Stranded (19 page)

Noah nodded toward the wet, frozen rope lying in the snow. “Take the rope and make sure no one else goes in the water. Make sure Michael gets across okay or that someone takes him to the
Promise.
Either way.”

Kevin nodded. His ears were a painful-looking red. He pulled his hood up and cinched the drawstring tight. It would be windproof, even if it wasn't warm. “We'll get them across and be right behind you.”

Noah looked at his friend and tried to force a smile before realizing he was still wearing a mask. “Don't be late,” he said before he began to trudge off across the snow.

“We're right behind you!” Kevin called as he ran back to help the rest of the team across the fissure.

 

20

Getting started was harder than Noah thought it would be. The pull-along stretcher was designed for exactly this use, but with a full-grown man strapped into it, it didn't pull along as smoothly as a Flexible Flyer. He leaned forward and dug his feet in as best he could on the slick surface. They began to move slowly. Inches at first. Then a little faster, momentum making up for inertia. It wasn't as difficult as carrying Holden on his shoulders, but still, it was hard.
This way,
he thought,
he won't snap my neck when I fall down dead from a heart attack.

He pushed on, head down, arms crossed in front of his chest in an attempt to consolidate his effort. His feet slipped and he felt like he was running in place, even though he was moving forward. He was beginning to sweat inside his parka. As soon as he stopped moving, that would be trouble.

Holden was shivering so hard, Noah could feel it through the travois lines. He ducked his head down and called back, “Hang in there. We're almost to shelter.” The shape was growing larger; there was maybe a half mile left. Noah could finally see what it was, and his hope of finding the drilling platform and others to help them summon rescue died. It wasn't the Niflheim. It was a platform supply vessel, like their own. But, it was derelict.

Caked in ice and snow, it tilted at an alien angle, suggesting their own eventual fate aboard the
Promise
when the ice clutching the hull shifted and began to crush their ship. Sections of red paint peeked out from under the frost coating the vessel, but for the most part, it was encased. He could make out the words
RESCUE ZONE
painted on the side. Although the FRCs appeared to be locked in their traveling positions, it was possible they could get aboard. The ship's stern was low in the ice, as though it had been flash-frozen in stormy seas. He hoped that meant a low enough point to climb aboard. Once inside, at the very least he hoped they'd be shielded from the wind. Perhaps he could find blankets and something dry among the crew's belongings for Holden to wear. It was a dead ship, but it was the closest thing they had to salvation.

Behind him, he heard the other crewmen catching up to him. The sound of their footsteps crunching in the snow was barely audible, but it was there and it gave him hope. He was not alone. At the very least, he had the Twins to back him up. He wanted to turn, to hail them, or wait for them to catch up, but his lungs hurt and his legs and back were burning with exertion. If he stopped, he'd be done for good. No amount of effort could get the stretcher sled moving again. Of course, that wasn't true. He'd have others to help him. He could even give the lines to someone who hadn't been bearing the burden.

He stumbled. The sled banged painfully into the backs of his legs, sending him staggering ahead trying not to fall. Holden moaned something Noah couldn't hear. He continued to walk forward, feeling the tug of the line going taut again, desperate to keep them moving. His heart pounded in his chest as his imagination, spurred by exhaustion and desperation, began to fill his head with images of failure at the last moment: another ice collapse opening a fissure beneath
his
feet this time. He saw himself falling off the side, falling through into the cold water and sinking, the thrumming sound of it invading his eardrums, pressing against him until he couldn't feel his body. He almost felt the pressure of deep water enclosing him, holding like a tomb of ice—forever suspended in the water of a dead womb.

He rubbed a hand at his eyes trying to clear away the waking nightmares along with the frozen tears blinding him. The crystals encrusting his eyelashes scratched and hurt when they broke away, tearing at the little hairs. But he pawed at them with nearly the same enthusiasm with which he'd bashed at the ship's rails in the storm. No matter where it built up, the ice was death. He would swing and strike and claw at it for as long as he was able.

As he reached the ship, he stumbled again and fell to his knees. The echo of his fall on the ice and the crack of it beneath him knotted his guts and made him hold his breath. The stretcher slid into his back and he let that breath go in a cry of pain.
All this way. All this way and it's a dead ship.

He undid the latch at his waist and let the belts fall. Only a few yards from the behemoth, a new despair filled him. One borne of the size and the magnitude of their problem. In Seattle, he'd stood on the dock looking up at the
Arctic Promise
and thinking how big it was. But on a dock or a causeway walking aboard, it seemed like any other tall building. He was impressed to be on a ship that size, but he'd seen them before. It was like standing below a skyscraper. No one ever thinks, “people built that.” They just walk through the revolving door to go to work or transact their business unaware of the effort of both intention and engineering it took to create such a structure. Now, kneeling in the snow at the back of the ship, permanently listing to starboard and tilted up, it looked like a spacecraft stuck on a desolate planet, unable to launch, filled with the cold emptiness and despair of the race of defeated beings who'd traversed the stars only to die alone on a frozen sea. He tried to force his thoughts back to his task, saving Holden, but in that minute, in the face of the derelict, he was nothing, and his efforts to remain something were meaningless.

He cried out again, not in pain, but frustration. He'd gotten them there. Now the work began. He had to get them inside. The sun was on the downward trajectory of its arc across the sky, and soon it would be dark. Soon, they'd all die.

“Who's there?”

Noah looked over his shoulder for the speaker. The rest of the crew was approaching, but they were back on the line and were only moving as fast as the slowest one of them: Michael. The trip had taken something out of them all. Their heads were down, hands up to shield their faces from the blowing wind. It wasn't one of them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the voice called out. Noah looked up. The speaker stood on the ship above him. No one could have beaten him there. It was impossible.

“We need help,” Noah shouted. “He's soaking wet. We've got to get him inside and dry.”

“Who is it?”

Noah couldn't understand why anyone would ask. “What? Does it matter? Help me get him inside.” The figure disappeared. Noah called out: “Wait! Don't go! His name's Holden!”

Noah fell forward onto his hands. His tired legs tried to refuse, but he forced himself to his feet, staggering the last few yards to the ship. He wanted to bang his fists against the hull like it was a door he could force open, but he knew it would make no difference. He had to find a way up. Holden's only hope was getting inside. Tilted as the ship was, he might be able to jump and reach the bulwark rail around the starboard side of the hull. But once he was up, he had no idea what to do. Holden was still strapped to the sled, and he had no rope to try to lift him. He was certain the man's hands, and probably arms, legs, and feet also were all numb and useless. His body would be fighting to keep his organs warm, and would sacrifice its limbs to save the whole organism. Holden couldn't help himself. They would both have to wait for the rest of the crew.

Or … Noah could climb aboard and deal with the other obstacle to Holden's rescue: the man already aboard.

Before his thoughts could grow darker, the man appeared around the side of the vessel. Noah stood paralyzed. At a distance, the man was just a shadow in the late day light, but Noah could see the clear shape of a rifle slung on his back. It was on his back. Not in his hands. Not leveled at him. That was something, at least. He unhooked the travois leads and stumbled toward the man.

As Noah closed the distance, he saw the stranger was dressed for the same kind of outdoor work the
Arctic Promise
crew was. Parka and weather deck pants, waterproof boots and gloves, a face mask, hat and hood. This man, however, had ski goggles.

“Did I hear you right? Did you say Holden?” the stranger said. Although he was shouting, his voice carried a lilt that said Alabama or maybe Georgia. Noah normally had a hard time telling one Southern accent from another, but this one was familiar. He'd heard it before.

“He's our third officer. He fell in the water. He's dying. Will you help me?” Noah could see clearly enough to notice the man's eyes widen with surprise and his brow furrow in confusion. The stranger was trying to work something out. They didn't have time to discuss facts, consider options, and come to conclusions, however. The man seemed to agree with this last unspoken thought of Noah's and hurried over to grab a tow strap.

“There's a net ladder around the side we can use. All of our electronics have failed, but I set up a manual winch we can use to lift him aboard once we're up.” The stranger looked to his right; the rest of the crew was almost there. “Let's go,” he said with more than a touch of concern in his voice.

Noah grabbed the other end of the harness and together they pulled Holden around to the starboard side of the ship toward the Rescue Zone—a lowered area where a crew would drop a net ladder to help retrieve someone who'd fallen overboard or accept refugees from another boat. Hanging over the side was the net ladder the man had promised. Next to it dangled a hooked line with a net basket attached. And next to that stood an emergency sled stretcher identical to their own, except heaped with boxes and bags full of supplies. The stranger was looting the ship.

“It's going to be uncomfortable, but we don't have a choice. I can't rig up anything else quick enough. Help me get him in it.” The stranger dropped his line and dashed ahead, pulling boxes of supplies out of the netting, tossing them in the snow next to the stretcher.

Noah unstrapped Holden and helped him sit up. The semi-conscious man complied, but Noah figured he didn't comprehend much of what was happening. The stranger helped Noah carry Holden from the stretcher to the net. “I'm going to need you on board with me to haul him in. You up to it?”

Noah nodded. “I can help. I'm just tired.”

“Well, no rest for the wicked yet.”

“Who are you?”

The man turned. “Let's get him aboard and dry and then we'll make our introductions.” Hearing his voice, seeing his steely, blue eyes, Noah knew who he was talking to. But it wasn't possible. That man was dead.

Regardless, Noah followed him up the ladder.

 

21

It was a struggle to get Holden across the tilted cargo deck to the bulkhead door. The surface was predictably slick and at an almost impassable angle. The toppled shipping cans made it even more difficult, forcing them to weave along a maze of debris and wreckage. Eventually, they made it inside and to a crew cabin. The ship had been infiltrated by cold and snow, and the only difference between in and out was shelter from the wind.

Holden's clothes were frozen and stiff. It was hard to peel them off, but Noah got him out of them and wrapped in a blanket stripped off one of the bunks. He had to shake it to get the dust and snow off before using it to dry the third officer as much as he could, but he imagined a cold, dry blanket was better than wet, frozen clothes. Holden's breathing was shallow and ragged. His fingers and toes were swollen with second-degree frostbite blisters. The tip of his nose was turning black and broken blisters wept down his cheeks. Noah had to peel Kevin's cap off of his head; it had adhered with frozen and congealed blister serum. If it hurt, Holden didn't seem to notice. His eyes were stuck shut with the same frost that had plagued Noah. He brushed it off as best he could, hoping the man's corneas hadn't also been frostbitten. Holden didn't open his eyes and he'd stopped trying to ball himself up.

The man from the ship returned with an armload of towels and clothes. “Use these,” he said, shoving the things at Noah. Noah looked at the clothes in his hands.

“How do you know they'll fit?”

“They will. They're his.”

Noah stripped off the blanket and wiped away the moisture that remained on Holden with the towels before he tried to dress him. Between Holden's limp body and the Dutch angle in the compartment, he wasn't doing well. He fumbled with his thick, gloved fingers, trying to fit a pair of pants over Holden's stiff legs. His grip on the fabric slipped and jerked out of his grasp as the clothing caught on the floor or his damp skin. “Help me, for Christ's sake!”

Holden let out a quiet breath too slight to see in the cold.

The stranger knelt beside Noah. Stripping off a glove, he held his fingers to Holden's neck. His head dropped and he pulled his glove back on. Noah wanted to contradict the answer. But saying it wasn't so wouldn't change a thing. And no one came back from the dead.

The man from the ship pulled his face mask down. He was pale with sharp cheekbones jutting above a reddish-blond beard that twisted in all directions, distorted by his mask. Noah knew him. He looked different—much thinner and bearded. Between his voice and those eyes, Noah knew it couldn't be anyone else. But it couldn't be him, either.

No one came back from the dead.