Noah's Ark: Destination, page 16
part #1 of Noah's Ark 05 Series
“Was it—” She stopped short, and Jake knew what she had been about to ask.
“The lights going out? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” His eyes stung. He rubbed them some more. Lucya was a blur in front of him. “It’s all a jumble in my head. Everything from when it all kicked off. It didn’t even last that long, but now I can’t remember the exact order everything happened in. I think I heard the woman screaming before the lights went out. But what if I’m wrong? What if me cutting the power caused— What if it’s my fault, Lucya? What if I did that?”
She hugged him tighter. “You did what you had to. More people would have been hurt if you hadn’t found a way to stop it.”
He blinked hard, trying to focus on her. “Hurt? The kid could die, Lucya. The boy might not make it.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God.”
“Thank God? What the—?”
“Sorry, no. Not like that. It’s— I thought he could be…I thought he was already… But he’s not! He’s alive, so that’s good. It could have been worse. A lot worse.”
Jake didn’t have an answer for that. That the young lad’s life was hanging in the balance seemed quite bad enough.
Sixteen
NEWS OF THE riot spread throughout the ship faster than the news about the change of course. It was the sole topic of conversation to be heard anywhere. Even in the darkest corners of the Ambush, submariners were dissecting the reports of violence and attempting to decode exactly what it meant for the community, and for the future.
The atmosphere had changed from one of weary resignation to a mix of shame — for those who had participated in the fighting — and a growing mistrust of the committee, who, according to the rumours, had hot-footed it out of danger at the first opportunity.
Throughout the Spirit of Arcadia, questions were being asked. Competencies queried. Variations of the same conversation were happening everywhere.
“I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after that Adam business, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Do they actually have, like, a clue what they’re doing? Come up with a plan and stick to it already!”
“Captain Noah did get us out of the scrape with the North Koreans though. You have to give him credit for that.”
“Yes but he got us into that in the first place. We should never have got involved with them. We never would have if we hadn’t changed course to find the Lance.”
“Then we went to find that submarine, too. Who’s to say what problems that’s going to get us into?”
“I heard that they picked up the distress beacon from the new submarine before they sent the Lance out. She wasn’t going on a fishing trip at all. She was sent specifically to find it. That’s why there were no fish when she came back.”
“If they lied about that, what else are they lying about?”
“Exactly! We can’t trust the committee!”
“We should have got rid of them there and then. That was our big opportunity and we blew it.”
“Have a heart. A child was injured.”
“Whose fault was it that the boy was crushed? They turned out the lights. Heads should roll.”
“The boy was down before that. I saw it myself. That’s why they turned out the lights. We should be bloody well ashamed of ourselves.”
The soul searching was set to continue for as long as the clean-up operation that was underway in the theatre.
• • •
In a remote corner of Farm Plaza, Tania Bloom was on her hands and knees installing piping for an automatic irrigation system. Seated on the path behind her, enjoying the unique view, was her minder.
“Noah’s gone too far this time,” Max said gruffly. “The committee were dead-set against going off on another pointless detour. Now he’s changed their minds ’cause he’s tempted by the sound of another sodding beach. We all know how that worked out last time. I tell you, Tan, that boy will be the death of us all.”
“I don’t imagine the committee changed their minds without good reason.”
“Pah! You don’t know what he’s like. I’ve seen him work, remember. He wears them down. And he uses his mates in the navy to help him get his way. Now it sounds like he’s found a bunch of new mates in another bleeding submarine.” Max shifted his weight, which coincidentally got him a more advantageous view of his charge’s rear end.
Tania moved around, apparently sensing his roving eye.
Max, realising he had been caught out, stood to stretch his legs. He turned slowly on the spot, checking out the immediate area. Satisfied that nobody was within earshot, he crouched next to Tania. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. We should do something about him.”
“We?”
“Yeah. You and me. The old team.”
“We were never a team, Max. I don’t think you even know the meaning of the word.”
He scowled. “I had a team. Big one. Until that bitch—”
“Yeah, you’ve said. About a thousand times.”
“What do you think, though? About doing something.”
Tania huffed. She brushed a ringlet of hair out of her eyes, her earthy fingers leaving a brown arc in their wake. “You do what you like, Max. I’m stuck here, working. My views no longer count. I was ejected from society. My choice. I set my destiny the moment I decided to work with Adam—”
“Flynn. I wish you wouldn’t call him Adam.”
“I can’t help you.”
“I think maybe you can,” Max said. But he left it at that. Tania was part of a wider plan, and he wasn’t going to bring her into the fold until she was ready.
• • •
“I’m starting to get sick of this place,” Jake said. “No offence, Russell.”
“None taken. Nobody likes being in hospital. At least this one doesn’t look like your standard NHS outfit. Or a Royal Navy one for that matter.”
Jake couldn’t argue with that. Grau had made mention of how the pleasant soft furnishings were conducive to rapid recovery, but Jake thought he was probably just trying to make the best of the bad situation. “Okay, let’s get this over with.” He marched into the bedroom that until the previous day had been home to Gan. Now it was occupied by a younger lad. Much younger. Perched on the side of the bed was his mother. Jake had hardly seen her in the theatre. She had been a sobbing wreck, shivering over the body of her son, a mess of twisted and bloodied hair. Now she had been cleaned up, but she still looked a wreck. Jake suspected she hadn’t slept since the incident.
She made to stand to greet him. “Oh, Captain Noah.”
“No, please. Stay there. You must be exhausted. How is he? How’s Bobby?” For a horrible second he thought he had misremembered the boy’s name as he mistook the expression on the woman’s face for shock. Then he realised it was pain.
“Doctor says he’ll pull through,” she croaked, squeezing her son’s hand.
Jake could empathise. The lad was only a few months older than Erica. He looked as though he had been badly beaten. His face was a patchwork of red and blue. His eyes were so swollen that they were shut tight. Bandages and sheets covered much of the damage, but Jake knew that the injuries extended across his whole body. Both arms were broken, one leg was sprained, and one of his ear lobes had been ripped. His windpipe had been partially crushed, but he was now breathing unaided.
“Doctors Vardy and Lister are the best,” Jake said kindly. “He could not be in better hands. The nurses too. This team has dealt with the worst the world can throw at us. Bobby couldn’t want for more professional care.”
“You’re very kind. And thank you, Captain. It was you who stopped the riot, wasn’t it?”
“I had help.”
“The doctor says if they hadn’t got to Bobby when they did he wouldn’t have made it. You saved his life. You’re making a habit of saving lives. We’re lucky to have you, whatever the others say.”
Jake didn’t know if it was the tiredness talking, or misplaced gratitude, but he was, for once, happy to accept the praise. He needed all the friends he could get. “Is your husband coming to visit later?”
The woman shut her eyes tightly and turned her head away from Jake. She could hide the tears, but a lone sob escaped.
Vardy pulled Jake away from her and explained quietly. “Mrs Vance lost her husband to the ash cloud.”
• • •
Jake sprinted from the medical suite at top speed. He drew surprised looks and a few smart comments from those he passed, but he hardly noticed. His legs pumped like pistons, his muscles fuelled by a massive dose of adrenaline that had hit him out of the blue.
The sight of the injured boy and the plight of his single mother had changed something inside him. He had been a fool. He had taken far too long planning what he thought of as his special project. There had been things to find, things he still hadn’t found. He had been working quietly, slowly, terrified of being caught out. Everything had to be set before he progressed to the final stage.
Now all of that planning had gone out of the window.
Planning was wasting time. How, he wondered, could he have been so stupid? Had the last three months taught him nothing? Life was precious and precarious. He could be dead tomorrow. They could all be dead tomorrow.
He burst through the cabin door, surprising Lucya and Erica who were sitting on the sofa talking quietly.
“Jake?” Lucya sprang to her feet. “Whatever is the matter? Is there another riot?” She cast a concerned look at Erica, who stared at Jake wide-eyed.
He was too out of breath to speak yet, so he just shook his head.
“Okay, calm down. Take your time.”
He shook his head again. “No! No more…slowing down.” He panted heavily. “While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
“Seneca?”
Jake nodded.
“Okay, what’s so important?”
He clutched his sides and took three more deep breaths, shaking his head. He spoke falteringly between each inhalation. “I’m sorry… I wanted to do…this properly.”
“Do what?”
He dropped to one knee, lifted his head, and met her eyes. “Lucya Levin, I love you. I’ve loved you since the day we met.” He thought he might be starting to hyperventilate. “I should have done this months ago, and I’m not waiting any longer. Will you marry me, Lucya? Will you be my wife?”
Seventeen
IT TOOK ANOTHER week to reach the Suez Canal. A plethora of work employing large sections of the community hid the passage of time.
One of the biggest jobs was, of course, the renovation of the theatre, as well as the cinema which had suffered similar damage with the exception of the waterlogging. A small army of amateur seamstresses and tailors were employed in the reparations of the upholstery. Every craftsman that could be found was roped into fixing seats back into place, drying and replacing carpets, and in removing bloodstains from walls. Little of this was strictly necessary, and the committee had at one point floated the idea of closing the two public spaces altogether as a light form of collective punishment. But the punishment came through the hard work.
In fact the work did more than just punish. It also led to the beginnings of a social healing. People who only days before had fought mindlessly and without discretion, now worked alongside each other, if not in harmony, at least in peace.
The NR-2 was pressed into service too. Andor Paulson, son of a shipbuilder and experienced in every aspect of the work, was called upon to lead a group of divers to affect a more permanent repair to the hull of the Spirit of Arcadia. Ever since her collision in Svalbard she had been sailing with a hastily covered up gash in her side. With the assistance of the specialist equipment now available in the diminutive submarine, and Andor’s considerable expertise, a much more comprehensive and secure repair was carried out in the calm waters of Suez before the fleet headed into the canal.
Though Jake had no additional duties personally, he did — to his own surprise — find great satisfaction in overseeing preparations for the fleet to split once they hit the Atlantic. The first and most important job on the list was to assemble a crew for the NR-2.
A small number of volunteers from the Ambush presented themselves for consideration, and working with Coote, three men were chosen. Bradbury and Sampson were experienced helmsmen who could operate the machine single-handedly, thus providing some redundancy in the team. As the longest serving officer of the two, Bradbury was to be given the rank of Captain for the duration of their short voyage.
The third man, Timmins, was Gunson’s recent protégé. His experience of nuclear power was limited, but it was more than anyone else they could afford to lose from the fleet. The young man had been drilled for weeks on the operations and safety procedures for the Ambush’s considerably larger reactor. He was to oversee the little power unit in the NR-2.
In addition to the experienced sailors, it was decided that at least one civilian member of the community should also join the party. It wasn’t an easy decision, and Coote was against it at first.
“You have to understand, life in a submarine is a particular thing indeed. One must live in a proximity to one’s colleagues that is most unnatural. Challenging at the best of times. It will be worse within the confines of that little American beast,” the captain had argued. “More so if the poor souls get wind of the nature of the last crew’s demise.”
The counter argument — that it was important not to destabilise the makeup of the Faslane community with an arrival of purely navy men — eventually won him over. So the search began for a person or persons of sound mind and body.
Jake made the search his own personal mission. It wasn’t advertised; the community didn’t need a competitive element introduced so soon after the riot. Instead he kept his eyes and ears peeled wherever he went.
It proved to be an enlightening experience. The young and reluctant captain, who had previously kept his distance from most of the people aboard his ship, found himself drawing complete strangers into long conversations as he tried to get to know them. It was far from efficient as a means of recruitment, but it gave Jake a deeper insight into the collective psyche than at any time since he had taken command.
He eventually found a suitable candidate quite by chance. Peter Binny, an amateur diver, had been assisting Victoria Mitchell in running the trial aquaponics system. Jake had been chatting to Vicky about the NR-2’s trip to Faslane, and she had been telling him how much she would have loved the opportunity to spend so much time in a craft that was purposely designed for underwater observation.
“If I didn’t have Adam,” she had said, cradling the child in her arms, “I would have jumped at the chance. So much to see! So much theory to validate. What a trip.”
“What about Dan?” Jake asked. “He’s a lovely bloke, but doesn’t strike me as the sort to want to hot-bunk with a trio of sweaty sailors.”
“I’d tell him I was going without him. That would soon persuade him to come with me.”
It was then that Peter, who had overheard some of the discussion, had put himself forward.
“I’m used to spending time underwater. Not quite the same thing, but still, better than taking someone who’s never been deeper than the bottom of their bathtub, no?”
“I can see the logic,” Jake agreed. “You do understand this is a one-way trip though? The NR-2 isn’t coming back. It’ll be a permanent part of the Faslane settlement. You’re looking at a week in a submarine that’s virtually standing room only, followed by potentially the rest of your life living in a bunker.”
“Captain, until last week, we were all facing the prospect of spending the rest of our lives in that bunker. Anyway, it won’t really be the rest of our lives underground. We know that the ash can be cleared, and I daresay the Faslane folk have figured that much out for themselves. It was part of their brief. There’ll be plenty of opportunity to get outdoors.”
“What about family? Friends? Will anyone miss you? More to the point, will you miss anyone? If you can’t integrate into Faslane because you’re pining for someone back here—”
“There’s nobody. Family, well, same as everyone else. They were back home. As for friends, I came on the cruise with a friend, but he didn’t make it. The ash.”
Jake nodded sympathetically.
“I know a few people here and there. Just to say hello to, mostly. Not that I have trouble making friends you understand. I’d miss Vicky, obviously.” He gave her a playful shove and she smiled. “But only a bit.”
“What about Bermuda? As a diver, isn’t that more tempting than Scotland? Crystal clear water, endless reefs to explore. The divers on our cruises used to go nuts for the place.”
Binny looked wistful, but it didn’t last. “You can have too much of a good thing. I’ve been to Bermuda before. Faslane’s something different. It’s a challenge where I can make a difference. I can take everything we’ve learned so far about aquaponics” — he nodded towards the flourishing rows of lettuces that were floating on the trial pool — “and share that knowledge with the outpost. We can set up similar systems there. With a whole loch to work with we could do amazing things.”
Jake could see the young man was truly enthused by the opportunity. “All right, leave it with me. I need to talk to some people first, and then you’ll need to meet the other three.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am serious though, Captain. I’m the right man for the crew.”
Jake let the idea sit with Peter for another couple of days before talking to him again. In the intervening time he questioned Vardy, Vicky, and Coote about the candidate’s suitability, and had the ship’s counsellor interview Binny at some length about his motivations for leaving the fleet.
By the time they reached Suez, Peter Binny had impressed everyone he needed to impress, and had already competed in an all-night poker tournament with the three navy members of the crew, thus cementing his place as the only possible person for the job.
