Outpost (25 page)

'How
did you get here?' asked Ghost.

'I
paddled a lifeboat from the rig,' said Rye. 'We'll use the zodiac to get back.'

'Did
you find Jane?'

'I
thought she was with you.'

Jane
was hurled forward from the roof of the bridge at the moment of impact like a
crash-test dummy propelled through a windscreen.

Mid-air.
Body clenched for impact. 'It will be slow hell,' said a remote corner of her mind
removed from the action. 'You'll hit the deck, and lie there, and think you are
okay even though your back is broken. Then pain will build and build until it
blots out the world.'

Her
leg tangled in a decorative light-string hung at the prow. She dangled upside
down for a moment, swung and spun, arms flailing, then the festoon snapped in a
burst of sparks. She hit the deck, crunching bulb-glass beneath her. She got to
her feet. Infected passengers would be on her any minute. She snatched up her
shotgun and ran.

The
Rampart zodiac was suspended from a couple of lifeboat cranes. Jane lowered the
zodiac. It hit the ice. She slid down the crane-rope. She unhitched the rope
and dragged the boat across the ice to the water's edge.

She
had lost her radio. She huddled in her coat and waited to see if anyone else
made it off
Hyperion.
Fifteen minutes later they approached across the snow. Ghost, Punch, Rye. 'I
thought you must be dead,' Jane said. 'So what happened?'

'There
were hundreds of them,' she mumbled. 'It was like they were hibernating down
there in the dark.'

'Where's
Ivan?' asked Ghost.

'They
tore him apart.'

'Christ.'

'Let's
get off this island,' said Jane. 'I don't even want to look at that fucking
ship.'

They
rode the zodiac to Rampart. They looked back.

The
liner was beached three kilometres away, lights still blazing. The prow of the
ship had lifted from the water. The hull plates were ripped open.

Nobody
spoke.

Rye
patched up Sian's face. Wiped blood from her nose and lashed a splint across the
split skin.

'You'll
be mouth-breathing for a while, but you should be okay.'

She
gave Sian a couple of aspirin.

'Anyone
else hurt?' asked Sian. 'Nail broke his arm.'

'Damn.'

'Fracture.
No big deal.'

Jane
sipped soup in the canteen. She warmed her hands round the mug. The remaining
crew watched from the other side of the room. 'What do they want?' asked Jane.

'What
do they want me to say?' 'I suppose they want to know if the ship still
floats,' said Sian. Her nose was patched with tape. She sounded bunged up, like
a heavy cold.

'How
the hell would I know? Tell them to get off their arses and look. Do I have to
do every little fucking thing?'

Jane
locked herself in the toilet. She had filled her pockets with liquor miniatures
during her brief exploration of
Hyperion.
She sat in the cubicle, balanced her flashlight on
the toilet paper dispenser, and downed five shots of Jim Beam. She closed her
eyes and waited for the rush.

Jane
lay on her bunk. Two more shots of bourbon. She was numb, thoughtless. She hoped
it would last. There was a knock at the door.

'Ghost
wants to fetch some stuff from the ship,' said Punch. 'There are things we
could use.'

'Forget
it. The place is a death trap.'

'Quick
in and out, like a bank raid. Want to tag along?'

'I'm
taking a holiday from the hero business.'

'Hope
you don't mind if I borrow your gun.' Punch took the shotgun and shells from
the table.

Jane
rolled to face the wall.

Ghost
and Punch rode the zodiac back to the island. They had lashed a long aluminium
ladder across the boat. The ladder spread either side of the boat like steel
wings.

Hyperion
had run aground on the jagged rocks of the island's shore.

They
carried the ladder to the ship's prow. They climbed into the ship through a
gash in the side of the hull. Steel plates had been ripped away exposing a
cross-section of rooms and stairs.

Ghost
led Punch to a passageway near the bilge.

'There,'
he said, pointing at the ceiling. A thick rope of cable lashed to the ductwork.
'Exactly what we need. Single core, high voltage. Big, juicy length of it.
Perfect.'

He
prised open a wall box with a screwdriver and threw an isolator switch.

'Perfect?
We find an entire floating city, and all we can salvage is a bit of cable?'

'This
is heat. This is light. This could get us through the winter. Remember: we're
better off today than we were yesterday. Hold on to that thought.'

Punch
closed a hatch at one end of the corridor and knotted it shut with a length of
fire hose. He stood guard at the other end of the corridor with a pickle jar
Molotov in his hand.

'Quick
as you can,' he said. 'We don't want to attract a crowd.'

Ghost
dragged a table from an office. He stood on it and got to work. He used a
wrench to unbolt a socket joint in the cable. He dragged the table to the other
end of the corridor and repeated the procedure.

A
fat man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt turned the corner. He wore a
sombrero. He had a camera round his neck. His legs were a tumorous mess of
flesh-flaps and metal.

'We
have our first customer,' said Punch. He took a Zippo from his pocket and lit
the rag. The Molotov splashed burning kerosene across the corridor floor. The
second Molotov smashed against the man's face and turned him to a pillar of
flame. A guttural, inhuman howl. He collapsed and lay burning.

'See
that?' said Punch. 'He won't lie still. He's dead but the metal keeps on
trucking.'

He
backed away from the burning man, repelled by the stench. He took another
Molotov from his backpack.

'More
on their way,' he warned. 'How's it going, Gee?'

'We're
done.'

Ghost
coiled the cable and slung it over his shoulder. Punch untied the fire hose and
released the hatch. He allowed himself a backward glance. Monstrously deformed
figures massing through flame and smoke. Punch threw his last Molotov and ran.

The
alcohol buzz was starting to wane. Jane resolved to ask Ghost for a big bag of
weed. So much easier to extinguish all thought and sleepwalk through the day.

She
lay in the dark. The ceiling strip-light flickered to life then burned
steadily. She shielded her eyes from the glare. Power had been restored.

She
opened the door. There were lights in the corridor, lights in every room. She
heard cheering from the canteen.

The
crewmen stood beneath heating vents, faces turned upward, basking in a torrent
of hot air like they were taking a shower. One of the men got the jukebox
working. 'Sweet Home Alabama'. They would be toasting Ghost with fresh coffee
when he returned from his work on C deck. Slapping his back, exchanging high
fives. Jane didn't want to stick around and watch.

The
power was back. Nikki ran across the pump hall to the storeroom. She flicked a
switch. Brilliant arc-lights.

She
circled the boat. It was her first chance to examine it in detail. The
integrity of the welds. The tightness of the bolts. She kicked it. She slapped
the hull.

She
looped the hoist-chain over the prow and stern, and pressed Up. The winch began
to wind and the chain pulled taut. The boat creaked and slowly lifted from the
floor.

She
hit a wall button. Warning beacons strobed yellow. The

hatch
in the floor beneath the boat split open like the bomb bay of a B52. Typhoon
ice particles. The silver sails wafted and billowed.

Nikki
stood at the edge of the abyss and looked down into darkness and freezing wind.
That was where she was headed. If she chose to sail home alone she would have
to leave the light and warmth of the rig behind and immerse herself in
perpetual night.

Flutter
of excitement. All she had to do was press Down.

Jane
sat on the edge of her bunk. Help someone, she told herself. When you are at
your lowest ebb, feeling useless and ineffectual, reach out and help someone.
Make yourself matter.

She
headed for the submarine hangar.

Nail
was lying on the deck. He was cushioned by his sleeping bag, luxuriating in a
torrent of hot air from a wall-vent.

He
had broken his right arm. A snapped broom handle for a splint. Ripped T-shirt
for a bandage.

'Anything
I can get you?' she asked. 'Do you want a drink? Something to eat?'

Nail
slowly turned his head. He looked at her a long while like he was trying to
remember her name.

'Jesus,'
said Jane. 'Rye has you doped to the gills, doesn't she?'

He
smiled and closed his eyes. Then he jolted awake and tried to sit up.

'Nikki,'
he said.

'You
want me to get her?'

'The
lights are on.'

'Light
and heat. That's right.'

'Power.'

'Yeah,
power.'

'Nikki.'

'I
can look for her, if you like.'

Nail
tried to stand, but Jane gently pushed him back down.

'I
don't know what Rye has given you, kid, but maybe you should just lie back and
enjoy the ride.'

Ghost
called a meeting in the canteen and laid out his plan. Nikki stood at the back
of the room and listened.

Hyperion
was partially beached. Spring would come, the ice would thaw, and the ship
would float free. So the situation had yet to change. Conserve fuel. Conserve
food. Ride out winter.

Ghost
suggested the crew transfer from the refinery to
Hyperion.
Better accommodation. Easier to
heat. All they had to do was disable the elevators and rebuild barricades to
keep the rabid horde at bay. No reason it couldn't be done. The infected passengers
were mindless, incapable of cunning or calculation. They could easily be
suppressed.

'Think
of the food,' said Ghost. 'Think of the booze.' He avoided Jane's eye, mildly
ashamed to be luring the men to
Hyperion
with the promise of limitless alcohol.

Ghost
took a vote. A fifty/fifty split. Arguments escalated towards fist fights. Half
the guys said it was too dangerous to take a suite on the liner while ravening
passengers massed the other side of the door. Half the guys said stateroom
luxury was too good to miss.

Insults
flew. Push-and-shove. The discussion looked like it would last long into the
night so Nikki sneaked out of a side door.

She
hurried to a lifeboat station. Red running-man signs all over the rig pointed
the way. There were a cluster of rigid shell lifeboats at each corner of the
refinery. Orange, fibre-glass cocoons the size of a bus. Room for thirty men.
During the weekly fire drill crewmen were trained to strap themselves inside,
seal the hatch, then pull a release handle. Explosive bolts would eject the
lifeboat from a launch tube into the sea.

Nikki
climbed inside the raft. She and Nail had raided the lifeboats for equipment
once before. She wanted stuff they left behind.

She
dragged a case from beneath a bench seat. A flip-latch lid. Emergency gear:
salt tablets, a manual bilge pump and a compact desalinator. She bagged them
and ran to the C deck storeroom. She threw them into the boat.

She
hurried to the food store. She upturned a wholesale box of dried noodles. Tins
and cartons swept into the box. She ran to C deck and threw the box into the
boat.

She
levered floor plates. Bags of clothes, charts and flares hidden beside the
pipes. She threw the bags into the boat.

She
found clippers. She bent forward and shaved herself bald. Clumps of auburn hair
fell to the deck.

Last
look around. She took a crumpled sheet of paper from her pocket. Her checklist.
Quick inventory: good to go.

She
punched a green wall button with her fist. Trapdoors opened beneath the boat. A
typhoon blast of freezing wind and ice particles.

The
boat hung on a chain-hoist. Nikki pressed Down and jumped aboard the boat as it
descended into the dark.

The
boat touched down on the ice beneath the refinery. She unhooked the chains.

A
couple of wheeled pallets roped to the underside of the yacht. The boat weighed
the same as a van, but the ice was slick as glass.