“What do we do about space? We’ve almost run out again, even with the other cabin.”

“I am rather hoping the captain will put out a message soon, informing everyone aboard of why deck eight has been quarantined. Then we will be able to freely treat people in their rooms. Speaking of the captain, he was supposed to bring our patient’s daughter to us. In the chaos it slipped my mind. If the girl is not here, then…oh my, I have to find her, now!”

Grau ambled to the telephone where he dialled the number for the bridge. “Lucya? Grau. Captain Noah was supposed to bring a girl to us, do you know where she is? It is most important…What? She is with you? On the bridge?” Grau sat down slowly, his hand on his forehead. “Lucya, this is very important. Nobody is to enter or leave the bridge, do you understand me? Nobody, under any circumstances, until I give the all clear. The girl’s father has just passed away. The disease is spreading fast, and she is most likely infected. I am sorry, Lucya, but Jake’s actions have endangered you and anyone else who is up there. As much as I respect him for what he has achieved, his actions here have been most foolish. If you start to suffer any symptoms, please contact us immediately…Yes, the girl’s father, he is dead. Perhaps it is best left to the captain to explain that to her, as he thought she was better off with you than with us. I am sorry, Lucya, I have to go.” He replaced the receiver, his face a mixture of anger and disappointment.

Twelve

IN COOTE’S QUARTERS, the two captains were enjoying their third cup of coffee. Jake had finished explaining the medical situation, as well as the problems with food.

“Listen, we can pull back my chaps onto the Ambush if it helps. Our rations will see us through for some time. I know it won’t make much difference, but at least it’s fewer mouths for your boys to feed. As to the bigger picture, I am hopeful that we will find more supplies at Neptune.”

“Neptune?”

“HMS Neptune, the submarine base we’re headed for.”

“I thought we were headed for Faslane?” Jake looked confused.

“Same thing, old chap, same thing. The Admiralty like to give their bases a few names, keeps everyone on their toes.”

“Coote, you seem very confident that this base will still be there. We’ve sailed past the Faroe Islands, the Outer Hebrides, and we’ve seen some of the west coast of Scotland. It’s all the same, it’s all been destroyed. It’s Longyearbyen all over again. What makes you think Neptune—or Faslane—or whatever you want to call it, will be any different?”

“Well like I said, old chap, it’s a submarine base. Us submariners are good at hiding things. Not all of the base is above ground.”

“You mean there is an underwater entrance?”

“Naturally! It would be no good having a base if the enemy could watch us coming and going on a live feed from their little satellites, would it? Of course, sometimes we sail right in there in plain view. But leaving? That’s another matter. They never know when we leave. It is my hope that the more private entrance, and the associated parts of the base, remain accessible. It’s true that the majority of supplies are stored in warehouses above ground, but I remain hopeful we can perhaps salvage something.”

“And if it’s not accessible? If it’s all gone?”

“That is a bridge to be crossed if and when we happen upon it.” Jake noticed that Coote couldn’t help but glance at the safe in the cabinet as he spoke. “Now, I suggest we go and see Vardy and you can tell him what you know about this strange malady that is causing so much bother.”

• • •

The body laid out on the table was not in good condition, but it was better preserved than that of Maryse Wernström. It had already provided some additional clues about the disease to Janice Hanson, but she wasn’t done yet. Having photographed the external signs of tissue damage using her own digital camera that had been destined to be filled with holiday snaps, she was at the stage where she would normally open up the torso. But Scott’s body had done that all by itself at the moment immediately preceding his death. So Janice adjusted her mask, tightened the elastic strap in an effort to block out more of the foul smell, and proceeded to peel back his chest.

She stared inside for a long time. In more than twenty years of forensic pathology, she had never seen internal organs as badly damaged, apart from in Maryse. In the woman’s case she had put it down to decay post-mortem. She had assumed, reasonably in her view, that Maryse had been dead for anything up to two weeks before being discovered, and that this elapsed time accounted for her condition. Seeing Scott in a similar state changed everything. A tiny suspicion that had been lurking in the back of her mind, an idea she had tried to suppress for fear of its implications, sprang forward and filled her head.

“No, it can’t be,” she said to herself under her mask.

But she knew that this idea wasn’t going to go away. She needed to make a closer examination of Scott’s lungs—what remained of them at least. On the small table she had set up next to the main working bench, she selected a butcher’s saw. It wasn’t the kind of thing Janice was used to using, but the saw, kindly supplied by kitchen staff who didn’t ask too many questions, looked sturdy enough. Janice took a deep breath, and began to cut her way through what remained of Scott’s rib cage.

• • •

The knock at the door to suite 845 was so polite and quiet that to start with, nobody heard it. The second was a little more insistent, but still went unnoticed. The third was better timed; Mandy was passing and realised somebody was trying to get their attention.

“Hey there, what can I do for you?” She held the door open just a crack; the groaning patients squeezed into the cabin were not a pretty sight, and the smell was getting to be a problem too.

“Hi. Um, can you help me? It’s my mum. She can’t walk anymore, and she’s crying a lot. I think she needs a doctor, and Mrs Rogers said that the doctors were here?”

“Right, sure. Okay, is she far?”

“No, just down there.” The girl pointed down the passage towards the back of the ship.

“Alright. Can you wait outside for me for a minute? I need to get some things and then you can show me the way.”

“You won’t be long will you?”

“No, no of course not. I’ll be as quick as I can. What’s your name, lovely?”

“Andrea.”

“Okay, Andrea, I’ll be just two ticks.”

Mandy closed the door and wiped away the tear that had formed in the corner of her eye.

“Mandy, are you okay?” Grau asked, spotting her.

“Yeah, sorry,” she sniffed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. A couple of weeks ago, billions were killed by that asteroid. I just felt lucky to be alive. I mean, I know my friends are dead, I know my family is dead, but I can’t cry for them. Why is that? What’s wrong with me that I can’t grieve for the people I love, but seeing one man die here in this room, and seeing the little girl outside who is probably going to lose her mother in the next day or two, and almost certainly die herself, why does that get to me so much? I’m a nurse, Grau, it’s not like I’ve never seen death!”

“It is because it is close, personal,” Grau said, putting an arm around her. “I think very few of us have accepted what has happened to those we love. We are in a bubble, out of touch with reality, detached. But when something happens inside our bubble, of course that will affect us.”

“Has it affected you, Grau? Do you think about your family?”

“My family are…it affects us all in different ways. I suppose you could say I am lucky. Those who are most important to me are aboard this ship.”