Outpost (12 page)

'I'm
looking for anything useful.'

Nikki
gestured to the oil drum.

'I'll
make you a deal. Be honest with me, and I won't tell anyone you are building a
boat.'

'I'm
just doing a little housekeeping.'

'You
think it's time to bail out. And you're right. There are too many of us to
ferry across the North Atlantic. But you can't do it on your own either. I
could help.'

Nikki
was restless. She sat in the canteen sipping tap water from a mug. Nail and his
gang had turned the corner of the canteen into a gymnasium. Nail stood alone
pumping dumbbells.

'So
how about you?' asked Nikki. 'You and your friends. What's going on in your
heads these days?'

'Ever
found yourself in a jail cell?'

'I
take it you have.'

'It's
a waiting game. You have to get a little Zen and do your fucking time,
otherwise the confinement will drive you batshit. We're not going anywhere
until spring, so Rawlins and his buddies better dredge up a little mental
fortitude. All their frantic activity and scheming hasn't got us an inch closer
to home. It's all just wasted energy.'

'And
come spring? What will you do then?'

'Endure.
Survive. Prevail.'

'Yeah,'
said Nikki. 'I don't doubt you will.'

Jane
and Punch walked four miles inland.

McClure.
Three weatherboard huts on stilts. Empty fuel drums and a little latrine hut.

There
was a Snowcat and trailer parked outside.

'Looks
like we caught a ride,' said Punch.

They
climbed the steps of the main hut and pounded the door. No reply. The door was
unlocked.

'Hello?
Anyone?'

They
explored, room by room. Nobody home.

A
dormitory. A cramped recreation space with a dartboard and TV. A couple of
laboratories jammed with rock samples, ice cores and microscopes.

'Looks
like they left in a hurry,' said Jane. 'Personal possessions are gone.
Wouldn't expect them to abandon all this lab equipment, though.'

'Probably
got an airlift at short notice. Jumped in an Otter. Hand luggage only.'

Punch
checked cupboards.

'Maybe
they left food.'

'And
if they did?' asked Jane. 'Share it with everyone or hide it in your secret
den?'

'If
we were smart we would go back and tell them this place was levelled by a storm
and we found nothing. If we bring back a Snowcat, you can bet we will wake up
one morning and find it gone.'

'I've
been fat all my life, all right? You don't have to tell me people are shit. But
I'm not going to sell out at the first tiny provocation, and neither are you.
We're better than that.'

They
searched the base.

'Toothpaste,'
said Jane. 'That's all I found. Plenty of esoteric lab gear but nothing worth
hauling back.'

They
checked the Snowcat. A yellow van with caterpillar tracks. Jane checked the
trailer. Punch tried the ignition. The Cat wouldn't start. He lifted the hood.

'It's
fucked. They vandalised the engine. Stop anyone stealing it, I guess.'

'Fixable?'
shouted Jane.

'Not
without parts.'

'Come
and take a look at this.'

Jane
had opened the trailer tailgate and pulled a tarpaulin from a stack of wooden
crates.

'Seismologists.
Tools of the trade, I suppose.'

DANGER

HIGH EXPLOSIVE

Punch
levered a lid.

'Whoa.
Blasting caps. Thermite grenades. A shit-load of C4. If you want to shift ice in
a hurry this stuff is pure gold.'

They
found a plastic cargo sled. They stacked the crates and dragged them back to
the zodiac. Jane did most of the pulling.

They
loaded the boxes into the zodiac. It sank low in the water.

'Let's
go find that meteor,' said Punch.

They
set off. He steered the boat. Jane tried the radio.

'Shore
team to Rampart, over.'

She
got nothing but the strange tocking signal.

'It
could be military, I suppose. Some kind of interference. You can bet there were
a bunch of nuclear subs at sea when this shit kicked off. Maybe they are
cruising beneath the ice, ignoring our calls.'

Punch
headed for the coast. He jumped ashore and slammed an ice axe into the snow. He
tethered the boat to the axe.

'There's
not much daylight left. Twenty-five minutes from now we turn around and head
back to the boat no matter what, all right?'

They
trudged inland. Unearthly desolation. The landscape was so featureless it was
like walking on a treadmill: each stride seemed to take them nowhere. The ice
was so hard Jane's boots barely left an impression. She checked her watch. Ten
minutes gone.

'There,'
said Punch. A wide mound up ahead like the cinder cone of a volcano. The lip of
a crater.

They
doubled their pace. They clambered over ice debris, slabs and boulders thrown
from the impact site. They struggled upward. Jane paused to catch her breath.

'Can
you see anything?' Punch was standing above her, looking down into the crater.
'What can you see?'

He
didn't reply.

Jane
scrambled up ice rubble and stood at his side.

'Now
what the fuck is that thing?'

'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.'