Thirty

THE PAIN WAS becoming unbearable now. Her legs were in danger of getting cramp, and if that happened, Lucya knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid crying out. She tried to stretch them, to bend them, to do anything to help improve the circulation, but her movement was so restricted, the tiny movements she could manage made almost no difference at all.

The legs were only half the problem. Her arms in front of her had gone completely numb. After the sneeze, she hadn’t dared try and replace the plastic vial in the neck band for fear of making a noise and drawing more attention to herself. Now it sat precariously in her hands. She couldn’t feel it, so just gripped it tightly, an action that was bringing her more pain as her muscles cried out for some respite.

Finally, the cold was making the whole ordeal twice as agonising. Vardy had warned her. He’d said the cold would bite, that she would go through hell. When the fans had restarted, it hadn’t seemed so bad. The air was chilled, but hardly up to the Arctic conditions they had experienced at the North Pole. She’d been moving then, though. Exerting energy, generating body heat. Now, motionless in the coffin-like tube, the chilly air was slowly refrigerating her. Her body shivered involuntarily, desperately trying to create warmth, and she fought it constantly for fear of making noise.

There was one upside to the torment, one positive aspect to the situation that kept her hanging on: the Koreans were suffering even more.

She focussed her mind on listening to what was going on in the classroom, trying to picture the scene playing out so close by yet out of sight.

It had started with mumbled complaints. At least, she assumed they were complaints. It was hard to tell; the men sounded pretty upset all the time anyway. Since the virus had been released, there had been a definite downturn in the vibe. There had been coughs and sneezes. Lucya didn’t think she’d heard any of those before releasing the fine spray, but she hadn’t been paying attention then either. A better signal had come when the leader’s voice, easy to pick out because it sounded somehow angrier than any of the others, had made some kind of demand of one of his men. The man had replied, and then an argument had ensued. This had resulted, she had deduced from sound alone, in the man being hit by the leader. Whatever reaction he had been expecting, he didn’t get, and the other men had all gasped. After that there had been a bit of a panic, and the men talked among themselves, their voices filled with fear. The leader had brought them to attention, and snapped more orders. The man who had been struck was carried into a corner. Not the same corner as Erica, but a corner that Lucya could just about see through the grille. Luckily for her, the man was, by this time, unconscious. Had he been awake, he would have been looking directly at the grille and would likely have seen her hands. As it was, Lucya could see his head. Not clearly, but enough to be sure that his hair was falling out and his face was covered in deep red blotches.

She was stunned. These were unmistakable effects of the advanced stages of the virus. It was working incredibly fast.

No sooner had the man been dumped in the corner away from the others, than more bickering had started up. The leader was losing control as fear and uncertainly gained the upper hand.

The children remained quiet. Those who had the unfortunate idea to speak or to cry were rapidly shouted down. They’d learned quickly, and kept their noise level to a minimum.

Lucya started to shiver again. She battled with herself to stay still, to stay silent. Her concentration was broken by a voice.

It was Erica.

“Excuse me? I think you should get a doctor.”

“Quiet!” The angry bark of the leader.

“Sorry. It’s just, you’re all sick, aren’t you? People on this ship were sick like that. Lots of them died, but the doctors saved the rest. If you don’t see a doctor, you might die.”

“I say quiet, girl!”

Erica ignored him. Lucya shut her eyes and silently begged the girl to do as the man said and shut up, but in vain. “If you’re dead, you won’t be able to get on your ship, will you? I thought you wanted to get on your ship? You should see Doctor Vardy. He helped lots of people.”

“Stop!” His voice got louder; he was coming closer to Erica. Then he cried out in pain. One of his men said something and he shouted back at them twice as loud. Then, silence once more.

Lucya waited for someone to move or say something, but it seemed they were all in fear of their leader, who, by her best estimation, was somewhere close by, near the ventilation grille.

At that moment, her arms gave up. Tired, numb, devoid of feeling and ignoring the instructions from her brain, her hands fell open. The empty vial rolled silently across her right palm, then clattered down onto the shaft, bouncing three times. The sound echoed all the way back to the plant room.

• • •

He released the transmit button and repositioned himself behind the launcher. Out loud, he counted down the seconds.

“Fifteen elephants, fourteen elephants, thirteen elephants, twelve elephants…”

His hands gripped the wide handle. The cannon swung easily, even with the unwieldy package protruding from the end. He held it fast, pointing out to sea, away from the Spirit of Arcadia. The trigger mechanism was operated by a secondary handle. Jake thought it looked like a bicycle brake; a strange association for such a potentially deadly device. He pushed the thought aside and realised he had almost lost count.

“Seven elephants, six elephants…”

No time to lose. He stretched his fingers out and curled them around the lever. Without another thought, he squeezed.

There was a one-second delay.

“Five elephants…”

Then, a muffled crack as the explosive charge fired. The twin harpoons forced themselves deeper into the capsule, and for a split second Jake was afraid they were going to come right out the other side. His fears were for nothing though. As the spikes pushed against the compressed raft inside the plastic cocoon, they could bury themselves no more, and their momentum was transferred to the capsule itself. With a strange whoosh like a dud firework going off into a crazy spin, the whole bizarre assembly launched itself forwards and out of the cannon.

“Four elephants, three elephants…”

It flew better than he had expected, and whilst it didn’t exactly soar like a bird, it did travel a good ship’s length, maybe more, all the time arcing downwards towards the sea.

He scrabbled around in his pocket and found the second radio. Realising he should have switched it on before launching, he poked at the power button repeatedly.

“Two elephants, one elephant…”

The radio popped into life. He twisted the dial and watched as the digital readout counted up to the frequency he was desperate to hear.

“Zero!”

One more turn.

The capsule hit the water.

The radio remained dead.

“Shit!”

Then he heard his own voice from the little speaker, tinny and compressed. At the same time, he watched as the white plastic cocoon split in two.

“Spirit of Arcadia, this is Captain Coote of HMS Ambush. The enemy submarine has disappeared, we are surfacing. Prepare for docking.”

The black-and-orange raft spilled out of its shell. Even from his position on the Lance, Jake could hear the hissing of the compressed-air cylinder filling its chambers. Folds of rubber unfurled and expanded, growing and taking shape at incredible speed.

Jake’s voice echoed from the radio once more, the auto-repeat function doing its duty perfectly. The radio hissed static for a second, then squelched itself silent. The raft was fully inflated, drifting freely, a dark blob on a darker ocean.