Lucya walked away from the window and wandered slowly back among the rows of grey consoles to the front of the bridge. She settled down in the captain’s chair, looking forward instead of back.
The bridge was quiet. Dave was manning navigation and communications. The only communication now was with HMS Ambush, the Royal Navy nuclear submarine that was the source of their power, tethered to the Spirit of Arcadia and sailing alongside her, partially submerged for the sake of efficiency.
Chuck Masters, trainee helmsman, was at the wheel, which in reality was a set of controls that told the computer how to steer the ship. The asteroid had knocked out the GPS satellites, but close to land they could safely rely on radar to navigate on autopilot. Chuck still took his responsibility seriously, and remained as vigilant as if he was in full control.
McNair, a submariner on loan from the Ambush, completed the skeleton crew, acting as lookout on the shift. He was far better qualified than Chuck to be at the helm, but Captain Jake Noah had impressed upon everyone the importance of having a number of people capable of doing every job on the bridge. That meant giving Chuck as much hands-on time as possible. They’d already lost one helmsman; losing another could be catastrophic if there was nobody to take their place.
“Crozon isn’t that much further south, Dave,” said Lucya, sighing. “If you’re expecting sunshine and orange groves you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I’ll settle for just the sunshine. I suspect orange groves are a long shot anywhere now.”
“How long is it going to take us to get there?”
Dave hesitated before answering. “I would have said eighteen to twenty hours, keeping it slow and steady.”
“Would have?”
“Yeah. There’s going to be a bit of a delay though.”
“Go on?”
“I’m picking up a distress signal, and it looks an awful lot like another one of those mysterious life rafts.”
• • •
The lights were off in Max Mooting’s deck-six office. The only window in the room looked onto the corridor outside, and the blind was shut. The office was in almost total darkness. Max preferred it that way. It meant people tended to stay out, thinking he wasn’t there.
Max didn’t like people, as a rule. He was deeply suspicious of them. It was a trait that had served him well in his capacity as head of security. Now things were different, and Max had to try and be nice to people on a regular basis. Not the community at large; they still got his gruff, public face. He had to be nice to his team.
Back in what Max liked to think of as the ‘good old days’, a couple of months ago, before the asteroid wiped out almost all life on earth, his job was simple. In spite of his impressive-sounding title, he had a team of precisely one: Reeve Canela. They had worked well together. Reeve did the being-nice-to-passengers thing, and Max dealt with the trouble makers. Then Reeve had disappeared, presumed dead, probably killed by Flynn Bakeman or one of his deranged ‘disciples’.
Max would happily have continued in his role all alone, but the committee had been handing out jobs for everyone on board, and security was no exception. Now Max found himself in charge of a team of twenty Community Security Officers, a term that made his skin crawl. It made it sound like his men and women were there to protect and serve the community. Max didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned, he was there to protect the ship and the crew from the community. Max was a company man through and through, and the fact the company had gone, along with the rest of the world, wasn’t going to change that in a hurry.
His office was tiny. He couldn’t fit even half his team in there. If he needed to address them all at once, he had to borrow one of the conference rooms outside of school hours, as they had recently become classrooms.
With his feet up on the desk, Max had begun to doze. There was probably paperwork to be done. A report to write, or some other pointless document to prepare for the next committee meeting. He could find someone else to do that for him. If he was to be encumbered with a bunch of subordinates, they could at least do his job for him.
He was rudely jolted awake by a voice booming through the door, accompanied by a determined knocking. It was the sort of knocking that wasn’t going to go away.
“Security? I require the assistance of security!” The voice penetrated the flimsy door and wound its way directly and irritatingly into Max’s ears.
“Security’s closed. Come back tomorrow.”
“This is an emergency. You can’t be closed: you’re the law.”
That, Max thought, was a fair point. Out at sea, he was the law. He was pleased someone else saw it that way too. He swung his size-thirteen feet off the desk, stretched, and waddled to the door.
On the other side he found a tall, elderly man with thinning white hair.
“Right, sir,” he said as politely as he could reasonably force himself. “What’s the emergency?”
“It’s my friend, Giles. He’s gone missing.”
Max groaned. “With all due respect, sir, nobody can go missing. We’re on a ship. In the ocean. Where is your friend going to go?”
“That’s what I want you to find out.”
Max trudged back inside and flopped into his chair. He didn’t invite his visitor into the office. “Could he have been killed by the ash? That’s what happened to most people who are missing, you know. Have you consulted the list of unknowns? There are photos of all those who weren’t identified.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, man. The ash was seven weeks ago. I’ve been playing bingo with young Giles every day since then.”
“When did you last see him?”
“A week ago. When we left Faslane. Poor chap was struck down with that terrible virus, but he pulled through. He was right as rain by the time we set sail.”
Max considered the man’s request. He knew the drill. The quickest way to get rid of him would be to go along with it, to go through the motions and make out he was doing something. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a notebook and pen. The book was entirely empty, but he didn’t let his visitor see that. Instead, he flipped through the pages, nodding to himself, before settling on a blank page a quarter of the way through. He lay the book flat on the desk. “Right, I’d better take some details. Your friend’s full name?”
“Giles Moran.”
“Age? Appearance?”
“Sixty-four years old. Completely bald. Wears horn-rimmed spectacles, and a suit. Always a suit. Very well dressed, Giles.”
“Cabin number?”
“923.”
Max nodded again. That stood to reason. Deck nine was home to the largest state rooms. Giles sounded to Max like a snob; exactly the sort of person he’d expect to find in the nines. Exactly the sort of person he loathed: privileged; moneyed. Probably thought he was better than those on the lower decks, and certainly thought he was better than the crew. He disliked him already. As far as he was concerned, Giles wasn’t any great loss. He hoped he wouldn’t be found. Someone more deserving could take his cabin. Someone who had been assigned an important job, like a medical assistant, or a farmer. “And your name is?”
“Tom Sanderson. Cabin 907.”
Max’s pen scratched at the paper, scrawling down the information. “Something of a hero aren’t you, Mr Sanderson? Saved us all with your magical medication?”
Tom waved a hand dismissively. “That could have been anyone. The lovely Mrs Hanson and the rather clever Mr Vardy, they’re the real heroes. Although, I did stop the engine room from blowing up and sinking the ship. That was quite heroic.”
Max sighed. He’d heard all about that incident as well, but he wasn’t one for hero worship. Sanderson was another rich, privileged passenger; that was all that mattered. “Well, I think I’ve got all I need here. I’ll open an investigation and we’ll be in touch. Thank you, Mr Sanderson.”