Outpost

Ghost fuelled the bikes from a jerry can. Gasoline spiked with isopropyl alcohol to prevent freezing. He checked the oil. He gunned the engines to check they worked. He took a radio from his backpack.

‘Shore team to Rampart, do you copy, over?’

‘Rampart here.’ Jane’s voice. ‘Glad you’re safe.’

‘We’re at the bunker. Any word from Apex?’

‘The guy is still transmitting, off and on, but he sounds delirious. I can’t get a precise location from him. You’ll just have to head for Darwin and see what you can do.’

‘Okay. We’ll get our stuff together and head out at sunrise.’

‘There’s another storm-front heading this way. A bad one. We can see it on radar. A solid wall of ice coming down on us like an express train. I reckon it will take you seven hours to reach Darwin, three or four to reach the cabin. If you leave now you might make it before the storm hits’

‘ Shit.’

‘It’s down to you guys. Rawlins says you should forget it and come back to the rig, but the decision is yours.’

Ghost turned to his companions.

‘Quick vote. I say go.’

‘Go,’ said Punch.

Rye thought it over.

‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re close to dead. We don’t actually know where they are and a storm is moving in. I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s a bad idea.’

They took Rye’s medical kit, half her food and left her behind.

The snowmobiles had a top speed of a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour, but Ghost throttled down to fifteen while they drove in darkness. Punch followed his tail-lights. His boots barely reached the footrest.

Franz Josef Land was a chain of volcanic archipelagos. A series of pumice islands capped with permafrost. There were jagged boulders beneath the ice ready to rip the skids from the snowmobiles.

They should have arranged a signal, thought Punch. If his Yamaha stalled, Ghost would drive on heedless.

The sky began to lighten. The cold, blue light of an Arctic dawn. They cut through drifts sculpted into strange dune shapes by an unrelenting wind.

Ghost accelerated. Punch revved and kept pace.

Jane fixed breakfast for the crew. She made porridge. Punch had left a plastic spoon on the desk of his kitchen office. There was a note taped to the spoon.

Sixteen level scoops of oats. Five and a half litres of water. No sugar or honey. No waste, no second helpings, no alternative food.

She spilled a few oat flakes on the counter. She carefully gathered them up and put them back in the porridge box.

Earlier that morning Jane went to the kitchen to fix a sandwich. She discovered the refrigerators locked and the food store padlocked. She found herself tugging on the refrigerator door like a desperate junkie denied their fix.

The crew ate in silence. Ivan sat with the TV remote and flicked through a series of dead channels. A dozen different flavours of static. CNN was off air.

Fox showed the stars and stripes fluttering in slow motion, grainy and monochrome.

BBC News showed a union flag. ‘God Save the Queen’ over and over. The location of refuge centres scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

‘One by one the lights go out,’ murmured Ivan.

Ghost swerved his snowmobile to a halt. Punch drew alongside. They were at the edge of a wide crevasse. A jagged fissure of blue, translucent ice. It went deep.

They pulled off their ski masks.

‘Shit,’ said Punch. ‘We’ve blundered into a crevasse field.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bike and rider. Nearly quarter of a tonne. We could drop through the ice any time. We should head back.’

Ghost spat. He watched the gobbet of phlegm fall into darkness.

‘No. Just as risky to go back as to press on. I’ll ride ahead. Anything happens to me, lower the rope.’

‘Okay.’

The crevasse stretched to vanishing point either side of them.

‘Could be a long detour.’

They pulled on their ski masks and set off.

Jane washed the bowls and spoons. She put the porridge box back on a food store shelf and, on impulse, stole two packets of M amp;Ms. She wondered how long it would be before fights broke out over food. She locked the kitchen and gave Rawlins the keys.

She returned to her room to get some sleep. She heard paper crumple as she lowered her head on to her pillow. A note from Punch.

IN CASE I DO NOT COME BACK.

Jane ripped open the letter.

Jane, if you are reading this, either I am dead or you have no self-control. If you have looked in the storeroom lately you may have worked out we don’t have enough food to last six months. I’ve checked and re-checked. We should have been resupplied by now. Two freight containers of edibles. As it is, we have empty shelves and an empty freezer. At the present rate of consumption we will run out of provisions mid-winter. There simply isn’t enough food to go around. Keep it secret. I don’t want to start a panic.

There is a map in this envelope. Hang on to it. You and Sian might find it useful in weeks to come.