“Yes, thank you. All quiet? Anything to report?

“Radios remain dead. Nothing to report ship-wise. No calls, I’ve not heard from the others. I imagine everyone has been catching up on some rest.”

“Let’s hope so, they’re going to need it.”

Stacey pulled herself to her feet and stretched, still silent. She watched as Jake wandered over to the console, picked up the telephone and dialled a short number.

“Good morning Claude, I hope you haven’t been up the whole night? Good. Are we set for a breakfast service? Thank you Claude, you are amazing, I knew I could count on you. I’ll send someone down to collect something for the bridge if that’s okay? Thanks, I’ll catch up with you later.” He replaced the handset. “Lucya, would you mind bringing up four breakfasts?”

“Sure, no problem. I could do with stretching my legs.”

As Lucya left, Melvin returned.

“Stacey, situation report?” he said.

“Nothing to report. It was a quiet night. The captain has ordered breakfast for us.”

“Oh, sorry Stacey, not for you. I’ve ordered for the bridge crew. You’ll need to get to one of the restaurants if you want to eat.”

She glared at him, looked to Melvin, but he simply nodded. She rolled her eyes and left the two of them alone. Jake picked up the PA and spoke quietly into it.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Jake Noah.The restaurants are now serving breakfast. Service will continue for one hour. There will be lunch and dinner services later today. We are hoping to set sail some time this morning, and the crew will keep you up to date with our progress. Thank you for your patience and cooperation at this difficult time.” He set down the receiver, picked up the telephone, and dialled another number. “Morning Martin, didn’t wake you I hope? Okay, sorry, only joking. How is the engine situation looking? Excellent, that’s really excellent news. I’ll wait to hear from you then.”

“I take it that means we will be able to move today?” Melvin asked.

“Yes, it sounds like it. Martin’s team worked through the night and they are going to start the engines in an hour or so. Another hour of running tests and we should be good to move off.”

There was a knock at the door. Jake opened it to Silvia, and spotted Lucya not far behind carrying a tray of food.

“Morning Silvia.”

“Good morning Captain.”

“I suggest we take breakfast while working out the details of this passenger manifest business.”

“I don’t care what we do, as long as we eat while we’re doing it,” Lucya said. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”

Lucya set down the tray on the table, and the four of them dug in to meagre rations of cereal, bread and jam, and orange juice.

“Claude’s using up the fresh milk with the cereal. He’s using it in all of today’s meals so he can switch off one of the big refrigerators,” Lucya said.

Jake opened a drawer and pulled out some Spirit of Arcadia headed writing paper and a couple of pens. He handed one to Silvia and kept one for himself.

“So the manifest,” he said.

“I thought it was a census?”

“It is, but we’re going to stick with calling it a manifest. I just think it’s less confrontational and controversial that way.”

“Have you got something to hide from the passengers?” Melvin asked.

“Not at all. I just think that if we call it a census then people are going to automatically think that we’re planning for the worst. That this is it, life stuck on this ship for who knows how long.”

“But that’s the case. You are planning for that. That’s the whole point of the census as I understand it. Lying about what you are doing isn’t the right way to go about this. If you want cooperation from people, you’d better start being honest with them. I say we call it a census.”

“Silvia? What do you think?” Jake was trying to ignore Lucya’s grimaces.

“I think Mr Sherwood has a point. Just because we are seen to be preparing for the worst, doesn’t mean we expect it.”

“Right, I see. I’m outnumbered then.”

“Er, no your not,” Lucya chipped in. “I say we call it a manifest. And what about the others? Don’t they get a say?”

“We haven’t got time,” Jake said. “We need to get this done. Okay, we’ll call it what it is. The advantage is that we can ask more questions. So, a list of the questions. Bearing in mind this needs to be done quickly, we mustn’t get carried away. Obviously we need full name, date of birth, and occupation.”

“Date of birth?” Melvin looked skeptical. “Intrusive, isn’t it?”

“If we have to put people to work, then knowing their age is important. We can’t be assigning heavy lifting jobs to pensioners. We may also need to think about education for the children. Speaking of which, nationality and country of residence should be noted too.”

Melvin nodded.

“Useful skills,” Silvia said. “We may as well come out and say it. If there are people on board with useful skills, we need to know. We could dress it up as hobbies or interests, but nobody ever tells the truth about those, they make stuff up that makes them sound interesting or intelligent.”

“Alright, that’s enough to be going on with. So how do we deal with this, I mean logistically?” Jake scratched his head, the thought of trying to canvass nearly three thousand people in a day was a lot to cope with so early, and on such a light breakfast.

“We send people to their cabins between lunch and dinner services,” Lucya said. “Passengers and crew. The only people with good reason to be out of their cabin should be people like the engineers, some of the sailors, obviously the bridge staff. And then we do all the decks simultaneously. Get it over with quickly.”

“I’m assuming the housekeeping team will be the best for the job? They go to every cabin every day anyway,” Jake addressed the question at Silvia, and couldn’t help but think back to the photograph of Tania, tied up and gagged. Melvin had assured him that she was now being treated properly, but he still couldn’t help wondering if that was true.

“Yes, they’re all twiddling their thumbs now. But for them it will be more or less like a regular day, pop into each cabin, but ask questions instead of clean. They should easily get the job done in the afternoon.”

“Keeping passengers locked up all afternoon is a bit much,” Melvin looked agitated. “Why not let them out once they’ve done their questionnaire?”

“Because having people wandering around the ship mid-census will cause confusion,” Jake said. “And those who get processed last are not going to be happy about waiting the longest while others are free to go wherever.”

“Why even put them in their cabins? Why not issue questionnaires during a meal service, have people hand them back when they’re done?”

“Because I don’t want families inventing children they don’t have, in order to get extra meal rations. No, every person who goes on the list must be seen in person by a crew member.”

“You have a lot of faith in your crew Mr Noah,” Melvin snarled. “How do you know they won’t invent passengers to claim extra meals for themselves?”

“I don’t, I have to trust them. But I would point out they are already trusted to clean your cabin every day without stealing your belongings.”

“That’s different, the rules have changed. This is about life or death now.”

“Forgive me,” Silvia cut in. “If I’m not mistaken, the passenger manifest didn’t actually get destroyed, did it? That was just going to be a cover story, before we agreed not to dress this census up as something else.”

“That’s right. But we still need to update it so we know who survived. Right now we don’t know how many are on the ship, and how many jumped,” Jake didn’t know why he felt he was on the defensive, Silvia was on his side.

“I understand. But if we have a passenger list, then the crew doing the census can’t invent new passengers, can they? Because we have the means to find out.”