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  Cody watched in confusion, wondering why they would drop another anchor when they were about to depart.

  ‘Rudder, hard to starboard!’ Hank roared.

  Saunders spun the ship’s wheel. As the rudder turned, Denton and Taylor hurried to the bow deckhouse, rushing through the doors to man a capstan inside.

  ‘Weigh anchor!’

  The two men heaved into the capstan’s bars and moments later the thick chain of the main anchor began rattling up through the hull. Almost immediately Cody felt the ship move as the bow began to swing out and away from the shore. He realised that the captain was letting the current turn the ship around while holding her in place with the smaller stern anchor.

  ‘Stand by the stern!’

  Two more crewmen, the tattooed killer Seth and an African American who apparently and appropriately in their current situation called himself Ice, waited by a capstan at the stern and as the ship turned to face directly away from the shore the captain gave the order to haul the stern anchor up. The two men shouldered their way into the capstan and the anchor quickly relinquished its grip on the seabed below.

  With a stately glide the Phoenix moved away from the shore and began to drift with the current in the clear water channel as she turned slowly to face south. Cody looked up at the towering masts, the sails still furled against the yard arms. With the permanently flowing current the captain had decided not to use canvas and below decks the diesel generator was providing only heat, conserving precious fuel. The crew had loaded as much diesel fuel into the hold from Alert’s copious supplies as they could. Cody figured that the Phoenix would likely have an engine too, something to help them if becalmed or mooring into a tight quay.

  Cody moved across to the starboard bulwarks and watched the coast of Ellesmere Island drift away. Bethany and Charlotte, called up for the departure, stood alongside him with Jake, Bobby, Reece and Sauri.

  ‘Thank God,’ Bethany said softly.

  ‘And not a moment too soon,’ Jake agreed.

  ‘What about Bradley?’ Charlotte asked.

  Jake looked at her in surprise. ‘He took off, Charlie. It’s not our fault.’

  ‘He saved Bobby’s life,’ she replied. ‘We owe him something, surely?’

  ‘Could we raise him on a radio?’ Cody suggested. ‘Warn him somehow?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘He was heading for Eureka, much too far to reach him now.’

  They stood in silence for a long time until one by one they returned to their stations.

  The Phoenix drifted beside the endless ocean of broken pack ice, hemmed in close to the barren, rocky shore as though sailing down a narrow river. Saunders and the captain kept a close eye on the angular slabs of white surrounding the ship. It seemed obvious that they feared the ice building up around the ship and closing her in. Cody had read about and seen many pictures of vessels caught up in Arctic ice, their steel hulls crushed by the immense pressure. Although the melt was well underway the Nares Strait was still an immense ice bucket fed by Greenland’s Petermann and Humboldt glaciers on the far side of the channel. Both glaciers regularly calved off icebergs hundreds of square kilometres across that broke up into equally lethal city-sized chunks further down the strait.

  Cody worked all day, chipping away the chunks of ice that seemed welded to the ship. His only break, like the rest of the crew, was for a single cup of coffee and a hunk of dried bread and meat of questionable origin soaked in gravy. Cody guessed that the gravy probably hid the worst of the taste, although neither Charlotte nor Bethany could be drawn on what it was made from.

  The days’ meagre light began to fade within just a few hours as the sun sank to roll along the jagged blue horizon, but now it never got truly dark, the horizon awash with fearsome yellow and red banners of glowing watercolour hues. Cody overheard Seth report to the captain that the Phoenix had made some thirty nautical miles at an average of six knots. He could not help but compare that with the struggles Bradley might face in achieving the same distance alone in his BV and wondered if the soldier would even make Eureka.

  ‘Alone, we’re nothing.’

  Cody did not realise he had spoken out loud as he looked out to the glowing horizon. The Phoenix had anchored in a natural cove, out of the path of any marauding icebergs large enough to do her damage.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Saunders looked up from tying off a canvas cover on the deck skylights nearby. The covers protected the glass but also kept the ship’s interior dark from the sky now glowing without surcease in the land of the midnight sun.

  ‘Nothing,’ Cody uttered, ‘just thinking out loud.’

  There was a moment’s silence as Saunders finished his work.

  ‘Sounds like some deep thinking,’ the mate said finally, ‘best not to dwell on things that can’t be changed.’

  Saunders joined him at the bulwarks, pulled back his hood and ran a rough hand through his stiff buzz cut.

  ‘Your missing man?’ Saunders asked. ‘Is he any good?’

  ‘He’s an arrogant asshole,’ Cody replied. ‘But his heart’s in the right place.’

  ‘They’re usually my kind of asshole.’

  Cody managed a small smile. ‘You got a deck light? Something we could leave on, like a homing beacon in case he shows up?’

  Saunders scanned the wintry horizon for a few moments.

  ‘We’ve got lanterns to avoid collisions at sea,’ he replied, then turned away. ‘I’ll have one rigged to the main-top. If he’s close, he’ll see it.’

  Cody watched Saunders walk away.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The first mate did not reply as he descended into the ‘tween decks.

  ***

  16

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  The sick bay aboard the Phoenix held just two beds, the cramped conditions seeming to exacerbate Bobby’s illness. He lay on the sheets of the bed with an intravenous line in his arm and a sickly sheen of sweat on his pale skin that glistened in the light from a lamp illuminating the bay.

  Bethany sat on a chair beside Bobby, her expression scoured of emotion.

  ‘He’s sinking fast, Cody. This is the only saline bag that the crew can spare.’

  Cody could detect a faint, offensive odour on the air and somehow he knew it came from beneath the bloody bandages wrapped around the stump of Bobby’s leg. The infection from whatever had been trapped inside his body, perhaps a fragment of the bear’s teeth or even dead flesh from the animal’s previous kills, had already spread into Bobby’s body before Bethany had amputated.

  Cody knew that it was only a matter of time. He moved to Bethany’s side and squatted down alongside her. Placed a hand on her shoulder. She did not look at him but instead spoke as she stared at the floor.

  ‘When the bag’s empty,’ she said, ‘maybe we should let him be. There’s nothing that we can do to save him.’

  ‘He might pull through,’ Cody said. ‘He might.’

  Bethany looked at Cody and smiled in the soft light but there was no happiness in her eyes as she replied. ‘We can’t let him starve to death laying here. We have to release him.’

  Cody swallowed. ‘Morphine?’

  ‘That would be the most humane way.’

  ‘Hank won’t give up the supplies. His crew comes first.’

  Bethany kept her gaze on him for what felt like an age. Cody sighed and cast a long glance at Bobby’s sickened body.

  ‘Jesus,’ he uttered. ‘You’re asking me to kill him.’

  Bethany pinched her top lip between her teeth. ‘He’s doomed, Cody. The infection has already beaten him.’

  Cody stood, his hand still on her shoulder. ‘We’re all invited for dinner, in the captain’s cabin no less. I’m hoping to draw him on what’s happened back home. I’ll mention it.’

  Cody turned to leave, but Bethany’s hand pressed down onto his and held it to her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I did everything I could for him.
’

  Her eyes were wide and yearning for some sign that she had done her best. Cody felt a hefty chunk of responsibility weigh down on him as he glanced at Bobby. Maybe it was right that he should make the decision and not Bethany. If somebody else became injured, it would do them no good if Bethany’s confidence was so battered that she feared her every decision.

  ‘Least we can do is keep him comfortable to the end, okay?’ Cody put his other hand on top of hers and squeezed. ‘Bobby was a busy kind of guy. He’ll just get annoyed if we keep him hanging around.’

  Bethany managed a faint smile. ‘Okay.’ She hesitated. ‘When?’

  Cody sucked in a lungful of air.

  ‘Tonight, after dinner,’ he said with a heavy sigh. ‘Let’s put him out of his misery.’

  Cody turned to leave as Bethany released his hand.

  ‘Bradley was right,’ she said. ‘We should have done this sooner.’

  Cody realised that his choice of words matched those that had spilled from the soldier’s mouth on numerous occasions.

  ‘Bradley was an asshole,’ Cody corrected her as he pointed at Bobby’s body, speaking more for himself than for her. ‘Enough people have died across the world already. Trying to save Bobby is what any human being would have done. I’m not about to let you, me or anybody else turn into some cynical survivalist who puts their own life above somebody else’s, okay?’

  Bethany blinked. ‘I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it.’

  Cody glanced at Bobby one more time. ‘Neither did I.’

  Cody turned and walked from the sick bay. The shadows in the corridor seemed to follow him as though he were already haunted by the ghost of Bobby Leary.

  *

  The eerie glow of the sky was punctuated by a small number of glowing windows in the aft deckhouse as Cody climbed up onto the main deck. The air felt so cold it seemed he could crack it in his hands, the permanent dawn light haunting the ship as he walked.

  Denton and Seth stood watch for marauding icebergs at the port bulwarks, Denton casting a silent, lingering glance at Cody as he passed by. Cody ignored both him and his tattooed friend and tilted his head back to look at the towering masts, rigid against a faint dusting of stars that spanned the heavens along the wispy lanes of the Milky Way.

  There, atop the mainmast, a powerful lamp beamed a bright white shaft of light out to the west across the ice sheets and tundra. Satisfied both that he had done enough on Bradley’s part and that the Phoenix’s first mate, Saunders, was not entirely without heart, Cody hurried across to the wheelhouse and went inside.

  Billowing warmth from the heaters filled the wheelhouse, chased by the sound of conversation. The wheelhouse led down to the dining room via a small staircase, which in turn led to the Captain’s dining room and cabin at the very stern of the ship, thus bypassing the crew’s quarters.

  Cody made his way past the wheel, which was lashed to prevent the ship from turning against its anchor. He climbed down the staircase to the open dining room door. Captain Mears was seated at the head of the table, with Jake on one side of him and Charlotte on the other. Reece and Sauri occupied seats down each side, leaving two spare and a third at the opposite end facing the captain.

  Plates lined the table and glasses of wine sparkled in the glow from the ceiling lights. A series of chromed serving dishes lined the centre of the table.

  The captain raised his glass as Cody walked in. ‘Ah, welcome Doctor Ryan.’

  Cody shut the door behind him and stared at the captain’s glass. ‘You have wine?’

  ‘Not the finest,’ Mears admitted. ‘But it’s better than drinking our own piss.’

  Reece chuckled, his cheeks flushed red and his eyes wide and glazed.

  ‘Please,’ the captain gestured to a seat, ‘sit down. We’ve been waiting for you.’

  Cody slid into the seat at the opposite end of the table, facing the captain. ‘Bethany’s on her way. She’s just making Bobby comfortable.’

  ‘What’s his condition?’ Jake asked.

  Cody shook his head briefly. Jake looked at his wine glass but said nothing.

  ‘There is nothing more you can do for him,’ the captain said. ‘If we could help, we would.’

  Cody stared at the bubbles in his glass of wine. ‘He needs morphine.’

  ‘How bad is his pain?’

  ‘He’s not in pain.’

  A silence descended around the table. Cody felt the eyes of the team upon him. Captain Mears studied Cody again for what seemed like hours before he spoke.

  ‘We can spare two vials,’ he said. ‘Make sure they count.’

  Cody noticed above and to one side of the door to the captain’s cabin a ghostly shape haunted the wall. The wooden panels had probably faded over the years as sunlight beamed through the windows, but the crucifix that had once hung there was gone, only the darker wood betraying where it had hung for years. Cody looked at the captain anew and wondered what long held beliefs had collapsed when the world had fallen apart around him.

  Bethany climbed down the steps from the wheelhouse into the dining room. She shrugged off her Arctic coat, surveyed the table and slid into the nearest seat to Cody. The captain raised his glass to her too.

  ‘Miss Rogers,’ he greeted her.

  Bethany smiled briefly at the oddly jovial captain, and then her green eyes settled on Cody’s and remained there. Cody offered her a brief nod and she sighed as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  ‘Shall we eat?’ Hank suggested, making an effort to break the sombre mood as he stood from his seat. ‘I must apologise for the nature of our meal as it is hardly gourmet dining. However, I understand that the ladies have done great things in the galley and made a great improvement on Denton’s cooking, which was like eating your own feet.’

  Reece chuckled again, the wine clearly going to his head. The captain lifted the lids on the serving dishes, revealing thick slabs of meat and what looked like roast potatoes. Steam billowed up from the thick gravy soaking the food.

  ‘Christ,’ Reece uttered. ‘It looks like gourmet to me.’

  ‘The finest polar bear,’ Hank announced, ‘shot just days ago. They’re too inquisitive for their own good. Allow me.’

  Charlotte watched as the captain began serving them.

  ‘You know that the polar bear is an endangered species?’ she uttered.

  ‘So are we,’ Hank replied. ‘But with most of us now gone, the polar bears of this world will recover just fine I’m sure.’

  The wine and the food tasted as though it had been served from Heaven itself. No doubt the potatoes were roasted because they were well past their best and the gravy helped to disguise the tough meat of the bear, but it mattered little.

  Cody waited until they had all eaten a few mouthfuls before he spoke.

  ‘You say that with all of us gone, the bears will do just fine?’ he said to the captain. ‘Just how many of us are gone?’

  Hank focused on his meal. ‘Perhaps we should dwell on more light hearted conversation?’

  ‘No,’ Charlotte replied for Cody. ‘We’ve been up here for months with no knowledge of what’s happened to the world outside, just hints and speculation. We need to know.’

  The captain chewed on a thick piece of meat as he surveyed the group. He swallowed and washed the food down with a prodigious gulp of wine.

  ‘You all feel this way?’

  Nobody spoke, but all eyes settled expectantly on the captain’s. Hank set his cutlery down and mopped his beard with a napkin as he spoke.

  ‘Well, the best way that I can explain it is that your team has probably been in the safest place on Earth for the last six months. If you’ve been hoping to go home forget it. Forget all of it, because home no longer exists.’

  Cody leaned forward on the table. ‘Things can’t have fallen apart so quickly.’

  Captain Mears stared at Cody down the table as though he were a small, naïve child.

  ‘Thin
gs fell apart within weeks,’ he replied, and then exhaled noisily as he seemed to recall the calamity that had befallen mankind. ‘Nobody thought that it could happen so fast.’

  ‘Tell us,’ Charlotte said, ‘everything, from the beginning.’

  The captain took another gulp of his wine and gestured to the vessel around them.

  ‘The Phoenix was a training vessel,’ he began. ‘I’m a former captain in the United States Navy, retired now obviously. Myself and a few other veterans formed a company and bought the Phoenix with financial help from a local church. We spent years sailing the high seas teaching maritime skills to former convicts, trying to turn them away from crime by showing them that there were other things they could be doing with their time. We were doing okay, too. We were out a few miles off the coast of California with a group of recruits aboard when the Great Darkness came.’

  ‘Great Darkness?’ Bethany asked.

  ‘It’s what people call it,’ Hank explained. ‘After the storm there was no electricity, no power, so no lights. People living in the cities didn’t realise how dark it gets at night without streetlights, so they started calling it the Great Darkness.’

  ‘We saw the same storm,’ Jake said, ‘never witnessed an aurora like it.’

  ‘Neither had we,’ Hank pointed out. ‘They’re called the Northern Lights for a reason. We sat watching the show for a while until some of us realised what we were looking at. About that time we noticed fuses blowing in the wheelhouse and cell phones being fried. We managed to get some of the electrical equipment aboard ship shut off, like I told you.’

  ‘Then what?’ Reece asked.

  ‘Then,’ Hank echoed his question, ‘nothing. The Phoenix is a blue-water vessel that can cross oceans and has a good communications suite. We tuned in to stations around the world and listened to them go off the air one by one as the storm swept across the planet.’

  Hank looked at his glass for a moment before he went on.

  ‘At first I kind of hoped it was just the satellites being taken out, losing the ability to relay signals. But then we saw all the lights in San Diego blink out, just like that.’ He clicked his fingers loudly. ‘You ever notice that orange glow you get against clouds on the horizon at night? You don’t see it at sea. It’s the light from cities and towns reflecting off the water vapour in the air. As we stood up there on the deck we watched that glow vanish as every city on America’s west coast went completely dark.’