by Frank Tayell
“The problem’s spare parts and a lack of a dry dock,” he said. “If they can effect repairs before the winter storms, then the ship might survive until spring. It’ll need a sheltered harbour, or to spend the winter under the waves. It can’t stay out here, but right now it can’t submerge, or be moved. It’s a catch-22.”
“Ah. Then it’s most likely it’ll have to be scuttled?” I asked.
“Pretty much, which means the Santa Maria won’t be able to stray far from Anglesey for the foreseeable future. I’ll need to find another boat to take me across to the U.S.”
“How’s that search going?”
“Possibly quite well,” he said. “It’s too early to be sure. We’ve found a few likely looking ships close to shore. The question is whether they floated into the harbour or ran aground. We won’t know whether they’re seaworthy until we’ve inspected them. There are a few in Belfast Harbour, otherwise Liverpool might be our best bet.”
“If we get the oil,” I murmured, looking back at the approaching shape of the Smuggler’s Salvation. As soon as the boat had reached radio range, a messenger had been sent to our cottage. That was at four a.m. The only news, beyond that everyone was safe and well, was that there was oil in Svalbard. The message was scant on details, and there weren’t many more to be gleaned from the radio room when I’d arrived at the school. Daisy and I were getting underfoot, so we’d come to wait, first by the bakery where she’d enjoyed her now-customary complimentary second-breakfast, and then on the quayside by the old ferry dock.
“We’ll find a ship,” I said. “And then you can go back to the U.S.”
“Yeah, hopefully before winter. I want to get it over with,” he said. “I’ve been looking at the images we downloaded before the satellites’ orbits were changed. Towns, cities, villages, countryside, it seems like America is nothing but ash. It’s hard to believe it’s all gone. Hard, but I’ve got to accept it’s true. It’s like Britain, but on a larger scale. The larger population led to more zombies. The larger landmass led to more bombs being dropped. Then there’s the borders, giving access to the undead from two continents to drift north and south and… Well, I need to go, to stand among the ruins and see, and know, that there’s nothing more I can do. If I don’t, I’ll regret it, and I’ve too many regrets to add another to the catalogue.”
“And then you’ll come back?”
“We’ll come back,” he said. “I’ll recruit some people from among the crew of the Harper’s Ferry when it arrives. Sailors who know how to fire a gun, and know when not to. We’ll go, confirm it’s as bad as I think, then come back and… and I don’t know what happens next.”
“It’s hard to predict, isn’t it,” I said.
The Smuggler’s Salvation drew near enough that I could make out the figures standing at the rail.
“Here we go,” I said, and began mentally preparing for my speech. It was a good one. I’d spent as much time on it as I had on anything else those last few weeks. I’d rehearsed it, rewritten it, and edited it down to a mere two minutes. It was an unreserved apology and plea for understanding. There were themes and similes, alliteration and epistrophe, litotes and puns, and the moment that the boat hit the shore it was all forgotten. Annette jumped down. She opened her mouth. I hugged her, hard. She broke free and ran up the road.
“Now that,” Kim said, jumping ashore, “could have gone a lot worse.”
Sholto laughed. Daisy looked confused, and I was just heartily glad to have them both back.
“So what news from the frosty north?” Sholto asked, as the four of us ambled away from the docks in the direction Annette had run. At least, three of us ambled while Daisy squirmed in Kim’s arms.
“Well, you’re right, it’s cold,” she said. “That’s right, Daisy, seriously cold. Have you been to the Arctic?”
“No,” I said.
“If a centrally heated hotel in Greenland counts, yes,” Sholto said.
“Only if you slept in the walk-in freezer,” she said. “I…” Daisy reached a hand to Kim’s face as if confirming that she really was there. “You are a fidget, aren’t you? I’m sorry about leaving, and leaving like that, but I hope you don’t mind if I say that, after a day at sea, the thing I most regretted was not bringing any warm clothes. It’s savage up there. The weather, the landscape. There’s a beauty to it, but it’s a harsh one. Still, I’d always wanted to see more of the world, and now I have, I really am glad to be home.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Did you hear the news?” she asked, brushing over the awkward moment.
“We heard there’s oil in the supply dump,” Sholto said. “But that’s about it.”
“You didn’t get the report about Astrid Magnusson?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Ah,” Kim said. “We really need better communications.”
“We’ll be using satellites in future,” I said.
“Seriously? How?” she asked.
“Tell us about Astrid, and we’ll tell you about the satellites,” Sholto said. “Who is she?”
“Well, there are survivors on Svalbard,” Kim said. “You know there’s a seed vault there? They kept samples of the plants found across the planet in case of something apocalyptic.”
“I think the current state of the world counts as that,” Sholto said. “We could do with some seeds.”
“Unfortunately, we won’t find them there,” she said. “They kept specimens from all over the globe in case a flood or volcano wiped out a species that was critical to the local food chain. The procedure was for those seeds to go to some regional lab where they’d be bred up into planting stock. That would take years. There’re no sacks of wheat or banana seeds ready to be sown. In time, sure, we could grow pretty much anything, but not this year or next. But there are people. There are the scientists at the seed vault, and the survivors from Longyearbyen, a few at-sea sailors whose boats drifted close enough to be saved, and a few refugees from Norway and Finland. And then there’s the workers from the coal mine.”
“There’s a coal mine?” Sholto asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “There was a Russian mining effort on the archipelago. The politics of that place were weird. Anyway, all told, there’re two hundred and fourteen people. They’ve survived mostly on the rations that were in the supply dump, and by using the oil to power the engines of a giant icebreaker. That’s being used as a generator to keep the electricity supplied to the seed vault. And they are zealous about that. Astrid Magnusson was the lead scientist in charge of the vault. She says that humanity isn’t just people. It has to be ideas, and the idea behind the vault is as important as any work of art. Therein lies our problem. She won’t hand over the oil without a power source in return. Specifically, she wants the Vehement.”
“Because of its nuclear power plant?” I found myself glancing back towards the harbour, now lost to the curving road. “She’s out of luck. Did you see it as we came in?”
“I did. What happened?”
“The damage it sustained during the fight with Quigley’s submarine was greater than they thought,” Sholto said. “The repairs didn’t hold. It’s unlikely to survive being towed far enough out to sea that it can be scuttled, let alone survive the winter.”
“Ah, pity,” she said. “We’ll work something out, I’m sure, but it’ll take time. One step forward, three sideways, and two back. We always end up somewhere, but never where we thought we’d be.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Sholto said. “So if they’ve survived this long, they’ve got food?”
“Military rations, seal meat, and fish,” Kim said. “The rations were in the supply dump, along with small-arms ammunition and emergency medical supplies. Did you know that the Russians knew about the place? I mean it was actually set up with their knowledge for any ship that survived the nuclear war, regardless of nationality, to attempt to make it to the southern hemisphere. I mean, what’s the point of mutually assured destruction if yo
u then create something like that?”
“It’s about ratcheting down tensions,” I said.
“Getting rid of the bombs would have made more sense,” she said. “The more I learn about the politics of the old world, the more certain I am that power drove everyone mad. Anyway, problems aside, there’s another few hundred survivors. Compared to what we’ve all done to survive, negotiating the fuel from them won’t be impossible. It won’t even be hard. I mean… Did you notice the woman on the boat? Her name’s Nilda. We found her on almost barren rock out near Iona. She’s survived the last three months on crabs, roots, and water from a stream. She lost her son in Cumbria, made it out, and into Scotland. She was chased by a horde, jumped into the sea, only to be rescued by a boat full of survivors from Scotland, except they’d all been near Glasgow. They died of radiation poisoning within a few weeks of running aground on that small island. She buried them. Actually buried them, and then, somehow, kept going. It’s a miracle she survived this long, but if she can do that, we can negotiate the oil from Svalbard. So that’s it, really. There’re some details and stories to tell you, but they can wait. What’s been going on here?”
“Locally, we’ve been doing a lot of finger-painting and tormenting the teachers at the school,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Daisy?” She gave a slightly suspicious nod. “Otherwise, we’ve… well, we’ve got another survivor here. We were over on the mainland, and he sort of walked right into us.”
“Bill thought he was a zombie. He was about to shoot him,” Sholto said.
“You didn’t need to say that,” I said. “One more survivor, and no one’s died.”
“Isn’t it a shame that counts as good news,” she said. “What about these satellites you were talking about?”
“Now that’s a story that ends with Bill almost shooting poor old David Llewellyn,” Sholto said with a tad too much relish. He began to spin a version of events in which I came across as the quintessential bumbling Englishman that I felt was completely unjustified. Okay, mostly unjustified. His tale stopped as we turned the corner in the road and saw Annette. She was sitting on the boot of a car, half-parked in a ditch.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” she said.
I wasn’t sure what to say next. Neither, it seemed, did she. Kim and Sholto didn’t offer any help.
“I missed you,” I said.
“Oh. Okay,” she said. There was a long pause before she continued. “They have chocolate in Svalbard.”
“They do?” I asked, eagerly grasping the olive branch. “Was this with the military rations?”
“No, I mean chocolate plants. Or the seeds anyway.”
“That’s good,” Sholto said. “What about coffee?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said as if that was of far less importance. “They’ve got pretty much everything. So we need to build a big greenhouse like they had at Kew. And I need books on Darwin. You know he used to be really into growing plants?”
We ambled home, and the conversation matched our pace, drifting from anecdote to joke, from Longyearbyen to Menai Bridge, Barentsburg to Bangor. A truce had been declared. All was, if not forgotten, then forgiven, at least for now.
“I really am sorry about the way I left,” Kim said. “I… I think Annette and I were suffering from the same problem. Maybe not the same, but we had similar issues. I should have taken her off the boat, but I wanted to leave as much as she. More, really, maybe… I don’t know. It’s not that I wanted to be anywhere else, or that I didn’t want to be here, but I was able to bottle everything up while we were out there in the wasteland. Coming here, all of a sudden being safe, it was too much. Everything came back in a flood, the danger, the violence, the… I… I guess because I was finally, truly safe, my subconscious decided it was time to deal with what happened during that time in Longshanks Manor, but then realised it really didn’t want to. It’s something I do need to talk about, but not now. Not today.”
“I won’t push,” I said. “It’s just nice having you back. Both of you.”
We turned our collective gaze to the kitchen window. Outside, Sholto and Annette, with Daisy watching from a suspicious distance, were arguing over the best place to position the barbecue. It was a half-oil-drum design, and had been quietly rusting in the garden of a house a quarter mile up the road. The two of them had just spent the past hour dragging it back.
“I can’t work out which one of them wants to set it up underneath the tree, and which of them is trying to explain that’s not a great place to start a fire,” I said.
“They’re getting along,” she said. “That’s good.”
“It’s good for him,” I said. “He’s been morose these past few days. It’s the satellites, seeing images of places that have been destroyed.”
“He holds himself personally responsible? A lot of people on Svalbard felt that way about themselves,” she said. “It’ll pass. Give him time.”
It really was good to have Kim back. I didn’t realise just how much I’d missed her until I had her close again.
The debate in the back garden reached its denouement, Sholto dragged the barbecue away from the tree, and Annette headed back across the lawn to the house. She opened the door and stuck her head inside.
“We’re going to start the barbecue,” she said, “and wanted to know what there is to cook.”
“A good question,” I said. I stood and went to the cupboards, opening one and then the next. “We’ve got some rolls, freshly baked this morning.”
“They’re already cooked,” she said.
“There’s some lettuce.”
“No hot dogs?” she asked. “Didn’t you go shopping while we were away?”
“Shopping?” I asked.
“There’s a baker, so there have to be shops now,” she said. “Aren’t there? What have been people been doing? I mean, we were busy, working, so why hasn’t everyone else been doing the same?”
Kim laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “You’re right,” she said. “If you want to just go online and add some steaks and burgers to the shopping basket, we can have the supermarket deliver it in a couple of hours.”
“That’s not funny,” she said.
“It kinda is,” I said
“Is the lettuce fresh?” Kim asked.
“From the Duponts at Menai Bridge,” I said. “And they gave us some raspberries and blackberries.”
“You can’t barbecue those,” Annette said.
“There’s fish,” I said.
“It’s not really barbecue food,” Annette said.
“Remember what we talked about?” Kim said warningly.
Annette scowled, and took a deep breath. “Fine. We’ll have fish, but it won’t be the same.” Grumbling, she went back outside.
“She was looking forward to a barbecue,” Kim said. “I’ve no idea why. Who are the Duponts?”
I told her about Menai Bridge, and that segued into a discussion of greenhouses and gardens, and the state of our own home.
“They sound like a nice community,” Kim said. “And you sound as if you want to move there.”
“This house is great,” I said. “But we need to be surrounded by people. And you’re right, they are an actual community.”
“Are there any children around Annette’s age?”
“Ah. No, there’s no children at all,” I said.
“Hmm.”
Before I could ask her why that gave her pause, there was a knock at the door. It was George Tull, out of breath, and leaning on his bicycle for support.
“We… we… really need to get some cars,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Kim asked.
“Nothing. Not really. I… I just overdid it on the road coming up here. The mind is… is willing, but my bones increasingly aren’t.”
“You better come in and sit down,” I said.
“No, no, there’s no time,” he said. “I’m sorry to trouble you like this, but Mary would like a word.”
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br /> “With me?” Kim asked.
“With you and Annette,” George said. “Call it a debrief, if you like.”
“I’m not sure there’s much about Svalbard we could tell her that Miguel or Francois haven’t,” Kim said.
“Not about Svalbard,” George said. “It’s Nilda, the woman you found on that island.”
“Why?” Kim and I asked in unison.
“A situation has developed,” George said, “but I don’t want to say any more. Not yet. Miguel says you spent some time talking to her. You heard her story, and we’d like your opinion of it. It shouldn’t take long.”
“What’s going on?” Annette asked, coming out to join us.
“You and I are going back to town,” Kim said. “There’s no rest for the weary travellers, not yet.”
“Would you mind taking Daisy with you?” George asked. “I’ve got a job for the lads that’s not suitable for the young lass.”
“Like what?” Kim asked before I could.
“Like watching someone, that’s all,” George said. “If you’ll take the girls down to the school, I’ll give them their marching orders and come and join you in a bit.”
“Come on,” George said when they’d left. “We’ll walk and talk. You remember that kid, Rob? The one who hangs out around Markus and his lot?”
“From Caernarfon?” I asked.
“Skinny kid with a sword. About twenty, twenty-three years old?” Sholto asked. “Five-nine but with thick-soled boots to give him an extra couple of inches. Came from somewhere in northern England, right?”
“That’s him,” George said. “Nilda says the sword belonged to her son. She led a group who took refuge in a school in Penrith. Rob was part of that group. They were overrun, her son died. She didn’t see the death, but Rob did. He says it was zombies, and that there was nothing he could do about it. Thing is, he took the sword. She thinks he killed her son for it.”
“For a sword?” Sholto asked.