by Peter Tonkin
*
While Jolene and T-Shirt were at work, Richard and Robin brought the twins back down again. The bridge had been quite a success, but both parents felt that a family heart-to-heart and some strict guidelines were called for. But finding the time or the place seemed difficult just at the moment. Really, they wanted a corner where William and Mary would feel happy and cared for. The party in the dining salon, undersupplied with food for some reason no one would go into, was raucous and no place for children. The television pictures were now showing the preparations for the arrival of midnight in Eastern Australia and Tasmania, Hobart, Sydney, Brisbane, up through Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea to various places in Russia that even the crew had never heard of. Except for the third officer, apparently, whose family came from Okhotsk.
It was twenty to ten in the morning aboard Kalinin and far too early to ask excited, buoyant twins to settle down to anything quiet. What they really needed to do was to go for a run around the deck, but as their visit to the bridge had established all too clearly, that was out of the question. None of the ship’s facilities would really serve either.
But one thing, oddly, seemed to beckon, and that was the sick bay. Mary had seen her mother and Kate go down there and although she harboured veterinary ambitions herself, she was interested in any kind of healing. Since his view of the Base jumping yesterday, William had been dying to make the closer acquaintance of Dai Gwyllim. And Richard and Robin were well aware that ‘thank yous’ were owed by both children to Killigan and, especially, Washington for their help on the net yesterday evening. So Richard and Robin agreed to allow a little exploration down towards Dr Glasov’s domain, on condition that if either patients or doctor seemed uneasy, all four of them would come away again, post haste.
Dr Glasov had allowed a television to sully the medical calm, but its sound was turned so low that one had to strain to hear it, so a gentle buzz of conversation filled the little ward instead. Dai was up, though not yet about, his elderly frame battered but tough, and Jilly was brightly by his side. Together with Max, they had overcome the shyness of Corporal Washington and the reserve of Mendel and Fagan apparently. But they had been unable to breach Killigan’s gruff defences; something, Jilly vouchsafed to Robin immediately on their arrival, that probably could not be done without a generous amount of alcohol and several strippers.
‘So he’ll be much more cheerful later on, then,’ said Robin breezily.
‘Well,’ said Jilly, ‘the alcohol, yes. But the strippers? Not on board Mrs Agran’s ship, surely.’
Dai grunted. His sign for amused disagreement.
‘Please, sir,’ said William to the Welshman, very much on his best behaviour, moving before his parents could drag him across to the overpowering sergeant or the shy corporal, ‘could you explain to me about Base jumping?’
Richard, too got caught up in the ensuing conversation, and as the time ticked round towards ten o’clock, a cosy atmosphere built up in the ward, with Jilly and Robin discussing Mrs Agran and her minions, Washington reading a body-building magazine left by Max when he went upstairs to find T-Shirt and join the party, and Mendel and Fagan playing a chess game close enough to the television to hear the commentary and occasionally discuss a point of interest with Killigan who was the only one actually watching it.
Such was the level of cosy relaxation, in fact, that Mary found it perfectly easy to sneak out without being noticed and vanish unremarked down the corridor towards the storage areas.
*
Lieutenant Borisov, third officer, should have held the forenoon watch but the captain was on the bridge, and with her was Second Officer Yazov, the navigating officer, and First Officer Varnek who was keeping an eye on the weather — a close eye. Borisov was not exactly at leisure, however. He had been assigned duties as lading officer by Varnek and so it was his duty to be up-to-date with everything aboard which could be used or consumed. Chef bought in and sold on his food under Borisov’s aegis. Which was one reason they were friends. The second was that they were both military buffs, specialising particularly in post-revolutionary Russian strategy and tactics through to the end of the Great Patriotic War. The third was that they came from towns relatively close to one another, Okhotsk being only a few hundred kilometres west of Magadan, though just inside the next time-zone.
So it was that as 10 a.m. local time drew near, Third Officer Borisov was strolling through the storage areas on his way down to the galley with a bottle of vodka in his pocket because midnight was approaching Okhotsk, and with it the millennium. A passenger appeared out of nowhere, a young girl who saw him, hesitated, turned as though to flee, turned back and walked past him. Borisov was too preoccupied to pay her or her strange behaviour more than passing attention. He noticed her. He noticed what she did. He noticed she was carrying a bottle of Coke. ‘Cheers,’ he said in Russian and laughed gently as they passed. And that was all really.
Certainly, the child vanished from his mind immediately he arrived in the galley, for there was his friend the chef fuming and shouting in a highly unusual manner. The normal order of the place — the military precision, the commissariat control — were gone. Little squads ran hither and yon as though under fire. The culinary campaign this Voroshilov among chefs-general had degenerated into a messy blitzkrieg, as though he was no more than the merest Goering.
‘My dear fellow, what is the matter?’ cried Borisov, striding through the wreckage of stewards, brandishing his bottle of vodka.
‘The bloody computer is down again,’ said Chef, the gloom on his countenance lightening at the sight of friend and festive cup alike. ‘The last time we were in dock I had it checked. Those bastards in Petersburg swore it wouldn’t happen again. They think it is a joke, of course, to use a computer to run a kitchen. Let them try to do their jobs without computers nowadays. Bastards.’
‘Well, never mind,’ said Borisov. ‘I have brought the twin of the bottle I toasted you with an hour ago. Let us toast each other now, for it will be ten o’clock in thirty seconds’ time. Does any man here,’ Borisov turned and spoke to the assembled mess of stewards, ‘come from east of Lake Baikal? What, none of you? You poor western weaklings.’
‘The chief steward comes from Yakutsk,’ said one of his minions. ‘But he is not here. He is updating the accommodations programme.’
‘Then we will drink to him in his absence,’ said Borisov. ‘As for the rest of you, you are decadent and western and weaklings and I spit on you all.’
He probably would have done so literally, but the red second hand kissed the black minute hand on the tip of ten o’clock just then and so he drank instead, passing the bottle to Chef who took a hefty gulp in his turn. Then they both drank solemnly to the chief steward. The chief steward, of course, had the best vodka; better than the captain’s, it was said — even better than Varnek’s, it was whispered. There was no doubt that Babushka Agran would have had the best if she had wanted it but she was American in so many of her tastes, though married to a man — probably happily deceased — from Irkutsk, and she preferred bourbon whiskey in preference to good vodka like the chief steward. So the pair of them would be off on the lookout for him at eleven when midnight rolled over Yakutsk.
‘It wouldn’t be so bad,’ said Chef after his third swig, ‘but I’m pretty sure the computer crash is just a cover for some major pilfering. You should check your computer also, Borisov. You’ve got a lot more worth stealing in your charge than I have in mine.’
‘That’s easily done,’ said Borisov, more suggestible now that the fiery spirit was beginning to sing in his Russian veins. ‘I have a terminal through here in the storeroom we share next door. Come.’
Borisov and Chef went through into the storeroom where their responsibilities overlapped, one in charge of supplying the plates kept in here and the other in charge of filling them. There was a little terminal on the wall. Its screen was black and blank. Borisov crossed to it and threw the switch. The two stood, swaying slightly, f
eeling the roll of the ship. The computer screen remained blank. Borisov reached down and snapped the power on and off a couple more times.
‘Same as mine,’ said Chef. ‘Bloody thing’s dead as a Tsar. You’d better check your other stores, Borisov.’
Borisov came out into the corridor almost at a run. Varnek would blame him for this and his life would get very unpleasant very soon unless he could shuffle off responsibility and blame. And if someone was using all this confusion to pilfer stuff, then he wanted to stop him in any case.
A picture came into his vodka-brightened memory. A small girl with a large bottle of Coke, coming out of the galley, guiltily.
The first storeroom he checked was quiet. Dark. ‘Liddle kirl?’ he cried in his best English, ‘jou in this place, liddle kirl?’
Silence, except for the engines and the distant raving of celebration or storm. He went on to the next. And the next. He found her in the fourth one. And a great deal more than he expected to find as well.
*
Billy Hoyle sat, white as a sheet.
‘You may question him if it is crucial,’ said Dr Glasov, Billy’s guardian angel, ‘but he has been beaten, probably by this brute Borisov, and he seems to have a broken collarbone. I will not allow much time or any further brutality.’
‘Why were you hiding, Hoyle?’ demanded Captain Ogre.
‘I was scared,’ slurred Billy. ‘I owed these guys money. I thought they was going to kill me.’
‘These men. Who are they?’
‘Dunno. Guys on the crew. Big guys like this officer Borisov here. Ernie Marshall owed them too. You seen Ernie lately?’ He read the answer in Irene’s eyes. ‘Thought not,’ he said with a kind of sickly triumph. He was well aware that this was a very shaky story. Easy to check on; easy to disprove. But it was all he could come up with, and it would serve his primary purpose, which was to keep him at the centre of the captain’s attention. He was terrified of being alone where Agran or her lethal thug Varnek could get at him. Even if they lined up the crew and made him do an ID parade on the whole fucking lot of them, it wouldn’t matter. The objective was to stay alive until he could find some way of getting to Agran. Getting to her and negotiating with her.
But the fact was the weather was closing down almost as fast as the hours of millennium day were ticking past and everyone aboard had far too much to do to line up and smile for Billy Hoyle, let alone check his story.
Irene Ogre made her decision. ‘Very well. Dr Glasov, this man is in your charge until you are satisfied he is well enough to go into secure accommodation. You are responsible for him. He does not leave here. He does not go out of your sight or that of your staff until he is locked up or this matter is cleared up. For all we know it is he who has made Mr Marshall vanish. We could well have a murderer aboard.’
*
‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘You two have a lot of explaining to do.’ Her voice rang around the stateroom, overcoming the rolling grumble of the storm wind outside.
Mary knew better than to protest and even William bit back on a self-excusing whine.
‘Look,’ said Richard more quietly. ‘You’ve done something Mummy and I think is a bit silly.’
‘Very silly,’ snapped Robin.
‘But clearly you don’t think you were being silly at all. Now why is that?’
‘Because they have no idea what a perverted little —’
‘We helped Mr Billy because he helped us,’ said Mary, her huge eyes fastening earnestly on her father’s. ‘It was Mr Billy who carried me to bed the night Mummy and Aunt Kate slept in that funny little room at Armstrong. And when we came out in the morning to look for you or Uncle Colin because Mummy and Aunt Kate had no clothes, Mr Billy helped us again.’
‘How did he help?’ demanded Robin, remembering suddenly three burning pairs of eyes trying to see through all too thin a covering of cotton thermal underwear.
‘We couldn’t find Daddy like you told us,’ chimed in William. ‘So we looked for someone we recognised.’
‘And we found Mr Billy. He was talking to the scientists — the two in the sick bay — and he was talking to lots of other people …’
‘But he told us where you might be and we followed him into this hut.’
‘But don’t forget William,’ said Mary, ‘before we went in, Sergeant Killi —’
‘Oh that’s right, Sergeant Killigan told Mr Billy not to go in there but we still went in. It was very cold in there. And we looked around but we couldn’t see you there. Then Corporal Washington came and took us out and brought us to Mummy. Someone had been cooking in there, I think. And Tony Thompson was sleeping there.’
‘And the Tin Man,’ said Mary uneasily.
‘The Tin Man?’ asked Richard, intrigued. ‘The one from The Wizard ofOz?’
‘No, silly,’ said Mary. ‘This one was in a plastic sleeping bag. Wearing a suit made out of kitchen foil.’
*
Vivien Agran went slowly back to her office and sat for a while, thinking. Then she leaned forward and snapped on her computer. The ten-section screen lit up. She guided the cursor round the screen to the records section. She double-clicked and the section expanded to fill the whole screen, and a series of icons lit up. During the next half-hour she browsed through these, examining what she had on the visitors first, beginning with Hoyle. After the visitors, she checked some of Dr Glasov’s team. Then she went through a series of records plucked apparently at random out of the crew list. Finally she checked three of the files under her own list of stewards and entertainers. She sat back, deep in thought.
Then she reached for her internal phone and dialled the chief steward’s office.
‘Steward.’ He always called himself that to avoid confusion with the other chief, the chief engineer, who did call himself ‘Chief.’
‘Agran,’ she said, though he would have seen her extension number on his phone display. ‘Call up the accommodation records.’
The sound of keys clicking came over the phone to her. The whisper of a mouse over its mat. Distant thunder. She looked out through her wide porthole. The sky was dark enough for thunder, she thought. She tapped on her own keyboard with a long red finger nail. ‘Steward?’ she said.
‘It’s up,’ he said. ‘But please wait a moment, there’s someone at the door.’
‘No,’ she said, too late. The handset thumped gently down, picking up voices. Borisov: ‘Hey, Steward! Come on, it’s almost time. Where’s the good stuff?’
Steward: ‘Borisov! And Chef. What are you doing here?’
‘We’ve come to wish you Happy New Year. It will be midnight in Irkutsk in a couple of minutes. Come on, where’s the —’
‘Sit down, the pair of you. I’m on the phone. A moment or two will make no difference on a day such as today.’ The chief steward’s voice grew louder as he came back to the handset on his desk. ‘Mrs Agran wishes me to do something.’ There was a leathery sigh as he eased his solid bulk into his chair. ‘Now, Mrs Agran,’ he said. ‘What is it you want me to do?’
‘Look up the secure accommodation,’ she ordered. ‘I have records of all the suites and cabins but your computers are the only ones with details of what is secure and what is not.’
‘Starting now, Mrs Agran.’
Distantly, a cheer wafted down the line to her. Then, very much closer a hiss of surprise. ‘Mrs Agran! I’m sorry. There is something not right here … I was just … And it died. The whole thing went down before my very —’
Communication was abruptly cut.
Frowning, Vivien Agran called up her overview section of the chief steward’s accommodation records. The screen filled with the accommodation program but there was something awry with the icons. When she put the cursor on one and clicked, the screen simply filled with a storm of strange snow, a mixture of white computer gunk on a black screen sweeping downwards. A cold chill went through her. Her fingers flashed down to her keyboard, pressing CONTROL; ALT; DELETE all at once. The snow
died and the familiar blue-backed, ten-sectioned screen jumped up. She clicked on records and her program came up. She breathed a sigh of relief and thought no more of it. If the accommodation program was down, that was just too bad — for the chief steward. It did not occur to her to check the other sections.
And the three men sharing a bottle of truly legendary vodka in the steward’s office also failed to wonder why it was that their computers had gone down while no one else’s had. As yet.
*
Billy Hoyle came out of the doctor’s examination room into the sickbay just after eleven. He was all strapped up and back in pyjamas. He looked bad and felt worse. And not just medically. He glanced around. Time was limited and the stakes were high. As high as his neck. The doctor was only washing up, she’d be out in a second and then he’d be screwed. Washington was off somewhere. More than likely in the john. The Australian bit was out of sight, and her ancient husband was fast asleep. Mendel and Fagan were wrapped up in a chess game as usual. Killigan was lying in bed.
Billy snuck across the ward as fast as he could sneak. ‘Killigan!’ he hissed. ‘Killigan, you got to help me. I’m in deep shit here. That bitch Agran’s a stone killer. She had Ernie Marshall offed like she was swatting a fly. Offed him, broke my arm and took his bag. It’s got the Power Strip in it. I know you’ve got the specs on disk now and don’t need the Strip any more but you shouldn’t let her keep it, you know? You got to deal with her, Killigan. Come on, you owe me. Deal with her and keep my ass out of the sling. What do you say? Killigan? Killigan?’
Killigan made no sign of having heard. And nor did anyone else.
Certainly not Dai Gwyllim, who was awake and had overheard every word.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It didn’t make any sense. Jolene had expected Billy’s first set of notes to reveal obvious errors of procedure, which she assumed would be papered over in subsequent re-writes. But it wasn’t as cut and dried as that at all. The sequence of events established in the earliest set of notes seemed quite clear and unremarkable.
