Jury Duty (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  Anni says, “So we are faced with a dilemma. We are being asked to do the right thing with no offer of reward.”

  Adrianna nods.

  Bao listens intently. He’s got his elbows on the table in front of him. His chin rests on his hands.

  “So much uncertainty in all outcomes but one,” he says. His point isn’t vehement agreement, but it is a concession. He asks, “What would a rescue entail?”

  Adrianna says, “From what we understand, they lack nuclear materials. Their spaceship uses a fusion drive. We can disarm the bomb and give them tritium along with a bunch of enriched heavy metals like uranium 235. That should allow them to kick-start their engine. Whether that’s enough to break out of the ice, I don’t know. They should have enough to fire up their drive.”

  “In practice, what does that mean?” Brad asks.

  “Imagine the sun erupting beneath the ice.”

  “Oh.”

  In his thick Chinese accent, Bao says, “It feels wrong to give up control.”

  Kalia says, “We never had control. What we are losing is the illusion of control.”

  Jacques says, “We could be on the verge of losing what little control we have right now and not even know it. We need to make a clear decision while we can still make a decision.”

  “We cannot wait for the UN,” Kalia says.

  Anni says, “The best decision for us is the best decision for them. We must let them go.”

  “They won’t forget us,” Samira says. “We may not know what they’ll do, but we know what they will take with them—the knowledge that humanity honors freedom.”

  Brad says, “Okay, so we vote.”

  Nick is fascinated by the shifting dynamic. Without conferring, Brad and Bao have softened their position. It seems Brad is keen to get out in front of the pack.

  “Father,” he says. “Bradley Hoggard. On the decision to move from recovery to rescue, I vote yes.”

  One by one, the jurors vote for the rescue, with Bao recanting his earlier no vote.

  All eyes settle on Nick.

  “What?” he says before the realization hits. “Oh, yeah. Father, this is Nicholas James Ferrin. I vote yes.”

  Freedom

  The twenty-minute descent back into the ice is terrifying.

  On the way up, Nick barely noticed the elevator ride. It was the adrenaline high. He was buzzing after First Contact. If he ever gets to see the stars again, he knows he’ll never look at them the same way. Far from being distant points of light, they’re life-givers. Somewhere around some other star, hundreds of thousands of years ago, an intelligent space-faring civilization set its sights on Earth. Had one of their probes not crashed, humanity would have continued on oblivious, thinking it was alone in the cosmos. Going back down through the ice in the elevator, though, is different.

  Descending beneath the glacier is unnerving. Nick’s never been one for claustrophobia, but this is different. The elevator is a cage. Even the floor is little more than steel mesh with the odd reinforced bar. The lighter the weight, the more it could transport, or at least that was the thinking during construction.

  Ice glides past the open sides of the elevator. A single LED light on the crossbar above them illuminates the darkness. Steel rails mounted against the glacier guide the elevator on. Blue ice fades into the darkness beneath Nick’s feet, giving him flashbacks of Bear plunging down the utility shaft. With no harness or rope, he feels as though the steel mesh beneath him is about to collapse. To keep himself sane, he keeps a gloved hand on a rail.

  The ice is alive with noise.

  Zing! Ping! Zoom! Bang! Boom!

  Adrianna told him the sounds were nothing to worry about, but she remained topside. She said ice is a type of rock. Like all rocks, it can stand immense weights bearing down on it. Creaks and groans are to be expected. And yet they’re not as far as Nick is concerned. They come out of nowhere, overwhelming the sound of the winch. Although noises like this have existed on Earth for eons, they sound alien to him. Apparently, tiny fragments of ice can sound like a glacier collapsing, but it’s an acoustic illusion. Echoes within the shaft amplify the slightest noise. Nick should have asked for earplugs.

  Even Jazz is silent on the descent. It’s the awe—the sheer majesty and power inherent in an ice sheet that dwarfs mere humans. Some people feel small before the immensity of the heavens, but that seems like nothing when descending through a mile of ice. At 25 million gigatons, the Antarctic ice sheet is intimidating. Standing beside a ten-megaton thermonuclear warhead resting on the floor of the elevator is nothing compared to the deep blue ice.

  A light appears at the bottom of the shaft.

  The elevator comes to a halt out of alignment with the floor. The doors open. Nick and Jazz carry the bomb on a stretcher between them. The electronic fuse has been removed. The nuclear material is encased in a dome rising above an aluminum block. They step up and off the elevator.

  “And they’ll know what this is?” Nick asks.

  “Oh, yeah. Uranium doesn’t get enriched to this level in nature. This stuff has only one practical use. They’ll know, all right. They’ll be very aware we were prepared to bomb them if needed.”

  The two of them pass through the airlock and out onto the rocky ground surrounding the lake. The crystal man is waiting for them, standing just offshore.

  The cavern is alive with activity. Bioluminescence glows around them. Streams of water rise in the air like geysers, only there’s no spray. Columns of water press against the underside of the ice shelf like pillars within an ancient Greek temple. Like the crystal man, they defy human reason, being part of an artificial alien construct. The spacecraft turns in place. Its disc-shape allows it to move, melting the ice immediately around it as it rotates. Lights flicker from its thin rim.

  “Someone’s been busy,” Jazz says.

  They put down the stretcher and step back. The crystal man walks onto the rocks. This is the first time Nick’s seen him separate from water. He walks around the nuke, looking down at it with eyes that don’t exist.

  “Time to go,” Jazz says, backing up.

  “That’s it?” Nick asks. “That’s all?”

  “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  The crystal man holds up one hand. Nick copies him, only this time Nick does a Vulcan greeting, splitting his fingers into groups of two, forming a V between them.

  “This isn’t from here,” he says, stepping back toward the airlock. “Well, it is. But if you take anything from us, let it be that. Peace out.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jazz asks, closing the hatch and cycling the airlock. “We ain’t got time for games. We’ve got to get back up top before they decide to fire up their engines.”

  The inner hatch opens and they run for the elevator. Wearing a hazmat suit over Antarctic survival gear makes running difficult. Thick rubberized boots thunder down the hallway, splashing in the ankle-deep water.

  Once they’re in the elevator and heading up, Jazz radios ahead.

  “Vincennes, package delivered. We’re returning to the surface.”

  “Copy that,” is the reply. “Evacuation is underway. Vostok confirms two snowcats inbound with supplies. The Russians are sending inflatable shelters and fuel for our portable generators. Connor’s hooked up the medical center to a couple of tractors. He’s dragging it out to the drill site.”

  The elevator shakes.

  Ice falls from above. Shards of ice shatter on contact with the steel cage, showering them with fine fragments. Nick grabs the steel mesh, holding on as a tremor passes through the glacier.

  “Not good,” Jazz says, locking eyes with him. “Ice resists downward pressure, but it’s lousy under shear movement. Any sideways stress and the shaft will collapse.”

  “And you decided to tell me this now?” Nick says as the cage rocks.

  Chunks of ice plummet from above. On hitting the steel mesh, they disintegrate. Bursts of blue-white ice explode
like fireworks immediately above his head.

  “It wasn’t a problem before now,” Jazz yells over the noise. Already, the roof of the cage is sagging against the support struts, being bent inward by each thundering impact.

  “Come on,” Nick whispers amidst the confusion.

  Slabs of ice come away from the walls around them, plunging down the shaft. Below them, part of the shaft collapses inward. Boulders of ice clog the dark hole. Metal bends and snaps, being brittle in the cold. One of the rails twists, breaking away from the carriage. The elevator shakes but continues on. It swings, colliding with the ice.

  Slowly, the light at the top of the shaft grows bigger.

  Jazz climbs out of her hazmat suit. She yells at Nick, but he can’t hear her over the sound of ice breaking. He sheds his suit, leaving it crumpled on the grate. Ice slides past. As they approach the surface, the size of the individual ice crystals become smaller—finer. Down deep, they’re as big as his fingernail. Up close to the surface, they’re like wood grain. They’re close to the base. Damn close.

  “Ready?”

  Jazz dives out before the elevator has cleared the ice. Nick follows as the surface reaches waist height. He rolls across the ground, feeling tremors reaching through the ice.

  “Gotta go,” Jazz says, offering him her hand.

  Cracks form in the ice floor inside the maintenance building. A diesel generator slides toward the shaft. The metal frame above the elevator buckles. Cables break. The cage falls, plunging into the darkness.

  Jazz runs for the door. Nick is hard on her heels. The ice shifts beneath his boots. He has no idea where he’s going beyond anywhere other than here. Jazz is running so fast she collides with the bench seats in the ready room, scrambling for the external door. She throws it open and rushes out into the storm.

  By the time Nick reaches the external door, she’s disappeared into the gloom.

  What the hell? Where is she?

  The storm howls across the frozen plateau. Spotlights illuminate little more than the snow racing across the plain. Buildings are a blur in the night.

  The wind hits Nick like a freight train coming out of the darkness. It’s not possible to see the ground, just a haze of snow and ice being kicked up by the hurricane-force winds. Nick tumbles. His legs and arms flail as he struggles to figure out which way is up. The wind pushes him along the ice like a hockey puck. His hood has blown back, exposing his face to the vicious cold. No goggles. He had a pair hanging around his neck, but they’re gone, having been ripped off by the storm.

  Nick rolls over, turning his back to the wind. He pulls his hood over his head, wanting to protect himself from the driving snow and ice. A cascade of fine snow pours down the back of his neck, freezing him to his core. Splinters of ice pelt his back, tearing at his jacket. Beneath him, the plateau shakes.

  The spotlights mounted on the buildings scattered throughout Vincennes struggle to break through the darkness. Nothing looks right. Nick can’t even tell where the maintenance building is and he left it seconds ago. He’s rolled forty to fifty feet in the storm. Where the hell is Jazz?

  Nick struggles to his feet, crouching. Hurricane-walking. He keeps his waist bent and his head down, but that means he can’t see where the hell he’s going—as if there was anything to see.

  Cracks run through the ice beneath his boots, forcing him to widen his stance. The wind drives hard against him, determined to topple him yet again. He staggers on, blind to where he’s going. The cold lashes his face, freezing his cheeks. Looking up, all he sees is the blur of snow and ice screaming past.

  Is this it?

  Is this how he dies?

  When Jazz and Dmitri told him about the scientist that died within a few feet of one of the buildings down here, he didn’t really believe them. Why the hell didn’t that guy just go back inside? He could see the lights. Why didn’t he head toward the lights? At the time, it seemed dumb, but now he understands. Even with a dozen spotlights around the base fighting against the night, the storm makes it impossible to judge distances. Nick can barely focus on his own gloved hands, let alone anything else. He could stumble up to a spotlight on a pole instead of above a doorway. What then? Besides, what safety is there inside? The whole base is about to collapse into the ice.

  Life is small in Antarctica. Back in South Carolina, life was large. Hot wings and beers. Buddies over for a barbecue. Bowling on Sundays. Baseball in summer. Football in winter. But it was all an illusion. Out on the ice, there’s no doubt life stops at the end of his fingertips.

  He’s dying.

  His mind gravitates to Sandra, but not because he loves her—because he should have loved her. All bravado is gone. Ego is meaningless. The things people do for their political parties or country pale compared to what is done for just one other person. Standing there in the full force of the storm, regret is all he has left. His life is what he made of it, and he made nothing of it. And she was right there. She was so close and yet always a world away.

  Nick falls to his knees. He curls up on the ice, trying to stay warm. It’s not that he’s accepting his fate. He has no choice. The cold saps his strength. Nick conserves his fading energy. He’s got one last surge, but where should he direct that? Which light is closest? And where the hell is Jazz?

  Jazz.

  She had to be going for a snowcat.

  Nick pushes his hands against his knees. He staggers on trembling legs, staying low as he turns, looking out into the darkness. He’s looking for two lights, not one. Two lights close together, just above ground height.

  There.

  Nick rocks forward, wanting to be sure of each step. Without a guide wire, it’s too easy to lose his footing and go tumbling across the plateau. Every couple of feet, he looks up, trying to judge the distance. At a guess, the snowcat is more than fifty yards away. If he can just get there.

  Nick fights the storm. Snow whips around him, blinding him as it’s caught in the lights. He takes another step, and the metal tracks of the snowcat come into reach of his gloves. Nick can’t believe what he’s seeing. Ice-covered metal treads never looked more beautiful. He can see Jazz inside the cab, flicking switches as she powers up the diesel engine. Nick was never more than about fifteen feet from the snowcat. The angle it’s parked on had its lights pointing away from him. The lights he thought he saw were little more than the headlights reflecting off the snow as it rushed past. Had he wandered off in another direction, he would have been lost—and in an Antarctic storm, with an alien spacecraft breaking through the ice, lost translates to dead.

  Nick clambers up over the treads and pulls on the door handle. He collapses on the bench seat.

  “You made it.”

  Nick can’t talk. His face is too cold. It’s all he can do to shut the door behind him. Adrianna is in the backseat. She wraps a woolen blanket over his shoulders, but the cold has seeped into this bones.

  Jazz says, “We were just about to come and get you.”

  If Jazz had turned the tractor around, she would have crushed him before she found him.

  “Mm—My,” he says, struggling against the cold.

  “What is it?” Adrianna asks, pushing his hood back and brushing snow from his hair as he huddles under the blanket.

  “Myrtle. I—I want to go to Myrtle Beach. Please.”

  Jazz laughs. “Well, I ain’t your Uber Driver, but okay. Myrtle Beach it is.” She engages the treads, causing the snowcat to lurch forward. Windshield wipers flick back and forth in a futile effort to improve visibility.

  The ice sheet tilts beneath them, leaning to one side. Jazz guns the engine. Metal treads bite at the ice. The snowcat climbs the slope before rocking as it falls back to the plateau.

  They drive into the storm. Jazz’s already on the radio, talking to someone at the remote drill site, but Nick’s still trying to get warm. He looks back. Huts disappear, falling into the gaping hole opening up in the ice. Light pours out of the chasm, illuminating the clouds. The snowc
at accelerates, racing across the plateau, leaving Vincennes behind. Thirty miles an hour might seem slow, but it’s a mile every two minutes, allowing them to clear the area above the lake.

  “Just in time for the fireworks,” Jazz says. “I hope you guys are right about these things. Because whatever’s down there, it’s now free to explore a world full of humans.”

  “You saw how they repaired their ship,” Adrianna says. “Once we woke them, once they realized there was an intelligent species up here, they were always going to break out and look for tritium.”

  “You really think so?” Jazz asks.

  “I do,” Adrianna replies. “The only question was, would we stand for or against them.”

  Starry Night

  The drill site is in the lee of the plateau to the south of Vincennes. Although the Antarctic ice sheet looks flat, it undulates, varying in height by a few meters over the span of kilometers. It’s enough to protect the site from the harsh katabatic winds. Spotlights crisscross the ice. Snow flies past, but without the same vicious bite it had back at Vincennes.

  Snowcats sit idling as people move between them and the team building a temporary shelter. Several of the cats have dragged diesel tanks across the ice to ensure the survivors have enough fuel to make it through the winter. Tractors approach, pulling two elongated huts. It’s going to be a cramped couple of months on the ice, but at least it’ll be warm.

  “Are you okay?” Jazz asks. “You haven’t said anything since we left.”

  “Just decompressing, you know?” Nick replies. “The last few weeks have been a long decade.”

  “Oh, they sure have,” Jazz says. She steers her snowcat into a gap between the others. The cats are parked in a semi-circle, providing light for the engineers working on the impromptu camp beside the drill site.

  The wind drops. At first, it’s the flapping flags and loose tarpaulins that benefit, but as the driving snow subsides, people hop down out of their snowcats. They walk around, looking up at the night sky.

  “Look,” Jazz says, pointing. She kills the lights within the cab. “Stars!”