by Muriel Gray
But both of these options were fast becoming academic, as he screamed and struggled in the foul viscous mess that was closing over him, with every thrashing movement he made in his panic. Already his torso, to the bottom of his rib-cage, was buried beneath the surface, pinned and pressed by sharp metal, hard-packed organic material, and long pieces of sewage-marinated rags. Thomas’s screaming was silenced when more frenzied contortions pressed his face into a thick, poisonous pool of unidentified decomposition. One gasp, and fluid that was unspeakable in its consistency, stench and taste filled his lungs to the point at which no amount of hysterical, strangled coughing could ever empty them.
His eyes bulged and his mouth made a contorted arc of retching terror, and as his left arm and shoulder ground down below the surface as effectively as a screw, it left only half a face and a flailing right arm visible in the impassive and wretched casserole that engulfed him.
Two hundred metres away, Antonio stopped level with hold number eight and cocked his head. Had he heard a shout? He looked back towards the hatch cover that Thomas had been climbing on and found he could no longer see him. He hesitated for a moment, then turned back and walked out to the edge of the ship once again to get a clearer view of the holds.
“Thomas?”
His shout was loud, but the lack of reply made him sigh with the realization that he would have to walk all the way back to where they had parted.
Part of his weary reluctance to return to his companion was phoney. For the last few minutes his hand had been tightening unconsciously around the length of chain he held, and his footsteps had been getting slower and shorter as he approached the bow. He would scold Thomas for making him abandon his part of the search, but beneath the scorn would be gratitude that he need not continue alone to the end of those half dark, half brilliantly-lit metal tombs.
He expelled a lungful of air in irritation then started to walk back towards hold five.
As his shadow crossed the alley between holds seven and eight, the shape that had been perfectly still in the dark corridor beyond quivered for a moment, then darted away with a velocity that almost left its misshapen shadow behind.
As Leonardo Becko wept, the bosun and the second officer of the Lysicrates lowered their eyes. Lloyd Skinner did not. His gaze remained fixed firmly on the cook’s contorted face, his posture as still as his stare.
A minute or so was granted to allow Becko to compose himself, then the other two pairs of eyes rose again to join Skinner in his forthright examination of the cook. No mention was made of his tears.
The captain continued as though the pause had been to pour coffee or light a cigarette. “So what time, then, do you think you left him?”
Becko sniffed, his eyes still fixed on the cabin floor. One large hand gesticulated as he spoke, its fingers waving the memory away in an unconscious Filipino dismissal. “I don’t know. I say something to him around eleven. Something about cleaning the stock pot. Then I go. And then I remember I come back, just for a minute to remind him not to use cheap cream cleaner no more on my chopping board. Yeah. That was eleven. I’m sure.”
Skinner’s face betrayed nothing, not even interest. “Why are you sure?”
“ ‘Cos I angry I have to go back. That maybe I miss Enzo! Enzo!”
One eyebrow raised slightly in a questioning arch, as Skinner looked across at Chadin. The bosun answered as if the subtle query had been verbal.
“Game show on satellite. You can win a million dollars.”
For the first time Lloyd Skinner displayed a faint tick of irritation, though whether it was due to the seemingly pointless interrogation of a man who knew nothing about a murder, or the fact that America’s great space programme had merely provided the hardware to bring such entertainments as Enzo! was unclear.
Enzo! to the stupid and the under-educated, was not clear. What was clear, however, was that in Skinner’s opinion the interview was terminated. The other men read the captain’s face, and Felix Chadin made restless movements to indicate he wished to be excused. Watching the cook cry had been unpleasant, and by the bosun’s reckoning, unnecessary.
As Becko glanced up at his senior officers, realizing his testimony was no longer required, he seemed to grow calm, and unbidden this time, he began to speak.
“Salvo not like himself, though. Not yesterday. All day. All day. Crazy.”
Skinner, who had looked away, returned his focus to Becko. “Crazy?”
Becko shifted in his seat, nervous again, and blinked in a startled way as though he’d said too much.
The captain sighed. “Crazy how?”
The cook swallowed. What could Leonardo Becko tell them? That a kid from some provincial village hundreds of miles from Manila, who knew nothing about anything, save for chopping onions and avoiding work, suddenly knew everything? And when Becko thought of that “everything,” he felt the sweat bead around his neck once more. He closed his eyes, but it merely enhanced the memory of Salvo’s face, grinning at him over the steaming pots as he happily congratulated the cook on the birth of a baby boy to Becko’s secret mistress, commiserated with him on his wife’s dependence on painkillers, and his teenage son’s over-enthusiastic fondness for his six- and seven-year-old boy cousins.
What had made Becko’s blood run cold was that Salvo had not delivered any of this terrifyingly intimate information with the tone of a blackmailer, but rather with a gusto and fevered excitement, like a born-again Christian revealing an encounter with Jesus. It had paralysed Becko with fear. How could he have known any of it? He couldn’t. That was the worst thing. The sheer impossibility of it, the eerie and nightmarish implications of someone having access to such knowledge, had silenced him, preventing Becko from challenging the boy. Indeed, it had made the cook take two frightened steps back from his grinning assistant, and ensured that he avoided talking to him for the rest of the day except when absolutely necessary.
Now the boy was dead, he could make no sense of it at all. There was real grief. Becko had liked Salvo. The fact that he had been frightened by him before he died did not diminish the affection he had built up for the kindly, if work-shy, youngster over the seven months they had sailed together. But he was still frightened. Frightened of the murderer, frightened of whatever made Salvo know unknowable things, and now when it came to it, frightened to tell anyone else these secret horrors. He opened his eyes and looked as straight at the captain as he could manage.
“I don’t know. Just crazy. Like young boys are crazy.” He hung his head and sobbed again.
Felix Chadin cleared his throat and looked at Skinner with a plea in his eyes. The captain nodded with barely disguised contempt, and Becko was escorted from the room by the bosun and first officer, leaving Lloyd Skinner alone again with his thoughts, a place it was becoming increasingly preferable to be.
The oiler who had been assigned to be Esther’s companion seemed as disgruntled by the arrangement as she was. They sat silently in the crew mess, along with at least eight others, looking miserably down into greasy cups of coffee. Chadin hadn’t made it clear in this pairing of people whose needs had priority. When Esther had indicated she wanted to go back to her cabin, assuming the man would accompany her, the surly oiler just shook his head once and indicated his wrist watch, meaning, she’d assumed, it was his shift and he would be staying on this deck awaiting instructions.
So here they were, sitting waiting for nothing, hoping they would be safe by huddling together in a pack.
Esther knew she had to get out of this room. It was not in her nature to sit and wait for things to happen. The man she had been watching in Chadin’s briefing had gone, and there was a lot to do. She stood up. “Got to go to the bathroom.”
The oiler looked confused, unsure of what to do. After all, it wasn’t as though Esther were under guard. They were sticking together for security, nothing more. He couldn’t care less if this girl passenger got cut up. In fact, like most of his superstitious crew members, part of him blamed he
r presence for the disasters that were crippling the voyage. He thought for a moment, a process that was as visible as a fairground grab machine picking up a prize, shrugged and looked back at his coffee.
She walked slowly from the room, then on gaining the corridor, moved quickly to the stairs that led to her deck. As she reached the top of the short flight, frantic footsteps came pounding up behind her. Without thinking, Esther swung round, knelt to a crouch, hands forward, and braced herself for whatever was in rapid pursuit. It may have been an instinctive precaution, but it was a wasted one. The only threat posed by Jose the deck cadet was one of collision, as he narrowly avoided tumbling over her as he rushed around the corner of the stairwell.
He stopped, startled, and glared at her as though she were mad.
Esther stood up slowly, as though it had been normal to find her here in this position. She put a smile in her voice. “Sorry. I gave you a fright.”
The man scowled, recovering from this unexpected encounter.
She was still blocking the way, and she made no move to vacate the position. Not completely off guard, but no longer afraid, Esther wanted to know why the man had been running. “What’s the hurry?”
Jose considered using the worst Filipino word he could think of to tell her to mind her own American girl’s business. Instead, he threw her one inscrutable glance, pushed past and hurried on his way like the white rabbit. She gave it a beat, then, like Alice, followed behind, out of sight. The sound of his footfall didn’t lead her far. He was heading for the captain’s cabin.
From the corner of the stairwell on the officer’s deck, her back pressed against the cool painted metal, Esther could hear everything Jose said to the captain. Cotton wanted the holds closed. Unless he said it quietly, Skinner said nothing in reply, and she waited silently and expectantly until, with disappointment, she heard Jose moving off towards the direction of the bridge.
Esther thought about that order, then thought about what exactly Cotton might have found to make him send a messenger so urgently to relay it. In a minute she would search him out and ask him herself. But first, there was something she needed to remind herself of in her cabin. Something that had been nagging at her for a while. She slipped away with stealth, but more importantly, with purpose.
The two-person rule didn’t apply to Fen Sahg. He was accompanied by three men. All four sat in Fen’s and Ronaldo’s tiny cabin, watching each other silently like participants in a kids’ stare-out contest. It was no coincidence that Fen’s three chaperones were the bulkiest of the crew. Chadin might have publicly dismissed his crews’ superstitious fears that Fen was somehow behind the death, but his instinct nevertheless told him that all was not well with the oiler. Fen, however, seemed curiously cheerful about the company, and sat peacefully on his bunk looking from one face to another, like an eager interviewee expecting questions from a prospective employer. He settled on one face and smiled.
“This beats scrubbing decks, eh, Rapadas?”
The big deck cadet looked back at him sourly. “Yeah? Maybe for you. This wasn’t my shift. I should be asleep.”
“You can sleep if you want,” grinned Fen. “We’re here to keep each other safe after all.”
Rapadas snorted and crossed his arms.
Fen was undeterred. “Anyone worked out what we’re all supposed to be hiding from anyway?”
The ABS sitting on the floor by Ronaldo’s bunk shifted uncomfortably and muttered under his breath. “Maybe you should tell us.”
Fen turned his gaze to the man. He was still smiling, but his eyes were clouding. “Huh?”
The ABS glanced at his two companions for moral support. None was forthcoming. The man looked away and stared at the wall.
Fen spoke again, friendly, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.”
The man shifted his eyes from the wall to the floor in sullen defiance. Fen was quiet for a moment then laughed, and three faces watched him anxiously. Fen Sahg had no reputation for violence. He wasn’t a drinker, and his slight build never tempted stevedores or drunken sailors to single him out for a tussle. If anything, he was regarded as the ship gossip, a bit of an old woman, always trading tales with men from other ships, always the first to know when something bad or scandalous had happened.
No, he wasn’t violent or volatile, and apart from the occasional unwelcome revelations of his Saanti readings, Fen Sahg scared no one. But the mirthless sound that was bubbling from his mouth, if not frightening, was certainly unsettling.
The larger of the deck hands frowned across at Fen. “What’s so fucking funny?”
Fen stopped laughing abruptly. He turned and looked at the man, who to his credit, held the gaze. If he had expected to see a lunacy in Fen’s eyes that matched his cauterized laughter then he was mistaken. The man who looked back at him did not look like a lunatic at all, in fact he stared back with an intelligence that was far beyond an unschooled oiler from Manila.
“What’s funny? Homo sapiens. Man. The canker that infects the planet. Always at his funniest when he’s afraid.”
Rapadas was shaking his head, his face betraying sadness rather than horror. “Man, you need help. You really do.”
Fen appeared to think about this for a moment, then a smile spread slowly across a face that was beginning to bloom with sweat.
“Yes. You’re right. For the moment, I do.”
11
Sohn had no intention of waiting around in any mess room until the bosun decided things were safe. Even when it was idling, his engine needed constant supervision, and he was damned if it was going to be abandoned. Chelito Baylan, the young apprentice fourth engineer, had accompanied his chief after his defiant insistence that duties should resume as normal, and together they now moved happily around the huge cathedral engine, silently tweaking and prodding, checking and adjusting as they did every day of their working lives.
Sohn was not a man to be afraid of much, except perhaps an engine failure in a storm, and a poor navigator who couldn’t buy him the time against the weather in which to fix whatever had ceased to function. His was a world of cause and effect, a world of moving parts that could break or be mended, and he had little time for the superstitious nonsense that was being chewed over by the crew still huddled in the mess room.
Of course an unthinkable thing had happened on this normally peaceful and unremarkable ship, and everyone had to have a theory. Sohn’s was as pragmatic as the rest of his thinking. It was clear to him that there had been an unpleasant and secretive feud between Salvo Acambra and someone on board, his years at sea suggesting that it was most likely of a sexual nature. The murder had been grisly and revolting, but he doubted it would happen again, convinced that it was a matter confined to the victim and murderer, and more importantly he knew that the culprit would be discovered in the course of time.
In other words, for Sohn the whole affair was over, and he cared only that his engines would continue to give him no cause for concern while they idled at the command of the bridge.
For this reason, there was nothing in the chief engineer’s physical vocabulary that indicated caution. This huge cavern of steel was where he was at peace, and despite the circumstances, this night was no different.
Sohn was standing at the fuel gauge, unconsciously running through mental calculations that his sea-going brain was quite unable to resist whenever confronted with an opportunity, when the figure of Chelito moved into his peripheral vision.
“Yeah?”
The chief engineer mumbled the word as a question, but when the moment that would normally be filled with a reply had passed, and there was still silence, Sohn looked round.
The boy was standing a few paces to his chief’s left, smiling and staring at him expectantly. Sohn was not an irritable man, but it was unlike any of his crew to hang around waiting to be told what to do, and it irked him. He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice and made the assumption that the boy was still ther
e indicated that he wanted to ask a question.
“What’s up then, Chelito?”
Chelito Baylan merely shrugged, wiped at the dampness from under his collar with a rag, and continued to smile.
Sohn narrowed his eyes, scanning the boy’s face for a clue to his intention. His irritation grew to something more volatile at the lack of reply, but he kept the emotion in check as he tried again.
“The oil? Anything wrong?”
Chelito’s smile widened. He shook his head. With an elegant brown hand, stained with the oil to which Sohn referred, he gestured at his chief’s torso. “I know you know it’s in there. But do you know how big it is?”
Sohn’s mouth dried. He tried to swallow and failed, instead a croak came from his mouth. “What?”
“The tumour. Well, actually, tumours. It’s going through you like wildfire, chief. It’s this big now, the one in your colon.” Chelito made the shape of a small sphere with his cupped fingers.
Sohn took a small step back from the boy, and put his hand out to steady himself against the cold metal behind him. His voice was still small and hoarse when he spoke. “Get back to work.”
Chelito made a shrugging motion again and continued to smile. “I don’t mean any trouble, chief. I sure won’t tell anyone you sent your brother to the medical examination for the life insurance you took out last year. How will they ever know it wasn’t you? They won’t. They’ll pay up, sure they will. But you know how you think your wife doesn’t know you’re dying? Yeah? Well, get this. She knows. She found the underpants you peed blood over. She’s been watching you every time you’ve come home for the last eight months. She knows, chief.” He smiled some more, turned and walked away, wiping at his neck and still talking as though to himself. “Yeah, she knows okay.”