Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  And I couldn’t afford to hang around. They had an axe. They had Markham. Peterson and Dr Bairstow needed urgent treatment and sooner or later there would be a bloody great tidal wave.

  I’d long since lost my stun gun. God knows where that was, but a long-haired historian is never without a weapon.

  The priestess’s two assistants tried to block my progress but I really wasn’t in the mood. I went straight through them, trusting the team from St Mary’s would have my back.

  I found myself in an open space. Markham and his tree were slightly to my left with a tripod belching aromatic, sleep-inducing smoke next to him. The priestess with her very-much-larger-than-I-had-realised axe stood defensively in front of him and the broken altar stood between me and her.

  I meant to vault neatly over the top of the low altar, and of course that didn’t happen at all. I don’t know why it would, I’d never vaulted over anything in my entire life – and that included doing gym at school, where I tended to curl my lip in derision at the idea of any such foolishness and marched myself straight off to the detention room because – as I always pointed out to my ungrateful teachers – it was easier and quicker that way and saved everyone a lot of effort.

  I leaped for the altar, quite forgetting one of my arms wasn’t working properly. They both gave way and I crashed to the ground. The right side of the altar, fortunately.

  I cursed fluently – because there’s no point in cursing any other way – and staggered to my feet. The priestess regarded me in complete amazement and Markham, somewhat groggily, demanded to know what the fu— what the hell I thought I was playing at.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said, putting my hands to my head in an apparently pointless attempt to tidy my hair.

  Behind me, I could hear shrieks and curses as my temporary colleagues struggled to get through the narrow entrance and the two assistant priestesses tried to stop them. I heard the zap of several stun guns.

  Markham’s priestess pulled herself together and whirled to face me, axe held high. Markham tried to kick her as she passed him. She backhanded him and I took enormous pleasure in embedding two sharpened hairpins into the fleshy part of her underarm.

  She shrieked with pain. I didn’t blame her. It’s one of the most painful things you can do to someone. I left her to the others and staggered towards Markham.

  ‘Are you all right? Have they hurt you?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely fine,’ he said, slurring his words. I kicked over the tripod to get the smoke out of his face.

  Being Markham, he bypassed gratitude. ‘You took your bloody time, didn’t you? Where have you been?’

  ‘Fire. Landslide. Clive Ronan. Dr Bairstow. Teapot. Sorting out the future. Earthquakes. Rescue. Imminent collapse of volcano. Need to go.’

  I was quite proud of my briefing. All the salient facts and in the shortest possible space of time. Professional to my fingertips.

  I gestured around. ‘What on earth happened to you?’

  He was indignant. ‘I had a bit of a struggle with Ronan but he got away from me. I was all set to go after him when I was jumped by three of the most peculiar women you ever saw in all your life, and that includes the ones at St Mary’s.’

  I ignored this. ‘Where are your clothes? Wardrobe’s going to kill you.’

  ‘Oh great,’ he said gloomily, shrugging off the last of his ropes. ‘Another set of vengeful women pursuing me with sharp implements.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said someone, holding him up. ‘They don’t call them pinking shears for nothing.’

  It took two of them to keep him on his feet but, finally, there he was, naked, bloody, grubby and grinning at me.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said, averting my eyes although there are some things you can never unsee. ‘Find some clothes.’

  There was foot shuffling among the security team and general muttering along the lines of, ‘He’s not having mine.’

  ‘Take hers,’ said someone and we all looked down at the priestess, face down in the dust.

  ‘Well, I’m not undressing an unconscious woman,’ said Markham, stirring her with his foot. ‘Sends out all the wrong messages.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said again. Bending over, I untied her embroidered apron and passed it over. It had a front and back and as long as he didn’t actually attempt the cancan he should be decent enough. ‘Here.’

  Was he grateful? Was he buggery?

  ‘I’m not wearing women’s clothes,’ he said, indignantly.

  ‘Then we’ll have to leave you here,’ said one of the security team. ‘Clothes must be worn in the pods at all times. House rules.’

  His team turned to him. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I made it up about three seconds ago.’

  Markham sighed and tied the apron around his waist, finishing with a neat little bow. There was still far more of him visible than many of us were comfortable with but the salient areas were covered. They’d sewn bells on to the apron and he tinkled prettily with every movement. No one said a word.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said to me, looking down at himself.

  ‘Believe it or not, I’ve seen you look worse.’

  ‘And we’re just grateful,’ said the team leader. ‘We should go.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. We can’t afford to hang around here.’

  We trotted out of the shrine. Markham had an escort on either side because, as he said, wearing a skirt had caused his legs to become a little wayward.

  Now that I had him safely under my belt – or someone’s belt, anyway – I’d gone back to worrying about Peterson, but there was no need – they’d got him out from the rocks and were helping him down the hill towards the pod. We all arrived outside their rescue pod more or less together. Peterson and Markham looked at each other.

  ‘Well,’ said Peterson. ‘I’ve been in a landslide. What’s your excuse, Tinklebell?’

  ‘Grabbed by a bunch of women and had my clothes torn off,’ he said wearily. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now.’

  I’m sure Peterson had something truly pithy to say but it never happened because that was the moment the volcano chose to literally blow its top.

  40

  We all felt it. And saw it. And heard it.

  Something punched me in the chest. I was blown backwards off my feet.

  A huge incandescent orange glow lit the sky. Even from this distance I could see white-hot giant rocks and lava being hurled high into the air. The noise was indescribable – a cross between a crack and a roar – and we were seventy miles away. Thick black smoke boiled across the sky. Lightning flashed in the depths and thunder rumbled in the skies – only to be echoed by a similar sound beneath our feet. As if the earth and the sky were shouting at each other.

  I pulled myself to my feet and groped for my recorder, miracu­lously intact. Thank you, god of historians.

  A giant fan of lava, smoke, bubbling steam, rocks, sulphur dioxide, vaporised buildings and people and animals erupted high into the atmosphere. There were never any bodies found at Akrotiri and archaeologists have always assumed that because of all the mini quakes, such as the ones we’d been suffering, people had plenty of time in which to escape. That was very possible, but I couldn’t help wondering if, when the caldera collapsed so suddenly and so violently, it took the population with it, and the reason their bodies have never been found is because they’re all at the bottom of the sea. That’s not a nice thought. The inhabitants fleeing in blind panic, and suddenly the ground gives way beneath their feet, and thousands of screaming people and millions of tons of rock crash down into the boiling sea.

  The wind was blowing the fan of smoke sideways. It streamed away to the north. Away from Crete. I looked at my tattered sleeve, lightly coated with ash and dust, but that could as easily have come from the fires around us. So far Crete had got off light
ly. It was the wave that would do the damage.

  Dr Dowson had taken us through this several times so we’d know what to look for. There are two types of tsunamis. The first is caused by undersea earthquakes. With that type, the height of the wave rarely tops a hundred feet. Which is devastating enough.

  The second type is caused by water displacement. In other words, something massive falls into the sea. A meteor strikes, a cliff face tumbles, or an entire volcano collapses in on itself, shifting huge amounts of water, so the resulting wave is correspondingly massive. Half of the island of Thera had just imploded. Thera was only seventy miles away to the north. The giant wave would be on its way. From where we were standing, we had an excellent view of the Cretan coastline – which meant we were definitely below a safe height.

  Nothing seemed to happen for a long time. I stood with the others, the wind flapping my clothes around me, recording for dear life and waiting to see what would happen next. I didn’t notice at first, but once I saw what it was, there was no missing it. The sea level was dropping. Slowly but surely, the sea began to pull back. Glistening wet rocks appeared where none had been before, exposing pieces of broken masts and even the occasional nearly complete wrecked ship.

  The world was growing darker by the minute. The orange sky had faded to blood red again. Red-lit clouds of steam boiled in the sky. I could smell sulphur in the air. Crete would not be smothered in the sixty-foot-deep layer of ash currently enveloping Thera. We just had the wave to worry about.

  ‘Can you see it yet?’ said Peterson, appearing next to me. His arm was neatly encased in plastic and he wore a sling. St Mary’s Security Section were fussing around him, trying to get him back into their pod.

  I asked their leader if he’d been able to raise anyone else from my teams.

  He shook his head. ‘We’ve been calling them since we got here. There’s no answer. They’ve all evacuated.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘As should we.’

  I was still recording because this was all good stuff. ‘Just another thirty seconds.’

  ‘You do remind me of our own History Department.’

  I beamed. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s not a compliment. Get back into your pod while you still can.’

  I looked over my shoulder. The teapot lay on its side, hatch open, and with a dead Clive Ronan still inside. It was almost certainly still functioning but it occurred to me – here was a perfect opportunity to tidy up all sorts of loose ends. Both of them swept away in a massive tidal wave. Both finishing up at the bottom of the sea. Both out of reach forever.

  I shook my head. ‘My pod’s dead.’

  ‘Then use ours.’

  ‘Just one more minute.’

  ‘Get in the bloody pod.’

  That was the same sort of voice I used to get Matthew to bed. The voice that says, ‘OK, I’ve given you an extra ten minutes but now is the time to stop pushing your luck.’

  I nodded. He was right. We should be going. In just one minute.

  Tsunamis speed up as they approach shallow water. And this one only had seventy miles to travel. I made a pathetic attempt at some dirty maths. Dr Dowson had estimated its speed at between three and six hundred miles an hour. Say five hundred. Thirty minutes to travel two hundred and fifty miles. Fifteen minutes to travel one hundred and twenty-five. Seven and a half minutes to travel sixty miles. So seventy miles was . . . shit. How long had I been recording? How long did I still have? I continued panning around.

  At that moment, every alarm in the pod went off. People started shouting. A dark line appeared on the horizon. Increasing in size all the time. Peterson grabbed my arm. The one that hurt. Now it hurt some more. Someone else grabbed the other. The dark line was growing larger and larger. A strange, cold wind blew in my face. The temperature dropped noticeably. I wondered if the wave was pushing colder air ahead of it. Someone shouted at us to move. Now it wasn’t a line – it was a wall. All across the horizon. A wall of water was headed towards us. Not a wave. There was no curling white top. It was just water. Dark water. Roaring its way towards us. Towards Crete. The noise was intense. The speed was unbelievable. The wave was here. Hanging in the air above us – poised to crash down upon Crete.

  Someone threw us into the pod.

  ‘Computer, emerg—’

  And then we were moving. I felt us leave the ground as we were swept along. Someone shouted to buckle up but there was no chance of that. I could hear bumps and crashes as the pod collided with whatever was being swept along with us. I was reminded of one of the more exciting fairground rides. And then we tilted. I wondered if we’d gone over the cliff and were about to plunge into the sea. We all rolled to one end of the pod. I was on the bottom, crushed, unable to breathe, panicking, suffocating . . .

  And then we rolled back the other way and I was free. I sucked in a massive breath and grabbed for something to hold on to. Everyone else was struggling to do the same. The lights flickered wildly. Something went bang under the console. Someone shouted to power down, power down, for God’s sake.

  I looked up. The trip switch was over my head. I was the nearest. Using Peterson, I clambered to my feet and lunged. I got it on the second go, pushed it up and now we were in complete darkness. The emergency light flickered. Someone rolled into my legs and down I went again.

  I was expecting the pod to come apart at any moment. I know they’re designed to take a lot but surely not this. We were being swept along at a huge speed. Along with rocks, trees, houses, boats, people, bulls, the teapot . . . everything. Nothing could withstand the power of this wave. It was unstoppable. It ended a civilisation, so God knows what it would do to us.

  I have no idea for how long we tumbled and rolled. For how long we collided with whatever was being swept along with us and it collided with us. And things were fairly hazardous in here. Locker doors swung open, depositing their contents all over us. Blankets, equipment, first-aid stuff . . . you name it. And then there was a bang from the bathroom and I realised I was wet. The toilet had exploded. It was depressing to know they still hadn’t managed to stop them doing that. The pod was full of a chemical smell.

  I fought my way clear of a blanket that had wrapped itself around my face. We were slowing. I was sure of it. We were level, anyway, and more or less the right way up. I tried to sit up. We were in the semi-dark and I had no point of reference but I thought we’d stopped tumbling. The noise outside was less. Nothing heavy seemed to be hitting us. In fact, nothing was hitting us at all. There was a slight bump and then silence. I suspected that like the Ark on Ararat, we’d landed.

  Oh no, we hadn’t. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me before. What goes up must come down. Waves crash upon the shore and then recede again. After a moment’s blessed stillness – during which I just had time to assimilate how much I hurt all over – we were on the move again. Backwards this time. Or that’s how it seemed to me.

  This time, though, we were more prepared. In fact, you could say we’d become experts. Everyone grabbed something. A seat, a locker door, each other . . . We braced ourselves. Which was just as well because there was a lot more tumbling this time because we were going downhill. There were shouts and cries of pain – from me, mostly. I didn’t dare think how Markham and Peterson were faring. Or Dr Bairstow with his gunshot wound.

  The only good thing was that it didn’t last as long as before. We hit something hard – the entire pod reverberated – and then we stopped. I rather suspected we’d become wedged somewhere.

  We gave it about twenty seconds, just in case everything started up again, and then someone said, ‘Shit,’ and tried to sit up.

  ‘Everyone take it slowly,’ said the leader. ‘I need to check we’re all present and correct. Maxwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Markham?’

  There followed a long stream of curses.

  ‘Just a yes will do. P
eterson?’

  ‘Here.’

  A pause and then a tactful, ‘Sir?’

  A thin voice informed us Dr Bairstow was still with us.

  He ran through his team. Everyone answered. A bit of a miracle, I thought.

  ‘Power on, someone.’

  I heard the trip switch clunk and here we all were.

  The inside of the pod looked like a war zone. Things had broken, burst, snapped, buckled or shorted out. The panels had come away under the console. One of the boards looked damaged. The bathroom door was swinging off one hinge. The floor was awash with something I didn’t want to think about.

  The locker doors were buckled so badly they wouldn’t close. I doubted they’d ever close again. This pod was going to need a complete refit. I wondered if they’d send us the bill.

  Sadly, the human element was even more damaged. Most people had suffered cuts and bruises. A couple were bleeding from nasty head wounds. Someone had a broken wrist. Dr Bairstow was wedged between two seats, white but conscious. With no clothes to protect him, Markham had started to bleed again, although according to Hunter he bleeds at the drop of a hat and it’s nothing to worry about. I found a damaged first-aid kit. The contents were almost completely destroyed but packets of dressings had survived. I ripped a couple open and tried to mop him up as best I could.

  ‘It’s your own fault,’ scolded one of the security team, bending over him. ‘If you’d worn that nice lady’s pretty clothes you wouldn’t be in this state. You only have yourself to blame.’

  Markham told him to go forth and multiply. Now.

  They were gathering around the console, checking systems. It was crowded. People were bumping into each other in this small space. I seized on the excuse.

  ‘We’ll get out of your hair a moment,’ I said. ‘We’ll be just outside if you need us.’