Outpost

by Adam Baker

  They checked the Snowcat. A yellow van with caterpillar tracks. Jane checked the trailer. Punch tried the ignition. The Cat wouldn't start. He lifted the hood.

  'It's fucked. They vandalised the engine. Stop anyone stealing it, I guess.'

  'Fixable?' shouted Jane.

  'Not without parts.'

  'Come and take a look at this.'

  Jane had opened the trailer tailgate and pulled a tarpaulin from a stack of wooden crates.

  'Seismologists. Tools of the trade, I suppose.'

  DANGER

  HIGH EXPLOSIVE

  Punch levered a lid.

  'Whoa. Blasting caps. Thermite grenades. A shit-load of C4. If you want to shift ice in a hurry this stuff is pure gold.'

  They found a plastic cargo sled. They stacked the crates and dragged them back to the zodiac. Jane did most of the pulling.

  They loaded the boxes into the zodiac. It sank low in the water.

  'Let's go find that meteor,' said Punch.

  They set off. He steered the boat. Jane tried the radio.

  'Shore team to Rampart, over.'

  She got nothing but the strange tocking signal.

  'It could be military, I suppose. Some kind of interference. You can bet there were a bunch of nuclear subs at sea when this shit kicked off. Maybe they are cruising beneath the ice, ignoring our calls.'

  Punch headed for the coast. He jumped ashore and slammed an ice axe into the snow. He tethered the boat to the axe.

  'There's not much daylight left. Twenty-five minutes from now we turn around and head back to the boat no matter what, all right?'

  They trudged inland. Unearthly desolation. The landscape was so featureless it was like walking on a treadmill: each stride seemed to take them nowhere. The ice was so hard Jane's boots barely left an impression. She checked her watch. Ten minutes gone.

  'There,' said Punch. A wide mound up ahead like the cinder cone of a volcano. The lip of a crater.

  They doubled their pace. They clambered over ice debris, slabs and boulders thrown from the impact site. They struggled upward. Jane paused to catch her breath.

  'Can you see anything?' Punch was standing above her, looking down into the crater. 'What can you see?'

  He didn't reply.

  Jane scrambled up ice rubble and stood at his side.

  'Now what the fuck is that thing?'

  The Hatch

  'Rampart to Raven, over?'

  Rawlins talked through the plan.

  'You have lifeboats?'

  'Shitty inflatables. Switlik four-man coastals. No rigid hulls. Nothing with propulsion.'

  'We can't pick you up but we can meet you part way. Take to the boats. Lash them together. Ride the current. It will funnel you west towards us. You'd be a few days at sea.'

  'Jesus. It's a big ocean. How would you find us?'

  'The inflatables should have TACOM beacons. They'll squawk your position soon as they hit the water. There's a relay on our microwave tower. We can track you, once you float in range. Then tow you back to Rampart.'

  'I'll have to persuade the men. It'll be a hard sell.'

  'I doubt it. You folks don't have much alternative. Either roll the dice, or sit and freeze. Talk it over, but don't take too long.'

  'The guys will want to hold on until the very last minute. Wait until the lights go out before they climb in the boats. There's a good chance we'll die. Natural to postpone the moment as long as we can.'

  'I know. I understand. But it would be better if we got it done while there is still a little daylight left.'

  'Like I said, we'll talk it through.'

  'God bless, fella. We're all praying for you.'

  Nikki clattered up the spiral steps to the observation bubble.

  'Punch and Jane are back. They want to see you right away.'

  They sat in Rawlins's office still muffled in thermal suits. Their boots dripped melting snow.

  Jane plugged her camera into the PC and brought up pictures.

  'Damn,' said Rawlins.

  First picture: a round capsule, like a scorched cannon ball, sitting at the centre of a wide impact crater.

  Second picture: close-up of the capsule. Punch stood next to it for scale. Twice his height, blackened heat tiles, blackened portholes. No visible insignia.

  'Looks sort of Russian to me,' said Rawlins. 'Sort of Soyuz. Some kind of re-entry vehicle.'

  'Human?'

  'Of course it's bloody human.'

  Third picture: long shreds of tattered, candy-stripe fabric in the snow.

  'Drogue chutes,' said Punch. 'Looks like they didn't deploy. Probably ripped or tangled in the upper atmosphere.'

  'Think there's a connection?' asked Jane. 'All this shit kicks off back home. Space junk falls out of the sky.'

  'Doubt it. Poor bastards were probably marooned like those guys on Raven. Sitting in their space station watching it all go down on TV. Dropping through the atmosphere without proper telemetry. Just trying to get home.'

  Fourth picture: close-up of the capsule. A heavy hatch with a small, dark window. No obvious hinge or handle.

  'We have to get the hatch open,' said Jane.

  'Nothing could survive that impact,' said Rawlins. 'It's been days. If they were alive they would have climbed out by now.'

  'Come on. You're as curious as I am. Besides, it's screwing up our radio. Long-wave is swamped. The beacon is drowning our may day signal. No one can hear us call for help while that thing is out there. If we get inside we can switch it off'

  'All right, but you two stay home.' 'Fuck that.'

  'I'm going. My turn ashore. And I'm taking Ghost. I'll need him to open the hatch. Sorry, but that's the way it is.'

  Sian called Raven and ran through a list of questions. Rawlins wanted to hear their preparations in detail.

  'There's seven of you, yeah?'

  'Yeah. Seven.'

  'You'll take to the rafts.'

  'We'll lash a couple together.'

  'What kind of survival gear do you have?'

  'We are going to carpet the rafts with NB3 parkas. The rafts have rain covers but no insulation. We are going to rely on hydro-suits to keep warm. Wrap ourselves in garbage bags. Sleep in shifts. Pack a ton of Pro-Plus to keep us going. We've got canned food, we've got flares. Hopefully that should see us through.'

  'Rawlins reckons you'll make it.'

  'Good.'

  'But if anything goes wrong, if we get picked up and you don't, is there a message you would like to pass along?'

  'I hadn't thought about it.'

  'That's something you could do. Your lads could use the radio, one by one, in private. They could each dictate a message. I could write it down.'

  'I'll mention it to the men. They might take you up on it.'

  Rawlins checked through her notes.

  'I wish they had a radio they could carry with them.'

  'Not much we could do if anything went wrong,' said Sian.

  'A few weeks from now we might be in the same position. Climbing in the lifeboats, hoping for a miracle. If these folks don't make it, I'd like to know why. What did they do wrong? What let them down? I hate to use them as lab rats, but that's exactly what they are. The current should bring them right to our door. If it doesn't, if they get carried west into the

  North Atlantic, they'll be dead and we'll know our charts are wrong.'

  Jane found Ghost in the pump hall. He was checking the gauge of an oxyacetylene tank.

  'Are you busy?' he asked.

  'No.'

  'If you've got a couple of minutes maybe you could give me a hand.'

  He took off his turban. He stripped to the waist. Jane tried not to stare. He straddled a metal folding chair in front of a convection heater.

  'How long have you been growing it?' asked Jane.

  'Pretty much all my life.'

  'What about your religion?'

  'Seems God isn't answering the phone right now. Besides, I'm in the mood for a b
ig gesture.'

  Jane took scissors and hacked away hunks of hair. She gave Ghost a ragged crew cut. He filled a basin with hot water from a flask, foamed his head and shaved himself bald.

  He sat in front of a hand mirror. He snipped his beard down to stubble then shaved himself clean.

  'Christ,' he said, examining his reflection in a hand mirror. 'A fucking boiled egg. A stranger to myself.'

  'What's this stuff?' asked Jane.

  There were two kit-bags on the floor. One contained an air compressor. The other contained a large, steel claw.

  'Hydraulic spread-cutter. Emergency services use them to extract people from wrecked cars.'

  'Use them to open that space capsule?'

  'Yeah.'

  'After you fish those Raven guys out of the sea.'

  'Something like that.'

  'You run this rig. You realise that, right? We'd be lost without you.'

  'Is that what they say?'

  'The guys need a hero.'

  'Let me show you something.'

  Ghost led Jane down a corridor to a wide storeroom. A winch bolted to girders in the vaulted ceiling. A huge trapdoor in the floor.

  'They used this room for hauling equipment aboard. The supply ship sails between the legs of the refinery. The floor opens and you can winch stuff aboard. Cargo containers full of food, fuel, stuff like that.'

  There were three rows of oil drums welded to scaffolding poles. Ghost pulled a roll of paper from behind a locker and spread it on a table. Plans for a boat.

  'A sloop, like a round-the-world yacht. It's a reliable design.'

  'Why oil drums?'

  'Ballasted keel. Stable. Unlikely to capsize.'

  'It's going to be huge.'

  'Even for a two-man vessel you have to build big. You need to carry supplies to last weeks. Fresh water alone could weigh half a tonne.'

  'Two-man?'

  'I enjoy your company. Is that a problem?'

  Nikki went looking for Nail.

  'Dive room,' grunted Ivan. 'Man get his head together.'

  C deck. Dark, frozen passageways. Nikki was spooked. She paused, now and again, to shine her torch down the passageway behind her. She felt stalked.

  She entered the dive store. The walls were hung with tanks, regulators, wetsuits and fins. A Tilley lamp sat on a table.

  A knife blurred past her face and slammed into a locker. The titanium blade punched hilt-deep into the door. The door was peppered with slit-holes. Target practice.

  'What the fuck do you want?' asked Nail. Metal shrieked as he jerked the serrated blade from the locker door.

  'Ghost is building a boat.'

  'What kind of boat?'

  'Some kind of crude yacht. He's making it out of oil drums. He's making it in secret.'

  'Why are you telling me?'

  'Everyone on this rig is going to die. They're passive. Cattle. You and I are different. Survivors.'

  'One scumbag to another.'

  'You know what I'm saying. I'm not going to pretend I like you. But together we can make it home.'

  'Want to shake on it?'

  'Fuck yourself.'

  'How far has he got with his boat?'

  'Haven't seen it. At a guess, early stages.'

  'I can't picture him sailing away on his own. He's not the type.'

  'He's taking a holiday from virtue. He's flirting with the idea of bailing out but, when the moment comes, he'll pull back.'

  'Find the boat. Monitor his progress. When the job is done, we'll take it.'

  'You and me?'

  'They've got you cooking in the kitchen, yeah?'

  'When Punch isn't around. Rawlins's last effort was a disaster.' 'Meal bars,' said Nail. 'Punch gives them to shore teams. He has a few boxes at the back of the storeroom. They give you the keys, right? Get a box. Shove the other boxes around so it looks like none are missing.'

  'Okay.'

  'Now fuck off. I'm busy.'

  Nikki headed down an unlit passageway to the stairs. She heard the knife slam into metal.

  Ghost and Rawlins got ready to leave. They met at the boat- house. Ghost loaded the spread-cutter into the zodiac.

  Jane and Punch came to wave farewell.

  Boxes piled on deck.

  Rawlins pulled a tarpaulin aside.

  'Is this the gear?'

  'Yeah,' said Punch. He opened crates. 'Enough plastic explosive to put us on the moon. Blasting caps, det cord, initiators. And these babies.'

  He handed Rawlins a red canister.

  'Ml4 thermite grenades. A couple of dozen. Seemed too good to leave behind.'

  'These guys were seriously tooled up.'

  'Reflection seismology. Make a big bang, then listen to the ground-echo on geophones.'

  'I want this shit off the rig, all right? Ghost. Soon as we get back, I want you to take this stuff to the bunker and hide it deep.'

  'Okay.'

  'Our little secret, yeah? Nobody else need know.'

  Sian prepared dinner. She boiled two kilos of pasta in a saucepan. Nikki grated cheese.

  'I hope you don't mind me asking,' said Sian. 'Alan and Simon. Your friends from the island. How well did you know them?' 'We were postgrads from Brighton.' 'So are you doing okay? Everyone making you welcome?' 'I've been keeping to myself.'

  Nikki didn't want to talk. She didn't care to know anyone on the rig. She didn't want to hear their life story. She didn't want to hear their hopes and dreams.

  'We need more sauce. Pass me the storeroom keys.'

  Ghost steered the zodiac. The boat rode low in the water, weighed down by equipment. Rawlins sat in the prow.

  They dragged the boat ashore, drove stakes into the ground and lashed it down. They shouldered their gear and set off. A rose twilight turned the snow pink as blossom.

  It took them twenty minutes to reach the crater. They stood at the lip of the impact site and looked down at the capsule.

  'What do you think it is?' asked Rawlins.

  'I read somewhere that low-orbit installations are equipped with escape pods. If anything goes wrong the astronauts can eject. Maybe that's what happened. This thing was meant to land in the Russian Steppes and send out a distress signal but the chutes fucked up.'

  They descended to the bottom of the crater. Rawlins erected a dome tent. Ghost ringed the capsule with tripod lamps.

  The sun set. They worked in the brilliant white illumination of halogen lights. A tight circle of white brilliance surrounded by endless night.

  Ghost tried the radio.

  'Shore team to Rampart.'

  Every waveband swamped by alien pops and whistles.

  'We need to shut this thing down. It's killing every channel.'

  Ghost hacked at silica heat tiles with the spike end of a fire axe. The tiles were hexagonal. He chipped away tiles and examined the steel skin beneath.

  'Take a look at this.'

  Rawlins joined him by the capsule. Ghost had exposed a red, T-shaped handle. An inscription in Cyrillic:

  ФnacИOCTb

  B3pblBMaШble ѲonMbl

  A translation beneath:

  Danger

  Explosive Bolts

  'How do you want to do this?' asked Rawlins.

  'You take cover. I'll crank the lever.'

  Rawlins sheltered behind the capsule.

  Ghost stood to the side of the hatch. He shielded his face, twisted the lever and snatched his hand away quick as he could. The rectangular hatch blew like a champagne cork. It flew twenty feet and landed in the snow.

  Ghost shone his flashlight into the capsule. Three seats, one occupant. The body of an astronaut strapped in front of winking instrumentation.

  'You think that's the transponder?' asked Rawlins, pointing to a bank of switches.

  Ghost held out the radio. A shrill feedback shriek.

  'I'm not going to fuck around,' said Ghost. 'We'll toss a thermite grenade. Fry the whole thing.'

  Rawlins hauled himself into the cra
mped cabin. He held a metal seat frame for support.

  The cosmonaut wore a bulky pressure suit. Grey canvas webbing. The gloves, boots and helmet were attached to the suit by heavy lock rings. Russian insignia on his chest and sleeve. The suit was connected to a wall-mounted oxygen supply by a hose.

  'Wait. I want to check him out.'

  'Why?'

  'Aren't you curious? CCCP. Old Soviet mission badge. Red fist. I'm guessing military. How long has this guy been floating around up there? Decades? You weren't even born when this guy got launched into space. I want to know who he was. I want to know how he died.'

  Rawlins fumbled at the five-point harness. He took off his gloves but couldn't release the buckle.

  'Pass me your knife.'

  He sawed through the straps.

  'Leave him,' said Ghost. 'I don't like it. Doesn't feel right. The whole thing.' He took a red, cylindrical grenade from his coat pocket. 'Call it a cremation.'

  'Hold on. Someone, somewhere, will want to know what happened to this guy.'

  Rawlins tried to twist the helmet free. He couldn't release the lock ring. He gave up. He pushed the lift-tabs at the corner of the visor. The gold face-plate slid back.

  A young man's face. Mirror skin, like he was sculpted from chrome.

  Eyelids flicked open. Jet-black eyeballs. A silent snarl. Metal lips, metal teeth.

  Rawlins screamed.

  Contamination

  Punch stood in the kitchen storeroom with a clipboard. Stock check. Jane surveyed the shelves.

  'Kidney beans: six cans. Rhubarb: three cans. Chopped tomatoes: two cases of twelve.'

  They contemplated the dwindling supply of cans and cartons.

  'Good job we keep this place locked,' said Punch. 'If the guys glimpsed how little food we have left they would panic for sure.'

  'Maybe we should reduce portion size,' said Jane. 'Use rice and pasta for bulk.'

  'There must be someone on board who knows how to fish. Remind me at dinner, when everyone is in the canteen. I'll ask around.'

  They heard running feet. The squeak of trainers on tiles. Sian stood panting in the doorway, holding the frame for support.