'Rampart to Raven, over?'
Rawlins talked through the plan.
'You have lifeboats?'
'Shitty inflatables. Switlik four-man coastals. No rigid hulls. Nothing with propulsion.'
'We can't pick you up but we can meet you part way. Take to the boats. Lash them together. Ride the current. It will funnel you west towards us. You'd be a few days at sea.'
'Jesus. It's a big ocean. How would you find us?'
'The inflatables should have TACOM beacons. They'll squawk your position soon as they hit the water. There's a relay on our microwave tower. We can track you, once you float in range. Then tow you back to Rampart.'
'I'll have to persuade the men. It'll be a hard sell.'
'I doubt it. You folks don't have much alternative. Either roll the dice, or sit and freeze. Talk it over, but don't take too long.'
'The guys will want to hold on until the very last minute. Wait until the lights go out before they climb in the boats. There's a good chance we'll die. Natural to postpone the moment as long as we can.'
'I know. I understand. But it would be better if we got it done while there is still a little daylight left.'
'Like I said, we'll talk it through.'
'God bless, fella. We're all praying for you.'
Nikki clattered up the spiral steps to the observation bubble.
'Punch and Jane are back. They want to see you right away.'
They sat in Rawlins's office still muffled in thermal suits. Their boots dripped melting snow.
Jane plugged her camera into the PC and brought up pictures.
'Damn,' said Rawlins.
First picture: a round capsule, like a scorched cannon ball, sitting at the centre of a wide impact crater.
Second picture: close-up of the capsule. Punch stood next to it for scale. Twice his height, blackened heat tiles, blackened portholes. No visible insignia.
'Looks sort of Russian to me,' said Rawlins. 'Sort of Soyuz. Some kind of re-entry vehicle.'
'Human?'
'Of course it's bloody human.'
Third picture: long shreds of tattered, candy-stripe fabric in the snow.
'Drogue chutes,' said Punch. 'Looks like they didn't deploy. Probably ripped or tangled in the upper atmosphere.'
'Think there's a connection?' asked Jane. 'All this shit kicks off back home. Space junk falls out of the sky.'
'Doubt it. Poor bastards were probably marooned like those guys on Raven. Sitting in their space station watching it all go down on TV. Dropping through the atmosphere without proper telemetry. Just trying to get home.'
Fourth picture: close-up of the capsule. A heavy hatch with a small, dark window. No obvious hinge or handle.
'We have to get the hatch open,' said Jane.
'Nothing could survive that impact,' said Rawlins. 'It's been days. If they were alive they would have climbed out by now.'
'Come on. You're as curious as I am. Besides, it's screwing up our radio. Long-wave is swamped. The beacon is drowning our may day signal. No one can hear us call for help while that thing is out there. If we get inside we can switch it off'
'All right, but you two stay home.' 'Fuck that.'
'I'm going. My turn ashore. And I'm taking Ghost. I'll need him to open the hatch. Sorry, but that's the way it is.'
Sian called Raven and ran through a list of questions. Rawlins wanted to hear their preparations in detail.
'There's seven of you, yeah?'
'Yeah. Seven.'
'You'll take to the rafts.'
'We'll lash a couple together.'
'What kind of survival gear do you have?'
'We are going to carpet the rafts with NB3 parkas. The rafts have rain covers but no insulation. We are going to rely on hydro-suits to keep warm. Wrap ourselves in garbage bags. Sleep in shifts. Pack a ton of Pro-Plus to keep us going. We've got canned food, we've got flares. Hopefully that should see us through.'
'Rawlins reckons you'll make it.'
' Good.'
'But if anything goes wrong, if we get picked up and you don't, is there a message you would like to pass along?'
'I hadn't thought about it.'
'That's something you could do. Your lads could use the radio, one by one, in private. They could each dictate a message. I could write it down.'
'I'll mention it to the men. They might take you up on it.'
Rawlins checked through her notes.
'I wish they had a radio they could carry with them.'
'Not much we could do if anything went wrong,' said Sian.
'A few weeks from now we might be in the same position. Climbing in the lifeboats, hoping for a miracle. If these folks don't make it, I'd like to know why. What did they do wrong? What let them down? I hate to use them as lab rats, but that's exactly what they are. The current should bring them right to our door. If it doesn't, if they get carried west into the
North Atlantic, they'll be dead and we'll know our charts are wrong.'
Jane found Ghost in the pump hall. He was checking the gauge of an oxyacetylene tank.
'Are you busy?' he asked.
'No.'
'If you've got a couple of minutes maybe you could give me a hand.'
He took off his turban. He stripped to the waist. Jane tried not to stare. He straddled a metal folding chair in front of a convection heater.
'How long have you been growing it?' asked Jane.
'Pretty much all my life.'
'What about your religion?'
'Seems God isn't answering the phone right now. Besides, I'm in the mood for a big gesture.'
Jane took scissors and hacked away hunks of hair. She gave Ghost a ragged crew cut. He filled a basin with hot water from a flask, foamed his head and shaved himself bald.
He sat in front of a hand mirror. He snipped his beard down to stubble then shaved himself clean.
'Christ,' he said, examining his reflection in a hand mirror. 'A fucking boiled egg. A stranger to myself.'
'What's this stuff?' asked Jane.
There were two kit-bags on the floor. One contained an air compressor. The other contained a large, steel claw.
'Hydraulic spread-cutter. Emergency services use them to extract people from wrecked cars.'
'Use them to open that space capsule?'
'Yeah.'
'After you fish those Raven guys out of the sea.'
'Something like that.'
'You run this rig. You realise that, right? We'd be lost without you.'
'Is that what they say?'
'The guys need a hero.'
'Let me show you something.'
Ghost led Jane down a corridor to a wide storeroom. A winch bolted to girders in the vaulted ceiling. A huge trapdoor in the floor.
'They used this room for hauling equipment aboard. The supply ship sails between the legs of the refinery. The floor opens and you can winch stuff aboard. Cargo containers full of food, fuel, stuff like that.'
There were three rows of oil drums welded to scaffolding poles. Ghost pulled a roll of paper from behind a locker and spread it on a table. Plans for a boat.
'A sloop, like a round-the-world yacht. It's a reliable design.'
'Why oil drums?'
'Ballasted keel. Stable. Unlikely to capsize.'
'It's going to be huge.'
'Even for a two-man vessel you have to build big. You need to carry supplies to last weeks. Fresh water alone could weigh half a tonne.'
'Two-man?'
'I enjoy your company. Is that a problem?'
Nikki went looking for Nail.
'Dive room,' grunted Ivan. 'Man get his head together.'
C deck. Dark, frozen passageways. Nikki was spooked. She paused, now and again, to shine her torch down the passageway behind her. She felt stalked.
She entered the dive store. The walls were hung with tanks, regulators, wetsuits and fins. A Tilley lamp sat on a table.
A knife blurred past her face and slammed into a locker. The titanium blade punched hilt-deep into the door. The door was peppered with slit-holes. Target practice.
'What the fuck do you want?' asked Nail. Metal shrieked as he jerked the serrated blade from the locker door.
'Ghost is building a boat.'
'What kind of boat?'
'Some kind of crude yacht. He's making it out of oil drums. He's making it in secret.'
'Why are you telling me?'
'Everyone on this rig is going to die. They're passive. Cattle. You and I are different. Survivors.'
'One scumbag to another.'
'You know what I'm saying. I'm not going to pretend I like you. But together we can make it home.'
'Want to shake on it?'
'Fuck yourself.'
'How far has he got with his boat?'
'Haven't seen it. At a guess, early stages.'
'I can't picture him sailing away on his own. He's not the type.'
'He's taking a holiday from virtue. He's flirting with the idea of bailing out but, when the moment comes, he'll pull back.'
'Find the boat. Monitor his progress. When the job is done, we'll take it.'
'You and me?'
'They've got you cooking in the kitchen, yeah?'
'When Punch isn't around. Rawlins's last effort was a disaster.' 'Meal bars,' said Nail. 'Punch gives them to shore teams. He has a few boxes at the back of the storeroom. They give you the keys, right? Get a box. Shove the other boxes around so it looks like none are missing.'
'Okay.'
'Now fuck off. I'm busy.'
Nikki headed down an unlit passageway to the stairs. She heard the knife slam into metal.
Ghost and Rawlins got ready to leave. They met at the boat- house. Ghost loaded the spread-cutter into the zodiac.
Jane and Punch came to wave farewell.
Boxes piled on deck.
Rawlins pulled a tarpaulin aside.
'Is this the gear?'
'Yeah,' said Punch. He opened crates. 'Enough plastic explosive to put us on the moon. Blasting caps, det cord, initiators. And these babies.'
He handed Rawlins a red canister.
'Ml4 thermite grenades. A couple of dozen. Seemed too good to leave behind.'
'These guys were seriously tooled up.'
'Reflection seismology. Make a big bang, then listen to the ground-echo on geophones.'
'I want this shit off the rig, all right? Ghost. Soon as we get back, I want you to take this stuff to the bunker and hide it deep.'
'Okay.'
'Our little secret, yeah? Nobody else need know.'
Sian prepared dinner. She boiled two kilos of pasta in a saucepan. Nikki grated cheese.
'I hope you don't mind me asking,' said Sian. 'Alan and Simon. Your friends from the island. How well did you know them?' 'We were postgrads from Brighton.' 'So are you doing okay? Everyone making you welcome?' 'I've been keeping to myself.'
Nikki didn't want to talk. She didn't care to know anyone on the rig. She didn't want to hear their life story. She didn't want to hear their hopes and dreams.
'We need more sauce. Pass me the storeroom keys.'
Ghost steered the zodiac. The boat rode low in the water, weighed down by equipment. Rawlins sat in the prow.
They dragged the boat ashore, drove stakes into the ground and lashed it down. They shouldered their gear and set off. A rose twilight turned the snow pink as blossom.
It took them twenty minutes to reach the crater. They stood at the lip of the impact site and looked down at the capsule.
'What do you think it is?' asked Rawlins.
'I read somewhere that low-orbit installations are equipped with escape pods. If anything goes wrong the astronauts can eject. Maybe that's what happened. This thing was meant to land in the Russian Steppes and send out a distress signal but the chutes fucked up.'
They descended to the bottom of the crater. Rawlins erected a dome tent. Ghost ringed the capsule with tripod lamps.
The sun set. They worked in the brilliant white illumination of halogen lights. A tight circle of white brilliance surrounded by endless night.
Ghost tried the radio.
'Shore team to Rampart.'
Every waveband swamped by alien pops and whistles.
'We need to shut this thing down. It's killing every channel.'
Ghost hacked at silica heat tiles with the spike end of a fire axe. The tiles were hexagonal. He chipped away tiles and examined the steel skin beneath.
'Take a look at this.'
Rawlins joined him by the capsule. Ghost had exposed a red, T-shaped handle. An inscription in Cyrillic:
ОПАСНОСТЬ . ВЗРЫВАЮЩИЕСЯ БОЛТЫ
A translation beneath:
Danger
Explosive Bolts
'How do you want to do this?' asked Rawlins.
'You take cover. I'll crank the lever.'
Rawlins sheltered behind the capsule.
Ghost stood to the side of the hatch. He shielded his face, twisted the lever and snatched his hand away quick as he could. The rectangular hatch blew like a champagne cork. It flew twenty feet and landed in the snow.
Ghost shone his flashlight into the capsule. Three seats, one occupant. The body of an astronaut strapped in front of winking instrumentation.
'You think that's the transponder?' asked Rawlins, pointing to a bank of switches.
Ghost held out the radio. A shrill feedback shriek.
'I'm not going to fuck around,' said Ghost. 'We'll toss a thermite grenade. Fry the whole thing.'
Rawlins hauled himself into the cramped cabin. He held a metal seat frame for support.
The cosmonaut wore a bulky pressure suit. Grey canvas webbing. The gloves, boots and helmet were attached to the suit by heavy lock rings. Russian insignia on his chest and sleeve. The suit was connected to a wall-mounted oxygen supply by a hose.
'Wait. I want to check him out.'
'Why?'
'Aren't you curious? CCCP. Old Soviet mission badge. Red fist. I'm guessing military. How long has this guy been floating around up there? Decades? You weren't even born when this guy got launched into space. I want to know who he was. I want to know how he died.'
Rawlins fumbled at the five-point harness. He took off his gloves but couldn't release the buckle.
'Pass me your knife.'
He sawed through the straps.
'Leave him,' said Ghost. 'I don't like it. Doesn't feel right. The whole thing.' He took a red, cylindrical grenade from his coat pocket. 'Call it a cremation.'
'Hold on. Someone, somewhere, will want to know what happened to this guy.'
Rawlins tried to twist the helmet free. He couldn't release the lock ring. He gave up. He pushed the lift-tabs at the corner of the visor. The gold face-plate slid back.
A young man's face. Mirror skin, like he was sculpted from chrome.
Eyelids flicked open. Jet-black eyeballs. A silent snarl. Metal lips, metal teeth.
Rawlins screamed.
Contamination
Punch stood in the kitchen storeroom with a clipboard. Stock check. Jane surveyed the shelves.
'Kidney beans: six cans. Rhubarb: three cans. Chopped tomatoes: two cases of twelve.'
They contemplated the dwindling supply of cans and cartons.
'Good job we keep this place locked,' said Punch. 'If the guys glimpsed how little food we have left they would panic for sure.'
'Maybe we should reduce portion size,' said Jane. 'Use rice and pasta for bulk.'
'There must be someone on board who knows how to fish. Remind me at dinner, when everyone is in the canteen. I'll ask around.'
They heard running feet. The squeak of trainers on tiles. Sian stood panting in the doorway, holding the frame for support.
'There's a message from Ghost. Rawlins is hurt. Injured or something. They're on their way back.'
They descended the leg of the refinery and stood on the ice. Jane scanned the horizon with binoculars. The zodiac was a black dot approaching fast.
'Jeez,' said Punch. 'He's pushing it hard.'
Ghost swerved the boat to a halt, kicking up spray. He killed the engine. Rawlins lay at the bottom of the zodiac. His right arm was wrapped in a foil insulation blanket. They dragged him from the boat and laid him on ice surrounding the refinery leg.
'Don't touch him,' said Ghost. 'Don't touch his skin.'
They hauled Rawlins across the ice to the deck of the platform lift. The lift was bolted to the south leg of the refinery. They laid him on the floor plates.
'Where's Dr Rye?' asked Ghost.
'Waiting at the top.'
'Okay. Punch, you had better stay behind and secure the boat.'
Ghost jabbed the Up button. The elevator jolted to life.
Jane leaned over Rawlins. His face was hidden beneath a ski mask and goggles.
'Is he conscious?' she asked.
'He moves now and again. He's not talking.'
'What's wrong with him?'
'Easier if you see.'
Rye met them at an airlock. She helped carry Rawlins inside and lay him on the stretcher buggy.
Convulsions. Rye wriggled on nitrile gloves. She pulled off Rawlins's mask and goggles. His eyes rolled. His lips were blue.
'No skin contact,' warned Ghost. 'No mouth-to-mouth, whatever you do.'
Rye ripped open Rawlins's coat. Twenty chest compressions.
'He's breathing. All right. Let's go.'
The buggy's headbeam lit the way as she steered down dark corridors. Jane, Sian and Ghost jogged behind, keeping pace as best they could.
Medical. Rye restored power. The white room lit up.
They laid Rawlins on the examination table. Rye re-angled the light canopy above him.
'There's a convection heater in my office,' said Rye. 'Get it going.'
She put on a mouth mask and goggles. She wriggled on a pair of surgical gloves.
'Okay. You folks better get in the office and stay there.'
They sat in Rye's office and watched through an observation window.
Rye took scissors and forceps from a drawer. She snipped through the foil blanket that sheathed Rawlins's arm and peeled it back. Blood dribbled on the floor.
'Treat every drop of that shit like AIDS,' advised Ghost, via a wall-mounted intercom. 'Scrub it. Bleach it.'
Rye scattered swabs on the floor to sop the blood.
'And be careful with his arm,' said Ghost. 'Don't touch it, whatever you do.'
Rawlins's hand had turned dark, skin mottled like a bad bruise.
'Frostbite?' asked Jane.
'No.'
'Are you sure? Looks like Simon's hand when we pulled him off the ice.'
'Look closer.'
The flesh bristled with needle-fine splinters of metal.
'My God.'
Rye sliced away Rawlins's clothes with trauma shears. She plucked dog-tags from his neck.
'O neg.'
She wriggled on a double layer of gloves and canulated Rawlins's left hand. She took a bag of O neg from the fridge and set it to feed.
'His heart rate is high,' said Rye. 'His breathing seems unimpaired. So what actually happened?'
'We opened the capsule. Frank crawled inside. There was a body, an astronaut. Frank tried to take off his helmet. Next minute he was screaming and bleeding.'
'An astronaut?'
'Some kind of cosmonaut. He was dead. Way dead. Then he woke up. He grabbed Rawlins. They fought. I hauled Frank out of there and torched the whole thing.'
'His fingers. That looks like a bite mark.'
'Yeah. Frank said something about teeth, metal teeth. I don't know. Frank wasn't making a lot of sense. Like I said, I didn't investigate. I didn't climb inside. I hauled Frank out and threw a grenade.'
Rye took tweezers and tugged at a metal spine.
'These filaments seem to be anchored in bone.'
'It's spreading. It started at his fingertips. Now it's reached his wrist.'
Rawlins woke. He licked his lips.
'How are you feeling, Frank?' asked Rye, leaning close.
'Don't take my arm.'
'You'll be okay,' she soothed. 'We'll fix you up.'
'It tastes funny,' said Rawlins, and passed out.
'Right,' said Rye. 'You three. Get your coats off and scrub up. I need you in here.'
They lathered their hands and forearms in Bioguard scrub.
Rye unlocked a cupboard. She took out a tray of surgical instruments and slit open the vacuum-sealed plastic. She unwrapped a surgical saw and laid it on the surgical trolley.
'What do you have in mind?' asked Sian.
'You're going to help me amputate his arm.'
'Don't you have anything more high-tech than that?' asked Jane, pointing at the saw.
'I've got an electric blade but I don't want to spray blood everywhere.'
They gave Rawlins a shot of morphine and strapped him to the table. Rye intubated his throat. She wheeled a heart monitor to the table. She pasted electrodes to Rawlins's chest and set the machine beeping.
'Watch the screen,' she told Sian. 'If that figure drops below thirty-five, yell.'
She took saline from the refrigerator and hung it from the drip stand.
'Keep an eye on the bags,' she told Jane. 'Let me know when he needs a refill.'
She swabbed Rawlins's arm just below the elbow.
'Ghost. Keep hold of his shoulders, okay? He could buck. Right. Everybody ready?'
Rye sliced into Rawlins's arm with a scalpel and clamped his arteries. Yellow globules of subcutaneous fat glistened like butter.
She sawed his arm. She worked through bone in short rasps like she was sawing through a table leg.
'Think he will be okay?' asked Jane when they had finished.
'I'll give him another shot when he wakes. After that, it's aspirin.'
'So what about you, Doc? What if we need to fix you up?'
'Anything happens, shoot me a spinal and I'll talk you through it.'
Rawlins's face was pale and slack. Jane instinctively moved to wipe sweat from his forehead. 'No,' warned Ghost.
Husky exhalations through an airway tube. Steady beep of the cardiograph.
'Done that before?' asked Ghost. 'Cut off an arm?'
'Snipped plenty of fingers,' said Rye. 'Standard oil-field crush injury.'
'Reckon he'll make it?'
'Normal circumstances I would expect him to recover from the amputation, as long as the wound doesn't become infected. This disease, though. Never seen anything like it.' Ghost thumbed through Rawlins's medical notes. 'Stress. Depression. Prostate trouble. Poor bastard. Should have cashed out of this game years ago.'
'Put that down,' ordered Rye. 'That stuff is confidential.' They stuffed Rawlins's shredded clothes into a red body-waste sack. They bagged bloody swabs and dressings. They slopped bleach on the floor.
Ghost picked up the sacks with gloved hands. He held them at arm's length.
'Throw that shit over the side,' ordered Rye. She used forceps to pick up the severed arm. She dropped it into a plastic box and sealed the lid. She handed the box to Jane.
'And get rid of that fucking thing, will you?'
Jane called Punch on the intercom. She asked him to fetch a can of kerosene and meet her on the ice.
They walked from beneath the shadow of the refinery and stood at the water's edge.
'How is he?'
'Out for the count,' said Jane. 'He might live. He might not.'
'So who is in charge now?'
'Fuck knows.'
'This isn't a democracy. If we vote on every little fucking thing it will be a disaster.'
'Yeah.'
'Somebody better step up. If Nail and his compadres start calling the shots we'll be dead within a week.'
'Yeah.'
'You actually cut off his arm?' asked Punch.
Jane peeled the lid from the box.
'Christ,' he said. 'How did it happen?'
'We won't know for sure until he is awake and talking.'
'Swear to God, I won't let that happen to me.'
They put the box on the ice, doused it in kerosene and set it alight. It burned with a blue flame. The hand slowly clenched as it cooked.
Medical.
Rye checked on Rawlins. He lay on the examination table draped in a sheet. The stump of his arm was bandaged. Steady beep from a monitor.
Rye examined a drop of blood beneath a microscope. Red platelets. Black, barbed organisms swarmed and replicated. Hard to see detail. She wished she had better magnification.
Movement in the periphery of her vision. Maybe Rawlins stirred in his drugged sleep. Maybe she imagined it. She watched him for a while. She got spooked. She played music to feel less alone. Charlie Parker. Live at Storyville. CD fed into the player. Cool jazz echoed down empty corridors.
Jane helped make dinner. Spaghetti greased with a crude pesto made from dried basil, garlic paste and a squirt of tomato puree. She carried her bowl to the table.
'I can't stop thinking about it,' said Punch. 'I'd rather my mother was dead than walking round with that shit sprouting out of her skin.'
'Don't. It'll drive you nuts.'
'We should take the Skidoos and split for Alaska. Seriously. You, me, Sian. Ghost, if you want. Anyone can see you dig the guy. A few more weeks and the sea will be frozen. We'd have a shot. We'd have a straight run.'
'What about everyone else?'
'Fuck them. Sorry, but fuck them.'
'We're not at that point yet. We've still got options.'
'Then somebody better lay out the Big Plan. Look around you. Morale is down the toilet.'
Rye's voice on the intercom: 'Jane. Punch. We need you in Medical right away.'
The operating table was empty.
'Where's he gone?' demanded Jane. 'He didn't leave a note,' said Rye. 'You left him alone?'
'I need to eat now and again. And the occasional shit.' 'How long were you gone?' 'Fifteen, twenty minutes.'
The drip stand lay on the floor. The cardiograph was smashed. Jane kicked at a scrap of surgical dressing with her boot. 'He tore the canula out of his arm,' she said.
'He'll be losing blood.'
'He had his arm chopped off two hours ago. How is he able to walk around?'
'I've no idea.'
Ghost arrived.
'He's gone walkabout?' said Ghost. 'You're kidding me.'
'We'd better find him quickly,' said Jane. 'It's minus twenty in those corridors. The cold will kill him in minutes.'
C deck. Household stores. Sian scanned the shelves by flashlight. She loaded a trolley with toilet roll, liquid soap and paper towels.
She pushed the trolley down unlit passageways, Maglite clenched between her teeth like a cigar. Movement in shadow up ahead. 'Hello?'
She reached a junction. She shone her flashlight down a side tunnel. A figure. A glimpse of bare flesh.
'Hello?'
Sian stood in a doorway. A dark chamber. Stacked lengths of pipe.
A naked man crouched in shadow. Rawlins. 'What's the deal, Frank?'
She stepped closer. She saw the bloody, bandaged stump where an arm used to be. And she saw the face. One eye was jet black. The other eye looked at her in cold calculation. She felt herself appraised by a keen alien intelligence. She backed away and ran.
They searched rooms and passageways near Medical. They found the airway tube. Rawlins had pulled it from his throat. It was lying on the deck plate. It was glazed with frozen saliva.
'We better split up,' said Ghost. 'Cover more ground.'
'Hold on a moment,' said Jane. 'This has to be the same shit we saw on TV, right? Drives you nuts like rabies. Maybe Frank is okay. But maybe not. We have to be prepared.'
'What do you have in mind?' asked Punch.
'I think you should go back to the accommodation block. Warn the others and barricade the door.'
'What are you and Ghost going to do?'
'Head to the island and fetch the shotguns.'
The Hunt
Ghost hauled open the bunker door. His flashlight lit shelves and boxes, and the snowmobiles shrouded in tarpaulin.
'Okay. Better be quick.'
Jane unboxed shotguns.
'Give them to me.'
Ghost checked the breech of each weapon and dry-fired to make sure they were safe. He zipped the guns and their cleaning kits into a holdall.
'Get the shells.'
Jane snatched boxes of 12-gauge shells from a shelf and stuffed them into her backpack.
'There's a sell-by on these boxes. I didn't think ammunition expired.'
'Let's get going.'
Rawlins found he could see in the dark. Not clearly. Not well. But he could make out shapes.
He stood naked at the centre of the dive room. He wondered how he got there. Self-awareness came and went. Sometimes he was Frank Rawlins. Sometimes he was something else.
He lit a Tilley lamp so he could see better. Benches. Racks of diving equipment. The white, steel bubble of a hypobaric chamber.
He opened a locker and examined his reflection in the door mirror. One eye was as black as onyx.
Rawlins took a dive belt from a wall hook. He unsheathed the knife and used the tip to prise the eye from its socket. He did it left-handed. He sawed through the optic nerve. The eyeball plopped at his feet.
He stared at his reflection. The empty socket wept blood. He took a scuba tank from a wall rack and pounded the mirror to glass-dust.
Rawlins's office. A sign on the door:
STRICTLY NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL
Punch switched on the lights. It felt like trespass.
'The desk drawer,' said Sian. 'That's where he keeps it.'
Punch levered the latch with a screwdriver. He took the Taser from its case.
'It feels like a toy. Should stop him dead, though.'
'Then what?' said Sian. 'If he has this infection we can't lay a finger on him.'
'Improvise a straitjacket. Tie him up in a sleeping bag or something. Lock him in a freight container. Quarantine, until we see what's what.'
Sian examined the desk screen. A couple of clicks brought up a floor plan of the refinery.
'He's on C deck, right? We can track him.'
Punch leaned over her shoulder. The C deck schematic was speckled with red dots.
'We dropped some of the blast doors when we powered down the rig. The doors show up on the status board. Keep watching. He might betray his location.'
'Don't move from that chair, all right?' Punch gave Sian his radio. 'If you see movement, shout.'
Punch lowered the blast door, sealing himself inside the accommodation module.
He was armed with a pool cue and the Taser.
He slid down the wall and sat on the corridor floor with the Taser cradled in his lap.
'How's it going?' Sian's voice. Punch took out his radio.
'Sentry duty.'
'Can we lock the hatches? Can we stop him moving around?'
'The blast doors seal tight in an emergency. Otherwise anyone can raise them. Only the airlocks have keypads. Protection against piracy.'
'We have to assume he is infected.'
'What else can we do? We have to treat him as hostile until we know better.'
'I wish we could be sure. Severe blood loss. He's going to freeze .'
'I know. I know. '
A thud against the door. Punch jumped to his feet. 'Frank? Is that you?'
Punch trained his Taser at the door. The hatch began to slide upward. He hit Close.
He pressed the intercom.
'Frank? Are you okay?'
'I'm cold. Very cold.'
'Are you infected? Your arm. Can you tell me? Did it halt the infection?'
'So cold.' Rawlins sounded weak, delirious.
'You've got to tell us, Frank. We have to know.'
'So tired.'
'We can't let you in, Frank. Frank? Are you there?'
He waited a full minute. He hit Open. The door slid back.
Nothing beyond but an empty corridor.
Punch called Sian.
'Frank just tried to get in.'
'Is he still there?'
'He's gone.'
' Wait. Someone just entered an airlock near Medical.'
'Did he go outside?'
'No. He just opened the interior door.'
'Anyone heard from Jane and Ghost?'
' No.'
'We need those shotguns.'
Rawlins ransacked the airlock. He struggled to pull up trousers. He shrugged on a coat. He stepped into boots.
He searched the rig for cigarettes. He dragged himself down dark, frozen passageways. He slid along pipework for support. He hugged the stump of his right arm, sheathed in an empty sleeve, to his chest.
Cigarettes were forbidden. Big red signs in each recreation area. 'No unauthorised sources of ignition.'
When Rawlins took control of the rig five months ago he smuggled cigarettes aboard. Two a day for the duration of the tour. He used to sneak outside and light up. He knew most of the crew smoked weed but he didn't care. It kept the men occupied. It kept them sedated. But he was the installation manager and couldn't be seen to break the rules. He kept a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo hidden among fire equipment near an airlock. He couldn't remember which airlock. He couldn't remember much at all.
He sat in the gymnasium for a while, one of the few rooms on the refinery with a large window. Weak daylight. It was noon, and the sun was barely above the horizon. Rows of cycles and treadmills glittered with ice. Centrefolds blurred by frost. He pulled up his sleeve and examined his bandaged stump. Metal spines protruded from the gauze. The skin surrounding his elbow had started to blacken.
'So here we are,' he thought. 'My dying day.'
Frank once saw a man clutch his chest and collapse while queuing in a bank. He guessed it was the same for most people. Walking round with a head full of humdrum until a terminal diagnosis or myocardial infarction struck out of the blue. Was it October? November? Hard to think straight. He was pretty sure it was Tuesday.
He lay on a sunbed for a while and woke up shivering. His parka had fallen open. He couldn't work the zip.
He remembered where he hid cigarettes. Airlock 63.
Jane and Ghost arrived back at the rig. They winched the zodiac into the boathouse.
Ghost showed Jane how to operate a shotgun as they rode the freight elevator to habitation level.
'You've seen it on TV a million times. Slot five shells into the receiver. Pump the slide. Pull it all the way back. Nice, firm stroke. Set the safety to Fire. And for God's sake don't put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.'
'Cool.'
'Press the gun to your shoulder. Brace your legs. Boom.'
They took a shortcut. They crossed the deck and entered an airlock.
Ghost took out his radio.
'We're back.'
'I'm in Frank's office,' said Sian. ' I'm watching the doors. Someone just opened airlock 27.'
'That's us. We just came aboard.'
'Watch your selves. You might run into him.'
They opened the internal door of the airlock. Ghost surveyed the corridor, shotgun at the ready.
'This feels a bit over-dramatic,' said Jane. 'This is Frank we are talking about. He's probably just confused.'
'You saw that shit growing out of his hand. Want that to happen to you?'
'Not particularly.'
'Don't point that thing at me, all right? Point it at the floor.'
Rawlins hugged a corridor wall. Dancing flashlight beams. Two figures stepped out of an airlock. Jane and Ghost. They carried shotguns.
He padded behind them as they entered the pipe store. He stayed in shadow while they crouched and examined the floor.
'This is where Sian found him,' said Jane.
'Blood drips. Must have been squatting here a while. Wonder what was going on in his head.' Ghost took yellow spray paint from his pocket, shook the can and circled the blood drips. 'We'll have to clean this level room by room. Bleach the whole fucking place.'
'Sian said his eye was black.'
'Could be a haemorrhage. Not necessarily proof of infection.'
Rawlins stood behind them. He fought rising bloodlust. He wanted to seize them. He wanted to bite. He wanted to rip and tear.
He ducked behind a pillar as they stood and turned.
'Might be worth re-checking Medical,' said Ghost. 'It's been a while. He might go back. He might want something for the pain.'
They made their way to the accommodation block. Ghost pounded the blast door with his fist. He shouted into the intercom.
'It's us. Me and Jane. We're coming in.'
He hit Open. The door slid back.
'Frank tried to get in,' said Punch.
'Is he infected?' asked Jane.
'I heard him. I didn't see him.'
'He's alive at least.'
'Look,' said Ghost. He shone his flashlight at the deck plates. Footprints on frosted metal. 'He left a trail.'
'Where?'
'See that?' he said, pointing at a cluster of prints. 'That's us, coming and going. But look here.' Bare footprints near the wall. 'That's him. Is Rye upstairs?' 'Yeah.'
'Find her. Tell her to load a hypodermic with some kind of sedative.'
'You want me to tag along?'
'No. Just me and Jane. Keep the door shut, okay? We'll be back in a while.'
They tracked footprints to the gym.
'Looks like he took a nap,' said Ghost, examining a sunbed. 'More blood. Here and here.' He took out his spray can and circled the drips. 'He can't give us the run-around much longer. Not in this cold.'
They tracked prints down a C deck corridor.
'Boots,' said Ghost. 'Fresh.'
'Sure it's not us?'
'We haven't been down this way.'
The footprints led to an open doorway.
FUEL STORE
'Put your safety catch on,' instructed Ghost. 'No shooting, all right? Don't want to blow us all to hell.'
Ghost stood in the doorway.
'Frank?' he called. 'Are you okay?' No reply. 'I'm coming in, Frank. Is that all right?'
Ghost shone his flashlight into the storeroom. Stacked oil drums. Jerry cans. Tins of kerosene.
'Frank? You there?'
Ghost went inside. Jane followed.
Rawlins was kneeling in the corner shadows. Jane saw him first. He was soaked in kerosene, an empty fuel can by his side and an unlit cigarette between his lips.
'Hey, Frank,' said Jane. 'How have you been?'
'Fucked-up day.' His fringe dripped like he just stepped from the shower.
'Yeah. It's been a bad year all round.'
Rawlins had taken off his coat. His arm and neck were bruised black and yellow. His empty eye socket wept blood.
'So what do you say, Frank?' asked Ghost. 'How about we take you back to Medical for a while and look after you?'
Rawlins gave a woozy smile and shook his head. He gestured to his mutilated arm, his missing eye.
'I don't think Lemsip is going to help much, do you?'
'Yeah, but I'd rather you didn't light up. You have to show a little consideration for others.'
'There's no way home. We all know it, so why drag it out?' He stroked the black flesh of his throat. 'It wants things. This disease. It has an agenda.' He reached into the pocket of his ragged trousers. 'Sorry, folks.' He flipped open his Zippo. 'I've got to go while I'm still me.' He closed his eyes and struck the lighter. Blue flame washed over him.
Jane and Ghost ran for the door. They slung the shotguns over their shoulders and snatched extinguishers from the wall.
Frank was dead and burning. They trained jets of carbon dioxide at the fire, but the flames spread between oil drums.
A propane tank blew. It ricocheted off three walls and burst a couple of jerry cans, triggering a massive fireball.
'We've lost it,' yelled Ghost. 'Let's get out of here.'
They ran for the door. Jane hit Close. The door dropped like a guillotine, blocking the tide of flame that threatened to flood the corridor and incinerate them.
Ghost touched the door but quickly snatched his hand away. Superhot metal.
'Let it burn. It'll drink all the oxygen soon enough.'
They jogged down the corridor.
'You okay?' asked Ghost.
'Yeah. I'm fine.'
An explosion punched out the fuel store door like a fist. The heavy hatch cart-wheeled down the corridor towards them, propelled by fire.
They ran for the stairwell. Jane hammered the Close button with her fist. The blast door slid down as a juggernaut of flame rushed to meet them. Fire flickered round their boots as the hatch slammed shut.