Powerdown (Richard Mariner Series)

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Well, it just so happens that I came aboard well-equipped to pay for expensive favours, Ernie.’ Billy slipped off his big, thick-soled boot. Lifted the lining. Took out a box that filled the heel. ‘Here we have just what your market has been crying out for. Happy pills.’

  *

  Engineering Cadet Baines was a young man whose sanity had been eroded more than somewhat by the whiteness of his environment. He worked in white-painted engineering sections overseeing banks of alternators supplying power to the bridgehouse and the compressors in the diesel motors which drove the ship. He found with increasing disgust that he hated and loathed the white environment above as well. The snow. The ice. The clouds. The fog. The horizon. The whole fucking lot. He made no secret of it among his mates, though he kept it from the officers, of course. And this time of year it was worse than ever. There wasn’t even any darkness to give him a break from the white. So when Ernie Marshall discovered a magazine containing nothing but pictures of black girls, he knew exactly who would appreciate it most.

  At three that afternoon, in the last hour of his watch, Baines paused to consider the ebony perfection of an outrageously alluring centrefold. She seemed almost alive to him. He had taken a happy pill as well and his grip on reality was consequently very weak indeed. His breathing quickened; the girl of his dreams was about to detach herself from the page in all her gleaming cocoa-liquid perfection. At least that’s how it seemed to him when he threw the switches and sent the biggest surge of power he could manage through Erebus’s elderly system. For an instant everything burned as whitely as the snows Baines hated; then it all went as dark as the girl he wanted.

  *

  Jolene had not been present at Andrew’s briefing. Having agreed with Richard’s suggestion to call in the highest authority aboard, she had felt it best to stay out of the limelight herself. In any case, having confronted Billy and clarified her suspicions, it was now time to go through the records again, looking for evidence to hand over to the FBI investigation team. She had never been involved in anything like this before, although she had dealt with fatal accident investigations. Now she was calling in outsiders and like any senior executive jealous of the reputation of her company, she wished to hand things over in the best form she could.

  Battery power to personal laptops was expensive, quickly consumed and impossible to replace out here, so Jolene prepared for a long session by connecting to the ship’s electrical system. Power in the bridgehouse of Erebus was supplied via electrical cables which ran, like the air and heating ducts, down the outside of the walls. The most convenient point for Jolene to use was situated below the light switch whose location was now cemented into the forefront of her mind just beside the right side of the door. Below this was a shallow table which would serve as a desk. Having checked the wattage of the power supply, Jolene set her universal adapter correctly and plugged in the laptop. After that, time ceased to have any meaning for her.

  When Baines’s power surge came, its effect on the laptop was every bit as effective as Billy Hoyle and Ernie Marshall could have wished. It was fortunate, therefore, that it came when Jolene was away from the machine with one disk in her hand as she searched through the other five. A crackling hiss was accompanied unaccountably by a dazzling flash of light. As the light from the bulb above her died, she whirled to find her laptop on fire, the upright square of the screen black, sagging, beginning to melt and run. Sparks danced across the keys. Jolene’s hands reached out in automatic sympathy towards the old friends in their dying agony. Luckily the machine — and everything else in the bridgehouse — died before she could touch it, though the shock she thus avoided would have been painful rather than fatal.

  Dull, overcast afternoon light streamed like dirty water through the porthole onto the cabin floor. Jolene did not touch the light switch, saving herself from a nasty bum. She pulled open the door instead and walked out into the corridor. Everything was so silent. She could hear the wind. Erebus gave a strange lurch.

  The door next to Jolene’s opened. Richard came out, his shadowed face further darkened by a frown.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s what happened to your Major Schwartz,’ he answered grimly. ‘Total powerdown. And let’s hope we can fix it more quickly and efficiently than he could, or we’ll all be just as dead as he is.’

  Numbly, Jolene followed Richard up onto the bridge. It was the silence of the ship that was so unnerving. Jolene had got used to the constant vibration of alternator, the insistent throb of engine. To be without them now was to be without heartbeat, dying all too quickly. And the silence allowed in other, more threatening sounds: the keening of the wind, rising without reason or expectation into howls and battering thumps against the bridgehouse; the rumble of the sea against the suddenly pitching hull; the grumbling roar of the closest ice. Ice they no longer had the power to avoid.

  As Richard hurried onto the bridge, the lights came back on. Lights but little else. No heating. No throb of alternators. No engine.

  Andrew was in the radio room.

  ‘Right,’ said the radio officer, obviously partway through a conversation, ‘I’ll try and re-establish contact now.’

  ‘Battery back-up,’ said Richard to Jolene. ‘Lighting, some navigation aids. Radio. That’s all. And it won’t last very long.’

  He walked across and stood beside the helmsman. The pair of them looked out towards the west where the first squall front of the approaching storm was closed down tight on the black seas. Abruptly the engine room telegraph sounded.

  Richard picked it up without a second thought. ‘Bridge’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘No, Chief, this is Richard Mariner. Andrew’s with Sparks. What can I pass along to him?’

  ‘Bit of a mess down here. One of my men seems to have gone crazy. We’ve got him under restraint but it won’t be so easy to undo the damage he’s done. No power for a while, I’m afraid. No engines till we get the power back. No light after the batteries go down so I suggest we conserve it for radios and emergencies, navigational and otherwise. No heating or hot water. Lucky she’s a sound old lady or we’d be pumping by hand as well.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief. I’ll pass it on. But he’ll want some kind of time frame.’

  ‘Tell him to ask after the dogwatch.’

  ‘The first dogwatch?’

  ‘Second.’

  The chief rang off and Richard glanced up at the chronometer above the clearview. As he did so, the first shower of rain splattered across the glass; splattered and ran, obscuring his view because, like everything else, the clearview was no longer working. Andrew came out of the radio shack, rubbing the back of his neck in worried exasperation.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to the chief. I’ve got his report,’ said Richard.

  ‘Tell me the worst.’

  Richard told him.

  ‘Bloody hell, Richard. That really puts us up the creek. We were talking to Palmer when the lights went out. They were just saying how lucky it was we would be there within the next few hours because the depression is pushing enough ice up ahead of it to close the coast as tight as Armstrong. We get in and out during the next watch or we’re screwed.’

  ‘We’re screwed then,’ said Richard. ‘The chief says at least five hours for power. Then he’ll have to see about starting up the motor. Then we’ll have to see about making up lost way because this lot out here’ll be pushing us eastwards at a couple of knots, I’d say.’

  ‘No way for six hours,’ said Andrew, stunned.

  ‘If then. And from the sound of things, nowhere to go when you get her under way.’ Richard walked back towards the chart table, his mind already busy with plans.

  ‘It’s not as bad as that, there’s always Faraday,’ said Andrew, rallying.

  ‘If you’re lucky you’ll drift over there before the second storm hits,’ said Richard.

  ‘Oh, we’ll all be tucked up safe and sound by then,’ said Andrew, doggedly cheer
ful.

  ‘Can’t argue with a confident man,’ said Richard with a laugh. ‘But in the meantime, what about the rest of us?’

  ‘Yes. That’s a worry, isn’t it?’ said Andrew. ‘We can’t have sick and wounded people with no power or heating, no fresh water, no hot water. No light.’

  ‘Not just sick people,’ said Jolene. ‘There are quite a few perfectly fit people who’d find that hard to take after a while, believe you me.’

  Andrew looked at her, his face a mask as his mind sought to come to terms with what was happening. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Jesus, this is a mess.’

  Sparks stuck his head through the radio room door. ‘I have Captain Ogre for you, Captain. Kalinin’s just been talking to Palmer and is apprised of our position. She can be alongside us here in four hours from now if that would be any help.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  No one wasted the next four hours. On the command bridge, Andrew, with Richard and Colin adding such advice as they could offer, set up literal watches — ice and weather watches to replace the dead machines. He made a series of decisions and gave a range of orders designed to ensure the comfort of the sick and wounded.

  Erebus had stores aboard bound for Faraday; these were raided for Tilley lamps, cooking stoves, extra blankets, Karrimats, stretchers, and the like. The walking wounded, like Killigan, Washington and Billy Hoyle, joined in this work, for it was warm, dry and relatively light. The largest and most unwieldy item they had to move up out of the storage hold was a coffin, bound for Faraday’s emergency stores but now detailed for more immediate use. It was the only safe vehicle anyone could come up with for the unfortunate Major Schwartz.

  The sickbay staff were relieved from their other duties to ensure that warmth, warm food and warm drink got to their charges on a regular basis. Ernie Marshall, more than a little shaken by the overwhelming success of Baines’s action, joined in this enthusiastically and was soon busy brewing hot chocolate. But his eagerness for this cushy number waned when he discovered he was also expected to supply the watches up on the bridge wings and out on the freezing forecastle head with a regular supply of hot drinks. So he contrived to join Hoyle and the others in packing boxes and baggage with possessions they had brought aboard and which they hoped to take off with them again. This was a wise move. The rest of the deck officers and seamen were preparing the ship for her meeting with Kalinin. Lines were readied — vicious work, out on the deck. But worse than that was the rigging of the buffers. Great old tyres, heavy rope-filled hammocks, any other form of protector aboard was slung over the side. The weight, unwieldiness, the simple cross-grained cussedness of these great barriers made this an unpopular duty at the best of times. To carry them across the pitching deck awash with water so cold it froze on contact with whatever it touched, to rig them in the running bilges and sling them over the streaming, heaving, icicle-fanged sides was a chore come directly from hell. And yet it had to be done. When the two ships came together in this pitching tumble of ocean, their sides would have to be protected. And come together they must. The weather was closing down slowly but relentlessly. The wind was increasing, gusting at unexpected strengths from undreamed-of quarters. The Westland was well tethered but even so was twitching uneasily like a dog dreaming. To unloose her would mean disaster; to try and fly her, suicide. The sea was a metallic grey, like the surface of a giant rasp file, filled with deadly little traps of ice, death even for the trusty Zodiacs.

  After having talked to Cambridge, the Admiralty and Kalinin, Sparks wearily went down the list of all the local stations from Arctowski and Esperanza to Arturo Prat. Then he scanned the airwaves, military, commercial, ordinary and emergency, for contact with anyone who could offer any help. Apart from Kalinin, only Faraday could. And Faraday was where they were going anyway. Eventually. With luck.

  The only spot of brightness in the whole of that dreary afternoon on the bridge was the return to duty of Hugo Knowles; battered, bruised, bandaged, still a little bloody but chipper, on form and raring to go, he said. No sooner did he appear, however, than Jolene also appeared, keen to drag him to one side and question him about his memory of the explosion.

  ‘I remember putting up the cabin with the second team,’ he told her. ‘I remember Thompson calling me out — it was a bad time, I think, though I can’t remember why. Maybe because it was coming up to report time, I don’t know. I can’t remember why he called me out either, come to that. That’s about it, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ said Jolene understandingly, hiding her disappointment.

  He shrugged in silent apology, and, swept away by a sisterly sympathy, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, an act which brightened him up enormously and earned her a good deal of goodwill generally — and his friendship particularly.

  Below decks things were just as busy. With the exception of Engineering Cadet Baines who was locked in his cabin rather queasily awaiting the moment his captain could spare the time to see him, everyone was working flat out to rectify the damage he had done. There were electrical lines to be checked and where necessary repaired or replaced. There were circuits to be tested, repaired or replaced. As the stock of spares diminished, decisions had to be made about high and low priority areas. Almost every light bulb aboard needed renewing. The cook went to the captain at the end of the morning watch. Some of his ranges worked by gas, he said. The gas bottles were full. Could he cook the men some hot food even though the lack of electrically powered extractors would make this absolutely against regulations? The captain hesitated — until he saw the state of his deck crews. Then regulations went out of the window.

  Scientists and passengers fitted in as well as they could, depending on experience and ability. Richard and Colin went onto the bridge and offered advice on seacraft and icecraft. Andrew would hardly be holding this command if he needed much of either but he welcomed the company, particularly Richard’s because of the bond they shared as captains. Robin and Kate would have been able to offer advice and company every bit as well, but Richard and Colin would have made lousy nurses. So the women worked below, their professional expertise severely under-used for the moment, as was that of a couple of the beards, PhDs in the cryobiology of phytoplankton, whose only relevant qualifications allowed them to change light bulbs.

  Jolene, too, found that it was her gender rather than her qualifications which fitted her to work with Robin and Kate. For the time being she allowed her professional drive to take a back seat as she worked with the team in the sickbay. As time went by, however, the professional expertise of both Robin and Kate became more important. Having made the few remaining bedridden patients warm and comfortable under the most trying and basic of conditions, their next task was to prepare them for transfer onto Kalinin through conditions which were very far from being warm and comfortable. Here, Robin’s experiences as a ship’s captain — and particularly one who had been icebound — were invaluable. And, with the possible exception of Colin, Kate knew more about Antarctic conditions and how to survive them than anyone alive. While Jolene and the attendants, led by Ernie Marshall, kept an eye on the bedridden, Kate and Robin went off to search for a supply of water-wind-and ice-proof equipment to make the transfer more comfortable for most and less fatal for the rest.

  ‘No matter how ill he still is really,’ said Robin quietly to Kate as they left, ‘Hugo is certainly safer up on the bridge.’

  ‘It’ll mean he stays aboard for the duration,’ said Kate uneasily.

  ‘The doc’s staying. He’ll look after him.’

  ‘That’s a bit eccentric, even for the doc, isn’t it? To send all the patients away and yet to stay aboard himself?’

  ‘He’s sending away the current patients,’ said Robin, ‘and saving himself for the next batch.’

  The wind thumped against the side of Erebus like a Roman quinquereme at ramming speed.

  ‘He’s probably wise,’ said Kate, watching distantly as Killigan and Wash
ington carried the sinister shape of the coffin through the ward towards the cold-storage facility.

  *

  When the holds had been emptied of useful items now no longer bound for Faraday, Ernie Marshall had agreed to help prepare the wounded for transfer. Time would be short in all probability, but the nursing staff on Erebus felt that each patient transferred would be happier, and therefore more disposed to recover well, if they had a package of personal possessions with them. This was supported by the doc, and so while Robin and Kate were finding weatherproof supplies for the transfer, Ernie and the others found a kitbag for each patient and inquired what they would most like to see packed within it. Fagan, oddly, wanted shaving equipment and some old National Geographics. Mendel was still comatose. Billy Hoyle packed his own kitbag, in negotiation with Ernie, fizzingly full of excitement at the prospect of the new market Kalinin’s passengers promised to supply, independent of her entertainment staff, stewards and crew. While Billy plotted and Ernie planned, the other, more serious, patients and nurses worked. Killigan and Washington, having brought the coffin to the cold store, lifted the major gently into it. They put the lid on the box but did not secure it; Jolene was due to come below later and check on it.

  ‘She’s going to take the major in that box,’ Billy Hoyle said to Ernie, quietly.

  ‘I’m not too much surprised, mate. She’s a persistent little tart.’

  ‘I don’t know. This isn’t working as we planned it.’

  ‘As you planned it, Billy. I bet she wet herself, though.’

  ‘You’d better hope so, my man. They’ve got Baines. Is he going to stand firm?’

  ‘Good point, mate. I’ll check when I get the chance.’

  Ernie Marshall wished to the bottom of his heart that he could bring himself to trust Billy Hoyle. He knew pretty well how little merchandise the Yank would be taking aboard Kalinin, and while he had no doubt of Billy’s ability to parlay it into a sweet profit, the potential was nothing compared with what might have been possible with his own stash to boot. But Ernie simply could not bring himself to yield up his hard-won investments to his new friend in the dimly distant hope of a return sometime, somewhere.