Stranded (10 page)

“Why the fuck do you think I would ever listen to a word you have to say?”

“I'm just trying to look out for the guys. We're—”

“You think I want to hurt these men? I don't. I want what's best for them and for me. The only person I wish would die already is
you
!” Brewster shoved Noah back. When he kept his feet, Brewster lunged forward and shoved him again. Noah put up his hands to deflect the next assault, the one that would send him sprawling. The last thing he wanted was to get in a fistfight with the Old Man while wearing a Gumby suit. It was as sad as it was comical—like characters on a kid's show brawling. Brewster didn't appear to share Noah's sense of the absurd, however, and seemed more than willing to try to fight in the restrictive suit.

Brewster reared back with a fist. Noah backpedaled to get out of the way of the swing, stumbling over his feet, tripping backward. Henry appeared out of the fog, grabbing the Old Man's arm and holding him. “Hey! Stop!” The Old Man jerked at his trapped limb, but Henry was younger and stronger.

Turning, with teeth bared and eyes wide, he shouted, “Let me go! This doesn't involve you.”

The deckhand held Brewster's arm firmly. “Forget about him. You need to see this. Right now.”

“See what? There's nothing to see in this shit!”

Henry pointed at the others standing in a group, all staring off in the same direction. At that distance, they should have been lost in the haze. A chill wind gusted up and blew curtains of the fog around, first darkening them, then revealing the men in perfect clarity. Jack, Kevin, and Theo in their rescue-me sunset orange suits, all facing the same way, each man with a hand up by his eyes, as though blocking the diffuse sunlight might improve their vision. “Just come look,” he said.

Brewster reluctantly abandoned his assault. The interruption had sapped the worst of his fury, but it was clear it wouldn't take much to rekindle. Maybe as little as a look from Noah would do it. Brewster followed Henry toward the others. Noah got up and trailed along at a safe distance. His steps faltered as he rounded the rear of the ship and saw what his shipmates had stopped work to stare at. He'd been facing the ship, bashing at the crust that held it, not looking away from his work. What was there to see but an impenetrably solid field of white? Except, the fog was indeed lifting. He could see into the distance. The sprawling snow-covered plain was flat and empty as far as the eye could see.

“How?” Brewster whispered. He turned to face the crew as though he needed confirmation they all saw the same thing. “It's impossible.”

Noah silently agreed. That they had sailed overnight from open sea into a continental glacier was not possible. He looked behind himself. The fog was lifting all around, revealing the same barren distance spreading away from them in every direction. No fantasy outcroppings of jagged glacial mountains spearing into the sky or even rolling upheavals of ice sheets having collided with one another. Every point on the compass was empty and infinite. He staggered ahead, trying to see farther. But creeping ahead a few feet didn't make any difference. The far horizon was a straight line—white below blue, forever.

“What's that?” Kevin said. He pointed to the right.

“What?” Brewster asked.

“That, there. That …
bump
way out there.”

“It's just a frost heave,” Jack said, his voice filled with defeat and resignation. The view was hard to take in. There was too much expanse, too much nothing to find a focal point. Noah recalled a trip he'd made once with friends to a fishing cabin in Montana. He was used to big skies at sea—the vision of nothing but water for miles and miles. It didn't affect him. He knew that with proper bearings and enough fuel they would reach land. There was always something to find on the other side. There was hope. But standing in a clearing in “Big Sky Country,” he'd felt uncomfortably insignificant and despairing. Unlike New England or the Pacific Northwest with dense trees and city valleys rising up around him, bringing the horizon close no matter where he went, the plains were vast. The horizon farther than he could walk, or even drive, in a day or a week probably. Would he ever be able to reach that far distance, and when he did, would it only show him a vision of more emptiness? No. If he wasn't at sea, he wanted to be among close buildings or trees, surrounded by the things that kept him safe, that didn't make him feel so small and insignificant. Even under the big sky in Montana, there were mountains and rivers to break up the look of the land. It was distant, but there was hope in the grasslands under the big sky. Visible shelter and food. On the ice there was no hope. There was nothing.

“It's not a frost heave. Look. It's red.”

It was hard to find focus in the white distance, especially with the
Arctic Promise
rising behind them like a red behemoth. “It's just a reflection from the
Promise
,” Jack said.

“A reflection? That far out?” Kevin asked. Jack shrugged in reply.

Noah raised a hand to his eyes like the others in the hope it would improve his vision of the distant object. It did little to sharpen what he saw. The remaining fog obscured the distance, the line between land … no, ice … and sky was a gradient of white to blue. A soft line suggesting the edge of the world. But there it was. Kevin was right. There
was
something out there. Something not ice maybe a mile or two away.

Brewster turned, his shoes crunching in the snow as he walked quickly away from the men.

“Where are you going?” Henry asked.

“To fetch up my binoculars from the wheelhouse,” he replied. A few feet away, he stopped. Letting out a long sigh, he turned and said, “I'm calling it tonight. You guys earned a rest. We'll get an early start tomorrow morning.” He stalked off, leaving the men to pluck their tools out of the snow, scrambling to keep up. Henry grabbed his sledge and Brewster's pickax. Noah fell in behind, not wanting to give up trying to see what was in the distance, but also not willing to miss his ride back up to the ship in the FRC. He couldn't afford to be left behind, not the way Brewster had been ready to lay him out only a few minutes before. If he wasn't in the fast rescue craft with the others, the Old Man might “forget” to send it back down for him, leaving him to spend the night outdoors.

As Noah tried to climb aboard the lifeboat with the rest of the crew, Brewster stuck out a stiff arm, holding him back. “You can take the next one.”

“What do you mean ‘next one'? It's not an elevator.”

“You're not riding up with me. I'll send someone to get you.”

Noah looked to one of the other men for help. Henry and Theo wouldn't look him in the face. It was hard to tell in the Gumby suit, but Jack might have shrugged again. Brewster slapped the switch and the rescue craft jerked abruptly up. Henry and Jack unwillingly sat while Theo and Kevin reached out for support.

“Wait,” Kevin shouted.

“What?” Brewster said, halting their ascent. “What's wrong?”

Kevin awkwardly swung himself over the edge and lowered himself out of the boat. He dropped the few feet they'd risen back down onto the ice. Jack said, “What are you doing?”

“It's cool. I'm gonna keep him company while you guys head up. Nobody should have to wait in this shit by themselves.”

Brewster's face turned red again; the vein in the side of his neck visibly pulsed. He didn't say anything, just slammed the lever up again and resumed their ascent. “Don't forget about
us,
” Kevin called after them. He waved, but no one saw.

“You probably shouldn't have done that. There's no telling when Brewster is going to send that thing back down.”

“Man, he really has it in for you, doesn't he?” Kevin said as he watched them rise. “How'd you even get a berth if he hates you so much?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Noah replaced his hood and zipped the suit up over his chin, settling in for a long wait.

“That's some real shit luck, brother.”

“You're telling me.” Noah thought about shit luck and how many times, despite trying to avoid doing so, he stepped right in it. When the company had assigned him to Brewster's crew, he'd thought it was a cruel joke. It wasn't. The company wasn't interested in their personal history, if anyone making the decisions even knew about it. He was a cog in the machine, and if he couldn't work with the bigger gears, he was easily replaceable.

The FRC reached the top and disappeared into the gap in the ship where it lived. The winch silenced and Kevin and Noah stood in near silence waiting for the sound of it powering up again, returning to bring them up. The wind whispered in the spaces around Noah's neoprene hood.

Kevin kept looking up, waiting for the boat. Noah knew better than to hold his breath.

 

12

Doing his best to track the time by watching the path of the pale sun approaching the horizon, Noah guessed it was over an hour before the FRC returned to retrieve the two men. Maybe longer. Without a watch, he couldn't tell for certain. It had been time enough for the warmth of work to have long worn off, leaving both men shivering and numb. What he was certain of was if they didn't come back for the two of them soon, he and Kevin would have fewer fingers and toes to keep track of the hours. Finally, the rumble of the engine sounded in the preternatural quiet.

As the craft descended, he saw Third Officer Holden at the controls. Jack stood behind him holding two cups of coffee. Noah assumed the delay in their retrieval was more a matter of finding someone willing to come get them rather than pouring the drinks. Jack had ditched his survival suit for his regular cold weather gear and danced from foot to foot to keep warm while trying not to spill the coffee. Noah thought about the amount of sweat that had accumulated in his own Gumby suit and figured if he took it off without also changing the clothes underneath he'd be suffering, too. Wind attacked the gaps in deck clothes under normal circumstances. Being wet with perspiration only made things worse.

As the FRC reached the surface, Jack set the drinks on the side of the vessel and leaned out to help the men scramble aboard. Noah climbed in, taking one of the coffees with both hands. He'd drop it if he tried to grip the cup with only one. “Much obliged,” he said.

Jack cocked his head and smiled wanly. “We're all in the same boat, right?” Noah almost laughed.

His thick rubber gloves made it hard to hold the drink, but he didn't dare take them off until he was inside. However bad working in the cold had been, standing still in it was worse. An hour had felt like an eternity with the biting wind kicking up snow into his face while his muscles cooled and stiffened. Kevin had started out telling stories of his last time in the port at Juneau, but after only a few minutes he was shivering and his voice trembled. He'd rushed to the end of his tale—the guy begrudgingly paid the bar bet after Kevin showed him the rooster hanging from a noose tattooed on his calf—and zipped his suit up to his eyes.

“I was starting to worry,” Kevin said, pulling the zipper down to take a drink.

“You had nothing to worry about, Lawless,” Holden said. “Cabot, on the other hand…” Holden finished his thought with a half smile and a jerk of the handle that sent the rescue craft lurching upward. Noah staggered a step to get his balance, reaching out with a half-numb hand for a guyline. Steady, he took a noisy slurp of his drink and decided he'd rather interpret the third officer's statement as a joke as well. Holden had come down to get him, after all. Still, if Kevin hadn't bailed out of the first ride, there was no telling how long Noah might have had to wait below.

Noah nodded. He turned to Holden. “You and Martin were working on communications, right? Make any progress?”

Holden's smile disappeared and he shook his head. “Nevins can repair anything, but it has to be broken first before he can fix it.” The third officer didn't elaborate. He was as direct a person as Noah had ever met. He said exactly what he meant, and if you didn't get it the first time, you had better have been taking notes; the man didn't repeat himself. Noah thought about asking the follow-up question about environmental interference, but the takeaway from what he'd heard was that nothing was functioning, even if it was in working order.

They rode the rest of the way in silence until Holden docked the FRC and let them back aboard the
Promise
. “Thanks again for the lift,” Noah said. He tried his best not to fall out as he climbed from the craft. He could have used two hands, but he would have rather taken a dive on the slick deck than lose the warm drink.

“Next time, ride up with everyone else,” Holden said, shutting down the generator engine.

“Believe me, I would've if it had been an option.” Holden nodded. He didn't ask for him to elaborate and Noah didn't offer; there was no point telling the story. The third officer already knew it wasn't tardiness that made Noah and Kevin miss the bus. But if Holden had an opinion of what Brewster had done, he wasn't saying. He stayed above the fray in almost every conflict unrelated to chain of command, but his temper was the subject of legend. By the time Holden worked up a cross word, it was too late to take anything back. You weathered him like a storm. He was a good ally to have, but he couldn't be coerced or corralled into taking a side. He'd find the right one when it needed finding. Noah hoped he would, anyway.

Noah started for the door, desperate to get out of the Gumby suit, but more anxious to get to the port side of the ship and have another look at the shape in the distance before the waning daylight was entirely gone. He bent to help secure the rescue boat first. Holden stopped him. “I was told you're to report to the wheelhouse.” He waited a beat and added, “Relax. Mickle's on watch. He's the one who wants to see you.” He winked.