Outpost (37 page)

He
once heard that a group of Soviet dissidents, exiled to work in a Siberian
mine, discovered a mammoth preserved in ice. They cut strips and chewed it like
jerky. It kept them alive.

Long
corridors. Dormitories and offices. Desks and typewriters matted with stone
dust. A military situation room frozen in time. Cold war Soviet maps. Portraits
of Lenin. Rusted telex machines. Heavy dial phones.

Metal-frame
furniture. Nothing to burn.

How
much further should he explore? The plank was half burned down. He should head
back.

He
crouched and examined the tunnel floor. Fresh footprints in the dust. The
grip-tread of his own heavy snowboots. And a second set of prints heading
deeper into the tunnels.

He
measured his foot against the print. Whoever had recently walked down this
passageway wore small boots with chevron tread.

A
white tiled chamber, dazzling after miles of drab concrete.

Nail
knew he should turn back and head for the surface, but he was overcome by
curiosity. This vast subterranean necropolis held secrets. He and Gus were in a
hopeless situation, injured and marooned. Maybe if Nail pushed further,
travelled deeper into the tunnel complex, he might unearth some kind of
salvation.

Lockers,
shower heads, a hatch in the floor.

Chemical
warfare suits in the lockers. Rubber hoods with glass eye-holes.

The
room was a decontamination suite. Soldiers could wash away radioactive fallout,
unzip their suits, climb down the shaft and seal themselves inside the hermetic
environment of Level Zero.

Nail
approached the floor hatch. A hinged lid like the turret hatch of a tank. He
heaved the door open. A gust of foetid air from far below ground. His torch
fluttered and died.

Absolute
dark. Nail fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. Three strikes. Sparks, then a
steady flame. He re-lit the plank of wood.

He
looked down the shaft beside him. Walls lit by flickering flame-light. For a
moment, deep at the bottom of the shaft, he thought he glimpsed a figure
looking up at him.

Nail
returned to the bunker entrance an hour later. He carried a wooden chair over
his shoulder. He smashed the chair and put the pieces on the fire.

Gus
sat by the fire and rocked back and forth. The man was clearly in agony,
sweating the pain minute by minute.

Nail
chiselled ice from the wall with a spanner.

'Rub
it on your burns. It'll help.'

'You
found some wood.'

'There
are some bunks down there. And some tables and chairs. Dormitories for the team
that built the place. Enough wood to buy us some thinking time.'

'Nothing
to eat, I bet.'

'I'll
check the Skidoo panniers in a minute. I need to sit down a while. I'm
exhausted.'

They
dried their boots over the fire.

They
heard a thud against the bunker door. Then another. Fists pounded. Fingers
scratched.

'I
truly don't get it,' said Gus. 'Can they smell us? Is that it? How do they know
we are in here? Some kind of super- sense?'

'They
can smell you all right. You stink like cooked bacon.'

They
sat by the fire for an hour. A gentle draught drew wood- smoke down the tunnel
like cigarette fumes sucked into a smoker's lungs. They listened to fists thump
against the doors.

Gus
watched the smoke.

'Are
there vents down there? A second exit?'

'Fuck
knows. It goes on for miles. A secret city. Some kind of major naval facility.'

'How
many of them do you think are out there?' asked Gus.

'Two,
I reckon. They're half frozen. We could get round them easily enough. If more
show up I'll go out there and kill them. Thin out the herd. They're slow.
They're stupid. I could do it. Wouldn't be a problem.'

'My
face. Is it bad?' 'Yeah, it's pretty bad.'

'If
I asked you to kill me, if it came down to it, would you help?'

Nail
turned away.

A
sudden flashback. The big argument. Mal shouting and cursing, jabbing his
finger. A blur of steel as Nail lashed out. That shrill, bubbling squeal. That
gush of arterial spray.

Nail
hadn't slept for a month. Scared to close his eyes.

'Maybe
it won't come to that.'

Nail
pushed a couple more chair legs on to the fire.

'We
have to get back to Rampart,' said Gus. 'That's our only chance. There will be
food, heat and morphine. I'm in so much pain.'

'Let
me think it over.'

A
couple of nights earlier Nail had sat in the bridge of
Hyperion
unable to sleep. He sat in the
captain's chair and looked at the stars. He was joined by Reverend Blanc. They
made small talk. Little more than noise. But he could tell straight away she
knew his big secret. She seemed too pleasant, too casual. Somehow she had
figured out he killed Mal.

Maybe
Jane and her friends were dead. Maybe they were ripped apart or died in the
fire. But perhaps they escaped
Hyperion.
They might have taken refuge on Rampart armed with shotguns. Would Jane shoot
on sight? What would he do, if their situation were reversed?
Sorry, guys. I thought
she was one of those infected freaks.

'I
don't want to worry you,' said Gus quietly, 'but I've been watching the shadows
behind you for a while and I swear there is someone standing against the far
wall.'

Nail
slowly turned around. The fire cast flickering shadows across the tunnel walls.
He saw a figure in heavy snow gear half hidden in darkness.

Nail
stood up.

'Hi,'
he said. 'You're welcome to join us.'

No
response.

He
took a burning chair leg from the fire and approached the figure.

A
Con Amalgam parka patched with duct tape.

'I'm
Nail. Nail Harper.'

No
reply.

'Hello?
Can you hear me?'

He
held up the chair leg so he could see the face beneath the hood. Chapped,
peeling skin. Mad, staring eyes.

'Nikki.
It's Nikki.'

Jane
and Ghost fled the island. Punch and Sian were close behind. They ran headlong.
Jane was glad to trip over rocks. Rocks meant they were still close to shore.
If they found themselves running through pristine snow it meant they had
blundered inland and were running further and further from safety.

They
scrambled down basalt boulders and ran out on to the frozen sea. They skidded
and struggled to keep balance. The glow of the burning ship stained the ice
blood red.

Jane
had the only flashlight. They followed her lead.

'Keep
together. Don't get separated.'

A
succession of muffled thumps behind them. Floor by floor, room by room,
Hyperion
was blowing itself to bits.
Grenades strapped to propane cylinders. Ghost's failsafe plan. If infected
passengers broke through the barricades they would be incinerated. But
localised detonations had run out of control. One by one the ship's fuel tanks
exploded fore and aft, blasting holes in the hull, jetting flame through
corridors and stairwells.

'We
have to slow down,' shouted Jane. 'This is fresh ice. I don't want to break the
crust and fall into the sea.'

They
slowed from a run to a walk.

'Are
you folks all right?' she asked. 'Everyone okay?'

She
and Ghost had been in their room when the attack began. They were lying on the
rug, listening to Johnny Cash and talking about the life they would build when
they got home. They heard shouting. They heard a fight.
'Breakout:
They had the presence of mind to
grab polar coats and glacier boots.

The
corridor outside their room was filled with bitter smoke. Thermite detonations
nearby. They covered their mouths to mask acrid fumes. Burning paint. Melting
metal.

They
ran on deck. Fire from below. Windows blew out. A row of burning lifeboats. The
zodiac was reduced to scraps of burning rubber hanging from a crane.

Punch
and Sian had already retired to bed. They fled the ship wearing tracksuits and
sneakers.

'We're
fine,' said Sian, starting to shiver uncontrollably.

Jane
switched off her flashlight. They stood in the dark.

'We
have to get moving,' said Punch.

'Everyone
keep calm,' said Jane.

'There.'
A green, pulsing glow high above them in the fog. One of the aircraft warning strobes
at the corner of the rig. 'The west leg,' she said. 'Come on.'

Jane
helped Sian. Ghost helped Punch.

They
hurried across the ice. They were beneath the refinery, heading for the south leg.
They ran so long Jane wondered if they had missed their target and were fleeing
blindly out into the Barents Sea.

'Do
you think they are following us?' asked Punch.

'We've
outrun them for now,' said Jane. 'But yeah, if we hang around long enough they'll
catch up.'

The
south leg. A Cyclopean cylinder of steel. Jane's flashlight played across a
wall of metal studded with bolts and seams like the suture marks of an
operation scar.

'Jane,'
shouted Ghost.

She
turned. A forklift truck drove straight at her. Pallet prongs slammed into the
steel wall either side of her head. Wheels span on ice.

'What
the fuck?'

An
infected crewman part-melded to the controls.

Ghost
grabbed the cab cage and kicked at the driver. Flesh tore. The crewman ripped
away from the forklift and fell on the ice, steering wheel welded to his hands.
Ghost stamped on the man's head until it burst.

'Konecranes
. Not one of ours.'

'Must
be from
Hyperion.
Most liners have a big marshalling area amidships. Side doors in the hull.'

'He
just fell out and started driving around?'

'Sure.
Why not?'

Punch
and Sian hugged each other for warmth.

'Hold
on, guys,' said Ghost. 'Nearly home.'

'I
think the rope is round the side.'

They
circled the leg and found a knotted rope dangling from the mist like a ladder
to heaven. Jane seized the rope and climbed upwards into nothing. The platform
lift was parked four metres above them. There was a brief silence, then a
metallic grind as the lift descended to the ice. They climbed aboard. Jane hit
Up.

'So
fucking cold,' said Punch.

'Soon
be warm,' said Ghost. 'A couple more minutes and we'll be inside.'

It
wasn't until Sian collapsed they realised she had been stabbed in the side and
her red tracksuit was crisp with frozen blood.

They
carried Sian to the canteen. They laid her on a table. She tried to sit up.
They pushed her down.

Jane
ran to Rye's old room and swept medical supplies into a plastic bag. Bandages.
Sterile dressings.

Jane
examined the wound. Sian yelped and hit her. Punch held Sian's arms. She turned
her head to avoid looking at the hole in her hip.

Jane
wriggled on surgical gloves. She selected tweezers from an instrument pack. She
sterilised the tweezers with a Zippo flame then dug into the wound. Sian
writhed. Jane extracted a big, rusted woodscrew dripping gobbets of flesh.

'Any
idea when it happened?' asked Jane.

'That
last explosion as we reached the boat deck. I didn't feel it at the time. Too
much going on.'

Jane
swabbed the wound and taped a dressing in place.

'It
should be okay, as long as you keep it clean. Let me rustle up some
painkillers.' She dug in the bag.

'Did
anyone see what happened to Gus?' asked Ghost.

'No,'
said Jane.

'How
about Nail? Did anyone see what happened to him?'

'No.'

'Yakov?
How about Yakov?'

'Dead,'
said Sian, struggling to sit up.

'Are
you sure?'

'Punch
and I ran from our room. He went back for his sneakers. I was alone on the
upper deck. Just for a moment. Yakov was below me on the promenade. He was
fighting off a guy in clown costume. Other passengers showed up. They had him
cornered. I called to him. I leaned over the railing and held out my arm. I
told him to jump for my hand. I don't know. I still think he could have made
it. I could have hauled him up. He pulled the pin from a grenade with his teeth
and held it beneath his chin. He looked up, looked me straight in the eye. I
shouted. He just kept looking at me. I was the last thing he saw.'