by Dayle, Harry
• • •
He was awoken by the sound of Lucya working on her maps behind him. Checking his watch he saw, to his horror, that he had been asleep for more than four hours.
“Hey, sleepy!” Lucya called over.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You needed the rest.”
“We all need rest.”
“Yeah, don’t worry. I got my head down for a few hours, too. I’ve only just come back.”
Jake got to his feet, stretched, yawned, and took a look outside. The sky had cleared even more; there was even a hint of sunshine. Looking at the flat, calm water, at the mass of ice in the distance, once again starting to shine in the light like the dawn of a new day, it seemed impossible to believe what had happened only hours earlier. The serenity of the scene gave him hope. If this place, this inhospitable Arctic desert, could look so placid and beautiful after the onslaught it had suffered, then there was a real chance that other parts of the world had survived too. He desperately wanted to give the order to fire up the main engines, to pull up the anchor and to sail south to look for survivors, for civilisation, for land. But he knew that was impossible. He had one throw of the dice, and the lives of everyone on the ship depended on getting it right.
He wandered over to the map table to find Lucya deep in concentration. There were two huge nautical charts laid out, as well as a long plastic rule, coloured pencils, and a circular slide rule.
“Having trouble?” he asked.
“It’s been a while since I did these kinds of calculations by hand. Don’t laugh, and don’t say I told you so. I’ll get it, I just need to refresh my memory.”
“I have total confidence in you. Listen, I think I’m going to head out and try and get around the ship a bit, see how the others are getting on. There are nearly a thousand crew members I haven’t spoken to, apart from over the PA. I should at least try and talk to more of the department heads, let them know what’s occurring.”
“A few people have already asked me why you’re acting captain. They want to know what’s happened to Ibsen and Hollen.”
“What have you said?” Jake felt a pang of concern.
“I said you’d brief everyone in due course.” Lucya pulled a face, like a naughty child expecting to be told off. “I was right though, wasn’t I? That’s what you’re going to be doing now, as you go round the ship?”
“Yeah, yeah, you were right. But what do I say? How do I tell people Ibsen killed Hollen and I killed Ibsen?”
“You don’t. You simply say that they both died following the ash cloud. Hundreds died, nobody is going to question it.”
“But Hollen spoke to the ship after the ash cloud had passed, so that won’t work. I suppose,” he stared into the middle distance, his mind turning over possibilities, “if I just say that he didn’t survive his injuries following the ash cloud, then technically that’s the truth.”
“Right, and if people assume that his injuries were caused by the ash, that’s not really your fault, is it?” Lucya smiled.
“I’ll see you back here in a few hours for the senior officers’ meeting,” Jake said.
“You sound like a captain already.”
Nineteen
HIS FIRST PORT of call was the kitchen. He wanted to catch up with Claude Dupont, the head chef. There was one huge kitchen, on deck seven. It serviced the three restaurants and four cafes on board, as well as the crew canteen, and provided snacks for the bars. Normally the place was a hive of activity, with Claude shrieking out orders to the hordes of cooks who scurried about. It was a very different scene today, though. No columns of steam rising from hotplates, no bubbling pots or clanging pans or hissing griddles. Claude was seated at a stainless-steel bench. Behind him, a couple of people wearing white-and-blue cooks’ uniforms were busy loading food into a giant freezer.
“Hi, Claude.” Jake smiled jovially.
The chef looked up at him with a sour expression. He was a tiny man, bespectacled and slightly balding. Jake had always thought he looked more like he belonged in a magic shop, or a very niche second-hand book store, not a kitchen. Despite his diminutive stature, he was a formidable character. He had a reputation for whacking errant cooks on the back of the legs with a ladle, although to be fair, nobody could attest to ever having seen this happen. Nobody wanted to find out if it was true though, so when Claude told anyone to do anything, they would eagerly cry “Yes, Chef!” without question, no matter how odd or unreasonable the order.
“Well, well, a visit from the captain himself. Sorry, the acting captain,” Claude corrected himself, loading the words with sarcasm. “I did not think I was worthy.”
“How are you getting on with the inventory?”
Claude ignored the question entirely. “I hear there is a new club, a group of elite staff who meet on the bridge. A bridge club, you might say.” He laughed at his own joke, but it was a hollow, false laugh. “Mr Noah and his band of cronies, planning out the future, creating their empire while the rest of us wait for our orders to be handed down from on high.”
“Claude, if you are upset at not being at our meeting, then I can only apologise. Our immediate priority was to stabilise the ship. Now our concern is the wellbeing of everyone on board. If there are any elite staff, then you are certainly one of them. Feeding three thousand people with limited resources and power is a challenge unlike any other, and I honestly cannot think of anyone better qualified to take it on than you.”
“You are laying on the compliments a bit thick, Monsieur Noah. I am not stupid. Do you think I am stupid?”
“Far from it, and I mean what I say. In fact, now that emergency repairs are underway, you are the first person I have come to see. I came straight from the bridge to find out how you were progressing, and to ask you to join us at the next bridge meeting in,” Jake looked at his watch, “just over two hours. If you cannot make it then I will understand.”
“No, no you are right. It is true that without sustenance, without nourriture, all your efforts will be in vain. I will come to your meeting, and I will report my progress to you at that time.”
“Great, that’s good. Well, I will see you later, on the bridge, then.”
“A tout a l’heure, Captain.”
Claude returned to his notes. It was clear that Jake’s audience was at an end. He left the kitchen, relieved. It looked like he’d won Claude over, but there were so many others still to see.
• • •
The next person Jake wanted to visit was the head of housekeeping. New Yorker Tania Bloom had held that post for as long as Jake had been on the ship. Like so many from her home town, she was a straight talker. Likeable and friendly once you got to know her, she presented a tough exterior to the outside world. Her shoulder pads were legendary, as were her heels.
Jake wasn’t sure where he would find her. He tried her office on deck seven, but it was locked and his knocks failed to elicit any response. He made his way down to her cabin on deck three, but it was the same story. Thinking that perhaps he should see if the medics had seen her, he headed back up a level to the gym. It was quieter than he expected. A few people he didn’t recognise, presumably passengers, were seated at the side of the room, waiting to be seen. One nurse was on duty. Jake recognised her as Kiera; he knew she had briefly dated Martin. Grau was with a patient, securing bandages to her arm. As soon as he was done he waved Jake over to join him on the far side of the gym.
“How is your hand, Captain?” he asked quietly, but his voice still echoed around the impressively voluminous space.
“Fine, fine. But never mind that, how are you doing down here?”
“I think we’ve dealt with the most urgent cases. We lost three this evening. They’re down below, along with those who were DOA. It looks like it was smoke inhalation from the dust cloud. Mostly it has been burns, though. Burns, and quite a lot of cuts and bruises from broken glass. Many windows blew in.”
“Have you had any rest, Grau?”
“I’m about to go and get some sleep now. Kiera and David have got everything covered here, now it has calmed down.”
“That’s good. Listen, do you know Tania Bloom, and have you seen her down here? She’s not in her office or cabin.”
“Yes, I know Tania, but I haven’t seen her. Let me check the log in case one of the others has.” Grau opened a thick notebook and ran his finger down a list of handwritten names. “These are the people we’ve seen since we have been here. We didn’t get to log everyone we saw before moving to the gym, it was just too chaotic. No, it doesn’t look like she has been down here.”
“Okay, thanks, Grau. I have other people to see. Hopefully I’ll run into her on my way around.”
“There is another possibility, of course. I know we don’t want to think of it, but it wasn’t just passengers that were caught in that cloud, there were crew out there too.”
“You think she could be dead? Do you have a list of the…deceased?”
“Yes, and she’s not on it. But she could be one of the unknowns.”
“The unknowns?”
“You know, the John Does, or the John Smiths, whatever you call them. Unidentified. Our list only carries the names of those positively identified by their families who brought them to us. At least a third of the bodies down there, we don’t know who they are yet.”
Jake suddenly felt sick at the thought. He hadn’t considered the question of the dead any further than just holding a service and then disposing of them respectfully.
“Don’t panic,” Grau said, clearly sensing that Jake didn’t know what to do. “People are already coming to us when they can’t find family or friends. We have got names for at least a dozen bodies that way. But a lot of the crew members won’t be missed by anyone for some time. And there are many couples who died together. They may not have anyone else on board who will miss them. We need the passenger and crew manifest and then we must go through and find out who is alive and who is dead. We may not be able to match all the names to bodies, but at least we will know. We cannot bury these people at sea until we know who they are, or at least have made every effort to find out.”
“No, you’re right, of course. It’s a morbid affair, but yes, it has to be done. It won’t be easy to organise. Unless…” He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite the doctor, lost in thought. “I kind of had this idea that we should find out more about who we have on board, who these people are. If we are…if the rest of the world has…if there’s nobody else out there, then this is it. This ship could represent the last community of people. If there are no towns left, nowhere to settle, then we will have to build a new home. We cannot live on a ship indefinitely, and even if we are stuck at sea for weeks or even months, we will have huge challenges to overcome. We will need to produce food and energy. Every person here will need to pull their weight, to do their bit. And that means we need to know who these people are and what they can do.”
“You are thinking of a census?” Grau was nodding slowly.
“Yes, a census. But we don’t have to call it that, because we don’t want to cause people to panic. It’s probably easier for them not to think too far ahead. Right now, we’ve survived, and that fact alone is enough. When reality really sinks in, that’s when our problems will begin. If people think there is no future, no hope, then who knows what they will do? So we don’t want to encourage them to think about the future, not yet.”
“So we dress up our census as part of a crew and passenger roster. Interesting idea. But you think people will give you personal details without question?”
“It depends how we ask for those details,” Jake said, thinking hard. “Rather than just checking names off the passenger list and saying ‘by the way, what do you do for a living?’ we must reframe the whole exercise. We tell people that the passenger list was destroyed by fire. We say that we need to know who is on board so that we can calculate the food rations, that kind of thing. So we say we’re recreating the passenger manifest.”
“Yes, this could work. It gives us a reason to talk to everyone on board. A true census. We would have to insist everyone returned to their cabins for the duration of the exercise, to be sure that they got counted.”
“Right. And we issue them with a piece of paper to say that they have been processed, that their name is on the list. Make it that they must present the paper to get their meal ration. So it’s in their interest to make sure they are counted. We’ll send out a team to take the census. We’ll ask the minimum questions we can while still gathering useful information. Name, date of birth, country of residence, profession.”
“You’ll need many people to go knocking door to door. This needs to be done quickly.”
“If I can find Tania, I can mobilise her team. The housekeeping folk know the ship inside out, they spend their days going round every cabin on board. They will be perfect, and it will give them an important role to fulfil.”
Jake stood up and walked over to the wall, where a telephone was mounted. He picked it up and dialled a three-digit number.
“Hey, Lucya, it’s Jake. I need you to put out a ship-wide call for Tania Bloom and Barry Nickelson to contact the bridge. If and when they do, can you send them both down to Barry’s office? I need to talk to them. Thanks.” He hung up and returned to his seat.
“Barry Nickelson?” Grau asked.
“Entertainment manager.”
“Oh, that Barry. I’ve heard about his parties. Not so much my, how do you say, cup of tea?”
“Barry’s okay. His team is one of the biggest on board. I really need to brief him on what’s happening.”
Twenty
MAX MOOTING WAS not happy. He had always been loyal to Ibsen and Hollen, and now suddenly he had to answer to some young upstart. It was true, he thought to himself as he roamed the ship, that young Noah was coping pretty well, considering he had been thrown in the deep end. He just wasn’t convinced that he truly had the new captain’s ear. Young men always seemed to have something to prove, to show the world that they could go it alone. They were so often too proud to ask for help, or accept it when offered. He’d lost more than one soldier that way, men who with a bit more experience and training would have been fine officers. Sent to war too soon and too young, their naivety and ego were their downfall. Would Jake suffer the same fate? He wasn’t ready to be captain, hadn’t had the formal training, and much more importantly, didn’t have the hours at sea. If Jake screwed up, then they were all in trouble.
What worried Max even more was that he could tell he wasn’t the only one who had concerns about the leadership on board. Everywhere he went he heard whispers, gossip, chit chat. He had ignored the captain’s request and was not wearing uniform. He viewed that order as meant for the others. It wasn’t realistic to expect him to blend in and gauge the mood if he stood out as some kind of policeman, or even a crewman. So the security uniform had been ditched in his cabin, and he was now clad in black jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket. In his civvies, he went where passengers congregated. Most of the bars were busy, despite being closed. Groups of people were packed around tables, discussing whether or not the world really had ended. He noted with mild interest how like-minded people somehow seemed to congregate. One bar had a particularly high concentration of conspiracy theorists. He sat with them a while as they talked at length about how the final broadcast had been a hoax, CGI effects and green screen work. They’d convinced themselves that this was part of the cruise experience, that they would soon sail into harbour where their families and loved ones would greet them with cries of “surprise!”
A cafe off Palm Plaza appeared to be the favoured spot for the doom mongers. Generally a bit older than the conspiracy theorists — more middle aged — they were chewing over the depressing details of how exactly everyone was going to die through starvation. That was, if there wasn’t an outbreak of some disease first, possibly even an alien space-disease dispersed by the tail of the asteroid.
The happiest groups had been the older folk, the pensioners. Maybe it was because they had — for the most part — already lived long, fulfilling lives that they seemed more carefree. Their main cause of concern was the “young people” and what a shame it was that their lives were going to be cut short. The largest group looked like they were enjoying themselves so much that Max wasn’t sure at first if they understood what was happening.
“Oh yes, dear, the world has ended. But what can you do?” said one purple-haired old lady when he asked her if she knew why they weren’t moving, why there were no lights, and why the cafe in which they were sitting was shut. “It’s terrible, of course, some of my friends have lost their entire families back home. But I say if we’ve been granted a few days more, then let’s enjoy them! Would you like to join in our card game? We’re playing canasta.”
Max said that yes, why not, he would play some cards to pass the time of day.
The real concern came later when he wandered into the cinema. It was so dark he tripped over the first row of seats, causing the voices he had heard from outside to stop talking abruptly. When his eyes eventually adjusted to the dark he saw that a group of about twenty people, almost all young men, were seated at the back. Nobody spoke another word until he left. Now the question was how to find out what was going on. It was possible there was an entirely innocent reason for the men to be huddled in a dark room to hold their conversation. Possible, but highly unlikely. Max had a nose for trouble, and this didn’t smell good at all.
His first thought was to try and listen from the projection room, which was accessible without going through the cinema’s auditorium. That was locked, but Max had a master key that allowed him access to most areas of the ship. He entered quietly, taking care not to fall over any equipment this time. He’d never been in there before, and had expected to find a huge projector, maybe some reels of film. Being a modern ship, though, the cinema was fitted with state-of-the-art digital projectors. The projection room was really just a control room with a table, a couple of computers, and some servers sat in a rack in the corner. He tip-toed to the front where there was a small window that overlooked the auditorium and its impressively wide screen. The window was triple glazed. The whole room had been fully soundproofed. Cursing under his breath, he left the room and found a place where he could sit discreetly, watching the door of the cinema, without drawing attention to himself. He hated stakeouts, but knew what had to be done.
