Stranded (13 page)

 

14

Although they'd gotten an early start, breaking away the ice from around the hull of the ship took longer than anyone anticipated. More men had been recruited to work, but it was still a game of inches, as if the sheet was a living thing opposing them. It started refreezing the minute they moved on to break up another section. For every yard they freed, a man had to return once or twice an hour to keep it loose and away from the ship. They split the work into shifts. Two hours on, an hour off, and an hour on maintenance. Not long into his second working shift, Noah's lungs burned and his breath came in ragged gasps. He wasn't out of shape; at the same time, he wasn't fit for breaking rocks at Leavenworth, either, and especially not in temperatures that stung his lungs with every drawn breath. Still, he pushed through until he could rest again, driving his scraper into the ice. His hands were still swollen and aching from the prior day's labor. He silently wished for a flamethrower. Something he could use at a distance from the edge that would both melt the ice and warm him. But a flamethrower was the last thing the company was going to outfit on a ship manned by bored roughnecks. No matter how useful, it was a greater liability than an asset.

Gripping the haft of the tool was becoming increasingly difficult, and he fumbled it more than once. He feared if he dropped it into the water under the ice, Boucher might send him down to personally fetch it. Although the deckboss looked like death warmed over, he was driving the crew, determined to get the job done in a single day. Even if he didn't like him, Noah agreed, if the job was going to get done, it had to be accomplished as quickly as possible. They didn't have the hands or the gear to pull a twenty-four-hour shift outside. Every successive day meant fewer men fit for duty.

The work, while harder than the day before, was going faster and more efficiently without the Old Man on the team. Men snickered behind Noah's back or cast dirty looks in his direction when they thought he wasn't looking. But for the most part, he was thankful for the passive aggression instead of Brewster's outright hostility. They could distrust him all they wanted as long as they did it quietly and left him alone. Time spent defending himself was time away from coming up with an alternative to get out of this mess if Brewster's plan didn't work. Which he was almost certain it wouldn't.

The men spent their rest shifts looking at the shape in the distance with a pair of binoculars Kevin had brought with him. Although the fog had almost completely dissipated, the distant shape in the ice was frustratingly difficult to see, almost as if it existed in a dream. More so now that the sun was going down. Noah tried refocusing the binoculars, but the little spotters weren't powerful enough to see as far as whatever the shape was. Its size and distance remained elusive. If it was the Niflheim, how long, he wondered, would it take to reach on foot? A few hours? A day or more? He couldn't tell. The white expanse revealed no metric of perspective by which to measure distance. Same as the night before, it was dark and nothing moved except blowing snow and the haze that hid the reality of it. Only its reddish color suggested the shape was a thing apart from the icescape. Even then, no lights shone on it, no plume of smoke suggested labor or even life at all within. Noah wondered if it was possible for a desert mirage to manifest in the Arctic.

Kevin nudged him for another turn with the binoculars. Noah handed them over and shoved his gloved hands into his armpits to warm them. “Where'd you find those anyway?” he asked.

“I always pack 'em. For whale watching and shit.”

“Whale watching,” Jack said. “Gaaaaaay!”

Kevin dismissed his friend with a wave of his hand. “Whatever, dude. Whales are fuckin' awesome. You need to get over that too-cool-for-school shit.” While their cheer was forced and weary, they were doing their best to keep each other's spirits up. They were funhouse mirror reflections of the same person. One tall, one short; one skinny, one stout; one black and one white, but both of a single mind and intention. If Jack farted, Kevin said “excuse me.”

Noah tried to ignore their banter while he squinted at the horizon. With or without the binoculars, it looked the same: stuck in the same wintry hell they were. Word was getting around the crew that Brewster thought it might be the Niflheim. The Old Man's theory assumed he'd kept on the right course bearing after the storm had blown them all over creation, the fog settled in, and the instruments had gone tits up. Noah didn't have much faith in Brewster's blind navigating. But it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, either. Nothing seemed impossible anymore. At least nothing bad. If the Niflheim was dead, things were very bad indeed.

“That's it!” Boucher called out. “You got five minutes; everybody get your gear and get on the elevator. One trip is all we're making. You miss the boat, you better hope you brought your sleeping bag!” Boucher picked up a sledgehammer in one hand and the pickax the Old Man had been swinging the day before in his other. He did his best to trot them over to the lifeboat, but he tripped on his own feet halfway there and dropped the sledge, cursing as it bounced away. Pride wouldn't let him admit that he felt as bad as he looked. Merchant sailors loved to complain. They'd bitch about a cash bonus if there was a way to spin it to make it look like they were ever-suffering at the hands of hard work. There seemed to have been a tacit agreement among the men to put an end to grousing for the time being. Complaining ceased being fun the minute the thing being complained about was actually threatening. No one wanted to admit openly that they were frightened of what was happening to them. Even if they had a right to be scared shitless. But right or not, they'd never cop to it.

Noah grabbed his scraper and shuffled toward the FRC, making sure to steer clear of loose ice they'd smashed apart. He followed along after a couple of the guys who hadn't been on the team the day before: Andrew and Heath. Neither looked like they should have been asked to leave their bunks. They staggered and slouched their way to the lifeboat, looking like they'd as likely fall in as climb. More than a couple of times, men had stumbled or slipped, dipping a foot or an entire leg in the water. No one had gone all the way in. If there was a small mercy in the day, it had been that.

Noah climbed into the FRC, seated himself in the back, and waited. Boucher shouted something that sounded like “all in,” the wind catching his words and tearing them away. Then the boat jerked as the winch caught and up they went. The same gust that stole Boucher's speech battered them against the side of the ship. The wind chill stung Noah's face and made his eyes water. Tears froze on his eyelashes, threatening to seal his eyes closed when he tried to blink them away. He resisted the urge to wipe at them with the back of a hand or his sleeve. The neoprene suit was covered in flecks of ice that would just make things worse if he ground them into his face.

At the top of the ride, Noah hopped out of the craft first and began helping the others. Most accepted his aid. Henry and Theo didn't. Noah tried not to sweat it. He didn't care what they thought of him anymore. They'd have the same opinion no matter what he did, so why fight it?

When everyone was back on deck, Boucher ordered Jack and Kevin to secure the rescue craft while he trotted up to inform Brewster they were all aboard and ready. He took Henry with him. The senior deckhand had somehow spent more time on light shifts than heavy, taking a supervisory role he hadn't been assigned.

After they finished with the lifeboat, Jack and Kevin devised a plan to climb the aft gunwale and watch the propellers break up the rest of the ice. “You coming?” Jack asked. Noah shook his head. He wanted to lie down and try to warm his hands. His fingers each felt like ten pounds of sausage in five-pound casings, and although he wasn't arthritic before, he feared he would be going forward.

“You two have fun. And be careful,” he added. “It's not going to be an easy ride. Just be sure to hang on tight.”

Kevin smiled and winked. A touch of blood around one of his nostrils glistened in the late day light. He was either putting up a brave front or in denial. The pair seemed to exist in an alternate world where they were weary from having a drink too many in their favorite bar instead of just coming off a glorified chain gang with a case of frostbite. He wished he was there with them. Whatever it took to get on the other side of their trouble. Noah wanted to believe everything would be all right, too. A drink sounded nice right about now. It might be time to revisit the invitation to share Marty's bottle of J&B—if Marty was conscious. Ignoring the pain in his freezing hands, he fist-bumped the twins and retreated through the door.

*   *   *

After dropping his Gumby suit in the change room, Noah headed for his cabin and a fresh change of clothes. He was soaked with cooling sweat again and he smelled. The survival suit was holding in the funk of his previous labors, adding a history of wretchedness to his present aroma. He could barely stand himself. He resolved to change before heading for the showers, unwilling to put the infected garments on again once he was clean.

If the headway they'd made that afternoon really was an indication of how long it would take to free the whole ship, they could be out there for days breaking up the ice and returning to redo the work undone overnight. Days while the thing that was eating the crew took more, and bigger, bites. Days for the rest of the ship's systems to go black and fail. Eventually, he realized, they'd lose life support. If the radiation or whatever it was didn't shut it down, they'd run out of fuel. When the heat went out, every man on the
Arctic Promise
would freeze to death.

Distracted by their bleak prospects, Noah found himself a deck below his cabin and descending farther. He sighed and tried to work up the resolve to climb instead of let gravity lead him all the way down. He needed a cup—or five—of coffee and something to eat more than he originally thought. His legs were shaky and felt like they might fold beneath him if he unlocked his knees. His arms hung at his sides, the joints in his hands swollen and stiff. The motion of driving the scraper/chopper into the ice for hours had left him unable to lift his arms above his head without resistance and pain, but he had to reach up to climb. Using the steep ladders in the ship hurt in so many ways.

He fished in a pocket for his last nutrition bar. It was squashed and bent from being in his jacket, but it was edible. The gummy brick of oats and frosting smelled better than it tasted, but it was high in protein and had the calories he needed to get him through the next hour, anyway. He'd eaten two already today, taking ribbing from Kevin for even possessing something labeled T
HE
B
AR FOR
W
OMEN,
let alone ingesting one. He didn't care what was printed on the outside. He liked the lemon frosting. He chewed the dense treat slowly, savoring it instead of powering it down like he had the two outside.

Noah took a deep breath and began to climb, his shoulders and back cramping. He was two decks below where he wanted to be. He'd just have to deal if he wanted to shower, get coffee, and rest.

The whine of the engines spinning up echoed through the stairwell. A dismal howl filled the metal passageways belowdecks. Pipes banged and rattled as the behemoth awakened. The ship's address system pinged and Brewster's voice crackled indecipherably through the speakers. Whatever the Old Man said was lost in the roar of the engine and the faltering PA system. Another thing to add to the list of equipment shutting down like a metastasizing cancer slowly killing all its host's organs.

The ship lurched astern. Noah's grip on the handrail slipped and he slammed forward into the ladder, jamming his chin against the steel nosing. The serrated tread jabbed into his palms as he grabbed blindly to keep from falling. The last of his bar slipped out of his fingers to the deck below.

He heard the sound of ice grinding at the hull. The engines roared in a primal answer. The ship rocked forward before halting abruptly with a peal of sound like rending metal. He scrambled up the stairs before the world could suddenly shift again. The engines shuddered, the steel beneath his feet vibrating, and the air in the passageway took on the familiarly terrifying smell of electrical smoke and burning oil. He had to get to Brewster—had to tell him he was tearing the ship apart.

Lumbering three flights up to the First Deck, he emerged outside sick bay. Sean Mickle knelt in the doorway holding a glistening red hand to his face. Blood trickled out beneath his palm.

“Christ, Sean! Are you okay?”

Mickle looked at Noah through a squinted eye. “Yeah,” he said, groaning through clenched teeth. “Wasn't all the way down the ladder when Brewster goosed the engines. I fell off and banged my head pretty good.” He pulled his hand away and asked, “How does it look?”

Noah helped the man up and leaned in for a look. He gently probed at it with his fingers to get a sense of how much was wound and how much was just the excessive gore of a typical face cut. Mickle flinched away, sucking air in through his teeth. Noah grabbed his shoulder instead and led him into the brighter light of the hospital. He helped Mickle have a seat at the desk and tilted his head up to look closer. “Come on. Let me look, Doc.” Mickle lowered his hand and a fresh trickle of blood ran down his face, traveling along the deep laugh line in his cheek.

“You must have hit it on a dog,” Noah said, referring to the handles on the compartment door. It was a small cut, but deep. Noah grabbed a hand towel off a shelf above him and pressed it into Mickle's hand. He pointed at his own cut. “Looks like we're a matched set.” Noah had to shout to hear himself over the sounds of Brewster doing battle with the ice. He jabbed a thumb at the wheelhouse ladder. “It sounds like he's tearing the ship apart, and there's fresh smoke in the companionway.”