Powerdown (Richard Mariner Series)

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘So,’ said Irene ten minutes later, ‘we are here and we wish to go there.’

  ‘Here’ was a point on her big Antarctic chart spread beneath the Perspex sheet on her chart table, a bright point on the satellite readout Global Positioning System video screen and a gesture out past the bright bridge wing to the actual sea. ‘There’ was another point on the chart, a point already fed into the Differential Shipmaster automatic guidance system, and a distant loom of towering black cliff gleaming on the horizon on the starboard quadrant of the glittering clearview.

  ‘To achieve this, what do I do? Do I get my lookouts to observe the state of sea and sky? Do I ask my man on the forepeak to assess the draft with shot and line? Do I double-check our position with my trusty sextant? Of course not.’

  ‘Do you possess a sextant?’

  ‘Yes. And I can use it. But I do none of these things. I do not even ask my officers to check in the collision alarm radar. I do not ring down and discuss with the chief the state of weather, water, power of currents, revolutions or propeller pitch. All I do is this.’ Irene pressed a button below the Differential Shipmaster.

  ‘Now my computer is using my navigation slave systems to make all the checks for me. It is communicating with the chief’s computer, which is using all the engine room slave systems to deliver optimum performance, and it is delivering us to the desired point safely and swiftly. As it does so it makes constant checks and minor adjustments so as to be able to react to any emergency.

  ‘But of course that is only part of the story. Our objective in getting to “there” is to deliver a set of people onto the shore ready, willing and able to have fun. So, as navigation and engineering talk to each other in the mainframe, so our other systems are checking who wishes to do what, and ensuring someone on Mrs Agran’s staff has talked to them. The galley computer is asking the navigating computer for an ETA. Then it will inform Chef about who wants what sort of lunch. It will already have checked with the records computer, so it can remind Chef’s staff about dietary requirements. Now it will check ahead for weather and navigation in order to start preparing lists for tonight’s meal when they all come back. To get the weather accurate, it will not only check with our weather computer but automatically use the communications computer’s digital memory to update itself with reports from local weather stations.’

  ‘It is amazing, Irene. To have everything linked to such a degree, with so much intercommunication is incredible.’

  ‘Ha!’ she said. ‘You think this is incredible, you wait.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  By 11.00 Richard’s exclusive tour of Kalinin had come full circle back to Irene’s workroom. In the corridor outside, Vivien Agran was waiting to speak to him, so while Irene was on the phone to her American head office he answered quite a searching set of questions about personal and medical background, status of visas and vaccinations, dietary preferences.

  Richard’s responses were tapped straight into a hand-held notebook computer, and a little red flashing light in its top right-hand corner allowed him to guess, from his tour with Irene, that the information was being transferred automatically into the mainframe. Idly, he glanced up to try and work out what the red dot was communicating with and saw a little box like a motion detector for a burglar alarm, also with red dot flashing; noticed, with a little prickle at the back of his neck, a small glass panel at the lower end of the box. A camera? As Mrs Agran courteously declared herself satisfied with his information, he looked beyond her down the corridor, mentally counting the pattern of little boxes he had unaccountably failed to notice before. Each with its flashing red light, each with its sinister little square of glass. No wonder Irene could speak with such quiet confidence about knowing where everybody aboard was.

  No sooner had Vivien Agran turned away than Irene’s door opened again. Richard went in and sat down. Irene was clearly in two minds about the information she had received.

  ‘They take everything out of my hands,’ she said, characteristically coming directly to the point. ‘I dare say they mean to help but they treat me like a helpless infant now. They will contact all authorities and insurers. I am not to worry my pretty little head. I have more than enough to do getting my little boat here along Graham Land and across Drake Passage to Ushuaia on time through projected bad weather and the unknown effects of the millennium and without bumping into any icebergs or losing any passengers. They wrap me in diapers and treat me with boxing gloves, those men.’

  Richard manfully put aside the mental picture aroused by her lapse in idiomatic English and focused on the anger that had generated it. ‘I’ve often wished head office would take all responsibility for some unexpected problem off my shoulders like that when I’m at sea,’ he said.

  ‘Then you are a foolish man. You own your own head office. You tell them what for.’

  He laughed, and her eyes flashed up to see if he was mocking her. Then her own eyes crinkled into a rueful grin. ‘I was very rude,’ she said. ‘I apologise. But now that is all settled for us, yes? We worry about nothing and play our games like good little girls and boys. The big daddies at head office will look after all the grown-up business for us.’

  It was, perhaps, as well that Irene had given Richard the guided tour before the phone call to the States, for her temper now turned moody and introspective and he was glad to be able to get away. He was at once swept up into the preparations for this afternoon’s epic jumps. The frenetic activity dominated everything that the passengers aboard were doing, for even those not involved or spectating were being offered exciting adventures of their own ashore. Needless to say, the twins had been attracted by all the bustle and excitement and had dragged their mother along with their irresistible, imperious energy. Richard found them at the outer edge of the crowd around the Sikorsky, listening as the tall, Welsh, Base-jumping expert took the jumpers through the various situations they might expect to encounter free-falling and then parachuting down a mountainside without meeting the black rock face to face.

  Richard was fascinated by the erudite authority of the lilting Celtic tones and would have liked to stay, but he had other obligations. He called the nearest seaman and had a steward summoned. By good fortune — he thought at first — the steward who came was the steward who looked after their suite and who had taken the twins in tow last night. Brutally unfeeling, Richard handed them over again, then he and Robin went below into the sickbay. Except, of course, that on Kalinin it was not a sickbay at all. It was a hospital.

  With a charming but gimlet-eyed nurse following in their wake, Richard and Robin did their own rounds. Apart from Major Schwartz in the cold room next door, Sergeant Pat Killigan was the most severely injured. Corporal Washington was also pretty bad and Richard was keen to keep an eye on their progress. He reckoned he owed them quite a vote of thanks; perhaps even William’s life. The two scientists, Mendel and Fagan, were awake — Mendel only just — but they were both apparently content to sit and read while their bodies recovered and their beards grew back. There was a fundamentally contented feeling in the little ward. Even Billy and Ernie seemed much happier to be here than at Armstrong or aboard Erebus. Looking at the facilities, Richard could easily understand that.

  Richard’s next duty was to update Andrew Pitcairn and Armstrong base as to the status of their people. As he and Robin left the ward, Vivien Agran’s people came in, clutching their notebook computers, ready to record all but the most intimate details about the patients. The most intimate details, thought Richard acutely, would already be in Dr Glazov’s records and the relevant section of the mainframe.

  While Robin went to find Kate, Richard made his way to the bridge. ‘PASSENGERS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME ON THE BRIDGE’ said a notice Richard had failed to notice earlier at the bottom of the companionway up to the bridge deck. Of course he hadn’t, he thought with a shake of his head; Irene and he had ridden up in the lift. Automatically, he glanced beyond the welcoming notice and saw a little box blinking at
him from the top of the wall. Passengers are welcome but never unannounced, he thought. And indeed, as he walked into the airy spaciousness, there was Lieutenant Varnek, waiting, his smile of welcome ready, A few moments later Kalinin’s radio officer adjusted the frequency and checked the volume for Richard as he put through the first of his calls to Erebus, informing Andrew that Ernie Marshall would be dropped at Ushuaia on Monday next. Everyone else would be too, of course, but only Ernie was from Andrew’s crew.

  ‘Fine,’ said Andrew. ‘Regular supply planes come down to us from there as well as Stanley. As you know. You came down on one. Over!’

  ‘Right. We’ll be back on itinerary. Colin and Kate will probably return with Marshall, though. Over.’

  ‘Keep me posted. Before I sign off, Hugo wants to talk to Dr DaCosta. Is she there? Over.’

  ‘Not immediately. I’ll see if I can scare her up and get back to you. Over.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s urgent. He’s remembered something about the explosion, I think. Something’s coming back. But it’ll wait. Erebus out.’

  ‘OK, Andrew, I’ll tell her. Kalinin out!’

  Where was Jolene? Richard wondered as the radio officer made the necessary adjustments to contact Armstrong. Perhaps he should get Varnek to check his computer; that almost certainly contained the information. His silent speculation was interrupted by the clatter of the Sikorsky lifting off and heading inland, the Base jumpers all packed aboard.

  ‘… Armstrong Base. Colonel Jaeger speaking, over.’

  ‘Gene. It’s Richard Mariner here, to let you know about your people on Kalinin, over.’

  ‘Hi, Richard. Good to hear you. That will be welcome information.’

  Richard went through the patients, updating the colonel on his sick and wounded. And their likely destination on Monday.

  ‘Ushuaia’s a big place,’ said Jaeger. ‘Anyone still bad can go straight into the hospital there. The others’ll hitch lifts back with the Ice Pirates. That’ll work fine. Is Dr DaCosta there? Over.’

  ‘Negative, Gene. You want me to get her for you? Over.’

  ‘No big deal. I just wanted to tell her the Feds have arrived. A Special Agent named Jones. Going through the place with a fine-toothed comb even as we speak. Over.’

  ‘I’ll tell her as soon as I see her. In the meantime, Kalinin out.’

  ‘Thanks, Richard. Armstrong out.’

  ‘Is that all, sir?’ asked the radio officer as Richard put down the handset.

  ‘I think so, thank you,’

  But it was not all. As Richard strolled out onto the airy vastness of the bridge, the buzz denoting an incoming signal followed him. The radio officer answered at once. Richard, struck by the majesty of the white-capped sheer black cliffs so close at hand, lingered, paying no attention, until Radio Officer Kyril popped his head out of the radio room. ‘Captain Mariner, do you know where Dr DaCosta is? I have a Special Agent Jones calling urgently from Armstrong.’

  ‘No, sorry,’ said Richard.

  ‘I know where she is,’ said Varnek. ‘She’s over there,’ and he pointed to the distant red spot which was all that could be seen of the Sikorsky labouring up the far black skyscraper of cliff.

  *

  ‘You’re not jumping?’ Dai Gwyllim’s Celtic lisp made the ‘j’ of jumping sound almost like ‘ch’ to Jolene’s entranced ear. She shook her head in preference to testing her voice against the thrumming bellow of the Sikorsky’s motor. She looked down at the coil of bungee rope on the floor — what she could see of it under the pile of carefully-stowed parachutes. She looked up. T-Shirt was watching her. He grinned. Winked. She smiled a little weakly. She had never in all her life been so scared. Or so excited, come to that. This was even more poignant than her wedding night at Niagara with the late, unlamented, Mr DaCosta. And, she suspected, it would be a good deal more memorable.

  ‘So how’re you going to get down?’

  Jolene’s eyes switched back to Dai. His eyes were deep-lined, calm blue, like far skies.

  ‘I’ll hitch another lift,’ she said, hugging the seat’s solid armrest. ‘Meet you at the bottom.’

  ‘That’s wise,’ called Jilly, Dai’s dazzling young wife. She was leading the bungee team and Jolene hoped she had a good strong bra on for the jump or she would likely batter herself to death when her breasts swung up alongside her head. ‘Don’t you do anything you aren’t comfortable with. We’ll all be taking the chopper down too, after we’ve been hauled back up. It’s only the death or glory boys here who’ll make it down under their own steam.’

  Apart from Jolene herself, there were fifteen aboard. Ten bungee jumpers, mostly women, and five Base jumpers, all men. The other thirty extreme tourists were either with the set-up team waiting to watch the fun or down in the bay below, powering ashore in one of the two Zodiacs, a walk through a penguin rookery and a look at a seal colony in prospect, together with the promise of some of the most spectacular scenery they would ever see in their lives.

  A fluke in the wind, an errant zephyr in the near dead calm, swung the Sikorsky round so that Jolene could see the second Zodiac leaving Kalinin’s side, its black, rubberised flat-iron shape packed with scarlet parkas. Then over the silent perfection of the picture swung the long, wide-winged shape of a wandering albatross. She caught her breath, entranced.

  In the very far distance, just beyond the edge of her immediate understanding, the radio buzzed and the Sikorsky’s tannoy whispered, ‘Dr DaCosta, call from FBI Special Agent Jones for you.’

  It was only when Dai leaned over, shook her shoulder and said, ‘Call for you,’ that she realised she had heard her name. Struggling up the body of the Sikorsky to the pilot’s cabin, she felt a sense of almost personal invasion that the FBI should intrude itself into the jewel-bright preciousness of the adventure. But as things turned out, reception in the cockpit was so bad that she could make out nothing of the Special Agent’s message and she was happy enough to cut him off. Their destination was in sight.

  They called it the Razor. On the inland side it rose nearly three hundred metres above the mountain-ringed plateau to a triangular pinnacle which looked tiny from the air. On the seaward side, the point of the triangle stood out from the plateau cliffs above a plain of black rock sliding into a wilderness of white shore ice just a little under a thousand metres sheer. The apparent smallness of the triangular top was simply a refusal by the mind to accept the massive size of the Razor. There was plenty of room for the Sikorsky to land and for the excited team to bundle out without even in the least cramping the collection of crew members and spectators waiting there.

  Jolene, wracked by her professional conscience, slid into the jump seat beside the pilot and got through to Armstrong base. But Special Agent Jones had gone off again and was nowhere to be found. ‘This is a bad place to be calling from,’ she yelled into the handset, projecting her voice under the thrumming of the rotors. ‘Tell him I’ll be back in contact when I get aboard Kalinin later. DaCosta out.’ And that was that, for the time being. Her mind filled with speculation as to what the Special Agent wanted to tell her, she ran crouching to the open doorway and dropped onto the ice-crusted rock. Still crouching, she ran forward through a whirling storm of downdraught as the Sikorsky lifted off. Then she straightened, suddenly, apparently, alone; all thoughts of the FBI and her investigation pushed aside by the view which greeted her dazzled gaze.

  The broad base of the triangle, over which the chopper had just hopped and soared away, overlooked a frozen sea of milk maybe a hundred miles across, or so it seemed. Away at the far side, containing the milk like the rim of a childhood beaker held up for a bedtime sip, rose a ragged black ridge of mountain peaks. Between the Razor and those distant mountain peaks lay only that sleeping sea of snow, three hundred metres down. The sky was vast, electric blue, seeming to attain the indigo of evening, up at its zenith somewhere just below the stars. The gentlest buffet of wind nudged her and she felt as though she would be swept away over t
he edge, as light as an albatross’s feather. Then she turned. The sun reflected up off the carapace of snow, bringing out of the blue clarity of the air an extra range of hues, most of them shades of red. Surprisingly distant, for all they sounded close by, the group of people from Kalinin had gathered at the Razor’s edge.

  There were two distinct groups of them and as she drew nearer she could see why this was so. The Base jumpers had first choice of jump-off point. The wind was light but appreciable. They would need to take much more notice of it than the bungee jumpers. By the time Jolene joined them, Dai had made the choice and the preparations were under way. The bungee base was being anchored to a series of cracks in the rock edge and, before he strapped his parachutes on, Dai came and crouched down to inspect this work as well. Seeing Jolene’s frown, he grinned, strong teeth flashing. ‘No sense in giving myself a safe landing if the wife has a hard fall,’ he rumbled. ‘But that’s as solid as can be. Right, boyohs, we know the plan, eh?’

  T-Shirt and Max nodded, as did the two others Jolene did not know.

  ‘Good luck,’ she called to all of them, but it was T-Shirt who grinned at her and winked again, sparking with impatience and excitement.

  ‘Jilly?’ called Dai.

  She answered, ‘Ready, bach,’ in her strong Australian accent.

  Jolene saw that they were planning to jump together, he with his chutes and her with her bungee, each at a slightly different angle off the sharp point of the arrowhead of rock.

  As they tensed themselves to run for the void, Jolene looked past them, out over the Antarctic Ocean. The water was like indigo ink, spotted with clouds and streamers of ice. Far, far away Kalinin sat, no bigger than a toy, tiny and peaceful. Beyond her, on the very rim of the horizon where the edge of the sky and the lip of the sea met in a milky distance, loomed islands dark as thunderheads and icebergs like sapphire cities afloat. Jolene found that her arms were up level with her shoulders as though she, too, was about to take flight.