Her legs were still bound together, but she could at least now move them. She straightened them out, and then with her feet she pushed herself round on her side. She tried to grip the floor with her feet, to pull herself towards the broken legs. Another push to turn herself, and her outstretched fingers touched on a split chair leg. Carefully, with a combination of her bound feet and legs, her fingers, and her head pressed against the carpet, she was able to manoeuvre her hand around the sharp piece of wood. The tightness of her bindings made moving her hands difficult, but she found she was able to position the splinter between her hands and the plastic tie than held them together. Very slowly, she started to saw.

Fifty-Two

“UNTIE HIM NOW,” Flynn waved a hand dismissively as he spoke.

Gunter and his sidekick approached. The German’s knife was pressed into service once more, severing the bonds that held Jake to the chair.

“Mr Jake Noah, for the murder of Melvin Sherwood, and another unnamed man, and the attempted murder of myself, I sentence you to exile from this ship. Take him away. Put him in that inflatable thing, the one he used before. Once we’re out of the fjord, cut him free.”

“You said you weren’t going to kill me. That’s a death sentence!”

“I said I wouldn’t kill you directly. I’m giving you a chance. Maybe you’ll find your own Eden, if you paddle long enough. If you survive long enough. Goodbye Mr Noah. I’ll be sure to give your regards to that lovely little Russian girl when I see her for phase two.”

The anger within Jake exploded. He drew in both his arms, pulling the two men restraining him in close, and then threw them outwards. It all happened in a split second, and the energy he put into the movement was enough to send both men staggering. He immediately drew back his hand, clenched his fingers into a fist, and rammed it into Flynn’s abdomen. Jake had never hit anyone before and had no idea what to expect. Even so, the resistance in the tensed muscles his hand connected with took him by surprise. Flynn was no slouch, he kept himself in shape. If the punch caused him any pain, he didn’t let it show. Before Jake could pull back for another shot, he felt his arms being restrained. He didn’t put up a fight, he knew it was pointless.

“When you drop him in that raft, take out the oars,” Flynn said. He turned and sat back down in the captain’s chair. “And if you see the other two, tell them to hurry up with finding a driver. Let’s burn some fuel.”

Jake was marched off the bridge. The journey back down through the ship was not as quiet as that from the theatre an hour earlier. People were out and about. Word of events had got around, and even those who had not witnessed the shooting were aware of what had happened, even if their grasp of the facts was not always entirely accurate. Most people simply stopped and stared at Jake as he was marched along by his escorts. Some jeered. A few shouted “murderer!” One spat. But at no time did Jake try and protest his innocence, he knew there was nothing to be gained by it. A thousand people believed that they had seen him shoot and kill. He hoped he might at least see Silvia, or Barry, or Grau. They might believe him. They knew him well enough to know he would never take a life, at least not in the way he had been framed. Ibsen had been a different matter, that was self defence. The memory of the fight in his cabin, and how it had ended, turned his blood cold. He was a killer. He had taken another man’s life. Was it so hard to think he would do it again? The realisation made his legs go weak. He stumbled and fell.

“Get up,” the German grunted.

Jake couldn’t get up. His head was spinning. Being framed, having people who didn’t know him think that he was the gunman, that was something he could just about cope with. But having his close colleagues, his friends, believe that he was capable of this? That was too much. And Lucya? The thought of Flynn and his plans for her sent him over the edge. He began to shake uncontrollably, face down on the floor.

“I said get up!”

His convulsions were making it hard to breathe. He didn’t care. He wanted to die, right there and then. He knew he should never have survived the asteroid. That he had survived but not stopped Ibsen before he’d killed Hollen just deepened his guilt. Hollen would have made a great captain, he would never have let all this happen. A confusion of thoughts coursed through his mind. A sharp blow to his ribcage sent a wave of pain through his body. He felt a rib crack. His breathing became even more laboured.

“Get up, or I will kick the life out of you,” the German growled.

He was bent over Jake, speaking directly into his ear. Apparently unwilling to wait for him to comply, and with the help of his silent counterpart, he hauled Jake to his feet.

“Now, walk!”

The pain in his side overrode all other thoughts. A small crowd had gathered, they were jeering and calling out.

“Murderer!”

“You’re pathetic, they should kill you right here!”

“Why did you do it?”

“Coward!”

Something snapped in his head, clicked everything into focus. He couldn’t change these people’s mind about what he had done, but he could go out with his head held high. Better to be remembered as defiant to the last, than as a coward. With considerable effort, and even more pain, he put one foot in front of the other and took as step. Then another, and another. He looked at the crowd of people. Tried to speak. The words came out in short bursts, between gasps for air.

“I didn’t…kill anyone…I was framed…Believe what…ever you want…but I beg you…choose a new….a new captain…he’s evil…Flynn is evil.”

A punch to the kidneys made any further speech impossible. He was in too much pain to try and make words. Besides, it was clear that the few words he had managed had fallen on deaf ears; the blow he’d just taken was met with spontaneous applause and cheering.

The rest of the walk down through the decks felt to Jake like it took a lifetime. The lower in the ship they got, the fewer people they encountered. As they reached deck two, Jake felt the familiar vibrations of the engines spinning up to full operating speed.

Fifty-Three

WITH A SNAP, the tie binding Lucya’s hands together gave way. She had lost all feeling in her left arm, but with her right arm in front of her, pushing against the floor, she brought herself back into a sitting position. Immediately she felt the blood rush back into the previously trapped limb. The numbness was replaced by a tingling which became so intense as to be painful. She swung the arm backwards and forwards, trying to recover some sensation. With both hands now free she was able to grab another piece of smashed chair leg. It made short work of the tie holding her feet together. She tried to stand, but the cord that was bound around her legs and the seat of the chair restricted her movement too much. Trying to work it down her legs so that she could step out of it didn’t help, it was tied too tightly. She picked up the sharp piece of broken chair again, and began sawing.

It took a good ten minutes to sever the cord, but finally she was free. She struggled to her feet, and with her hands held out in front of her, carefully and quietly she stepped forwards.

In the time she had taken to free herself, Lucya’s eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark and she could just about make out silhouettes and outlines. She was fairly sure she was in a bedroom given the large and flat shape in the middle. She headed for that first and reaching down to touch it, her fingers made contact with a thick puffy quilt. Rounding the bed and feeling her way as she went, she walked gingerly towards where she thought the door should be. Before her outstretched hands detected the extremity of the room, her knees came crashing into something low and hard. The noise of the impact sent her heart rate soaring. She froze, holding her breath for what seemed like an eternity, terrified that someone would come charging in to see what had happened. But nobody came to check on her, and the only sound was that of the blood pumping through her ears. She lowered her hands and discovered that her route had been blocked by a chest of drawers. Working her way sideways along the furniture for a few metres, she eventually found the unmistakable texture of the door.