The blizzard that had pinned them to this island was gone.
“Finally,” Rhiannon sighed as she squeezed in next to Emily. Thor pushed his way between them and bounded off into the snow, barking as he plummeted through the newly fallen powder.
MacAlister stood behind the two women, then all three stepped aside to allow Jacob to edge up to the open door.
“Notice anything different?” MacAlister asked.
“Besides the absence of the ninety-mile-an-hour winds and the blinding blizzard?” Jacob asked, his voice buoyed by a sense of sarcasm. “Not really.”
“Look beyond what you can see,” MacAlister said in his most mystical voice, his eyes wide and his hands fluttering at the side of his head.
Emily ignored the cold and stepped down the steps into the snow. Slowly she turned, trying to take in everything: The sky above her head was clear of all but a few wispy white clouds, the sun beat down on her skin as it burned brightly in a blue sky that stretched off to the vanishing point in the distance.
To the clear horizon, Emily realized.
“Oh my God!” she whispered, her hands flew to her mouth, not daring to believe what she was seeing. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh… my… God.” Her eyes raised skyward, and she twirled around, looking for all the world like a child intent on making herself dizzy.
“What is it, Emily? What do you see?” Jacob called out.
Emily skipped back to the door and the waiting survivors. Truth was, she wanted to dance her way back, but the snow was still too deep for that. But already she could see the telltale wet glistening of a thaw.
“Careful!” said MacAlister.
“Careful, my ass!” she yelled out, grabbed MacAlister’s face with both her hands and, before either knew what she was doing, planted a smacker on his lips. She felt her face blush as the look of surprise on MacAlister’s face turned into a broad grin. To cover up her own embarrassment she grabbed Rhiannon and pulled her down into the snow with her.
“It’s gone,” she yelled, kicking waves of snow with her hands at the two men in the doorway as if she was in a pool.
“What is?” Jacob yelled back, frustration in his voice.
“The red storm,” Rhiannon yelled back. “The red storm is gone.”
No one knew when the alien storm had finally released its stranglehold on the planet. The only thing they did know was that when they looked out beyond the curve of the island, in every direction to the thin line where the sky met the sea, the blood-red clouds that had stained them for so many days were gone, vanished as though they had never been there. It had not simply faded away or subsided, there was no slow diminishing of its fury, nothing. It was simply gone, as if God himself had, with the sweep of a hand, brushed it from the skies.
Emily, Rhiannon, and Thor joined the crew of the Vengeance in the courtyard between the buildings, a white fog of hot breath collecting above their heads. Two crewmen carried Jacob and his wheelchair from his room, swaying from side to side as the two sailors carefully picked their way over the melting snow, like he was some ancient pharaoh. As they set him gently on the snowy ground, Emily looked down at the man who had brought her here. He looked about ready to cry, and Emily felt something shift inside her. It was as if, with the passing of the storm, her anger for him had also diminished… at least, a little.
It was still freezing out here, no way would they be ditching their coats just yet, but now that the blizzard had stopped, standing still for any period of time no longer meant you ran the risk of being frozen into a human Popsicle.
And the view. My God, the view was breathtaking now that she finally had a chance to take it all in. A crisp white blanket of snow with a top layer of rapidly melting ice particles that scintillated in the light lay across the undulating ground of the island, stretching off in all directions seemingly until it met the blue of the sky. But Emily knew the island sloped away just a few thousand feet from where she stood, dropping gradually down until it met the Beaufort Sea. As Emily listened carefully, in the spaces between the excited chatter of the assembled group, she could hear the waves breaking against the shoreline in the distance.
Everything looked so normal.
Emily had tuned out the chatter of the survivors milling around the entrance to the hospital block, but now she allowed the voices to fade back in again.
“…what’s it mean?…”
“…you think it’s safe now?…”
“…can we leave?…”
At a nod from Emily, the two sailors flanking Jacob raised him up again and followed Emily into the hospital building, depositing him in the corridor of the sailors’ quarters. Emily took the wheelchair’s two handles and began pushing Jacob toward the main room where the rest of the survivors now waited.
Jacob swiveled his head around and looked back at Emily with curiosity.
“Don’t start getting used to it, just yet,” she told him.
He looked at her with his sad eyes, the words almost forming on his lips, but instead he smiled. He faced forward again. “Onward James,” he laughed, with a pretty good imitation of an English accent, before adding “and don’t spare the horses.”
What had been the hospital area was now filled with the sub crew. They sat on the beds or stood together in small groups talking excitedly. Everyone looks ten years younger, Emily thought as she entered the room with Rhiannon, MacAlister, Jacob, and Thor.
MacAlister squeezed Emily’s elbow and nodded toward the front of the room where Captain Constantine and another man were talking.
“Duty calls,” Mac said and zagged across the room to join the men. Emily aimed Jacob toward the front, maneuvering the wheelchair through the tangles of bodies.
Captain Constantine’s deep voice cut through the chatter. “Alright. Alright. Quiet down everyone. I know today has brought some very exciting developments, but we still need to maintain discipline.” He waited for all eyes to be on him and all mouths to stop moving before he continued. “Alright, that’s more like it. While it does seem that the storm has abated, we still don’t know what’s changed out there. Now, I know that you’re all eager to get off this rock—no offense to our gracious hosts—but the simple fact of the matter is that we have no idea what this latest development means for us. And of course we’re not going anywhere until we repair the fire damage to the boat.
“I’m sure you all have a lot of questions, but neither I nor the good people of this station have any answers for you just yet. However, as soon as we have any clue as to the sudden disappearance of the storm, I can guarantee you will be the first to know about it. In the meantime… Mr. MacAlister?”
“Skipper?” grunted MacAlister.
“I want you to get some eyes on the inside of the boat to assess the damage. When you have a good idea of how bad it is, I’ll need you to organize two cleanup crews: twelve hours on, twelve hours off, so we have a constant presence on the sub. Am I understood?”
“Yes, skipper!” MacAlister replied.
“In the meantime, I want all of you to remain as calm and as professional as you have been up until this juncture. Am I understood?”
The crew responded in unison: “Sir!”
“Alright then. You are dismissed. Mr. MacAlister, carry on.”
Immediately MacAlister began barking orders at the crew. Within minutes he and three men had collected tools and supplies from the stash they had brought ashore and headed off in the direction they had originally arrived from.
“I think I’m going to head back to the radio room. Now that the storm’s over, maybe I’ll have better luck contacting the ISS again,” Jacob told Emily.