Slaves of Elysium (4 page)

‘But what about us?' Rebecca demanded, showing scant sympathy for the larger picture.

‘We can help ourselves by getting clear of this fog. That'll make it easier to see and be seen.'

‘Then do it!' Rebecca snapped.

Ash pointedly looked at Devereaux. ‘What heading?'

‘We can set a rough course by the sun,' Devereaux said. ‘It can't be exact without knowing the right time, but its better than nothing. Once we clear this fog we'll be okay. If we're still going come dark we'll steer by the stars.'

‘Assuming the engines are still working,' Ash said. ‘We'd better check them out first.'

The two men opened up the deck hatch and squeezed down into the crowded engine compartment. They emerged ten minutes later looking hopeful.

‘Seems okay,' Ash announced. ‘They're not flooded and we've got plenty of fuel. Let's see...' He pressed the starter, and after a few uncertain coughs the engines growled into life. In the stillness the sound seemed unnaturally loud.

‘At least we've a chance of making landfall under our own power,' Devereaux said. He forced a rueful grin. ‘That might buy me a few plus points when my father gets to hear about this. What was our last position?'

Not trusting the electronic navigation equipment, Ash had laid out an old-fashioned paper chart. ‘Before the storm hit we were about here.' He indicated a point approximately seventy degrees west by thirty north. ‘We can't have been blown far off that.'

‘If we can't plot a precise course we'd better make for the nearest big target,' Devereaux said. ‘If we head a little north of west we should strike the US coast somewhere near Charleston. As we go we keep watch for any other ship or aircraft and be ready to make a signal.'

‘Can we start now?' Rebecca said irritably.

‘In a moment, Miss Lamont,' Ash said. ‘We've got to mount a lookout for anything ahead of us. The radar seems to be working, but it might not be smart to trust it too far, at least until we're clear of this fog. There could be any number of things floating around waiting to put a hole in our hull after that storm. And right at this moment that's the last thing we need.'

‘I could be lookout,' Jeni volunteered.

Ash smiled at her. ‘Thanks.'

 

Shortly afterwards the
Galatea
was nosing her way cautiously through the fog with the globe of the sun at her stern. Jeni rested on the bow rail where Rebecca had stood the day before. Now Rebecca was on lookout with Devereaux on the fly bridge while Ash remained at the lower helm.

Jeni narrowed her eyes in an attempt to penetrate the murk, alert for any change in its quality. Every couple of minutes Devereaux sounded the ship's horn, both as a warning and in the hope of eliciting a response from another craft. But its mournful note, like their wake and the purr of the engines, was swallowed up without trace by the all-enveloping fog.

Time dragged by. Surely they must reach the edge of the fog bank soon, Jeni thought. The sun should be burning it off by now anyway. She blinked and rubbed her aching eyes, glancing at her watch and then around at the orange orb that seemed to be hanging over their stern...

For a moment her mouth hung open. Then she was running back down the deck shouting to Devereaux. Ash emerged from within as she reached the aft deck.

‘What's wrong?' he asked anxiously.

Jeni pointed. ‘The sun,' she said simply.

‘Well?'

‘We've been going for an hour... but it hasn't risen any higher. It hasn't moved at all!'

 

They all sat on the fly bridge, bathed by the same amber-tinted light that had greeted them when they had woken. The engines were silent and the
Galatea
lay motionless in the still water. Ash had taped a ruler perpendicularly to the side of a seat and marked where its pallid shadow fell. They were staring at the mark and the tip of the shadow, willing the two to separate. But the shadow neither shrank nor grew.

Finally Ash consulted his watch and shook his head. ‘The sun has an apparent motion of fifteen degrees an hour,' he announced, half to himself. ‘That's thirty full moons edge to edge. By now it should have shown some change. It simply isn't moving.'

‘That's stupid,' Rebecca said.

‘Maybe, Miss Lamont, but that's the way it is.'

Rebecca turned to Devereaux. ‘What are you going to do now?'

Devereaux shrugged helplessly. ‘I can't make the sun move to order.'

‘Perhaps,' Jeni said hesitantly, ‘that's not the sun.'

‘What else can it be?' Devereaux said. ‘If it's an artificial light then the distance we've already covered would have made it change apparent size and bearing anyway.'

‘Unless it's moving with us,' Jeni suggested.

‘Be quiet, Jeni,' Rebecca snapped.

‘That's not very likely,' Devereaux said, a little more gently.

‘Have you got a better explanation, Mark?' Ash asked. ‘Either it's not the sun, or the sun has stopped moving. Which do you prefer?'

Devereaux was silent, biting his lip. Jeni saw the pulse throb in his temple.

‘Do something!' Rebecca shrieked sharply, fear adding a shrill edge to her voice. ‘I want to get out of this awful fog. I want to go home!'

‘We all want that, Miss Lamont,' Ash said quietly.

‘As far as I can see we might as well maintain the same heading,' Devereaux said, making an effort to sound calm. ‘We may find something that'll help us, or clear this fog, or else, well...' he trailed off awkwardly.

‘Might as well do that, for a few hours more anyway,' Ash agreed. ‘While we go I'll check the radio over again. However badly the atmosphere was screwed up I can't believe something isn't getting through.'

They returned to their posts and the
Galatea
started off once more.

Another hour passed.

Nothing changed.

The fog did not thin and the sun, if it was the sun, hung motionless in the haze.

Jeni found herself slowly loosing all sense of time. She glanced at her watch more and more often but found it scant reassurance. Once she could have sworn that at least fifteen minutes had passed yet it showed barely a minute, while later an hour slipped by almost unnoticed.

She began to see shapes emerging out of the fog that melted away before she could call out a warning. In fact it was only her mind desperate to fill the grey veil with something to satisfy her imagination.

After another three hours they paused for a hasty meal. Little was said and they ate in silence, each occupied with their own thoughts.

Shortly after they resumed their cautious journey Jeni heard raised voices from the fly bridge. Glancing round she saw Rebecca was shouting at Devereaux, who was trying in vain to placate her. Jeni could hear an edge of fear in her tone, but mainly it suggested incredulous frustration. All her life Rebecca had got what she wanted when she wanted it. Now for the first time she was experiencing an obstacle to her wishes that could not be removed by wealth or influence, and she did not know how to cope.

With a final bitter retort Rebecca vanished from Jeni's sight. She heard her feet pounding down the bridge steps as she made for the saloon, and then from below deck came the slam of her cabin door. Shortly afterwards Rebecca's CD player came on loudly, drowning the throb of the engines as it blasted out music to fill the silence. The fog swallowed the sound as it did everything else.

Jeni realised Devereaux was looking down at her imploringly. ‘I'll do my best,' she said, and while he doubled as forward lookout, she went below and knocked on the door of Rebecca's cabin. ‘Mr Devereaux is worried about you, miss,' she called. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Go away!' Rebecca shouted angrily.

‘Can I do anything for you, miss?'

‘No, go away!' The music went up another notch, so Jeni relayed Rebecca's response to Devereaux and returned to her post at the bow.

 

After six hours Ash and Devereaux cut the motors and let the
Galatea
glide to a stop. The ripples rolled away into the fog and the water stilled again as though they had never been.

‘We've covered better than a hundred and twenty miles and apparently got nowhere,' Ash said to Jeni as the three of them gathered by the lower helm. ‘The radio and compasses are also still out. I don't know what's screwed up the weather so badly, but I do know we all need to rest. I've been awake twenty-four hours straight now and Mark and you for not much less. We're going to start making stupid mistakes if we don't rest. Maybe we can think of a new line to take with fresh minds.'

‘Shouldn't somebody keep watch?' Jeni asked.

‘Normally yes, but this isn't exactly normal. We have to take the risk. The collision alarm is on. I'll sleep on the couch here with the radio open on the emergency channel. Mark says he'll sleep on the fly bridge sunbed. You go to your cabin. But keep your lifejacket ready.'

It was a sensible plan and they followed it.

 

Despite her weariness Jeni found it hard to sleep.

She drew the curtains over the portholes and lay on her bed. But the unchanging light seemed to penetrate the fabric and she tossed and turned, going over their strange situation. It was odd that, though she was unsettled and apprehensive, she was not as deeply fearful as she would have expected in the circumstances. Was fear partly due to a lessening of personal choices? Perhaps she was relatively unafraid because she never expected to determine the course of her life. She was used to being at the beck and call of others, and now being at the mercy of fate weighed less heavily with her than the others, especially Rebecca.

Jeni rubbed her bottom, recollecting the previous day's beating. They were very different, Rebecca and she. That was why she had been drawn to her.

 

At some point a deep and surprisingly dream-free sleep claimed Jeni. She awoke to find nothing had happened while they rested motionless on the fog-enshrouded ocean. Rebecca remained in her cabin while the men returned to their duties. They ate again and then Devereaux restarted the engines.

Twelve long hours passed without any change in their surroundings. Ash called a halt and they rested again. This time Jeni did not sleep well, and she suspected neither did the others. Devereaux was increasingly worried about Rebecca, who still refused to see him. Sullen and withdrawn she stayed in her cabin playing endless music. Jeni regularly took her food, but she ate little and said less. Even her normal snappy manner seemed to be subdued by their strange circumstances.

The
Galatea
ploughed on.

 

They had been in the fog bank for two days, and an irrational feeling began to creep over Jeni that the motionless sun, ever at their back, was somehow mocking their futile efforts to escape it. She saw the strain telling on the others. Ash, increasingly grimfaced, refilled the fuel tank from their dwindling reserves, in between checking the radio frequencies for the faintest signal. Devereaux's knuckles were white on the wheel as he held their course while anxiously scanning the sky for some break in the fog overhead. She heard them discussing their situation in urgent undertones. A few words of the interchange floated down to her lookout post at the bow.

‘This is crazy... must lift sometime... the whole ocean can't be fogged in... unless we've been going in circles... what's happened out there?' And then came the phrase none of them had dared utter, until now: ‘...Bermuda Triangle...'

There, it was said at last, Jeni thought. But what did it really mean? Was it their destiny to find out?

As time dragged by she found it harder to stay alert on bow watch. How much longer could she stare into the softly glowing nothingness that was neither one thing nor the other? Its clammy closeness induced a sweat that brought no relief. It was not hot or cold, nor properly light or dark. It was a formless limbo. Yes, limbo was the right word for it. She began to get the odd sense that somehow they were in between, suspended, in transit; though between what or where she could not say.

Then her wandering mind was jerked back to reality by a commotion behind her, and she turned to see her employer stumbling along the foredeck. Rebecca's face was flushed and her eyes were bloodshot. Devereaux was calling down to her from the fly deck but she ignored him, instead shouting and screaming at the top of her voice.

‘Go away. Leave us alone! Let me go home!'

She was shaking her fist at the fog bank, as though something was hiding within its grey depths.

‘I'm not playing your game any more!' she yelled. ‘It's over, do you hear me? You can't treat me like this. I'm Rebecca Lamont, d'you hear me? I'm... Rebecca... Lamont...'

Jeni reached her as she sank to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably, and smelt the reek of whisky on her breath.