Cargo



  Cargo

  By Katie Mineeff

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cargo Trilogy

  Book 1: Cargo

  Book 2: Ruin

  Book 3: Refuge

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Excerpt from Ruin

  About Katie Mineeff

  Other books by Katie Mineeff

  Connect with Katie Mineeff

  Prologue

  He rubbed his thumb over the arch of her eyelid, smudging the lead into a shadow. He placed the pencil softly on the bench and stared at the face before him. The soft roundness of the nose was in stark contrast to the slanted cat eyes that stared back. The full lips pressed together revealing her contempt at being captured this way. It was wrong. Something was not right with her expression but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He lifted the portrait carefully and fumbled for a tack in the chipped bowl sitting to his left. He looked at the wall in front of him with the hundreds of sketches scratched into its surface. There was little space for this portrait. He pierced the paper reverently and pushed the tack into the wall covering an old sketch of the magpie that sat on his windowsill every morning waiting for scraps. He picked up his pencil and softly ran his palm over a new piece of the textured delicate paper in front of him. He would get this right.

  Chapter One

  Max is finally asleep. It takes less time on board the ship but still too long for an eleven year old. To prepare for the nightmares he will have of finding our parents dead, I lay out blankets on the floor so he won’t hurt himself if he falls out of the bed. I can see the curve of his head as it peaks out of the itchy blanket. His light brown hair is in a messy knot after his earlier thrashing about on the pillow. Whatever way I look at it, I can’t shake the feeling that I have done the wrong thing bringing him along. I could have left him with Sadie, our neighbour, but I couldn’t bear it, leaving him behind, not knowing if I will return and it’s certain death for him eventually there anyway. Like all of us.

  I have at least two hours before it’s my turn on deck for sentry duty so I start to record the day’s events in the journal I agreed to keep for the Committee members at home, but really what is the point? How is it going to get back there if I don’t? I guess more scouts, or ‘volunteers’ can find it after and bring it back with the story of the end of our lives.

  Besides that, I don’t really even know what they want me to record, my personal experiences? How it takes me almost two hours to get Max to sleep at night? How we all crave some information about what is going to happen so badly that it’s not uncommon for arguments to break out at some point every day? Maybe I can record how I can’t stand one more story about Renka’s heroism at home or Mickael’s ongoing battle to discover how to play the game called ‘chess’.

  I settle for a short description of Mayther’s fishing attempt and our cooking experiments with seaweed we found that morning. Four of us tried small portions of the seaweed at two hourly intervals to see if there were any side effects. The idea is if no one’s tongue shows signs of swelling or falls off completely within twenty-four hours, we’ll try larger amounts then eventually add it to our tasteless repertoire of salted or preserved meals. As if another salty item is needed on the menu. At least it is fresh and found in abundance, if the state of the surrounding water is anything to go by.

  A knock at the door interrupts my journal writing. I hope it isn’t Renka who I’m on sentry duty with. I open the door to see Fiona smiling shyly at me. I smile tentatively back in relief. I like Fiona. She’s quiet, efficient and doesn’t need to fill in every silence. She is nearly an exact opposite to me in appearance. Her personality seems to have seeped through to the surface, everything about her is soft looking but somehow efficient. Her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes are exactly the same light blonde colour and never seem to move out of place. She never pushes stray strands of hair off her face or ends up with tousled eyebrows after spending time on deck. Her skin is very pale as to almost be translucent but doesn’t make her appear vulnerable like other people with skin as pale as hers. It took a few days for me to realise why I noticed her skin so much. Unlike the rest of us she is completely without scars or blemishes. Communal bath water and meagre rations often shared with younger siblings had left most of us with sores at different times that took ages to heal and left blemishes on what can only be described as dull skin anyway. Not to mention the cuts, scrapes and burns you inevitably get from pulling apart BAS - Before Age-Sickness – furniture to use for fire. She is completely blemish free and seems to hold herself gracefully, there is no wasted effort in any of her movements.

  I like Fiona because she seems to intuitively understand how I am protective over Max and doesn’t join in when the others try to encourage me to stay in the common cabin when he goes to bed. I don’t really need her, or anyone else for that matter, to protect me from that type of peer pressure, but I appreciate her understanding.

  She nods a greeting and says Karther has already relieved Mickael on starboard side but she was enjoying the cloudless night so stayed a while longer on deck. I secretly think she wanted to be sure Max was asleep before she came and got me for my shift. It isn’t as if everyone doesn’t hear him yelling at night. I’m uncomfortable with this, I don’t want to have to rely on anyone or owe them a favour.

  I follow Fiona along the narrow platinum lined hall passed the common cabin, the largest meeting space on board besides the deck. It’s supposed to be an environment conducive to socialising but I find it claustrophobic with everyone inside, even though it’s at least five times the size of the cabin Max and I are staying in. What is the point of getting to know everyone and pretending to be on a holiday? I’d rather keep it Max and me and just get to this so-called ‘Refuge’ without the facade of being ‘happy friends’.

  Fiona veers to the left and up a set of narrow stairs leading to the deck. Every time I’m up on deck I remember all the nights I spent burning books with my Dad. In some rare lucid moments Dad had, he and I would read snippets of books we found interesting, almost fairytale-like to us, though once real to many, before we tore them up to burn for fuel. One book had us both enthralled. We happily froze around a dwindling fire for the days it took us to read it. It is the only book I really feel guilty about tearing up so ruthlessly. The cover was ruined by mildew so I never knew the title, but it was about a girl who was the sole survivor of nuclear fallout. It appeals to me on so many levels. After the initial grief of losing your family and community, the sense of freedom that came with the lack of responsibility would surely be refreshing. Of course, the girl eventually longed for other people and left her refuge in search of them.

  I should be really grateful for these reading sessions because they were how I learnt to read while others in my commune had to sit with their parents or neighbours strategically going through each letter and sound, sometimes scratched in the dirt, until it was drilled into their heads. I guess this is one aspect of my parent’
s apathy I can claim as a benefit. The thought of either one of them dedicating so much time to alphabet drills to enhance my literacy development is laughable.  I always wonder why literacy is perceived as so important a skill to pass on in the scheme of things. There are the select few who have knowledge of BAS technology who might need to read information but really for the rest of us life expectancy is so low and basic necessities like food so hard to come by. Who cares if we can’t read what’s on the communication board? It must be some throw back to our great-grandparent’s generation that held literacy in high esteem.

   The deck reminds me of one of the books from BAS that survived ‘the burning’, showing ships that sailed many thousands of kilometres across oceans and seas. I was always fascinated with the sails and masts that caught the wind to power the ship and keep it balanced. To describe this vessel as a ship seems so contrary to the images I have seen from the BAS book.

  This ship is without masts or sails. Instead, a flat deck stretching into a streamlined ‘V’ at the front and spreading into a fish tail shape at the back put this vessel in a league of its own. The whole stern of the ship comprises of metallic cylinders that hold the supplies we need once we get to the potential refuge. We were told to expect very little in the way of civilisation even though others have travelled there before us. Lined up next to the cylinders are rows of tall metallic machinery sitting in human-like poses with claws and pincers ready to grab at unseen prey. The long hours of training to use these cylinder transports was fun at first but became tedious in the extreme when we had to repeatedly pick up, carry and put down cylinders on surfaces that varied from smooth, to rough, to downright cliff-like. This was all in preparation for the journey through the ruins after we left the ship. Because the ‘Refuge’ is a good hundred kilometres from the port where we plan to dock the ship we’ll need the transports to carry the supplies.

  The middle part of the deck is the reason two of us have to do sentry duty around the clock. There is a large dome-shaped encasement that has a diameter of about 10 metres and height of about 3 metres tall at its centre. I can only guess at these measurements, but after having walked around it for three hours at a time every second day for the past week, I think I can claim to be as close to an expert as there can be. The very annoying thing about this encasement is that none of us know what’s inside, despite each of us repeatedly asking the Committee members. Our instructions were simply that it must be guarded twenty-four hours a day. I secretly think it was put here to give us a sense of purpose and stop us from strangling each other with unrelieved tension before we get to ‘The Refuge’.

  This is another reason I stay away from the common cabin. How many theories about what’s in the dome will I have to listen to before I go insane? Surely the idea that we’re being shipped off to a relatively unchartered land to see if we die is enough of a distraction from the ‘Mystery of the Dome’.

  I remember watching the official announcement being aired on the large communication screen outside the Rations Office. The Commune K elected committee member, a girl who looked about fourteen with an air of authority about her simply stated:

  There will be a Great Quest to The Refuge. The eldest person in each commune is required to volunteer for this journey. Please report to your commune Communication Office on:

  Commune A - September 30th

  Commune B – October 1st

  Commune C – October 2nd...

  Then all of our images repeatedly flashed up on the screen. I was sick of looking at my face. It was the same photo that had been used the whole ten months I’d been the eldest, the only photo I’d ever had taken. It was taken just after I turned seventeen. It annoys me that I’m so identifiable, that everyone in all the communes recognises me on first sight. What an achievement, staying alive! It isn’t like I have done anything to be here, who knows why Age-Sickness hasn’t reared its ugly head yet.

  My commune, G, was to meet on 6th October, only one week from the announcement. The very public display of the word ‘Refuge’ was enough to ensure all ‘volunteers’ would show up. Word of ‘The Refuge’ had travelled quickly among the communes. For anyone contemplating ignoring the notice or actively evading it, the pressure that would come from everyone in your commune alone would make you think otherwise. The violent banishment of the Pro-Sickness campaigners a few years ago set the precedent for anyone who questioned ‘The Refuge’ or didn’t actively appear to be supporting its potential for colonisation.

  No one would ignore the call to be a ‘volunteer’.

  Reading between the lines, everyone could see that the eldest were required to ‘volunteer’ because they would be the quickest to show signs of Age-Sickness. We are the tools to discovering if there really is a refuge in the shortest period of time. We may provide the answer to whether Age-Sickness is coming from inside us, lying dormant and then attacking when our cells reach a certain use-by date or whether it lives among us, in the air, in the very dirt under our feet or the walls of our houses. I am a prize volunteer; with my age and record for being the eldest making it essential I am on this quest. Like I have a choice.

  On top of this guinea pig status, there are rumours about the perilous journey to the place that was once a desert with an underground sea but has now evolved into a water-enriched environment. Dangers that range from sea-dwelling monsters to vicious Ruins-marauders and everything in between are whispered about among the communes.

  For me, Max was all I could think about when I heard the announcement. He was both the impetus to go and the pressure to run and hide. I want nothing but a future where he can live without Age-Sickness hanging over his head but I was determined not to leave him. In the end, I had no qualms in using my age and my easily identifiable image as the bargaining tool to get both.

  Fiona knocks me from my reverie with a slight touch on my arm. She has obviously called my name a couple of times because she’s frowning in confusion... or is it concern?

  “I’m heading back down now, Pia, will you be alright up here?” she says in her quiet level voice.

  “Yes, of course, I was just thinking about what’s in the dome”. That seems a reasonable response to my obvious distraction. I’m not sure Fiona is fooled.

  Fiona turns and heads towards the stairs leading to the cabins below. I watch her go thinking that she is far more intuitive than I usually give anyone credit for. I can hear Karther singing to himself on the opposite side of the deck and dread a whole three hours of listening to him. Maybe singing is his way to block out what is happening, a way to loosen his nerves. Similar to the ‘Mystery of the Dome’, which is just another way everyone is taking their minds off the situation, to constantly wonder what is coming and when is both terrifying and exhausting.

   Either way, I don’t think my nerves can handle hearing Karther nonsense singing for three hours.  I start walking past the dome towards the control room. It’s called a room but really it’s like a clear shelf sheltered by a thick laminate screen that seems to repel everything from sun, wind and rain to insects, bird poo and salt crust. Whatever it is made of, the dome, cylinders and transports are made from something different because they’re covered in white sloppy bird poo and splattered insects that for some reason met a horrible death on their sides.

  The control room is not vacant. I can see a dim light that seems to radiate from the floor. It’s probably Vonteuse and Diego, both their father’s had skills in operating BAS technology and they passed it on to their sons before they died. It has allowed Vonteuse and Diego to work out how to input coordinates into the control panel of this ship. Most parents try to apprentice their children from a young age in the skills or trade they had themselves. It’s the best way to pass on practical knowledge after so much was lost in the early days of the Sickness. Vonteuse and Diego can often be found looking intently at the control board and sometimes experimenting with what it is capable of. I am slightly nervous about this. As far as I can see, as long as it kept us on the cor
rect course, and provides the luxuries of light when it’s dark, fresh drinking water and hot water for a shower, I’d rather it not be messed with. But they seem to think it is capable of so much more if only it can be unraveled. Well, Vontuese and Diego are the ones to unravel it if any. I just hope they don’t lose the capabilities it already has in the process.

  I round the corner of the deck and step up onto the shelf. The material it’s made from has a weird way of looking clear but not letting you see through it unless you are inside. It’s like a really foggy glass bowl of water, everything seems slurred and contorted, just arbitrary shapes or light patterns until you step on the shelf and everything becomes clear. I’m surprised to find Tomas crouched in the corner with a pencil and notepad in his hand. Another one of those luxuries we don’t have at home that seems to be in abundance on the ship. I nearly fell over when I was handed the journal to write what occurred on this journey. It took all of my restraint not to tear it up and save it for fuel when I got home. Then I realised I probably wasn’t going home.

  Tomas has a delayed response in recognising I’ve stepped up on the shelf. He looks momentarily surprised that it’s me there like he was expecting someone else.

  “Hi”, he says. Once the look of surprise has left his face he bends back down to his work.

  Initially I thought Tomas was someone I could easily get along with, but I am increasingly finding him disconcerting. He is generally composed and realistic in his approach to things but seems to have an opposing creativity that I’ve glimpsed once at training and again now as I step closer to see what he’s doing.

  “Hello”, I say in return, wondering why I sound so stilted. Tomas carries on with his work, which appears to be a very detailed sketch of the same old lady I saw him create at training. What is it with him and this lady? It seems like such a weird thing to do. We had all seen pictures of aging and how a person would look in their fiftieth or even sixtieth year. To me that is as fantastical an idea as little green men called leprechauns were BAS.

  A silence stretches out between us. I’m usually quite comfortable with silence from people around me, most of the time I prefer it, but this is not a comfortable silence. Not for me anyway. I turn and stare intently at the control board, looking busy. I’m just about to say that I should be out on sentry duty with Karther, as lame as that sounds even to me. I mean what are we protecting the stupid dome from all day and all night when we’re in the middle of the ocean? We hadn’t heard or seen anyone or anything besides the odd seagull or fish for the week we’ve been cruising. Before I can give my excuse Tomas starts singing in an exaggerated mimicry of Karther’s voice. I start to laugh and immediately the tension is broken.

  Tomas looks up laughing. I notice he has a small scar on his lower right cheek and when he smiles it creates a dimple. It gives his face a homely look and makes me wonder why I allow him to unnerve me.

  “Please don’t you start, I came in here to escape Karther’s rendition of ‘It is Sentry Duty and the Stars are Shining’”, I comment sardonically.

  “I don’t know why, it’s an improvement on the entertainment in the common cabin tonight, ‘101 Theories of The Dome’ and ‘What Can We Do with This Miniature Knight?” replies Tomas.

  I laugh again and sit down opposite him.

  “What are you drawing?” I ask casually.

  I think I see a flicker of something in his eyes before he answers and wonder if he is uncomfortable talking about it.

  “Just an old lady I saw in a photo once”.

  “Can I have a look?” I ask reaching my hand out for him to place the book in it. He doesn’t hesitate, just hands it to me without looking up.

  It is definitely the same lady I saw at training. She has that same slant in her eyes and the shadow of once full lips that lift on one side to give the impression that she knows a secret you really want to know. But I notice something else about her in my longer assessment of the image. She has hardness around her eyes; something in the way the lines of her skin frame them that suggest she was strong. I didn’t see this in his previous construction of her image. Maybe I just didn’t get a chance to examine it long enough.

  “It’s really good”, I pass it back to Tomas. He seems relieved to have it back with so little fanfare.

  “So how is Max?” he asks. Immediately I feel defensive. Is he paying me back for putting my nose into his personal business?

  “He’s fine, asleep at the moment”, I hope he can hear in my voice that I don’t want to talk about Max.

  “I heard what you did to get him to come. Everyone was talking about it in my commune”, Tomas starts glimpsing at me from the corner of his eyes.

  He obviously didn’t get the hint. I know all the volunteers know how I got Max on this journey, I’d heard them talking about me at different times. It is also in the way they look at me, like it’s possible I could crack at any time or might suddenly grow another head. The truth is I took a calculated risk. Yeah, I could have overestimated my importance to the mission when I held a knife to my throat to stop the Committee members from taking Max away. I could have been restrained and transported to the training centre against my will leaving Max alone which was exactly what I was trying to prevent. Maybe I just value my life a lot less than his. Would I have gone all the way? I still don’t know.

  Tomas is staring at me, obviously waiting for a reply to his statement. I just shrug, I don’t want to prolong this line of discussion and I’m angry that he can’t detect that in my tone.

  “I think you did a good thing”, Tomas comments as he goes back to the sketch of the old lady.

  “Which commune did you come from?” I decide to turn the discussion back to him.

  “F. This is a very different environment than I’m used to”.

  All I know of Commune F is that it is further inland than my commune so I guess he’s referring to the ‘landscape’ being nothing but water, which really is a change of scenery for most of us. Most BAS ruins are situated around the water and commune settlements tend to avoid the ruins. There’s a feeling that perhaps the Sickness somehow dwells in the structures, it is probably more superstition than fact.

  “Yeah, it’s odd to be surrounded by so much water”, I say.

  “It is, but that’s not what I meant. It’s the amount of people I’m not used to”.

  “Don’t you have many siblings?”

  “None, I lived with my parents until I was nine and then on my own”.

  I’m shocked that Tomas had not then lived with neighbours. In this world of orphans it’s not unusual to have children from three or four families living in one dwelling. It’s easier to combine rations and share them out, not because it means more food, often the older kids give a little more to the younger ones, but sometimes one person might need more of a particular food or nutrient so you can divvy out what people need. Also, the extra hands are good to bring in any extra meat caught in the form of rabbits, birds and fish. Not to mention the warmth factor, more bodies means more heat. For some reason it makes me feel sad imagining Tomas on his own during cold winter nights.

  “Why didn’t you move in with your neighbours? It would’ve been easier for you, surely?” I’m aware of the unfairness of expecting Tomas to tell me his life story while I intend to keep mine to myself.

  “My parents wanted me to, even before they died, as if I’d leave them at the height of Age-Sickness, but I like my house and my own company”. There is no sadness in this speech, just acceptance. He seems so self-assured. I can’t help comparing my life to his. I spent as much time away from my parents as possible. They didn’t notice really, and in the early stages of the Sickness I nursed them grudgingly. Of course there were only early days of the Sickness for my parents. I realise I’m breaking my own rule of keeping everyone at a distance by being so interested in Tomas’ background and am about to end the discussion when I notice the absolute silence around us. Something is missing - I can no longer hear Karther singing. A loud
grunt followed by a gargled cry sounds from outside and I run and jump off the shelf with Tomas following behind me. I run towards the dome looking for Karther but can’t see or hear him. I lean over the starboard side of the ship just in time to see a flash of metallic silver and a splash of blood-red water lap up against the ship.