Icequake: A Prophetic Survival Thriller

by Crawford Kilian

  They were pleasant individuals, most of them, and some were good scientists whether their governments cared or not. She would miss Hugh and Herman, and one or two others. But it would be good to be among Russians again, and to lie laughing in bed with Ivan.

  Sean McNally was down in the mine, shovelling snow onto the conveyor belt that led to the melter. He had long since stopped reflecting on the irony of a nuclear-powered snow melter that had to be fed by manual labour. It did seem a bit much to be doing it on the day they were to evacuate, but Carter Benson had been immovable.

  The mine wasn’t even interesting as snow — seven metres down was too recent. This muck had all been laid down in the last two hundred years; the real snows of yesteryear were down a lot farther, and it was the Little Climatic Optimum of the tenth and eleventh centuries that had brought him here.

  While the conveyor belt rattled and flapped, Sean dug steadily, humming along with the Pachelbel tape on the cassette player he’d brought for company.

  Bruce Robinson, the radio operator, came into Hugh’s office without knocking. Hugh and Carter looked up from an evacuation checklist.

  “I just got almost a full minute from McMurdo.”

  “Good man!” Hugh said. “D’you tell them Al’s coming?”

  “Didn’t see much point in that.” He dropped a message form on Hugh’s desk. It took very little time for the two men to read it

  “My goodness,” Hugh murmured. “Willy Field closed down. Ash and bombs falling all about.”

  “It’s just Inner Willy,” Carter said. “Outer Willy’s a good twenty kilometres away — it must be open.”

  “Yes, but they’re not likely to have a Herc sitting about — more likely they’re evacuating McMurdo itself, and hard-pressed to do it with the aircraft they’ve got. Well, Al will still go.” Hugh sighed and rubbed his long red moustache. “This has not been our summer, I’m afraid. Who’s minding the radio? Roger?”

  “Yeah. We’ll keep trying to get back in touch with them.”

  “And the helicopter.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bruce looked at his watch. “They oughta be back in less than an hour. It’s 1100.”

  Out at the drilling hut, engineer Gordon Ellerslee and mechanic Simon Partington cleared the hole of the last cables and pipes. Gordon packed away three samples of sea water in plastic flasks.

  “That’s that,” he grunted. “Some other crazy bastard can drill the hole next year. I’ll be back in Alberta, bitching about the heat and the blackflies.”

  “Come off it,” Simon laughed. He was a tall, thin New Zealander, fair-skinned and a bit boyish for a man of 30. Gordon was only a couple of years older, but looked more like 45; he was already balding at the temples. Plastic surgery hadn’t entirely erased the scars gained in a Fort McMurray beer-parlour brawl long ago. “You’ll be back,” Simon went on. “Same as me. Two weeks back home, and you’ll be begging to come back.”

  “No wonder you Kiwis are a twelfth-class country. You’re all too dumb to find your own assholes with both hands and a map. Gimme a hand with this crap, will you?”

  Howie was almost back to the hangar. A bit of wind had sprung up, and the ice fog was blowing away. He was looking out towards Grid North-East, trying to spot the helicopter on the off chance that it might be coming back early, when his eye caught a flicker of motion off to his left. He scraped a mitt across the inner windscreen; the heater wasn’t working properly on the left side, and the glass had frosted over. He squinted through the clear patch.

  A wave was running over the surface of the Shelf. Howie could see it plainly; it lifted sastrugi into sudden prominence and dropped them again, making the surface twinkle. The wave was probably no more than a tenth of a metre from trough to crest, but it was there, moving swiftly from the mountains on the Grid North horizon.

  As it passed the station, just a couple of seconds after he had first seen it, Howie felt a sharp jolt, as if the D8 had collapsed a snow bridge over a crevasse. There was another shock, and a third, all within five seconds. The bulldozer shuddered and skidded. Howie killed the engine, swung open the door of the cab and stepped out onto the right track. He jumped to the surface, his legs sinking into soft snow almost to his knees. The vibration could still be felt.

  A hundred metres away Shacktown’s two radio masts collapsed simultaneously with a metallic clash. A moment later there was a louder crash, and Howie turned to see the drilling tower falling onto the shed. He looked up at the dome, only a few metres away, and saw Colin Smith staring blankly down at him.

  A third crash made Howie turn again. Not far from the radio masts, a gap had appeared in the surface. Howie walked towards it, staying on the hard-packed surface of the ski-way. In a minute he stood at the edge of a rectangular pit. At the bottom, buried in powdery snow, was the ruin that had been the radio shack.

  “Oh…” He kicked the snow, sending a miniature avalanche down into the pit. “Oh, shit.”

  Herm Northrop’s chair threw him across the control panel, then slid back and fell over. The fluorescent lights flickered but stayed on. Herm got to his feet and gripped the edge of the panel, ignoring the floor’s vibration as he watched the readouts. If anything in the cooling system had been seriously damaged, he would have to go at once to emergency shutdown.

  After what seemed like a long time, his electric kettle and teapot fell off a nearby table. Books cascaded from their shelves. Through the lead-lined door to Tunnel E, Herm could hear muffled crashes.

  Thirty seconds after the last shock, the reactor building was creaking as it resettled itself; the floor continued to tremble slightly. Herm took off his glasses and polished them on his necktie. Then he righted his chair, sat down and studied the control panel slowly and meticulously. Everything was normal. He got up and opened the door to the cold porch, went through and looked down the tunnel.

  Shadows pounced at him and retreated as the tunnel lamps swung back and forth. Boxes, crates and drums that had been stacked along the walls were piled over the duckboards. Far down the tunnel something fell with the sound of breaking glass.

  Herm went back inside; his glasses misted over at once. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he snapped, yanking them off. He bent myopically close to the telephone and punched Hugh’s number. After five rings someone picked it up. “Yes.”

  “Oh, is that you, Carter? It’s Herm.”

  “Anything serious?”

  “Oh, not really. The reactor’s all right. What was that — an explosion?”

  “Damned if I know. Maybe it was Steve’s earthquake. Hugh’s out checking the whole station.”

  “He’ll have trouble reaching me. The tunnel’s blocked.”

  “Did it collapse?”

  “Heavens, no. Just the stuff stored along the walls. It’s a pretty mess.”

  “Good. We’ll get to you as soon as we can. But the end of Tunnel A fell in on the radio shack.”

  “No! Anyone hurt?”

  “Don’t know yet. I’ll get back to you.”

  Herm put down the phone. Then he put on his glasses, retrieved the kettle and made himself a pot of tea. He had to hold the pot with both hands while he poured, and even then some of the tea spilled. Herm wasn’t sure whether he was scared or merely excited.

  *

  Somehow Suzy carried Terry from the kitchen to the infirmary. Katerina was in the doorway, zipping up her anorak.

  “He’s burned. He’s burned. Oh God, he’s burned.”

  Katerina helped carry him inside. Terry was in shock; his trousers were soaked with the soup that had splashed boiling from the kettles when they fell off the stove. Beans, rice, tomatoes and onions steamed on the table as Katerina carefully cut the soaked cloth away from his legs.

  “Oh God, he looks terrible,” Suzy whispered. The skin on Terry’s thighs, groin and belly was heavily blistered and coming off in bloody patches.

  “I have seen worse. Don’t worry, he will be all right soon. Please, now, Suzy, go back to the kitchen.
I will call you.”

  She worked steadily and rapidly. Terry was breathing hard and seemed only remotely aware of what was happening.

  Katerina wished the floor would stop vibrating.

  *

  The drilling hut was half-demolished by the collapse of the tower, but Gordon and Simon were unhurt and got outside without much trouble. The wind was picking up a little; snow drifted around their feet.

  “Bloody masts are down,” Simon observed.

  “Bitch of a job to get ’em back up again. Hope they leave it for next year. I’d like to get outa here.”

  “So would I. Well, let’s see what the hell happened.”

  As they rounded the hangar, they saw Howie approaching the personnel door.

  “You guys all right?” he panted.

  “Sure,” Gordon said. “Bet it’s a mess downstairs.”

  “Didja see the wave comin’ across the Shelf? Weirdest thing I ever saw.”

  “All we saw was the bloody hut falling down around us,” said Simon.

  “Well, there was a wave. I’m not shittin’ you.”

  As Howie yanked on the door, a sound like far-off thunder rolled down on the wind from the mountains.

  *

  Hugh was racing all over the station, but the radio shack was his main worry. The metal roof plate above it had fallen right through the top of Hut 1, along with several hundred kilos of snow; Bruce and Roger were somewhere inside. Several men were already frantically digging into the debris. Ground drift was increasing, blowing more snow into the tunnel, but within half an hour a narrow passageway had been made to the other side of the roof plate. Ray Crandall, the smallest man available, had crawled through to the ruined hut.

  Roger Wykstra was crouched under a desk in the darkness. When the flashlight glared in his eyes, he said: “About fucking time. Who is that?” Roger’s long, thin face was blue with cold, but he looked more irritated than frightened.

  “Ray. Where’s Bruce?”

  “Under that wall. I think he’s hurt. He was yelling for a while, but he’s been quiet for a long time.”

  “You okay?”

  “Thought you’d never ask. Yeah, I’m all right.”

  “Can you get out of there? Need any help?”

  “Yeah, I can get out. Do you think it’s safe?”

  “Hell no. But it’ll take both of us to get Bruce out.”

  “Christ. I sure don’t want to bring any more crap down on us. Well — ” He crawled out. It was impossible to move except on hands and knees, and in places they had to crawl flat on their bellies. It was intensely cold, and Roger was wearing only jeans and a sweater.

  They found Bruce pinned between the floor and the fallen wall. Ray crawled in on top of him and heaved the wall upward just a few centimetres. Roger gripped Bruce’s arms and pulled cautiously. Bruce gasped and screamed.

  “My arm, you dumb bastard! Leave it alone!”

  “Which one, which one?”

  “Left. Jeez, it must be broken.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ray said shakily. “God, you scared me when you yelled like that.” He was a gentle, timid man, more at ease with computers than with people, and he dreaded upsetting anyone.

  Painfully and slowly they dragged Bruce clear and got him to the passageway. Ray turned him over and slid him headfirst to the men waiting on the other side.

  None of the huts had been knocked off their stilts, but their interiors were in chaos. The labs had been wrecked, and several irreplaceable instruments had been smashed. A pipe leading from the water reservoir had broken, flooding much of Tunnel D and turning the duckboards slippery with ice. Hugh Adams clambered over piles of tumbled crates and fuel drums for several minutes before finally reaching the stairs leading up to the hangar.

  Here, at least, there had been little damage; the vehicles and the Otter were unscathed. As Hugh was finishing his inspection, Carter arrived. The geophysicist’s round face was tense, but he showed no sign of panicking. Hugh was glad of that. They went outside and walked around the surface buildings.

  “Doesn’t look too bad,” Carter said. “The drill hut’s not as badly damaged as it seems — a week’s work ought to put it right. The ventilators all seem fine.”

  They headed down the ski-way towards the pit in Tunnel A. “It’s the radio shack and the masts that worry me,” Hugh said. He sounded out of breath. “We’ve got to get the roof plate back in place as soon as possible, and put up at least one of the masts.”

  “I agree about the roof — leave it like that and by next year the tunnels will be filled with snow. But why bother about the masts? It’s not really necessary if we’re about to evacuate.”

  “I doubt that we’ll be able to — for some time. Oh, we’ll send Al off, but it’s not likely the Americans will be able — ” he caught his breath again “ — to give us any help.” He turned to look at the mountains, but they were lost in windblown snow. This was more than just ground drift.

  “We’ll be in the milk bottle soon,” Carter said. “Al had better hurry.”

  The ice trembled under their feet, and the wind carried more strange thunder. “Steve ought to be pleased,” Hugh murmured. “He called this one bang-on.”

  They reached the edge of the pit and looked down. A couple of men, unrecognisable behind sunglasses and frosted beards, were still digging out the roof plate. The edge of the tunnel had collapsed, allowing the plate to fall. Hugh studied the raw edge of the pit.

  “It’ll be awkward getting the plate back up,” he said at last. “But it can be done. If only the radios aren’t too badly smashed. Hullo down there — that you, Tom?”

  One of the men looked up. His beard was flaming orange: it was Tom Vernon, the station’s diesel mechanic. The other man was George Hills, the carpenter, wearing an often-patched anorak.

  “Hi, Major,” John called out. “What is it?”

  “I want every available man out here right away — to — get the plate back up. And hurry! It’ll be Condition One in half an hour.”

  “Right,” Tom nodded; he and George turned and disappeared down the tunnel.

  The job went faster than anyone expected. The plate was winched up behind the D8 and manhandled into place in less than ten minutes. Hugh had expected that the collapse of the tunnel wall would mean a sloppy fit, but the edges of the plate still overlapped the tunnel by a comfortable margin.

  “That’s because the tunnel’s a lot narrower than it was when the wall caved in,” Carter said as the plate was almost in place. He pointed down: “See? There’s hardly any space between the hut walls and the ice.”

  “Hm. We’ll keep an eye on that, and shave away the ice if we have to.” Hugh paused and caught his breath. “God, I’m done in. I’m going downstairs for a bit of a rest.”

  “Good idea, Hugh. Hell, get some sleep if you can.”

  “Maybe.”

  Snow swept thickly around them now, in flakes so fine and dry that they glittered like dust motes in the dimming sunlight. As Hugh turned, hunched against the wind, Colin Smith materialised out of the growing whiteout.

  “Hugh. I got Al on one of the old Angry-6 transceivers, just a couple of minutes ago. He was only about twenty-thirty kilometres away. Then I lost him.”

  “Who’s running the rig now?”

  “Reg Lewis.”

  “Well, keep at it. He may still be receiving even if we can’t hear him. Bloody old sets are damn near useless anyway.” He walked back to the hangar’s personnel door, taking each step very deliberately. In the machine shop he paused for a moment and then went to the phone.

  “Katerina? Hugh. I’m afraid I’ll have to take you away from Terry and Bruce. Just for a minute or two. Could you — meet me in my room? I believe I am having a heart attack. Thank you.”

  He put down the phone. Good job he hadn’t told her where he was; she’d have told him not to try clambering through the mess in the tunnel, and somehow he didn’t fancy the thought of the men coming back inside and se
eing him like this. Better to drop dead in the tunnel and be done with it.

  “You have taken a foolish risk,” she told him a few minutes later. “It seems to have been a very mild heart attack, but you could have made it much worse. Even so, you will have to rest for several weeks.”

  “Good. I’ll go to Fiji for a month.” His voice was hoarse.

  “You are sarcastic. But you must rest.”

  “There’s too much to do.”

  She made him lie down in his bunk and took off his mukluks. “Plenty of people can do whatever must be done.” She grinned wryly at him. “We old people must learn to slow down.”

  *

  The blizzard and whiteout lasted almost eighteen hours, sustained by katabatic winds that gusted up to 130 k.p.h. and rarely fell below 70. All night long the station shook. No one got much sleep.

  Howie O’Rourke spent most of the night preparing one of the Sno-Cats so that he could search for the helicopter party as soon as the weather cleared.

  Terry Dolan and Bruce Robinson yelled and swore until Katerina gave them tranquillisers and a stern lecture.

  Suzy Dolan lay in her bunk, waiting silently for the next shock to hit.

  Sean McNally had to dig his way out of the snow mine. Everyone had forgotten about him. He was too tired to be angry, but he was sorry to lose his Pachelbel tape.

  Hugh dozed in and out of frightening dreams and still more frightening wakefulness.

  Katerina walked down the tunnel to look in on him every few minutes. The men clearing the tunnel asked how he was. “Sleeping well,” she said.

  Herm Northrop, after a long day checking the CANDU and getting its output back to normal, got through Tunnel E before it was cleared and went to the mess hall. He made himself a meal of three big sandwiches, a bowl of Terry’s soup and a pint of ice cream. Then he made himself three more sandwiches, filled a thermos with coffee and went back to the control room.