Текст книги "Noah's Ark: Survivors"

Автор книги: Harry Dayle

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Seventeen

MAX GREETED THEM at the door, let them inside, closed and locked it behind them. Silvia had already returned with Martin, who nodded once at Jake. Everyone assembled around the map table. Jake felt all eyes were on him.

“Right, so, erm,”

“Jake, we’re your friends, we have every confidence in you,” Silvia said kindly.

“Yes, yes of course, thank you Silvia. Okay, first things first, what is the state of this ship, Martin?”

“I’ve got a couple of guys in the funnel, they’re clearing out the ash. It’s a slow job, they’re having to scoop it out with their bare hands, we don’t have the equipment to get in there and do it any quicker, our machines are just too big to get into that sort of space.”

Silvia perked up. “Would a couple of vacuum cleaners from housekeeping help?” Her face fell again. “Oh, but there’s no electricity.”

“No, you’re right, that’s not a bad idea Silvia. We have a few portable generators knocking around in the engine room, we could run them off those. What sort of size are we talking about? It’a a pretty tiny space.”

“They’re about so big,” Silvia indicated the dimensions with her hands.

“Perfect! They can get those down there, that will really save some time.”

“Okay, so with the cleaners, how long before we can get the generator working?” Jake asked.

“Maybe four hours? But it would make sense to clean out the exhaust for the main engine at the same time. If we start the main generator the guys are going to have to work around the hot exhaust for that, it will make the job ten times harder.”

“So how long to clean them both?”

“Well,” Martin pondered the question, drumming his fingers on the steel table top. “At a push we could do it in six hours, seven tops.”

“Alright, push as hard as you can, we have to get power back as a priority. Once we do, how long can we keep the generator going?”

“If we don’t start the main engines, and depending on which services we keep running, we’re okay for at least ten days.”

“Right, services.” Jake paused and thought. “We need light, the passengers are really unhappy about that.”

Silvia and Max nodded in agreement.

“We’re going to need heat too,” Lucya said. “I’m not the only one who noticed how cold it’s getting on board, right?”

“Yes, heat. But the minimum, Keep the temperature at sixteen degrees at the most. We’ll tell people to wear more clothes if they’re cold.”

“Fifteen,” Max interjected. “Fifteen degrees. That’s more than enough.”

“Okay, fifteen. But no hot water. I just took a cold shower and I feel better for it. Hot water is a luxury we can do without.”

“Water is a whole other question,” Martin said. He was met with questioning looks from around the table. “Desalination? You all know we get our water from the sea, don’t you?”

It was clear that this was news to everyone except Jake.

“I thought it came out of the tanks?” Silvia asked. “We fill up tanks at every port, don’t we?”

“Sure, but that’s really a backup supply. We use it when docked because water in the ports tends to be full of diesel and other crap,” Martin explained. “As soon as we’re a couple of miles out, we switch to water from the desalination plant. The tanks would never be enough to supply a ship this size.”

“And the plant runs of electricity from the generator,” Jake added.

“Right. And so does waste water treatment. So we have to ask ourselves, how much water do we really need?” Martin looked around the table.

“There has to be basic sanitation,” Silvia said. “People need to wash, to flush toilets, or we could end up spreading germs and disease.”

“Silvia, you do understand we could be stranded for who knows how long?” Max didn’t look impressed. “Toilets I’ll grant you, but come on, back in the army you were lucky if you got a cold shower every couple of weeks on some tours. I say we switch off water to all the showers in the cabins, just leave one block running in the gym. If people have to queue, they won’t bother.”

“I wish we could,” Martin said. “But there’s no way to do that apart from visiting every cabin individually and cutting the supply, one by one. It would take days.”

“Okay, so we introduce a ration system,” Jake said. “Martin, I assume you can shut off the water to the whole ship from the desalination plant?”

“Of course.”

“So we let people know that the water will be on for one hour in the morning. Outside those hours they’ll have to make do.”

“The passengers aren’t going to like this. They’re not going to like it one little bit,” Lucya said, rubbing her neck.

“If we tell them it’s that or we switch the lights and heat off, they’ll understand,” Max said.

Everyone nodded, the matter seemed settled. Jake opened one of the draws under the table and moved around the contents until he found what he was looking for. He extracted a large blue crayon-like pencil. They were designed for plotting courses on laminated maps, but he had other ideas in mind. He started writing directly on the shiny table surface: “Water” Underneath, he wrote “Rationed, 09:00 − 10:00”

“Okay,” he said. “Anything else on water, while we’re at it?”

“What about the pools?” Silvia asked. “Five swimming pools and a few hot tubs, there’s a lot of water in those. Can we use any of it?”

“The pools drain through the waste water plant,” Martin said. “We could disconnect them and reconnect them to the fresh water tanks, drain them into those. That buys us a bit of extra fuel as we can use that water instead of the desalinated stuff.”

“Speaking of waste water,” Jake was stroking his chin, deep in thought, “you said that it gets treated by another machine?”

“Yes. Water from showers, sinks, the kitchens and bars, all that stuff gets filtered then goes overboard. Anything from the toilets goes through a shredder then dumped at sea. It’s the shredder that needs the power, that and the pumps. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Jake asked. “Can’t we bypass the shredder and dump everything as it is? Nobody is going to complain!”

“Because within twenty four hours this ship is going to be floating in a lake of its own shit,” Martin said. “And sucking that same shit up into the desalination plant to use as fresh water.”

Silvia screwed up her face. “Won’t the sea carry it away, on the currents?” she asked

“I doubt the currents up here are strong enough to have much of an effect,” Lucya said. “We could move to a better location, we’d need a few hours sailing time. Are you willing to burn that much fuel Captain?”

All eyes turned to Jake, waiting for his response, but he remained silent. He looked around the table, didn’t understand why nobody had answered.

“Captain Noah?” Max said.

“Oh, right, that’s me. Sorry, this captain thing is going to take some getting used to. Lucya, work out a course to take us somewhere where the water problem wont be an issue, but make sure we’re headed towards land. If we’re going to burn fuel, we should at the very least get closer to land. We all know we can’t survive at sea indefinitely, even with rationing. Our objective has to be to try and find land, and land that hasn’t been destroyed by the asteroid.”

Once again everyone nodded their agreement.

“What else is in limited supply?” Jake looked around at the others. “We don’t know how long we’re stuck at sea, what can we not live without, and how much of it have we got? Food has to be the next priority, after water and fuel.”

“We’re well stocked, but of course supplies are finite,” Silvia leapt in, glad to be back in her comfort zone. “I suggest we close all the restaurants and bars immediately. Anything non perishable should be preserved. The freezers are going to need power, they have to be a priority, no?”

“Agreed. We can’t afford to let any food spoil. Martin, can we keep a supply to the freezers and still cut other non-essential services?”

“Yes, they’re run on a separate supply. They draw a lot of power, but sure, we can keep them running.”

Jake was scribbling more notes on the surface of the table. He had added two more headings and drawn vertical lines between them, creating columns for water, fuel, and food. As tasks we assigned, he noted them in the relevant column along with the initials of the person responsible.

“I know it’s a big job Silvia, but can you organise some of your people to take an inventory of all the food we have available? Then get the head chef to get a team together and figure out a menu that can feed everyone on board three meals a day for at least the next five days, and still have five days food in reserve?”

Silvia whistled through her teeth. “It’s not going to be easy. Five days? With as much again in reserve?”

“I’m not talking fine dining here. We need basic meals, the minimum required to provide everyone with enough calories to live on. Chef will love it, a new challenge.”

“Try and work it so that the frozen stuff gets eaten first. Any freezers we can empty, we can switch off,” Martin said.

“Alright, we’re getting there. This will buy us some time that we can use to work out a longer term plan. I’ll make an announcement, let everyone know what’s happening. Is there anything else we need to deal with urgently?”

“There is one other matter,” Max said. “We need to deal with the dead. There are a lot of bodies down below, people who got caught up in that dust cloud. Grau’s got them in some kind of chiller, but they’re going to go off pretty quick.”

“Your suggestion?” Jake feared he already knew the answer.

“Those bodies should go over the side. It ain’t gonna be popular, I’ll grant you, but for the safety of everyone else it has to be done.”

Jake sighed. “No, you’re right. It has to be done. But it should be done with dignity. I’ll announce a service, we’ll get the minister to say a few words, assuming he’s survived.”

Max rolled his eyes.

“They’re still people, Max,” Jake said. “Many of them will have relatives who have survived. We can’t just dump them over the side like a sack of spoiled potatoes. They get a proper sea burial, even if the service takes a whole day. And nobody is obliged to attend,” he added quickly. “Max, I need you to do what you do best. Get out and about around the ship, get a feel for the mood. Things are going to be hard going for the next few days, I expect not everyone is going to accept that. We need to be ready for problems before they arise.”

“You want me doing community policing?”

“You could call it that, why not. Call it intelligence work if it makes you feel better. You’re head of security, and the way I see it, maintaining the peace is one of the most important things we can do if we are to survive this. But put that weapon back in the locker please, we’re not at war, and I don’t think we need to worry about pirates. Walking around with that on your shoulder is just going to alienate us from the passengers. Martin, can you find whoever is in charge of maintenance and get them to organise a crew to go over this ship top to bottom and check for serious damage? Someone needs to fix the windows in here before we freeze to death, and no doubt the bridge isn’t the hardest hit area. Anything that can be fixed without using power, should be fixed, within reason. Windows, the deck thirteen roof, that kind of thing. Get the place weathertight.”

“Okay, shouldn’t be a problem,” Martin said.

“Great, then I think that’s all for now,” Jake felt relief that this was almost over. “Let’s arrange to meet back here at,” he checked his watch, ”twenty two hundred. That gives us six hours. I want everyone to try get some sleep before then, too, it could be a long night. Any problems, I want to know. Are the internal comms working?”

Martin nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll get them back online from the battery.”

“Okay then, let’s get to it. And by the way, I want all of you in uniform. Until we know otherwise, we are all still employees of Pelagios Line, and we need to show that the crew are still running the show.”

Max, Silvia and Martin filed out of the door, leaving Lucya and Jake stood at the table. Neither said a word until the door was closed.

“You did really well Jake, you’re going to be fine at this, really.”

“I’m winging it. Martin can tell, he’s going along with it for now, but he won’t take orders from me forever.”

“What is it with you two anyway?” Lucya tilted her head, looked at Jake with huge wide eyes.

“Surely you don’t need to ask that?” He felt suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Yes, I do. You two used to be such good friends.”

“Oh, hey, I’m taking up your table. You need to get to the maps to plot your course.”

“Don’t change the subject! And I don’t need the maps, I’ll just use the navigation computer.”

“I don’t think any of the computers have power yet. Looks like you’re going to have to work the old fashioned way. What do you think, can you remember how?” He grinned at her.

“Cheeky. You are a cheeky man. I will show you just what I can do with a map. But first I am going to get washed and changed before Martin switches off the water. I might even have a little rest, captain’s orders you know.” With that, she rounded the table, and slipped through the door.

Jake stared at his scrawled notes across the steel surface. He opened a draw and took out a pad of paper and a pen. He began to plan out just what he was going to say to everyone on board.

Eighteen

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN can I have your attention please. Your attention, please. This is acting Captain Jake Noah. Earlier today, Staff Captain Hollen addressed this ship and promised that we would update you with news of how the asteroid we witnessed, has affected the rest of the world. Surely everyone aboard has someone back home they are desperate to hear from. The news I bring is not what you will want to hear, but I am not going to lie to you. So far, we have not been able to make contact with anyone back on land. It is important we do not draw any hasty conclusions from this fact. It is possible, likely even, that the asteroid damaged radio equipment, or even that the dust and ash cloud which trailed it is casing interference. The only way we can know for sure if there are other survivors, on land, is to go and see. We are, however, limited by our fuel supply. The same fuel that drives this ship also drives all the services, including power and light. Tempting though it may be, we cannot just sail off and start our search, we must plan ahead carefully, to make the most of our resources.

Although this ship is large, it does carry only a finite quantity of fuel and food. If we wish to survive much further into the future, we must be smart about how we consume both. For this reason, effective immediately, we are introducing a rationing system ship-wide…”

Jake proceeded to announce all that had been discussed, the food and water rationing, the limited use of electricity and heating. He announced that a service for the dead would be held on the deck four rear terrace the following morning, anyone who wished to attend was welcome.

“These measures I know will not be easy, but I hope you all understand that they are necessary. They apply to everyone aboard, crew and passengers alike. It goes without saying that all normal services on board are suspended. All crew members are relieved of their regular duties. We are, to all intents and purposes, in a kind of hibernation. I recommend everyone tries to get some rest. Those who are injured and have not yet been treated should attend the medical centre, which has now been relocated to the gym. If your injuries are not serious, please do give consideration to others who may need attention more urgently than yourself.”

Jake felt he was beginning to ramble. He knew he needed to wrap it up.

“I know you may have many questions and concerns, and we will address these as best we can in due course. For now, I ask for your patience as we adapt to our enforced circumstances. Urgent problems can be addressed to uniformed senior crew members, who will do their best to help. Thank you.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that the announcement was lacking in authority and conviction, not to mention structure and coherence, but he was just happy to have got it over with. The questions would come, of that he had no doubt. For now though, he wanted to take his own advice and get some more rest. He settled down in the captain’s chair, closed his eyes, and was asleep within seconds.

• • • • •

He was awoken by the sound of Lucya working on her maps behind him. Checking his watch he saw, to his horror, that he had been asleep for more than four hours.

“Hey sleepy!” Lucya called over.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You needed the rest.”

“We all need rest.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I got my head down for a few hours too. I’ve only just come back.”

Jake got to his feed, stretched, yawned, and took a look outside. The sky head cleared even more, there was even a hint of sunshine. Looking at the flat calm water, at the mass of ice in the distance, once again starting to shine in the light like the dawn of a new day, it seemed impossible to believe what had happened only hours earlier. The serenity of the scene gave him hope. If this place, this inhospitable arctic desert, could look so placid and beautiful after the onslaught it had suffered, then there was a real chance that other parts of the world had survived too. He desperately wanted to give the order to fire up the main engines, to pull up the anchor and to sail south to look for survivors, for civilisation, for land. But he knew that was impossible. He had one throw of the dice, and the lives of everyone on the ship depended on getting it right.

He wandered over to the map table to find Lucya deep in concentration. There were two huge nautical charts laid out, as well as a long plastic rule, coloured pencils, and a circular slide rule.

“Having trouble?” he asked.

“It’s been a while since I did these kind of calculations by hand. Don’t laugh, and don’t say I told you so. I’ll get it, I just need to refresh my memory.”

“I have total confidence in you. Listen, I think I’m going to head out and try and get around the ship a bit, see how the others are getting on. There are nearly a thousand crew members I haven’t spoken to apart from over the PA. I should at least try and talk to more of the department heads, let them know what’s occurring.”

“A few people have already asked me why you’re acting captain, they want to know what’s happened to Ibsen and Hollen.”

“What have you said?” Jake felt a pang of concern.

“I said you’d brief everyone in due course,” Lucya pulled a face, like a naughty child expecting to be told off. “I was right though, wasn’t I? That’s what you’re going to be doing now, as you go round the ship?”

“Yeah, yeah you were right. But what do I say? How do I tell people Ibsen killed Hollen and I killed Ibsen?”

“You don’t. You simply say that they both died following the ash cloud. Hundreds died, nobody is going to question it.”

“But Hollen spoke to the ship after the ash cloud had passed, so that won’t work. I suppose,” he stared into the middle distance, his mind turning over possibilities, “if I just say that he didn’t survive his injuries following the ash cloud, then technically that’s the truth.”

“Right, and if people assume that his injuries were caused by the ash, that’s not really your fault, is it?” Lucya smiled.

“I’ll see you back here in a few hours for the senior officers meeting,” Jake said.

“You sound like a captain already.”

Nineteen

HIS FIRST PORT of call was the kitchen. He wanted to catch up with Claude Dupont, the head chef. There was one huge kitchen, on deck seven. It serviced the three restaurants and four cafes on board, as well as the crew canteen, and provided snacks for the bars. Normally the place was a hive of activity, with Claude shrieking out orders to the hoards of cooks who scurried about. It was a very different scene today though. No columns of steam rising from hotplates, no bubbling pots, or clanging pans or hissing griddles. Claude was seated at a stainless steel bench. Behind him a couple of people wearing white and blue cooks uniforms were busy loading food into a giant freezer.

“Hi Claude,” Jake smiled jovially.

The chef looked up at him with a sour expression. He was a tiny man, bespectacled and slightly balding. Jake had always thought he looked more like he belonged in a magic shop, or a very niche second hand book store, not a kitchen. Despite his diminutive stature, he was a formidable character. He had a reputation for whacking errant cooks on the back of the legs with a ladle, although to be fair nobody could attest to ever having seen this happen. Nobody wanted to find out if it was true though, so when Claude told anyone to do anything, they would eagerly cry “Yes chef!” without question, no matter how odd or unreasonable the order.

“Well well, a visit from the captain himself. Sorry, the acting captain,” Claude corrected himself, loading the words with sarcasm. “I did not think I was worthy.”

“How are you getting on with the inventory?”

Claude ignored the question entirely. “I hear there is a new club, a group of elite staff who meet on the bridge. A bridge club you might say,” he laughed at his own joke, but it was a hollow, false laugh. “Mr Noah and his band of cronies, planning out the future, creating their empire while the rest of us wait for our orders to be handed down from on high.”

“Claude, if you are upset at not being at our meeting, then I can only apologise. Our immediate priority was to stabilise the ship. Now our concern is the wellbeing of everyone on board. If there are any elite staff, then you are certainly one of them. Feeding three thousand people with limited resources and power is a challenge unlike any other, and I honestly cannot think of anyone better qualified to take it on than you.”

“You are laying on the compliment a bit thick Monsieur Noah. I am not stupid, do you think I am stupid?”

“Far from it, and I mean what I say. In fact, now that emergency repairs are underway, you are the first person I have come to see. I came straight from the bridge to find out how you were progressing, and to ask you to join us at the next bridge meeting in,” Jake looked at his watch, “just over two hours. If you cannot make it then I will understand.”

“No, no you are right. It is true that without sustenance, without nourriture, all your efforts will be in vain. I will come to your meeting, and I will report my progress to you at that time.”

“Great, that’s good. Well, I will see you later on the bridge then.”

“A tout a l’heure Captain.”

Claude returned to his notes. It was clear that Jake’s audience was at an end. He left the kitchen relieved. It looked like he’d won Claude over, but there were so many others still to see.

• • • • •

The next person Jake wanted to visit was the head of housekeeping. New Yorker Tania Bloom had held that post for as long as Jake had been on the ship. Like so many from her home town, she was a straight talker. Likeable, and friendly once you got to know her, she presented a tough exterior to the outside world. Her shoulder pads were legendary, as were her heels.

Jake wasn’t sure where he would find her. He tried her office on deck seven, but it was locked and his knocks failed to elicit any response. He made his way down to her cabin on deck three, but it was the same story. Thinking that perhaps he should see if the medics had seen her, he headed back up a level to the gym. It was quieter than he expected, a few people he didn’t recognise, presumably passengers, were seated on the side of the room waiting to be seen. One nurse was on duty, Jake recognised her as Kiera, he knew she had briefly dated Martin. Grau was with a patient, securing bandages to her arm. As soon as he was done he waved Jake over to join him on the far side of the gym.

“How is your hand, Captain?” he asked quietly, but his voice still echoed around the impressively voluminous space.

“Fine, fine. But never mind that, how are you doing down here?”

“I think we’ve dealt with the most urgent cases. We lost three this evening, they’re down below, along with those who were DOA. It looks like it was smoke inhalation from the dust cloud. Mostly it has been burns though. Burns, and quite a lot of cuts and bruises from broken glass. Many windows blew in.”

“Have you had any rest, Grau?”

“I’m about to go and get some sleep now. Kiera and David have got everything covered here, now it has calmed down.”

“That’s good. Listen, do you know Tania Bloom, and have you seen her down here? She’s not in her office or cabin.”

“Yes, I know Tania, but I haven’t seen her. Let me check the log in case one of the others has.” Grau opened a thick notebook and ran his finger down a list of handwritten names. “These are the people we’ve seen since we have been here. We didn’t get to log everyone we saw before moving to the gym, it was just too chaotic. No, it doesn’t look like she has been down here.”

“Okay, thanks Grau. I have other people to see, hopefully I’ll run into her on my way around.”

“There is another possibility, of course. I know we don’t want to think of it, but it wasn’t just passengers that were caught in that cloud, there were crew out there too.”

“You think she could be dead? Do you have a list, of the…deceased?”

“Yes, and she’s not on it. But she could be one of the unknowns.”

“The unknowns?”

“You know, the John Does, or the John Smiths, whatever you call them. Unidentified. Our list only carries the names of those positively identified by their families who brought them to us. At least a third of the bodies down there, we don’t know who they are yet.”

Jake suddenly felt sick at the thought. He hadn’t considered the question of the dead any further than just holding a service and then disposing of them respectfully.

“Don’t panic,” Grau said, clearly sensing that Jake didn’t know what to do. “People are already coming to us when they can’t find family or friends. We have got names for at least a dozen bodies that way. But a lot of the crew members won’t be missed by anyone for some time. And there are many couples who died together, they may not have anyone else on board who will miss them. We need the passenger and crew manifest and then we must go through and find out who is alive and who is dead. We may not be able to match all the names to bodies, but at least we will know. We cannot bury these people at sea until we know who they are, or at least have made every effort to find out.”

“No, you’re right of course. It’s a morbid affair, but yes, it has to be done. It won’t be easy to organise. Unless…” he pulled up a chair and sat down opposite the doctor, lost in thought. “I kind of had this idea that we should find out more about who we have on board, who these people are. If we are…if the rest of the world has…if there’s nobody else out there, then this is it. This boat could represent the last community of people. If there are no towns left, nowhere to settle, then we will have to build a new home. We cannot live on a ship indefinitely, and even if we are stuck at sea for weeks or even months, we will have huge challenges to overcome. We will need to produce food and energy. Every person here will need to pull their weight, to do their bit. And that means we need to know who these people are and what they can do.”

“You are thinking of a census?” Grau was nodding slowly.

“Yes, a census. But we don’t have to call it that, because we don’t want to cause people to panic. It’s probably easier for them not to think too far ahead. Right now, we’ve survived, and that fact alone is enough. When reality really sinks in, that’s when our problems will begin. If people think there is no future, no hope, then who knows what they will do? So we don’t want to encourage them to think about the future, not yet.”

“So we dress up our census as part of a crew and passenger roster. Interesting idea. But you think people will give you personal details without question?”

“It depends how we ask for those details,” Jake said, thinking hard. “Rather than just checking names off the passenger list and saying ‘by the way, what do you do for a living?’, we must reframe the whole exercise. We tell people that the passenger list was destroyed by fire. We say that we need to know who is on board so that we can calculate the food rations, that kind of thing. So we say we’re recreating the passenger manifest.”

“Yes, this could work, it gives us a reason to talk to everyone on board. A true census. We would have to insist everyone returned to their cabins for the duration of the exercise, to be sure that they got counted.”

“Right. And we issue them with a piece of paper to say that they have been processed, that their name is on the list. Make it that they must present the paper to get their meal ration. So it’s in their interest to make sure they are counted. We’ll send out a team to take the census. We’ll ask the minimum questions we can while still gathering useful information. Name, date of birth, country of residence, profession.”

“You’ll need many people to do go knocking door to door, this needs to be done quickly.”

“If I can find Tania, I can mobilise her team. The housekeeping folk know the ship inside out, they spend their days going round every cabin on board. They will be perfect, and it will give them an important role to fulfil.”

Jake stood up and walked over to the wall, where a telephone was mounted. He picked it up and dialled a three digit number.

“Hey, Lucya, it’s Jake. I need you to put out a ship-wide call for Tania Bloom and Barry Nickelson to contact the bridge. If and when they do, can you send them both down to Barry’s office. I need to talk to them. Thanks.” He hung up and returned to his seat.

“Barry Nickelson?” Grau asked.

“Entertainment manager.”

“Oh, that Barry. I’ve heard about his parties. Not so much my, how do you say, cup of tea?”

“Barry’s okay. His team is one of the biggest on board, I really need to brief him on what’s happening.”