Five Minds

by Guy Morpuss

  Followed at 2:36 by another message:

  Chief Engineer, USS Marlin. Urgent assistance requested. Vessel stopped. Flooding. Emergency power. Engineering crew: nine (one injured) trapped in aft compartment. Air running out. Estimate no more than thirty minutes. If divert life support from control room estimate up to two hours. Please advise urgently. C/E.

  I turn to the officer seated to my right. ‘Lieutenant, what is your recommendation?’

  She sits up. ‘Commander, we launched the rescue submersible at the same time as calling you. It will be at the Marlin in forty-two minutes. That is fifty-one minutes after the incident. We agree with the chief engineer’s estimate that, by then, all of the crew in the aft compartments will be unconscious if not dead. They need to be conscious to unlock the escape hatch from the inside when the submersible docks. If they divert life support from the control room then the captain and the executive officer will die, but the engineering crew will live. It’s a straight choice, Commander.’

  ‘I asked for your recommendation, Lieutenant.’

  She looks away, and hesitates. ‘If we do nothing, the captain and the XO live. If we tell the chief engineer to divert life support then we kill the two of them. We can’t be responsible for doing that.’

  ‘Can’t the two in the control room get to engineering?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ says the lieutenant. ‘The flood doors are shut. With water coming in and possible contamination they won’t be able to override them.’

  ‘What do we know about Captain Rogers?’

  ‘He is forty-two, career navy man. Worked his way up from the bottom. He’s been a commander now for just over two years.’

  ‘So, nothing exceptional,’ I say. I think for a moment. ‘Send two messages. First one: “To Chief Engineer, USS Marlin. You are ordered to divert life support from control room to engineering. All in control room believed to be dead now. Submersible will dock at aft escape hatch in approximately thirty-five minutes.” The second one: “To Commanding Officer, USS Marlin. Message received. Submersible on way and will dock at sail escape hatch in approximately thirty-five minutes. Await further communication.”’

  The lieutenant looks at me wide-eyed as she types the messages. Well, if she can’t cope with this she won’t be going any further under my command.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, Lieutenant,’ I say. ‘It’s simple mathematics. Nine live and two die. I would rather the CO and XO don’t know what’s happening until it’s too late. The carbon dioxide will build up and they will gradually fall asleep. If they know it is going to happen they might try something stupid and get everyone killed. Send the orders.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  •

  Stage One complete. Twelve players surviving.

  •

  Revillagigedo Island, Alaska, SEAFAC, 2:37.

  The command centre door bangs shut behind me as I stride through, buttoning my jacket and blinking sleep away.

  ‘Lieutenant, report,’ I say.

  She slides out of the command chair and I take her place.

  ‘Ma’am, we have received two messages from the USS Marlin. She has struck an unidentified object and the forward compartments are breached. She has settled on the floor of the channel and cannot surface. Captain Summers reports that he and the XO remain alive and trapped in the control room. The chief engineer reports that he and eight others are sealed in the aft compartment, one badly injured. The rescue submersible will be with them in forty minutes.’

  ‘What are our options?’ I ask. ‘Can we get them all out?’

  ‘I don’t believe so, ma’am. We can get the captain and XO out. But the chief engineer estimates that those in the aft compartment will run out of air in less than thirty minutes. We agree with that estimate. He can divert life support aft but then those in the control room will die.’ She hesitates. ‘Including your son, ma’am.’

  I look up sharply. ‘That has nothing to do with this, Lieutenant. You would do well to remember that.’

  It’s a numbers game. The right decision is to save the engineers. The important question is how this will reflect on me and my career. Save the engineers and I will be known as the hard-ass who did the right thing and sacrificed her own son. I’ll make admiral next year. Do nothing and I’ll be the officer who couldn’t make the tough decision and chose family over the service. I’ll never be promoted again. I’ll end up being posted to Diego Garcia, the back end of nowhere, as my career slowly dies.

  So what do I sacrifice? The career I’ve spent thirty years pursuing to the exclusion of all else, when I’m about to reach the pinnacle? Or the son who deserted me at fourteen to live with his deadbeat father, and whom I’ve barely spoken to in the last ten years? The son who will want nothing to do with me if I do save him, because my name will be mud throughout the US Navy.

  I make my decision.

  ‘Lieutenant, tell the chief engineer to divert life support aft.’

  She stares at me, aghast. I look her in the eye and dare her to protest.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She types the message. ‘What about your … what about the officers? What do we say to them?’

  I pause. We need to tell them something. I don’t want them doing anything stupid and killing everyone. That would be the worst possible outcome for me. ‘Tell them that rescue is on its way and to sit tight. By the time they know differently it will be too late.’

  ‘Don’t … don’t you want to at least say goodbye?’ she asks.

  ‘No. If I do that they will know what’s coming.’

  I turn away from her shocked look and stare out over the Behm Canal. As my first commander told me, make a decision and move on – never regret.

  •

  Stage Two complete. Two players surviving.

  •

  The control room of the USS Marlin is unusually quiet. The engines are silent, the vessel still. There is the occasional groan or creak as the hull flexes beneath the tremendous pressures 1,000 feet deep. We struck the ground hard and there is no response from the forward compartments. I suspect that they are flooded, and the crew dead.

  Someone is still alive in the aft compartments. We communicated by tapping with a wrench on the sealed flood doors. We believe that the chief engineer and some others are still alive.

  In here it’s just the XO and me.

  I feel calm. If the ship breaks up I will be dead before I know about it. It won’t hurt. But I don’t want to die. I need to find a way out.

  ‘What are our chances of being rescued?’ I ask.

  The XO looks up from his screen. ‘We have just heard back from command. A rescue sub is on its way. It should be with us in thirty minutes.’ He hesitates. ‘They confirm that there are nine crew alive aft, including the chief. However, they are not going to survive long enough to be rescued.’ He pauses again, and swallows. ‘Captain Summers, ma’am … they have asked us to consider diverting life support aft so that the chief and his crew can be rescued.’

  It takes me a moment to understand. ‘They want us to go down with the ship in the best traditions of the service? A noble sacrifice and all that. For eight ratings and a chief I’ve had to babysit through the dying days of his career.’ I laugh. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  The XO looks frightened. ‘I don’t want to die, ma’am, but is it right that nine die so we can live? What will everyone think when we are rescued? We will be shunned as cowards.’

  He is right about that. This is not going to look good on our records.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I say. ‘Send a message to command saying that we have decided to do the right thing and sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the crew.’

  The XO looks surprised at my sudden change of plan. His shoulders slump and he is starting to shiver. I hope he isn’t about to cry.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I say, ‘pull yourself together. I’m not suggesting that we actually do it. In ten minutes you send another signal saying that the systems aren�
�t responding. Put it down to power failure or something. When we board the rescue sub we’ll leave the Marlin’s escape hatch open so that she floods. By the time they get down here to salvage the ship and recover the bodies no one will be able to prove anything different. We will look like heroes who tried to sacrifice ourselves, but failed. Make the message suitably solemn and noble. We might even get a medal.’

  The XO looks at me with a mixture of shock, guilt and gratitude. Someone has to take the tough decisions.

  ‘When we get back don’t ever breath a word of this to anyone,’ I say. ‘It would finish us both off.’

  He nods silently. I don’t trust him. I am going to have to get him posted somewhere remote when we get out of this.

  I sit back and breathe out, waiting for rescue. This is what command is all about: making the best of a bad situation and staying in control.

  •

  Stage Three complete. Two players surviving.

  •

  There are two of us left alive in the control room of the USS Marlin. The XO and me. Considering that I am sitting in a submarine with the bows torn away, and the forward and aft compartments flooded, I feel surprisingly calm. I know that there is 1,000 feet of pressure on the already damaged hull, but this isn’t my time yet.

  The XO’s head jerks up as a dull groan echoes from one end of the ship to the other. There is blood dripping from a wound at his temple where he struck the periscope earlier. It doesn’t look too serious.

  ‘What’s our status?’ I ask.

  He looks at me, fear in his eyes. ‘She is holding so far. I got a signal away to command. If things go to plan I anticipate that they will get a sub down here in thirty minutes or so. Provided the escape hatch works, we should get out of here alive.’ He hesitates. ‘But we have a bigger problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The missile run doesn’t seem to have shut down. In fact, according to my screens it has gone active. Missile launch in twelve minutes.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ I say. ‘It was just a drill, and we never entered the real codes.’

  We had been conducting a test exercise with one of our nuclear missiles targeted at Dutch Harbor, Amaknak Island. I’d chosen it for no reason other than that it had been my least favourite posting two years earlier. To actually launch a nuclear missile we would have needed a code from command, plus the codes held by the XO and me. None of which we had entered.

  ‘It looks real enough here,’ says the XO.

  ‘How do we stop it?’

  ‘I have tried to abort but nothing happens. The missiles are beyond the flood doors so we can’t do it manually.’

  I shrug. ‘So, nothing we can do then. Most likely it’s not real and nothing happens. But even if the accident has somehow triggered a launch we can’t stop it. We sit here and wait for rescue.’

  ‘There is one thing we could try,’ says the XO. He looks at the escape hatch above us. ‘We blow that open. The pressure will tear the ship apart and most likely stop the launch.’ He swallows. ‘We won’t feel a thing. It will be done in an instant.’

  I look at him, trying to work out if he is serious.

  ‘How many people live in Dutch Harbor?’ I ask.

  He looks at me wildly. ‘How would I know? I never served there. Probably a few hundred. Certainly more than two. Besides, we don’t want to turn it into a nuclear wasteland. It might start a war.’ He stands. ‘We have to do it.’

  ‘No we don’t,’ I say. ‘Odds are this is all some computer glitch and nothing is going to launch. I’m not killing myself for that. Even if I’m wrong, Dutch was a dull place at the best of times. It will be no great loss to anyone.’

  He stares at me. ‘We have no choice. We can’t take the risk.’

  I meet his stare. ‘Stand down,’ I say. ‘That’s an order. Disobey and it’s mutiny.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘If we are wrong I can’t live with that.’

  ‘You won’t need to.’ I draw my service revolver and sight between his eyes. At six feet I can’t miss. ‘You disobeyed a direct order. Take one more step and I shoot.’

  ‘Do that and you’ll have done my job for me. The bullet will go straight through me and the hull. By the time I hit the floor this place will be flattened.’ He turns back towards the hatch.

  He’s right. Or I am certainly not prepared to take the risk.

  I reverse my grip on the revolver, step up behind him and club him hard on the temple. He slumps to the floor, blood now gushing from his wound. I put the gun away, grab him beneath the armpits, and drag him to the nearest cabin. The ship has settled at an angle, and I am having to pull him uphill, so it is surprisingly hard work.

  I drop him on the cabin floor, pull the door shut and jam the lock. Even if he wakes before I am rescued he won’t get out. I will leave the emergency hatch open and the sea will ensure that there is nothing left to incriminate me.

  I sit back in my chair, waiting for rescue. I check the XO’s screen. Two minutes more to find out whether Dutch Harbor will still be there when I reach the surface. Does it matter? I was never going back.

  •

  Stage Four complete. One player surviving.

  •

  The man at the reception desk looked at me oddly as I left the arena.

  ‘Ms Summers,’ he said. ‘Congratulations. “Moral Dilemmas.” That one requires some tough choices. We normally count on it as a banker for the arena. You’re the first person to survive it in a long time.’

  It hadn’t seemed all that hard to me. Logic and self-preservation at all costs.

  ‘What did I win?’ I asked.

  He looked down at his screen. ‘After deducting what you brought in, and our fee of twenty-five per cent, you win 3.2 years. Well done. We hope to see you again.’

  Having risked more than fourteen years, winning 3.2 seemed like a pretty poor return. As usual the arena would be creaming off a nice percentage. Nothing I could do about it, though.

  As I turned to go he rummaged around in a drawer and offered me a package. ‘Here, take one of our T-shirts. We never sell any.’

  I opened it: REVILLAGIGEDO ISLAND: COME FOR THE NAME, STAY FOR THE GAME. There was a picture of a broken submarine on the back.

  ‘Catchy,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t sold out.’ I dropped it back on the counter. ‘Not even for free. What kind of loser ever takes this crap?’

  •

  I headed for the nearest bar. Before I got too far down the first bottle I composed a message to the others. It was time they realised that I had saved their skins this time.

  All. I don’t know how you let this happen, but we got assigned a random challenge by ParkGov [see attached]. The option was to play it, forfeit, or leave the park today with half our time. So I played it and won. We are up another 3.2 years. You’re welcome. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again. If we are staying for another cycle we need to choose a challenge for tomorrow so we don’t get one forced on us. I’m not going through this shit again. Also something odd has happened. We’ve lost ten years. Has Ben being renting high-class whores again? S.

  I returned to my bottle.

  An hour later I was making good progress towards intoxication when someone pulled back the chair opposite me and sat down. I looked up to protest that I didn’t want company, but stopped. It was a familiar face.

  Amy Bird.

  She grinned at me. ‘You know, the others are keeping you out of the loop because they think this is all your fault. There’s a lot they’re not telling you, Sierra.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Where to start? That the drug dealer you followed is dead. Some of the others are wondering if you killed him.’

  I laughed. ‘Karl? No great loss. Why should I care? I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Alex seems to think you might have.’

  I shrugged. I’d long ago given up worrying about Alex’s opinion of me. He’d lost his sense of humour after Montrea
l.

  ‘That was just one of the things they forgot to tell you.’ Bird paused. ‘What else? Oh, yes. That Mike got set up with a ringer and lost his race. They know that one of you bought me, but they don’t know who, or why. And Ben lost ten years of your time to a local gangster.’

  So that explained the time loss. ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘In fairness to him, it was either that or get hung from a meat hook and skinned alive.’

  So what did that leave us? Around seventeen years. Still a decent prize.

  ‘I have some messages you ought to see,’ Bird said. She reached across and put her hand on mine. ‘Have a read.’ She looked at the almost empty bottle in front of me. ‘Preferably before you have any more to drink. You’ll particularly like the one in which Alex speculates that it’s all a drug deal of yours that’s gone wrong.’

  She pushed back her chair and, before I could say anything more, was gone.

  So was Mike really dead? He was the only one who was ever nice to me. It didn’t seem possible for Mike to have lost a race.

  I contemplated the whisky bottle and the messages, and decided that I had time for both.

  Whisky first.

  I owed it to Mike. A drink to his memory – just in case.

  ONE YEAR EARLIER

  VINOGRADOV

  Alex regarded the seagull through his single open eye. The bird loomed large, hopping from one foot to the other. Its pale feathers shone in the moonlight. It cocked its head, then darted at him.

  Alex jerked away from it. And instantly regretted moving. He dry-retched and pain stabbed through his eyes.

  The gull jumped backwards, flapping its wings and squawking. It seemed to have been hoping that he was dead, and edible.

  Half of him wished that he was dead.

  The metal floor was rising and falling beneath him. That, the seagull, and the smell of salt in the air made Alex realise that he was on a boat. A mixture of vomit and seawater was surging back and forth across the deck. The gull hopped out of its way and flew up to a railing, turning to observe him.