Pandora Jones: Deception

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘Nah. But I’ll look again.’ Jen immersed herself in the cabin and Pan could see the dim shape of her body thrashing in the water. Then she came up and hauled herself clear. ‘Sorry, Pandora,’ she said. ‘Nothing. It must have got washed overboard.’

  Pan’s legs folded beneath her and she put her head into her hands.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. I searched everywhere.’

  ‘That’s it, then,’ said Pan. ‘Game over. We can’t survive without water. You know that. We’re dead, Jen.’ She laughed and it sounded shrill and unpleasant even to her own ears. ‘Here we are, bailing out the sea with a couple of tiny pots and for what? So we don’t drown before we die of thirst. That’s funny, Jen. That’s really funny.’

  When Jen grabbed her arm the pain was so intense it almost took her breath away. She looked down and saw her wrist, pale and anaemic under the pressure. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘You’re hurting me, Jen,’ she said.

  ‘Good. Listen to me. We are not dead yet. You understand? We are not dead yet. And while there’s any breath in my body I’m going to keep fighting.’

  Pan bit her lip. Jen shook her arm.

  ‘You hear me, Pandora?’

  Pan nodded.

  ‘Okay.’ Jen let go of her arm. ‘First thing, activate that emergency beacon. I guess we don’t have much to lose. If it’s only The School monitoring the frequency, then I’d sooner go back there than die out here. Assuming they can find us, of course. And maybe, just maybe, there’s someone else out there who will find us first.’

  Pan had forgotten all about the beacon. She reflexively reached an arm across her chest to check the canvas bag was still there. It was. She shrugged the bag over her head and unzipped it. The interior was soaking. The beacon was designed to activate automatically in water. Maybe it had already done so. Just to be on the safe side, she found the manual switch and turned it to the on position. Almost immediately she felt calmer. They were still in serious trouble, but any kind of action was better than nothing. She looked at the squat orange container and hoped it was doing what it was designed to do. Somewhere high above she hoped a satellite was picking up their signal and relaying it to whoever monitored the emergency frequency. Something had been initiated. Time would tell if their distress call fell on dead ears. For now, she felt better.

  Pan zipped the bag up and slung it back over her head.

  ‘Done,’ she said.

  ‘We survive, right?’ Jen’s tone was light. ‘Just like you wouldn’t let me die, I’m not going to let us. We are the future, Pandora, and nothing will stand in our way. Not the sea, not the lack of drinking water. And certainly not The School. Okay?’

  Pan smiled. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good,’ said Jen. ‘I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up. It makes it easier for me to share a bit of bad news.’ She pointed towards the cabin. The line she had gouged was still visible, but it rested a few millimetres below the surface.

  The boat was sinking.

  Jen paced the deck for about half an hour, a deck that was now stable – the storm had passed and the sea swayed gently as if nothing had taken place.

  Pan scanned the horizon in a full three-sixty circle, but saw only water. So much water. Land, a solid surface beneath her feet, seemed a distant memory. It was hard to believe the world contained anything other than a vast, limitless ocean.

  Jen stood and looked down at Pan, sitting with her back against the main mast, her legs spread out in front. ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘I’m not smiling.’

  ‘Your lips were twitching. It looked like a smile.’

  Pan did smile then. ‘I was thinking about that old movie. One of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. You know, with Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And there was this one scene where his boat was sinking and he was standing on that crossbeam at the top of the mast. And the audience sees him coming into dock, just as the last part of the boat sinks beneath the water. Jack Sparrow’s completely unconcerned and he steps off the mast and onto the dock. It’s seamless. He doesn’t break stride. That was so cool.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember it. You’re hoping for the same, Pandora?’

  ‘No. I just remembered it because it was so cool.’ Pan got to her feet. ‘Any idea how long before we’re swimming?’

  Jen glanced out towards the horizon.

  ‘I reckon we’ve got an hour, tops. The water is up to the deck now. Thing is, I’ve got this feeling that there’s a tipping point, you know? That when the boat reaches a certain level it will sink fast. So it might be an hour, but it might be a few minutes.’

  ‘Anything we should do in preparation?’

  Jen resumed her pacing, throwing the words over her shoulder as she walked.

  ‘We’ve got life jackets, you’ve got that bag. Make sure it’s secure, all right? I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.’

  Pan scanned the horizon also. ‘How long do you think we can survive in the water?’ she asked.

  ‘Hell, I don’t know, Pandora. Like I keep telling you, I’m no expert on this shit. Worry about it later. We’re still breathing. That’ll do for now.’

  The girls stood at each end of the sinking boat and didn’t speak.

  The emergency beacon had been operational for an hour at least, assuming the batteries were still functional. How long did it take for rescue services to be alerted and to act?

  Maybe a helicopter, even if it was the helicopter, would hover just above the waterline and the girls would step into it off the deck just as their boat plunged into the ocean depths. Maybe they’d do a Captain Jack Sparrow. Or maybe the boat would sink and they would spend days in the water, waiting for a rescue that would never come. Treading water, trying to keep up their spirits though they’d know it was hopeless. Possibly watching while fins broke the surface around them. Pan had seen a film where that happened. Which one of them would die first? How could the other cope? If it came to that, would she have the courage to take off her life jacket and just sink?

  Would she die without knowing any of the answers to the questions that brought them here in the first place? It was a terrifying thought.

  ‘I think it’s time, Pandora.’

  Jen’s voice was low and there was no trace of panic in it. For a moment, Pan dared to hope that Jen had spied a ship on the horizon, or a plane breaking through the cloud cover. That the time was the time for rescue. But she knew it wasn’t. Jen’s head was lowered and Pan followed her line of sight.

  The deck was awash, maybe two or three centimetres below the surface of the ocean. Pan might have noticed herself if her feet hadn’t been so cold and incapable of feeling. Then the whole boat shuddered and tilted and one part of the decking completely disappeared.

  ‘We go now,’ said Jen. ‘When this thing gets sucked down, we don’t want to get caught, like ants drawn down a plughole.’ She splashed over to join Pan, her feet slipping on the boards. At one stage she fell to her knees, but quickly regained her footing. She took Pan by one hand. ‘Swim that way, as fast as you can,’ she said, nodding in the direction they were facing. ‘I won’t lose you. Not now.’

  It was time to leave, and Pan felt the enormity of what was happening. The boat had been home to them for . . . how long? Time had lost all meaning. But the boat had been a sanctuary. It was solid. Leaving it was like abandoning hope. She couldn’t let herself think this way or she’d cling to whatever object she could find, be drawn down with the boat into terrifying darkness.

  Pan shook her head, bent both knees and the girls jumped together. The water closed over her face for only a fraction of a second before the life jacket popped her to the surface. Even then, the swell which seemed almost benign from the safety of the boat was rough enough to cover her face immediately, causing her to take a breath that was one part air and two parts salt water. She coughed and spluttered. It was difficult to see any
distance – the waves blotted out everything beyond a radius of a few metres. There was no sign of Jen. Pan wasn’t even aware of when she had lost the grip on her hand. A dark panic filled her.

  ‘Swim, Pandora.’ The voice came from her right and when she turned, Jen was there. ‘I told you. I’m staying close.’

  Pan’s breaststroke was hampered by the life jacket and she felt clumsy and helpless. She gritted her teeth and kicked her legs.

  They must have been in the water for only a couple of minutes before Pan saw the boat finally give up its grip on the surface. There was a swell, a sense of something sucking at her heels. And then the pressure eased. The boat had been erased, making its long, slow way to the bottom of the sea. The Adventurer. Pan remembered the name inscribed on the side in proud gothic script. On its last adventure.

  Pan stopped swimming and trod water. Within seconds, Jen appeared at her side.

  ‘How ya doin’, Pandora?’ said Jen.

  ‘Still breathing,’ Pan replied.

  ‘That’s the way. Just keep doing it, okay?’ Jen’s voice was so calm Pan had to strain to hear her.

  Pan turned full circle in the water. There was nothing to see.

  ‘And what do we do now?’ she said.

  ‘We wait,’ said Jen.

  Chapter 23

  Desperation can play tricks on the mind. Pan knew that. It was an absurd thought, the worst kind of wishful thinking. But it wouldn’t go away. She tried to clear her head and think back to the moment when they jumped from the boat. What had she seen? A swirl of sea and sky, yes. But something else. Maybe.

  Impossible.

  The more Pan tried to replay the memory, the more hazy and insubstantial it became. But what did they have to lose? A hope born and then dashed? Was that better than no hope at all?

  ‘I think I might have seen something, Jen,’ she said. ‘When we jumped from the boat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. A dot on the horizon. Maybe it was a bird, maybe it was a wisp of cloud.’

  ‘And maybe it was a boat.’ Jen swam closer. ‘Okay, Pandora. Just float there and put your hands together, lock your fingers like you’re going to give me a lift up, yeah?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re going to give me a lift up.’

  ‘You won’t be able to see anything.’

  ‘Oh, jeez, Pandora. Give it over. At least we’d be doing something. Come on. When I get a foot in your hands we’ll do a one, two, three and then you push as hard as you can.’

  The first time wasn’t very successful. Jen tilted to the side and didn’t get her head more than half a metre above sea level. The second and third attempts were better. Each time, Jen spun as far she could. They had lost all sense of direction, so she tried to cover as much of a three-sixty revolution as she could. After the sixth try, she bobbed and spat water from her mouth.

  ‘Okay, you were right, Pandora. I couldn’t see squat.’

  ‘I probably didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Maybe. And maybe there’s a boat chugging past right as we speak. Set off one of those flares.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we save them?’

  ‘What for? Thinking of having them gift-wrapped as my Christmas present, Pandora? Come on. You’ve got, what, ten or twenty? I reckon we can spare one.’

  Pan pulled up the canvas bag from where it nestled against her chest and Jen unzipped it carefully, conscious that their only resources were contained in that small space and one slip of the fingers would lose them forever. Jen took the pack of mini-flares and removed one from the case. She frowned and gazed at the directions on the side of the slim casing. It was a thin tube, with a small projection, like a fin, jutting halfway down one side.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So there’s only eight flares in the pack. Fires to a height of sixty metres, lasts for six seconds, throws off three thousand candela, whatever they are, and can be seen for five miles during the day. More at night, which it isn’t.’

  ‘Six seconds? That’s not long. Even if there is a boat out there, what are the chances someone will be looking in this direction to catch six seconds of flare?’

  ‘God, Pandora. I feel like slapping you. Shut up, okay, while I get this locked and loaded.’

  Pan zipped up the bag and let it sink down to her chest while Jen twisted the tube. Something clicked. She pointed the projector towards the sky and pressed. It all happened quickly, but they didn’t have to wait long to know it had worked. High above them a red flare blossomed against the sky. It arced slowly and, for a moment, Pan felt a surge of hope. Surely, if there was anyone around, they would see that? But her hope died as soon as the flare winked, spluttered and expired. Far too short a time. It was hopeless. A short-lived spark against all that landscape? Might as well light a match in the middle of the Simpson Desert and expect a fire truck to rock up.

  ‘Doesn’t quite match New Year’s Eve on Sydney Harbour,’ said Jen. ‘Give me another.’

  ‘We should save them. They’re more visible at night.’

  ‘When we won’t have a clue if there is anything out there or not? Good thinking, Pandora. Come on, just one more. I’ll leave it a couple of minutes. If someone spotted the first, they might get other people looking in this direction.’

  Pan unzipped the bag and took out another flare. She didn’t have the energy to argue. She was convinced she hadn’t seen anything – no dot on the horizon, no smear of darkness. Wishful thinking, that’s all it was. But another idea flittered across her mind. Maybe it wasn’t something she had seen. Perhaps it was something she had sensed. The gift, the remote sensing. Hadn’t she done that often enough under Dr Morgan’s supervision? She thrust the idea away. No. The reality was there was nothing out there. And they were wasting two flares trying to attract a phantom.

  After a couple of minutes, Jen set off the second. It was as unimpressive as the first. Then the girls floated in the water, letting the sea take them, drifting alone with their thoughts.

  When the boat arrived, half an hour later, they had difficulty believing it wasn’t an illusion.

  There were three men in the boat, dressed in oilskins. One moment all Pan could see was the lapping of the waves, the next a small boat loomed above her. She hadn’t even heard the engine. One of the men leaned over the side and extended his hand. Jen was the closest. She reached up and locked her hand around the man’s forearm and he lifted her into the boat in one easy movement. Pan breaststroked the few metres to the boat and within moments she too was on board.

  The man who had lifted them in smiled and said something in a foreign language. It was strange and guttural. Russian? Something Eastern European at any rate. Pan shrugged.

  ‘English?’ she said. Her voice sounded peculiar and distant, as if it belonged to someone else. Everything swam before her eyes and she had to close them for a few seconds to keep control. In those few seconds of darkness she had an overwhelming fear that when she opened them again, she would still be wallowing in a vast, inimical sea, that there would be no sign of Jen and that the future held only a long and delirious journey to death. She opened her eyes. The man’s smile became broader. He lifted his arms, palms spread, in the universal sign of incomprehension.

  Another man shook out a couple of thermal blankets, their silver lining catching the light, and handed them to the girls. Pan wrapped herself as tight as she could. The third man started the engine and the boat swung round. Pan could see the dark bulk of a huge vessel – a tanker of some kind, surely, four or five hundred metres away. Jen laughed and then coughed. Pan just stared. Then she felt Jen’s fingers against her own. They held hands as the tanker grew, until it filled all their vision.

  When Pan woke, it took her a few minutes to work out where she was. It was a curiously familiar feeling. It had happened on holidays with her mum and Danny – waking up in a hotel room, unable to get her bearings until memory supplied a solution. Then it clicked into place. The boat, the rescuers, the tanker,
huge, dwarfing them as they approached.

  What had happened then? Pan couldn’t remember anything after the boat ride. How had they been brought on board? Did anyone on board speak English? Where were they now? Nothing, until she woke up in a strange room, in a strange bed.

  Her first thought was for Jen. She sat up and Jen was there, sitting on another bunk, legs crossed, head bowed and eyes closed.

  ‘Jen!’

  Her friend’s eyes snapped open and blazed with fear. Then warmth spread into them as she recognised Pan.

  ‘Yo, Pandora. Sleeping Beauty. Feeling better?’

  Pan tried to get to her feet, but the room swam and her legs turned rubbery. She sat on the edge of her bed and tried to stabilise herself. It didn’t seem to make any difference. She felt sick, as if her body could not be trusted to perform even the most basic of functions.

  ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘You remember the boat coming for us?’

  Pan nodded, but even that simple action brought to life a dull pain at the base of her skull.

  ‘We were being hoisted into the boat and . . . well, you lost it. Your eyes rolled around in your head – if they weren’t so bloodshot, I’d say all you could see was white, but anyway . . . The next thing I know you’re a dead weight. Gone. Out of it. Passed out.’ Jen unlocked her legs and stretched them in front of her. A grimace of pain passed across her face and she bit at her lower lip. ‘To be honest, I barely managed to stay conscious myself. All that adrenaline, I guess. Lack of sleep, dehydration, near-death experiences. It felt like my body was shutting down . . .’

  ‘Jen. Where are we?’

  ‘Hey, take it easy. I’m getting to that. As far as I can tell, we are on a Russian tanker. Well, I can’t swear to it being Russian, since no one here speaks English apparently. But there was all this squiggly writing everywhere . . .’

  ‘The Cyrillic alphabet.’

  ‘Whatever. I sure as hell couldn’t make any sense of it. And I’m trying to communicate with them – you know, sign language and stuff, but there’s nothing doin’. Whoever they are, though, they are friendly. Some dude – must be the medical guy – checked you over, gave you oxygen. Then he tries to give me an injection and I’m, like, “whoa, you can keep that to yourself”, so they bring you here on a stretcher and I came along. They wanted me to go somewhere else, but I wasn’t leaving you.’ Jen rubbed at her brow with both hands, ‘I think this must be the sick bay.’