Stranded (4 page)

“What? Just making sure—”

“Why don't you keep your nose out of shit you shouldn't be messing with?”

Noah shoved past the deckhand, bouncing off his shoulder as he did. “If I kept my nose out of things, you might be swimming tomorrow.” He pulled open the door he hadn't heard the man exit and practically ran inside to get away from the chill of both the atmosphere and his coworker. His reputation had preceded him. No matter what, he promised himself, this was his last job for OrbitOil or any other platform outfit. He'd decided. It was time to take Ellie and head home to New England. But first, he had to get back to Seattle in one piece.

 

4

D-Deck stank like smoke and burnt electronics. Noah was surprised he'd been reassigned to a different cabin, figuring that living in this stench would be just the kind of petty torture the Old Man would subject him to. Then again, Brewster was a company man and would balance potential liability against his personal satisfaction. The crew would make sure he was just as uncomfortable on C-Deck as he was below, and the company wouldn't have to pay worker's comp. Noah came to collect his few private things. Although, smelling the rank passageway, he assumed most of his things were likely ruined. Still, they were his. He was going to need his clothes and the couple of books he'd brought, especially if he was going to be confined to his cabin for a while. He found himself wishing he'd brought more to read. It was going to be a long trip with nothing to do.

He hesitated in the doorway of his cabin, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. The narrow room was wide enough for Noah to walk between the wardrobe and the small desk. At the end of the room was a single bed, barely long enough for him. He wondered how men over six feet, like Boucher, were able to sleep without having to curl up in a ball. The cabin was similar in size to what Noah imagined a prison cell would be, minus a toilet—the head was down the hall. His accommodations were cramped, but he was expected to spend the majority of his time working, in the mess, or in a day room anyway. They even had a gym. The tiny cabin was for intended for sleep, and privacy for those who needed it, definitely not luxury. He didn't even have a porthole window. As a concern, living space was secondary to the company's goal. Space on the ship was dedicated to maximizing area for storage and cargo. The men had to live and work around that. Oil drilling came before everything else.

He opened the closet and grabbed his duffel bag off the floor. Pulling a shirt off a shelf, he sniffed at it and screwed up his face. He couldn't tell if what he smelled was the stink of the fire lingering throughout the level or if it was in his clothes. Either way, it was still in his nose and lungs, and he figured he was going to be smelling that shit for a while, no matter where on the ship he landed. He shoved his clothes into the duffel bag and moved on.

He collected his few things from the desk: a cheap digital music player, a few toiletries, a pair of books, and his electronic Chess Wizard game. Shoving it all into the bag, he moved on to the last things—the most important things—two pictures pinned to a small corkboard above the desk. He took them down and stared for a long moment into the faces of his wife and daughter. He never shipped out without a copy of them. This copy of Abby's picture was the third he'd printed out. The first had grown worn and tattered, and the second was lost somewhere between a different ship and home. He kept the same images on a micro SD card on his phone. No matter what happened, he'd made sure to never be far from them. The images meant more to him than the books and clothes and everything else. He'd rather wear rags and never see another printed word than forget what Abby looked like.

Carefully slipping the pictures into a zippered pocket on the outside of his bag, he scanned the small room for anything he might have forgotten. If there
was
something, it wasn't like he was far. He could always come back. At least until they reached the Niflheim. Pulling the drawstring taut, he slung the bag over his shoulder. It collided with the wall, throwing him off balance for a moment. He steadied himself and stepped out into the passageway to find his new lodgings.

Around the corner, he saw a foot sticking out of the instrument room. He assumed the man owning the limb was Martin Nevins, the ship's engineer and mechanic. Noah walked over, curious to see how things had turned out, since he had no recollection after hitting his head. The last time he saw the room, it was a toxic mess of fire retardant and electrical smoke. Not much had changed.

“Hey Marty. How's it look?”

The engineer sat back and wiped at his forehead with a dirty forearm. He was sweating despite the chill in the room. “Looks like
hell
is what it looks like.” He sized Noah up and added, “You don't look any better.”

Noah brushed at the cut on his forehead with his fingers and wondered how bad the bruising on his face was. Aside from the hospital and the lockers in the change rooms, there weren't many reflective surfaces on the
Promise.
He hadn't thought to look in the mirror inside his closet. For all he knew, half of his beard might have been singed off in the fire. He ran his hand down his face to reassure himself he didn't resemble a half-man/half-woman sideshow attraction. “I'm sure it looks worse than I feel. Or maybe the other way around. I don't know.” He pointed at the instrument stack he'd extinguished. “Fire was in propulsion, huh? Is it salvageable?”

“Yeah. I mean, no way. Yes, the fire hit propulsion, but it's not even a little salvageable. The thing is well and truly fucked; we're running on the backup.”

“And if that one goes out?”

Martin huffed a laugh through his nose. “You know what happens then.” He didn't have to say it. He pulled a cigarette out of a pack and lit it. Smoking wasn't allowed anywhere on board except the exterior decks. But then, who would be able to pull the smell of a Kamel Red out of the mélange of other noxious scents poisoning the air on D? “What are the chances they both get wrecked, huh?”

Noah shrugged. He didn't want to say it out loud. He didn't believe in jinxes and bad luck, but it still lived in him, like the fear of elevators falling down their shafts and the bus in your blind spot that only appeared once you step off the curb. Then again, you didn't need to believe in bad karma to know that Brewster had been pushing the engines extra hard. If they sailed into another storm, they could have much bigger problems than ice.

Martin took a deep drag of his cigarette and blew a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Speakin' of getting wrecked, I got a bottle of J&B in my cabin. You up for a snort later?”

“Definitely. Come find me; I'm bunking on C now.”

“That's a good thing. Down here is no place to be.”

Noah held out a fist for Martin to bump. The mechanic knocked his knuckles against Noah's a little too hard and smiled with the half of his mouth not occupied with his coffin nail. The pair had shipped out together in the past, but both of them hailing from New England provided more of a bond than any of their experiences hauling concrete and gas into the Arctic Ocean.

Noah turned to go. “Hey, uh, you know what the deal is with communications or navigation systems?”

“What? You missing your ‘stories'?”

Noah laughed. “I was talking to Brewster, and radio and sat phones are both down. I'm guessing that means dynamic positioning, too. I was just wondering if you knew what was going on.”

Martin stood and tilted his head to the side as if he was trying to tell what kind of mythical creature was talking to him. “First I'm hearing of it. There isn't a thing built by man I can't fix, but if both radio and satellite have shit the bed at the same time, that ain't mechanical. Not unless we're really getting the smackdown from the gods; they're separate systems. It might be the weather interfering. Or it might be PICNIC.”

“Picnic?”

“Problem in chair, not computer.” He winked. “The skipper's old enough to remember eight-tracks. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't know how to use the ‘new-fangled 'puter machines' and took those systems off-line trying to get RedTube to load.” He took another deep drag off his smoke, pinched the ember off the end and ground it out underfoot. He stuffed the filter back into the pack. “Still, something must be working if we're in motion. He ain't flying blind.”

Noah tried to laugh his fears off. “We're fine. He's steering by stars and charts.”

Martin shook his head, saying nothing. Not laughing. He'd looked outside. He knew there were no stars.

“If we needed to shut down propulsion for a while … you know, just to make sure it was working properly … you know, like to run a diagnostic something or other, you could do that right?”

“Not if it was going to get me charged with mutiny.”

Noah held up his free hand. “I didn't say anything about mutiny. If Brewster's headed in a direction based on a best guess and steering us into the Siberian shore, that's his prerogative as ship's master. I shouldn't have said anything. I'm being paranoid; I'm sure Brewster knows what he's doing.” Noah felt his headache creeping back in a little, pushing at the edges. He should have grabbed more Tylenol from Mickle in the hospital.

Martin looked like he wanted that drink right now. Instead, he lit another cigarette. Shaking his head, he said, “Let me think about it.”

“I'm not asking you to do anything. Just wondering out loud, I guess.” He waved his hand dismissively. Noah pointed at Martin's smoke. “You know those things will kill you.”

The engineer took a deep drag and held it for a moment before exhaling. “I've never felt better in my life.”

Looking at his blanched and sweating face, Noah didn't believe him.

 

5

Noah stowed his things in his new room. The ship was built to accommodate forty crew members. All the cabins on C-Deck were designed for double occupancy, but with the bare bones complement of sixteen men spread between B and C, none of the crew had to share a room. Moving from his single occupant cabin into the new one meant Noah had twice the space, not that he needed it. Still, it was nice to have walls a little farther apart from each other. If he was going to be confined to quarters, he appreciated being assigned somewhere less confining. Stretching out in the new space, he tried to tamp down his growing feelings of resentment toward Brewster for making him sleep in the single bunk cabin so far belowdecks. He was as successful at that as he was managing his building headache. It had grown stronger since talking to Marty. He dug through his bag trying to find something to beat back at it, but was unsuccessful. He'd forgotten to pack any painkillers.

Peeking out the door, he found the passageway oddly silent. There were thirteen cabins and the gym on this deck, but if anyone was on C with him, they were still sleeping off last night's nightmare.

He left his cabin and climbed to the First Deck, between A and the wheelhouse. He walked past the crew change rooms and the head, to the sick bay. Inside, Mickle was tending to Felix. Without turning to see who'd come to visit him, he said, “All out of aspirin and everything else, so don't even ask. Don't any of you plan ahead for your hangovers?”

“How'd you know I wanted an aspirin?”

Mickle turned and wiped at his brow with a sleeve. Like Marty Nevins, he was sweating despite the ever-present chill on the ship. “I've had maybe a dozen guys come up here looking for analgesics. I ran out an hour ago.” He pointed at Noah's wound. “Is it bad?”

Noah shrugged. “Nothing I can't cope with. A dozen, huh?”

Mickle nodded, looking like he might have started rattling off names before thinking better of it. “Yup,” he said instead. “And none of 'em with as good an excuse as you or Pereira here. To be honest, I feel a little like shit myself, but I delivered the last of the Tylenol to the skipper a few minutes ago. All I have left is some topical stuff for stitches and whatnot … and the tramadol. The first wouldn't knock out a headache and the second will knock you out.” His eyes wandered toward Pereira sleeping fitfully in the medical bunk. “You're just going to have to brew up another pot of coffee and hope caffeine can get on top of it.”

“You think the fumes from the electrical fire got into the ventilation?”

“Oh, I'm sure of it. But almost everybody was outside dealing with the storm when that was happening. The fire was out before most of the crew came back in. Vent system had time to cycle that crap through and replace it with clean air. Unless something's wrong with that, too.”

“Communications still on the fritz?” Noah asked.

“Yeah. I went up a few minutes ago to follow up on Pereira's ride out of here.”

“How'd Brewster respond to that?”

Mickle raised an eyebrow. “As expected. He told me Pereira would get help quicker if people would crawl out of his ass long enough for him to find the Niflheim.”

“He has a colorful turn of phrase, doesn't he?”

Mickle smirked. “He uses colorful words to describe you, that's for sure.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and squeezed his eyes shut. Noah suspected he was underplaying the severity of his own headache. “He also refused to let me relieve him. He's been at the conn going on twenty hours.” Mickle didn't need to say how dangerous lack of sleep could be. A well-rested person attempting to steer the ship in fog as dense as this was dangerous enough. “I stopped here on my way to fetch him a cup of coffee before I try to relieve him again. You have any insights into how to get your father-in-law to listen?”

“The only insight I have is that he doesn't ever listen. It's his way.”

Mickle sighed. “If I'm able to scrounge up any aspirin or something, I'll let you know. You do the same?”