Noah's Ark: Encounters (2 page)

Back in what Max liked to think of as the ‘good old days’, a couple of months ago, before the asteroid wiped out almost all life on earth, his job was simple. In spite of his impressive-sounding title, he had a team of precisely one: Reeve Canela. They had worked well together. Reeve did the being-nice-to-passengers thing, and Max dealt with the trouble makers. Then Reeve had disappeared, presumed dead, probably killed by Flynn Bakeman or one of his deranged ‘disciples’.

Max would happily have continued in his role all alone, but the committee had been handing out jobs for everyone on board, and security was no exception. Now Max found himself in charge of a team of twenty
Community Security Officers
, a term that made his skin crawl. It made it sound like his men and women were there to protect and serve the community. Max didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned, he was there to protect the ship and the crew
from
the community. Max was a company man through and through, and the fact the company had gone, along with the rest of the world, wasn’t going to change that in a hurry.

His office was tiny. He couldn’t fit even half his team in there. If he needed to address them all at once, he had to borrow one of the conference rooms outside of school hours, as they had recently become classrooms.

With his feet up on the desk, Max had begun to doze. There was probably paperwork to be done. A report to write, or some other pointless document to prepare for the next committee meeting. He could find someone else to do that for him. If he was to be encumbered with a bunch of subordinates, they could at least do his job for him.

He was rudely jolted awake by a voice booming through the door, accompanied by a determined knocking. It was the sort of knocking that wasn’t going to go away.

“Security? I require the assistance of security!” The voice penetrated the flimsy door and wound its way directly and irritatingly into Max’s ears.

“Security’s closed. Come back tomorrow.”

“This is an emergency. You can’t be closed: you’re the law.”

That, Max thought, was a fair point. Out at sea, he
was
the law. He was pleased someone else saw it that way too. He swung his size-thirteen feet off the desk, stretched, and waddled to the door.

On the other side he found a tall, elderly man with thinning white hair.

“Right, sir,” he said as politely as he could reasonably force himself. “What’s the emergency?”

“It’s my friend, Giles. He’s gone missing.”

Max groaned. “With all due respect, sir, nobody can go missing. We’re on a ship. In the ocean. Where is your friend going to go?”

“That’s what I want you to find out.”

Max trudged back inside and flopped into his chair. He didn’t invite his visitor into the office. “Could he have been killed by the ash? That’s what happened to most people who are missing, you know. Have you consulted the list of unknowns? There are photos of all those who weren’t identified.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, man. The ash was seven weeks ago. I’ve been playing bingo with young Giles every day since then.”

“When did you last see him?”

“A week ago. When we left Faslane. Poor chap was struck down with that terrible virus, but he pulled through. He was right as rain by the time we set sail.”

Max considered the man’s request. He knew the drill. The quickest way to get rid of him would be to go along with it, to go through the motions and make out he was doing something. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a notebook and pen. The book was entirely empty, but he didn’t let his visitor see that. Instead, he flipped through the pages, nodding to himself, before settling on a blank page a quarter of the way through. He lay the book flat on the desk. “Right, I’d better take some details. Your friend’s full name?”

“Giles Moran.”

“Age? Appearance?”

“Sixty-four years old. Completely bald. Wears horn-rimmed spectacles, and a suit. Always a suit. Very well dressed, Giles.”

“Cabin number?”

“923.”

Max nodded again. That stood to reason. Deck nine was home to the largest state rooms. Giles sounded to Max like a snob; exactly the sort of person he’d expect to find in the nines. Exactly the sort of person he loathed: privileged; moneyed. Probably thought he was better than those on the lower decks, and certainly thought he was better than the crew. He disliked him already. As far as he was concerned, Giles wasn’t any great loss. He hoped he wouldn’t be found. Someone more deserving could take his cabin. Someone who had been assigned an important job, like a medical assistant, or a farmer. “And your name is?”

“Tom Sanderson. Cabin 907.”

Max’s pen scratched at the paper, scrawling down the information. “Something of a hero aren’t you, Mr Sanderson? Saved us all with your magical medication?”

Tom waved a hand dismissively. “That could have been anyone. The lovely Mrs Hanson and the rather clever Mr Vardy, they’re the real heroes. Although, I did stop the engine room from blowing up and sinking the ship. That was quite heroic.”

Max sighed. He’d heard all about that incident as well, but he wasn’t one for hero worship. Sanderson was another rich, privileged passenger; that was all that mattered. “Well, I think I’ve got all I need here. I’ll open an investigation and we’ll be in touch. Thank you, Mr Sanderson.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to send out a search party? He could be anywhere. He could have been taken prisoner, or fallen overboard!”

Max stood and walked to the door, closing it as he spoke. “If he fell overboard, rushing a search team out isn’t going to help. And in the very unlikely event he’s been taken prisoner, he’s still somewhere on the ship, isn’t he? Time is not of the essence, but I assure you we will do all we can. We’ll be in touch, Mr Sanderson. You go and get some lunch rations and relax.” The door clicked shut.

Max sat back down and flipped the notebook closed. He tossed it into the chair on the other side of his desk, the one that was supposed to receive visitors, or ‘customers’ as the committee insisted on calling them. If someone from his team dropped by, he’d give them the book and tell them to take a look if they had some spare time. If he remembered. He doubted he would.

He closed his eyes again, heaved his feet up onto the table, and pictured a sun-drenched beach with cocktails, music, and señoritas. A minute later, he began to snore gently.

• • •

The look on the face of submariner Ewan Sledge told Jake all he needed to know. He’s seen the same expression before, at Gare Loch.

“There’s a body in there, isn’t there?” Jake said, screwing up his face.

Ewan nodded, and pulled the canopy of the life raft all the way back. Jake, Captain Gibson Coote, and Doctor Janice Hanson crowded around the inflatable, jostling for position on the little platform normally used for boarding the
Spirit of Arcadia
’s tenders. They all wanted a better look, although with the exception of Janice — who had intense professional curiosity — they didn’t really want to get too close.

“Well, there you are, old chap. Another fellow with no head!” Coote observed.

“How do you know it’s a fellow, Captain Coote? It could be a woman,” Janice said. She got to her knees and leaned inside the raft, rolling the headless corpse closer towards them. Ewan turned white and withdrew.

“Call it intuition. It certainly looks like the frame of a man to me. Ewan, you and Eric can help get our friend here down to Mrs Hanson’s…working area. Discreetly, if you could.”

Eric O’Brien, who had been standing guard with a rifle — just in case — nodded, and disappeared inside the ship.

“I was so hoping we’d seen the last of these rafts,” Jake said. “This is what? The fourth one now? And the third body. Where are they coming from? And are they following us? Or is it coincidence that we keep coming across them?”

“Judging by the state of this body, I might be able to give you more to go on,” Janice said. She was examining the severed neck. “This one is fresher than the last two. The poor guy in the fishing net was too far gone to give up many secrets. Your Faslane man in the last raft had been dead for a couple of weeks as well.”

“Any chance of spotting a pattern? Perhaps a clue as to where in the world they came from?”

“I can run a DNA test using some of the equipment we salvaged from the Faslane base, but it won’t tell us nationality or ethnicity. Human beings have been migrating around the world and mixing their markers far too long for that to be a realistic proposition without access to international DNA databases. But I can check for common haplogroups. That’ll at least give us a good indication as to whether the three bodies are likely to come from the same place.”

Eric returned to the platform, pushing a wheelchair on which was folded a large white sheet. Janice stood and moved back, allowing the two submariners to remove the corpse from the raft. They lowered it into the chair, covered it with the sheet, and wheeled it inside in the direction of a lift.

Jake peered at the raft again. Something had caught his eye. “Look,” he said, pointing at the far end. “Those symbols. I think they’re the same ones we found on the last raft. The one in the loch.”

“What are they, Chinese?” Coote stooped low, frowning at the odd shapes scrawled across the inflatable chamber:
 

“Maybe. You know, I had fully intended to try and decipher those six symbols from the other raft, but I never got round to it.”

“Hardly surprising, old boy. You were at death’s door shortly after finding that.” Coote chuckled. “Things have been somewhat busy since then. Mysterious symbols haven’t been high on anyone’s list of priorities.”

“No. They are now, though. We’re going to be sailing for at least another day. I have some time on my hands. I’m going to look into these some more. I’ve got an idea who could help me.”

“Well I’ll leave you boys to your treasure hunt,” Janice said. “I want to get started on the body straight away. I’ll give you a call when I’m done.”

“Mrs Hanson, always a pleasure!” Coote tipped his cap at Janice. “Time I got going too. As soon as my chaps are back on the
Ambush
we’ll dive again. We should make good time as conditions are favourable.”

Jake couldn’t argue with that. The English Channel was calm, and the sun even looked like it was trying to break through the omnipresent thick cloud that had descended after the asteroid’s passing. It was almost perfect weather to be at sea.

Two

J
AKE
MADE
HIS
way casually up to deck seven. He stopped by the conference rooms in passing, and sneaked a look through the windows. Groups of children were attending lessons. One of the larger rooms was the pre-school crèche. Toys and games had been gathered from the kids’ play areas, and more had been donated by families on board. It looked like a happy place. It was certainly a noisy one, as the infants laughed, cried, shouted and babbled away, slowly wearing down their courageous monitors.

Most of the youngsters inside, Jake realised, would never remember the old world. This was their reality, and this would always be their reality. He found the idea reassuring in a strange way. Theirs was the first generation that wouldn’t crave the freedom, space, and variety that the planet once had to offer. Of course, they would learn about how things had been before, but not remembering for themselves meant they would never truly feel the sense of loss or deprivation that everyone else was already suffering.
 

He moved along, looking in more rooms until he found the one he’d really come to see. Sitting at her desk, writing something with a look of intense concentration on her face, was Erica. He’d dropped her off there in the morning. The ‘school run’ Lucya called it. It was his turn, while she took the early shift on the bridge. Jake felt enormously protective over Erica, and couldn’t help but check on her any time he was near the conference rooms. Satisfied that she was perfectly fine, he took the lift up to deck seven.

Deck seven was, Jake believed, one of the most important on the ship. Not only was it where the kitchens were located, it was now becoming a vital source of food. The fishing team had been installed there, and with their improvised net repaired, they were regularly making good catches. A second net was well underway. It was a critical project; fish were their primary source of protein. The supplies they had recovered from Faslane were all well and good, but as head chef Claude never failed to impress upon Jake at every opportunity, fresh ingredients were essential to everyone’s wellbeing.

It wasn’t just about fish. Deck seven was also the home of Palm Plaza, a huge park, open to the sky. Cafes surrounded it, and on the decks above, state rooms overlooked it. The plaza had always been a favourite space among the crew, an oasis of land and greenery wherever in the world they went. Now it was being repurposed and rebuilt. Palm Plaza had become Farm Plaza.

Jake spotted the man he had come to find straight away. He strolled over to him, making his way along the decked path that wound through earth that had, until recently, been home to flowerbeds, lawns, and of course palm trees. Now that dirt had been turned over and was being sown with crops.