impossible schedule with insufficient manpower,
we’re going to be working ourselves into an early grave as it is,
so to save us all a lot of wasted time and effort and allow us to
get the job done and go home, I won’t mess about blethering with
you wankers on the phone every day. Unless a problem arises that
warrants communication, consider no news to be good news and leave
us alone. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Not
exactly what he said, but rephrased with polite succinctness, the
point was still made.
Before
he left the control room to make his second walkthrough of the day,
he noticed an addition to the whiteboard. Someone, Shaw maybe, had
drawn a box in the corner, scribbled in ‘Days to Salvation’ and
added in red the figure 98. Less than a full day on board and they
were all already counting down to leaving again.
On the
afternoon of the second day the weather took a turn for the worse
when the wind picked up, driving the rain almost horizontally
across the deck. It was forecast and prepared for, and so those
working outside were switched to alternative duties indoors
according to the chart.
In the
evening, with light gone and with work and dinner over, those
designated kitchen duty took care of their chores while the others
slouched in postprandial contentment in the lounge.
Eddie
Capstan retreated to his cabin to make notes for his new novel, and
so while the cat was otherwise occupied the mice took a chance to
play.
Lonny
Dick, not interested in lolling on a sofa watching a boxing match
on television, took himself off to find something else to entertain
him. He rode the service elevator down to the workshop two floors
below the main deck.
•
Twenty-four hours the people had been on board, and he was
still stuck here. And now they were torturing him.
The
extractor fans in the kitchen sucked in the scent of frying bacon
and eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, burned toast and hot coffee,
distributing the aerosol far and wide, and when the atomised
particles reached the nose of the resting workshop resident, they
set up a fresh gnawing agony in his stomach, one so strong it made
him nauseous. If he’d had the liquid to spare he would have shed
tears of pain.
He
rubbed his hands over skin like wrinkled parchment, rendered so
paper thin as to be almost transparent, below which the blue veins
traced a macabre roadmap, clearly visible now that practically
every gram of stored body fat had been utilised. To keep his
metabolism barely ticking over, his body had already begun to break
down and consume its own muscle mass, although these wasted slabs
of flesh could sustain him for no more than a few days
longer.
Soon his
liver, kidneys and heart, would fail. He suspected his brain to
already be in the first stage of collapse, having felt the first
stirrings of mental dis-ease in disjointed, disturbing thoughts,
and dreams, his once perfect recall corrupted. Gaps appeared in his
memory like moth holes in an expensive cashmere sweater.
Synapse
function reduced, reactions slowed. Soon the threads would unravel
completely.
An
unthinkable waste, and all for the want of a single good meal, a
helping of the abundance of food and drink the others were enjoying
just feet away above him.
He
prayed silently, despairingly, to a being higher than he, if such a
being existed, for just one of them to come down here, to open the
door, to admit some much needed light and air, to let him out and
end this injustice, but most importantly, to feed him.
Instinct
kicked in. Noises?
Yes.
Footfall. Heavy and regular. Getting closer. Stopping right outside
the door. His prayer answered with the sound of scraping, a
metallic clank and a creak of hinges.
Chapter 10
Lonny
Dick employed all his brute strength to shift aside the heavy
crates of engine parts blocking the outward opening door to the
fabrication workshop.
With
room to manoeuvre he wrenched the door open, picked up a cardboard
box from the floor,
we’re going to be working ourselves into an early grave as it is,
so to save us all a lot of wasted time and effort and allow us to
get the job done and go home, I won’t mess about blethering with
you wankers on the phone every day. Unless a problem arises that
warrants communication, consider no news to be good news and leave
us alone. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Not
exactly what he said, but rephrased with polite succinctness, the
point was still made.
Before
he left the control room to make his second walkthrough of the day,
he noticed an addition to the whiteboard. Someone, Shaw maybe, had
drawn a box in the corner, scribbled in ‘Days to Salvation’ and
added in red the figure 98. Less than a full day on board and they
were all already counting down to leaving again.
On the
afternoon of the second day the weather took a turn for the worse
when the wind picked up, driving the rain almost horizontally
across the deck. It was forecast and prepared for, and so those
working outside were switched to alternative duties indoors
according to the chart.
In the
evening, with light gone and with work and dinner over, those
designated kitchen duty took care of their chores while the others
slouched in postprandial contentment in the lounge.
Eddie
Capstan retreated to his cabin to make notes for his new novel, and
so while the cat was otherwise occupied the mice took a chance to
play.
Lonny
Dick, not interested in lolling on a sofa watching a boxing match
on television, took himself off to find something else to entertain
him. He rode the service elevator down to the workshop two floors
below the main deck.
•
Twenty-four hours the people had been on board, and he was
still stuck here. And now they were torturing him.
The
extractor fans in the kitchen sucked in the scent of frying bacon
and eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, burned toast and hot coffee,
distributing the aerosol far and wide, and when the atomised
particles reached the nose of the resting workshop resident, they
set up a fresh gnawing agony in his stomach, one so strong it made
him nauseous. If he’d had the liquid to spare he would have shed
tears of pain.
He
rubbed his hands over skin like wrinkled parchment, rendered so
paper thin as to be almost transparent, below which the blue veins
traced a macabre roadmap, clearly visible now that practically
every gram of stored body fat had been utilised. To keep his
metabolism barely ticking over, his body had already begun to break
down and consume its own muscle mass, although these wasted slabs
of flesh could sustain him for no more than a few days
longer.
Soon his
liver, kidneys and heart, would fail. He suspected his brain to
already be in the first stage of collapse, having felt the first
stirrings of mental dis-ease in disjointed, disturbing thoughts,
and dreams, his once perfect recall corrupted. Gaps appeared in his
memory like moth holes in an expensive cashmere sweater.
Synapse
function reduced, reactions slowed. Soon the threads would unravel
completely.
An
unthinkable waste, and all for the want of a single good meal, a
helping of the abundance of food and drink the others were enjoying
just feet away above him.
He
prayed silently, despairingly, to a being higher than he, if such a
being existed, for just one of them to come down here, to open the
door, to admit some much needed light and air, to let him out and
end this injustice, but most importantly, to feed him.
Instinct
kicked in. Noises?
Yes.
Footfall. Heavy and regular. Getting closer. Stopping right outside
the door. His prayer answered with the sound of scraping, a
metallic clank and a creak of hinges.
Chapter 10
Lonny
Dick employed all his brute strength to shift aside the heavy
crates of engine parts blocking the outward opening door to the
fabrication workshop.
With
room to manoeuvre he wrenched the door open, picked up a cardboard
box from the floor,
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