by Peter Tonkin
‘Give me strength. I suppose Main is also known as Wilkes Deck. That more or less covers it for major American explorers. But wait a moment. Why Bellingshausen? This is an American ship.’
‘Co-owned by Russians.’
‘As if we could ever overlook that with Irene Ogre aboard.’ Richard let the quiet wash over him like a warm bath. ‘Where are the twins?’
‘Gone off with the steward to explore.’
‘Was that wise?’
‘Not wise. Unstoppable. You want to make something of it?’
‘No. I’m too tired. We’ll fight later. What d’you want to do in the meantime?’
‘Eat and sleep. Not necessarily in that order.’
‘What about our charges? I’m in command of this lot, by the way; Irene says.’
‘Kate and I, good as gold, went down to tuck them in. But Dr Glazov did not require any help and saw us off in no uncertain terms. Terrifying. Makes Irene Ogre look like Winnie the Pooh.’
‘Really? He must be quite something.’
‘She certainly is. Kate heard somewhere that the passengers call her Dr Fuckov. I’ve seen her bedside manner. I am not surprised.’
‘So, as is not unusual among captains at sea, we have all the responsibility but nothing whatever to do.’
‘That would seem to be about the size of it.’
He pulled himself to his feet. Made light-headed and a little silly by the narrow escape they had all had, he put on his best Charles Boyer accent. ‘Komm vis me to ze … not the kasbah … What was it? Ze Bellingshausen-Peary Deck.’
‘OK,’ she said indulgently. ‘I’ve always been a sucker for a sailor with a silly accent.’
*
The passengers’ dining salon looked to Richard only slightly less sumptuous than Titanic’s had been. In spite of the fact that dinner had already been served to the paying passengers, who were currently, apparently, dividing their attention between the latest Bruce Willis blockbuster — the American print not due out in England until next spring — and a lecture on base jumping, the galley staff and stewards had prepared food and ambience to five-star standard as though for the first time this evening. Richard was not alone in having his breath taken away. Typically down-to-earth, however, Colin leaned across as his friend sat down beside him. ‘Keep all your credit cards and cash locked up tight,’ he growled in the chilly accents of a Morningside accountant. ‘Especially after tonight when the freebies stop.’
‘Is there going to be a personal account for each of us?’ asked Kate, a little concerned. ‘Or will there be one big bill at the end?’
‘That’s a worry for me,’ said Jolene quietly from the far side of the table. ‘I’m on a very limited expenses budget here. I’ll have to account for every penny and they can be tough at head office. One of our guys liaising with the European space people in the depths of French Guiana got a hell of a rocket for drinking Perrier water when the local supply went bad. He should have just got dysentery cheaply and quietly, they thought.’
‘I’ll find out in the morning before anyone has a chance to get in too deep,’ promised Richard. ‘In the meantime, let’s sit back and enjoy this evening while it’s free.’
A slim young man appeared at their table, rose excitedly on his gleaming toes and said gently in the French accent of a Brooklyn-born trainee restaurateur, ‘Good evening, mesdames and messieurs, I am Francis, your waiter. May I say what a pleasure it is to welcome you aboard. In a moment the sommelier will bring your bottle of champagne, with the captain’s compliments. In the meantime, are you ready to order? Tonight, Chef has prepared the following starters: pate de fois flavoured with Amaretto served on a bed of rocket, a hot green salad of young quails, and lightly poached Pacific prawns with dill mayonnaise …’
Francis’s mellifluous flow was interrupted by the arrival of the twins dragging an exhausted but grimly courteous steward. A close brush with death had gone apparently unnoticed by the pair of them, except that they were even more full of life and mischief than ever. But the waiter quickly established that the charming English children wished to sit between their doting parents and wanted hamburgers and French fries. Then he returned to the serious adult business, quite unruffled, while his lesser colleague staggered off to rest and recuperate.
In spite of the sumptuousness of the meal, what they ate was light and well balanced, and soon fatigue began to overtake them. Even the twins made little more than token complaint when Richard and Robin took them off to the stateroom on Palmer-Hall Deck. The little kit they had brought with them had been unpacked in their absence and stowed away. There was nothing for them to do but to get undressed and tumble into bed. Richard and Robin quietly prepared for sleep as well, but when they tucked down in the perfectly sprung supportive firmness of their bed, Richard for one found sleep elusive. Their all too intimate brush with death, Colin’s warnings and Jolene’s worries kept jumbling around in his head, so that, after half an hour or so, he climbed out of bed, pulled jeans and sweater over his pyjamas and pushed his feet into an old pair of trainers big enough to serve as lifeboats. He looked back from the doorway but none of the rest of his little family stirred. He slipped out like a shadow, closed the door soundlessly and went for a prowl through the silent ship. The instant the door closed, Robin sat up and looked around the dimly-lit room. At least the children were innocently and absolutely asleep.
*
Jolene was standing in her white panties regretting the disappearance of her fine cotton nightie. It was the only one really suited to the comfort of her single cabin on Bellingshausen-Peary Deck. The heavy, almost full-length alternative was too dowdy and far too warm. She had just decided to tuck down as she was when the lightest of scratches came at her door. She pressed herself against it, finger on the lock. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s T-Shirt, Mrs DaCosta. Can we talk?’
Had he come to her last night, the answer would have been no. But what he had done this afternoon, though cloaked in a laid-back, self-mocking assumption of cool, had impressed her. T-Shirt Maddrell was not simply a foolish and self-indulgent pleasure-seeker. He was capable of cool thought, calculated action and a great deal of bravery. He really rather deserved his place in her hotter dreams. ‘Yes …’
‘No, I mean face to face. Can I come in?’
‘No!’
He misunderstood the reason for her sharp rebuff. ‘Hokay. We can meet on neutral territory. I just want to talk about tomorrow.’
‘No, it’s all right, you can come in. Just give me a minute, would you?’
‘OK.’
Jolene stepped back into her jeans. They were still warm. She buttoned, then zipped them, and reached into a half-open drawer for a clean white T-shirt. It was not warm and as she slipped the cool cotton over her torso she felt her nipples tense. But that might not only have been because the cotton was so cool. She reached across, flicked the lock and stepped back.
T-Shirt stood there, all blond curls, sparkling eyes and mauve bandanna, with Max behind him. Both were dressed almost exactly the same as she was herself. She stepped back and T-Shirt entered with a broad grin.
‘See you, Max,’ he said.
‘See you, bro,’ said the ever cheerful Max and vanished.
The cabin was not large but was well furnished and comfortable. An upper and lower berth filled one wall. At the bedhead end, a vanity table and drawers crossed to a narrow wardrobe. The top of the vanity table turned over into a washbasin. At the foot of the bed was a little table, chair, tiny bar fridge, door into the shower room and toilet. T-Shirt swung the chair out and sat. Jolene took the lower bunk.
‘Nice,’ said T-Shirt looking around. ‘Like the one Max and I are sharing up on Byrd-Ellsworth.’
Jolene looked at him, wondering what to say. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this. And her lack of current social practice was complicated by the fact that she still hadn’t finished with him professionally. After shaking his frozen hand, T-Shirt had h
elped pull Major Schwartz free of the snow. With Richard and Colin, he was the last one to see that area in any detail before the man with the Skiddoo set fire to it.
Suddenly aware of the silence, Jolene snapped back to full attention. T-Shirt was sitting quite contentedly looking at her breasts, displayed to some advantage by her slightly round-shouldered posture under the upper bunk, clad only in fine cotton tight enough to flatter.
‘You must be well used to seeing white slopes by now,’ she said tartly.
He gave a bark of laughter. Raised his eyes and met her gaze. ‘I’ll never see enough of white slopes,’ he said.
‘So you just popped in to sneak a look at the view?’ she enquired, a little too blandly.
‘No. No, actually I came to ask if you’d ever done any jumping. Base or bungee.’
‘What?’
‘Word is the weather’ll moderate overnight. Some of the guys’re going off the top of this cliff tomorrow. Black rock pinnacle higher than Angel Falls. It’s what they came for. Base jumpers jump with a parachute and try to ride down without becoming strawberry jam. You know what bungee jumpers do. There’s this old Welsh guy, looks like Sean Connery, sixty something, he’s a Base jumper, up for it with half a dozen others. Max. Me. Thought you might want to see, that’s all.’
‘Base jumping,’ she said. ‘Tell me more about it.’
‘Base is an acronym,’ he said. ‘It stands for building, aerial, span, earth. The four things a Base jumper is supposed to jump off. With a parachute, of course. Most of us have done the usual jumps. But there’s the chance of something pretty special down here. And I wondered if you wanted to be a part of it? It’s a once in a lifetime —’
‘See,’ she said firmly. ‘Not do.’
‘Well, you couldn’t Base jump. That’s heavy. You need to be right up to speed for that or you’ll just be a little red streak on the big black rock. Most of us have spent months getting in practice and the last few days getting prepared for this particular jump. And the last few nights undoing the good work, I guess. But we could scare up a bungee for you if you’re keen. I’m up for that myself after the Base jump if there’s a good solid anchor. Bit of an anticlimax, though; but I’d do it to keep you company.’
‘Big of you. Thanks,’ snapped Jolene. Then she said ‘Thanks’ again, very much more warmly. There was a companionable little silence then she continued, ‘Is that all you’re down here to do? Try to kill yourselves?’
‘That’s about the size of it. Adrenaline junkies, the lot of us. We should each have a warning from the surgeon general tattooed across our foreheads.’
‘You all came down here together?’
‘All fifty of us? I think not. No, most of the guys are like me, made it on our own from all over. Literally. All over the globe. From Carmarthon to Chatanooga, near as dammit. Carmarthon’s in Wales, next to England. That’s where the old guy’s from. Expert Base jumper. Dai. What a name for a guy in his business, I tell you! Dai Gwyllim. We christened him Dai the Death. I think it amuses him. He doesn’t care what we say all that much. He knows none of us’ll live to be anywhere near his age. He’s the only one with a partner — his wife Jilly. Thirty years younger than him, from Adelaide, Australia. They met on the Internet. What can you do with them, eh, the older generation? But most of the rest of us, guys and girls, are single, carefree, out for a good time. Use it up before it just wears out, sort of thing. But ordinary working folk. Saved up, worked extra, night shifts whatever, here to do or die.’
‘What about you, T-Shirt? What do you do?’
‘Bum about. Labouring. Stevedore. Shelf filling. Pump attendant. Security guard. You wouldn’t believe the collection of union cards I got. Spent the last couple of years, off and on, re-programming company computers to make them year two thousand resistant. But apart from what I need to live I wire everything into this big bank account I got at the First National Bank in Lordsburg, New Mexico.’
‘Lordsburg. You from around there?’
‘Nope. Never been there. Just liked the sound of it so I keep my money there. Kept. There won’t be any much left after this little experience.’
Jolene, sensible, conservative, inward-looking, careful, shook her head in stunned disbelief. ‘Well then, tell me,’ she said, striving to come to terms with his bohemian lifestyle, ‘what brought you down here to the Big White?’
‘National Geographic Magazine,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Volume one ninety-three, number two, February nineteen ninety-eight. Saw it in a doctor’s surgery in downtown New York. Got it in my cabin now if you want to see it. I was working for an accountancy firm, getting their computers ready for the twenty-first century. I’d saved up to go whitewater rafting in the Klondyke and I needed to get some shots for the insurance but I saw this article about these guys Lowe and Anker climbing these fantastic rocks in Queen Maude Land. Cancelled Klondyke at once. Been saving up ever since. I’d hoped to do a Base off this face these two guys were climbing — pinnacle spire more than twice the height of the World Trade Centre. But this was the closest I could get. But Dai the Death says this spire we go off tomorrow is pretty epic.’
‘You look fairly normal,’ said Jolene, ‘but you’re totally certifiable, you know that?’
T-Shirt grinned. ‘Come on, Mrs DaCosta,’ he challenged. ‘Live a little.’
‘I’ve got a job to do. Responsibilities to meet,’ she declared severely, drawing herself up haughtily. She promptly hit the back of her head on the bunk above and slumped forward, seeing bright lights. He laughed and refocused on her bosom with frank appreciation.
‘Think it over,’ he said. ‘There’ll be time enough to tell me in the morning. I’ll give you a knock, first thing.’ He pulled himself to his feet still grinning widely.
She rose and opened the door and he was gone, leaving her frowning slightly. She locked up, stripped off, washed and tucked down, her last waking thought being, ‘he’s too good to be true …’
*
‘Hi there, T-Shirt,’ said Richard as they bumped into each other on the companionway at Byrd-Ellsworth level five minutes later. ‘Mind if I thank you again for saving my family and me, then pump you for some information?’
‘Sure. I mean you can ask what you want. That’s cool. As to what I did this afternoon, don’t give it another thought.’
‘Where’s the best place to talk?’
T-Shirt shrugged amenably. ‘Library and video lounge back here.’
‘Lead on.’
T-Shirt switched on the light as the pair of them entered. It was a comfortable room, well furnished with tables and chairs. Bookcases stood along two walls. A big wide-screen digital TV sat on a specially designed trolley at one end with the tables pulled back and the chairs facing it. Its wide screen was full of no-signal snow. It emitted a quiet hiss. Immediately below it, on the lower shelf, sat a state-of-the-art video player. Opposite this, on the fourth wall behind the door, stood a computer, its screen lazily questing through the universe, its screensaver configured like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. As the two men entered, the tape in the TV system ran out and began to rewind automatically. The picture switched to television on the open video channel, abruptly and graphically showing an attractive, well-oiled couple making love. Unfazed, T-Shirt crossed to the machine and switched it off. ‘Kids after a good time,’ he said indulgently. ‘What’cha gonna do with them?’
‘Who?’ asked Richard.
‘My fellow travellers. Most of them. You want to know about them, ask Jolene DaCosta. I filled her in earlier.’ T-Shirt looked up, eyes crinkling with intelligent insight. ‘But you don’t want to know about them, do you? Not yet, at any rate.’
‘You’re right. I want to know about the ship and her complement first. I may have to start some serious discussions with Captain Ogre tomorrow. We’ll need to go through the full detail of our position aboard here and the Captain’s plans for us — and I may want an edge.’
‘An ace in the hole. Ye
s, I can see that.’
‘Any background would do. This ship is a little beyond even my experience.’
‘You can look round the ship itself any time. Ask for the guided tour. It’s free. But I think maybe you want some gloves-off, no-holds-barred actionable slander about the Captain and her jolly seadogs, right?’
‘If that’s what you’ve got on offer, I’m in the market, yes.’
‘You read Treasure Island? Of course you have. Well, it’s not like that. Not quite. No one-legged Seafaring men called Silver, Pew or Hands. But then again I don’t think the people on the bridge are as much in control as they seem to be either. Captain Ogre gives the orders, but the men jump to it quicker when Varnek’s about. Though to be fair, where she is, he is also, for the most part, as you’ve no doubt noticed. If this was an old-fashioned Russian cruise ship I’d think he was the political officer, the KGB man, you know?’
‘I’ve read about it in books.’
‘Really? Me too. But the old ways are dead now and the KGB’s been wound up. So who does Varnek work for?’
‘Anyone aboard?’
‘I think not. There are others aboard of equivalent power, perhaps, but it’s difficult to put your finger on. Wheels within wheels.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘I mumble a little. Let me see if I can be clearer. I had this job one time in this New York law firm. No big deal. Getting their computer system ready for the millennium. But I got a feel for the place. It was the subject of a couple of hostile takeover bids, you know? Bigger sharks looking to snap it up. It meant there were three structures in the place. The old guy who set it up and the people working for him. The people who were already sold out in their minds to shark A and were effectively working for him. And the people who had more or less done the same to shark B. It was all really quiet and intense and the old guy never knew. Never seemed to know, at any rate. But all of a sudden shark A made him move. Old guy and his people out. Shark B people out.’