Stranded (23 page)

He kept cranking, peering through the opening into empty space below. The skin on the back of Noah's neck tightened with creeping anxiety at the lack of anything installed to catch a person who happened to fall through. Work on a PSV could be dangerous, but life on a drilling platform seemed downright hazardous. Connor stopped cranking the handle as the basket touched down. He called out, “Two men!” and waited.

“You've been here how long?” Noah asked.

Connor hunched his shoulders while holding onto the steel cable. “Dunno. Two months, give or take. We were stuck in the
Promise
for maybe a week before the fog lifted and we saw this place. It was another week before the ice began to crush the ship and forced us off. Two months after that, I reckon. I didn't think to start counting right away. Thought it wouldn't be a thing, you know? The company would bring everybody back, ship us out, we'd all get settlements or a bonus or something, and I could go back to real life. Instead, I been here long enough for this to grow,” he said, pulling at his beard. “How 'bout you? How long has your crew been here?”

“Less than a week. But it's been bad. The way this sickness is tearing through the crew, we'll all be dead in another week. There's no way anyone's making it months, like you have.”

“Except you. You're not sick.”

Noah shook his head. “No I'm not. You?”

“Aside from losing some weight, I'm healthy I reckon. None of us started feeling all that bad until about a few days ago. You don't think…?”

“I don't think anything anymore. I used to think I could work on a ship with William. I thought I could keep people from getting hurt after we got stranded. Every time I think something, the opposite is what turns out to be true.”

Connor grabbed Noah's shoulder and squeezed. “You need to put that idea away, brother. You need to keep your head in the game if we're all going to get out of this.” The wire jerked twice in his hand as the men below indicated the elevator was ready to come back up.

“Give me a hand with this?” Connor asked. Noah stepped around to the crank and learned how to set the winch for either upward or downward motion. “It's tough, but one man should be able to haul up two at a time with this. Be careful. You want to keep your footing this close to that opening. Got it?”

Noah nodded and smiled. It was perhaps his first honest smile since setting out from port. “I gotcha,” he said. “Switch bad. Crank good.”

Connor clapped him on the shoulder. “You get crankin'. I'm gonna go round up a couple of the guys and let 'em know … about you and the others. I figure this is the kind of situation where forewarned is forearmed.”

“Forearmed against what?”

Connor grabbed the rifle from where he'd set it against the wall and swung it over his shoulder. “I can't imagine anyone is going to like what we're about to tell them. I don't know about you, but I'm still kind of waiting to wake up.” Noah nodded even though in his worst dreams he'd never felt the kind of nervous panic in his stomach that he felt at that moment. He felt like he might hyperventilate or vomit at the slightest provocation. He pushed those feelings down, not wanting to give them any better a claw hold than they already had. “I want to head off complete panic, if I can,” Connor said.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Connor looked over his shoulder at the barrel of the rifle sticking up behind him. “Lock it up, where it belongs. Any reason I shouldn't?”

From below, Noah heard a faint shout over the gusting wind. “Hurry the fuck up,” drifted up to his ears. Noah shook his head. “No. Locked away is exactly where it belongs.”

Connor's eyes narrowed and his lips tightened as he seemed to search for the hint of sarcasm in Noah's statement. “Once I let Mickle and Holden in on what's going on, I'll be back. Then we can see about getting some food in y'all and show you where to get some sleep.” Connor walked out of the room, leaving Noah alone to lift his crew up. He wondered why Connor would tell Mickle and Holden, but not Brewster. Because, he quickly reasoned, no matter how differently their lives were in separate realities, they were ultimately the same man. That troubled Noah. He had enough difficulty navigating his single father-in-law without doubling up the pressure.

He pulled at the crank, focusing on the work. The wind gusted beneath him, blasting him with frigid air and swaying the elevator the higher it rose off the ground. He leaned into the work, slowly lifting the cage to the platform. Each click of the crank wheel was a small victory against muscles that burned and mental fatigue that told him to sit down, lie down, let go. But he worked as fast as he could, trying to minimize the amount of time anyone had to spend dangling in space at the end of the line. As it rose, he could see Brewster and Boucher had been the first to climb inside, leaving the sickest men below. Noah continued to draw them closer without reaching for the release switch—although he found himself eying it. He pulled the elevator in and allowed the men to step aboard the Niflheim. Before he could object to their decision to leave the others behind, Boucher said, “Go down and help the rest,” holding the cage door open for him to step into.

Noah was smarter than to trust himself to a winch with Boucher at the controls a second time. “I'll take the ladder,” he said.

“This'll be faster.”

“I just bet.” He left the two in the winch room and returned to the pylon hatch, hoping his grip would hold. By the time he reached the ice, he knew he'd have to trust them at least once not to drop him. There was no way his fingers would last for another climb up.

Out in the elements again, he felt his muscles tighten and resist his efforts to move. Only a moment of rest was enough for his body to decide on its own that all effort for the day had been expended and no more would be supported. He forced his body into motion, helping Jack load Michael into the elevator first. He and Kevin slipped a few of the supplies in around their feet and closed the door. He called up and watched as the slack in the line drew up and the cage rose.

Next was Kevin and Henry's turn. They disappeared into the dark and Noah stood alone under the platform waiting to hear Brewster call out, “Coming down!” He never did, or if he did, it was lost in the wind. By the time he began contemplating trying to climb the ladder using the crook of his elbow to hold on instead of his hands, they lowered the cage. Staring up, he tried to see if it was still Brewster at the controls. Despite the dim light in the room above, it was too far to tell. All he could see were silhouettes backlit in a golden box hovering in the void above.

When the cage touched down, he shoved the few remaining supplies from the sled they hadn't loaded with the others into the elevator and stepped in after them. He closed the door, shouting, “Ready!” Nothing happened. He remembered the line hanging down from the steel cable above. He reached up and tugged it twice. The cage jerked and started to rise.

He held his breath the entire way up.

 

25

Although it wasn't anything resembling warm in the elevator room, closing the hatch made a difference. All in and without the wind chill abusing them, Noah felt a last spark of hope ignite. He was exhausted and still suffering the effects of his disorientation on the walk, but they were finally out of the elements into solid shelter. Even Michael appeared to have a renewed energy. He didn't look well, but he had at least enough energy to stand on his own, even if he looked like he might go into shock at the sudden rise in temperature. Relief from the cold and a rest, however short, was what they all needed. If there was warmth, they could survive the night. If they could do that, they could make it another day. And maybe another after that. Their situation had improved, even if they'd taken terrible damage along the way.

Connor beckoned the men up a flight of stairs, leading them deeper into the platform. It grew warmer with every step as they left the working areas of the structure. Despite the habitable conditions, Noah stayed bundled up, daring only to expose his face, pulling down the wrap Connor had helped him tie. He feared what he'd see if he removed his gloves. Fingertips blackened from frostbite and soon to be rotting? He kept his gloves on, letting hope and denial fight in the shadows for a little while longer.

Connor pushed though a single doorway at the end of a long causeway and the industrial spaceship surroundings gave way to the off-duty living quarters. Existing somewhere between a dormitory and an office building, the quarters gave Noah the sensation of stepping across thousands of miles in a single stride into the HUB student union building at UDub. The hallway was lit with flickering fluorescent lights recessed in a sound-dampening drop ceiling. They passed a cafeteria with a long buffet serving area and round dining tables with chairs that were neither bolted to the walls nor the tile floor. He peeked in a rec room with Ping-Pong and pool tables—games you could never play on board a ship. Although the
Promise,
frozen in the ice, had been stable underfoot, the feeling of solidity on the Niflheim gave the illusion of being back on land. For a moment, Noah allowed himself to believe it was true. In his mind, they'd been rescued and he was home again, looking for a place to recharge his mental batteries in between classes. But this was not home. The pernicious lie of the drilling platform concealed the fact that this was only a somewhat slower, but every bit as eventual, death for all of them if they didn't find a way to summon help.

Connor showed the haggard men the way into a large rec room. A flatscreen television was bolted to the far wall opposite a pair of couches. A few soft, padded chairs were placed around the room, a couple near game tables. Jack and Kevin helped Michael over to a sofa while Henry and Boucher took seats near the blank TV. In the corner stood a tabletop chessboard. Not a computer, but an actual board. Noah took a seat behind the white pieces and stared at the rows of soldiers waiting for war.

Connor closed the door behind them. “Rest here a minute and get yourselves warmed up,” he said. “I've got … someone cooking up a little something to eat, and then I'll show y'all to the sleeping quarters.”

Brewster objected to the casual normality of Connor's hospitality. “Who can sleep? I want to see the others now.” With his parka open, Brewster's hand rested on the butt of the pistol strapped to his hip. He looked equal parts ridiculous and threatening. Like an old man playing cowboys and Indians with his kids.

If Connor was unnerved by the sight of the firearm, he didn't show it. “Why don't you let me take that and put it in the locker with the other guns?” he said.

“Thanks. I think I'll hang on to it,” Brewster said. A shudder ran through his body as he tried to stifle a cough. The sound that came out was thin and wet. His lips glistened red.

“I don't know why you'd want to. What could you be expecting, William?”

“I don't know what I'm expecting, but I want to be prepared for it. And another thing, since when are we on a first name basis?”

Connor scratched at his beard, trying to smooth it back into place. It was untamable, sticking out in all directions. His eyes narrowed and fixed on Brewster's face. “We've been close since I helped you bury your son-in-law. But I guess that wasn't you.” He sighed and pulled his hand away from the lost cause of his appearance. “Hey, I understand why you brought it. I take the rifle out with me for all the same reasons, I reckon. But there ain't any wolves or polar bears in here. I'm not bringing a single member of my crew to meet you while you have that on your hip. We're all in this together, William. Let me put it away where it'll be safe and there won't be any accidents.”

He held out a hand. Brewster's jaw flexed while he seemed to weigh his options. Finally, he undid the buckle and loosed the holster from around his waist. He held it out by the belt, looking like he might yank it back. Connor took it with both hands, nodding his thanks.

“I expect you'll show me where the gun cabinet is,” Brewster said.

“Whatever you want, Will— Sure. I don't even keep it locked. It's just so this sort of thing isn't lying out. Boredom and booze are a bad cocktail. Don't need guns in the mix.”

“Booze?” Noah said. “You have something to drink?”

Connor let out a snort of a laugh. “Yeah. We've found a few bottles stashed here and there. Been rationing them like everything else. I s'pose all of us could use a snort, though. It's been a shit-ass hard day. Let me put this away and we'll go get fed. I'll round up something special to take the edge off before bed.” Connor left, not inviting Brewster to come see where the gun locker was.

Noah returned to eyeing the chess set. There was comfort within the four corners of the board. Playing would focus him and distract from everything else in the world, even if only for an hour. He touched a piece in the center of the line. Moving it ahead two squares, he made his opening move, starting a King's Pawn Game with his invisible opponent. If only he had a glass of Scotch to help.

*   *   *

The food was bland and there wasn't much of it. Satisfying his first real appetite since they'd become beset, Noah's plate of plain pasta under a reheated frozen chicken breast tasted like Thanksgiving at his grandmother's table: flavorless and dry. Still, the taste of it distracted from his numb toes and stinging fingers. He gobbled the food down, thankful for the reprieve from hardship. A warm place out of the wind and some hot food—no matter how bland—were welcome respites from the terror of the last few hours. Jack and Kevin wolfed their meals even quicker, cleaning their plates before half the crew had even started. Henry picked at the white slab of meat, teasing it, and Michael didn't touch his at all, the fork and knife sitting clean beside his plate as he stared into the middle distance somewhere not there. Boucher made a move to take Michael's plate and add it to his portion, but Connor stopped him. “We have two rules 'round mealtime. There are no seconds. And whatever doesn't get eaten goes back in the fridge.”