THE ANCIENT

by Muriel Gray

  The man held his tongue, but there was a muttering in Filipino that told him he would not enjoy this level of attention for very much longer.

  “We close the holds, and then we stick together and make our way to the engine room for safety, like the captain has ordered.”

  The clamour began again and he held up a hand.

  “Think about it. Thomas can’t have survived. You must know that by now. But the company ship will be here in less than three hours, and if you still feel the same when it arrives, then we can start searching again when the situation we have here is under control. Do you understand?”

  Chadin scrutinized Cotton’s face. “No. They don’t understand why you want to close the holds while there’s a man still down there. Neither do I.”

  Matthew considered for a moment as he looked from face to face, then put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “Because I think the… murderer is using them somehow.”

  Chadin wrinkled a normally inscrutable brow. “What do you mean?”

  Matthew thought on his feet. Maybe it was the unusual clarity of sobriety, or maybe he just got lucky. But whatever the reason, in the dry place where he usually scrabbled around just to remember what he’d done the night before, an inspiration suddenly blossomed like a desert flower. It almost made him smile. He nipped that bud before he spoke, and when he did, it was with heavy, conspiratorial confidence. “I don’t think Thomas fell in by accident.”

  Chadin looked at the first officer, then round at his men. He processed the information for a beat, then nodded, slowly at first, then more decisively. “Okay. Okay. But I still say that we should sail, not wait. It may only be three hours. But look what’s happened in the last three.”

  Cotton nodded in return. “Sure. Let’s discuss that. Soon as we get these hatches shut.”

  Chadin barked at the men in Filipino, holding up his own hands this time to quell their new protests and answer their questions, and within minutes the hatch covers were being rolled back on holds nine through to six. Cotton watched with a relief that had no founding in logic, and rubbed at his temples.

  The job was going to take at least another fifteen or twenty minutes. He walked to a quiet corner behind hold nine, and took out Esther’s tape. He’d promised, and now was as good a time as any. Besides, he admitted to himself, he was as curious as she was.

  The cathedral engine was well named. Lloyd Skinner always felt an inexplicable reverence when he entered the engine room of any ship. It was the scale of the machine, the ecclesiastical architecture echoed in the huge turbines, and the fact that, like the human heart, it never stopped, even when idling. He stepped through the door onto the walkway that ran along the top level of the vast space, from where he could look down and survey the whole room, and coughed at the thick stench of garbage that hung in the air. Skinner closed the door behind him, and walked slowly along the metal gangway. There were three doors in total to the engine room, and the only other exit or entry was by the elevator. The unique feature of the engine room, unlike almost every other large space in the ship, was that for reasons of safety in the event of fire, all the doors could be secured.

  Captain Skinner was checking them all. He climbed down the ladder to the next level, ensured no one had unchained the safety bolts on the door to the staircase outside, repeated it with the final door at the very bottom of the ship, and then turned and walked towards the hatch that led to the cofferdams. He stopped.

  It was open.

  So that, he thought, was how the stench of their cargo was permeating the engine room. But this was not a question to which Skinner particularly needed the answer. The more immediate one was who had opened the hatch.

  He put his hand into the pocket of his trousers and brought out the handgun. Sohn’s rechargeable flashlight hung on its mounting on the bulkhead, and Skinner unclipped it, turned it on and pulled the door fully open with his foot.

  The smell was most definitely coming from the cofferdams, and he mentally calculated that on a ship that was so poorly maintained it was highly probable that there might be a lesion in the metal skin between cargo holds and the hull that was letting in not only the odour, but very possibly physical leakage from the cargo itself. Of course dangerous deteriorations of that nature were exactly what he’d entered the cofferdams only thirty-six hours ago to check. At least as far as Sohn Haro was concerned he had.

  In truth, to Skinner, cargo-leak was of very little importance right now.

  He flicked on the flashlight and stepped into the dark void, his gun held before him. The echoing drips glittered in his beam as he scoured the darkness with a rod of light that showed him nothing but empty space. Skinner moved forward cautiously. He knew he had sealed the hatch after his inspection. Perhaps Sohn had opened it again for some reason, but since that reason did not instantly present itself as logical to the logic-obsessed mind of Lloyd Skinner, then circumstances would suggest that someone else had been involved.

  Moving as silently as he could, Skinner progressed along the narrow passage, mentally counting the iron buttresses that ran like ribs from the base to the ceiling of the cofferdams. He stopped when he came to the fifth, and swung the torch beam to the hull.

  He had been breathing though his mouth to avoid gagging on the stench in this hellish and claustrophobic space, but on seeing what the beam illuminated, he allowed himself the luxury of a sigh through his nostrils. His work was still there, undisturbed. A finger run beneath the smooth metal of the mine told him the tiny switch was still in the correct position. He moved the beam to the last twenty feet ahead of him, where another hatch led to the bow cofferdams, and the corresponding space that ran all the way back to the engines on the starboard side. It was closed.

  Skinner sighed again, irritated at having wasted valuable time, turned around and walked quickly, and less stealthily, back to the open hatch.

  On the other side of the bow hatch Fen Sahg listened to him go, then turned his eyes upwards into the blackness that revealed nothing visually, but where he knew the split in the skin of hold number two was being used again, as a tiny avalanche of garbage tumbled from on high and scattered on the floor ahead of him. Fen smiled and pulled his knees closer to his face, glad to be alone in the dark again until his master returned next time, for good.

  It had been more than just his job. It had been his pride and joy. Which was why Pasqual Sanquiloa would never forgive whoever had stripped his radio room of its guts and left him with the husk. When Chadin had assigned everyone in twos to various parts of the ship, there had been no question of where he wanted to be, although he could have done without the company of the gum-chewing cadet who sat silently in the corner picking his fingernails. Pasqual had spent the last two hours trying desperately to find something, anything, that was left of his equipment that he could build into some kind of transmitter. But the job of silencing the Lysicrates had been done so skilfully there was nothing he could do.

  Instead he had fiddled with components, and in the absence of the intelligence reports from the cargo deck that would at least have allowed him to focus his hatred on Fen Sahg, sat brooding on who had done this to his precious domain and why.

  Perhaps on account of the private torpors in which both men were wallowing, neither cadet nor radio officer were prepared for Esther Mulholland’s entrance, and had she stopped to think how a female passenger with an AK47 across her shoulder might appear to two already-nervous men, she might have modified it. However, Esther had no time to apologize for the fright she induced in them, as she burst through the cabin door and deposited the radio on Pasqual’s table with a heavy thud.

  The cadet, Gaspar Libuano, leapt to his feet and backed towards the wall. Pasqual merely stood up and opened his mouth in a silent exclamation.

  Esther looked at the two men and suddenly understood. She held up her palms in the universal attitude of placation. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine. Everything’s cool.”

  Pasqual had now shifted
his gaze from her gun to the present she’d brought.

  Esther smiled and patted it like a puppy. “Reckon this’ll come in handy?”

  Pasqual ran forward. “Where did you get this?”

  Esther shook her head. “You so don’t want to know. Let’s just say it was an oversight that it wasn’t found sooner.”

  Pasqual had already switched it on, had the handset in his fist and was adjusting the tuner.

  “It’s only short range though isn’t it?” she asked as he got busy.

  He didn’t look up, but he nodded. “Line of sight. But we can send out an SOS, and if there are any ships out there, then we’ll know.”

  Esther nodded. “Well if the sister-ship is near it should definitely hear us, huh?”

  “For sure. For sure.”

  Pasqual was grinning. He put the handset to his mouth and started to make the calls. Esther smiled across at Gaspar who still looked unsure, his eyes on the gun. She touched it lightly. It made her feel good. Safe. In control.

  “Would telling you that I know how to use it make you feel better or worse?”

  Gaspar, whose English was not great, nodded at her, his eyes still wide. Esther shrugged, nodded back and made for the door. Halfway out she paused, and bit at her lip. “Listen, don’t go to the engine room if anyone tries to make you. You should stay here and just concentrate on this for a while.”

  Pasqual looked up even though he was talking to the handset. He nodded quickly, but more in gesture that said he wanted her to be quiet and go away, than to let her know he’d heard or understood.

  Esther glanced at them both with concern, and left. She walked quickly but quietly along the corridor of C-deck towards the stairs. She had to get back to Matthew and the rest of the crew. They had some big decisions to make.

  It was the stealth of her progress that enabled her to hear the tiny noise. She stopped dead, her hand automatically swinging the Kalashnikov round to her hip. The noise came again and she snapped her head round to catch the direction.

  It was coming from the elevator, and it sounded like a whimper.

  Esther walked forward as though on hot coals, stopped at the edge of the elevator door, and listened again. Someone inside the elevator car was crying, but it sounded as though they were trying very hard to do it quietly. She could hear the shuddering intakes of breath, then the high-pitched whine of a suppressed sob.

  Esther thought quickly, assessed the risk, then flicked off the safety catch of the Kalashnikov and turned to face the elevator door full on. From this position she could see through the murky glass. There was no one there. At least not standing. A beat of three seconds, then she pulled open the door and slammed back the inner gate.

  Raul Nestor screamed, pushing himself even further back into the urine-soaked corner of the elevator car. He wrapped his arms across his head as though to ward off blows and continued to scream through the strings of saliva that hung from his lip.

  Esther gaped at him. As a portrayal of undiluted terror, nothing could have bettered the boy’s performance. Cautiously, and with the gun’s safety-catch still off, Esther checked behind her in the corridor, then entered the car, her glance darting around to catch sight of anything in this confined space that could have rendered an adult insensible with fear. There was nothing in there except the boy. She clicked the safety back on, swung the gun to her back and crouched down in front of him. As her hand gently touched his arm, he screamed again and writhed as though she’d burnt him.

  “Shhh. Hey, it’s okay. Come on. It’s okay.”

  One eye stared at her from under the protective arc of his arm, and his screaming lowered to a pant. He had been doubly incontinent in the tiny box: the smell was overwhelming. She had to get him up and out of his own filth. She put her hands gently under his arms and pulled. Raul Nestor panted like a dog, but this time, staring at the open door behind her with eyes that couldn’t open any wider, he allowed her firm and steady grip to get him to his feet.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” she said softly.

  Although it was like dragging a bull into a slaughterhouse, Esther somehow managed to guide the trembling boy from the elevator car to the stairs, and down to the door that would offer the release of the deck’s warm, briny air.

  Contrary to the supposed sea-going experience of Captain Lloyd Skinner, Esther Mulholland’s instinct was not to gather the crew below. She wanted them on deck, where the bright lights shone and the only place someone could come at you without you seeing them first would be if they came from the blackness of the ocean itself. Esther very much looked forward to being in that place, because when he did come, she would be ready.

  The trash in hold number two stirred as the thing that moved within its depths shifted like a nesting bird. A black oozing tar of rotting vegetable matter trickled over what was nearly a face, and the mouth opened to receive it. The fire of life ran through the dead skin that covered bone and the pounded flesh that stuck to it, and a scimitar of a tin claw that had been hinged to a framework of tiny rat bones loosened and fell away.

  Like a serpent shedding its skin, the thing that was now nearly able to think as though it were flesh again breathed with pleasure at the sensation of change. It listened as it turned through an arc in the mire, but could no longer feel the noise of the metal covers grinding over their guides as the hatches had been closed. The thick protrusion of skin and matted hair that was serving as a tongue, poked at an ulcerous hole in the face, then moved aside again to let the worms that moved through the cleft go undisturbed about their work.

  Such strength in diseased excrement. Such purity in filth. Soon, it would be able to enjoy the slow destruction of the scum that ran over this vessel like lice. Time meant nothing to that which was not physical, but nevertheless it toyed with how the men in this time would die.

  Would they differ in their agonies from those whose screams it had left hanging in another age? And now that its cowering human priest, that pathetic reader of cards and dice, had helped bring about the final ritual, it was all so close. It was irritated that human help had been necessary at all, but it had needed the grovelling shit to gather the fleshly tokens from the sacrifices, to make incantations and worship over them as it grew in strength. It would not need him forever. It would need no one. There were many more human scum ashore who were waiting already alive to the fact that their God was being reborn. They were the ones in need. They needed the dark fire it would bring the power of filth and the unchallenged might of malice. And they would not have long to wait. Soon, if not already, the final human forfeit, the honoured gift to the dark nature of the Sun, would find itself prepared for violation. Soon it would rejoice in the coming of its agonizing sacrifice.

  It sighed deeply, and a bubble of methane zigzagged its way to the surface of the hold, and gently puffed foul gas into the dark space between the ragged surface of the trash and the sealed ceiling of metal that enclosed it once again.

  Renato had never been quite so pleased to see his captain as now. Erol Gonzales and Edgar Pasco looked round in fright as Skinner entered the mess hall, and Renato waved a hand to Edgar to lower the cleaver he was so impotently brandishing.

  “Fen Sahg,” said Renato quickly to Skinner. “We think he may have taken Raul.”

  Skinner licked at his lips and looked at them all in turn without emotion.

  Renato went on. “He left the room to check out the smell from the holds about half an hour ago. They heard him scream, went to find him, Sahg was there, covered in blood.”

  “And the body?”

  Renato was taken back by the brutal pragmatism of the question. His reply had a harder edge to it than he’d planned. “We haven’t searched.”

  Skinner closed his eyes and held the bridge of his nose between a finger and thumb. Fen Sahg was proving to be more than just a pain in the ass. He was a problem that needed dealing with urgently. With eyes still shut, he contained his fury and spoke as quietly and reassuringly as he c
ould. “How many more are below, second officer?”

  “Just Pasqual and a cadet. Libuano, I think. In the radio room.”

  Skinner opened his eyes. “Then get those men down to the engine room now, and I’ll fetch the other two.”

  Edgar looked from face to face, then lifted his cleaver again as he looked back at the captain. “Raul. What about Raul?”

  Skinner turned to face him, and his gaze travelled slowly to the cleaver and stayed there until the man let it drop slowly to his hip again. Skinner’s eyes rose to meet Edgar’s, and though he spoke very slowly and quietly, the tone was so full of inexplicable menace that the three men in front of him would have preferred it if he’d shouted.

  “The screams you heard. Did they sound like there was much left to rescue?”

  No one spoke. Renato bowed his head, then gently touched Erol on the arm and guided him towards the door. Edgar followed, his knuckles white around the wooden handle of the cleaver. Skinner watched them go, waited for a moment to compose himself, then left the mess room and headed for the stairs that led two flights up to the radio room on C-deck.

  They were gone. The stupid bastards had finished closing the holds and gone. Esther looked along the empty deck in despair, then led Raul to the edge of the massive pipe that ran the length of the hold deck, made him comfortable against it, and crouched down in front of him.

  The boy stared up at her with terrified eyes, then glanced around and behind her like a startled woodland animal.

  “Can you talk? What happened to you down there?”

  She was gentle, calming, reassuring, but the terror that was still gripping Raul Nestor had almost completely erased the scanty grasp of English he possessed. He stared back at her, uncomprehending. The sea breeze ruffled their hair and Esther pushed hers from her eyes with an impatient hand. She breathed in a deep lungful of sweet ocean air, relieved that the closed holds seemed to be trapping the stink that she had been enduring in the accommodation block, and tried again.