baltic cruise. The deposit boxes must be packed with diamonds and pearls.'
'But where did those rich old ladies go?' said Jane. 'That's the question.'
She found a key cabinet on the wall. She tugged it. She hit it. She shucked the slide of her shotgun.
'Stand back.'
Ghost undipped his radio from his belt.
'Jane? You guys all right?'
'We're fine.'
'We heard a shot.'
'We've got some keys. We're heading back to the bridge.'
'We've found some kind of battery room. I'm going to throw a few switches, see what happens.'
'Reckon these batteries still hold charge?' asked Ivan.
'They're supposed to sustain light and heat if an iceberg or something knocks out the engines. They should be good for days.'
Jane took fistfuls of keys from her coat pocket and dumped them on the console. She threw a fire blanket over the captain's chair so she wouldn't have to sit in his blood. She tried to slot the keys, one by one, into the panel above the steering column then threw them aside.
'How long before this ship drifts out of range of the refinery?'
'An hour. Two at the most.'
Punch stood in the side room and looked down at the captain. The man was lying on his side, legs still hitched like he was sitting down. Punch unfolded a map and draped it over the dead man's head so he wouldn't have to see his eyes.
'I'm going out on deck,' he said. 'Think I'll take a look around.'
Punch climbed exterior steps to the upper deck.
The Lido. There was an empty children's swimming pool with scattered life jackets at the bottom.
The Winterland Grill. Smashed plates and an upturned barbecue.
A vast funnel rose into the fog above him.
He found a skylight. He rubbed the glass with a gloved hand, wiping away frost as thick as snow. He shone his flashlight down into the dark.
Ghost must have found a power switch in the battery room because the ship suddenly lit up brilliant white. Stark floodlights illuminated the decks, the balconies, the badminton court, the miniature golf. Strings of bulbs hung between the funnels glowed in the fog like weak sunlight.
Punch crouched over the skylight and looked down into the Grand Ballroom. Art deco wall lights glowed amber for a soiree, but the dance floor appeared to have been turned into a hospital. Row upon row of beds. Bandaged bodies in the beds, some in pyjamas, some in ball gowns and dinner suits. Punch couldn't see clearly through the smeared glass. He could make out bloody dressings, blackened skin, half-eaten faces.
A squeak of feedback from the deck speakers as the sound- system powered back to life. The genteel strings of 'The Blue Danube' waltz were broadcast throughout the ship.
As if waking from a long sleep, the bodies in the ballroom began to stir.
Power
The prow. Ghost lifted a deck hatch and shone his flashlight inside. Metal steps descending into darkness. He climbed down.
'It's okay,' he called.
Jane followed.
Two massive drums each rolled with anchor chain, each link big as a lifebelt.
'There must be a manual release,' said Ghost. 'It must be part of the design. Some way of stopping the ship dead in the water in the event of catastrophic turbine failure.'
The drums were each powered by a motor the size of a van.
'I think this lever might disengage the gears,' said Jane.
'Yeah?'
'Well, there are warning stickers all over it.'
Ghost found a tool locker.
'Better wear these.'
Jane twisted foam plugs into her ears and clamped defenders to her head.
He tugged the lever. It wouldn't shift. He lifted his feet and swung from it. The lever wouldn't move. He fetched a sledgehammer.
'Stand back,' he mouthed.
He swung the hammer. Two blows and the gears disengaged. The drum spun free. The massive anchor chain played out through the hull with a juddering roar. The air stank of hot metal.
They took off their ear-defenders. They climbed out on to the deck and shone a flashlight over the side of the ship. The anchors had deployed. The chain hung taut.
'High five,' said Jane. They slapped gloved hands. 'About time something went our way.'
They returned to Rampart and mustered the crew.
'It's called Hyperion,' said Jane, standing before them like a teacher lecturing a class. 'It's Swedish, I think. All the bridge controls are written in Martian. We've dropped anchor. All we have to do is start the engines and we are on our way home.'
A general murmur of excitement ran through the canteen. Although the canteen was cold it was still the best place to hold a group meeting.
'Yeah,' continued Jane, her breath fogging the air. 'It looks like our luck has finally changed. But there's a catch. Most of the passengers and crew are still aboard. They're infected, but locked below deck.'
'Shotguns,' said Nikki. 'Go room to room. You saw them on TV. Infected move slow. Turkey shoot.'
'They are people. Wives and husbands. Sons and daughters. They're not vermin.'
'Let's cut the sanctimonious crap, shall we? If we sail an infected ship south to Europe not a single country will let us enter their waters. In fact they'll probably order an airstrike and vaporise the boat. And remember what happened to Rawlins. This disease, whatever it is, drove him nuts. He damn near blew us to hell. You want to set sail in a ship full of ravening lunatics? A floating asylum? Anyway, it's not like anyone ever recovered from this contagion. No one gets better. I vote we shoot them all. The kindest thing. Throw the bodies over the side.'
'We don't have enough shells. A ship like that might carry two, three thousand passengers. And a big crew.'
'So gas them. Rev the engines and channel exhaust fumes into the ventilation.'
'I agree,' said Ivan. 'We couldn't sleep with those rabid fucks the other side of the wall.'
'Right now we have them contained,' said Jane. 'Besides, we don't even know if gassing them would work. They should all be dead. No food, water or heat. That ship should be a graveyard. But somehow they keep going.'
Nikki looked around. Faces lit by lamplight, all of them looking to Jane for guidance.
'You can't trust her,' Nikki wanted to say. 'In a situation like this, you can't trust anyone but yourself.'
Nikki had a boyfriend. Alan. They spent two years together. A holiday in Mumbai, a holiday in Chile. And she left him out on the ice to die.
You can't place your fate in someone else's hands, she thought. When the moment comes you
are on your own.
Some of the crew packed their possessions. They hauled suitcases and kit-bags to the submarine hangar. They sat in a semicircle around the convection heater.
Punch and Sian sat on their cases and warmed their hands.
'Just like Spirit of Endeavour,' said Sian. 'I was so sure we were going home. I was counting down the minutes.' She pointed to the cases. 'I bet the guys won't need half this stuff.'
'No. There will be heated cabins, fresh clothes every day. More food than we can eat. Judging by the stuff on TV, we might as well stay aboard when we reach Britain. Moor the ship off the coast. Treat the place as our fortress. Send out forage parties as and when.'
'Nice plan.'
'Maybe we were the lucky ones. Safe at the top of the world while the shit went down. We wanted a ride home and God sent a limo.'
'We're not home yet.'
Nikki descended to the pump hall and inspected the boat. She had cut and stitched three weather balloons to make a spinnaker. The silver sail hung slack from the mast, waiting for a strong wind.
She kicked the aluminium hull. It resonated like a gong.
Days earlier Nail stripped to the waist, masked his face and spray-gunned the vessel with red rig paint. He used bathroom grout to secure the rubber seal surrounding the boat hatch.
She consulted blueprints. The boat was complete and ready to be stocked. She climbed into the cockpit. Could she sail the boat herself? Did she truly need Nail any more? The Dummies Guide to Sailing. Nikki found the manual among the neglected book exchange table on Main Street. Creased paperbacks. Plenty of car magazines. She reckoned she could trim and reef a sail. She could tack left and right. She couldn't navigate. She couldn't steer by constellations. But if she headed south-west sooner or later she would sight the Norwegian coast, then she could let it guide her to the North Sea and home. She didn't need Nail. She could do it all alone.
'So what do you think?' Nail was watching from the shadows.
'It seems solid.'
'I reckon it could ride out a storm or two. Stable? Couldn't say. Ghost's design, not mine. It might capsize if it hit the wrong wave. But it won't break up. I built it strong.'
