Noah's Ark: Survivors (21 page)

Chuck jumped onto the platform with a rope and secured them. Dante was helped off first, and the others followed.

“Come with me, I’ll take you down to medical. Grau is going to need to look at this,” Kiera said, and disappeared with Dante.

“Reeve, what’s the situation? Any immediate danger to the ship?” Max asked.

“No, sir. I believe we are safe here. But the environment on land is extremely dangerous.” He outlined what had happened with the ash, and the fate of Stacey and Horace. Max was clearly shaken, but he was a professional and hardly let it show.

“Max, you should get back to patrolling, keep an eye out,” Jake said, scrambling to the platform. “Who knows who saw what, or what rumours are going to spread? Things could turn nasty. We’ll talk about the guns later.”

“I sought authorisation, Captain,” Max said defensively.

“I’m sure you did. Like I said, we’ll talk about it later. Can I borrow Reeve for a bit?”

Max nodded. He turned and headed off, one hand on the rifle slung over his shoulder.

“What do you want me to do with the raft, Captain?” Chuck asked.

“Leave it tied up for now. We might need it.” Jake couldn’t immediately think of any reason why that should be, but he thought it best to keep his options open. “Reeve, I think you’d better come to the bridge with me.” He turned to Chuck. “Thank you, sailor, you did a good job there.”

Reeve and Jake started on the long walk up the stairs towards deck ten.

• • •

“Where’s Stacey?” Melvin asked as soon as Jake had shut the door to the bridge behind Reeve.

“Jake! How are you? What happened? Are you okay? Max said it was dangerous!” Lucya threw her arms around him, then remembered his rank and the fact there were others present, and stepped back.

“I’m fine. What happened to the ship? We heard a sound, like…” Jake wasn’t sure what it was like.

“I asked you where Stacey is.”

“Lucya?” Jake said, ignoring Melvin.

“I screwed up, that’s what happened.” She looked away, embarrassed. “I ordered Pedro to take us in closer. I thought the raft would get to you quicker. But we must have hit one of those submerged bits of concrete pier. Shit, I’m sorry, Jake, it was my fault, I take full responsibility.”

“Do we know the extent of the damage?”

“Martin is on his way up here. He said it’s pretty bad, but under control.”
 

“Captain Noah, are you going to tell me where Stacey is?” Melvin stepped between Jake and Lucya, making himself impossible to ignore any longer.

“Melvin, you should…perhaps you should sit down,” Jake sighed.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“There was an accident. Well, not so much an accident. It’s more that we didn’t know about the ash. But Stacey went off without the rest of us, she should have waited and…”

“What are you saying, man? Pull yourself together and give me a coherent explanation. Where is Stacey?”

“She’s dead, Melvin, okay? She’s dead!” Jake shouted. “And so is Horace. He tried to save her, and now he’s dead too.”

“Oh my God!” Lucya’s hand flew to cover her open mouth.
 

“You absolute…!” Melvin flew forwards, wrapping his hands around Jake’s neck and squeezing. “I’ll kill you! You bastard, do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

“No! Stop! Get off him!” Lucya screamed, looking around in panic. “Somebody stop him!”

But Reeve was already there, pulling Melvin away from Jake’s neck. The instant the two men were separated, Melvin’s hand curled into a fist and powered into Reeve’s belly. The two men were of a similar size, but Reeve was fitter and stronger. He was winded, but far from beaten. He locked a powerful hand around Melvin’s wrist, twisting it up and around behind him. With his free hand he pushed on his shoulder, sending him to his knees. Jake was staggering backwards, still clutching at his throat. Lucya ran to him once more, but he backed away from her, trying to shake his head.

Someone hammered on the door. Nobody moved. Reeve had Melvin pinned to the floor, Jake was still recovering, Pedro and Dave were looking on in stunned silence, and Lucya seemed to be in shock. More banging, and the sound of someone shouting snapped her out of it. She undid the security bolt and let Martin in. His face was like thunder. Seeing Melvin on the floor didn’t seem to worry him in the slightest.

“You’ve really done it now, Jakey boy. Oh you have gone and royally screwed us. Leaving her in charge,” he almost spat the words out, “while you fuck off on your jolly. One incompetent leaves another to run the show. And oh, what a performance she puts on. Crashing, Jake. Crashing the ship and rupturing the hull.”

“Oh Jesus,” Lucya whispered.

“I don’t think Jesus is around, love. Or if he was, he would have obliterated our sorry arses with that asteroid, because that would have been kinder. Now we’re doomed to die on this ship because, and get this because it’s great, it’s abso-fucking-lutely marvellous, she not only ruptured the hull, but she took out the fuel line. Oh yes, you heard me right. Fuel tank four is, right now, spurting its contents into the fjord. The fjord is returning the favour by filling the tank room with water.”

Having got his rant out, Martin deflated somewhat. He found a chair and collapsed into it, covering his face with his hands.

“If I understand you correctly, we’ve lost one fifth of our fuel?” Jake croaked, recovering slowly. “We have five tanks on board, no?”

Melvin had stopped struggling and was now listening intently to the engineer.

“No, Jake. No, we didn’t lose one fifth. Two tanks were empty. Two are now leaking out through the broken pipe. We have one tank left. The tank we’ve been running on the last two days. Our fuel is at less than twenty percent.”

• • •

In a dark corner of the casino, a group of passengers were talking in hushed voices.

“What’s happening? What did they find over there?”

“I heard that the asteroid turned everyone into zombies, that they ran into a load of Norwegians who had become the walking dead.”

“That’s stupid. But they definitely found something bad. The security men were running round in a panic. And we saw them come back in a life raft. What happened to their boat?”

“My wife said a security guard told her the land was toxic, that it makes your skin melt.”

“That’s as stupid as the zombie thing!”

“Well whatever happened, I don’t reckon we’ll be getting off anytime soon.”

“If you ask me, it’s time for that election.”

“What election?”

“Apparently the captain promised an election if it turned out there are no other survivors.”

“I reckon I should stand.”

“That Melvin guy is going to stand. He sounds amazing, he led a mutiny and got them to let him stay on the bridge. He’s looking out for all of us, because otherwise they want to control us.”

“Yeah, enslave us.”

“We have to vote for Melvin. Pass the word on.”

On every deck, the same whispered conversations were taking place.

• • •

“If he lets you go, are you going to behave?” Jake asked Melvin.

“I ought to kill you.”

“I take it that’s a no, then. Reeve, you’re going to have to tie him up.”

“No! Wait. Think about Tania Bloom. If you tie me up then the others will know. When I don’t make contact, they’ll kill her. Do you want more blood on your hands today, Captain?”

Jake groaned. He knew his hands were tied, therefore Melvin’s never could be.

“Okay, let him go. But if he tries anything, we’re rounding up all his cronies and searching this ship top to bottom for Tania.”

“You’ll never find her,” Melvin said, getting to his feet as Reeve released his grip. “You couldn’t find her during the census, you won’t find her now. We’re not dumb.”

Melvin walked towards the door.

“Where are you going now?” Jake asked.

“To check in with my friends. And to find someone to take over the second watch. You might have killed Stacey, but we’re going to damn well make sure we keep a presence up here.”

He pulled the door open and stormed out.

“Reeve, follow him, I don’t trust him.”

“Sure thing, Captain.”

Jake staggered over to the captain’s chair and slumped down. Lucya followed.

“You guys should go and get some rest,” she said to Pedro and Dave.

“I don’t mind staying,” Dave said. “I was scanning the radios, you never know.”

“No, it’s fine, I can do that. You go on, take the opportunity to catch up on some sleep.”

Dave nodded. Pedro followed him off the bridge, leaving Jake, Lucya, and Martin alone.

“What do we do now?” Jake said. “I mean, I really thought, hoped, there would be something or someone. That it wasn’t as bad as on the television. But it’s all gone, Lucya. All of it. There’s nothing, just ash. Toxic ash.”

“We don’t give up!” Lucya sounded defiant. “So there’s nothing here, it doesn’t mean that it is the same everywhere. We go further south. Norway. Scotland. We keep going until we find somewhere that escaped, like we escaped.”

“No,” Martin said. He walked over to join them. “You saw that broadcast. That asteroid destroyed everything. We escaped because we were so far north. The further south we go, the worse it will be.”

“What about the South Pole?” Lucya wasn’t about to give up. “We escaped at the North Pole, maybe the South Pole did too?”

“Lucya, there’s nothing at the South Pole. It’s ice, snow. It’s the harshest conditions on the planet. Even if it wasn’t touched, what do you think is there for us?”

“I don’t know! But surely it’s worth a try?”

“We don’t have the fuel. We have maybe enough to reach Scotland, if we turn off the generator and one engine, just run the other engine. And then what? When we arrive there and find exactly the same thing as here? Then we’ll have no fuel left, no power.”

“We can’t just stay here!” Lucya was starting to panic.

“Lucya, we have no choice,” Jake said. “That asteroid has killed us like it killed everyone else in the world. It’s just that it’s going to take longer for us to die. We thought we were lucky, that we’d escaped. But they were the lucky ones. The people who never saw it coming. The people who were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Most of them probably never knew what hit them. Even those who did, they only had a few hours’ warning. Time to panic a little, to pray a little, to say goodbye to those they loved.” An image of Jane blinked before his eyes again. “We don’t have that luxury. We’re going to die slowly. Painfully. Of cold, of dehydration, of starvation.”

“We don’t all have to die,” Martin said coldly.

“What do you mean?” Jake looked at him.

“This ship can’t sustain three thousand people, not with the little fuel we have left. But it could keep a few hundred alive. Long enough to find a way to survive.”

“You can’t be serious?” Lucya stared open mouthed.

“Why not? It makes sense to me. Decimate the population on board. No, not decimate, more than that. Sacrifice, say, nine out of every ten people on board. The resources on the ship can keep three hundred people alive for ten times as long as they can keep three thousand alive.”

“Martin, quite apart from the fact that what you are suggesting is completely and utterly morally repugnant and out of the question, it would only prolong the inevitable. The ten percent you let live will just live a bit longer!” Jake couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. He couldn’t look at Martin. He got up and walked to the window, staring out at the fjord.

“On the contrary.” Martin was getting into the flow of his thinking. “That extra time would make all the difference. We could create a farm in Palm Plaza. Rip out the plants, grow food. It wouldn’t be enough to feed three thousand. But three hundred? Maybe, if we were clever about it. And we can fish, too. Heck, we could even freeze those we sacrificed and eat them. Like those guys whose plane crashed in the Andes, years ago. There are other ways of generating power as well, given enough time. This ship could be made self-sufficient. If the population were reduced.”

“You’re disgusting. I can’t believe you would even say something like that!” Lucya slapped Martin in the face and stormed out, slamming the bridge door behind her.

“And then there were two,” said Martin.

Forty

E
ILEEN
B
AKEMAN
STOOD
outside her cabin, the tips of her fingers on the door handle. She had been about to enter, but a sound from inside made her stop. It was her husband’s voice. She found this strange, because he insisted on never letting anyone else into the cabin. Eileen had made some friends on board, before the asteroid, but Flynn had made it very clear that they were not welcome in their private space. So Eileen was curious; who was he talking to?

Slowly, quietly, she put her ear to the door. Apart from the distant hum of the engines still idling far below, there was no other sound. She could make out his words quite clearly.

“…so I beg you Lord, give me the strength to carry out your work. The first of many sacrifices is soon upon me. The end draws near, the beautiful day approaches. I am the instrument of your will on Earth, your humble and faithful servant. Amen.”

Eileen gasped, took a step back, and turned to leave. The door opened and Flynn filled the frame.

“Hello, my love. It is time for you to come inside.”

“Oh, Flynn. Hi, honey. I was just going to see if the dinner service had started.” She took another step away from the cabin.

He reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her towards the door.

“Flynn! You’re hurting me!”

“I said, it is time to come inside now.”

He yanked her arm sharply, and in one movement pulled her through the door and flung her onto the bed.
 

“Flynn, I don’t understand. What did I do wrong? Tell me what I did, Flynn, I’ll put it right, I promise!” Tears began to streak down her face.

“Me, me, me, it’s always about you, isn’t it? You think you did something wrong? You did nothing. Nothing! You are a waste of space, and a waste of resources. This ship doesn’t need people like you. People like you are what caused the problem. You consume relentlessly. You take without giving back. You suck the world dry. He gave us a beautiful, abundant world. A world of balance and harmony. And now that balance will be restored.”