“That’s it? You’re not going to send out a search party? He could be anywhere. He could have been taken prisoner, or fallen overboard!”

Max stood and walked to the door, closing it as he spoke. “If he fell overboard, rushing a search team out isn’t going to help. And in the very unlikely event he’s been taken prisoner, he’s still somewhere on the ship, isn’t he? Time is not of the essence, but I assure you we will do all we can. We’ll be in touch, Mr Sanderson. You go and get some lunch rations and relax.” The door clicked shut.

Max sat back down and flipped the notebook closed. He tossed it into the chair on the other side of his desk, the one that was supposed to receive visitors, or ‘customers’ as the committee insisted on calling them. If someone from his team dropped by, he’d give them the book and tell them to take a look if they had some spare time. If he remembered. He doubted he would.

He closed his eyes again, heaved his feet up onto the table, and pictured a sun-drenched beach with cocktails, music, and señoritas. A minute later, he began to snore gently.

• • •

The look on the face of submariner Ewan Sledge told Jake all he needed to know. He’s seen the same expression before, at Gare Loch.

“There’s a body in there, isn’t there?” Jake said, screwing up his face.

Ewan nodded, and pulled the canopy of the life raft all the way back. Jake, Captain Gibson Coote, and Doctor Janice Hanson crowded around the inflatable, jostling for position on the little platform normally used for boarding the Spirit of Arcadia’s tenders. They all wanted a better look, although with the exception of Janice — who had intense professional curiosity — they didn’t really want to get too close.

“Well, there you are, old chap. Another fellow with no head!” Coote observed.

“How do you know it’s a fellow, Captain Coote? It could be a woman,” Janice said. She got to her knees and leaned inside the raft, rolling the headless corpse closer towards them. Ewan turned white and withdrew.

“Call it intuition. It certainly looks like the frame of a man to me. Ewan, you and Eric can help get our friend here down to Mrs Hanson’s…working area. Discreetly, if you could.”

Eric O’Brien, who had been standing guard with a rifle — just in case — nodded, and disappeared inside the ship.

“I was so hoping we’d seen the last of these rafts,” Jake said. “This is what? The fourth one now? And the third body. Where are they coming from? And are they following us? Or is it coincidence that we keep coming across them?”

“Judging by the state of this body, I might be able to give you more to go on,” Janice said. She was examining the severed neck. “This one is fresher than the last two. The poor guy in the fishing net was too far gone to give up many secrets. Your Faslane man in the last raft had been dead for a couple of weeks as well.”

“Any chance of spotting a pattern? Perhaps a clue as to where in the world they came from?”

“I can run a DNA test using some of the equipment we salvaged from the Faslane base, but it won’t tell us nationality or ethnicity. Human beings have been migrating around the world and mixing their markers far too long for that to be a realistic proposition without access to international DNA databases. But I can check for common haplogroups. That’ll at least give us a good indication as to whether the three bodies are likely to come from the same place.”

Eric returned to the platform, pushing a wheelchair on which was folded a large white sheet. Janice stood and moved back, allowing the two submariners to remove the corpse from the raft. They lowered it into the chair, covered it with the sheet, and wheeled it inside in the direction of a lift.

Jake peered at the raft again. Something had caught his eye. “Look,” he said, pointing at the far end. “Those symbols. I think they’re the same ones we found on the last raft. The one in the loch.”

“What are they, Chinese?” Coote stooped low, frowning at the odd shapes scrawled across the inflatable chamber:

“Maybe. You know, I had fully intended to try and decipher those six symbols from the other raft, but I never got round to it.”

“Hardly surprising, old boy. You were at death’s door shortly after finding that.” Coote chuckled. “Things have been somewhat busy since then. Mysterious symbols haven’t been high on anyone’s list of priorities.”

“No. They are now, though. We’re going to be sailing for at least another day. I have some time on my hands. I’m going to look into these some more. I’ve got an idea who could help me.”

“Well I’ll leave you boys to your treasure hunt,” Janice said. “I want to get started on the body straight away. I’ll give you a call when I’m done.”

“Mrs Hanson, always a pleasure!” Coote tipped his cap at Janice. “Time I got going too. As soon as my chaps are back on the Ambush we’ll dive again. We should make good time as conditions are favourable.”

Jake couldn’t argue with that. The English Channel was calm, and the sun even looked like it was trying to break through the omnipresent thick cloud that had descended after the asteroid’s passing. It was almost perfect weather to be at sea.

Two

JAKE MADE HIS way casually up to deck seven. He stopped by the conference rooms in passing, and sneaked a look through the windows. Groups of children were attending lessons. One of the larger rooms was the pre-school crèche. Toys and games had been gathered from the kids’ play areas, and more had been donated by families on board. It looked like a happy place. It was certainly a noisy one, as the infants laughed, cried, shouted and babbled away, slowly wearing down their courageous monitors.

Most of the youngsters inside, Jake realised, would never remember the old world. This was their reality, and this would always be their reality. He found the idea reassuring in a strange way. Theirs was the first generation that wouldn’t crave the freedom, space, and variety that the planet once had to offer. Of course, they would learn about how things had been before, but not remembering for themselves meant they would never truly feel the sense of loss or deprivation that everyone else was already suffering.

He moved along, looking in more rooms until he found the one he’d really come to see. Sitting at her desk, writing something with a look of intense concentration on her face, was Erica. He’d dropped her off there in the morning. The ‘school run’ Lucya called it. It was his turn, while she took the early shift on the bridge. Jake felt enormously protective over Erica, and couldn’t help but check on her any time he was near the conference rooms. Satisfied that she was perfectly fine, he took the lift up to deck seven.

Deck seven was, Jake believed, one of the most important on the ship. Not only was it where the kitchens were located, it was now becoming a vital source of food. The fishing team had been installed there, and with their improvised net repaired, they were regularly making good catches. A second net was well underway. It was a critical project; fish were their primary source of protein. The supplies they had recovered from Faslane were all well and good, but as head chef Claude never failed to impress upon Jake at every opportunity, fresh ingredients were essential to everyone’s wellbeing.

It wasn’t just about fish. Deck seven was also the home of Palm Plaza, a huge park, open to the sky. Cafes surrounded it, and on the decks above, state rooms overlooked it. The plaza had always been a favourite space among the crew, an oasis of land and greenery wherever in the world they went. Now it was being repurposed and rebuilt. Palm Plaza had become Farm Plaza.