Read Noah's Ark: Encounters for Free Online Page B

had gone forever, she would have had uniformed officers to do this sort of thing for her. Here on the ship, she was reduced to the role of foot soldier, taking orders from a company man with no experience of real policing.
    Another page. Another name: “Jones”. She banged a fist on the table. “I’m not sorting any more of these into order,” she shouted at the light fitting. Instead of locating the Js and inserting the ration record into its correct position, she threw it to the floor. She picked up the next sheet and checked the name: “Addison”. It fluttered down to join the Jones’. Grace felt immediately better. She should have worked through them this way from the start; she would be done by now. Her conscientious effort to restore the file had been a huge waste of time. Lethbridge had dropped it, she could fix it. Or, more likely, get one of her put-upon and overworked minions to do it for her.
    Grace’s renewed optimism was short lived. A bleep and a crackle from her belt wiped the smile from her face.
    “Grace Garet, please respond. Grace Garet.”
    She looked at the small black radio from the corner of her eye, and decided to ignore it. It was noisy, and so perfectly reasonable to think she hadn’t heard the call. She picked up another wad of forms and worked through them in short order. Wright, Jobson, Patel, O’Halloran, Atton, Paschal, Washington, Gautier; the names tumbled to the floor like autumn leaves.
    “Grace, answer your radio or you’re off the security team!”
    Max had somehow managed to remotely increase the volume of the device to maximum. There was no pretending now. Even some of the restaurant staff outside had heard the call, looking up from spooning out portions of rice.
    “Argh!” She slammed the remaining pages down on the desk, and unclipped the radio.
    “This is Grace,” she said stonily.
    “About bloody time. Listen, I need you up on deck seven. Call in at the stores on two and get some binoculars on your way. We’ve a man overboard. I need you on lookout.”
    “Max, I can’t just drop what I’m doing. It’s not just Mr Moran who’s missing, his wife is too. We have a responsibility to find them.”
    “Deck seven. Ten minutes. If you’re not there, you can go straight to Silvia Brook’s office for reassignment.”
    “But—”
    The radio bleeped once and cut out before she had a chance to respond.
    Grace checked her watch. She figured she could get down to the stores and back up to seven in about six minutes. That still left a few minutes to find what she was looking for. She sped through more and more ration records, cursing the committee for not having prioritised a project to computerise the whole system.  
    Then she found it.
    “Moran, Giles. Moran, Claire”
    “Yes!” She punched the air.
    “No!” Her fist fell, dropping limply by her side. She read the sheet, then read it again. According to the restaurant’s ration sheet, the Morans had been in and claimed their meals every day of the last week. They weren’t missing at all.

Five

    G RACE REACHED DECK seven with barely thirty seconds to spare. To her amazement, and anger, Max was actually standing there counting down the time from his wristwatch when she arrived.
    “Shame,” he said, lowering his arm. “I thought you might be for farm duty.”
    “It was important, what I was doing.”
    “So’s farm duty.”
    “Of course. But my skills are better utilised in the detection and prevention of crime.”
    Max grunted. “So, what crime have you detected? Here, we need to go this way.” He pointed towards the bows of the ship, and they set off walking. A stiff breeze whipped at them, making conversation difficult.
    “The Morans have been claiming their rations.”
    Max let out a roar of laughter. “Not missing at all then? Good, so you can be back on deck patrol after we’ve finished this charade.”
    “I thought we were looking for someone overboard?” Grace sounded shocked.
    “That we