Outpost (43 page)

She
glimpsed the towers and girders of Rampart above great licks of fire. Melted
ice fell from the superstructure in drips and slabs.

The
refinery looked like Satan's citadel, a jagged fortress at the centre of hell.

Nikki
dropped to her knees. She watched in awe. A giddy moment of heightened
awareness. She felt like an astronaut fired at light-speed out of the solar
system into uncharted space. Each day brought strange and wonderful vistas,
stardust and nebulas, and took her a million miles further from home.

The
fire quickly died down and the refinery was lost behind a wall of steam.

Nikki
brushed away frozen tears with a gloved hand. She slowly climbed to her feet.
She took out her radio.

'Rampart?
Rampart, do you copy, over?'

Ghost
opened the airlock door. He and Jane quickly pulled on thermal masks as the
chamber filled with steam and smoke. They walked out on to the platform lift
wreathed in fumes and vapour. They rode the elevator down to the ice.

The
polar crust had melted and re-frozen. Their boots splashed in puddles of
steaming water.

They
looked up and inspected acres of smouldering crossbeams and pipes.

'Looks
like the underside of the rig got pretty cooked,' said Ghost.

Petrified
drips of steel hung from girders and ran down the blackened legs of the
refinery like it was sweating metal.

'How
thick is this fucking ice?' asked Jane, grinding her heel into the rippled
surface. 'A mile deep? We're at the very edge of the Arctic Circle, the very
edge of the polar field.' She stamped. 'This stuff is fresh. It should be wafer
thin.'

'Most
of the heat went up. It didn't penetrate.'

'I
can't take this. Hope dashed every five minutes. It's killing me.'

They
heard a metallic creak. They looked up.

'Cooling
metal?' speculated Ghost.

'No.
Something else.'

A
low, mournful moan. A sudden tortured screech. A juddering rumble as the
superstructure of the refinery began to flex. It sounded like whale song. A
chorus of booms, whistles and shrieks.

'Holy
shit,' murmured Jane. 'It's actually happening.'

The
ice between their feet split. It sounded like gunfire. Seawater bubbled over
their boots.

They
ran from a fast-spreading web of cracks and fissures. Puffs of ice-dust.
Frothing water. They struggled to keep their balance as they sprinted across a
tilting, slow-shattering crust.

They
threw themselves on to the platform lift. The ice around them had broken into
plates. The plates began to buckle and grind.

Tremors
ran through the refinery. They gripped the platform railing for support.

'Feel
that?' said Ghost. 'We're actually moving.'

Ghost
headed for the canteen. Weeks ago, he rescued a bottle of champagne from
Hyperion
and set it to chill in a
refrigerator hidden behind big blocks of cheese.

'I
know Sian is hurting. But I want to celebrate. Maybe that's selfish. Plenty of
people have died. But we made it. We're going to live.'

Jane
searched for Sian.

Sian
wasn't in her cabin.

Jane
checked the observation bubble. No one around. She stood at the window and
watched the burned-out wreck of
Hyperion
slowly recede. The current was carrying the refinery south at a brisk walking
pace. It was gouging through the ice at six or seven kilometres an hour.

Jane
switched on the short-wave radio and turned up the volume. Hiss of static. She
sat back and put her feet on the mixing desk.

The
rig was moving south. They would pass through shipping lanes and European
territorial waters. Maybe she should resume broadcasting a mayday message. Or
maybe she should just monitor the airwaves. They had no idea what kind of world
they would find when they reached home.

Jane
became aware of a faint voice from a console speaker.

'Rampart, do you copy, over
?'

She
sat forward.

'Kasker Rampart, do you copy, over
?'

She
grasped the mike. 'Nikki? Nikki, is that you?'

'Hello, Jane. How have you been
?'

Jane
ran down the stairs two steps at a time. She sprinted down corridors.

She
kicked open the kitchen door. She vaulted a counter, scattering pots and
mixing pans. She skidded to a halt. She fumbled for keys and unlocked a
freezer.

They
had been using the freezer as a gun safe.

She
checked the breech of the remaining shotgun.

Empty.

She
checked ammunition boxes.

Empty.

'Fuck.'

She
threw the empty boxes across the room.

She
took out her radio.

'Ghost?
Ghost, do you copy?'

No
reply.

'What's
going on?' asked Sian. She sat on a counter in the corner of the kitchen,
swinging her legs and eating yogurt.

'I
need Ghost. Where is he?'

'No
idea.'

Jane
slapped the yogurt from her hand and pulled her upright.

'Come
with me. Right now.'

They
ran down a corridor.

'Let
me ask you something,' said Jane. 'I need you to think hard. Punch liked comic
books, right? Graphic novels. Did he ever mention his favourite character?'

'No.
Not that I remember.'

'Constantine?
Did he ever mention John Constantine?'

'Actually,
yeah. Some sort of gumshoe tough-guy. He battled demons. There's a poster in
his room. Punch bought a trench- coat so he could dress like him. Why do you
ask?'

They
reached an airlock. Jane grabbed clothing from a rack. Heavy over-trousers. She
buckled crampons to the soles of her boots. She zipped an Arctic parka.

'Punch
is alive,' said Jane. 'Nikki and Nail have him hostage on the island.'

'Nikki?'

'She's
back. Don't ask me how.'

Jane
found a toolbox. She slipped a big claw hammer into her coat pocket. She
buttoned a diver's knife into the utility pocket of her trousers.

Sian
helped Jane shoulder the flamethrower and buckle it to her back.

'He's
alive?' asked Sian. 'You're sure?'

'He's
out there, and I'm going to bring him back.'

'My
God.'

Jane
buckled gauntlets.

'We
should search for Ghost,' said Sian.

'No
time.'

'What
does Nikki want?'

'She
wants to swap him for food.'

'Give
it to her.'

'We
don't have time to play games. She's a nut. Unbalanced. She has some kind of
sick agenda I bet even she doesn't fully understand. I'm going to find her and
I'm going to kill her.'

Jane
opened a locker full of fire-fighting equipment and took an axe.

'I'm
coming with you,' said Sian.

'No.
I need you to lower me on to the ice.'

They
heaved open the outer door of the airlock.

They
ran across the deck.

'You
can operate the freight crane, right?' asked Jane.

'Ivan
showed me the controls during the fire.'

'You
can raise and lower the hook, right? That's all I need.'

'Yeah.
I think so.'

'The
refinery is ripping a channel south. There is nothing beneath us but seawater
and broken ice. The platform lift is no good. It'll drop me in the ocean. If you
lower me in front of the rig I'll have eight or nine seconds to get clear
before it runs me down.'

'How
will you get back on board?'

'Catch
up with the rig. Stand in front of it. You can lift me off the ice with the
crane hook before I get squashed like a bug.'

'Bloody
risky. It would be a split-second thing.'

They
climbed a ladder to the crane platform. The cab hung over the edge of the
refinery. There was a window in the floor. They could see the ice two hundred
metres below. Sian swivelled the jib with a joystick. The half-tonne hook swung
like a pendulum.

'Like
I said. Up and down. That's all I need. Just raise and lower the hook.'

'See
that?' Sian pointed south. Waves in the far distance. 'Open sea. We lost the
zodiac when
Hyperion
caught fire. Once we pass out of the ice-field you won't be able to get back on
board. You'll be marooned.'

'Yeah.'

Sian
unbuckled her Casio watch and strapped it round the wrist of Jane's gauntlet.

'Find
him, all right? Find him and bring him back.' She set the stopwatch. 'Sixty
minutes. That's your turn-around time. Sixty minutes from now you head back to
the refinery no matter what, okay?'

She
pressed Start.

59:59

The
seconds ticked down.

Endgame

Jane
jogged across the ice towards the island. She clumped in heavy boots. Crampon
teeth bit into ice. Diesel sloshed in the SCUBA tanks strapped to her back.

She
climbed the rocky shoreline. Gauntlet hands searched out niches and outcrops.
She scrambled over the jumble of basalt boulders and hauled herself up on to
the snow plateau of the island plain.

She
headed for the burned-out hulk of the ship.

The
blackened hull of the superliner was split in two. The interior of the ship was
exposed like a picture book cut-away diagram. Bilge and plant equipment near
the keel, then ascending layers of opulence. A dance floor, glitter ball
swinging in the breeze. Padded treatment recliners hanging over a steel
precipice. Charred staterooms.

The
multiple blasts that ripped the ship apart had ejected debris across the snow.
Twisted hull plates like jagged petals. Giant worm-lengths of air-con ducts.

Jane
walked among cabin refuse. Cupboards, chairs and lamps. It was like someone set
up home on the ice.

Jane
stood in the shadow of the ship and looked up at the exposed rooms and
stairways. Ragged bed sheets wafted in the breeze. Flakes of ash drifted from
the wreck like black snow.

Quick
inspection of the broken hulk. Nikki might anticipate a raiding party might
come calling. She might vacate the bunker. Hide herself aboard
Hyperion.

A
hand gripped Jane's ankle. She looked down. An infected passenger half buried
in snow. Jane pulled herself free. The frozen figure tried to stand. Legs
missing from below the knee. She stamped on his head with a crampon boot.
Skull-burst. Snow stained red.

The
snow beside her bulged and split, and a second frosted figure struggled to its
feet. The creature stumbled like a drunk. Jane kicked him over. He lay on his
back, still struggling to walk like a toppled automaton.

Snow
cracked and crumbled. A dozen passengers sitting up, struggling from the ice.
Jane triggered the flamethrower. Slow pass, back and forth. Burning figures
thrashed in the snow.

One
last glance at
Hyperion.
The
ship was too trashed, too burned-out to provide refuge. Nikki must still be in
the bunker.

Jane
jogged away from the ship, skirting spastic, flailing bodies. She swerved beds,
wardrobes and chairs.

Sian
climbed down from the crane and ran to the deck railing. Binoculars. She
followed a thin, hairline track across the ice. A channel dug by Jane's
crampons as she headed back to the island.

She
took out her radio.

'Ghost?
Ghost, do you copy? Come on, Gee. Where are you?'

She
searched the rig. She ran room to room. She found Ghost in the canteen cold
store. He had uncorked a bottle. He poured frothing champagne into a paper cup.
She stood panting in the doorway.

'Well.
On our way home,' he said. He held out a cup. 'You're probably not in a mood to
celebrate. It's good champagne, though.'

'Where's
your radio?'

'Why
would I need to carry it? We're out of here.'

'Jane
is heading back to the island. She's gone to find Punch.'