 
THE STORM

episode one

by

Albert Sartison
Published by Albert Sartison at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Albert Sartison

1.01

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ALSO BY ALBERT SARTISON

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Entangled

## Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

#  CHAPTER 1

The rush hour in the metro, whether morning or evening, was the very time David hated the most. People, pressed together like sardines in a tin, stood swaying slightly with blank faces, waiting for their stop. Unfortunately he did not have a car, and it was too far to travel between work and home twice a day on foot or by bicycle. So he had to put up with these daily journeys, shutting himself off mentally by putting on headphones and turning up the volume.

He felt much more at ease immersed in the world of electronic music. There, in the computer world, was where he lived. He only appeared here in the real world when circumstances required – and did so very unwillingly. If it hadn't been for the need to pay the bills, he would have kept his contact with people to a minimum. It was so hard, having to waste so much time with them in various stupid and pointless conversations...

Unexpectedly, the carriage braked sharply, filling its interior with the unbearable screeching of metal wheels against steel rails. The whole crowd was shifted forward by inertia, carrying David with it. The train stopped and became silent.

David sighed with irritation. Tired after a long working day, all he could think of was finally getting home, taking a shower, eating and flopping down on the settee. Now the moment when his back would touch the soft settee had been postponed indefinitely while the metro train stood here in this damned tunnel.

"Attention please!" A loud voice rang out from the loudspeaker. David pulled the headphones off one ear.

"For technical reasons, traffic in the tunnel has been suspended for an indefinite period. Please exit the carriage and proceed along the emergency platform in the direction in which the train was moving to the next station. We apologise for the inconvenience."

The people in the carriage started grumbling. Several indignant comments were heard and an instant later, a sound arose like the murmuring of innumerable bees.

"This is unheard-of!"

"I'm not going anywhere!"

"I haven't paid good money to walk along a stinking tunnel!!"

David wearily closed his eyes and passed his palm across his face. He just didn't have the strength for indignation, he was just too tired. And he didn't see much point in shouting at the empty air anyway.

He stood still for a little longer, waiting for people to start leaving the carriage, but it seemed that most of them preferred to stay where they were to demonstrate their anger at this monstrous injustice. It was a waste of time and, in particular, a waste of the time he had to rest before the next working day began.

Realising that nothing was happening, he finally decided to act. He pulled the headphones off completely, wound the cord around them and put them in his pocket. After looking around, he touched a man in a dark coat standing in front of him on the shoulder.

"Let me pass, please."

The man turned around, leaving the way free for him as far as was possible in such a packed crowd. David pushed past him with difficulty, and also past several other passengers, who gave way before him as they felt the movement behind them. Reaching the door, he pressed the emergency release button. Something squeaked in the doors in front of him, but the two halves stayed in place. He grabbed the handle of one door and pulled it sideways. The door gave way, leaving a clear exit.

The emergency platform was only three paces away. David jumped and felt his shoes sink into the soft soil of the tunnel. It felt like some sort of disgusting mess. He looked around. The platform was raised a good metre above the ground. It wouldn't be easy to climb onto it, he needed steps. A little way ahead of him he saw something of the sort and, listening to the squelching of his shoes in the mud, he set off in that direction. The commotion from the train was still echoing all along the tunnel.

After several steps, he noticed that the noise had ceased. He stopped and looked back in surprise. It turned out that the whole carriage was watching what he was doing with interest, like birds in the wilderness, incapable of taking any initiative themselves. David shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way.

When he had climbed onto the platform, he saw before him a tablet shining with a dull green light in the darkness. If it was to be believed, it was about one and a half kilometres to the next station, but a hundred metres away in the opposite direction there was an emergency exit to the surface.

There was no sense in going on to the next station, since traffic appeared to have stopped on the entire branch line, so David decided to make for the emergency exit. When he reached it he found it was a well with iron rungs leading vertically upwards.

Without pause for thought, he clambered up. Fortunately the metro line was not very deep, it seemed to him. There was no illumination in the well, so he scrambled upwards by sense of touch, hoping not to stumble on anything in the darkness. He could hear the revolting squeaking of rats all around him.

A minute later, and shuddering with revulsion, he reached the hatch. Moving the heavy iron disc to one wide, he stood open-mouthed – instead of the starry night sky, he saw wavy green strips. The Northern Lights were spread out before him.

The Northern Lights in these latitudes?

David crawled out, shook himself and looked around, hoping to find out where he was. He was now standing in the middle of a pavement and it did not appear to be a street he knew. After turning around and around a few times in a vain attempt to see at least one familiar landmark, tall building or TV tower, he got out his smartphone. The 'No Signal' icon showed up in the corner of the screen.

He smiled ironically and switched on the map. There was no dark blue spot indicating his current position. Apparently the smartphone was awaiting a signal from the navigation satellites enabling it to determine his position. Time went by, but the spot did not appear. Eventually a message came up:

NO SIGNAL. DEAR USER, SIGNALS FROM THE NAVIGATION SATELLITES ONLY COVER THE DIRECT VISIBILITY ZONE. PLEASE MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO TALL BUILDINGS BLOCKING YOUR VIEW OF THE SKY.

He looked around sceptically. To the right there was just emptiness, a huge field overgrown with weeds with a low wire fence around it. Most of the paint had flaked off the wire and the fence itself was sagging in several places.

In front and behind there was only the pavement without a single tree, to the left of which ran a broad street. The nearest building was a gas station about a hundred metres away, little more than two storeys high. He sighed in disappointment, put his smartphone back in his pocket and set off for the gas station.

The lights were still on inside, but the flimsy door was locked. David pulled it back and forth a few times, but in vain. Then he knocked on the glass. The scared face of a young salesgirl peeked out from behind the counter.

"We're closed!" she shouted, shaking her head.

"I only want to ask you something!" he shouted in reply through the glass of the closed door.

The salesgirl hesitated a few seconds, then signalled him to come over. David obediently approached the window, which had a talking device installed. He bent over the silver chest-level microphone.

"Thank you, miss. Could you call me a taxi?"

She nodded, lifted the receiver of the nearby telephone and began dialling a number, but stopped before completing it. Then she pressed 'Disconnect' several times. Obviously not satisfied with the result, she pressed it a few more times.

"I'm sorry, sir, the telephone isn't working," she replied with a slightly apologetic look.

The situation was gradually beginning to irritate David. He swore to himself.

"Tell me, how do I get to Fulton Park?"

The salesgirl gestured towards the road.

"Go along this street as far as the bridge, then turn left at the first intersection. That street crosses Fulton Street, so you should be able to manage from there."

"How far is it, do you know?"

She shook her head.

"I've no idea, I only come here by car. But on foot, I think it should take about an hour and a half."

David swore under his breath, thanked her and went back to the street. Maybe he could hitch a lift.

He stood under a street light to make himself well visible and started thumbing. Cars flashed by one after another as if they hadn't seen him. Looking after the tenth car to ignore him, he returned to the pavement and started walking.

The street looked an unnatural colour, reflecting the green Northern Lights. Looking up, he could see the strips of light high in the sky, waving slightly as if being blown by the wind. If it had been his day off, the evening would have been ideal for a walk in the fresh air. The light created a pleasant atmosphere of the unusual and mysterious.

Since moving to the city four years ago, this was the first time David had walked in this part of it. Looking around him, he could not say that it was a place he would like to live. He himself lived in a district that was not one of the most expensive, but it was certainly better than this one. Scruffy buildings, rubbish on the pavements, stray dogs; there were none of these where he lived.

He had already passed three vacant lots and there were houses dotted about, once lived in but now abandoned, with windows broken or wide open. A light from a wood fire could be seen in one of them. What a depressing place!

He looked far ahead of him. Where the city centre ought to be, a strange reddish light could be seen. David's apartment block was at the other end of town, but its windows looked out directly onto the city centre. He had often admired the skyline with its range of different-coloured lights as he sat nursing a beer on his balcony. But he could not remember any illumination like this.

Half an hour later, he saw the bridge over the river that the salesgirl had mentioned. To his dismay, David noticed a group of people standing right in the middle of it. Somewhere within him he felt an unpleasant foreboding and decided to wait in the next side street till they had gone. He was a stranger here and did not know the ways of the local riffraff, so better safe than sorry.

Without changing pace, he turned into the next side street as if that was where he had meant to go all along and stopped in the shadows, never taking his eyes off the bridge, where they were arguing loudly about something, as if trying to sort something out. This went on for several minutes, then two people suddenly separated from the crowd. One of them was leading the other, who had his hands behind him as if they were tied. Leading him to the edge of the bridge, he started shouting in his face. From where he stood, David could not make out the words, but the sense of the 'discussion' was clear.

Suddenly another one left the crowd, went up to the first two and extended his hand towards the second one. At that distance, it was not possible to see clearly what he was holding in his hand, but the gesture was quite unambiguous – he was aiming a gun at him.

#  CHAPTER 2

The doors closed with a hiss, and the cabin of the mountain cableway smoothly picked up speed as it was carried up at an ever-increasing rate. Kate stood facing the panoramic windows and could barely hold back her tears. That idiot had gone anyway. Left everything – her, his work; he just got up and went without even saying goodbye. He had nothing but contempt for all her persuasion, arguments, threats...

She had never found out which blathering fool had infected him with the stupid idea of going to Cape Town. Jerome had always been stubborn, but sometimes his stubbornness reached such heights that she found it hard to believe in his intellectual maturity. It was so easy to instil something into him, to infect him with an idea – just like a child. He was utterly dependent on his companions and was just like they were: no opinion of his own, only that of the group.

Jerome was sociable and, as suited his temperament, his companions formed quite a large group, so it was virtually a stone cold certainty that sooner or later, considering how they were drawn towards adventures, one of them would come up with a stupid idea.

When one of the dimwits in the group learned that there was to be an unofficial surfing championship in Cape Town this year, was Jerome going to miss such an event? No, not for anything! He was surfing mad and had once been ranked in the world's top one hundred. He was forever grumbling that the official sport was too greatly commercialised, had lost its soul. It had become a way of making money rather than gaining satisfaction by riding along on the crest of a wave...

And now there was this championship in Cape Town, and a completely unofficial one at that, although it was rumoured that almost all the champions would be going. Or at least the ones who were still respected in the informal coterie of surfers for having remained true to the concept and not having sold their soul for money.

It was as if the fact that South Africa was virtually in a state of civil war was nothing to worry about. Obviously Jerome had not paid it any attention. Anyway, little things like that just add to the adrenalin.

It had all begun two months ago, when unprecedented riots broke out in Cape Town, occasioned by the latest summit of heads of state. Riots at such events were nothing new, but this time they did not end with the police throwing a few smoke canisters, squibs and fireworks.

At first everything had looked as it always did. The chanting of left-wing slogans, bangs from squibs, the howling of police sirens, some water from water cannons, clouds of tear gas rising up from gas grenades fired into the crowd. But at a certain moment, the situation got out of control. The crowd rushed against the barrier again, and this time the water cannon could not push it back. Witnesses among the police told of people literally going crazy, sweeping everything out of their way.

A small group of retreating policemen was cut off from the main group and forced into a narrow alley. The worst of the hotheads were kept at a distance by rubber bullets, but just a few minutes later, stones were thrown at the police. There was nowhere to run and they were pushed back against a high wall. Taking fright, they opened fire with lethal weapons. The demonstrators scattered, leaving eight wounded and four dead on the asphalt. For some time, an ominous silence fell on the city.

This happened in the morning and by lunchtime the news had spread all over the planet like wildfire. By evening, up to half a million people from all over Africa had gathered in Cape Town. This time they were armed, well armed, and it's hard to get your head around what happened next.

The following day, the armed crowd rushed up to the cordon, opening fire as they went. Return fire followed immediately and, as a result, the number killed rose to dozens. Clashes continued as soon as the second wave arrived. The crowd succeeded in seizing several assault rifles and war broke out in the city.

The summit had to be called off and the heads of state made an emergency departure by helicopters. One escort helicopter was shot down, and eight Special Forces soldiers and both pilots were added to the list of those killed.

But the rioting did not end there, it only grew worse. The armed mob, not having managed to exhaust their vengeance and hatred on the police defending the summit, turned their anger on ordinary citizens. A wave of robberies, attacks and murders began.

A state of emergency was declared in the city and a 200,000-strong peacekeeping force from four countries was brought in. For a month, it tried to restore order, engaged every day in what amounted to war in urban conditions.

When the most extreme hotheads were eventually driven out of the city or killed, a fragile peace was established in Cape Town, but riots flared up in other major cities. First Durban, then Johannesburg, and after that Pretoria. Other towns followed. All against all. The country sank into the chaos of civil war.

And that was where her boyfriend was going in search of adventure, to the very heart of it!

"But it's all been quiet in Cape Town for a long time now!" Jerome had nonchalantly assured her, obviously not understanding what Kate was worried about. "There were riots, but they're over!"

How much time she had spent explaining something that was obvious to any grown man – that it was stupid to risk your life just for more adventures, it was beyond madness. She had wept, got angry, begged him not to go, but Jerome had been immovable.

Though he had at least promised he'd think about it. That was yesterday evening. She had begun to hope he might change his mind but this morning, when she woke up, she found a note saying he'd be back in three weeks. Oh no he wouldn't! He might come back in three weeks, but not to her. She was sick to death of his tricks, she'd had enough.

In less than five minutes, his things were dumped into two cardboard boxes, stamped on to pack everything in, and thrown out with the garbage.

En route to the cableway, Kate had still been shaking with rage. But now, the soft humming of the cabin's electric motors, and the landscape opening up below, calmed her down. Her mood gradually changed to one of humiliation, helplessness and loneliness.

The world outside the window was immersed in semi-twilight when the cabin was enfolded in a layer of dense cloud. The lamps in the ceiling came on at once, adding to the sensation of cool comfort, and the mist outside the window gave the impression that she was actually in an aircraft being carried far away from her problems.

The clouds gradually disappeared as if scattered by a headwind, whistling barely audibly in the door cracks, and the cabin continued to gain height. It was now above the cloud blanket.

The artificial lighting in the cabin was switched off and replaced by the bright rays of the Sun filling everything with dazzling light. It was as if in passing through the cloud barrier, Kate had entered a new life, where there was no place for earthly concerns. All her worries, including those connected with her good-for-nothing boyfriend, had been left behind, down below. Here she would find only crystal clear air and the gigantic lenses of a telescope directed into the depths of space and the infinite abyss of the Universe.

The cabin had slowed down and was now crawling at a snail's pace towards its destination, visible in the distance from the large viewing platform. Having reached the locking mechanism, it shook, something outside clicked loudly and the cable stopped. The doors made a hissing sound as they opened and cold dry air rushed in at once.

Kate hunched up, put on her woollen cardigan and buttoned it up. The wind here did not blow as it did lower down the island by the water, in gusts. Here, at an altitude of almost two and a half thousand metres, it blew constantly, never for a second loosening its icy grip. When the weather was really frosty (weather here only meant change of temperature, at an altitude of two kilometres there was virtually no precipitation), it was simply unbearable to stay outside. The wind pierced the body right through to the bones. She left the cabin at a brisk pace and set off to the gates.

The central administration building was a good hundred metres from the cableway station, which had been specially built for the staff of the star laboratory on Tenerife. Since the telescope complex was automated to the highest degree, and had one of the most advanced AIs on Earth, work here usually meant working alone. Staff members replaced each other but rarely met face to face so on the cableway, she almost always travelled in splendid isolation.

Inside, Kate found a small package on her desk. Turning it over in her hands in surprise, and not finding any explanatory note as to who had sent it or for what reason, she raised it to her ear and shook it cautiously. Judging from the dull sounds from inside, it contained sweets.

She hesitated briefly, then carefully opened the wrapping to find a tiny gift box of truffles inside. How perfectly timed! On this miserable morning, chocolates were just what she needed.

She made herself comfortable in her chair, switched on the console at her workplace and put a chocolate truffle in her mouth before taking a sip of her freshly-brewed coffee. The sweet aroma of cocoa and hot coffee certainly had a positive effect. Amazing! It only took a little mixture of simple ingredients to paint the world a different colour. Maybe things weren't so bad after all? She took a deep breath and immersed herself in her work.

The speciality of the observatory on Tenerife was the observation of the central star of the Solar System, the Sun, whose activity had been increasing anomalously for at least five years now. The number of astronomers throughout the world had also increased and they were gradually beginning to get worried about this phenomenon.

Magnetic storms had become abnormally frequent, and their intensity had increased so much over the last five years that it had been necessary to review their classification. The strongest storms in the good old days were no more than average storms as the matter was understood today. And the storms now considered strong were previously thought of as nothing less than cosmic whirlwinds.

Kate rapidly skimmed through the main astronomical news of her observatory and all the other observatories on Earth over the past night. She dwelt only on the large-type headlines denoting particularly important events.

"Another ten-thousand-year storm has been recorded," read one such headline over a short article. She grinned. An amusing combination of words: "another ten-thousand-year storm". It did not seem to bother the author that such events had happened as many as four times in the past two years.

Although the magnetic storms passed unnoticed by most of the planet's inhabitants, silently raging away somewhere out in space, the severe storms nevertheless caused quite a lot of inconvenience. Apparatus, particularly of the high-precision kind, began to play up. Here and there, in various countries, mobile communication would not work, and in some places the electricity supply failed due to short-circuiting at the substations.

The worst affected were the satellites. Each such space storm put dozens of them out of action. It was said that one big insurance company specialising in the insurance of space apparatus had even gone bankrupt after having to pay compensation for a whole group of space-based apparatus that had become unserviceable at the same time.

Kate read the article and ran her eyes over the main parameters of the oncoming storm, then minimised the document and returned to the readings of the tracking instruments for the past 48 hours. Another "ten-thousand-year storm" (to use the terminology of the article) had taken place on the Sun and was now approaching Earth. According to the preliminary calculations of her observatory's central computer, in thirty minutes its intensity would reach its peak and it would not die down till the end of next week. Good grief, it wasn't just very strong, it was also of unusually long duration. If Kate had been writing the news, she might have described it as a "hundred-thousand-year storm".

She took another truffle from the box and carefully placed it in her mouth, as if fearing it might collapse on its way there. Groping with her free hand, without taking her eyes off the monitor screen, she firmly closed the box and pushed it away from her, so as not to be tempted by the intensive aroma from these small pieces of cocoa-sprinkled art.

Apart from the typical inconveniences caused by the magnetic storms, flares of solar activity had recently become increasingly strongly correlated with the riots raging with unprecedented ferocity on every continent on Earth. The events in Cape Town during the last summit had coincided precisely with the peak of such a storm.

Her thoughts drifted back to Cape Town and her good-for-nothing boyfriend, who at that moment was no doubt lying somewhere on a South African beach with a cocktail in his hand, and Kate had to make an effort to push them away.

Here on Tenerife, there was no reason to fear large-scale riots, because there were no large towns on the island. All the same, these storms gave Kate a headache. Her observatory specialised in studying the Sun, so as soon as the next cosmic storm appeared on the horizon, her telephone rang constantly with calls from journalists from everywhere on the planet.

It wasn't just that explanations to one interested party after another took up a lot of her time, they also kept on misquoting her. In search of a sensation, phrases she had used were taken out of context and given a panicked tone.

The news channels, whether by agreement or not, had played a dirty trick on her. All the reports about disturbances on the Sun were accompanied by her photograph, shamelessly taken from the observatory's webpage. Not only that, it was probably the worst photo of her ever taken. She was now renowned throughout the world as "Miss Cosmic Storm".

The first call was not long in coming as Kate compiled the preliminary analysis for predicting the basic parameters of the storm. Those were the rules. Their observatory had to warn spacecraft operators, power companies, ships, aircraft and everything else sensitive to cosmic bad weather. She could have just ignored the ringing, of course, but the boss had forbidden it. This sort of publicity aroused people's interest, including those with money. After each interview, particularly one with a photo of the pretty astronomer, contributions flooded in (and for Kate, dinner invitations).

She looked at the phone and let it go on for several rings in the hope that the caller would lose patience and hang up, but in vain. She sighed and pressed the 'Connect' button.

"Observatorio del Teide, Reyes."

"Good morning, miss. I am a journalist and would like to ask you a few questions about the forthcoming magnetic storm warning," replied a voice in quite good but rather slow Spanish, with a strong English accent.

"Hello," replied Kate in English to speed up the conversation. Studying at Oxford had polished her English to the extent that she could speak it as fluently as her native language. "Fine, if it won't take too long."

"Thank you!" The caller's voice immediately switched to English, enabling them to converse much more quickly. "First question. Is it true that a gigantic magnetic storm is moving towards us?"

"Well, gigantic is not quite the correct description, but you are basically right. The ejection of solar material was really strong," replied Kate. Unlike her colleagues, she had taught herself to speak to non-specialists in language they could understand, using incomprehensible terms only sparingly.

"Your colleagues from another observatory think that this time the storm will be so strong that serious cataclysms can be expected."

"As far as I know, this is the first time we have experienced such a storm..."

"So the rumours about a mega-storm are not an exaggeration?"

"I don't know what these rumours you refer to are, but the storm is a strong one. We are conducting observations of such phenomena as the ejection of solar material, which has been causing magnetic storms here on Earth for a relatively short period in cosmic terms, only for about two hundred years. Over this time, we have not really observed a storm on this scale before. However, that does not mean this is the first time mankind has been faced with such a cosmic phenomenon, just that we did not have any electronic apparatus to record it or be affected by it so they passed us by unnoticed."

"What effect does it have on people?"

"It does have some effect. You may get a headache, feel out of sorts, but that will probably be all, even this time. Humans are not creatures who react strongly to changes in the magnetic field."

"So our lives are not threatened by this storm?"

"If you are expecting the sky to fall down or for us all to be struck by lightning, then no."

"Maybe it will not have a huge effect on the body, but it is thought that the storm will have some effect on the mind."

"I can't say anything about that, it isn't my specialty. It seems to me that you know more about this question than I do. I and my colleagues here at the observatory only study the astronomical consequences of solar activity. You'd do better to ask a doctor about how the storms make people feel."

"Tell me, how much does the intensity of this storm exceed the norm? Maybe from that we could draw some sort of conclusions about what awaits us?"

"Do you mean its effect on people or on machines?"

"More on people. Yes, I'm more interested in people's health."

"You can hardly expect a reliable answer from me, I'm not a doctor. But on the whole, small storms pass by unnoticed, while others of only slightly greater intensity can suddenly bring a whole host of problems. In a certain sense, their effect is nonlinear, to put it in scientific language, therefore it is difficult to predict."

"You mean no forecasts are possible?"

"Not scientific ones, no. Purely speculative forecasts are always possible, but we do not make them. We deal in science."

#  CHAPTER 3

Hitting his head painfully on the back of the bed, John woke up. As an old sea dog who had spent most of his time away from dry land since becoming an adult, he usually did not react to the caprices of the weather when it decided to play around with the ship. So what, a bit of bad weather, it happened at least once a fortnight.

But this time the huge tanker was being tossed up and down as if it were a small fishing boat. If he hadn't been so tired after a long shift that had ended several hours ago, he would probably have begun to worry – the icy waters of the leaden ocean outside were really throwing the ship around. The elements were raging in earnest. In spite of his nineteen years at sea, he could not remember a storm like this.

He stretched out his hand to the switch directly above his bunk and switched on the light, flooding the cabin with dim light. His neighbour's towel, hanging on the back of his bed, was swinging from side to side in time with the ship. He couldn't hear any snoring, so his neighbour must be on watch. He didn't envy him that in such weather, he really didn't.

John himself had been lucky this time. On taking up his post the previous morning, the first thing he did was to look at the weather forecast. Along their route, a fair-sized weather front was moving in from the south. Storm-force winds and intensive rain with thunder and lightning were expected. If the front held its course, there was a reasonably good chance that it would pass them by unnoticed.

Unfortunately, instead of the weather front slowing down, it had speeded up and covered their ship by the evening. The tanker maintained its course and found itself at the very heart of the bad weather.

After handing over the watch, John went outside briefly for some fresh air on the way back to his cabin. Standing on the deck and taking deep breaths to fill his lungs with oxygen and get ready for sleep, he groaned as he looked towards the south, from where leaden, almost black clouds were creeping in. Lightning flashed every now and then, illuminating the clouds from within and making the picture look even more ominous than before. The thunder could not yet be heard, but experience suggested that he would surely have to sleep with earplugs in tonight. As for the rocking... In this respect, experienced sailors are like children. The more it rocks, the better they sleep.

The extreme bad weather was throwing the tanker about on the waves, making her groan as if in real physical pain. Like a wounded beast, the ship shuddered along the length of its huge metal structure. Although mildly choppy seas were hardly noticeable on such a gigantic vessel, a severe storm could still stop you sleeping. Today, even his seagoing experience was not enough to guarantee undisturbed sleep.

A mighty wave struck the ship's side once again, making the towel swing even more vigorously. The lamp flickered, plunging the cabin into semi-darkness for an instant, then came back on again.

Something was not right. An invisible mist of alarm hung in the air. John could not see it, and it was nothing to do with the dim light, but he could feel it subconsciously. At critical moments, he sometimes imagined he could smell danger, that he could literally sense its odour in the air.

It was nonsense, of course. Danger has no smell. Bad weather, thunder, storm-force winds – they have a smell. The turbulent ocean smells different at such moments. Severe bad weather had quite often caused emergency situations, or worse. Over the long years, his subconscious had got into the habit of filling his head with alarming thoughts as soon as the weather took a turn for the worse.

What had happened to Severin, for instance, some five years ago. This young lad, whose cabin had been at the other end of the corridor, had somehow got the bright idea of leaving the bridge during a storm without bothering about a safety line. The bridge itself was the height of a twenty-storey building above the surface of the water and the waves could not reach him. Its windows kept being splashed by waves hitting the ship below, but they were unable to reach the very top. Ship's regulations strictly forbade such actions, but Severin was alone on the bridge and there was no-one around to stop him. He opened the door and went out, probably for a breath of fresh air or a smoke. At that moment, an unusually high wave covered the bridge from the very top, taking the young seaman with it.

An hour and a half later, when his replacement, Rajesh, found no-one on watch, he did not realise what had happened at first. As he explained later, he thought that Severin had gone to the head. But after five minutes had elapsed, he realised there was something wrong and quickly looked in every corner where his shipmate might be concealed. Failing to find him, he looked at the CCTV recording.

When it became clear what had happened, the tanker was already forty nautical miles from the ill-fated place where Severin had been swept into the sea. Even in a storm of moderate intensity, as on that day, a search would have been hopeless due to limited visibility, oncoming darkness, and ignorance of the precise coordinates of where the man had been swept overboard. Severin had been dressed in an ordinary sweater, sports shirt and jeans, which at a sea water temperature of five degrees Celsius meant certain death within half an hour. By the time the crew discussed plans to rescue him, he was certainly no longer alive. The master took the decision not to return to search for him and continued on course.

John listened with bated breath for a few seconds, not that it made any difference in the roar of the raging elements, and thought he could hear rapid steps somewhere above him. Someone ran past at full pelt, loudly slamming a door. There was nothing unusual in the crew dashing about on a night like this. When high seas are running, there is always something happening, or breaking loose, or smashing. The crew now on watch would have to run to put things right.

Something like a cry of despair suddenly reached John's ears from the depths of the steel monster groaning under the impact of the waves. He screwed up his eyes as he strained to hear, but at the very next moment, another wave washed over the ship's side, filling the interior with dull sound. The cry either stopped or was simply drowned out in the noise and when the wave fell back and settled down, it was no longer audible. Or had there never been a cry? He knew his ship well enough to be sure that when bending under the force of the elements acting on it from all sides, she might produce any sound, creating the impression that somewhere in her depths there was a wild beast roaring or a baby crying inconsolably.

John hunched up. It was always colder in his cabin than he liked. In all his time at sea, the only thing he had never gotten used to was the cold, although he didn't mind it when jumping into icy water. Plunging into the foaming liquid, the first few seconds caught his breath and it seemed his heart was about to stop, but this quickly passed and left him feeling unusually exhilarated. What really irritated him was the light cold draught that sneaked in treacherously from the corridor and made the whole cabin as cold as a tomb. This cold ran across the floor and filled the space as it crept upwards. No, he had never managed to get used to it.

He lay where he was for a few more seconds, putting off the moment he would have to jump out from under the blanket, wondering if it was worth getting something warm from the closet. Then he threw the blanket off him quickly and stood up. He hurried across to the closet and got out a warm but exceptionally prickly blanket and ran back to his bunk. His feet felt frozen stiff at once. John threw on the blanket and, after a few seconds, felt a pleasant warmth enveloping him. Now even the bad weather outside didn't bother him. As for the blood-curdling sounds... Well, you could ignore them if you tried.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he felt sleepy. In a little while, his consciousness would be immersed in the world of dreams, leaving unpleasant reality outside. The woollen blanket was doing its job splendidly and he was thoroughly warm now. He put out the light in the cabin. The sounds of the storm were gradually beginning to die away in his head when the sound of a shot penetrated his fatigued consciousness.

It was as if an electric shock had passed through his body and his sleepiness vanished instantly. What was it? Shooting? Or had he imagined it? Watches on board ship often lasted for a day or more, and John knew that after a certain level of fatigue, the body, on hitting the pillow, would never get to sleep despite the fatigue. It seemed to be buzzing and wouldn't let the brain relax. On such nights he would sleep superficially, periodically waking up from nightmares. Was his tired mind playing tricks on him or was there really something wrong happening on the ship?

Experience at sea suggested that when in doubt, check it out. Better not to waste time on useless guesses. He threw off the blanket and got out of bed, quickly put on his trousers, threw on a shirt and pulled a sweater over it. He groped for his shoes in the dark, put them on and tied his shoelaces. Then, trying not to make a noise, he went to the door, cautiously opened it a little and looked along the corridor as far as he could through the narrow crack, first one way, then the other.

There wasn't a soul in the corridor. Everything looked normal, nothing suspicious. John opened the door a little wider. Of course, to an outsider, he would look like an idiot now, fearfully sneaking a glance into the corridor, but if there really was something wrong, it would not be very wise just to stroll around the ship. Better safe than sorry.

He carefully took a step into the corridor and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. After thinking for a few seconds, he fetched the key and locked it. That flimsy lock would not even withstand a good kick, but at least if the door was closed, it would indicate that no-one else had been in there in his absence.

John slowly went in the direction of the stairway to the bridge. Here in the corridor, the severe weather made itself felt even more resoundingly than inside his cabin, making it sound even more ominous. The bright light illuminating the staircase gave him courage. In his attempt to move as quietly as possible, he had involuntarily stooped over. Now, he was rather ashamed of his fears. Good grief, just like a total greenhorn! He quickly ascended several flights, no longer paying attention to the sound of his footsteps, and soon reached the bridge.

To his surprise, there was not a soul there. He went up to the navigation instruments and glanced at the screens. Everything looked normal. The ship was proceeding along its course. It was more than a thousand kilometres to the nearest dry land, not counting some tiny uninhabited islands to the starboard.

The radar picture was constantly recorded by the computer throughout the voyage. He switched on the recording and wound it back several hours. Cargo ships and other tankers had passed them several times at a considerable distance, but not a single vessel of any kind had approached them in all that time. As was to be expected.

John went right up to the panoramic window and looked out. The ship was illuminated by powerful floodlights, but the bows could not be seen because of the heavy rain. The bright lighting inside the bridge prevented him from seeing the ocean. Instead, there seemed to be an absolutely black abyss all around him, with only occasional light wave crests visible here and there.

The ship, running into the next wave, rose up, reached the peak, stopped for a few moments and then rushed down the other side. As the bow end hit the water, tons of foaming water shot up into the air on both sides, clearly visible in the illumination of the floodlights. In such weather, there was no possibility of boarding the ship from the sea or the air.

He turned back to the monitors and started looking at the relays from the observation cameras. Pressing a button, he switched from one camera to another. Most of them were not providing images. This was strange. Cameras occasionally became unserviceable and this happened more frequently in bad weather, but not this many at once.

John switched to the next camera, which showed the crew room. Instead of the usual image of a large table in the centre and a number of sofas around the walls, there was only a blank screen. He pressed a button, trying to switch on the camera, and the image appeared at once. So it was not broken, it had only been switched off. Perhaps the others were not broken, either. Who on earth would want to switch off the cameras?

He looked more carefully at the picture. The cabin was empty and there was nothing suspicious about its appearance. He could see an open bottle in a cup holder standing on the table next to the long sofa on which Miguel usually sat. Although the image was not very clear, the choppy sea was shaking the beer about so that even from where he was, he could distinguish a layer of light foam close to the neck. Miguel had let an open bottle still full of beer out of his hands? Now that was something new!

Suddenly, in the corner of the image, something grey bolted towards the door. Had he imagined it? John pressed the recording rewind button, but all he saw was a message in the centre of the screen:

RECORDING NOT AVAILABLE

For some reason, the image from the camera had not been recorded...

He again began to feel worried. The crew room was six decks below the bridge and was accessible both by the internal staircase and the external one. If he chose the dry, warm and safe route – the internal one – he would not be able to reach the crew room without making a noise. Footsteps on the steel stairs could be heard inside the staircase from two decks above and below.

John considered if it was worth taking the risk to try and get there by going outside. The risk was considerable, since the storm was still raging furiously. Apart from the danger of being washed overboard, he might simply be blown off by the wind. The case of Severin was still fresh in his memory.

Although there were special ropes on board for use in extreme weather conditions, attachable to a broad belt around the waist, his body resisted the idea of going outside to face the raging storm. He didn't want to, but it looked as if he'd have to... The thing was, his clothing was not suitable for walking about outside, where the air temperature could be as low as seven degrees.

John went to the closet where the emergency suits were kept. Taking the first one to hand, he slipped into it. It was of thick rubber, orange on the outside, and smelled not only of rubber but also of fish and the sea. Pulling the hood over his head, he quickly zipped up the suit from crotch to chin. It fitted snugly around his body and head.

Pulling the hood cord down, he tied it so that only the oval of his face was exposed, from just below his mouth to just above his eyes. All the rest was protected from the cold and water by a layer of rubber. Now for the safety rope.

He stepped right up to the closet. The rubber of the suit created a sound familiar to his ears with every movement he made. Feeling about in the closet, he pulled out a rope, put on its belt with a wide strap on one side, groped for the snap hook on the other end and moved towards the door to the outside.

No sooner had he got outside than he was hit in the face by a shower of icy splashes that beat all over his suit, but the rubber prevented the water and cold from reaching his body. The drops of water and rain beating mercilessly against the suit were even pleasant in a way, something like a massage.

John lost no time in taking the snap hook to the handrail and pressing hard on it until it clicked tight. Making sure he was firmly attached, he finally released the grip of his other hand on the rail and, stepping carefully, began to descend the iron staircase.

Every twenty seconds, a shower of splashes hit him as the next wave struck against the ship's side. In the intervals in between, intense rain poured over him as if trying, in combination with the gusty wind, to deliberately knock him off his feet.

He descended the staircase placing his feet as far apart as his suit would allow, holding onto the handrails with both hands. The raging storm created such a roar that there was no fear of his heavy footsteps being heard. Stepping so unguardedly on the corrugated metal steps in clear weather, the noise would surely have been heard some hundred metres away, but now all sounds were drowned out by the roar of the wind and the noise of the leaden water of the ocean raging twenty metres below.

Having gone down four flights to the deck two decks below, he stopped to get his breath. The cookhouse, which would normally be empty at night, was on this deck. John went up to the porthole and looked in. The main lighting was switched off, but the diode lights set in the floor still marked out the passageways. In the otherwise total darkness, their light was sufficient to enable him to see something of the interior.

There appeared to be some sort of movement in the far corner and he pressed closer to the porthole, but the drops of water on the glass made the already poor visibility even worse. He leaned back and passed one hand over the glass to wipe away the splashes, but the rubber suit could hardly have been worse for this purpose. It stuck to the glass and refused to slide across it.

He took one glove in his teeth and pulled his hand out of it, keeping his grip on the handrail with the other. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of lightning, illuminating everything around him for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the shadow of a huge wave. His heart instantly sank into his boots. He feverishly reached out with his bare hand for the nearest handrail, but his bare wet palm only slid along the metal without being able to grip it. At the next moment, the wave hit the ship's side, broke up into a billion big splashes and came down on him like a waterfall. The impact was so strong that he could not hold on with one hand, was swept off his feet and thrown against the handrail. He was hit painfully in the stomach and caught his breath as the upper part of his body toppled over the handrail. He couldn't hold on and flew down towards the ocean.

#  CHAPTER 4

For all the romantic achievements of the work done by the telescope, it had one enormous disadvantage: the observatory staff were doomed to loneliness. Kate and her colleagues worked alone on alternate shifts, and only rarely worked together. The observatory's AI coped very well without human intervention, at least as far as routine work was concerned.

The problem could easily be ignored when one was totally immersed in work, but was almost tangible when it came to lunch time. Right now, for example, Kate, feeling her stomach rumble, remembered she was hungry and was sorry she would again have to lunch alone. Loneliness was particularly burdensome to her today, since it was only that morning that Jerome had left.

Sighing sadly, she took her lunch out of the refrigerator and heated it in the microwave. Putting the steaming paella on a plate, she garnished it with fresh sprigs of rosemary and fetched a long-stemmed wine glass that she filled with aromatic ruby-coloured wine. Putting all this on a tray, she carefully went out onto the viewing platform, trying not to spill anything.

When she was out in the open, she looked around her. Yes, she had to lunch alone, but not many people could enjoy such a view, except perhaps for astronauts. She turned her face to the bright rays of the Sun and screwed up her eyes for a few seconds. Here on top of the observatory, it shone in a special way and was reflected in the wine glass, making it glow brightly from inside with a beautiful saturated red colour.

The indescribable aroma of fresh fruits de mer, augmented by the bouquet of spices, rose from the plate and the cold air, along with the sight of the steam rising from the plate, sharpened her appetite. Before getting down to her meal, she did not miss the opportunity of looking down at the valley spread out at her feet. At midday, the clouds covering the foothills of the mountains cleared, revealing a magnificent view of the southeast of the island, which was visible as if on the palm of her hand.

Here, at this altitude, the landscape was decorated with sparse brown bushes, which looked as if they had dried up long ago. It was difficult to imagine that life could be concealed among these thorns that barely differed in colour from the red stones. But further down, patches of green began to appear, and at the foot of the mountain, the whole island was covered in juicy vegetation, with veins of roads carved through it.

Then the coast began. Tenerife was an island of volcanic origin, so the sand was as black as pitch. Some might think the dark strip of the shoreline was exotic, but Kate, who had spent her childhood and youth here, did not share this view. Then there was the sea. And far away on the horizon, the mountains of Gran Canaria could just about be made out.

At this distance, it wasn't easy to understand just what, but something about this picture, which was so familiar to Kate, was not quite right. Looking carefully, she seemed to see a column of black smoke rising from somewhere beyond the island. Perhaps she was imagining it? Sandstorms from the African continent, which was only a few hundred kilometres to the east of the archipelago, reduced the visibility over such great distances, filling the air with a pale yellow dust.

The route from the viewing platform to the observatory control centre building lay through a small building. Inside it, apart from crates of first-aid medical supplies and other useful odds and ends, there was a pair of binoculars. Leaving her steaming lunch on the table, she tripped lightly down the staircase and quickly found the box she wanted. Punching in the code and opening the lid, she saw a pair of powerful binoculars.

Any doubts she had were set aside as soon as she raised the lenses to her eyes. A thick cloud of black smoke really was rising far off and it quickly became thicker and denser. Now it could be seen without binoculars. Its dark silhouette was clearly visible against the sky. Judging by its size, it must be a huge fire. What was over there that would burn like that?

Abandoning all thoughts of food, Kate turned back to her work station. There were many webcams on the island, she just had to find one with the right view. After looking through several, she stopped on one whose field of vision covered one of the ports of Gran Canaria. The column of smoke was rising slightly to one side of it, from a nearby village. At its foot there were tongues of flame surging upwards. It was probably one of the huge fuel tanks for ships that was burning.

She looked around for the TV control. It wasn't on her table, so she went to her colleague's and began rummaging through a pile of papers scattered in creative disorder. Here it was! Switching on the TV and finding it on the sports channel, she smiled wryly. It was obvious what her colleagues did when they were supposed to be working. Quickly pressing the buttons, she stopped on the local news covering events on the Canaries.

The fire on Gran Canaria had made it into the news bulletin by this time and there was a live report from the scene, below which the red information strip carried the following in black:

FIRE AFTER SHOTS AT OIL STORE IN PORT. TROOPS ARE ARRIVING AT THE SCENE. SEA AND AIR TRAFFIC IS BEING REDIRECTED TO NEIGHBOURING ISLANDS.

A female reporter with a microphone appeared on the scene. Her hair, blown by the wind, was wilder than usual for such reportages, and her frightened eyes were darting from side to side. It seemed she was seriously alarmed and totally unprepared.

Several army trucks and an armoured personnel carrier stood one or two hundred metres behind her. Two military helicopters were also present a little further off. The crowd of gawpers assembled behind the police barrier was animatedly discussing something with the police. Other police were running here and there in confusion, desperately waving their arms, trying to coordinate the chaos.

Eventually the reporter raised her microphone. Kate pressed a button to increase the volume, but the batteries in the remote were almost dead and she had to go close to the screen.

"...after intensive crossfire. According to unconfirmed reports, the fate of at least seventeen company workers is unknown and the injured are continuing to arrive at the nearest hospitals. According to doctors and eyewitnesses, those arriving are mostly suffering from burns. There are now more than fifty of them..."

Kate began to run through in her mind which of her friends or relatives might be caught up in this dangerous situation when the picture suddenly changed. White letters on a black background read:

PROCLAMATION OF A STATE OF EMERGENCY. STAY INSIDE. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TO STRANGERS. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

A shiver ran down Kate's spine. Trying not to let panic take hold of her, she began thinking feverishly what she should do. Leave the observatory and go home? That would probably not be a very good idea. She would have to use the cableway, which ran on mains electricity from the city. If the power were suddenly shut off, she would be stuck at a height of thirty storeys, and who knew how long it would be before anyone came to help her, if anyone ever did?

Furthermore, it would probably be impossible to find anywhere on the whole island more isolated than the observatory. Also, unlike home, it had a strong fence and solid doors, intended to protect valuable equipment from uninvited guests.

The observatory also had its own electricity supply and water pipeline, and there were reserves of food in case of emergencies. Gourmets would hardly be overjoyed by the modest menu, but she could survive. And she would not be at risk of boredom here either.

She stood a little longer in front of the TV, re-reading the state of emergency proclamation, then remembered she had left her lunch on the platform. She now had no appetite, but who knew when she would next get the chance to eat a meal from fresh ingredients?

Kate carried her meal inside (she had lost all desire to eat outside), locked the door behind her and switched on the warning signal system. An automatic check, she was pleased to see, showed that the perimeter was clear. Surprised to find herself so calm, she finished eating the half-cold paella without enthusiasm. It would be interesting to find out if the state of emergency covered just Gran Canaria, or Spain and all its territories.

The best thing she could do now was probably carry on with her normal work. She turned back to the report she had been working on since early morning. It was already finished and she only had to run through it again to check it. Having done so, she attached the document to an email with a multiple list of addressees, composed a short accompanying text and pressed 'Send'.

The icon next to the email denoting confirmation of arrival from the recipients turned green. Kate sighed with relief. Communication with the outside world was still working. Probably the emergency situation was only local. So much the better, it could be dealt with more quickly...

The indicator reached 40% and stopped. The servers of some recipients had confirmed receipt of the emails, but others were being slow for some reason. The icon froze. Perhaps the observatory's mail server was at fault?

She went to pour herself a coffee and when she got back, nothing had changed. The majority of the recipients still showed no sign of having received the document she had sent. Then she opened the list of those who had confirmed.

The operators of mains-powered networks and orbital satellites had confirmed. Confirmations from the company's cell phone service were also not long in arriving. But for some reason there was nothing from the ships. Not one of them had sent an acknowledgement. But surely the servers on all the ships could not have packed up simultaneously? How strange!

She lifted the telephone receiver, picked the first ship on the list and dialled its contact number. She heard the dialling tone and then silence. A few seconds later she heard short beeps. Perhaps the number was out of date? Or incorrect? She dialled the next number on the list. Same result.

Eventually she worked it out. All those who had confirmed were fixed land recipients, connected to the communication networks by cable. But ships afloat used satellite communication, and the satellites in orbit were in a bad way at the present time. It seemed this would continue until the storm died down.

As a critical part of the infrastructure, the observatory was equipped with emergency short wave communication. In this waveband, the electromagnetic waves were reflected from the ionosphere and the Earth's surface. By repeated reflections, they easily covered intercontinental distances. Now, of course, the magnetic storm had caused a lot of interference on the ether, but it was worth trying.

Kate set the computer to emergency communication and once again tried to call the ship she had selected.

#  CHAPTER 5

John regained consciousness to find himself dangling on the safety line and immediately got the situation under control. There was no time to recall how and why he had ended up here. The waves continued to lash the side of the tanker, covering him in icy splashes. It was only a matter of time before the next really big wave rolled in and crushed him against the wall.

He grabbed the line with both hands, pulled it towards him and pulled himself vertical, as he should be, head uppermost. He tried to find some purchase with his feet so that he could push himself up to reach the rail. Finally his right foot found some sort of projection on the hull. He froze, preparing himself for a supreme effort, and sharply kicked off, pulling on the line at the same time. At the first attempt, he succeeded in reaching the rail and grabbing it. That was the first step done.

Now he had to pull himself up by his arms so that he could get his stomach onto the rail and bend forward to reach the staircase. His gloveless hand slipped on the wet metal, while the other barely had enough strength to hold the whole weight of his body, made heavier by the rubber suit.

After several unsuccessful attempts, he managed it. He leaned across the rail, putting his centre of gravity well forward, and simply let gravity do the rest. An instant later, he fell noisily to the platform floor. Without losing a second, he jumped up and wound the line around his arm so that a wave could not wash him off the staircase again.

John continued his downward journey. The weather appeared to have become even worse since he had left the bridge. The wind raged wildly and the tanker's steel hull sang along in time with it, producing low groans.

When the adrenalin had abated somewhat, he started to feel a dull pain in his lower back and arm. He had probably injured his back when the line sharply interrupted his fall and had hit his hand when he fell.

After covering the rest of the steps, he stopped half a metre from the door leading to the crew room. Now he slowed his pace, crept up to the porthole and carefully looked in.

He was not able to look around the entire room through the small round aperture, but there was nothing suspicious about what he could see. The light was on, there were magazines scattered on the sofa, sliding from side to side as the ship rocked on the waves. The bottle of beer he had noticed via the observation camera was still in the same place. The rocking had made it foam so much that the foam was now pouring out of the neck.

He gripped the door handle and pressed on it. To his relief, the door was not locked and the handle gave way and went down. Waiting until the ship again reached the crest of a wave, he quickly opened the door, darted inside and closed it behind him. The next moment, the giant tanker crashed downwards, causing a cascade of splashes as it reached the bottom of the wave. A whole waterfall splashed against the outside of the door. The tempestuous ocean was again expressing its rage that something as insignificant as a man had outwitted it and managed to get away. Once the wave had died down, it became quiet inside, in sharp contrast to the roaring of the storm raging outside.

John slackened the cord on his hood and threw it back. A large mirror in front of him caught his eye and he saw his reflection. His wildly disordered hair and fiercely burning eyes made him look like a madman. On his face, where the tight edge of the hood had been, he could see a bright red groove. Water was running off the legs of his suit, forming two large puddles on the floor.

He took a step towards the billiard table standing in the middle of the room, picked up a rag that was lying on it and wiped his wet face. Then he looked into the corner where he thought he had seen movement while watching through the camera.

There was an object of some kind lying in the far corner. Only a small hairy part of it was sticking out from behind the armchair there. A dog! It was forbidden to keep large animals on the ship, with the exception of Miguel's four-legged friend.

Miguel had brought him on board ten years ago, while they were moored in the port of Manila. He couldn't remember where he'd gotten him and no wonder, considering his addiction to strong alcohol. He had woken after one of his boozing sessions and next to his bed he had found a mangy puppy that seemed to be at death's door.

There were large bald patches in his fur, maybe from lack of food, maybe from impetigo. The poor pup looked so pitiful that Miguel did not have much trouble in persuading the captain to make an exception to the rule about keeping animals on board. After some hesitation he agreed, but ordered that the dog should be taken to the doctor, and if the doctor said that he should be put to sleep – and he looked in a really bad way – then Miguel must not object.

The ship's doctor had just as much sympathy for the unfortunate animal. Taking a considerable number of syringes from his cupboard and filling them with only he knew what, he injected the poor creature from head to tail. He washed him and shaved off his remaining matted patches of fur. As the captain said wryly when he looked into the medical section and saw the little dog asleep on a blanket in the corner, if he didn't die of his own accord, no doubt the injections would finish him off.

However, the puppy was soon on the road to recovery. Good food and attentive care did their work. Three days later he raised his head, and by the end of the first week on board, he was taking uncertain steps to a bowl of water.

His fur gradually grew back and as soon as he began looking more like a dog, and not something sent to a sinful Earth by the Devil, the rest of the crew grew fond of him, too. Looking at the animal as he got stronger, the captain thoughtfully shook his head as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Miguel, when I gave permission for him to stay, I didn't think he'd last till the next evening," he admitted.

Miguel just stroked his dog, now named Rafael, took a gulp of beer and laughed.

"That was the bait, Skip. And you took it," he joked in reply.

"I don't understand how he survived..."

"Mongrel dogs have the greatest variety of genes, so their ability to survive is far greater than that of any pedigree dog," said the ship's doctor, joining in the conversation. "They don't look so attractive, of course," he added, lifting a hairy paw and looking at the healed wounds under the leg, "but in the art of survival they are unequalled."

John knelt down next to the dog, which was breathing heavily but looking at him unblinkingly with his black eyes. Lifting the animal's head, he could feel that his fur was sticky with something wet and warm. In the shadow of the sofa, he could not see what it was, but it was obvious anyway.

He carefully put his other hand under Rafael's stomach and lifted the dog up. A barely audible groan was heard as he did so.

"Who did this to you?" John asked quietly.

The ship provided many opportunities for a dog to get into trouble, but the fact that Rafael was lying wounded all by himself showed that something was wrong. He carried the dog into the light and looked at his wounds. His right front paw and his side had sustained injuries and they did not look accidental. John was not sure about the first wound, but the second was certainly from a firearm. If it had been an accident, the dog would not have been left alone lying on the floor. Damn, what was going on here?

He had to hide himself somewhere until it became clear and send an alarm signal to the mainland. John looked speculatively towards the door through which he had just entered. The weather outside was raging so fiercely that even without carrying an injured dog, he could easily be swept into the ocean. There was no question of the two of them walking about outside. He would have to risk using the internal staircase.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, he cautiously approached the other door. All ears, he assessed the situation in the stairwell. There did not seem to be anyone there. Then John realised he was carrying Rafael. The dog's hearing and sense of smell were just what he needed now. If only he could understand what was required of him...

John looked the dog in the eyes. To all appearances, he was fully conscious, although both wounds were obviously causing him severe pain. Rafael, sensing someone looking at him, looked back. Amazingly, the dog appeared to have read his thoughts. He pointed his ears for an instant and his nostrils expanded in time with his breathing. Then he licked himself. That was a good sign, it seemed there was no-one there. John took the risk of leaving the cabin.

The staircase was in a huge well that ran through the whole ship from top to bottom. It began down below in front of the engine room, extended up through almost thirty decks and ended on the viewing platform at the top of the superstructure. It would be hard to think of a more dangerous route, given the existing situation, but there was no alternative.

Luckily, the sounds coming up from the engine room below mingled with the noise of the weather outside concealed the sound of footsteps somewhat and for John, who was creeping as quietly as he could, any help in remaining undiscovered was welcome.

He now had three things to do. Send an SOS, find a good refuge until help arrived, and give first aid to Rafael.

The last of these was no problem, as there were first aid kits all over the ship. The SOS would be more difficult, he would have to get to the bridge for that, and finding a good hiding place for several days was certainly no trivial matter.

There were a number of hiding places in a ship as big as a fair-sized skyscraper, of course. No, there was another difficulty here. John still did not know from whom he had to hide: from a crew member gone crazy, or from outsiders? It would be easy to hide from outsiders, but the rest of the crew knew the ship as well as he did. The better concealed his selected hiding place, the more likely it was that it would be the very place he would be sought.

John had no doubt about where he should begin – with first aid for the dog. He had a living animal on his hands that was writhing in pain, but still quite patient, just whining softly now and again. It seemed that the self-preservation instinct he had acquired as a puppy was kicking in again. Although wounded, the dog did not whimper, knowing that his sounds were more likely to bring enemies than help. Furthermore, like any canine, Rafael had excellent sense organs, and John now needed these more than ever.

After a pause for thought, he went to the store where the spare parts for pumps were kept. Neither the storeroom itself nor the entrance to it was in the field of vision of any of the observation cameras, so it was quite a good place for keeping out of sight.

After taking off his rubber suit and putting it on the cold floor, he carefully laid the injured dog on it. The paw was badly crushed, but luckily without open fractures. He bound it up with a bandage. Rafael would not be able to make full use of it, but at least he would be able to put a little of his weight on it.

On careful inspection, there was not just a single gunshot wound. A shotgun had been fired at the dog and the lead pellets had made several holes. Some of them had passed right through, while others were caught up in the animal's skin. Luckily the shot had been fired at a tangent, and there were no internal organs in the line of fire.

John injected an analgesic and, without waiting for a reaction, began groping through the animal's fur for shotgun pellets. Each one he found, he squeezed out. Rafael waited stoically, but the tension could be read in his face. When the effect of the analgesic had spread throughout his body, he went into a sleepy state, making it easier to give first aid. No longer afraid of causing pain, John quickly got all the other pellets out, then he rinsed the wound and bandaged it. The dog, sensing that the procedure was over, opened his eyes.

Now he had to call for help. John grabbed the first rag that came to hand, wound it around his body from the front like a sort of baby-carrier and put the dog in it. The dog obediently hung his head and front paws outside.

"Clever boy! Now I need your help," John whispered in the dog's ear. In reply, the animal looked him in the eye so meaningfully that he appeared to have understood what John had said. Mongrel dogs are indeed devilishly clever!

John went up to the door and opened it slightly. As soon as he felt the draught, the dog livened up and followed his nose. Sniffing the air, he breathed in and then lost interest. He closed his eyes. The way was clear. John, trusting the dog's senses, set off up towards the bridge.

#  CHAPTER 6

Something flashed in the extended hand and the bound figure fell to the ground as if pole-axed. An instant later, the sound of a shot reached David's ears. He shuddered as if he had been lashed with a whip and felt his shivering knees give way. Lacking the strength to stay on his feet, he squatted down, losing sight of those standing on the bridge.

His whole body was in the grip of indescribable horror. What if they had noticed him? When he had been walking along the well-lit empty street a few minutes ago, the heels of his shoes had made enough noise to be heard all over the district.

The next moment, he gathered himself together, raised himself to a half-crouching position and ran as fast as he could up the dark side street, not really caring where he was going, as long as it was away from this benighted place.

Passing one side street after another, he ran past deserted houses. In the darkness, the broken windows looked like the huge eyes of strange creatures that seemed to follow his panic-stricken flight. There were far more empty houses in this side street than in the broad street he had left just before the bridge.

After running several blocks in panic, his strength gave out. His running became more laboured and he gradually slowed to a walk before stopping altogether. A fence conveniently to hand helped him stay on his feet as he leant against it, bending at the waist to get his breath back.

Gradually, his breathing returned to normal. He could now breathe regularly, without betraying his presence with loud gasps that rang out in the menacing silence like the groans of a wounded animal that had given its hunters the slip.

He looked around again. Luckily, in his panic, he had been running parallel to the river, so when he finally got a grip on himself, his landmark had not been lost. He wanted to get to the other side, but there was no question of crossing the next bridge; his legs felt shaky at the mere thought of it. Nevertheless, he had to cross, come what may.

A poorly-lit street separated him from the river. After making sure there was nobody around, he emerged from the shadow of the building where he had been recovering his breath and quickly crossed it, ending up at the water's edge.

The river flowed in an artificial channel with a concrete wall. It wasn't a river, in fact, but a storm drain running on into the ocean. Swimming or wading across was out of the question. There was a vast amount of garbage floating along it, mostly branches of some sort, and although the water was flowing smoothly, almost noiselessly, it was clear close up that the current was strong. If you slipped, you could easily get tangled up in some wire or branch, the current would then knock you off your feet and that would be the end of you.

He remembered that as the metro ran through this part of town, the train emerged from a tunnel and crossed the water on a railway bridge. If he was not mistaken, there was no pedestrian track on it, so no people or cars used it; it was just what he needed. But where was the damned bridge?

He clearly remembered that it was well lit at night, but from where he was standing, there was no illuminated bridge in either direction as far as he could see. Although...

A little further on, just a hundred metres or so, he could make out some sort of shadow in the darkness hanging over the river. It looked like industrial pipelines crossing over the top. David hurried in that direction, trying not to lose sight of the shadow. His feet stumbled in the grass and bushes, but it was still better than coming out into the light and clattering his heels on the asphalt, being heard for miles around.

Here were the pipes. When he got close, he could see that one thick pipeline, with a dozen or so thinner ones attached to it, came out of the ground right in front of the river and rose vertically for some five metres or so before bending at a right angle and passing over to the other side. He only had to climb up on the pipeline and hope that he would be able to get down again on the other side without breaking his leg.

Without taking long to think about it, he set about scrambling up the pipes, unavoidably scratching his hands on the rust-covered metal. Like a persistent fly, the thought kept buzzing in his head that he might not be able to get down on the other side, but he ruthlessly pushed such thoughts aside. From childhood, he had mastered the principle that the main thing was to climb up, you would always be able to get down somehow. Safe and sound was another matter, but a way down could always be found.

His breath, heavy with stress and fear, seemed loud enough to be audible for miles. Step by step, choosing carefully where he put his feet, he was soon halfway across.

The descent was simpler than he had feared and after only a couple of minutes, he was on the other side of the river. He recovered his breath, shook himself and looked back. The city district where he had just been, which was poorly lit and consisted of scruffy ramshackle houses, made a gloomy impression. Thank goodness he had finally managed to leave it behind.

He looked himself over, noting that his appearance had changed too. The thin cloth of his suit trousers was smeared with dust and a dark substance like tar or grease. His palms and fingers ached and smarted in several places where he seemed to have scratched them and drawn blood, though he couldn't see that clearly in the dark.

Dismissing all this, David continued on his way. If he was not mistaken, he should soon come out onto Fulton Street, from where the park was in easy reach. Once there, he would think of something. He could easily get home from the centre, even at this late hour.

He came out onto the nearest street. The roads and houses were more prosperous on this side of the river and even the air seemed fresher. No garbage, no empty lots or abandoned houses with gaping holes instead of windows. Without even noticing, he had speeded up, breaking into a fast walk rather than a jog. Gradually, he managed to calm himself. The image of what he had seen on the bridge was still swimming around in his head, but he was beginning to see it from a different angle.

Those thugs were certainly not what you would want as an example for children. Their crudely daubed cars, their typical clothing, their body language, showed at first glance what sort of hooligans they were. The poor guy who had been shot looked the same. David was most likely a witness to the latest internal gang dispute. You don't see something like that every day, but in a city of millions, something of the sort must happen every week. The seamy side of the big city...

He could see an illuminated metro sign ahead of him through the tops of small trees and speeded up still more. Perhaps the trains were running again? If he was lucky, he would be able to re-board his regular line and in half an hour he could be soaking in the bath. He would probably take the day off tomorrow. Maybe tonight he would order a pizza, pour himself a drink and sit on his balcony admiring the Northern Lights and by tomorrow, the events of this unlucky evening would be behind him like a terrible dream.

The entrance to the metro, directly under the illuminated sign, bore wrought iron letters attractively lit by bright spotlights.

KENNEDY AVENUE

David gave the sign a brief glance as he went down the concrete steps below ground. Keeping up the same pace, he tried to remember the station. It was certainly not on the line he normally travelled between home and work. When his train had stopped and he had crawled out of the tunnel and gone down that ghastly street, he had been moving to the right slightly, at an angle to the direction of his branch line. In front of the bridge he had also run to the right, so that this must be the adjacent branch. If so, he would have to change trains in the centre.

While thinking about his route plan, he had gone down several flights and was now standing directly on the platform. There was a hint of smoke in the air, making him think that the trains had been suspended due to a fire somewhere in the tunnel. Right in front of him was a metro plan. It showed that he was indeed on a branch line running to the east of the one he wanted and intersecting it in the city centre. He would only have to travel a few stops before changing trains.

Without lowering his upturned head, he took a step back to get a better view of the map and felt broken glass crunch under his feet. Probably a broken bottle, he thought, and realised he should be careful not to step on any large fragments so as not to completely ruin his shoes. After today's running and crawling along pipes, there wasn't much life left in them as it was.

Thoughts flashed through his mind as he looked down to check for large pieces. Mixed with the broken glass on the platform was a scattering of fired cartridge cases. He squatted down in surprise and lifted one of them to get a better look.

There was something in Cyrillic interspersed with numbers on the titanium-coloured cartridge with its gold-colour percussion cap. David turned it around in his hands, looking at it, then raised it to his nose and sniffed. The smell was the same as the smell hanging in the air, only more intense. He suddenly felt unbearably hot and the back of his neck became drenched in sweat as his feeling of alarm returned. Something was wrong here. Why was it so quiet?

His view of the platform was blocked by the broad concrete column to which the metro map was attached. To get around the barrier, David took a half-step to the right and looked out from behind it. The next instant, his heart fell into his boots.

#  CHAPTER 7

In spite of his heavy burden, it was incomparably easier, physically, to go up the internal staircase than down the external one. Outside, the waves, rain and wind were striving with all their might to throw anyone who dared stick his nose out into the sea. Nevertheless, the climb cost John a lot of mental effort.

He involuntarily hunched up with every step he took. It seemed to him that his heavy tread could be heard all over the ship like the blow of a sledgehammer on an anvil. His imagination painted a terrifying picture of the unknown danger hidden somewhere deep within the huge ship waking up and tracking him by his footsteps. These bloodcurdling thoughts made him feel helpless against it, but overcoming his paralysing fear, he climbed the steps.

Passing the deck where the galley was located, John watched the dog for his reaction. If there were someone in there, he would surely smell its scent and make it known. And indeed, at one point Rafael woke up from his dozy state and turned his nose towards the door. After taking several deep breaths, during which the nostrils of the dog's black nose twitched, expanding and contracting, he lost interest. There was no-one in there. It seemed that John had imagined something when he looked in there earlier. How stupid, to get in such a state just because fear has a hundred eyes.

In almost 20 years of seafaring, he had had to look danger in the eye more than once. On one occasion, the old man with the scythe had appeared about to take him, but changed his mind and postponed his visit till later. Today, he felt sure that Death was once again looking at him with empty eye sockets.

John dismissed these oppressive thoughts. At moments when your fate hangs in the balance, you must not lose self-control. He had learned this lesson quite early on in his time at sea. Fear is one of the basic instincts, meant to mobilise all the forces of an organism to avert mortal danger. It helps quick action to be taken, snatching the organism out from under a blow, but it clouds the mind. It makes one act instinctively, predictably and illogically. You must not give in to its power.

It was empty on the bridge. Everything was in its place, as it had been when he went outside. The cupboard containing the protective suits was open and its contents were lying alongside. Here John realised he had made a mistake.

The open cupboard and the fact that one suit was missing showed at once that someone had put it on and gone outside. The few things he had hurriedly thrown out treacherously indicated the route, like the crumbs of Hansel and Gretel. Knowing where someone had gone made it easier to find him on the huge ship using the surveillance cameras. He must not allow fear to switch off his brain again...

John went up to the console, lifted the satellite communications receiver and dialled the number of the operating company's centre. The link was not working. This had happened before, admittedly not often, but today it could be deliberate sabotage rather than a breakdown. He then reached for the SOS button and even raised the glass that stopped it from being pressed unintentionally, but thought about it and stopped.

Again he faced a dilemma. If there were strangers on the ship who had apparently kidnapped the entire crew, then if he activated the signal they would realise there were crew members on board who had escaped them. They would then search for him and, considering how far the ship was from land, not to mention the bad weather, they would have enough time to search every nook and cranny. They would find him long before help arrived.

But if he did not send an SOS, it would be several more days before the control centre began worrying about why he had not communicated with them and send out a rescue crew. In that case, help would arrive even later, but he would not have revealed his presence and so would have a better chance of surviving until help arrived.

While he bit his lip wondering what to do, a message appeared on the screen:

8,414.5 kHz: SUBSCRIBER 15426-M CALLING

John had not often had to use the short-wave communication, so he could not say from memory who was calling. He vaguely remembered that subscribers beginning with 15 had something to do with the meteorological service... Or was it the rescue service?

For a second, he dared to hope that he had allies on board who had somehow managed to contact the mainland and report the emergency situation on the ship. He put the glass back over the SOS button and accepted the call.

"Nordic Hope here."

At first he heard nothing but static, but then he could make out broken up parts of sentences in a female voice.

"Good... Nordic... del Teide... warning... high activity..."

He sighed in disappointment. Unfortunately, it did not promise any hope of a rescue, it really was some sort of meteorological service. But he could barely make out what they were saying...

John put down the receiver and put on the headphones that were lying nearby. They completely covered his ears, cutting out extraneous sound perfectly. When communications were poor and it was difficult to understand what was being said at the other end, they were invaluable.

"I hear you poorly. Repeat," he said into the headphone mike.

"Good day... Hope... intensive... storm..."

The sound quality was awful. The voice barely broke through the crackle of static and noise. John strained to put the words together to make some kind of sense. It seemed they were warning about an approaching storm.

He laughed, looking out through the panoramic windows to where the storm was raging, continually lighting up the sky with bright discharges of lightning. The rocking was so strong he could hardly stay on his feet. Thanks for the warning, we'd never have guessed.

"Storm warning received," he replied in a disappointed tone. "We are in the very centre of it. Gale force wind, much precipitation, thunder."

"No... front... magnetic..." The voice was lost in the ocean of static and he didn't hear the end of it.

Now he understood. The warning was not about atmospheric weather, but cosmic weather. It seemed that a magnetic storm was on the way or had already reached them. In recent years, cosmic weather had often caused breakdowns in navigation and communications. Now it was clear why the satellite communication was not working and why there was such a storm of static on the emergency frequency...

"Magnetic storm, roger. When is the peak of intensity expected? What is the estimate of its duration?" John became immersed in the conversation, completely forgetting about everything else.

"That's right, magnetic... double peak... two weeks... take care..."

The end of the sentence was again lost in static, but the sense was clear. Suddenly John remembered why he was on the bridge.

"Roger. Listen, I want to report an emergency on board. An attack..."

At that moment, Rafael tried to jump up, but weak from the analgesic still circulating in high concentration in his blood system, he fell back. John stroked his head, trying to calm him, but the dog kept scrabbling with his paws, trying to get out of the sling. Using all his strength, he managed to extricate himself. He was weak, but his weight shifted John's centre of gravity forward, so it was hard for him to stay on his feet in the heavy seas.

"What's the matter with you?" John muttered. "Sit quietly!"

He carefully gripped the dog's paws, trying not to hurt him but to prevent him crawling out. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed some sort of shadow approaching. Turning around, he saw a man in a mask swinging a fire axe at him. The next instant, John realised his mistake.

By putting the headphones on to hear the voice more clearly, he had cut himself off from all sound on the ship. Someone had been quick to take advantage of this and had crept up on him from behind, with no fear of being heard. The sound of his footsteps had been completely drowned out by the noise of the storm raging outside, and the headphones had drowned out the rest.

John's legs bent of their own accord. He squatted down lightly and threw himself to one side. The headphones flew off his head. At the next moment, the steel axe came crashing down on the console. Knobs flew in all directions. Sparks flared up among the broken glass and plastic. At that moment, half the control panel lights went out.

If John had not reacted, he would have been hit on the head with the same force that had destroyed the console. He groped for the first heavy object that came to hand and stood up. Now they had changed places, and John was in the more favourable position, to the side of and behind the man with the axe.

The attacker still had hold of his weapon, but it had got stuck in the cover of the console and he lost priceless moments trying to free it. John swung the piece of pipe in his hand and, with no compunction or fear of severely crippling another living human being, hit the attacker with all his might.

The attacker instinctively drew in his head. Although John had aimed directly at it, the blow fell mainly on his shoulders, which absorbed most of the kinetic energy. The force of the blow was enough to make the attacker drop the axe, shriek and grab the back of his neck with both hands. He had not been knocked out, but it must have been painful all the same. John swung again and this time, the pipe was right on target. The man's body shuddered and, a second later, he crashed to the deck.

John had been in no doubt that he had hit the attacker hard enough to knock him out. Just as in baseball, when you hit a home run, you just know.

The centre of the bridge, with the ship's control console on it, was on a platform up several steps with an iron handrail on both sides. John grabbed the fallen foe by his legs and dragged him over to the steps. Then he ran to the cupboard, fetched some adhesive tape and bound the prone figure with it. He then taped him firmly to the rail.

When he had finished, John checked his handiwork. Surely no-one would be able to escape from that on his own. The broad sticky tape was strong, and John had used a lot of it. No, the swine would not get away without outside help.

The attacker was wearing a mask with cutouts for the mouth and eyes. The crew used such masks when they had to work outside in northern latitudes. John roughly pulled the mask up and off the wearer's head.

The face of the attacker now in front of him made him shudder, it was so unexpected.

#  CHAPTER 8

The platform before him was thickly covered in small shards of glass, pieces of plaster and scattered cartridge cases. Trains that had arrived at the station stood either side of the platform with their doors wide open. There were bullet holes were everywhere, and the windows and sides of the trains were riddled with them. From the way they were positioned, it was as though the trains had been subjected to a continuous rain of lead, as if from a hose.

David was about to rush over to the carriages to help any possible victims, but stopped himself at once. He did not have the strength to face up to what he would find inside. Cursing himself for being so mean-spirited, he turned back and made his way towards the exit.

The station floor was covered in a dark material, some sort of plastic, which deadened the sound of his footsteps, and he could now make out dark spots all over the floor. Here and there they formed tracks, as if something had been dragged along it. They stuck to his soles in a disgusting way. How had he managed to descend to the platform without noticing any of this?

He came out of the station, found himself in the middle of a broad pavement, and set off further towards Fulton Park, instinctively keeping to the shadows. This was not always possible, however. The street intersections, even the secondary ones, were well lit and visible from several hundred metres in all directions. When he came to a crossroad, he spent a long time looking around, then gathered all his courage to run quickly across, internally hunched into a ball, expecting a shot to be fired at him from somewhere deep in the nearby bushes or from a house window. Hmm, only now did he notice that there wasn't any light coming from any of the houses...

The station was a long way behind him when a sudden thought made him stop. Where was he going exactly? Home to his apartment? And then what? Slip into a bath, order food, drink a beer or something stronger, and go to work in the morning as usual?

What had happened at the metro station weighed on him. In the city, he knew that if some petty thief were caught stealing a silver chain in a shop, then several police cars would appear in an instant, as if from the bowels of the earth. Yet here were two metro trains shot up by automatic weapons and there was no-one...

At that moment he realised this was no longer the same city he had moved to some years ago, but a concrete wilderness in which the laws of civilisation no longer applied. The law of the jungle prevailed here instead, and the only person you could rely on was yourself.

He hid in the shadows of the thick vegetation growing at the side of the pavement and began to think things over.

The apartments where he lived were on the outskirts of the huge city, part of a multi-storey block. Sooner or later, after the collapse of civilised life, the gas and electricity would be cut off. No water would flow from the taps, the toilet wouldn't work. And what then? OK, maybe he could collect water on the balcony, which was luckily covered in dew every morning. That would provide him with enough to drink, but where would he get food? How could he defend himself against marauding gangs? He had no weapon worth the name, and even if he had had one, he wouldn't have known how to use it.

No, he could not survive in his own home for more than a few days at most. What if civilisation were not restored within this time? Seeing that there was no sight or sound of the police, this chaos seemed here to stay.

David sat on the nearest boulder. He had to have another plan. There was no sense in returning home, passing through the very centre of the city and putting his life at risk.

He looked at his watch. It was just past two o'clock in the morning. The Sun would rise in four hours. He did not know if this would be a help or a hindrance.

While he was thinking, he heard some sort of noise. In an instant, all his senses were straining to the limit. He instinctively froze, trying to make out where the sound had come from. There it was again, from somewhere to the right. This time with something like a groan. And then again, more clearly.

Something showed white in the direction from which the sound had come. He suddenly realised that there was a man sitting on the ground staring at him just a few metres away. Initially scared, he understood a moment later that this person would not be a danger to him.

The man was dressed in a suit, as he was himself. His tie was slackened and his white shirt was dishevelled and dotted with blood. As far as he could make out in the darkness, the lines on his face suggested he was elderly, approaching pensionable age. He waved in a weak gesture for David to go over to him. David hesitated, wondering if it was worth getting involved and burdening himself with the problems of someone he did not know. In the jungle, it's every man for himself.

"Could you hand me my spare spectacles?" the man asked suddenly. "They're in that bag over there," he said, pointing.

David could see something lying in the grass a few metres away. He crawled on all fours to the bag, picked it up and passed it to the man, who slowly put a hand in one of the pockets, extracted a spectacle case, opened it and put the spectacles on his nose.

"That's better, thank you."

David only nodded in reply. It was really time for him to move on. He turned away, but as he stood up, the man spoke to him again.

"Please don't go! I live just over there. If you help me get home, I'll pay you," he said, nodding towards one of the houses not far away. Noticing the scepticism on David's face, he added: "I have hunting guns. One of them could be yours."

"What about ammunition?" asked David.

"You can have that too. Buckshot, one shot will knock a bear off its feet at short range. I'll give you a whole packet, 25 rounds."

That didn't sound like a bad deal. David stretched out his hand to help the man get up.

"Let me lean on your shoulder. My arm is injured," he said, partly opening his jacket to show the shirt underneath. There was a lot of blood around the man's shoulder.

David squatted down to help him lean his body forward and put his head under the injured man's arm. Then they both stood up. A grimace of pain crossed the man's face.

"Where are we going?" asked David.

"That way."

Once in the stairwell of the stranger's building, David felt a little less stressed. It was at least two hundred years old and they certainly didn't build them like that anymore: massive bricks, thick walls, high ceilings and relatively small windows.

The elevator wasn't working, so they slowly climbed to the top floor, the fourth. The man rummaged in his pockets for some time before getting out a bundle of old-fashioned keys. After finding the right one, he raised it to the lock with trembling hands. David helped him, directing his hand. The key slipped into the lock and, after a few turns, the door opened. As soon as they were inside, the man kicked the door, loudly slamming it shut. Then he locked it from the inside and fetched a bar, a wide strip of thick metal, from somewhere in the corner.

"I see you're well prepared," commented David. The massive locking bar was the best thing he had seen in the past few hours.

The stranger inserted the bar into slots on either side of the door and leaned down to click special catches. After that, he smiled for the first time.

"Yes, one of my friends insisted I get it. It's made of a special alloy, cost 400 dollars. I never thought I would be so grateful to him for it. The bathroom is down here, this way please."

They turned to the right, went along a short corridor and into the bathroom. There was no light, but the light from the Northern Lights coming in from the street was quite enough to see the internal layout of the room.

The man opened one of the cupboards and took some medical supplies from it. Then he sat on the edge of the bath and laid them neatly on a towel next to him. Taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt, he revealed the place where his arm had been wounded.

"Do you have any kind of light?"

David took his smartphone out of his pocket, but before he had managed to switch the torch light on, the man stopped him.

"Draw the blinds. The window only overlooks the garden, but we mustn't draw unnecessary attention. There's a handle at the top there..."

David obediently went over to the window, found the handle and pulled a special blind down. At once the room was pitch-black. He switched on the torch and turned back towards the man.

Without wasting any time, he had already opened a packet of bandages moistened with a strong-smelling fluid. David directed the light onto his wound. In the torchlight, it was a cherry-ruby colour at the edges, with a black hole in the centre the size of a little finger.

"If you can't stand the sight of blood, you'd better turn away," said the man. He wiped the wound at the edges, removing the coagulated blood, set aside the dirty rag, picked up one of the syringes and gave himself an injection just above the wound. He then slackened the bandage and gave a suppressed groan when blood started oozing from the wound. After a few seconds, he raised his eyes to look at David.

"The bullet passed right through and doesn't appear to have touched the bone. I'm going to inject glue into the wound and when I give the order, press tightly on it from all sides. Don't slacken your grip until I tell you. If you feel giddy, make a sign. I have smelling salts here. Are you ready?"

David nodded. The man lifted a second syringe from the towel and, without further ado, plunged its needle into the wound and began forcing the contents of the syringe into it. After pulling the syringe out, he squeezed out a little glue onto either side of the wound and wiped it on with his free hand. Then he lifted the prepared bandage and wound it around his arm.

"Now press it tightly and keep it pressed. More strongly, don't be afraid, I can't feel my arm, it's anaesthetised. Tighter. Press uniformly over the whole area. That's fine. Now stay still."

The sound of their heavy stressed breathing could be heard in the prevailing silence. A minute later, the man nodded in satisfaction.

"You can let go now, thank you," he said.

He stood up with difficulty, went over to the washbasin, washed his bloodstained hands, splashed his face, wiped his neck with his wet hands and passed them over his grey hair. With each ablution, his movements became more confident and precise, as if magic water from the well of youth was flowing from the tap.

After drying himself, he opened one of the cupboards and got out a small light with a head strap. He put it on, switched it on and went up to David, holding out his hand.

"Dr. Silverman at your service," he said, pressing David's hand in a firm handshake. "I am very grateful to you for your help. I notice you have scratched knees and palms. May I take a look?"

Without waiting for a reply he bent his head, directing his light onto David's hands. After twisting them gently to check the joints, he set about inspecting the damage. He took a pair of pincers from the nearby towel, caught something in them and pulled a small splinter out of David's palm. After disinfecting the wound, he added some bio-glue and, with a practised movement, smeared it onto the palms in a thin layer where it set, forming a protective coating.

"The glue has bactericidal properties, so you need not fear it will become infected. Keep your palms open until you feel a tingling. And now, please take a seat over here."

David obediently sat down while the doctor inspected his knees.

"You will need more appropriate clothing, something thicker," he said while he performed his magic on David's knees. When he had finished, he stood up.

After washing his hands again, he switched off his head torch and lifted the blinds. The room was once again illuminated by the green shimmer of the Northern Lights.

"If it were not for all this chaos, it would be a most wonderful evening for a walk, don't you think?" he remarked disappointedly. "But unfortunately, things are what they are... Why don't you take a shower and then put this dressing-gown on? I'll bring you some clothes. I am excellently equipped for hunting. And in the meantime, I'll prepare us something to eat. We have things to discuss."

#  CHAPTER 9

The refreshing water of the shower had a magic effect on David's body and mind. The cool drops falling on his skin brought him back from the world of the primeval jungle to the world of civilisation. He directed the shower onto his head. Cold streams of water ran down his face, along his shoulders and further down his body. This massage of coolness did not bring any unpleasant sensations; on the contrary, the cold jets were like the arms of mythical nymphs caressing David's body. He allowed himself to relax for a second.

But only for a second, then he got a grip on himself. The problems were only just beginning; he had to prepare himself for a long life-and-death struggle out in the concrete jungle. To relax now, after just a few hours not even at the heart of things but somewhere at the edge, was totally inappropriate. The coming days, months, years, maybe the rest of his life, would have to be spent constantly on the alert. Whatever pleasure the shower had given David by taking him into a world of dreams, it was time to return to stern reality. He had to gather his strength and turn off the water. Just another second or two...

David closed his eyes and allowed himself a few more seconds to enjoy the blessed interlude. Then he turned off the water.

After drying himself briskly with a towel, he stepped out of the bath. His bare foot came to rest on a velvet bath mat spread out by Dr. Silverman. Everything in this apartment was urging him to relax... Unfortunately, David realised that this oasis of comfort had no future. He could not stay long at the epicentre of this former civilisation, transformed in an instant into primeval chaos.

Coming out of the bathroom, he found himself in a dark corridor, at the end of which he could see a dim light. It appeared to be coming from the kitchen, where someone could be heard setting out plates and cutlery. David went towards the sound.

With an apron around his waist, his new friend was busying himself laying the table in a practised manner. Almost everything was ready. Dishes, glasses, a bottle of wine, candles. Their dim light illuminated a spacious kitchen, and their flame fluttered as Silverman quickly and precisely finished laying. It was obvious he knew what he was doing. Noticing his guest, he stopped. His face broke into a smile.

"Please, come in. I have a marvellous goose left over from yesterday, the meat simply melts in the mouth! Sit down, please!"

David, rather surprised at such hospitality, decided to dispense with polite formalities and walked over to the place at the table indicated by Dr. Silverman. The old man did not seem to realise what a dire situation he was in, if he set such a lavish table as this for a stranger. It was certainly polite, but it was stupid. Nevertheless, it would have been even more stupid to turn down the opportunity.

The apartment owner understood David's thoughts.

"I have a full refrigerator, but unfortunately there is no electricity. All its contents will turn into inedible waste in a short time, so considering the circumstances, the only thing we can do is eat it all up. Our body knows well how to store energy, so we shall try to put on a little weight while it is still possible."

The first piece of meat, filling David's mouth with a fabulous aroma, made his body remember how hungry he was. Scorning etiquette, he cut huge pieces with his knife, put them in his mouth and chewed greedily.

Silverman did not waste time making polite conversation either. They ate in total silence, which seemed perfectly acceptable in the circumstances. In any case, it did not cause them any embarrassment.

Eventually David felt a pleasant heaviness in his stomach. The feeling of hunger had passed and his mood had changed, too. Silverman, noticing this change, set down his knife and fork and picked up his glass of wine. Holding it in front of the candle to admire its dark red colour, he swirled it around, the better to assess its bouquet.

"As I promised, I shall give you one of my guns and a box of cartridges," he said after taking a small sip.

David had just finished all the food on his plate. After chewing and swallowing the last piece, he tried the wine and nodded approvingly.

"Thank you."

"It's an excellent gun. Absolutely reliable. Never fails. Of course, a carbine with a ten-round magazine would be better, but even two rounds of buckshot are quite weighty arguments in a dispute, you know..."

"I agree."

Failing to engage David in conversation, Silverman fell silent again and leaned over his plate. He ate unhurriedly, politely, observing the rules of etiquette as only a man can who has forgotten, or has never known, what a hungry stomach is.

"What do you think will happen next?" he asked suddenly, without taking his eyes off his plate.

David shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, but I'm prepared for the worst."

"And what is the worst, in your opinion?"

"The worst is that it will never get better."

"You sound just like a good friend of mine."

David nodded and drank some more wine. His face expressed not a shadow of interest in pursuing this subject, then he suddenly spoke.

"This only began today, right?"

"Yes, as far as I know."

"And when did you discuss this with your friend?"

Before replying, Silverman took the bottle from the table and topped up their glasses.

"Five years ago," he answered, smiling slyly.

"Interesting!"

"Oh yes..."

At last Silverman had found a subject which interested his guest. He made himself comfortable in his chair, ready to tell a long story.

"At the time, of course, it seemed absolute nonsense. But first things first.

"I grew up in this fine apartment where we are lucky enough to be dining. I inherited it from my parents. One floor down, long long ago, there lived a young chap with whom I think I can say I spent my entire childhood.

"You won't be aware of the fact, but there was once a splendid botanical garden at the rear of this building. It was maintained by another neighbour. He passed away a long time ago and after his death, his relatives didn't bother much about the garden. Quite soon it became totally forlorn, the plants withered...

"When I was still in short pants, this neighbour was already a grey-haired old man on a pension. He had been a botanist by profession. He worked not far from here, at the university. It was he who inspired us with a love of the natural sciences.

"I remember as if it were yesterday how he showed me a carnivorous plant that fed on flies. I was really astonished. A killer plant! It made such an impression on me that at one point I was even afraid to approach the garden. What if its bushes jumped up and ate me? How he laughed when he learned of my fears!

"Yes... he knew how to interest us adventurous young lads. He knew so much about his green friends that he had an amusing story for every situation. We ran to the garden every morning to help water the plants, and always went away with some new story."

Silverman fell silent and his eyes glazed over as he became immersed in memories of days long past. David did not hurry him. The story could not have been more appropriate to the filling dinner and wine, and the greenish light penetrating through the windows looking out onto the backyard added a feeling of the unusual and mysterious.

"Yes... Did you know that plants are capable of feeling?"

"No, I never thought about it."

"Nor did I. I had always thought that plants had no feelings. When a tree is cut down with an axe, it just lies there. Could living creatures with feelings behave like that?

"But Professor Quade taught us to see what is normally concealed from our eyes. When he said, just in passing, as it were, that plants can feel, I thought he was joking. He asked: 'Don't you believe it?' and I replied, 'Of course not. Everyone knows that plants cannot feel...'

"Then he asked me how I knew. I replied that if a tree were in pain when one of its branches was broken, it would cry out. 'But what if the tree does cry out, but in a way that we can't hear?' How can you cry out when you are in pain, but in such a way that it isn't heard? I didn't understand at that time.

"And the Professor revealed a secret to me. Plants live in a world in which time goes by more slowly. Animals are invisible to them, they move so quickly that trees are unable to sense their presence. But they are capable of feeling the Sun: its rise, its passage across the sky and its setting. They feel all that very well.

"I did know that sunflowers turned to follow the Sun. But I still did not believe plants could react to contact. And then he showed me. Approaching the first plant he came to, he gently pulled a leaf and released it.

"I was all attention, having learned to expect wondrous things. My imagination painted a picture of the bush taking revenge on him... But instead, the Professor sat down on the ground. He patted the place next to him, inviting me to join him. When I sat next to him and eventually asked what we were waiting for, he only said: 'Wait and see!'

"So we waited. A minute went by, another, nothing happened. I was already beginning to feel bored when he asked: 'Do you see? No? Look carefully...'

"So I took a good look. The branch carrying the leaf that the Professor had pulled was half a metre long. The leaves on it were set out like splayed fingers, equidistant from each other. But then I noticed that at the end of the branch, they were lying closer to each other than at the root. A little more time went by, and the whole branch had closed up its leafy fingers. So it turned out that plants really can feel...

"Yes, old Quade knew how to touch the souls of young boys. I think it is not surprising that we soon decided we would become naturalists too."

Silverman smiled wryly and finished his wine.

"And we did. Well, almost. After school I went to the medical faculty and my friend to the anthropology faculty. Do you know what that science studies?"

"Man?"

"True, but medicine also studies man. I must explain the difference. Anthropology studies man's origin and development. At least, that's what my friend did.

"So, about five years ago, I was sitting with him at this very table, remembering old Quade. Just as we are doing now. I don't know if it was the wine's fault, but we wanted to talk about philosophy... My friend asked me a simple question, which, simple though it was, I could not answer, namely: what makes us different from animals?"

David did not realise at first that the question was addressed to him, then shrugged his shoulders and replied: "Intelligence?"

"Animals have that too."

"Then I don't know. Tools?"

"They also have those. It's quite normal for primates to use them."

"Social hierarchy?"

"Even ants have that."

"I give up."

"One small but important difference. Man is capable of sharing food with individuals not related to him."

"In other words, altruism."

"Altruism is a broad concept. The sharing of food with non-related individuals is only a small part of altruism, a subset of it. Many aspects of human altruism are found in the animal world. With the exception of sharing food. Only man does that."

After thinking about it, David sceptically shook his head.

"I have heard that dogs can rear orphan kittens. They bring them up, which means they share food..."

"That is something different. It is simply an example of one of the basic instincts, the maternal instinct. They look on the fostered kittens as their own offspring, which is why they share food with them."

"But still, they are not direct relatives."

"The main thing is not an actual blood relationship, but a perceived one. The fact that the dog has accepted the kittens as her own offspring is sufficient to activate the instinct. But man is capable of sharing just on impulse, for no apparent reason."

"I'm sure you know more than I do about the inner workings of mankind, so I believe you... And what follows from that?"

"You might say that the evolution of man is the evolution of his brain. In the process of development from animal to man, the frontal lobes of man's brain developed. These carry out the self-control function. At some stage they developed to such an extent that they enabled man to overcome himself, that is to say his instincts, and to begin sharing food with others not directly related to him."

"In other words, it is only the capability of self-control which distinguishes us from animals?"

"Not only that. That is the direct effect. Other indirect effects ensue from it. The presence of such a highly developed restraining centre has given us much more."

"For example?"

"Logical thought. Speech. We started speaking thanks to these frontal lobes. The capacity for speech is more to us than simply the exchange of information. It is fundamental to what we are. As the saying goes, when a monkey threw a swear word at his enemy instead of a stone, it laid the foundation of human civilisation."

David took a piece of bread, pierced it with his fork, wiped it around his plate and put it in his mouth. He thought about all this as he chewed.

"It sounds logical to me... But I do not see the connection between the story and the bullet hole you got in your arm today..."

#  CHAPTER 10

Silverman cautiously touched his wounded arm, inspected the bandage from various angles and appeared satisfied with the result.

"Apart from the sharing of food, there is something else about man that distinguishes him from the animal world. This difference does not lie on the surface; it is concealed from direct observation. I refer to strict social selection," he said, stroking the bandage.

"I know. Survival of the fittest..."

"Survival of the fittest is natural selection. It applies to everything from viruses to the higher animals. But it seems man did not think this was enough, so he added social selection to it."

"The richer a man is, the higher he stands in the social hierarchy and the more successful he is as regards evolution. Is that what you mean?"

"Almost, but you are not expressing the criterion for evolutionary success quite correctly. In terms of evolution, it is not the rich and handsome who are successful, but those who have been able to create the greatest number of descendants. A childless industrial tycoon loses out in evolution to anyone who has raised even one child, regardless of whether he sleeps under a bridge or in an apartment with a view of Central Park.

"The social selection I am talking about is not so obvious, but is no less strict. In our social hierarchy there is no place for extremes."

"I don't quite understand."

"Extremes, acute deviations from the mean value. In aggression levels, for example. We are all aggressive to some degree. But the vast majority can go down into an overcrowded metro, travel to work, spend the whole day there with unpleasant colleagues and get through to the evening without starting a fight. That is the norm.

"But out of every thousand randomly-selected people, there will be one who, when someone looks at him askance, responds with a punch to the jaw. There is no place in the social order for people like these. The system very quickly spits them out. They just about complete their schooling, but there is no question of higher education for them. They do not pass through social selection, and the centrifugal forces of the social order eject them to the periphery of civilised life."

"But that's no bad thing, surely?"

"That's true, of course. Contemporary society with such a degree of aggression is unthinkable. But extremes are not all aggressive and not all on the undesirable side.

"Take gifted children. Out of every thousand randomly-selected pupils, one may learn so well he is allowed to skip a year. His problems will begin after two such skips, when he will be appreciably younger than his classmates.

"He will be of no interest to the girls in his class – too young, too short, his spectacle lenses will be too thick. The boys, sensing his intellectual superiority in spite of his youth, will take it out on him physically. In any case, he will be an outsider. It's regrettable, but it is a fact."

"But surely such people do now have a way of expressing themselves. Wall Street awaits them with open arms. What about the talented young people who create empires worth billions at the age of twenty?"

"In Wall Street in particular, and in the economy in general, only certain capabilities are in demand, and not necessarily intellectual ones. It takes a grasp of commercial matters to create a promising start-up, and not all of them have that.

"The successful ones among them are only the tip of the iceberg. There are millions of children with an above average intelligence below the waterline. They are never invited to an interview for an élite vacancy, because by the time they become adults, they have already dropped out of society.

"Some become rebels instead of getting on with their studies. Others withdraw into themselves. It is people like these who cannot express themselves, although they had outstanding prospects at first. Our society prefers mediocrities to them. Socialised mediocrities. Those who are too clever are forced out and become marginalised, after which they have very little chance of passing on their genes to posterity. After all, social graces are important in the conditions of our society if you want to continue the line.

"But you are partly right. Mankind noticed this long ago and has tried many times to correct it. There have even been some successes, but there has been no radical change in this trend. And the process is not limited to Western countries or to recent centuries. It has been going on in all human cultures for a very long time."

"It's regrettable, but... that's life."

"What is regrettable is that this strict social selection statistically leaves a noticeable trace in the anatomy of man. Our society takes chances away from intellectual marginals, and this has an effect on the whole population.

"As a result, our brain is losing weight. This tendency began tens of thousands of years ago. It is not noticeable in everyday life because it is so slow-moving. Like the reaction of plants to touch, but incomparably slower. However, we were sure to reach the point of no return eventually. It has fallen to those who are living now to be the witnesses of this event."

Silverman's eyes glazed over again as he became immersed in his thoughts.

"Are you thinking of the events at the metro station? Were you there too? Is that where you were wounded?"

"Yes, I was there, and that's where I was wounded."

"You mean it was your rejects from society who did this?"

"Oh no, it's not that simple. The intellectual rejects are slowly dying out, unnoticed. They simply go away into eternity, closing the door noiselessly behind them. Our civilisation has changed. Its structure was based on a false premise from the beginning. Man and his behaviour were seen as a constant, but actually it has proved to be a variable. It has changed by becoming more socialised, and at the same time more stupid. The overall intellect of mankind grew, but individuals became more stupid.

"That fragile civilised balance has been breached. Our society is on the verge of a phase transformation. It is like supercooled water in a vessel that does not freeze entirely and immediately. Local crystallisation zones form in it, where matter passes into a different aggregate state. The metro station was one of the first crystallisation points of the new future."

An oppressive silence reigned.

"So what should we do, in your opinion?" asked David eventually.

"Try to survive for a start," replied Silverman, looking at a certain point somewhere outside the window. It was now noticeable that the sky was turning from black to dark blue. Dawn was approaching.

"We won't be able to do that in the city."

"My friend expressed a similar opinion."

"Where is he now? Does he still live here?"

"Oh no, he left the city long ago. He always liked space, freedom, isolation. He has land in Canada. A large plot, somewhere in a rural locality, far from the madding crowd. I believe he is still there now."

Here Silverman's eyes came alive again.

"He sent me congratulations on New Year's Eve, with some strange wishes. I think I'm now beginning to understand what he had in mind..."

He suddenly jumped up from the table as if he had been stung, grabbed a candle and disappeared into the darkness of the doorway. At first his footsteps could be heard getting farther away, then there was the sound of table drawers being hurriedly opened and shut. Finally the noise stopped. Silverman returned to the kitchen holding a postcard.

"Look at this. There was a photo with it, but unfortunately I don't know where it is now. Anyway, that's not important. It has the usual 'Dear friend', and so on... But this sentence baffled me. See for yourself."

David took the postcard held out to him. Holding it closer to the candle flame, he saw even, confident handwriting. After reading the indicated passage, he raised his head and looked directly at Silverman.

"I get the impression he has looked into a crystal ball..."

Silverman gave him an expressive look in reply and took another sip of wine. David returned to the postcard and this time read the text from beginning to end.

"Does he mean to come and visit you?" he asked, when he had finished.

"That's what I thought until this evening. But it is now clear that he is actually inviting me to his place."

"Are you planning to go?"

"Why not? There's no sense in staying in the city, and it's dangerous too. For now it's more or less quiet. Everyone is sitting at home, waiting for the situation to return to normal, but after a while they will run out of food, and then all hell will break loose..."

Silverman straightened up. His eyes shone from the wine and reflected the flickering light of the candles.

"What would you say if I invited you to come with me?"

"Where, to your friend's?"

"Why not?"

"Well... I don't know... although..."

"I know, you are young and fit... You think an old man like me can only be a burden to you. But I do have some advantages. Firstly, I'm an experienced hunter, I know all about ambushes. I know the behaviour of wild animals... and wild people too, if it comes to that... Secondly, I am a doctor. And thirdly, I'll be taking you to a man who knows more about this chaos than anyone else. You may be sure he has an action plan. Whatever awaits us in the near future, we shall be all right with him."

After some hesitation, David could not find a single argument against the proposal.

"OK. I agree."

They shook hands.

"And now," said Silverman, in whose hand a rolled-up map had appeared from somewhere, "we need a good plan to escape from the city."

# # #

END OF EPISODE ONE

Thank you for reading my book, I hope you enjoyed it! It would be great if you could take a few minutes to leave a review. Reviews help others to decide what they should spend their time and money on. They also help authors to put out better, more enjoyable books. I take reader feedback very seriously.

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Website: albertsartison.com

E-mail: contact@albertsartison.com
