Thirst

by L. A. Larkin

  The encroaching smoke was getting thicker, as though moving in on its cornered prey. Luke smelled diesel and petrol and his alarm increased. On his knees, barely able to see through tears thick with soot and grime, he searched for another piece of metal, feeling his way through the detritus. His hand landed on one and he stood weakly, almost collapsing into the lift maintenance door. He forced the piece of metal into the gap between the door and the wall, and using brute force, broke the lock. The door swung open.

  Unsteadily, Luke peered down the lift shaft. The air inside was pretty clear and the ladder was still there. Their first bit of luck. ‘Tubs, snap out of it. Help me lift Maddie.’

  Coming out of his stupor, Tubs helped Luke. They placed their hands underneath her armpits and pulled her up. She leaned against the wall.

  ‘Can you climb down the ladder?’ Luke asked her.

  ‘I’ll have to,’ Maddie managed to say. ‘We can’t leave Sue.’

  ‘She’s dead, Maddie.’ He coughed. ‘So is Blue.’

  She looked back at the source of the explosion and nodded.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Luke said, ‘so if you slip, I’ll catch you. Tubs, you go last – and shut the door behind you, for God’s sake. Keep the smoke out.’

  Tubs choked out a ‘Got it’.

  Luke started his descent, relishing the clearer air in the lift shaft. Maddie took her first step down the ladder, using her stronger leg first. One way or another, her wounded leg had to bear her weight, but it was clearly agony as the metal dug into the muscle. She groaned with each step.

  ‘You’re doing well. Just a little bit further,’ Luke called up to her. The thought flashed through his mind that Craig had built the ladder but wasn’t with them. He pushed it away: they weren’t safe yet, and they’d have to break through the maintenance door at the bottom of the lift shaft. Luke looked down at the bare steel roof of the lift, which was stationary at the garage level. The gap between the cage and the shaft walls was just wide enough for a person. Luke reached the bottom rung.

  ‘Hang on while I get this door open,’ he called up.

  Maddie’s trouser leg was soaked with blood. She clung to the ladder, gulping air as she rested on her good leg.

  Luke leaned his back against the lift cage and kicked at the shaft door. It opened easily as it was designed to open outwards. What greeted Luke took his breath away. He’d hoped the garage was free of fire, but the wooden storage containers in the corner were burning, as was the snow tractor. The flames were dangerously near the snowmobiles.

  ‘Hurry!’ he yelled. ‘Get down here!’ Fearing more explosions, the panic in his voice brought the limping Maddie and then Tubs quickly to his side.

  Luke knew the sound of gunfire, but it was so totally unexpected that he was slow to react. No station had weapons and military action was banned. As a bullet fizzed past his right ear he grabbed Maddie and they plunged to the ground.

  Tubs hit the floor with a thud. ‘Jesus! I’m shot. I’m bloody well shot,’ he screamed, clutching his chest.

  The gunfire started again. It was coming from somewhere near the main garage doors.

  ‘The snowmobiles,’ whispered Maddie.

  The keys were still in them. The quad bikes were further away, and even if they had been able to cope with soft snow – which they couldn’t – their tyres were on fire. It had to be the snowmobiles. Through the thick, foul smoke, Luke tried to locate the shelf under the workbench where he stashed his tools. He couldn’t help but glance at the two white body bags, raised above the flames as if on a funeral pyre.

  ‘Can you drive?’ he asked Maddie.

  She nodded, clutching her leg.

  ‘We’ve gotta get into the work overalls, otherwise we’ll die of cold,’ he said, nodding at the bright-yellow, all-in-one waterproof freezer suits hanging on their hooks. They were used by all maintenance staff for outdoors work and were fleece lined for warmth. Tubs, in particular, who was only in his thermals, had no hope of surviving without them.

  For a moment Luke was wryly thankful for the smoke that was their only protection from the gunman. ‘Wait here,’ he said, and crawled on his belly across the floor to the freezer suits. Above the crackle of the flames, Luke heard radio chatter – it wasn’t in English. He reached the legs of the first overall, and, still prone, he tugged at the material. But the all-in-one suit stayed on the hook. He yanked harder and the loop of material at the collar tore free. He did the same with two more, then bundled them under his arms and crawled back to Tubs and Maddie.

  Bullets zinged over Luke, the shooter unable to see his target. Tubs was lying on his side, his grey thermal top soaked with dark blood that seeped through his fingers.

  Luke paused, horrified, then pulled himself together. ‘This’ll hurt, mate, I’m sorry,’ he said, pushing Tubs’ legs into the overalls and then rolling him from side to side as he pulled it up. Tubs gagged with the pain.

  Maddie tore at the waterproof material with her teeth, yanking apart the stitching on the left leg so she could get both the shrapnel and her leg inside. She struggled into her suit, using her hands to force her wounded leg inside.

  ‘Follow me,’ Luke said to Maddie. He looked at Tubs. ‘Mate, when I bring the snowmobile near you, you gotta get on, okay? Can you get up?’ Tubs nodded, the bloody stain now hidden by his yellow suit.

  Luke crawled along the floor, followed by Maddie. He grabbed a hammer and threw it at one of the metal storage containers at the other end of the garage. The gunman opened fire at the container and Luke scuttled towards the snowmobiles hoping to reach the furthest one with the full tank, but the gunfire turned in their direction. He jumped on Mac’s snowmobile and Maddie took Dave’s.

  Luke sped off and, leaning over, pulled Tubs onto the seat behind him. Tubs yelped in agony. Briefly checking that Maddie was okay, Luke charged for the open garage doors and the source of the gunfire. It was suicidal, he knew, but he had no choice. He heard shouting outside, angry and sharp.

  Luke burst out of the garage, followed by Maddie, and began driving in a zigzag, which Maddie mimicked. Without goggles, the raw polar air tore at his eyes. They needed headlights, but Luke knew that would make them an easy target. As they careened into the darkness, the shooting began again, this time from several directions. Luke glanced back and saw the silhouette of a man shooting at them. Behind him, the station was burning in startling oranges and reds.

  ‘Stop,’ panted Tubs, slouching forward.

  ‘We can’t stop,’ called Luke over his shoulder. He could just make out Maddie, accelerating ahead of him. He called out but she didn’t hear, so he gunned the engine to catch up to her. He waved at her to get her attention and she slowed.

  ‘Go to the fire hut – emergency supplies,’ she shouted.

  Luke made a cutting motion at his throat and they killed their engines. ‘Too close,’ he said. ‘They’ll find us.’

  ‘Then where?’ she asked in desperation.

  ‘The Zodiac,’ he replied. They had no other options. With their station destroyed and the emergency hut out of bounds, their only hope was to escape in the Zodiac. How they would stay alive after that, Luke had no idea.

  ‘No,’ Maddie said. ‘We need shelter – Mac’s hut.’

  Of course. Built a few months ago, it wasn’t on the plans or any map. It was on a pebbly beach they’d christened ‘the Nest’ because of all the Adelie penguin nesting sites in the area. It wasn’t far from where they’d left the Zodiac.

  ‘Perfect,’ Luke said, nodding.

  ‘Got to lie down,’ said Tubs, whose grip around Luke’s waist was weakening.

  ‘Not long, mate. Keep your head down out of the wind.’ Luke pulled Tubs’ arms tighter around him, and Tubs groaned but hung on. Maddie had moved off.

  Before he followed, Luke took one last look at Hope Station. Their home had been turned into a hell on earth.

  T MINUS 4 DAYS, 5 HOURS, 36 MINUTES

  6 March, 6:24 am (UTC-07)


  Robert stares at the woman’s face and wants to be sick. It is covered in black burn marks. Yet they weren’t caused by flames. Each mark is circular in shape, and there is a constellation of them on her left cheekbone and around her nose. The marks continue down her neck but they are lighter in colour – pinker, more raw. The more intensive burns, caused by repeated applications of electric batons, are darker.

  The woman, in her thirties, is shackled tightly to an iron bed, naked. She was probably beautiful once. Atrophy has set in as she has been in the same position for seven days. She cannot move even a centimetre. But her eyes follow the boy, Robert, and his father.

  Robert looks behind him and he recognises the uniform of the People’s Armed Police, Beijing.

  ‘And this one?’ asks General Zhao. Robert remembers he is on some kind of ghoulish tour but has no idea how he got there.

  ‘Falun Gong, General Zhao.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Woo Ling.’

  ‘Has she renounced?’

  ‘She will. The Death Bed is effective.’

  The General turns to Robert, pointing at the captive. ‘These people killed your mother!’ he shouts.

  The yelling woke Robert from his fitful sleep. He stared up at the fabric of his tent. His lamp still burned through the darkness. Why had he dreamed of the woman again? Was it the fire? Her burns? Was that the connection?

  He unzipped his sleeping bag to discover his thermals were soaked with sweat. He tore them off and pulled on fresh ones, followed by salopettes and his parka. How he missed his crisp monogrammed shirts and his luxurious suits.

  He looked at his watch; it was almost six thirty. He radioed his chef and demanded coffee and pancakes. Perhaps food would make him feel less wretched. Minutes later, as Robert ploughed through his hearty meal, Wei arrived to deliver his report.

  ‘The fire still burns,’ he said. ‘By mid-morning it should have burned itself out, and then we will start checking through the debris to confirm the body count.’

  Robert looked up and wiped the sticky syrup from his lips with a napkin. It had been an inferno of incredible reds and yellows against the black and starry sky. Quite beautiful. It reminded him of an Uluru sunrise he’d enjoyed on his one and only Australian visit. Rather apposite, he thought.

  But the failure to eliminate all of the Hope Station inhabitants troubled him. He had been assured by the General that the blaze hadn’t been spotted from space – there were no spy satellites over Antarctica at the time; most satellites orbit the northern hemisphere.

  ‘But we know that two, perhaps three, escaped,’ Robert said.

  Wei, whose white coat, trousers and face were smudged with ash, dropped his chin a fraction. ‘Yes, sir. But we believe that at least one has been shot.’

  Robert dropped his knife and fork onto the plate in disapproval. ‘Brilliant! A bullet is traceable, you idiot. You must find the survivors, and if you have to shoot them, remove the bullets and incinerate them. I don’t want it known they were shot. I need your men to remove every shell and every bullet from the station and the surrounding area, and the door bolts too. This fire was an accident, a tragic …’ Robert abruptly stopped speaking. ‘Or was it?’

  He leaned back, his hands behind his head, his director’s chair at an angle. ‘Or was it the act of a madman?’ His mind quickly calculated the pros and cons of his new idea. ‘Leave the bolts.’

  ‘Sir?’ Wei frowned.

  ‘Just do as I say, Captain.’

  Wei was about to leave when Robert called him back. He wiped his hand over the soldier’s face and smeared the dirty residue over his own cheek and down his parka. Wei blinked in confusion but remained mute. With Wei dismissed, Robert checked his face in the mirror and scraped the sleep from his eyes with his finger. He was impressed by the grubby, battle-scarred man staring back at him. He pulled a comb through his coarse hair and then patted it into place, but not too much.

  He switched on the video camera.

  ‘March sixth, zero seven hundred hours. Robert Zhao Sheng. This is my video diary, embargoed until March eleventh.’ He spoke in Mandarin. Later, the footage would have subtitles in English and other languages.

  ‘My beloved country, I am proud to be in Antarctica, working for our greater good.’

  Robert couldn’t help thinking, Above all, mine.

  ‘My men and I work tirelessly to keep on schedule. We battle raging winds and temperatures as low as minus forty. We risk our lives to save our people.

  ‘Despite my good fortune to be the son of General Zhao …’ he said, marginally nodding in the necessary, if galling, deference. He had made his own fucking fortune, clawing his way to the top and tearing the guts out of anyone who got in his way. ‘My mother’s family are poor farmers,’ he continued, ‘I know only too well how our people suffer. My work here will change the lives of millions of Chinese. This will be my legacy.’

  The last phrase was heartfelt. Robert knew he would go down in history as China’s saviour. Through his diary – his version of the truth – he intended to out-hero Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, Byrd, all of them.

  ‘I have no doubt that once our project is revealed, there will be a global outcry,’ he continued. ‘Signatories to the Antarctic Treaty will condemn us and demand we cease our activities. But the loudest voices will be the ones most envious of our initiative and ingenuity. Mark my words, those whining countries, so quick to condemn, will follow our lead, eager not to miss out on the bounty.

  ‘I hope that until stage one is complete, and this footage is made public’ – and ruthlessly marketed, he thought – ‘our presence in Antarctica will remain secret. So it may surprise some that, at great risk to myself and my mission, I ordered the rescue of a nearby station which has tragically burned to the ground: Hope Station.

  ‘We have kept away from the Australians, quietly going about our business, until last night, when I heard an explosion. Leaving my tent, I saw an ominous orange glow on the horizon. By the time we got there, the main quarters were a raging inferno. My guess is that their gas cylinders exploded. I tried to smash a window and eventually broke my way through, but the fire was too fierce and I couldn’t enter. It was a terrible sight.’

  He dropped his head and then lifted sorrowful eyes to the camera.

  ‘A tragic day. It seems that all have perished. Needless to say, we will preserve the bodies for burial but as there is nobody left alive, I have made the difficult decision not to contact the relevant authorities until the eleventh of March, when stage one of my mission will be complete. Much as it grieves me – and my heart goes out to their families – my priority has to remain this project. My people’s needs come first.’

  Robert switched off the camera, satisfied that he had shown the right mixture of compassion and dedication to his cause. Best of all, he had turned murder into a noble rescue attempt. But as the memories from last night’s fire filled his head, his smug expression disappeared. He raised both hands and gave his scalp a vigorous, almost violent massage. He could still smell the stench of burning flesh.

  ‘Reputations. And now lives,’ he said aloud, leaning forward and cradling his head.

  For a long moment he remained still. Was he now as bad as his father? Then, like water through sand, his remorse seeped away. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and focused on practical matters. It was time to ensure the right person was blamed for the disaster.

  Robert had studied Wildman’s writing, and her style was easy to mimic. With degrees from Harvard and Wharton, Robert’s command of English was often better than that of native speakers. He composed an email:

  To: Matt Lovedale, chief of station operations

  From: Madeline Wildman

  Subject: Luke Searle

  Hi Matt

  I’m increasingly concerned about Luke Searle’s erratic behaviour and want to ask your advice on managing the situation.

  As you know, in his recent performance appraisal I highlighted his lack of adherenc
e to station rules and his poor social interaction skills. He is a law unto himself, even if brilliant. On numerous occasions I have spoken to him about the importance of being a team player and why station procedures must be followed. Until recently, he’s taken my comments good-naturedly, even if he’s tended to ignore them.

  But now he’s showing signs of aggression and mood swings. He shuts himself in his room for long periods of time and avoids the company of others. We had planned a party tonight to celebrate his award but Luke reacted badly and said he wouldn’t attend. I have spoken to Blue and he is of the opinion that Luke is showing signs of mental illness.

  Please advise on a course of action.

  Best wishes,

  Maddie

  This was how she always signed off. A shame – Madeline was a beautiful name.

  Robert leaned back to reread his work and then composed a similar email from the doctor. As Sun Tzu had written in The Art of War, all warfare is based on deception. Satisfied that this would plant a seed of doubt about Searle’s sanity, Robert sent the emails to the Eye, whose task was to ensure they reached Lovedale. Robert stressed to his hacker that it must appear as though both Maddie and the doctor sent their emails last night – before the fire. Lovedale, a busy man, must have overlooked them.

  Luke Searle was going to be the perfect scapegoat.

  T MINUS 4 DAYS, 3 HOURS, 17 MINUTES

  6 March, 8:43 am (UTC-07)

  Luke heard a moaning sound as he woke. He turned over and a sharp pain shot through his shoulder. He, Maddie and Tubs were lying on a wooden floor only two metres square, which had forced Luke to spend the night curled up with his knees against the wall. Tubs and Maddie were under the sleeping bag Mac had used to wrap himself in when painting. Luke had slept in his freezer suit.

  The hut was a simple structure, with wooden walls, floor and roof, and one window that opened outwards. Inside was an easel and stool, paints, watercolour paper, brushes, a heater and a spare sleeping bag. Suddenly Luke began coughing convulsively and had to sit up. His lungs wanted to be rid of the toxic filth from the fire.