“Wow, right. Okay! Well I hope the boat we find is as nice as the one you’ve drawn.”
“It will be. I thought Lucya was coming to fetch me this afternoon? Lucya usually comes. Is she busy?”
“She wanted to come, but I was already nearby so I called her and said I’d get you instead. That way she gets to boss everyone round on the bridge for a bit longer.”
Erica giggled. “She is very bossy sometimes!”
“Come on, let’s go. There’s someone we need to see before we go and find Lucya.”
“Okay. Bye, Andrea. See you tomorrow!”
Her friend smiled and the girls hugged, before Erica skipped off, holding onto Jake’s hand.
“Who are we going to see? Are they nice?”
“I expect she is, but I’ve not met her before. We need to go to cabin 811. I don’t think I’ll be able to find it on my own, so I was hoping you could help me?”
Erica gave an exaggerated sigh and pulled on his hand. “Come on then, let me show you the way.”
When their lift car opened onto deck eight, Jake felt Erica’s hand tighten in his own, and some of the colour drained from her face. He knew it would take a long time for the horrors of what had happened there to fade. He gave her a smile. “So, which way?”
“Hmm…this way!”
Erica, good to her word, led Jake directly to the cabin they wanted. She was also happy to knock on the door, and even introduced them when a young Japanese woman opened it.
“Hello,” she announced. “I’m Erica, and this is Captain Noah.”
“Hello, Miss Erica,” the woman said kindly. She reached out a hand and shook Erica’s. “Hello, Captain Noah. This is a great privilege.” She gave a little bow, before shaking Jake’s hand.
“Miss Matsuo, I presume?” Jake asked.
“Yes, Captain.”
“I wonder if you might be able to help me with something?”
“Of course. It would be an honour. Please, come. My room is not large, but you sit here, on the bed. Be comfortable.”
“Thank you.”
Jake sat down and took in his surroundings. The cabin was very small. There was just enough room for two single beds and a tiny cupboard. Miss Matsuo had pinned some photographs of family or friends onto the wall beside one of the beds. On the bedside cabinet sat a portable computer and a couple of expensive-looking cameras.
Erica made a beeline for a stack of books in the corner of the room. “Wow! Can I look at these?”
Matsuo nodded. “How can I help you today, Captain?”
Jake reached into his pocket and took out a notebook. “This is a bit of a long shot, but I was wondering if you might know what these symbols mean? I thought they might be Chinese or Japanese. I’ve asked a Chinese man, and he refused to answer me, although I got the impression he recognised them. The man is a prisoner, one of the disciples. I don’t trust him. I understand you used to work as an air hostess in Japan? If you’ve travelled a lot in Asia, perhaps they will mean something to you?”
Matsuo nodded. “Let me see.” She took the notebook and studied the six symbols that Jake had copied from the raft. After looking at them for a few seconds, she inverted the book. “Ah, that’s better.”
Jake looked up, surprised. “You recognise them? This is Japanese?”
“No, these are not Japanese. But I recognise the forms. I think these are Hangul.”
“Hangul? Is that Chinese? I knew it! Zhang knew they were Chinese.”
“No, not Chinese. The Chinese writing system is Hanzi. Hanzi is more complex, more…ornate. We use many of its forms in written Japanese. Hangul is the alphabet of the Korean language.”
“Korean? This is Korean text?”
“Yes, I think so, Captain Noah. Is it important?”
“I don’t know. It could be. Do you know what it says? Any of it?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Perhaps there are some Koreans here. You find them with your list, yes? Like you find me?”
“Yes, maybe. Let’s hope so. Listen, you’ve been very helpful, Miss Matsuo. Thank you for your time.”
“Oh, this is no problem. It is my pleasure!”
“Erica, time to go. Let’s get back and find Lucya.”
“Yay!”
Jake pocketed his notebook, and the two of them set off back towards the lifts.
When they arrived on the bridge, Jake took over in the captain’s chair, relieving Lucya of her command.
“Still nothing on the radio?”
“Nothing,” she confirmed. “I’m transmitting on all the common channels, and there’s still my automatic scan which runs across the whole frequency range twenty-four seven. If they were calling for help, we should hear them by now, but there’s just silence. And before you ask, yes, the radios are working. I run regular comms checks with the Ambush.”
“I never said a word. I have total faith in you. How long before we rendezvous with them?”
“At our current speed, it will be around oh-nine hundred hours.”
“What? What happened? We should be making better time than that.”
“Yes, but they changed course and are sailing away from us. Fortunately not very quickly, otherwise we might never catch them.”
• • •
The shambles of a town hall meeting broke up gradually as the evening ration service rolled around. Half the participants had already left, leaving just the hard-core factions for and against integrating the possible new survivors to repeat their same arguments over and over, just using slightly different words each time. But even the most dedicated of these were not going to miss their dinner, so as the restaurants opened, the people left the theatre in dribs and drabs.
Max sent half his security team off to patrol the restaurants. Mealtimes always included such a presence. The other half rounded up the stragglers in the theatre and escorted them out.
Grace Garet had finished her shift for the day, and was free to leave and find her own meal. According to her ration card she was assigned to the Pytheas Restaurant, and had always dutifully taken her meals there. So had anyone accompanied her as she left the theatre, they might have been surprised to see her head directly for the Colaeus Restaurant. They would surely have been taken aback when, instead of queuing to collect a plate of food, she positioned herself at the end of the counter. But nobody had accompanied Grace; she hadn’t any friends among the security team.
Grace stopped every person as they arrived at the head of the queue, before they were served their evening meal.
“Good evening, sir. Security spot check. Can I see your ration card please?”
“Evening, madam. Security check. I need to see your ration paper. Thank you.”
Her uniform provided automatic authority, and most people willingly handed over their documents without challenge. One or two asked her why the need for an extra check when the serving staff already looked at the ration papers, but she just kindly and firmly reminded them that vigilance was a virtue. If that didn’t work and they pushed her further, she would ask nice and loudly if they perhaps had something to hide, a strategy that had an excellent rate of success.
Elizabeth Lethbridge spied her from behind the counter, but was, thankfully, too busy to leave her post and come asking awkward questions about why exactly Grace was there, and why nobody had told the supervisor about this extra security presence.
The same could not be said for Rupert Bembridge, one of the security personnel assigned to patrolling the Colaeus that evening. Before the asteroid, Rupert had been an officer in the London Metropolitan Police. He and Grace had never seen eye to eye; the cultural chasm between them was just too deep and wide to cross.
“Garet! What are you doing here? This isn’t your shift. I’m running this patrol and you are most certainly not part of it.”