I heard talk they were gonna commandeer Fort Sumter out in the bay and use it as a holding pen, but then the National Park Service got all bent out of shape because it’s a civil war monument and all. You ask me, the whole thing’s a mess. A big crazy mess.’ He shook his head.
Shepherd watched the PO’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were edgy, flicking left and right, fixing on the road then checking the mirrors like someone might be following them. His fingers tapped on the wheel as he drove, like he was nervous or scared. ‘Can’t you send some of these ships off to another port, take the pressure off here a little?’ he asked.
‘Well that’s the thing, sir – we got Kings Bay and Jacksonville south of here but they’re having the same problem. They got ships showing up there too.’
‘Any port in a storm,’ Shepherd muttered, looking out of the window at the frozen edges of the city as it started to snow again.
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I tell you one thing.’ The PO’s hands continued to drum anxiously on the wheel. ‘The one thing all the ships have in common.’ He checked the rear-view mirror one last time before whispering his secret. ‘They’re all American. American registered and American crews. And the funny thing is, when we interview the crews, and ask ’em why they put in here, they all keep saying the same thing: “We just needed to get home”, that’s what they’re saying – “We need to get home”.’
Home
That word again, taunting Shepherd with a meaning he had never really known. Outside his window the parking lots and business units of northern Charleston began to disappear as they headed Downtown. The PO had been right about the traffic. Lines of cars packed solid with people and possessions, inching forward through the drifting snow. The vast majority of them were from out of state. Shepherd even spotted one with Canadian tags.
Shepherd’s phone buzzed and he checked the caller ID before answering.
‘Hello, Merriweather.’
‘I just heard about the explosion at Marshall. Is it true?’ He sounded about as tired as Shepherd felt.
Shepherd glanced at Franklin before answering. ‘Unofficially, yes. We’re trying to keep a lid on it at the moment, though, so don’t repeat that to anyone.’
‘What about James Webb? Was it badly damaged?’
Shepherd looked out of the window at the frozen city. ‘It was totally destroyed, or at least all the components in the cryo testing lab were.’
The phone went silent and Shepherd watched the lines of traffic slip by as the PO made good use of his lights and siren to thread his way through it.
‘What about Professor Douglas?’ Merriweather said. ‘Is he – was he?’
‘He’s fine so far as we know. We haven’t found him yet. He wasn’t at the facility. We’re trying to track him down now. But no-one was hurt, which is the only good news. Well, that and the fact that your job probably just got a little more secure. It will probably be cheaper to fix Hubble now than rebuild James Webb, so I guess every storm cloud has a silver lining.’
‘Yeah I guess.’ He didn’t sound particularly happy.
Outside, the lines of cars thinned a little as they reached the older part of town with its grander, prettier architecture: Colonial- style mansions, Federal, Georgian – all sliding past behind a veil of snow like ghosts of the city’s history.
‘How is Hubble – any change?’ Shepherd asked, trying to lift Merriweather’s mood.
‘Yes actually there is.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s still pointing straight down to Earth but at least it hasn’t started losing altitude or anything worrying like that. If anything, it appears to be settling into a new orbit.’
‘What about Taurus, anything new appearing there?’
‘Not that I know of but I’m a bit blind at the moment. I’ll do some asking around with some people I know with telescopes that still work.’
‘Thanks, Merriweather. I appreciate it. Try and get some sleep.’
‘Ah, sleep is overrated. I can sleep when I’m old.’
Shepherd smiled. ‘Take care, Merriweather.’ He hung up.
The tyres rumbled as they hit the old cobbled roads built with discarded ballast stones from British sailing ships when Charleston was part of its expanding Empire.
‘Take a right over there,’ Franklin said, pointing to a turn up ahead, ‘otherwise you’ll get caught up in the one-way system.’
‘You been here before, sir?’ the driver said, making the turn.
‘Coupla of times.’
They were in the heart of the tourist district now and every store