Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER ELEVEN}

During the eighth day, the wind lessened again, but snow continued to fall. Frozen condensation frosted the inside of the canopy, and every watch had to poke open the ventilation flaps. Consultation with the other raft revealed that most of the rations from Goose had not been salvaged.

The ninth day brought a clear sky and good visibility. Ky ordered the canopy on her raft opened enough that she could see the coast again in both directions. The same barren wall extended behind them, but straight across it was already lower, obviously lower. Ahead, the cliff wall disappeared into the sea. The current pulled them on; soon they would be even with the rocks low enough to see over. She could not see what lay beyond, but if there was an eddy current heading north, this was the place to look.

“Wake up!” she said loudly. “Kurin, lower our canopy completely. Master Sergeant, lower the canopy in your raft. It’s time to start paddling.” In her own raft, those offwatch stirred, looked up sleepily. Those awake looked around. Kurin grinned and reached for a paddle.

“It’s too cold!” Commander Bentik said from the other raft as its canopy retracted. “It’s freezing.”

“We don’t want the wind’s push now, and we’ll be paddling,” Ky said. She had already assigned the first teams of paddlers from those with experience in small boats. “We’re heading across this current, hoping to find an eddy that will carry us around that point and on north. These rafts won’t be easy to steer, but if we find the right current we should be able to do it.”

At first, the paddlers seemed to make no difference in the rafts’ movement, and as they passed the point of rocks, she could begin to see what lay on the other side: a bay, like a chunk bitten out of this end of Miksland, with a slope—steep, but not a cliff—up to the high plateau. Beyond it, another line of cliffs marked this end of the continent, with rising ground beyond.

After something over an hour of paddling, another current caught them, moving them north, though not nearly as fast as the main ocean current had moved them east.

“We could go all the way north,” Marek said. “The current might carry us all the way past Miksland into the shipping lanes. Toward warmer water. I think we should try that.”

“I’m worried about the food supply,” Ky said. “And the cold. Doesn’t the sea freeze down here in winter?”

“I don’t know how much of it,” McLenard said. “How far north, I mean, but I’ve heard it freezes as far as this.”

“These rafts won’t stand up to sea ice,” Kurin said. “We could get stuck in it when it’s too thin to walk on, but thick enough to crush them.”

“Warmer to the north,” Marek said again. “Probably more bays up there, less likely to freeze.”

“I take your point, Master Sergeant,” Ky said, “but as short as we are of food, and with these rafts—we’re going into this bay while it’s good weather and we can see what we’re doing.”

They came nearer, nearer, the paddlers switching out now for a fresh crew. Once out of the eddy current, it was easier paddling between the arms of the bay. Waves were smaller, mere ripples on the surface. Ky could see the shore on both sides and ahead clearly.

“It’s just rock,” Jen said, from the other raft. “No trees, no driftwood—nothing to build shelters with.” Ky said nothing.

“We could build a hut with rocks,” McLenard said. “Stuff mud in the cracks.”

“We’re closer to this side.” Marek nodded to the north. “Head for that?”

“No,” Ky said. “Keep going, all the way in. It should be shallower there, maybe enough to walk the rafts ashore. We need lookouts to watch for rocks beneath.”

The rafts moved with agonizing slowness toward the shore. Gradually the bottom came into view, tumbled rocks and then seaweed, shellfish clinging to the rocks, several fish. Ky was heartened. With the loss of supplies, they needed every extra calorie they could find, and she saw no sign of plant life around the bay.

When the rafts finally touched bottom on shingle, everyone sat silent for a moment.

Marek started to climb over the side into the water. “Not you,” Ky said. “Your suit’s not sound. We want to preserve the rafts for shelter and future need, so we don’t want to drag them loaded over the rocks. Only those with whole suits.”

She rolled over the side herself, confident in her suit’s integrity, into knee-deep icy water. Her first lurching steps on the slick, rounded cobble reminded her that days at sea made for shaky legs. She pulled on the lines between the two rafts, moving them only a few centimeters, but soon others were there to help. Finally, only Marek and Jen were still aboard a raft. He helped Jen over the side, and she splashed ashore, almost falling.

“We need some protection under the rafts,” Ky said. “These rocks will wear through them. We’ll use the uninflated spare raft for one, and its canopy for the other.”

It took longer than she had hoped to get everything ashore, the improvised groundsheets laid down, and the rafts securely held down with piles of stones serving instead of stakes. But Marek and the two staff sergeants kept things moving, and before dark the makeshift camp was complete.

Everyone gathered into one raft-shelter out of the rising wind. Even sitting down, Ky felt that the land was moving like the sea, rising and falling. Underneath, the stones were unyielding lumps instead of smooth, resilient water. And the ration bar, last of the day’s ration, did not satisfy her hunger. She looked around at those who’d been in the other raft, whose stories she didn’t yet know, but she was too tired to ask for them now. And here, on land, they would have more time to get to know one another.

“At least I’m not seasick,” Hazarika said. “And we’re not going to drown.” He patted the floor of the raft.

“Not sure I think freezing or starving is any improvement,” Lanca said. Staff Sergeant Gossin glared at him and he subsided.

“Should be more things to eat in this bay,” Kurin said.

“Did you recognize anything as we came in?” Ky asked.

“A few things, yes, Admiral. Some of the seaweed looks like an edible type, and the shellfish certainly should be.”

“Then you’ll teach the rest of us.” If only they had a small boat, something other than the rafts, so they could use the rafts for shelter and have access to the bay’s water for fishing. It was far too cold to dive into, even if they’d had the right gear for it.

But here, at least, they could have a real latrine, far enough away from the rafts they were to live in. Here, at least, someone flying over might see their bright-colored rafts. If anyone flew over. If the search hadn’t been called off. In any case, everyone was still alive and they were on land, not adrift at sea.

“Bad news.” Grace looked at Helen’s face on the vidscreen, Stella behind her. “The last flight we can make, they found nothing more. No more debris, no more bodies. We’ve notified surface shipping to the north to be on the lookout for anything, but the search has been called off. Given the weather conditions down there, the danger to their own crews, it was the only reasonable decision.”

“You let them?” Helen said, a little breathlessly.

“Yes. Admiral Hicks is convinced they could not have survived this long even if they’d survived the crash. If there is anything found, it will be next spring, when—” She stopped, trying to find a way to edit what she’d been told. “If anything does come up, it might be found when the ice melts.”

“I can’t believe—” Helen’s eyes glistened with fresh tears. Her shoulders shook. Stella put an arm around her.

“I still hope they’re wrong,” Grace said. “I believe Ky is a lot more capable than they think, but it’s true she never had cold survival training or experience.”

The tide turned. The ebb was gentler, the waves lapping more quietly, slowly leaving behind rock pools. Staff Sergeant Gossin assigned work parties: one to forage for food in the rock pools, one to find a location for a latrine, one to locate fuel for a fire and any materials for building a better shelter. Two worked the desalinators, until all the containers they had were full, then joined the food foraging party. Ky moved from one to another; Jen said she would work on cleaning and organizing the shelters.

Despite the biting wind, Ky was glad to be out of the confines of the raft, eager to find better shelter, more food supplies. Inland, at the head of the shingle, a tumble of boulders looked at first like a natural fall of rocks from the cliffs on either side. She clambered up the slope to the first, a head-high block of rough rock, about a meter from the next to the right, and a half meter from the one to the left. Ky glanced down the line of them. Except for being different sizes and shapes, they looked like a row of bollards blocking traffic from a pedestrian-only square, closing off the beach from higher ground. One of them was low enough for her to climb; she was hauling herself up the side when she heard Marek calling her.

Sighing, she let herself down. He was toiling up the slope, brow furrowed. “Admiral, what were you doing? You could fall, break your leg or something.”

“I thought if I could climb it, maybe I could find a way up.”

“Up—where? And why?”

“Not much to live on down here, Master Sergeant. We’ve got a long cold winter ahead of us; we need better shelter, a source of heat, and more food.”

“You won’t find anything up there but rock and ice.” He looked worried. She wondered if he might argue again for continuing north in the rafts, but he didn’t. “Commander Bentik asked me to find you.”

“Of course,” Ky said.

She started back to the camp, but detoured to speak to the latrine detail when they waved her over. Neither the location nor the hole itself was really adequate, but it would do for a short time. When she got to camp, she found that Jen had done another inventory of supplies, a chore that had kept her in one or the other raft all day.

“And I really think, Admiral, that we should both be here, available to each other and anyone else. We could use one raft for a sort of office.”

“I appreciate your work on the inventory,” Ky said, “but I need to check on each working party while they’re at their tasks. It’s good for morale, besides ensuring that the work is going well.”

“As you wish, Admiral,” Jen said. “Though I should think you could leave that to their own NCOs.” Ky reminded herself that Jen had always been staff, never in a command position.

The foraging party brought in some seaweed and shellfish scraped off the rocks at low tide. That night they had the first hot food since the crash, boiled in a pot from the raft over one of the SafStov cans. Everyone had a taste of the shellfish along with a regular ration bar; the seaweed, Ky thought, was a taste she hadn’t acquired yet, but she chewed through a portion to encourage the others. Eventually it was all gone.

Cloud hung over them the next morning, ominous, the color promising more snow. Ky elected not to explore the trail to the top of the plateau, and when the snow began falling, she declared a holiday once morning chores were done. She designated one raft for resting quietly or sleeping and the other for conversation. Some started with a nap, and then came out to chat and eat. Others moved over to sleep after looking over the stores in the conversation raft. Snow fell steadily, covering the stones outside. The canopies began to sag; Ky told the staff sergeants to make sure they didn’t sag too far. She took this opportunity to chat with those she hadn’t met yet, starting with Staff Sergeant Gossin.

“My family’s military back as far as the civil war, at least,” Gossin said. “My second cousin was stationed at headquarters when you were in the Academy—” She gave Ky a wary look then went on. “But I don’t tell people what he said about that situation you had.” An invitation, or a test.

“I was a young idiot,” Ky said. She had expected someone to bring up her expulsion from the Academy. Only one way to handle it, frankly and without excuses. “I didn’t think it through.”

Gossin didn’t smile, but Ky saw a slight relaxation in her face. Something had worried her, and now didn’t. “He said right away it was a setup and they’d be sorry to lose you.”

“I created a mess,” Ky said. “They had no choice.”

Gossin nodded, meeting Ky’s gaze. “Well—I told my cousin I might get to meet you, and he asked me to give you his regards. Staff Sergeant Antak Birgirs, Joint Services Command at Ordnay.”

Birgirs. Should she remember a Birgirs? Then she did. “Sergeant Birgirs, then—fitness instructor? He ran us off our legs.” Ky grinned. He had taught her how to handle larger opponents. “Are you staying in?”

“Absolutely,” Gossin said. “This is my life and what I want. Not going to complicate things with marriage or family; if I don’t screw up I could make sergeant major. Maybe. At any rate, I’m in for the duration.”

Ky liked her: sensible, direct, and utterly professional. She considered asking Gossin about the others in the second raft, but Gossin spoke first.

“Admiral, by your leave, I’ll take a party outside to brush the snow off these canopies. I see a little sag over there.”

“Go ahead,” Ky said. They could talk again later. She watched as Gossin chose a crew, noting that she mixed personnel from both rafts. Then she went out herself to stretch and look at the bay, the snow melting quietly into dark water. Sergeant Chok was just coming out of the other raft, and Ky beckoned to him.

“You’ve got inflatable raft experience,” Ky said. “How long do you think the ground cloths we made will protect the raft bottoms?”

“You mean to use them again as rafts?” he asked, brow furrowed. “The longer we’re on land, the more abrasion they’ll have, even with people trying not to scoot around inside and rub the fabric against these rocks. If we’re here all winter, I doubt they’ll be seaworthy when it warms up again.” Ky nodded; he went on. “You think no one will come?”

“If we’re out of communication long enough, they’ll likely think we all died in the crash. And if whatever has kept people’s skullphones from working affects aircraft communications, they may not fly over the continent.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, if we take to the sea again, we’d better do it soon, and figure out a better way to steer. It’s going to get colder—this bay may freeze over and then we’re really stuck.”

“Better here than out at sea.”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely. Except there’s nothing much to eat. How many days’ food do we have now?”

“Not enough to get through the winter. We have to have another source, and right now the sea is it. You said your family farmed fish?”

“Yes, sir, but we can’t do that here. We don’t have any way to net off the bay, or make cages for them, so predators don’t eat them. And unless we move everyone into one raft and use the other one, we’ll have to fish from shore.”

“Where would be the best place?”

“Out along one of the arms, toward the open sea. Should be deeper water close in there.” He pointed into the snow. “Dangerous getting there and coming back, though, with tides and current and wind. Easy to get blown back out to sea.” A pause. “I wouldn’t advise it, sir, but I’ll try if you want.”

“Maybe when it’s not snowing and the wind’s still,” Ky said. “We should go back inside now. Get some lunch.” Meager as it was, she wanted that little lump of protein.

Chok followed her into the active raft. Kurin looked up. “Two more for lunch?”

“Such as it is.” Ky identified the speaker as Corporal Lanca, dark like her but beak-nosed and round-shouldered. He had been in the other raft with Commander Bentik. “It’s not enough.”

“It’s the same for everyone, Corporal,” Kurin said. She handed the little packet to Ky and another to Chok.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Lanca said. He unfastened the hatch, stepped over the sidewall, and made a sloppy job of fastening the hatch again.

“Typical,” muttered Kurin.

“Got it,” Chok said, and snugged the flap down.

“Problem there?” Ky asked.

“He has a certain reputation,” Chok said. Kurin nodded. “I’d heard of him from time to time. Lazy Lanca, they call him.”

“Should never have made corporal,” Kurin said, lowering her voice. “Should have washed out in Basic.”

Chok shrugged. “We need all the hands we have.”

“But not all the mouths.”

Ky gave her a sharp look. Kurin spread her hands.

“He tried to talk me out of more food—said he had a metabolic problem. I know—and I know you heard the same story, Gus—he’s got a reputation for that, too, cadging extra rations and then trying to skip out on physicals.”

“Any other problems I should know about? Or just background on the others in your raft, Sergeant Chok?”

Chok looked wary. “Well… we had Master Sergeant Marek with us; he was a big help. I think—I think Commander Bentik thought I was a bit young to take charge. And she’s not from here.”

Ky already knew Jen had been difficult at first. “The commander’s culture is much more formal,” Ky said. “But I was wondering how the other personnel were—any problems I should know about? Anyone you think deserves a commendation?”

Chok relaxed. “The rest—this is just my first impression, and they may be different now we’re on land.” He looked at her; Ky nodded again. “Barash is a stickler for regulations, likes to correct people. I think she’s just scared and that’s her way of coping. Riyahn’s a motormouth, yammers on and on, and he can panic—you saw his reactions the day our first raft was holed. He’s Miznarii, too, if that matters.”

Ky shrugged. “Not to me, if he can do his job. Do you know his training?”

“Yes; electrical systems, what in a civilian would be installation and maintenance electrician.”

“What about Tech Lundin?”

“Steady as stone. I guess most medics are. She said she worked for a field trauma team before she joined Spaceforce.”

“Good person to have along,” Ky said, and Chok nodded his agreement.

“Now Tech Hazarika, he’s weapons maintenance with a secondary in communications. More an indoor type; he’s had a rough time. Seasick a lot, and I don’t think he’s up to hard physical work. And…” Chok paused long enough that Ky gestured to him. “Well… he’s crazy about Drosh—Tech Droshinski. Who if you ask me, and you did, is a drama queen right out of vid programs. Smart enough, but the kind of woman who makes trouble.”

“Um. Sleeps around?”

“Not on this trip, so far. Just—everything is drama with her.”

“Did she start trouble with Commander Bentik?” Ky could easily imagine that happening. Offense taken, reproofs resented. She would have to be on the lookout for trouble in that direction.

“Not that I saw, Admiral, but Master Sergeant Marek was keeping close watch on the commander.” After a moment, Chok said, “I hope I didn’t rattle on too much, Admiral.”

“No, you didn’t. That was fine. I’ll be talking to everyone again myself, making my own assessments, but it helps to have something to start with.”

Everyone gathered for the evening meal—a single ration bar—as it grew dark, and then returned to their usual raft for the night. Ky thought about scrambling the crew, but put it aside for another day. Snow fell all night; the night watches had to brush it off the canopies every hour or two.

In the morning the snow still fell, though more lightly. When it stopped, the temperature dropped; the wind picked up, rattling the canopy fabric. Nobody wanted to go outside, but Ky insisted.

“Master Sergeant, we need work parties to gather seaweed and shellfish; Staff Sergeant Gossin should take several along the margins of the bay to find the best place to fish. The waste buckets from inside go to the latrine. Someone needs to use the desalinator pump to refill all the water containers with fresh water. And we need some kind of windbreak to protect our shelter. I wonder if we could pile up rocks.”

Marek looked at her as if she were crazy. “Build a rock shelter? Do you know how to do that? With round rocks?”

“No, but rock is what we’ve got.” She picked up a rock, carried it over, set it down. Another two. Another. Another three. “I’d rather have lumber and tools, but I don’t see any.”

“Very well, Admiral. I’ll get the work parties moving.”

That day, twelve of the crew carried rocks and dropped them into a long curving pile along the outside of one raft. It didn’t reach the top of the flotation walls, but it was a start, and it felt like doing something. They took turns, two by two, with those pumping the desalinators on the far side of the bay from the latrine. The others searched the rock pools and shallows for food. They came back with two small fish, sixteen of the black bivalves, and more seaweed.

Seaweed was more palatable, Ky decided, when people had worked hard all day. The daily ration, which had seemed just adequate on the rafts, left them hungry here; the seaweed and individual bites of fish with one or two scallops or pieces of clam stilled the hunger pangs for only a few hours. And the cold never let up.