it.
Jane was hit by a snowmobile and sent spinning across the ice. She sat up. She wondered if her hip were broken. She looked around. The snowmobile skidded to a halt and turned. The bike from the bunker. Nail must have had the key.
Jane struggled to her feet. She unzipped her parka. Nail drove at her. She jumped to one side and threw her coat beneath the bike. The caterpillar tread chewed her coat and jammed. The bike flipped. Nail was thrown across the ice. He got to his feet.
They both ran for the hook. Jane got there first. She grabbed the chain. Nail seized her throat and they fell to the ground. He sat on Jane’s chest and began to throttle. His lips were black and turning to metal. His right eye socket was burned out.
Contest of strength. Jane pushed his face away with a gloved hand. She gripped his leg, tried to tip him from her chest. Something in the utility pocket of his trousers. Jane’s knife. She pressed fingers into his remaining eye. He roared in pain. He gripped her right arm and tried to snap it. She had the knife in her left hand. She flicked open the blade and stabbed him in the belly.
Nail convulsed. She threw him aside. She looked up. Sian had raised the hook. It hung fifty metres above their heads.
Nail lay on his back. He saw the hook high above him and realised what was about to happen. He screamed. His cry merged with the roar of breaking ice.
Sian hit Release. Gears disengaged. The chain spun free. Jane rolled clear as the half-tonne hook slammed down like a fist. It punched clean through the ice leaving nothing of Nail but a fine pink blood-mist.
Sian engaged the gears and raised the chain. The hook rose from the depths, splitting ice, dripping seawater. Jane stepped on to the hook, and was lifted upward into the light.
Sian lowered Jane on to a walkway. Jane stepped from the hook. She stumbled and fell.
Sian and Punch climbed from the cab and ran to her. They helped her up.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Punch.
‘I hurt my hip,’ said Jane. ‘I think I’m okay.’ She looked around. ‘Where’s Ghost?’
Jane stood at the north railing and watched the Arctic ice slowly recede. A bleak landscape lit spectral white by moonlight. Jane spoke into her radio. ‘Ghost? Can you hear me?’
‘Jane? Where are you?’ A weak signal. Ghost, somewhere out on the ice, alone in the dark.
‘I made it. I’m on the rig.’
‘You’re all right?’
‘We’re fine.’
‘Look after those kids, yeah? That’s your mission. Keep them safe. Get them home.’
‘We’re leaving now. We’ve cleared the ice. The current is taking us south. I’m so sorry, Gee. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘These past few weeks. You and me. I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.’
‘I love you, Rajesh.’
Ghost’s reply was lost in white-noise crackle as his radio passed out of range.
Jane saw the pin-prick of a distress flare fired in the far distance. The star-shell burned intense red for a full minute then died away. Ghost’s final salute.
Jane lay on her bunk and cried. Always dealt the losing hand.
You’ll be alone. You’ll be alone your whole damn life.
Maybe she made the wrong choice. Maybe she should have joined Nikki’s weird commune. Become a member of the herd. Or maybe her old, fat self had been right all along. Why live? Why struggle? Why not jump from the refinery and end it all?
She stared at the ceiling and tried to think of a reason to keep breathing.
Keep them safe. Get them home.
Jane got up. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She showered and found fresh clothes. She limped to the canteen. She looked for Punch and Sian. She saw them through a porthole. They were standing on the helipad. She joined them outside. Punch had a black box in his hand. He examined the gauge. ‘Geiger counter,’ he explained. ‘They used to locate blockages in the treater by flushing isotopes through the pipes.’
‘What’s the reading?’
‘Eighty. Standard background. I’ll take a fresh reading every day. Not there’s much we can do if we hit a radiation hot-spot. It’s not like we can turn round and head the other way.’
‘How’s the fuel holding out?’
‘We should be able to keep the lights on for a few weeks.’
‘Food?’
‘Some. Not much.’
‘We’ll make it,’ said Jane. ‘It’ll be tough, but we’ll make it.’
Jane made her way to the observation bubble. She settled herself in a chair and massaged her injured leg.
She powered up the radio and scanned the wavebands. Nothing but the pops and whistles of unmanned transmission equipment, military and civilian, singing to the ionosphere.
‘This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with federal, state and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions. This concludes the test of the Emergency Broadcast System. ’
Jane picked up the microphone.
‘This is Kasker Rampart hailing any vessel, over.’
No reply.
‘Mayday, mayday. This is Kasker Rampart. Can anyone hear me, over?’
No reply.
‘Mayday, mayday. This is Jane Blanc aboard Con Amalgam refinery Kasker Rampart. Is anyone out there?’
Ghost
Midnight at the top of the world. Darkness. Lethal cold.
The Aurora Borealis. A flickering ion stream washes across the polar sky. Iridescent colour. Dancing emerald fire.
Rajesh Ghosh sits at the centre of the snow plain. A speck in vast white nothing. He is the last human north of the Arctic Circle now that cities lie in ruin, mankind has been swept away, and a strange new intelligence rules the earth.
He kneels on the ice, hands in his lap. He has taken off his coat and gloves. He sits in T-shirt and shorts. He will never move again.
His flesh has hardened to rock. His skin is frosted with snow crystals. His eyes have turned to glass. He is looking up. A white statue, smiling at the stars.
