The Mariner

“Enough Harris,” she silenced him with a wave of a stick-thin arm. “Let them speak for themselves, I won’t abide by all that pomposity here.” She reached the Mariner and took his hand, staring up at his face. Close up he found she had a vaguely medicinal smell and the thinness of her hair only added to the feeling he conversed with a corpse. “I hope he hasn’t been like that since he found you?” she giggled, though the sound was dry as a bag of chalk. “I keep telling him to relax, but whenever he’s in here it’s all ma’am this and official report that. Stomping about as if he were in the army! Still, I’m grateful, he’s a good boy.” Harris didn’t respond, but his stature swelled with pride at her praise. “Where did he find you?”

“Actually,” the Mariner said, looking into her warm eyes. “We found him.”

Harris coughed nervously. “I regret to inform you we have lost the Kraken, along with the Anomenemy we retrieved from ‘Island 227’. I was forced to abandon ship when my crew succumbed to a madness.”

“You lost the whole crew?” The voice from the back of the room took the Mariner by surprise. He hadn’t thought there were any others but Mavis and Harris, but now he noticed a third reclining in a corner. She was smartly presented, as Harris would have been were it not for his night in the ocean, a soaking permanently altering his suit for the worse. She was young, long blond hair swept back behind her ears, jaw firmly set and eyes cool and unblinking. “How could you lose the ship, lose the crew and yet survive yourself?”

Harris was clearly irritated by the woman’s question. “I don’t know how it happened. One minute everyone was fine, the next: total madness. Terrible, violent madness. I believe it to be a form of zombification.”

“Then it’s spreading,” Mavis sighed. “We need to do better. Did your crew have much contact with the Anomenemy you captured, Harris?”

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, some did. She was quite talkative, kept entertaining the crew with stories of their past. Silly unsubstantiated stuff, though they seemed quite taken by it.”

“Then it is as I feared: contagion. We are not eradicating this disease fast enough, it’s spreading and if we’re careless it will consume us all.”

Mavis seemed weak with the effort of speaking, her voice fragile and tired, and her hand still holding onto the Mariner’s as if afraid to fall. It struck him that this woman chosen as leader was utterly unsuited to the task. Surely a rival would simply have to give a light push to perform a coup d’état? How could someone so vulnerable maintain control over so vast a clan?

“So the Kraken is lost,” the woman in the shadows continued, unwilling to let the matter slide. “And yet, you’re alive Harris? Did you feel that going down with the ship was beyond you?”

Harris’ face was sour. “I think you’ll find that the ship hasn’t sunk, it has merely run aground!”

The Mariner sensed a rivalry between the pair, and moved quickly to diffuse any feud. “The Kraken drifted into an island we were inhabiting. I can confirm the crew had become Mindless.”

“Mindless?”

“Yes, er… Zombies.”

Mavis patiently nodded. “You mean ‘Anomenemies’?”

“I do not know the meaning of the word.”

Mavis grinned at the Mariner’s caution. “Who are you, young man? And speak clearly, my ears are not what they were. They deteriorate day by day. I used to dread the idea of reliance upon a hearing-aid, but now I would gladly kill for one.”

The Mariner spoke slowly. “My name is Arthur Philip, Captain of the Neptune. We were forced to flee the island we were living upon when it became inhabited by these Anomenemies. A short time later we found Harris in the water and brought him here.”

“Looking for a reward, no doubt?”

“Food, drink, a bit of information.”

“Of course. Harris, take his crew to the dining quarters and see that they are well fed. Captain Philip will stay here and talk with me.”

“Certainly, Ma’am.” Harris bowed and escorted the crew away. If any were keen to stay and hear the conversation, their hunger overruled the desire. Grace showed some reluctance, but a nod from the Mariner and a gentle nudge from McConnell coaxed her along.

“Is there anything you need in the immediate?” Mavis asked as they departed.

“A drink wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Water?”

“Whiskey.”

She chuckled again, dropping his hand and moving away, making a yard look like a mile. “Of course. Heidi, do me a favour and get us a couple of drinks, will you?”

Harris’ rival reluctantly left to retrieve the spirit, leaving the two alone.

“Have you ever heard of Richard Darwins?”

The Mariner admitted that no, he had not.