“What were you shooting?” Faith asked.
“The deck,” Steve said. “I think that’s one of those no-sink hulls but it was the best I could do. I pulled the EPIRB before I shot. Hopefully, nobody else will have to see what I just saw.”
* * *
1436 26 JUL EPIRB 1164598, loc: 33.797409,-70.927734. Four dead, no survivors.
1623 26JUL EPIRB 2487450, Loc: 33.797326,-70.926289 2KIA. Nosurv.
0814 27JUL DSC: “Cost Estimate,” 45ft sportfisher. Loc: 33.797298,-70.926327. 1 H7. 2KIA. Nsv. Cleared. Disabled. salvaged materials, fuel, water (see inventory). Scuttled.
* * *
“EPIRB,” Sophia said from the helm. “Looks like one of those good lifeboats.”
“I hate those,” Faith said. “I’m getting to hating this whole idea.”
“There are survivors,” Steve said. He was starting to realize what luck finding Tina on their first boarding had been. “And it’s not about how many dead we find but how many alive.”
“If we find anyone alive,” Faith said.
“Faith,” Stacey said from the galley.
“Well, I keep getting rigged up!” Faith said. “And for what? There’s nobody!”
“I survived,” Tina said. She was carefully cutting up a blackfin they’d caught earlier in the day. They always had a line running behind the boat.
“I’m sorry, Tina,” Faith said. “I’m just frustrated.”
“What you’re doing is important,” Tina said. “You don’t know what it’s like, thinking somebody is going to come and they never do…” She paused and wiped her eyes. “And then you did. Faith, you’re a miracle to somebody. You were a miracle to me. You just have to keep looking.”
“Horn,” Sophia said a minute later. She’d started to slow to come alongside.
The horn blasted, then blasted again.
“Bloody hell!” Sophia said. “Survivors!”
* * *
“Chris Phillips,” Chris said, holding out his hand. “Thank you.”
“Steve Smith,” Steve said, taking his hand and pulling him aboard. “Are you the last off?” Steve asked.
“Last off,” Chris said. “Pulled the EPIRB as you requested.”
“We’re going to be tight as hell,” Steve said, looking at the group on the aft deck. There had been seven survivors from the lifeboat. “And we’re going to have to be careful with rations. You’re the senior officer?”
“As such,” Chris said. “I was a chef onboard the Voyage Under Stars.”
“Damn,” Steve said. “No offense, but I was hoping for engineering or ship’s officer.”
“They scarpered long before,” Chris said. “Aussie?”
“Got it in one,” Steve said. “Brit?”
“Former RN,” Chris said.
“Para,” Steve said. “Okay, as we announced, we need to do a salt-water washdown. We got some slops from the boats we’ve cleared and we’ll try to find clothes for everyone. Males are forward…”
“We’re a bit past that,” Chris said. “We’ll just wash down here.”
“Uh…” Steve said.
“Sir,” one of the ladies said. “Captain. First, again, thank you. Second, we’ve been on that tiny little boat for two months. There is absolutely nothing we don’t know about each other including what we look like without clothes.”
“Well, then,” Steve said, shrugging. “We’re already rigged for wash-down…”
* * *
“You’ll probably get tired of us saying thank you,” Paula Handley said, sipping tomato soup. Not only had they included it as a major store item, they’d found more on the Toy and the one other boat they’d cleared. Paula was the lady who had pointed out that group washing was not going to be an issue. In her late twenties with fine, reddish blond hair, she looked as if she might once have been plump. Two months under starvation conditions had changed that. “But thank you, thank you, thank you…”
“Where the hell is the Coast Guard?” one of the men asked, truculently.
“Gone,” Faith said. She was looking nervous with all the people on the boat and had kept her sidearm. She was clearly trying not to tap it. “No shortwave from any governmental agency. The few ham radio operators on land say that they can’t move outside of their compounds and spend a lot of time hiding even then. There are some towns that survived in the high arctic but they’re back to, basically, living like indians.”
“Show a light, have a gen and you’re hit by the zombies,” Steve said. “I’m wondering about my brother. He had a professional fall-back point. But I just hope it was strong enough.”
“Everything can’t be gone!” the man said. “That’s not true!”
“Mister…sorry, name?” Steve said, calmly.
“Isham,” the man said. “Jack Isham.”
“Mr. Isham, I can’t prove to you that it’s gone,” Steve said. “But there is a shortwave receiver. I can pull up the frequencies of the few hams that are out there. If they’re broadcasting. If they’re not gone as well. And you can then check the Beeb, FEMA, what have you. They are gone. Check for yourself.”
“Well, where are we going to go, then?” Paula asked, looking around. “There’s not enough room on here for us to stay forever. I appreciate the hospitality but…”
“Other boats,” Steve said. “There are more. Some of them larger. For the time, we’ll need to be a floating community as it were.”
“I want to get my feet on dry land,” one of the women said. She was probably a well-preserved sixty and had the remains of a strong dye job. Her natural hair color was now clearly gray.
“I’d say I’d be happy to drop you off on some nearby landfall,” Steve said, shrugging. “Where you can compete for resources with the zombies. But we’re still in clearance mode. We are, clearly, going to have to find more boats. But that is the point. There are other people out there who need to be rescued as much as you did. Once we find another boat, it will go to people who want to continue the rescue. If we find an excess, I’ll be glad to turn some over to people who don’t support rescuing others. They can then go do whatever they’d like. But in the meantime, there are people to be saved. We’re currently on our way to another distress call…”
“‘Whereever a Tardakian baby cries out…’” a young man said, grinning.
“Oh, please, Pat,” Paula said, despairingly. “Not that again.”
“Well, it’s what he’s saying,” Patrick Lobdell said.
“I’m sorry?” Steve said.
“As Paula said, we’ve been in each other’s pockets for two months,” Chris said, drily. “Pat is an SF movie nerd par excellence.”
“I can quote over thirty movies,” Pat said. “Verbatim.”
“As he has, repeatedly, demonstrated,” Chris said. “If I recall correctly, that was a quote from Galaxy Quest. One of his favorites.”
“‘Whenever a Tardakian baby cries out,’” Patrick said, thrusting his fist in the air. “‘Wherever a distress signal sounds among the stars, we’ll be there… This fine ship…’”
“‘This fine crew,’” Paula said, shaking her head.
“‘Never give up,’” the entire group chorused, tonelessly. “‘Never surrender.’”
“Oookay,” Steve said, putting his hand over his mouth to contain the chuckle. “I can see that it’s a bit of a sore point…”
“And, Jack,” Paula said, dangerously, “don’t get started on football scores…”
“If you will stop talking about sewing,” Jack snapped.
“And we’re going to go back to the original discussion,” Chris said, firmly. “In which Mr. Smith was outlining his plan to clear… How much?”
“You want to see the EPIRB map for the North Atlantic?” Steve said. “There are over two thousand distress beacons. About ten percent are hard aground and, well, they’re screwed.”
“One boat of people cannot clear two thousand lifeboats,” Isham said.
“When we find a functional boat,” Steve said, “as previously noted, it goes to someone with something resembling experience and agreement to keep searching. And so on and so forth. I’d guess Mr. Phillips.”