“I hope you’re right, Officer Levin, I truly do. Well then, shall we set sail so to speak?”

“Whenever you’re ready, Captain,” Jake said.

“Helm, one quarter ahead and steady as she goes!”

“Aye, sir,” Chuck replied.

As silently as during their test run, the Spirit of Arcadia began very slowly to ease forwards.

“Ambush reports they are matching us,” Lucya called out from her station.

“Excellent, really excellent,” Coote said. “We should be in Scotland by lunchtime tomorrow.”

Jake could feel the air of excitement on the bridge. He had felt it everywhere on the ship in the hours after their short manoeuvre the previous day. Morale had been up and down since the asteroid. After the shock of what had happened, there had been a mixture of disbelief and relief at their incredible survival. Then hope, as Flynn Bakeman had taken command, promising to find land and a new home. A hope that had been dashed when it emerged how he had planned to kill almost everyone on board.

When Jake and his crew had regained control of the ship, hope wasn’t so easily re-established. Too much had happened, and besides, the reality of their predicament was beginning to make itself felt. Many had begun to question the value of survival when there wasn’t much of a world left in which to live. Life was going to be hard, everyone understood that. They may well have solved their immediate energy crisis by connecting the ship to HMS Ambush and her powerful nuclear reactor, but there were many problems still to overcome, not least of which was finding enough food.

The previous day’s test had reignited the hope though, and it was infectious, spreading throughout the ship like a virus, imbuing everyone with smiles and excited conversation. If they could move, there was a chance of finding food, and maybe habitable land. Perhaps even other survivors. The hardships of living in a confined space and under strict rationing were easier to bear when cushioned by hope.

“Captain?”

“Yes?” Jake and Coote said simultaneously. Jake looked over towards Lucya. She wore an expression that told him something wasn’t right. Coote continued to stare out to sea, enthralled by the rolling waves.

“I’m picking something up. It’s quite faint, but it sounds like a distress beacon.”

That got the submarine captain’s attention. He swung round his chair, bushy eyebrows raised. “Are you sure? Could it be one of your rather clever little pink buoys you sent out there, like the one we found?”

“It’s not one of mine. I coded a subcarrier signal into my own transmitters so I could be sure not to confuse them with anything else.”

“She’s a smart one, Jake, you want to keep hold of her.”

“I intend to,” Jake said, and exchanged a smile with his chief radio officer. He’d been holding her at every opportunity the last couple of weeks, and he was sure that Gibson Coote was as well aware of their blossoming relationship as everyone else seemed to be. “Officer Levin, where’s the signal coming from? Please tell me we’re headed towards it.”

“You’re not going to like this. It’s behind us. Directly behind us.”

“And you say it just popped up? Wasn’t there before?” Coote got up from his perch and joined Lucya at her station.

“No, sir, it definitely wasn’t there until a minute ago. Look,” she pointed to a screen displaying a map of their location, circling an area with her index finger. “I think it’s coming from around here. I’ve got scans running on all channels twenty-four seven. As soon as the scanner finds a signal it locks on. It takes less than sixty seconds to scan the full frequency range, and there’s a second scan running on the emergency frequencies too. If anything starts chirping within range, I know about it within ten seconds.”

Jake joined the others at the navigation station. “Can you get a better idea of distance?”

“No, not with this equipment. If it’s a GPS beacon, and if the asteroid hadn’t knocked out half the satellite network, it would probably be transmitting precise coordinates. I’m just getting a basic distress signal.”

“Captain Coote, unless I’m mistaken you’re rather better equipped for this sort of thing, are you not?”

“I’ll say! I expect Ralf and the boys are probably already tracing the signal. Can we give them a call?”

Lucya punched a couple of buttons and summoned up the submarine on her headset. “HMS Ambush, Spirit of Arcadia, receiving?” A short pause, and then she relayed details of the signal.

“Can you put Ralf on the speaker?” Jake asked. She nodded, and flipped a switch.

“Ralf? Coote.”

“Captain, we’re seeing the same signal as Officer Levin. It’s approximately one hundred nautical miles north. We have a good reading, and eighty percent confidence in the location.”

“Thank you, Ralf, splendid work. Stand by for further instructions.”

“We have to turn round, no?” Jake looked from Lucya to Coote. “If there’s someone out there, we have a duty to help them out.”

“The Ambush also has a duty to return to base, Jake. End of the world or not, we have standing orders. We are obliged to get to Scotland.”

“Of course, but a two-hundred-mile detour won’t hurt, will it? I mean, you came for us. You could have left us here two weeks ago and gone on to your base, but you stayed here and worked on getting our two vessels connected.”

“That was a different situation, old chap. We couldn’t possibly leave nearly three thousand people stranded and without power. It was also in our interests to pool our assets. You need power, we get space above the water.”

“Are you saying you’re only here out of self-interest? I don’t believe that of you, Captain Coote.”

“We’re all here out of self-interest, old boy. It just so happens that our interests align nicely.”

“And what if that signal is another cruise ship, another three thousand stranded passengers?”

“I think that’s unlikely,” Lucya interjected. The captains both turned to look at her. “I mean, the signal is very weak. A big ship would send out something stronger. Even without power, emergency batteries would put out a better signal than this. If I had to guess, I’d say this is more like a lifeboat, or perhaps even a raft.”

“Even if there’s one person out there, we have to go and help them!” Jake couldn’t believe he was having this conversation.

“You’re right, of course,” Coote said, smiling. “You have a good moral compass, Captain Noah; it’s a shame you chose the civilian route. You might have done well in the navy. Scotland can wait; we will absolutely go and find out where this mysterious signal is coming from. Ralf, are you still there?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Inform the crew there’s a change of plan. Watch that signal like a hawk. If it moves or changes in any way, I want to know about it.”

“Understood.”

“Do we need to inform the committee of the new plan?” Lucya asked.

“I don’t think so; this counts as an emergency,” Jake said. “No point wasting time getting everyone together. The committee has already agreed that the bridge crew have full authority to act in urgent situations. I’ve decided this is urgent. Helm, take us around. New heading: zero one zero degrees. Let’s go and see what’s out there.”

Two

“ERICA? ARE YOU outside, Erica? Come on, Daddy needs to talk to you, darling!”

There was no response. The usually busy corridor lay silent. This last week it had reminded Scott of the East End street in which he had grown up as a boy, with people coming and going in and out of each other’s cabins, sharing gossip and rumours. A real little community. The kids played together in safety. Unlike the East End, nothing bad could happen to them here. There were no bogeymen waiting to swipe them off the street, no speeding motorcycles to knock them over. The only danger was boredom. The simply decorated cream and pastel-blue walls and brown carpet held little excitement, but children had a way of using their imaginations to change their surroundings. The previous day a group of them had decided that they were on a train journey across America. They had ploughed up and down that length of corridor for hours, stopping every now and then to let ‘passengers’ on and off as various members of the gang either returned to their cabins, or came out to join in the game.