by David Jurk
This is only an analytical number, of course, and does not consider the impact that a complete breakdown in services brings. The elderly, the very young, those with medical conditions requiring modern medicines; these people will not likely survive.
Our own situation is not tenable. Our last food delivery was ten days ago, and we do not know yet if those bringing it also brought the virus. Attempts made to quarantine the crew failed. We will continue a daily broadcast of events concerning our beloved nation as long as we are able.”
I looked at the bowl of rice in my hands, unable to take another bite. China, reduced to ten thousand people? From two billion? Was life truly so tenuous? Each of those people, the flame of their consciousness snuffed out, one by one. I could feel the beating of my heart, heard the slight movement of air as breath entered and left my body, and tried to absorb the sense of this diaphanous curtain between life and death. How fragile we were, really. Out here on this visceral sea, watching video and news pages on a monitor seemed surreal to the point of fantasy. To hear that China at some point soon would be a nation in name only, emptied of its vast reservoir of people, brought home to me like nothing else had the reality of the Python. For the first time it seemed to me conceivable that China was just the beginning. And the extrapolation was frighteningly simple arithmetic; if the survival rate in China held true for the planet – and nothing stopped the virus – the Earth would be, when this was over, home to no more than forty thousand human beings.
But surely more people would survive than that; there would be people like me, managing to avoid contact with the virus in some way? Perhaps, but the survival ratio didn’t consider the non-viral impact, the effect on society, the deaths that would occur from starvation, disease, injury, and violence. It doesn’t matter what you die from, only that you’re dead. And I had to wonder - surviving all of that by some grace, your family and friends all dead, how many survivors wouldn’t just choose to end it?
I looked around at the sea, so serene, so peaceful. Flying fish were flushed before us, rising and falling like skipping stones from the water and back again. The sails, full of warm breeze, carried us forward – the snap and slap of fabric and line and metal forming a background chorus. Light misty spray, salty and warm, found its way onto my bare body. This was what was real to me, not the images and sounds from the wretched world of the broadcasts. And I felt that I could take no more of it and promised myself not to listen again, or watch.
Yet, I couldn’t shake it. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I couldn’t summon enough energy to carry out my normal routine. I checked nothing, ignored the watch schedule and stopped scanning the weather. I lay back somnolent in the cockpit, the bowl of rice, long cold, unfinished on the seat beside me. When the evening came, I felt hungry but had no desire to cook, so I picked at the cold rice, which tasted of nothing.
Without setting the alarm, I went below and laid down, thinking of Rachel, glad she hadn’t seen all this death and suffering, glad that she’d died before having to watch the world die. Gentle Rachel, who wept at the sight of an egg fallen from a robin’s nest.
I wasn’t doing quite so well myself actually and as I lay there in the dark, I turned to a meditative trick that I used when sleep wouldn’t come. I rested in the space between my eyes, focusing on the air moving in and out of my lungs, letting thoughts flow through me unfettered and unattended to. Breathe in, deeply and slowly, then softly, softly, let the breath out. Over and over.
A klaxon screamed in the darkness, the shock of it sending adrenaline rising in me like a flood. Stupidly, I jabbed at the alarm button on my phone. Not the alarm; what was it? What was it? I tried to stand and fell off the settee, then it came to me; good Christ it was the proximity system - we were going to hit something.
On deck, naked and shivering, I whirled about in the dark but could see nothing.
“Ray, alarm off.”
The piercing, awful punishment stopped instantly, and I dropped to my knees in the blessed silence. Stars were brilliant above me, winds were light, the seas running easterly. Had the alarm been an error?
“Ray, reason for alarm.”
“Right, mate. Radar shows a big bodger five point three kilometers dead ahead.”
“Size and speed,” I asked.
“She’s a right beaut, mate – nearly three hundred bloody meters, but bogged, yeah? Dead in the water. We’re closing at four and a half knots. We’ll not want’a come a guster.”
Three hundred meters? It seemed crazy that a ship that size would be dead in the water. Commercial vessels never, ever stop and something on the ocean that size had to be a commercial ship of some kind.
I went below and put some water on then grabbed clothes and got dressed, waiting for the scream from the water kettle. When it came, I made coffee and took it out on deck, waiting and watching.
Within minutes, in the dim pre-dawn light, a shape loomed black on the grey horizon before us, perhaps a half-kilometer away. We were headed straight for it. I sat the coffee down and within five minutes had all the sails lowered.
“Ray, maintain current course on motors, five knots. At fifty meters from the object, stop.”
“That’ll be right, mate. On electrics to within fifty, then stop.”
We quickly closed on it and the immensity of this thing became ever more impressive; truly it was as if we approached a mountain rising from the sea. I let us drift and just watched it. As the morning began to brighten, I began to make out her colors: a matte black hull laying impossibly long in the water, a white bridge aft, massive, four or five stories. Aft of that yet, at her stern, a bright yellow tower built around a central smokestack. On her decks were a jungle of green racks of some sort, empty of any cargo.
She floated high, apparently unloaded, at least four meters of rust-orange bottom paint visible above the surface of the water, making her appear ungainly and top-heavy. We’d approached on her stern, and the pale lettering of her name was visible, though in the dim light I couldn’t quite make it out.
I watched for a while, looking for any signs of life, any activity at all, but there was nothing. I went below for more coffee, and decided to make breakfast, which I brought back on deck and ate. The morning arrived in its fullness, dawn spreading a vaguely pinkish ochre over the sky, coloring the pale topsides of the ship. In the growing light, the white lettering became clear; Mare Oriens, out of the port of Napoli.
“Ray, do a check on the Mare Oriens.”
“No worries. Oil tanker, Italian registry. Capacity approximately sixty thousand tonnes.”
“Size?”
“Piece o’ piss, mate. Two hundred and sixty meters long with a bloody beam of forty-two meters. That’s a pure whopper, innit?”
It was. Her deck loomed far above the top of Windswept’s mast, and the bridge, Christ, it was the size of a small hotel.
“Ray, how many crew?”
“She carries twenty-one most times, mate, including the cap’.”
I watched for a while longer, growing restless; was I going to sit around drifting with this thing all day?
“Ray, cancel auto.”
“She’s yours, mate.”
I took the tiller, gave us enough motor to hit three knots and closed the last few hundred meters to the ship, approaching direct to the stern. As we reached her, I swung us to her port side, slowing to little more than walking pace as we ran alongside her. Reaching mid-ships, standing off her about ten meters, I craned my neck to see the edge of her deck, waiting for anyone to show up over the railing. Nothing. Then an idea occurred to me.
Rummaging around in the aft cockpit locker, I pulled out the signaling kit and grabbed the air horn. Holding it as high over my head as I could reach, I closed my eyes against the blast I knew was coming and pulled the trigger. The shriek split the morning silence into shards of sound, bludgeoning the very air. I let go, deafened, and in the stunned silence again craned up at the deck railing above me, fully expect
ing someone to peer over. No one did.
I sat down, ears still ringing, and thought through all of my alternatives. A notion occurred to me.
“Ray, what was the Mare Oriens’ last port of call?”
“Honolulu.”
“And the one before that?”
“Singapore, mate,” he said, then after a brief pause added, “by way of Hong Kong.”
Right, I thought, of course. I reached for the throttles, accelerated, pulled out away from the black hull a few meters, continuing along toward the bow. When we reached it, I swung right, across her nose and began circling down her starboard side, keeping my eyes on her railing. Come on, damn it, someone be there.
I reached mid-ships, saw the sloping gangway reaching down to within five meters of her waterline, saw the ladder welded to her hull, extending down the rest of the way. I realized she could be boarded from the sea. I killed the motors, just drifting and thinking.
Why not?
Because it was a stupid risk. Yes, I had the respirator, and yes, the filters would work against a virus, and yes, I had vinyl gloves. But why do it? To what purpose?
And in the end, I went for the most human thing of all; simply because I was curious. I boarded her because it was just plain weird, finding this mammoth ship dead in the water and nobody responding. And I did it because inside, I was getting a bit full of myself, I think, with my sailing across the Pacific. Because inside me there was a bit of the pirate, maybe. What might be on that thing? Food? Maybe some nice wine? Guns? If I board her at sea – that makes her mine. And everything on her.
At least I had enough sense left to protect myself. I not only pulled on the respirator and the gloves, but as I’d rummaged around in the forward locker below the sail storage, I’d found a Tyvek suit intended for fiberglass work, and put that on, too. Wouldn’t it just suck to be out here in the middle of nowhere and catch the goddamn virus?
Still, there was the question of Windswept. There was no practical way to secure her to the ship – tying her to the ladder would leave her open to serious damage. I suppose Ray could drive; drop me off at the ladder like I was a kid being taken to the movies by his dad, then come back and get me. It occurred to me the last part of that might be a bit tricky. How would he know when and how to do it?
“Ray,” I asked, “can you be remotely controlled?”
“Right as rain. Reckon the app’s for that, hey?”
“App?”
“Raymarine Operator. Install her on your phone, mate - she’ll do the trick, yeah?”
The global web provided the download in seconds. I opened it, connected to Ray, confirmed communication. A section of the phone screen showed a map with Ray as a red dot in the middle of it, an array of functions listed along the side, one of which was ‘Call Boat to Remote’. That’s it, then. Wherever my phone was, Ray could home in and locate. In theory.
I maneuvered carefully over to the ladder, told Ray to take over and hold steady. At the last moment, I realized I should take a backpack, and spent several long, frustrating minutes searching below, sweating in the suit, before I found one and made it back onto the deck. Then I wasted more time thinking of a few things to put in it, some water, a knife, and a flashlight.
When I reached the ladder, I found it was higher above the water than I’d thought – nearly at the level of my head. It was going to take a bit of a lunge to get started. I took a deep breath, coiled myself and jumped, managing to get hold of the second rung and scrabbling my feet against the hull of the tanker, dragged myself up onto the ladder. I felt like a flea on the ankle of an elephant. Glancing briefly up the side of the thing, I almost quit. But no, the pirate lust had taken hold.
“Ray,” I yelled. “Take her out to fifty meters and circle the freighter at one knot until I call for you.”
“Right-o. Fifty-meter circle at one knot.”
I watched Windswept slowly pull away; a sight so appalling to me that twice I had to stop myself from calling the whole thing off. I clung to the ladder, arms already beginning to ache, and for some minutes did nothing other than work to get my breathing and my mind under control. The pirate’s insouciance faded, leaving damn little more than ragged nervousness.
But there was nothing for me but to do it now, so I turned and just climbed, deliberately and steadily, and in a few minutes reached the gangway. I carefully wormed up through the small opening in the platform; from there, it was a matter of nothing more dramatic than ten meters or so of metal stairs, a railing protecting me. A final step over the wide gunwale, and I was on board.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I FOUND MYSELF standing mid-ships, the deck in all directions covered with a forest of empty green racks, stacked at least five meters high, strapped in place with chains. The only obvious walking path seemed to be around the perimeter, where a walkway was outlined in bright yellow paint. I began following it toward the bow, nervous, compelled to look over the railing at the ocean. The sight of Windswept, eerily empty, sails furled and slowly moving through the calm sea brought me to a complete halt for several seconds. To see her from this vantage, above her, her bright grey hulls sharp and vivid against the backdrop of the ocean; a line from some old poem entered my head.
We danced the sea on waxen sail…
And abruptly I just wanted to be done with this, have my look at things and get back to my boat and be gone. I looked around, wondering what the point was of walking this enormous deck, and turned and headed straight back aft, toward the immense bridge structure rising four stories above me.
I walked quickly, pausing now and again to listen and look around, but all remained silent. I reached the bridge and stopped before it, feeling exposed and vulnerable before the forward wall of dark glass, visible to anyone inside. It was largely intact, with the exception of a small, neat rectangle of glass missing near the very top, toward the port side. I could see shards of glass on the deck below, sparkling in the sun.
Before me, double doors were set in the center, at deck level, and I approached them cautiously, hesitant, looking inside before trying them.
They swung open easily and I went in, immediately feeling the heat from the sun baking the interior. Clearly, there was no air conditioning. I seemed to be in an anteroom, an atrium that soared to the top floor. Stairs wound in graceful curves on both sides.
Before me opened out into what seemed to be a lobby, much like a hotel, equipped with lounges and chairs surrounding large Vid screens of the most modern technology; paper thin, suspended in midair magnetically. Vending machines and racks of magazines and newspapers lined the walls. The glass doors, as well as numerous windows on both side walls provided adequate lighting; still, seeing a switch on the wall, I tried it. Nothing.
The room was large and bore all the signs of having gone far too long without attention; paper trash – pieces of newspaper, coffee cups, containers – lay heaped everywhere. Several of the chairs held clothing; t-shirts and socks, a pair of shorts. There were signs on the wall, in Italian; not a language I knew. Paper plates of food, desiccated and moldy, were strewn over the casual tables, cascading onto the floor.
Two doors were set into the back wall on either side, leading aft. I started with the port side door; it swung open easily and I went through into a gloomy hallway, lit only faintly by a single window at the far end – I assumed at the very stern of the ship. Doors lined both sides of the corridor and it seemed to me they must be crew quarters. The first few doors I tried were locked, but the fourth was slightly ajar, held from closing completely shut by an old-fashioned rubber wedge.
I pushed through and found myself facing a bunk with a corpse in it. All very neat, blanket tucked in, pillows propped under the head, which was rotting into bare bone. The hair had collapsed to one side like an ill-fitting toupee, white bone gleaming dully. The room was small, with barely enough space for the narrow bed, a chair and a small table. A single small porthole served as the only window. It dawned on me, belatedly, that the respi
rator I wore was doing more for me than just insulating me from the virus – the smell in this room had to be horrific. The body was hardly done rotting.
I backed out of the room and walked several steps down the hallway before I noticed that half the doors had similar wedges propping them open. I quickly checked two more before I quit, then walked back out into the atrium and climbed the stairs to the second floor. It was a repeat of the first, though the rooms seemed to be larger. Probably a ranking system, I thought, higher floors for the officers? I entered only two of the rooms, finding bodies in both. One was a young woman in uniform, as though she’d come off duty and laid down for a nap. I tried not to look at any of the faces, though from what I did see it was clear to me they’d died painfully.
I suppose it was entirely predictable in circumstances like that to feel a deepening sense of disquiet as I retraced my steps to the stairway. I was transgressing in a ship of the dead, stirring the dust in a tomb, and it was impossible not to feel the heavy presence of ghosts about me. I thought of Windswept, out circling in the sunshine, under control of nothing more than lines of code in an AI program, and wondered at my foolhardiness.
The third floor held a different layout; these weren’t individual quarters at all but larger rooms that seemed intended for crew services. There was an obvious infirmary; a modern, well-equipped clinic with its own pharmacy. The window in this room was larger as well, though the light coming through it seemed filtered, diffuse. It seemed to be an examination room, holding three very small individual bays with bunks – presumably for anyone ill enough to need supervised care. They all held bodies, and a fourth laying curled on the floor. None of them gave the appearance of being the ship’s doctor, though I suppose my notion that he’d be in some sort of uniform was probably silly.
