Noah's Ark: Survivors (20 page)

“Chuck? Really? There are actually people called Chuck?”

Chuck turned scarlet. “Ma’am,” he said simply.

“Right, Chuck. Tell me, once we open one of these capsules, the thing flies off, inflates, and lands in the water, right?”

“That is correct, ma’am.”

“Okay, so two things, Chuck. One, my name is Lucya, forget the ma’am thing, right?”

He nodded.

“The second thing is, once the raft hits the water, how do we get it back here so you can get in?”

The two men considered the question. They were standing outside next to a metal-framed construction on which nine large white capsules, like giant pills, were tied down. The frame was angled in such a way that when a capsule was untied it would roll down and into the sea.
 

“Maybe I’m missing something,” Dave said, “but can’t he just use the escape slide?”

“No. We’re not deploying that for one person. It’s single use. What happens in a real emergency when the slide has gone?”

“See? I knew I was missing something.”

At that moment there was a huge crunch, the sound of metal being ripped, then a groaning sound from below. The ship came to a sudden, jarring halt. Lucya, Dave, and Chuck were thrown against the side railings. All three exclaimed in surprise and pain.

“Jesus! What the hell?!” Dave looked around, confused.

“I think we hit part of that pier. Fuck! Jake is going to kill me.” Lucya, rubbed her side where it had connected with the handrail. “You, get down there.” She pointed to the sea. “Take the steps for the tender. I’m launching this thing and you’re going to have to swim for it. I have to get back to the bridge.”

The sailor looked at her as if he must have misheard.

“Now!” she screamed at him.

He nodded, and ran back inside for the stairs. Lucya reached under the first fibreglass capsule, wrapped her hand around the release buckle, and pulled hard. The strap holding it to the metal frame snapped in two. The capsule rolled slowly to the end of the metal ramp, out over the handrail, over the water, and fell. As it did so, it split open. There was a whoosh of compressed air being released, and a mass of black-and-red material pushed its way out, separating the two sides of the capsule. Within seconds it had inflated to form a giant raft. It popped into its final shape just as it hit the water with a slap. Fully inflated, the raft looked like it could never have fitted into the capsule. It was made to hold up to thirty passengers. Rectangular in shape, and slightly tapered at the front and back, the outer edge was made of sausage-like air chambers. Three more chambers within the raft provided seating. A bright orange hood that could be deployed to provide shelter from the elements was rolled up on one side, out of the way of anyone in the water trying to clamber aboard. Lucya watched the raft hit the water, threw her pink buoy after it, and jettisoned the oars over the railings. Before they had splashed into the sea, she had already turned around and run back inside, in the direction of the bridge.

Thirty-Eight

S
OMETHING
WAS
WRONG
with Dante. At first, it was hard to see exactly what, but as he approached it became clearer. He had no hands. His arms splashed in and out of the sea, but without palms and fingers to pull against the water, he was limited in his ability to generate propulsion.

Reeve took a step back then ran two steps forward and jumped off the end of the pier and onto the side of the upturned tender. As he landed his feet slipped beneath him and he fell onto his read end, sliding towards the now vertical roof. With a grunt he rolled over onto his front and grabbed at the window frames, arresting his slide just as his feet and legs disappeared over the side. He hauled himself back up, got to his hands and knees, and proceeded to crawl to the rear of the craft.

Dante was approaching slowly. Reeve called to him. He seemed to hear, changed direction slightly, and with a few more strokes reached the back of the boat. The security man reached out and grabbed the end of his right arm, pulling hard. The boat was low in the water, only half a metre or so was exposed, so it wasn’t too difficult to pull Dante out and onto the side, and relative safety. He lay on his back, panting, coughing.

“Dante, what happened? What the hell happened to your hands?”

“The ash…” He was still out of breath, struggling to get the words out. “It was the ash…”

Everyone stared at the stumps at the ends of Dante’s arms. Blackened, fused by the burning ash.

The awkward silence was broken by the sound of tearing metal echoing across the fjord.

• • •

Martin charged from one end of the engine room to the other, through the open door and into a passageway. A quick left turn and through two vast chambers. Both housed gigantic tanks, each bigger than the sixty-person tender that was, unbeknownst to him, now lying wrecked in the fjord. As he ran, the sound of gushing water grew ever louder. By the third chamber, he was running through seawater. The noise was now deafening. It was coming from the fourth chamber ahead, a chamber that was filling rapidly with water, spilling over the threshold of the bulkhead. When he reached it, he tried to push the heavy metal door shut. But the water was rising, pushing the door back out towards him.

“Richard! Where are you? Get your arse down here now!”

He could hear the sound of his colleague’s steps running towards him. Then the clicking of boots on the metal floor turned to the sound of feet splashing through water, and suddenly Richard was there, pushing the door with him. Martin turned and pushed with his back. It was as big as the side of a bus shelter, and made of thick steel. On its well-oiled and balanced hinges, it was normally simple enough to swing shut, but the pressure of the water coming through made the task almost impossible. The two men heaved with all their might, feet slipping and sliding in the seawater. With an almost herculean effort, the edge of the door finally reached the frame. Martin’s foot hit on something under the water. A ring in the floor, used to tie down equipment when the going got rough. He dug his heel against it and pushed with all his weight. The extra purchase was just enough, and the door thudded into place.

“Lock it!” Martin couldn’t hold the force of the water much longer.

Richard took his hands off the door and spun the wheel mounted in the middle. Almost immediately, Martin felt the pressure release from his back as the locking bolts moved into place. He dropped forwards, his hands on his knees, head hung low, panting.

“We did it!” Richard exclaimed. “Hey, it’s okay, we got it closed, we’re safe.”

“No,” Martin said.

“No really, we’ll be fine!” Richard tried to reassure him. “That bulkhead is designed to withstand the chamber being completely flooded. We can pump out these others and we’ll be okay. We might need to pump some ballast into the tanks to balance us up a bit.”

“No. Shit, no, not that.” Martin was staring at the water.
 

Richard looked down. He understood the problem. It wasn’t just water they were standing in. There was diesel fuel mixed in with it too.

• • •

Chuck ripped off his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and leapt into the water. The icy cold nearly stopped his heart, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. He swam as fast as he could in the direction of the raft. Fortunately it hadn’t fallen far from the ship, and there was no current to speak of, so it hadn’t moved far. Within a minute of hitting the sea he swam right into one of the oars. Stopping to tread water, he picked it up and threw it as hard as he could manage in the direction of the raft. He swam on, stopping twice more to throw the oar further, before finally it landed inside the inflatable. Shortly afterwards he arrived there himself. Using the orange rope tied around the outside to pull himself up, he rolled into the emergency vessel. He got to his knees and looked around for the second oar. It had floated off towards the shore. Positioning himself at the front of the raft he began to paddle. A stroke to the left, pull the paddle out of the water, then a stroke to the right. It wasn’t quick, but he was going in the right direction. When he reached the second oar he retrieved it and set it down beside him. The raft was too wide for one person to row conventionally, but the oar would be useful when he had help coming back.

• • •

“What just happened?” Jake was desperately trying to see where the noise had come from, but the ship was too far out to see clearly. From his position on the shore, everything looked fine. “Get Max on the radio, find out what’s going on!”

Reeve put his hand in his inside pocket. His expression changed. He pulled out an empty hand and tried the other pocket. “Shit.”

“Where’s the radio, Reeve?” Jake already knew the answer.

“It must have fallen out when I slipped. Damn it!”

“Well, there’s not much we can do about that, so I guess we’ll find out what’s happened when we get back over there.” Jake was starting to feel a certain sense of detachment. This landing expedition had turned into a disaster. If he didn’t know what had just happened on the ship, well at least it was one less thing to worry about. For now.

Dante had got his breath back. He and Reeve were perched on top of the tender. Jake and Kiera were sitting opposite on the very edge of the broken pier, as far away from the deadly ash as they could.

“I hadn’t got far, but I wasn’t sure I was going the right way. On the map we looked at, there was a road from here to the airport. I couldn’t tell if I was on the road or just some rock — it was all covered in ash. So I was kicking the ash with my feet, trying to see what was underneath, you know, like you do in the snow sometimes? And I saw something shiny where I’d cleared a bit with my foot. I crouched down to get a better look. I started pushing the ash away to the sides with my hands. And then…” He raised the stubs of his forearms in the air, looking at them like he still couldn’t quite believe it.
 

“How did you stop it going any further?” Jake asked. “With Horace and Stacey it…well, you know.”

“I ran to the sea and shoved my hands in. I thought they were burning, it felt like they were on fire. I just wanted them to stop burning! And when they hit the water they just…they just kind of disintegrated.”

“Jesus,” Reeve said, shaking his head.

Kiera wore an expression of deep sympathy, but didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Jake said. “This is my fault. We should never have brought so many people over here. We should have taken it slower.”

“No,” Dante said. “This is nobody’s fault.”

“Look!” Kiera was pointing out towards the fjord.

Reeve and Dante turned their heads. Paddling over the water was a black-and-red inflatable life raft.

• • •

“The fuel tank ruptured?” Richard hadn’t moved. He remained rooted to the spot.

“Impossible. It’s too far from the hull. Whatever we hit couldn’t have pierced that deeply.” Martin shook his head.

“But that’s oil, diesel oil. Floating on the water.”

“Yes. But it can’t be. Unless…oh shit!”

Martin flew forwards, trying to run around the massive tank in the chamber. But his legs had to fight against the water, slowing him down. Richard watched as the chief engineer appeared to advance in slow motion. On the other side of the tank was a thick white pipe that ran the length of the chamber. It passed through the walls at each end, and at half a meter from both walls, a red wheel protruded from the pipe. Martin spun the wheel nearest the flooded chamber.

“Of course,” Richard said, looking on. “The fuel line. It didn’t puncture the tank, it broke the fuel line.”

“That’s shut off the line,” Martin said, panting from the effort. “That’ll stop any fuel from tank three leaking out.”

“You realise, of course you do, that it means we lose access to tank five?”

“I know. But it’s going to leak out of the broken line too. One and two are already empty. We’ve just lost the use of two thirds of our remaining fuel supply.”

• • •

It took a considerable time for the raft to reach the pier. For one thing, paddling from the front with a single oar was slow work. For another, Chuck had to try and steer round the giant lumps of concrete protruding from the water, and the even more dangerous ones, hidden just beneath the surface. When he did eventually reach the upturned tender, Dante had lost consciousness. The pain and the cold had been too much.

“I’m going to lower him down, grab his legs,” Reeve called to Chuck. He had his hands under the unconscious man’s arms and was dragging him nearer the raft. He pulled him round so that his legs hung over the side facing the
Spirit of Arcadia
. Chuck grabbed Dante’s ankles and pulled them into the raft as Reeve lowered him down.
 

“One down. Now you two,” Reeve said, looking over at Jake and Kiera. “Whoa!”

All the movement had unbalanced the capsized boat. They had assumed it had come to a rest on the sea bed, but in fact the water was much deeper. The underwater side of the tender was actually stuck on a pointed piece of concrete below the surface. The shifting weight of Reeve and Dante had caused the tender to tilt towards its back. With a creak, it upended, launching Reeve headfirst into the fjord. He disappeared from view, then popped out of the water a few metres away, spitting and coughing. He was just in time to see the remainder of the boat disappear with a glugging sound and a muddle of air bubbles. Chuck was already paddling towards Reeve, who reached out for the rope and pulled himself onto the raft. He understood why Dante had lost consciousness; the cold water had sucked the feeling from his hands and feet. Dante had the added problems of blood loss and shock to deal with. Passing out was probably the best he could have done under the circumstances.

With the tender gone, it was actually easier for Chuck to get up close to the pier. Jake and Kiera lowered themselves into it with relative ease.

“Okay, Reeve, ready to help me row?” Chuck said, holding out a plastic oar.

Thirty-Nine

T
HE
LIFE
RAFT
made quick time back to the ship, aided by Reeve. Max was waiting at the bottom of the steps, along with one of his new recruits. Jake noted, with dismay, that they were both bearing arms.