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following, but took off quickly and almost paid the price for his impatience. The wind on deck was gusting so violently that it swept his feet from under him and took him fully twenty feet towards the guard rails. Part of them had been sheared off either directly by the wind or some piece of hardware driven by it. The rubber suit bit at the deck and brought him to a stop six feet away from his death. He was almost too busy looking at the sky, at the chicanery of violet and green and orange, to notice. Northern Lights , he supposed. This far south? He thought it more likely that it was the breakdown of cells in his own brain as he lay dying. But he wasn't dying. Not yet.
Stopper had tiptoed down to him, hand-over-hand on the guard rail, and helped him upright. Together they shouldered into the wind, angling towards the block that contained the Offshore Installation Manager's office. Bodies were piled up at the threshold of the door. He could feel the panic creeping through him like cold. He felt he must keep moving or it would consume him. Jane led the way inside, hoping that Stopper would give the dead as short shrift as he had. There were more bodies ranged across the corridors and internal stairs. In a canteen, one man sat hunched over a half-eaten sandwich, his cheeks ballooning, his stomach hanging like a Portuguese man-o'-war from his lips.
Jane could hear his breathing quicken through the regulator. He tried to calm himself by thinking how ridiculous he must look in his diving gear. Some of the toolpushers and roustabouts would pull a muscle if they could see him and Stopper now. Gas leak , he was thinking. Cyanide? Hydrogen sulphide? Could that change the colour of the sky?
He slowed as he neared the OIM's office. The control room next to it was utterly still and dark; the windows were packed black with debris. Ricky Melling, the Dynamic Positioning Operator, was slumped over a desk, a welter of his blood dried to glaze like a slab of treacle toffee waiting for the hammer. The swelling of his body had split his jacket up the back seam, the jacket he'd described once as a bit roomy since he'd come off the sauce and started grilling his chicken and chops.
Though everything was dark, Jane tried the lights, the TV, the radios. No response. Wind was getting into this module somewhere; he could hear it howling and rattling around the prefabricated units. It was a wonder they all hadn't been torn off their housings. He was about to leave the control room and move further into the building, to the recreation room, when he saw Eamonn Tate, the OIM, sitting against the wall, his hands in his lap. He seemed to be staring down at them, or perhaps at the pale grey slack of his tongue as it lolled against his chest. Though Jane had been expecting this, to actually see the guy in charge, a guy who was as serene and quiet-talking as they come, broken and bent and capsized, was almost too much to take. Jane crouched down next to him and thought about taking his pulse, but shook his head. No survivors. Just Jane and Stopper. He was turning to tell Stopper this, but he realised he would have to take out the regulator to do so. Stopper wasn't ready for the news anyway, by the look on his face. To confirm what he was already seeing was to invite his utter dislocation.
Jane clapped Stopper on the shoulder and gestured to the door. Stopper followed him. Jane lowered his head against the wind as he edged outside and led the way to the lower decks and the bright orange lifeboats. Jane checked behind him when he was shooting open the bolts on the entrance hatch. Stopper was standing loose, head back, watching the queasy swirl of the sky. He appeared deflated, a bottle of something unstoppered, flat. Now Jane wished he could say something. If Stopper didn't keep his mind on what was happening, a rogue gust was going to pick him up and toss him a couple of hundred feet into freezing water. Jane made a grunting noise around his mouthpiece, waved