Outpost (26 page)

Nikki
buckled crampons to her boots and threw herself against the boat. Once the boat
began to move it built momentum. She pushed the vessel, a step at a time, to
the water's edge. She jumped aboard as brittle-crisp ice cracked beneath the
weight of the boat and it settled into the sea. She pulled rope hand over hand
and raised the sails.

Metallic
motor noise. A flashlight beam suddenly trained in her face from above. Jane
descending in the platform elevator. Nikki recoiled from the dazzling glare
like she'd been slapped.

'Slinking
away, is that the plan?' shouted Jane. The platform touched down.

'I
didn't want to make a fuss.'

Nikki
shielded her eyes and tried to squint beyond the blinding light. She tried to
see if Jane were carrying a shotgun.

'I
like what you did with your hair,' said Jane. 'You look like a boiled egg.'

Nikki
didn't say anything. She waited to see what Jane would do.

'Here's
the deal. You can take the boat. You can take the food. You can take whatever
maritime charts you've stolen. But you have to take a radio, as well. You owe
us that much. We need to hear how far you get. We need to hear what is waiting
beyond the horizon.'

Nikki
was hit on the chest by a big radio in a canvas bag. She instinctively caught
the strap before the radio fell in the water.

'So
how about it?'

'All
right,' said Nikki. 'Call me any time you like. We'll chat, do lunch.'

'I'm
serious. You were dying out there on the ice, remember? You were dead meat. We
brought you back. We saved your life. You owe us a few minutes of your time.'

'Okay.
Fuck it.'

'It'll
be lonely out there. Few days alone in the dark. You might be grateful of a
voice.'

The
boat began to drift away from the ice.

Twenty
metres. Thirty metres. Nikki moving beyond Jane's reach.

A
hundred metres. Two hundred metres. Out of shotgun range.

Nikki
was home free. Nail might commandeer the zodiac and try to chase her down, but
he would struggle to find her. No running lamps. Too small for a radar fix.

Nikki
looked back. Rampart dwindled behind her, a receding constellation of room
lights. A massive, skeletal silhouette blotting out the stars.

Crackle
as the craft bumped ice plates aside.

She
turned her back on the refinery and looked towards the southern horizon, the
point where a fabulous dust of the Milky Way met the impenetrable blackness of
the sea. A heart- fluttering mix of excitement and fear. She locked the tiller
in position with bungee line. She fitted a thermal mask to her face and pulled
up her hood. She hunkered down in the cockpit ready for the long haul.

Nail
lay in an opiate stupor. The world-obliterating white pain of his snapped ulna
had been dulled to an ache by Demerol. He slipped in and out of consciousness
for a couple of hours.

He
woke. The drugs had worn off. The pain in his arm made his eyes water, made his
teeth gnash.

He
got to his feet and stumbled down cold corridors to the pump hall. He kicked
the storeroom door wide. The floor hatch was open. The boat was gone.

'Fucking
bitch,' he yelled.

Jane
stood at the hatch controls. She pressed Close. The hydraulic rams retracted,
pulling the floor hatch shut. It sealed with a heavy, metallic thud, cutting
off wind noise.

'I
don't know why you are acting all surprised and betrayed,' said Jane. 'She was
aching to fuck you over. Anyone could see it. Personally, I would have hidden
the fuse for the hatch controls. Replaced it with a dud. Make sure she couldn't
take an unauthorised joyride while I wasn't around. You know, deep down, on a
fundamental level, you are pretty stupid.'

'Fucking
bitch,' murmured Nail.

Jane
joined Sian on the floodlit helipad.

'Feeling
a little under-appreciated?' asked Sian.

'Ghost
did a fine job with the power.'

'It'll
keep them happy for five minutes. Then it will dawn on them. They are still
here. Still stuck. Still waiting for someone to get them home. They'll be
knocking on your door soon enough.'

'And
what do I tell them?'

'That
we've got a ship. It's beached. It's got a big rip in the hull. But we'll get
it moving, sooner or later.'

'I
think the current occupants might object. Look over there, out on the island.'
Moonlit figures gathered at the water's edge. 'They've come from the ship. A
couple of weeks from now the ice-bridge will be complete. The sea from here to
the island will be frozen solid. They'll be able to walk right to our door. You
think things got better just because the lights are on? We are now officially
under siege.'

'So
are you back in hero mode?' asked Punch.

Jane
was mopping her room. A water pipe had split, spraying water across her bed.

'I
try to help people out, if I can. Mainly to kill time. If the TV actually
worked I'm not sure I would give a shit.'

'You
might want to check on Rye.'

'Any
reason?'

'No.
But it's that dog-whistle thing. Sometimes people don't have to say or do
anything weird. They just sit there, quietly sipping tea, all the while putting
out an ultrasonic scream like they are dying inside.'

'I'll
swing by. Not much I can do until she asks for help.'

Nobody
knew much about Rye. She stayed in her room most of the time. There was a
photograph tacked above her bunk. A baby boy. The picture looked old. Plenty of
creases, plenty of pin holes.

Jane
sat in Rawlins's office and checked Rye's personnel file. She quit general
practice and took a job on a rig three years later. No explanation for the
three-year hiatus.

Jane
headed for Rye's room. She would fake a migraine. Ask for painkillers.

The
door was ajar. Rye sat on the bed. She had stripped down to underwear. She dug
a knife into her thigh, scratched her name with the tip of the blade. She drew
little beads of blood.

Jane
coughed to announce her presence.

'Before
you ask,' said Rye, 'no, I don't want to talk about it.'

The
crew held a toga party. They turned up the heat until the accommodation block
was sweltering hot.

Ghost
led a raid on
Hyperion.
They battled their way to the Ocean Bar and loaded a cart with booze. Smash and
grab. Jane told Ghost it was a stupid idea, risking his life for a few bottles.

'It's
vital,' he said. 'If the guys don't let off some steam they'll go nuts.'

They
dressed in bed sheets. They switched on the jukebox and selected Random Play. Punch
was bartender. He mixed margaritas. Jane licked salt from the rim of her glass.

'Salut.'

Jane
enjoyed the party. A few months ago, when she was super- obese, she would have
stayed in her room. She couldn't wear a toga. The sheets weren't big enough.

Punch
laid out canapés. Tube-cheese squeezed on to Ritz crackers. Sausage rolls.

A
couple of guys took off their togas and danced in shorts.

Ghost
passed round a couple of joints. He won a press-up contest with Gus and Mal.

Sian
sat behind a table to stop guys staring at her legs.

Rye
joined the party. She didn't wear a toga. She sat near the door and watched the
action. She sipped tequila from a paper cup. Jane brought her a plate of food.

'Margarita?'

'I
don't like the salt.'

'But
you're holding up okay?'

'You
know,' said Rye, 'everyone else on this rig may be desperate to explain
themselves, to be understood, but I deal with my own shit.'

Rye
crouched behind a snowdrift. She hunted by moonlight. She watched dim
shadow-shapes of
Hyperion
passengers standing motionless on the ice. She used infrared binoculars.
Distance- to-target calibrations, like a sniper-scope. The landscape in
negative. Pale, luminescent figures on a black landscape. Body temperature was
way down. The figures had barely any heat signature. Rye couldn't understand
how they were still walking around. They should be frozen. They should be
starved. There were a dozen different ways they should be dead.

She
circled a crowd of passengers gathered at the waterline, mesmerised by the
installation lights of the rig. She stalked a man in a dark suit who seemed to
have strayed from the herd

She
stepped from behind a snowdrift.

'Hey,'
she called. 'Wanna buy a Rolex?'

The
man turned. He took a couple of stumbling steps towards her, arms outstretched.
She zapped him with the Taser. He fell in an epileptic spasm.

Rye
threw a sleeping bag over the prostrate man and bound him with rope.

She
gave the guy another jolt of current. She lashed him tight to a stepladder and
dragged him to the zodiac.

She
laid him in the boat. She pulled back the sleeping bag and shone a flashlight
in the man's face. Metal erupting from flesh. A dog-collar. The man was a
priest.

'What
the fuck are you doing?' asked Jane. Rye had been spending a lot of time on C
deck. Jane had tracked her to a vacant storeroom.

'These
freaks rule the world now. They are the dominant species. We better find out
exactly what makes them tick.'

Four
tables. Four passengers strapped down.

'There
are dozens of them out there on the ice,' said Rye. She was wearing a lab coat,
gloves and a heavy rubber apron. 'They've been there a while. Minus forty and
they are walking around in ball gowns and tuxedos. The average guy would
succumb to

hypothermia
in a couple of minutes. These folks have lasted days. Something pretty
fundamental has happened to their metabolism.'

'You
brought these fuckers on board without telling anyone? I'll help you put them
over the side. We'll do it now, do it quick. If the guys in the canteen find
out about this they'll break your fucking legs.'

'These
creatures were adrift aboard
Hyperion
for weeks,' said Rye. 'No sign that they ate or drank. What the hell makes
these things tick? Aren't you curious? Do they run on air, or what?'

'Damn.
This guy's a priest.'

The
priest's eyeballs were black. He stared up at her. He didn't blink.

A
Bible on a nearby chair.

'It
was in his pocket,' said Rye.

'King
James. Good choice.'

An
inscription on the flyleaf.

'David.
Is that you? You used to be David.'

Jane
recited the Lord's Prayer.

'Our
Father, who art in heaven . . .'

The
priest slowly lowered his head and closed his eyes.

'Doc,
have you any idea how bad it smells down here? It smells like ammonia. My eyes
are watering.'

'Let
me show you something.'

Rye
put on goggles and a mouth mask. She picked up a scalpel.

'Hey,'
said Jane. 'This guy's still alive, all right? He's still breathing.'

Rye
paid no attention. She stabbed Father David in the shoulder. She twisted the
blade, dug it in.

'Whoa.
Hold the fuck on.'

The
priest lay, unconcerned, as the knife ground bone.

'Is
he even alive?' asked Rye, talking to herself. 'Undead? Nosferatu? Is that what
we are dealing with? I think he still has sensation. He can feel the knife. He
just doesn't care.'

Rye
twisted the knife some more.

'Less
blood than I would expect,' she said. 'Look at his face. See his skin? Frost
damage. His skin cells are turning to putty. He's slowly rotting. Those
Hyperion
passengers out on the ice aren't
immortal. The cold is killing them sure enough. But it's taking a long while.'

Rye
leaned over the priest's chest, leaving the scalpel imbedded in the man's
shoulder.

'He
seems to take a breath every couple of minutes. Can't get close enough to hear
his heartbeat, but it must be way down. Basically, he's a vehicle. A chassis. A
lump of meat steered left and right. Core body temperature doesn't seem to
matter.'

She
stood back and contemplated the priest.

'Is
this what waits for us when we get home? Cities full of walking dead?'

Jane
crossed the room. A table draped with a sheet.

'What's
this?'