The prow. Ghost lifted a deck hatch and shone his flashlight inside. Metal steps descending into darkness. He climbed down.
'It's okay,' he called.
Jane followed.
Two massive drums each rolled with anchor chain, each link big as a lifebelt.
'There must be a manual release,' said Ghost. 'It must be part of the design. Some way of stopping the ship dead in the water in the event of catastrophic turbine failure.'
The drums were each powered by a motor the size of a van.
'I think this lever might disengage the gears,' said Jane.
'Yeah?'
'Well, there are warning stickers all over it.'
Ghost found a tool locker.
'Better wear these.'
Jane twisted foam plugs into her ears and clamped defenders to her head.
He tugged the lever. It wouldn't shift. He lifted his feet and swung from it. The lever wouldn't move. He fetched a sledgehammer.
'Stand back,' he mouthed.
He swung the hammer. Two blows and the gears disengaged. The drum spun free. The massive anchor chain played out through the hull with a juddering roar. The air stank of hot metal.
They took off their ear-defenders. They climbed out on to the deck and shone a flashlight over the side of the ship. The anchors had deployed. The chain hung taut.
'High five,' said Jane. They slapped gloved hands. 'About time something went our way.'
They returned to Rampart and mustered the crew.
'It's called Hyperion,' said Jane, standing before them like a teacher lecturing a class. 'It's Swedish, I think. All the bridge controls are written in Martian. We've dropped anchor. All we have to do is start the engines and we are on our way home.'
A general murmur of excitement ran through the canteen. Although the canteen was cold it was still the best place to hold a group meeting.
'Yeah,' continued Jane, her breath fogging the air. 'It looks like our luck has finally changed. But there's a catch. Most of the passengers and crew are still aboard. They're infected, but locked below deck.'
'Shotguns,' said Nikki. 'Go room to room. You saw them on TV. Infected move slow. Turkey shoot.'
'They are people. Wives and husbands. Sons and daughters. They're not vermin.'
'Let's cut the sanctimonious crap, shall we? If we sail an infected ship south to Europe not a single country will let us enter their waters. In fact they'll probably order an airstrike and vaporise the boat. And remember what happened to Rawlins. This disease, whatever it is, drove him nuts. He damn near blew us to hell. You want to set sail in a ship full of ravening lunatics? A floating asylum? Anyway, it's not like anyone ever recovered from this contagion. No one gets better. I vote we shoot them all. The kindest thing. Throw the bodies over the side.'
'We don't have enough shells. A ship like that might carry two, three thousand passengers. And a big crew.'
'So gas them. Rev the engines and channel exhaust fumes into the ventilation.'
'I agree,' said Ivan. 'We couldn't sleep with those rabid fucks the other side of the wall.'
'Right now we have them contained,' said Jane. 'Besides, we don't even know if gassing them would work. They should all be dead. No food, water or heat. That ship should be a graveyard. But somehow they keep going.'
Nikki looked around. Faces lit by lamplight, all of them looking to Jane for guidance.
'You can't trust her,' Nikki wanted to say. 'In a situation like this, you can't trust anyone but yourself.'
Nikki had a boyfriend. Alan. They spent two years together. A holiday in Mumbai, a holiday in Chile. And she left him out on the ice to die.
You can't place your fate in someone else's hands, she thought. When the moment comes you are on your own.
Some of the crew packed their possessions. They hauled suitcases and kit-bags to the submarine hangar. They sat in a semicircle around the convection heater.
Punch and Sian sat on their cases and warmed their hands.
'Just like Spirit of Endeavour,' said Sian. 'I was so sure we were going home. I was counting down the minutes.' She pointed to the cases. 'I bet the guys won't need half this stuff.'
'No. There will be heated cabins, fresh clothes every day. More food than we can eat. Judging by the stuff on TV, we might as well stay aboard when we reach Britain. Moor the ship off the coast. Treat the place as our fortress. Send out forage parties as and when.'
'Nice plan.'
'Maybe we were the lucky ones. Safe at the top of the world while the shit went down. We wanted a ride home and God sent a limo.'
'We're not home yet.'
Nikki descended to the pump hall and inspected the boat. She had cut and stitched three weather balloons to make a spinnaker. The silver sail hung slack from the mast, waiting for a strong wind.
She kicked the aluminium hull. It resonated like a gong.
Days earlier Nail stripped to the waist, masked his face and spray-gunned the vessel with red rig paint. He used bathroom grout to secure the rubber seal surrounding the boat hatch.
She consulted blueprints. The boat was complete and ready to be stocked. She climbed into the cockpit. Could she sail the boat herself? Did she truly need Nail any more? The Dummies Guide to Sailing. Nikki found the manual among the neglected book exchange table on Main Street. Creased paperbacks. Plenty of car magazines. She reckoned she could trim and reef a sail. She could tack left and right. She couldn't navigate. She couldn't steer by constellations. But if she headed south-west sooner or later she would sight the Norwegian coast, then she could let it guide her to the North Sea and home. She didn't need Nail. She could do it all alone.
'So what do you think?' Nail was watching from the shadows.
'It seems solid.'
'I reckon it could ride out a storm or two. Stable? Couldn't say. Ghost's design, not mine. It might capsize if it hit the wrong wave. But it won't break up. I built it strong.'
'Not much use for it now, though,' said Nikki. 'We can all hitch a ride on Jane's liner.'
'Jane Blanc? That waddling fuck? You really want to put your fate in her hands? Reckon she is going to get you home?'
'Since you put it like that.'
'I'm tired of promises. If you and I want a ride out of here we will have to organise it ourselves. So let's get this tin can ready to go.'
'What about the floor hatch?'
'Maybe we should find some batteries. Big ones. Hotwire the hydraulics.'
'Think it would work?'
'Few minutes of juice. That's all it would take.'
Nikki broke into a loading bay. Three forklifts parked at the back. She disconnected the batteries and loaded them on to a pallet truck. She dragged the pallet truck to the pump hall.
She stripped insulation from the hatch hydraulics and clipped jump leads. She pressed Open. Burst of sparks. Brief tremor from the hydraulic rams. The hatch didn't open.
'Fuck.'
She found a tennis ball. She sat bouncing the ball against the boat hull.
Alan, her boyfriend, used to tell a joke. 'What's brown and sticky? A stick.' He said it was the perfect joke. Elegantly simple. She remembered him reciting the joke at the dining table. Christmas with her parents. But she couldn't recall his voice. They were together two years, but already the memories were starting to fade like a photograph left in the sun.
He came to her in dreams. She glimpsed him in crowds. He shouted to her across busy streets.
Was Alan dead when she left him out on the ice? Could he have been saved? She would never know.
Scuff marks round a frosted floor plate. Big boot prints. Nikki pried the plate with a screwdriver and lifted it up. Ziploc bags of brown powder lying on the pipework.
She cooked a pinch of powder and siphoned the syrup into a hypodermic. A humourless smile.
'What's brown and sticky?' she murmured, as the needle punctured her skin.
Nail sat with Rye in the sub.
'Don't you ever go out?'
'It's cosy in here,' said Rye. She gestured to the bubble window of the cockpit. The crew sat round the fire. 'Besides, conversation is getting pretty repetitive. The women they will fuck. The drinks they will drink. If Jane and Ghost don't actually deliver this ship there will be a lynching.'
Rye blocked the cockpit window with her coat. She took a couple of hypodermics from her holdall. Nail opened a snuff box. He tapped powder into a spoon and cooked the mix with a Zippo.
'You have your doubts?'
'Jane Blanc. Stands before us and promises a floating Shangri- La. Forgive me if I don't get too excited. First day she arrived on the rig we had to run around looking for super-sized survival clothes just so she could dress properly. She's lost her battle with chocolate. She's been vanquished by doughnuts. Suddenly she's going to take charge and lead us all to safety? I don't think so.'
They returned to Hyperion. Jane and Ghost, Punch and Ivan.
'Okay,' said Jane. 'We've got a couple of lights on. So let's power this baby up for real. Let's get it moving.'
They surveyed the ship stern to prow. They met in the bridge.
'We have free access to the bridge and the officers' quarters,' said Jane. 'But from level two downward there are barricades at every door.'
'Plenty of blood around,' said Ghost. 'The crew fought a running battle. Must have been a hell of a fight. They prevailed, I guess. The ship is locked down pretty tight. We're safe, but most of the ship is off limits.'
'So where are the crew?' asked Punch. 'The blokes who built the barricades?'
Ghost shrugged. 'Maybe they spotted land. The ship was drifting. They saw some kind of habitation. They took to the boats and rowed for shore.'
'Habitation? Out here?'
'Hyperion has been adrift a long while. No telling where it's been.'
'Imagine the food down below,' said Punch. 'Caviar. Real eggs. Champagne. All out of reach. I'm not going to loll around in a presidential suite and slowly starve. I say we organise raiding parties. We haven't got enough shotgun shells to kill the passengers, but we've got enough to hold them off while we grab food.'
'Explains the Juliet flag,' said Ghost.
'The what?'
'Blue and white flag near the prow. International maritime signal. Dangerous cargo. Keep clear.'
'See this screen?' said Jane, sitting in the captain's chair in front of the Raytheon console. 'Revs. Engine speed. I'm almost certain these switches govern the propellers.'
Ghost leaned past her. He pressed buttons and turned dials.
'Off-line. If we want more than light, we will need to fire up the turbines.'
'I bet they shut down the engine room,' said Jane. 'When they evacuated the lower decks they must have turned everything off. Standard procedure. The kind of thing people do in a fire drill. Someone will have to go down there and switch it all back on.'
'Shit.'
Jane led Punch and Ghost to the chart room. A wall plan. Hyperion , floor by floor.
'We have free run of the top-most deck. But the engine room is nine levels beneath us.'
'Three thousand passengers, you reckon?'
'A liner like this? Yeah. If the ship is running at full capacity there must be two or three thousand infected down there.'
'Then we would have to move fast and get lucky.'
Infection
Jane explored the captain's suite. She sat at his desk. She found a passport in a drawer. Dougie Campbell. British citizen. Fiftyeight.
An envelope on the desk blotter. A thick sheaf of handwritten notes. Part letter, part diary. Campbell spent half his life at sea. He got lonely. He wrote to his wife every night.
Ship gossip. Most of the crew were east Europeans working for tips. Romanian and Polish. The Romanians hated the Polish. Officers had to mediate.
Jane thumbed through the pages, scanned trivia, searched for the moment it all went bad.
She sat back in the chair and put booted feet on the desk.
The ship docked at Trondheim two weeks into an Arctic cruise. They brought aboard fresh supplies and a couple of new waiters.
Three days out: an incident in a kitchen. One of the new waiters went berserk. He cut himself with a cleaver, then attacked two pot-washers. Deep cuts. Bite injuries. The waiter was restrained and sedated. He was confined to the medical bay.
Thank God no passengers were hurt.
A couple of nights later a group of passengers gathered to sip hot chocolate on deck and watch the Northern Lights. They saw a distant figure at the end of the promenade climb over a railing and jump into the ocean. The figure was wearing a white galley uniform. The figure appeared to be hugging a heavy fire extinguisher to help himself sink.
Passengers threw lifebelts into the sea and raised the alarm. The ship came to an immediate halt. The crew trained searchlights on the sea. No sign of the man.
Quick headcount. The missing man was a pot-washer treated for bite wounds.
The captain radioed ashore for medical advice. Four staff and two passengers had been admitted to the infirmary for treatment. They were delirious, restrained, and bleeding from their eyes and ears.
Representatives of Baltic Shipping instructed the captain to implement full quarantine procedures. Isolate all infected personnel and head for the nearby port of Murmansk.
The ship was turned back from Murmansk. Their maydays were ignored. They tried to approach the port, despite the harbour master's refusal to let them dock, but were fired upon by Russian soldiers as they threw mooring ropes to the jetty. Instead, they sailed west towards Norway.
Patrick Connor. Bosun for nine years. The captain's closest friend. The men stayed aloof and professional during the working day, but most evenings they sat in the captain's cabin and uncorked a bottle of claret. Neither man was supposed to drink. The seniority of their positions meant they were never truly off duty while the ship was at sea. So they sipped wine in secret and enjoyed their little transgression.
It has been a week since Patrick was bitten. I have had to watch the horrifying progress of this disease. I have had to watch my friend slowly become a monster. It has been the worst experience of my life.
Patrick was bitten on the face. He was bending over Lenuta Grasu, one of the Romanian cabin maids, when she broke her restraint and bit a chunk from his cheek. He immediately washed and disinfected the wound, but both he and the captain knew it would do no good. The disease was transmitted by body fluid like HIV or hepatitis. Once a person became infected they quickly succumbed to dementia. They, in turn, would bite and claw, be driven to transmit the infection any way they could. Rafal, the Trondheim waiter who was the first to show signs of infection, was lashed to a hospital bed. He spat and snarled. He was horribly deformed. There was little chance he would recover.
Dr Walczak, the ship's surgeon, referred to the disease as rabies, for want of a proper diagnosis. By the time they reached Norwegian waters the fourteen-bed medical bay was full to capacity. The staff commandeered a couple of staff cabins for use as treatment rooms. Patrick Connor had volunteered to help Walczak, allowing the doctor to get much needed rest from time to time.
Patrick wrote farewell letters to his wife and children, then allowed himself to be restrained. It took less than twenty-four hours for the disease to take hold. In rare lucid moments he begged for death.
The captain made frequent visits to the medical bay.
This evening Dr Walczak and I had a long conversation in which we discussed the best form of treatment for Pat, the best way to relieve his suffering.
Next diary entry:
We held Patrick's funeral service at noon today, and committed his body to the deep.
The captain liberated a few bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon from the galley. No journal entries for the next three days.
Jane lay on the bed. She scanned the notes. Page after page of carnage. One by one the captain's crew succumbed.
The engines were shut down. Hyperion drifted north of Norway.
They lost the lower levels. They hoped that, by dropping the watertight compartment doors, they would seal infected passengers in the lower cabins. But the passengers found the stairwells before the crew had time to finish building barricades.
First Officer Quinn issued his men with Molotov cocktails. If they held their ground in the stairways, if they drove the infected passengers back down to the lower levels, they might retain control of the upper decks.
I don't think those sent mad by this disease intentionally kill. They are compelled to bite and penetrate, to spread the contagion. Nevertheless I have seen eyes gouged and throats ripped out. Survivors lie injured in cabins and corridors crying for help until they too are overtaken by blood-thirst, haul themselves to their feet and attack.
It was hard to estimate casualties. Captain Campbell conducted a head-count. A minority of the passengers and crew, fewer than a thousand, were declared clear of infection. They treated the injured in the Grand Ballroom.
I wish Dr Walczak was still with us. Quinn tells me the doctor was sighted near the sewage treatment plant just before the lower compartments were sealed. He had no shirt. His back was clustered with spines like a porcupine. He often said he would rather die than succumb to this strange affliction. I suppose he didn't have time to take his life before dementia took hold.
There seemed little chance the captain's journal would reach his wife, so instead he left a warning.
Once a person enters the advanced stages of infection they become extremely hard to kill. Quinn saw a girl cut clean in half when we dropped the watertight doors. She lived for fifteen minutes. She dragged herself across the deck, still trying to bite and tear. The entire lower half of her body had been detached and left behind, nevertheless her legs continued to kick and twist.
Many of the crew armed themselves with knives from the kitchen. Word soon spread. Knives didn't work. Stab wounds didn't even slow them down.
The only effective way to deal with the infected is either to destroy them in their entirety with a weapon such as a Molotov cocktail, or inflict a severe blow to the head.
The captain was shocked to find himself listing the most efficient ways of 'dealing' with the infected. In a matter of days his passengers and crew had become lethal predators.
It is a matter of survival. Those of us who remain must act quickly and ruthlessly to ensure the ship does not become totally overrun.
Campbell wondered if there were some way of scuttling the ship, sending the infected passengers and crew to the bottom of the ocean as a mercy.
Campbell gave the order to abandon ship. He and his crew had been shivering in the cold and dark for days. They were drifting. Navigational instrumentation off-line.
They posted lookouts round the clock in the hope of sighting land. One night they saw what they hoped to see: lights in the distance. Steady, electric light. Too dark to make out detail. The captain estimated they were drifting east of Svalbard. They were probably passing the little coastal township that served the Arktikugol coal field. He ordered his men to take to the boats.
Seventy-four souls.
Hard to believe of all the passengers under my care, all the crew under my command, this ragged handful of exhausted and traumatised people are all that remain.
Campbell gave First Officer Quinn the ship's log and told him to lead the survivors to safety. He saluted his men as they rowed away.
He was alone aboard the ship, the last uninfected individual on the vessel. He retreated to his cabin. He uncorked a Bordeaux.
Campbell could have evacuated the ship with his men, but was determined to play the role of captain to the last.
We all need to believe our lives have some ultimate meaning. I have rank and responsibility. It's not foolish to live your ideals.
Jane woke with a jolt. She had dozed off, crumpled papers in her hand.
She stood at the washstand. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and cleaned her teeth. Toothpaste and bottled water.
'Jane? You there?' Ghost.
'Yeah.'
' Punch and I are going to make a run for the engine room.'
'I'll be right there. ' '
Jane adjusted her dog-collar. The room reflected in the mirror. A silver-framed photograph on the desk. Captain Campbell and his wife in happy times.
'Okay, Dougie,' said Jane. 'Let's get our boys home.'
The Engine Room
Ghost chose a hatch near the stern. A big, red ' X ' sprayed on the door. They dismantled the barricade. A cabin sofa and a couple of TVs. The hatch was jammed shut by a crowbar.
Ghost checked the breech of his shotgun. A shell in the chamber. Safety set to Fire.
Punch hefted a fire axe.
'Lock the door behind us,' said Ghost.
Jane removed the crowbar and cranked open the door. An empty corridor. Ghost and Punch stepped inside.
'Good luck,' said Jane, and heaved the door closed behind them. They heard a muffled, metallic scrape as she slid the crowbar back in place, sealing them inside the ship.
'All right,' muttered Ghost. 'Quiet as we can.'
Ghost checked a hand-drawn map. He had plotted a circuitous route to the engine room. He wanted to avoid communal areas where infected passengers might congregate. If the diseased passengers were truly mindless they would wander all over the ship. But if they retained faint memories of life aboard the liner they would gravitate towards the bars and restaurants.
They hurried down narrow service corridors. Company slogans interspersed with maritime lithographs.
Excellence is our watchword
'Ridiculous,' said Ghost. 'Everything in English except the stuff that matters.'
They passed the entrance of a health spa. The Neptune Wellness Centre. The poolside lit cold, medicinal blue. Upturned loungers. Signs for steam rooms, massage suites, herbal and Finnish saunas.
They heard a faint rustling, flopping sound. Something was trapped at the bottom of the empty spa pool making clumsy, spastic attempts to get out. The slapping abruptly ceased. The unseen thing had sensed Punch and Ghost standing in the doorway. It listened to them breathe.
Punch took a step like he was going to investigate but Ghost tugged his sleeve and motioned to keep walking.
Ivan checked the chart room.
'There's an oil heater back here.'
'Fire it up.'
He dragged the oil heater on to the bridge and lit it with a match.
'You know, if we are going to heat this place, it might be a good idea to deal with the captain. He could stink the place out.'
'Yeah,' said Jane. 'Let's put him over the side.'
They dragged the dead man by his boots. They hauled him across the deck. They lifted him by his coat and toppled him over the railing. The captain splashed into the sea. He floated face down for a couple of minutes, then his waterlogged coat pulled him under the waves.
'Probably ought to say something,' said Jane. 'Can't think what.'
'I wouldn't feel too bad about it,' said Ivan. 'That's a better send-off than most people get these days.'
The oil heater burned with a blue flame. The bridge began to heat up. Jane sat back in the captain's chair and unzipped her coat. Something smelled bad. She sniffed her armpits. She stank.
She threw Ivan her radio.
'Back in a minute,' she said. 'Keep my seat warm.'
She checked the officers' quarters. Name tags on each door.
Ingrid Markstrom
Krysta Zimny
She pulled open cupboard drawers. Fresh thermal underwear. T-shirts. Socks.
A bottle of mineral water next to the bed. Jane filled the sink, stripped and washed. Little sachets of conditioner, body scrub and shampoo. The first time she had washed her hair for weeks.
Toiletries and make-up in the washstand cabinet. She caught her reflection as she closed the cabinet door. She hadn't seen herself naked for a while. She was thinner. Her collar bones were more defined. Her breasts had deflated and sagged.
One of the attractions of Arctic life: it was pretty much asexual. Men and women wore the same quilted cold-weather gear. No hierarchies of beauty and glamour on a polar installation.
Jane toyed with cosmetics. She drew gloss across her lips. It made her mouth seem like a bloody wound.
Ghost and Punch headed for a stairwell. Down nine levels.
'Mind your step,' said Ghost. The temperature had dropped even further. The stairs were glazed with ice. They were deep below the waterline.
MASKINRUMMET
The engine room.
They shut themselves inside and jammed the door with a wrench.
They found themselves on a walkway looking down on massive drive machinery. Gas turbines. Alternators. Four great motors mounted on rubber dampers, four great manganese propeller shafts.
Ghost took out his radio.
'We made it. We're at the engine room.'
There was a glass control booth at the end of the walkway.
'Let's flick every switch,' said Ghost. 'See what happens.'
A slow dragging sound from below the walkway.
'I don't think we're alone down here,' said Punch.
The guy must have been an engineer. His badge said Hilmar Larsen. He limped from behind one of the huge Wдrtsilд Vasa engines. He dragged his leg like his ankle was broken. His right hand was spiked metal like an armoured gauntlet. The fabric of his boiler suit was lumped and stretched by a strange, spinal deformity. His face was bloody and swollen and his eyes were jet black.
'How's it going down there, Hilmar?' asked Punch.
The engineer looked upward and hissed. He slowly stumbled across the engine room and up the steps to the walkway.
Punch and Ghost backed away.
'Dude, it would be great if you could stop right there.'
The engineer reached the top of the steps and limped towards them, sliding along a railing for support.
'Larsen, if you can hear me, if you can understand my words, you need to stop.'
The man continued to advance.
Punch and Ghost backed into the control booth. Ghost shut the door and held it closed with his foot. Punch helped brace the door with his shoulder.
Larsen slammed against the glass. Ghost saw himself reflected in jet-black eyeballs. The engineer hissed and spat. Spittle dribbled down the glass.
'Shoot him,' said Punch.
'We need the ammo. I'll open the door. You hit him with the axe.'
'All right.'
'Ready?'
Ghost opened the door.
Punch stood back. He adjusted his grip on the axe. He held it above his head like he was about to whack a fairground testyour-strength machine.
'Last chance, Hilmar,' he said. 'Can't let you come any closer.'
The engineer got ready to lunge.
Punch brought down the axe and cleaved the man's head in two. The engineer staggered backward, out of the booth. He toppled on to the walkway, axe buried between the two halves of his head. His legs danced a jig, last signals from a scrambled brain.
They stepped over the dead man and descended from the gantry to the floor of the engine room.
'Flick every switch you find,' said Ghost. 'Turn every light green.'
They cranked dials and isolator breakers to On. Faint hum of current. Ghost took out his radio.
'Raise the anchor,' he told Jane. 'Let's get this thing going.'
Brief warning klaxon. Turbines hummed then roared. The propeller shafts slowly began to turn.
Jane stood at the helm and watched the turbine rev needles rise from zero to full power.
'Feel that?' she called to Ivan. 'We're moving.'
'No shit,' said Ivan. He was standing at the back of the bridge looking down into the stairwell. Heavy impacts against the barricaded door. Jumbled furniture began to shake and shift.
'Hate to say it, but I think we woke the neighbours.'
Breakout
Ghost walked the floor of the engine room. Turbines roared.
He checked an engine panel. He tapped a dial. A drop of blood splashed at his feet. He looked up. The dead engineer was lying on the gantry above him. Blood dripped through the grate.
'Better clean that up,' said Ghost. 'Any fire blankets around?'
They climbed the walkway. Ghost tugged the axe from the engineer's head. He crouched and inspected the wound.
'His brain is full of metal. Look.'
'I'll take your word for it,' said Punch.
'Little wires. Little filaments spread through his body. There's some coming out of his nose.'
'Sure he's dead?'
'Pretty sure. Better bag him up.'
Ghost wiped the axe blade on the engineer's leg.
They wrapped the dead man in a couple of fire blankets and lashed his body with flex. They threw the body from the gantry. The corpse lay by a wall.
'He'll be okay down there for a while,' said Ghost. 'We'll put him over the side when we get a chance.'
Ghost hefted the axe.
'Mind if I take this?' he asked. 'The gun is too loud. If I shoot, it will bring a shipful of freaks down on us.'
Punch found a big power drill. He revved the trigger a couple of times to check the charge.
They stood at the engine room door. Ghost removed the wrench.
'Ready?'
He twisted the handles and pulled the hatch aside. An empty passageway.
'Okay. Let's go.'
Jane sat at the helm. She tried to make sense of the screens. At a guess: engine output, fuel management, course correction.
She turned the joystick. She slowly pushed the thrust levers forward. A ball-compass mounted in the panel beside her rolled like an eye slowly looking left. The Alstrom dynamic positioning system. The ship was turning east towards the rig. It was exhilarating to think she could steer an object the size of a mountain by the touch of her fingers.
Jane dry-swallowed Dexedrine. Amphetamines were a basic Arctic survival tool. Rye kept an extensive stock of stimulants locked in a trunk under her bed. Hoarded them like a connoisseur. Treated them as her personal wine cellar.
Ivan stood guard in the stairwell behind the bridge. He watched the door at the bottom of the stairs. The steel hatch was wedged shut by a stack of chairs. He could hear relentless pounding from the other side like someone was hurling their bodyweight against the door.
He searched for more furniture to wedge the hatch. He fetched a sofa from the officers' quarters. He rolled it through the bridge.
'You okay?' called Jane, over her shoulder. 'Need any help?'
'I'm okay.'
He tipped the sofa over the railing. It hit the barricade with a crash. Brief respite from the pounding, then the impacts resumed.
Ivan descended the stairs. He put his ear to the hatch. Scuffling. Grunting.
He tried to reinforce the barricade, pile more furniture against the door.
'Got a moment?' he yelled. 'I think they're going to break through.'
Chairs shook and toppled. Ivan put his shoulder to the door. He strained to keep the hatch closed. He blinked sweat from his eyes.
Jane ran down the stairs and joined him at the barricade. She pushed against the door.
'This is no fucking good,' she said. 'Any more of those fire axes around? Maybe we can wedge this thing closed.'
'Don't know. Think I saw a toolbox in the purser's office.'
Jane ran up the stairs.
Ivan braced his back against the door. His boots slipped on the metal deck. The barricade slowly began to collapse.
The hatch was pushed ajar. Ivan snatched an extinguisher from the wall and directed a jet of foam through the gap. He used the empty extinguisher to pound at clawing, scrabbling fingers.
'I need some help here,' he shouted up the stairwell. 'Jane? Jane, you there? We're in some deep shit.'
Jane vaulted down the steps holding a claw hammer. She flailed at the squirming hand. The hammer sparked metal. She mashed fingers with heavy blows.
Jane and Ivan threw themselves against the steel door and tried to slam it closed. They heard bone crunch. They threw themselves at the door twice more. Blood spurt. The grasping hand fell to the deck, cut through at the wrist.
Jane cranked the hatch levers closed, and jammed them shut with the shaft of the hammer.
'Not on my bloody watch,' she muttered.
'Jesus,' said Ivan, looking down at the floor. The severed hand clenched and unclenched like an upturned crab. It tried to crawl. The Russian crossed himself. 'It's still alive.'
Punch passed a kitchen doorway. The Commodore Grill.
'We should keep moving,' said Ghost.
'Let me check it out. I need to see what we've got down here.'
Punch opened a freezer. Spoiled food. Green mould.
Ghost took a jar from a shelf.
'Jalapeсos,' he said. 'We could sprinkle them on our cereal or something.'
A dry store. Bags of rice and dried pasta. Pallets of cans.
'Fucking mother lode,' said Punch. I bet there are kitchens like this all over the ship. Lots of little theme restaurants.'
'In a couple of days we can organise the men and do a systematic search. Take our pick. Fill some carts. But right now we need to get out of here.'
They turned to leave. A woman stood in the doorway. She wore a blue ball gown. Her eyes stared through a mask of metal spines.
'Back off, darling,' warned Punch.
She reached for him. He kicked her legs and she fell. He planted a boot on her chest to keep her down. He put the drill bit between her eyes and bored into her brain. He ground through bone. She arched her back then lay still.
'Holy mother of God,' he muttered, standing over the corpse.
'Let's go.'
They headed down the corridor.
A waitress slithered round the corner, dragging bloody, useless legs. Ghost hefted the axe, ready to strike a blow. A second infected crew member turned the corner, metal leaking from nose and ears. He was joined by a woman in jogging gear, arms fused to her sides. Ghost backed away.
'Getting crowded.'
More passengers, shuffling, limping, groping.
'Plan B,' said Punch.
They ran back to the engine room and sealed themselves inside. Fists thudded against the door. Ghost gripped his shotgun, clicked from Safety to Fire. Punch took out his radio.
'Jane, you there? We might have a little problem.'
Jane called the rig.
'Hyperion to Rampart, do you copy, over?'
'Rampart here.' Sian's voice.
'We've got control. We've got the basics. The propellers turn. We can steer left and right. We're heading your way. Ten knots. Slow, but making headway. I'll try to push it harder. Can you put up a flare? Something to guide us?'
'Give me two minutes. '
Jane stood on deck. The fog had cleared. She had found the captain's binoculars. She adjusted focus. She saw the red pinprick of a distant flare.
She returned to the bridge. She nudged the joystick left. Brief rotation from the bow thrusters. She felt the massive vessel adjust course.
Ivan searched the officers' quarters for booze. He found a couple of miniatures, but couldn't find a full-size bottle.
One of the crew had left a humidor full of cigars and a heavy brass lighter on his desk. Cuban. Vaqueros Colorado Madura. Ivan filled his pockets. He didn't smoke, but he could trade when he got back to the rig. The Rampart crewmen liked cigars. Greedy for any little pleasure that would help them forget their predicament a while. Getting high was the new currency now that money was no good.
He heard an intermittent humming noise.
He stood in the corridor outside the crew cabins. More humming.
He approached the slide doors at the end of the passage. A bad smell like eggs, like rotting meat. He realised, with a wash of sickening fear, why the ship's systems had been off-line. The Hyperion crew wanted to seal infected passengers below deck. They had barricaded every door and sealed each stairwell. Then they shut off the power in case the shambling horde below figured out how to summon elevators.
A discreet ping. The doors began to slide open. Ivan backed away. He glimpsed an old lady melded to an electric wheelchair.
A crowd of infected passengers jostled for space around her. Bloody ball gowns and dinner suits. Stench of vomit and piss. Ivan turned and ran.
Jane steered the ship towards a winking red signal light, one of the aircraft warning strobes on top of a distillation tower.
She pictured the Rampart crew lining the refinery railings, applauding as the liner docked. She would play it cool and casual. ' Welcome aboard, boys: Bask in their new-found respect and admiration.
There was a button on the control panel. A trumpet icon. She hit the button and released the long, two-note bass boom of the ship's Tyfon horn.
Ivan ran through the door.
'The passengers. The fucks. They broke out. They're right here.' He grabbed Jane by the sleeve and pulled her towards an exterior door. 'We've got to go.'
'What about Punch and Ghost?'
'We have to get out of here.'
A group of infected crew were milling on the upper deck. Officers in dress uniform. They seized Ivan as he ran outside. He screamed. He fought. They fell on him and dragged him to the floor.
Jane swung the shotgun to her shoulder. She took aim at a bearded man with sunglasses fused to his face. The blast vaporised his head. The second shot caught two crewmen across the chest and hurled them backward.
A chef lunged for her. She shot him in the shoulder. His arm landed on a bench.
More passengers and crew climbed the steps from the lower deck. Jane backed on to the bridge.
Later, when they asked what happened to Ivan, she said, 'Swear to God, it was like they wanted to climb inside him. They stuck fingers in his eyes, his mouth. They bit off his fingers. They drove a fist into his stomach. They pretty much turned him inside out.'
Jane was trapped. Two shells left in the gun. She climbed over the captain's chair, shot out the window and squirmed outside. Jagged safety glass slit open her parka, spilling insulation foam.
She balanced on the sill. A ten-metre drop to the lower deck. She scrambled upward on to the roof of the bridge.
Jane paced the roof. Infected passengers reached up for her on all sides, hissing and clawing. She unzipped a box of shells from her backpack and reloaded the shotgun. She leaned against the radar mast and tried to breathe slowly. She took the radio from her pocket.
'Ghost? Punch? Can you hear me? I really need your help, folks.'
Sian stood on the helipad and flagged a searchlight back and forth. She was joined by the crew. They wanted to see the ship that would carry them to freedom.
They saw a gleam on the horizon like a low star. A quarter of an hour later they saw the running lights of a ship approaching fast. Hyperion lit bright and spectral. The great prow splintered ice. The horn blared. They cheered.
'It's massive,' said Nikki.
'There will be heaters,' said Sian. 'Imagine it. We will be warm. I've almost forgotten what it feels like.'
'It's a monster.'
'Look how quick it's moving,' said Sian. 'We'll be home in hours.'
'It's coming in pretty fast. Now would be a good time to hit the brakes.'
The ship didn't slow down. The crew stopped cheering, and backed away from the edge of the helipad.
The ship kept coming. They could hear it. The rumble of engines. The rush of water. The crack of splintering ice.
The ship slammed into the west corner of the rig. The impact bucked the refinery and knocked the crew from their feet. Sparks and shrieking metal as girders stressed and sheered. Thunder roar. One of the rig's great anchor cables broke free, wrenching away a chunk of superstructure.
Sian fell and broke her nose. She rolled on her back and lay stunned. She sneezed blood. A dream-image glimpsed through tears: the lights of the ship, the decks, portholes and festoons, passing like a carnival parade. A jagged gash was ripped in the side of the ship. Hull plates tore with an unearthly scream.
The damaged liner sped on, headed straight for the island.