Noah's Ark: Survivors (17 page)

He walked slowly back to his cabin, passing Captain Ibsen’s quarters on the way. Lucya has asked him why he hadn’t moved in there, but after what had happened in those rooms, he had no desire ever to return to them. And anyway, with four or five hours of sleep a night, any cabin was more than adequate for his needs. He kicked off his shoes, undressed, and fell into bed. He was asleep within seconds.

Thirty-Three

F
LYNN
B
AKEMAN
WAS
wandering the corridors of deck ten. He couldn’t have been happier to have been stationed near the bridge. Max hadn’t given him any specifics about why he’d been moved up here, but he could guess. Any passenger action would target the bridge. Flynn was in exactly the right place to assist any such approach.

A group of passengers were headed towards him, talking among themselves excitedly. They were two young couples and three children, two girls and a boy. The children were chasing each other round the legs of their parents, but the adults didn’t seem to mind. One of the women spotted Flynn and hurried over. He’d been issued with a crew jacket, complete with a badge that labelled him as security.

“Hey there, how you doing, honey?” The woman spoke to Flynn as if she’d know him for years.

“Just fine thank you, just fine. And what can I do for you fine people?”

By now the rest of the group had joined them.

“We were all wondering, like, we saw the land outside.” She pointed vaguely in the direction of the exterior, although in this windowless passageway it wasn’t easy to be sure of one’s bearings. “So, are we, like, going to be stopping any time soon? Because we love the cruise ship and all, but we would really like to get off soon.”

“Ah, well. Now, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but only a few people are getting off when we get to where we’re going.”

“Where
are
we going? Nobody has told us anything about that!” one of the men in the group asked indignantly.

“Well, again, I’m not supposed to say. I’m not even supposed to know. I don’t work for the cruise line you see, I’m a regular passenger like you, just helping out because they need my expertise and experience. But I figure everyone has a right to know what’s going on, so I’m going to tell you good people anyway.”

The small group looked surprised at this news, and nodded conspiratorially.

“Okay, well, we’re going to Svalbard.”

The blank looks told Flynn he needed to elaborate.

“It’s an archipelago, a group of islands. It’s really just rock and ice, and a few abandoned mines. There’s nothing there.”

“Well what the hell are we doing going to a place like that?” someone cried. “We need to be going home!”

“I agree, honestly I do. But between you and me, the captain? He’s not up to the job. The regular captain didn’t make it, got killed by that dust cloud. Even the second in command is gone. So we’re left with this kid running the show. He’s done exams and crap like that, but he don’t know shit about running a cruise ship. ’Scuse me,” he added. The children giggled.

“We need to do something,” one of the men said. He had remained silent until then.

“Hell yeah, you can’t have a kid in charge in a crisis!” said the other man.

“Oh, don’t worry, we are doing something,” Flynn said seriously. “Once we dock and we see what’s out there — which, by the way, is probably nothing at all — then we’re going to have the captain replaced.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“The Passenger Alliance. We’re a group of passengers who aren’t happy about the way this ship has been run these last two days. We’ve had some success already. We got our top man in there on the bridge, keeping an eye on what’s going on. And, honestly, if you knew some of what he’s seen? Incompetence on a scale you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, hey, we heard him speak before, didn’t we, honey?”

“That’s right. Melvin someone? But how’s that going to help? He sounds like he’s just a spy.”

“He’s much more than that.” Flynn grinned. “We have a personal assurance from the captain that there will be an election to choose someone new to run this ship. I mean, we all have a right to decide, right? We all have to live on this ship, so we should be able to choose a leader.”

“Damn right!” one of the men said. The women glared at him, but said nothing.

“So when the election comes, and it will be soon, I can count on you guys to vote for Melvin?”

“Er, I dunno.” One couple still didn’t look convinced. “How do we know he’ll be any better? I mean, this kid captain, at least he’s got some training. That’s gotta be worth something, right?”

“Yeah, but Melvin’s got experience. He’s managed big teams of people around the world. He’s worked in disaster zones, he’s been flown in to organise rescue teams and clean-up operations after natural disasters. He might not have fancy certificates and all that, but he’s got experience. He can lead us out of this mess, take us home. Keep us safe.”

“Well he’s got my vote, honey,” the first woman said, and the others nodded, although not with any degree of enthusiasm.

“You’re making a wise choice. Melvin is our man. Tell others too! It’s hard for me, you know, they made me wear this uniform, trying to turn me into one of them. People, they don’t always like to talk to the crew. See? Just another way they are manipulating and controlling us. So tell your friends: there is an election coming, and Melvin is
our
man.”

Thirty-Four

T
HE
SECOND
NIGHT
aboard
Spirit of Arcadia
following the asteroid was as quiet as the first for the bridge crew. Jake was woken by his alarm at 2:45 am, and made it back to the bridge just on time. Lucya disappeared off for some well-earned sleep. Dave and Pedro returned to their posts too. The ship had slowed considerably as it navigated the perilous waters around Prince Charles Foreland. Lucya had made the call that they shouldn’t arrive at the fjord too early. It would be safer to make the last part of the voyage during the day. Not for the added light; this far north and at this time of year it was light virtually twenty-four hours a day. It was more to do with having a slightly bigger crew on hand. Going slower overnight was a cautious move, but the right one, Jake agreed.

Lucya returned at eight in the morning, just as Silvia brought up breakfast for everyone.

“Silvia, you’re an angel,” Jake said. “But you must have more important things to do than wait on the bridge crew.”

“Apart from collating the results of the census, I don’t have a lot to worry about. With the water rations, we can’t clean the cabins, so the housekeeping team are redundant. The bars and cafes are all closed, and Claude is managing the restaurants in the way only Claude can.”

“What’s Barry up to? I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.” Jake felt a pang of guilt that he hadn’t caught up with some of the senior staff in twenty-four hours.

“Barry is being amazing,” Silvia said with a twinkle in her eye. “We’ve next to no water, everything is rationed, and only the most basic services have power. Even so he’s somehow keeping a program of entertainment running. I swear that man could motivate an army single-handedly. He’s got his team running events all over the ship, taking people’s minds off what lies ahead. There’s kids’ bingo going on in the theatre. The prizes are tours of the engine room. One of the engineers salvaged some solar panels from the burnt-out tender and has hooked them up to get the projector in the cinema going. They’re showing films all day and the place is packed out. The cafes might be closed, but there’s a poker tournament running in three of them. It’s proving popular with the older passengers. And the sports instructors are running a whole host of events in the gym now that Grau has cleared out and moved back down to medical. They’re such a great team, they haven’t left me with anything to worry about.”

“Wow, it sounds almost like people are enjoying themselves.” Jake was impressed.

“Most people are, I think. There’s still the feeling that we’ve been spared, that we got away with something. I don’t know how that will change though, now we’re getting closer to land. It looks quite bleak out there.”

Jake and Silvia looked out at the approaching coastline. They were turning in towards the gaping mouth of the fjord. The landscape was still featureless. Rocks and jagged hills were streaked with snow. Or was it ash? They wouldn’t know until they got closer. There where no signs of life whatsoever. But that was to be expected; this far north settlements were few and far between.

As the land grew ever nearer, the atmosphere on the bridge became increasingly tense. It had only been five days since they were last docked, but it might as well have been five million years ago, so much was unknown. The answers were coming as metre by metre they closed the distance to Svalbard.

Jake was keeping a keen eye on the terrain. He didn’t like what he saw. “Look.” He pointed ahead. Lucya and Dave followed the line of his finger. He passed the binoculars to Lucya. “It’s hard to tell on the rock, but it looks like ash. And the hills. They’re streaked with snow, but it’s weird. It’s patchy, pockmarked. You’d expect it to be smooth. Nobody ever comes here.”

“You think it’s the ash?” Dave was squinting, trying to see with the naked eye.

“Yes. It looks like it’s simply melted away the snow in places. If the ash cloud passed over, it would have done that.”

“So why is there still some there? I mean, that is snow, right? It’s too white to be ash.”

“It was probably thicker in some places. The hot ash would have met the snow and cooled. Where the snow was thin, it melted away and we can see the scars.”

On the forward decks below, people were gathering outside, eagerly watching the approaching land. Before long they were passing Prince Charles Foreland, or Prinks Karls Forland as it was officially named on the nautical charts. A long, thin black-and-green rocky island, it looked like the spine of a giant sea monster rising up out of the water. Jake had heard stories of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, and could imagine that the strange outcrop was a huge Nessie, petrified and turned to stone. By now, the ash on the lower lying outcrops was clear for all to see. It was only a thin dusting, but the winds whipped it up into the air, tossed it around, and made swirling grey eddies that reminded Jake of flocking starlings. Where it fell, it amassed into wavelike drifts.

• • •

It took them another thirty minutes of slow cruising to reach the mouth of the Isfjorden fjord. Six kilometres wide at its narrowest point, it was a gigantic natural harbour. As the
Spirit of Arcadia
slipped between the barren land on either side, Jake felt like an explorer, venturing into a new and undiscovered territory. The sea was calm here. The land that encircled them was low, but further from the sea it swept up into huge dark mountains. It was as if some giant hand had scooped the fjord out of the landscape.

“It’s so quiet,” Silvia said. She had remained on the bridge for the morning, enjoying the best view on board. “No birds. Why are there no birds?”

Nobody answered her. Nobody wanted to imagine why.

“We should see Barentsburg before long,” Lucya said. “To the starboard side.”

They kept looking, but didn’t see the small Russian mining community. Just ash.

Nobody mentioned it. Nobody wanted to think about where it had gone.

• • •

After what seemed an age, the radar indicated it was time to make the final turn for Longyearbyen. The charts showed that Svalbard Airport was located on the flat piece of land to the inside of a ninety degree turn to starboard. The view from the bridge suggested otherwise. There was no trace of any airport buildings, vehicles, or aircraft. Certainly the topography was right, there was no doubt they were looking in the right direction, but there was no sign of life or civilisation.

Jake was at the helm, piloting the ship the last few kilometres to the town. Pedro was not as busy as he had expected. In the relative warmth of June there were no icy hazards floating in the fjord. He was trying to locate the harbour visually, to confirm what the radar was telling them. They had slowed to a crawl, and as they cut through the calm blue-green water, they created virtually no wake. At this low speed the engine seemed paradoxically louder, the only sound to be heard as they glided through the valley.

“Full stop!” Jake cried automatically, then remembered he was in control. Nobody seemed to notice, they were too preoccupied with the scene outside. It was clear that they had arrived, but Longyearbyen had gone.

Where the town should have been, was ash. Not just the ash from the asteroid, but the ash of burnt buildings. The stubby, charred remains of wooden houses rose out of the ground like gravestones. Where once had stood brick buildings, now there were piles of rubble and dust. From the ship they were too far away to see the whole town, but nobody was in any doubt that the rest of the settlement had been destroyed too.
 

“I can’t see the pier,” Pedro said, sweeping the bay with his binoculars.

“It’s not very big,” Lucya called back from the map table. She had a large scale chart of the archipelago and was cross referencing it with the radar screen. “Maybe fifty meters across, tiny really.”

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“There’s really no doubt. Any further and we’ll be grounded. The pier must be there. Jake, I think you’ll have to just approach sideways on. Cross your fingers until we get eyes on the pier and can guide you in properly.”

Jake nodded. He set about manipulating the controls at the helm, diverting the power from the engines to the bow thrusters. The
Spirit of Arcadia
was a modern cruiser, made to be easily manoeuvrable in the smallest ports. Even so, crabbing into a mooring was always a delicate operation. The ship began to crawl nearer the ruined village, slower than walking pace.

They covered several hundred metres before Pedro spotted something.

“Stop! Stop the ship!”
 

Jake prodded some buttons and the engine note rose as the thrusters spun up in reverse, arresting the drift coastwards. “You see the pier?” he called over to his lookout.