Stranded (15 page)

“Thanks to you. We have to get out if we want to go anywhere,” Mickle replied. He pointed at the shape in the distance. “After all, how else are we going to get there?”

 

16

The day room on A-Deck was as close to cruise ship amenities as things got on the
Arctic Promise.
The room was built in the forward section of the superstructure with windows on three sides overlooking the bow. You could watch the progress of the ship from there if you were inclined. Most of the crew, however, had spent enough time at sea to not care. They preferred the darker day rooms a deck below—the ones with TVs and DVD players. The room was bright and open with tables and comfortable chairs for the crew to play cards or board games. While a couple of the men liked to play checkers or chess, it was too hard to place wagers on Scrabble hands and a fistfight had almost broken out once over a round of Settlers of Catan; they hadn't even gotten past reading the rules before Heath threw the box across the room, tossing insults after it. The Twins were practically in hysterics over his pique, which made him angrier. If it hadn't been bolted to the deck, Heath would have flipped the table. Boucher ended the conflict by threatening to toss the game in the incinerator. No one ever suggested pulling it out again.

The present assembly was less spirited. Noah and Henry had been able to gather seven of the eleven deckhands, including themselves. Felix was still in the hospital with Nevins as his new roommate sleeping it off in the bunk above. John Boduf refused to open his cabin door when they knocked, and Andrew Puck could barely open his eyes, let alone stand. Theo Mesires, Michael Yeong, and David Delgado sat slumped on the sofas against the rear wall, while the rest grabbed chairs. Even without everyone present, there weren't enough seats. Noah stood by the door. He felt better there. He could slip out without being seen if he had to.

At the opposite end of the compartment, Brewster, Holden, and Mickle quietly argued. Mickle was on his feet, but he looked bad. He'd washed his face and hands and taped up his cut, but cleaning away the blood seemed to rob him of the last of his color. He looked as peaked as a squid. He leaned against a window while Chris Holden listened to him and Brewster giving their alternate versions of events on the Command Deck. The third officer, for his part, maintained his neutral look, but as the conversation progressed, he seemed to end up standing closer to Mickle than Brewster. Noah wasn't sure whether that was him taking a side or simply preparing to catch Mickle when his knees buckled and he succumbed to whatever it was infecting him.

While the officers continued to talk, Boucher hovered behind Brewster's shoulder, glaring at the deckhands. No one had the conn. There was no use. The ship wasn't moving and there was no radio to monitor. It felt strangely like they were already to their port of destination and were ready to knock off for drinks before heading home to their families. Except, they were as far from that as they'd ever been. Farther, it seemed, than when they had originally set out. Going home at this moment was no more than a concept, and not one that was in any way a certainty.

Mickle stood, calling on whatever strength remained in the bottom of his tank. Clearing his throat, he tried to attract the attention of the crew. Holden barked for the men to “Listen up!” The low murmur in the room settled down.

“I suppose it's not news to any of you that today's attempt to free the ship was unsuccessful,” Mickle began. “Despite your hard work, we're still beset and the radio remains nonfunctional. But there's more you need to know. From communications to navigation, we've gone dark.
All
the instruments are down. We don't know what's causing the systems to fail, but—” The crew voiced their shock and disbelief at once, cutting off the third officer, half of them shouting that they knew this would happen, while the other half fired back that they didn't know a thing. Noah put his back to the wall and kept his mouth shut. He agreed with the men who thought it was a bad idea to try to break the ice, but adding his opinion wouldn't solve anything. At best, it'd be just another voice in the chorus. At worst, his stand would inspire greater opposition from the men who disliked him and disagreed.

Mickle held up his hands trying to get the crew to quiet down. Their incredulity echoed through the compartment drowning him out until Brewster finally stood and ordered them to be quiet. Brewster leaned close and said to him, “How's that command looking now, Sean?”

He stifled a cough and continued. “We have no idea if we're anywhere near where we're supposed to be. It's too early in the season for this kind of ice consolidation in the Chukchi Sea. As a matter of fact, the kind of pack we're bound up in is thick enough to be two-year ice and that just isn't what I've ever seen there. In order to be as icebound as we are, we have to assume we're significantly off course. If we remained more or less on a true bearing, we should be somewhere north of Point Barrow. But between the instruments going down and magnetic compass interference, we have no way of knowing for sure where that is. For all we know, we could be in the East Siberian Sea.”

Another murmur grew up from the deckhands. Mickle used the interruption to conceal another cough. But he couldn't hide how glistening red his lips were at the end of it. “We all know that the crew isn't doing any better than the ship. Everyone feels like hell, and whatever it is that's making us feel this way is progressing.”

“So what now, Doc?” Michael Yeong asked.

Mickle swayed and Holden put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back into his seat. The second officer drew a forearm across his brow to wipe away the sweat beading there. “We've discussed our options and believe they are limited.”

“No shit!” Theo said. “Why isn't the Old Man telling us this?”

Boucher pointed a thick finger at the man. “That's e-fuckin-nough out of you, Mesires.”

Holden turned toward the deckhand, his eyes flashing impatience. “The entire command crew is responsible for the wellbeing of this ship and all aboard. So if you don't like whoever's addressing you at the moment, you can direct your complaints to that wall over there. You copy that?” Cowed by the vigor the man put into telling him to shut up, Theo slumped in his chair stifling a cough.

“We're equally of the mind that waiting for the company to come looking for a lost ship will not only do us no good, but will actually do us harm. We're going to keep working on restoring communications, but we think we need to take further steps to ride this out, starting with rationing our food.” The cry from the crew went up again. Holden shook his head slowly and waited for them to quiet down. He turned and pointed toward the darkening horizon. The setting sun illuminated a long straight line of red and orange in the distance, broken by a single shape: the thing everyone had been staring at for the last two days. “Second, we think we need to send a team out to see if that's anything that could help us.”

“Is it the rig?” Jack asked.

Holden shook his head. “We don't know. We hope so. If not … well, we just don't know. We have to find out though.”

“The hell with that!” Henry said. “This shit is above my pay grade. I'm not stepping foot outside this boat again.”

“You don't have a choice, Gutierrez.” Holden took a step toward the men. While he was pale and sweating, he seemed to grow in the compartment, filling the space with his authority. “We have lights and heat for as long as there's fuel in the generator tank. And after that, we're worse than stranded; we're dead. This ship might be new, but it's insulated as well as those shitty plastic shoes your kids wear. We'll freeze to death within a day or two of the tank going dry.”

“We have tons of fuel,” Henry countered. “We're delivering it to the platform, right? We can use as much as we need to keep the gens running until they come looking for us.”

“Even if you could think of a way to get it from the transfer tank in the hold to the generators, how long will it keep us going? Until we run out of food and water? We're supplied for a four-week voyage, plus a week extra to account for delays.”

“The fuck? You're saying we could be stuck here for a month?” Kevin said.

“I'm saying that we're running out of options. We're not exactly beached on a sandbar off of Tahiti. There's nothing here except climate and conditions that will kill us. I for one want to see my wife and kids again, and I'll be damned it if I'm going to sit down and wait to freeze or starve to death.”

“I am not going,” Henry said.

“You either do what we tell you, or I'll personally see to it that you never get a berth on another ship again. You hear me? You'd better make that last check stretch when we get out of here, because I'll shit-talk you to every skipper and shipper from Seattle to Jakarta if you don't pull your weight.” Holden's face turned crimson and the veins on the sides of his wide neck plumped and pulsed. He looked like he was less than a minute away from having a stroke. He took a few quick breaths and waited for another retort from the deckhand. When none came, he finished. “As I was saying, we're going to investigate that …
shape
for signs of life and functioning technology. Christ, even spare parts would be something. I'd prefer to have volunteers, but if no one steps up, I'll assign men to come with me. Henry, you're first.”

“Why don't we draw straws?” Theo said.

“Because this isn't an episode of fucking
Survivor.
Thank you for being second, Mesires. Who else?”

Noah stepped away from the door despite his urge to disappear through it. He raised a hand and said, “I'll volunteer. But I should go alone.”

“That's mighty stupid of you, Cabot. We want a
team
on the ice looking out for each other.”

“I don't think any of the men are in shape to hike however far that is. You're putting them at risk by asking them to try.”

“And you're ready for the Boston Marathon? You're not special,” Theo said, seeming to want to defend his selection for a duty he didn't want.

“I'm aware. And thanks for never missing a chance to tell me so.”

“Eat me, professor.”

Noah sighed and tried to ignore Theo's posturing. “I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that almost everyone aboard is sick and getting sicker. I'm the only one who doesn't have whatever it is that's going around. I can make it.”

Mickle's coughing fit silenced the room. Everyone watched him shudder and rattle, knowing he was the prime example of what awaited them all. Holden, pale and sweating, was stage one, while Yeong, limp on the sofa was stage two. Maybe Puck and Boduf, unable to get out of bed, were stage three and ending up like Mickle was the final step before they were wrapped in a shroud. Someone like Henry could try to deny he was sick, but Noah had seen him sweating and wiping blood from his nose. And they were
all
seeing the phantoms. Even Noah.

When Mickle finished hacking, he looked into his hands like he didn't know what to do with them. Instead of wiping them on his clothes, he clasped them together, wiping at his lower lip with a knuckle. With a wet, raspy voice, he said, “Even if you're the only one in shape to do it, I want men out there to help you. It's no use to us for you to go alone and find something you're not strong enough to carry back. Or for you to get hurt and have no one to help. You can't go alone, Noah. Request denied.”

Holden nodded. “Anyone else?”

Michael Yeong raised his hand.

Brewster stepped forward and said, “Me and Serge'll go, too.” Noah thought Boucher's look of shock probably mirrored his own. The prospect of needing to rely on Brewster for his safety was as frightening to Noah as being told he was going out into sub-freezing temperatures again was to the bosun. Still, Boucher didn't balk. It was one of the man's virtues that he did as ordered, no matter what the order.

“So we have me, Henry, Theo, Mike, Noah, Boucher, and the Old Man. That's good.”

“I'll go,” Kevin said. “I volunteer.”

“Me too,” Jack added.

Holden nodded. No one would have expected those two not to want to stick together. “All right,” he said. “That's better than we need. We'll go at first light. The last of the crew will stay here and keep the
Promise
lit up and afloat. If we can, we'll get Nevins back on the radio first thing tomorrow, too. And I do not need to remind you that second officer Mickle is in command of this vessel. You
will
do as he says or there will be consequences. Now, get some sleep everyone. There's shit to do. Dismissed.”

The men rose and shuffled back to their cabins. Their grumbling about work was as familiar a sound as there ever was on the ship, and it almost felt like nothing at all was wrong when they did it. Of course, everything was wrong and getting worse by the minute.

Noah stopped Jack and Kevin on their way out. “Will you meet me outside with your binoculars in ten minutes?”

Jack huffed through his nose. “Sure. Why?”

“I just want to have another look before we set out in the morning.”

 

17

The shape in the distance was little more than a shadow among shadows by the time Noah met Jack and Kevin on the weather deck. Still, he did his best with the borrowed field glasses to see what, if anything, there was between them and it. He wanted to know before they set out whether they would need to skirt around a deformity in the ice or a break they wouldn't be able to cross. But with the deepening darkness and blowing snow, he couldn't see a thing. It all looked like the same field of unbroken white, indistinct and featureless. It was as close to looking into a void as he had ever seen. And he was about to step into it.