Outpost

‘He killed Mal. I’m certain. Don’t know why it happened. Drug deal gone sour, argument over a chocolate bar, whatever. But he killed him. Bet my life on it.’

‘You’ve got a shotgun. Maybe you should use it.’

‘I couldn’t do a thing like that. Yeah, we killed a bunch of infected. But we have to draw a line. I’m not a killer.’

‘Of course you’re a fucking killer. There is no higher authority any more. This is the way it is going to be. We have to sort this shit out ourselves.’

‘Seriously? You’d do it? Pull the trigger on the guy? Take him out on the ice and shoot him in the back?’

‘The man isn’t stupid. If you’re right, if he genuinely offed Mal, then he’s a dangerous motherfucker. You know his big secret. He’ll have sniffed it out in a second. Right now we’re safe, but once we get back to the world it’ll be a different story. He’ll consider us a serious liability. We’d better watch our backs from now on. That’s all I’m saying.’

Mal’s funeral was scheduled for three in the afternoon. The crew gathered in the Rampart canteen. They kept it short, anxious to dispatch the man’s body and quit the ice before Hyperion passengers surrounded them and attacked.

They trained floodlights on the ice between the refinery’s cyclopean legs. The crew, those who knew and liked the man, descended from the rig. They stood over the shrouded body while Jane intoned the old words:

‘Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field; when the wind goes over it, it is gone and its place will know it no more. But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures forever.. .’

Most of the guys didn’t believe in God or heaven, but they liked the rhythm of elegiac prayers, the tone of resignation and acceptance.

They smashed a hole in the ice, then slid his body into the sea. The men watched Mal dragged away by the current. Every one of them thought the same thing. Is this how it will end? One by one pushed into the ocean and carried away by the tide. What would the last man do? That final, lone member of Rampart’s crew about to succumb to starvation or infection? They would break a hole in the ice then say a prayer at the water’s edge. Conduct their own funeral oration. Maybe sing a hymn. Then they would cross themselves, close their eyes and drop into the ocean.

The Voice

Nikki curled foetal and covered her head. Waves slammed into the boat. She had sealed herself below deck. She rode out a series of impacts like one car crash after another. She wrapped herself in a sleeping bag for extra protection. She lay in the dark. Every couple of minutes she felt the boat rise like it was about to take off, then dive into a deep trough. She sang to calm herself down, but couldn’t hear her own voice above the white-noise roar of the maelstrom.

She was cramped. She could barely move. She had lowered the sail and rigging, folded the silver fabric, coiled the rope, and stowed them below deck.

The mast was still raised. A design fault. It was welded in place. It could not be lowered flat. A big steel spike raised skyward during a fierce lightning storm.

Nikki doubted she would feel a lightning bolt when it struck. Steel mast, aluminium hull. She would be microwaved in an instant. A cooked sailor, lying in her bunk, crisped and smoking, like a hunk of roast pork.

She lay waiting to see if the boat would shake itself to pieces. She waited to see if the bolts and welds would hold. She waited to see if she would live or die.

She wondered how long the storm would last. She checked the luminescent dial of her watch. Seven hours of wind and rain.

It felt like the waves were easing off. She switched on her flashlight. The cardboard storage boxes had split open. The interior of the cabin was a jumble of tins and cartons. Her sleeping bag was dusted with cornflakes.

She wriggled to the roof hatch. She reached for the deadbolt. She hesitated. This could be a big mistake. If the typhoon ripped the hatch from her hand the boat would quickly become inundated and sink. Yet the waves seemed to be diminishing. The boat was no longer hurled from side to side. Maybe the storm had passed.

Nikki released the deadbolt and lifted the hatch a fraction. Blast of frozen wind and salt spray.

Flash of lightning.

She let her eyes adjust. A seething ocean. Surging, frothing waves.

Second sheet of lightning.

Something up ahead. Something big, oncoming, eclipsing the stars.

‘Holy fuck.’

A massive wave, high as an office block.

She slammed the hatch and hammered the deadbolts home. She threw herself on to the bunk and curled tight.

Building roar. The boat was rising, rising like an express elevator.

Brief moment of balance at the summit of the wave, like a rollercoaster about to plunge.

The boat pitched nose-first. Smash impact. Fast tumble. The boat flipped end over end. Nikki stayed foetal and protected her head as she was pelted with cans and cartons.

Deceleration. Slow spin, then calm and quiet.