Icequake: A Prophetic Survival Thriller

by Crawford Kilian

  “Did you see Outer Willy?” Al yelled.

  “No.” Max was taking photos with tense deliberation.

  “We must be too far Grid West. — There’s Inner Willy.”

  Something bounced off the windscreen, and a moment later a hailstorm seemed to have struck them. The ice below was shattered into countless crevasses and was a dirty grey Al had never seen before. Willy Field swung below them, recognisable only by the geometric patterns of its buildings. The ice-way and ski-way were gone, buried under ash and crumpled by the moving ice. Al saw the blackened remnants of a big Hercules, its nose tilted into a crevasse, its spine broken.

  Visibility was down to perhaps three kilometres in the direction of Ross Island, but Al could make out enough of the shoreline to see that Willy Field had moved well down McMurdo Sound, past Hut Point. He circled twice, trying to raise someone on the radio. At first static was the only reply; then a blurred voice sounded in his earphones.

  “Otter Five-Three, Otter Five-Three, this is McMurdo. Do you read me? Over.”

  “McMurdo, this is Otter Five-Three. I read you. Over.”

  “Is that you, Al? Harry Rasmussen here. Are we glad to hear from you! What is your position? Over.”

  “Harry! Hi, old friend. We’re over Hut Point, coming over McMurdo Station for a look around. Are you guys okay? Over.”

  “Al, there ain’t no station. There’s about fifty of us up here in the old reactor buildings on Observatory Hill. The ice is only a few hundred metres downslope from here. Over.”

  It grew very dark, like late twilight. Far away to Grid North, Al saw sunlight gleaming on the Shelf, but it seemed like a vision of another world. This world was thunder and night and the stench of sulphur.

  The rattle of ash and stones on the fuselage intensified, and Al began to fear for his engines. Even a pebble, striking a prop or being sucked into the engine, could knock them out of the air. He stared into the grey mist below as they swept low around Hut Point.

  Harry had been right. Where the station had stood, there was now only a jumble of seracs and pressure ice that ran far up the shore and piled thickly around Observatory Hill. At the edges of the ice, Al and Max could see brightly coloured debris: a smashed orange tractor, a pastel-green wall torn from some hut, a twisted panel of aluminium, all of it jammed between the ice and the rock. Gusts of wind, rising off the Shelf, stirred up clouds of ash and snow.

  The Otter curved around Observatory Hill less than two hundred metres from its summit. Through the gloom they could just make out the main reactor building, its flat roof drifted over with ash. Three or four men stood in the lee of the building, their orange parkas unreally vivid; they were waving frantically.

  “Harry, do you need any food or medical supplies? Over.”

  “Christ, yes! Repeat, yes. We’ve got more than twenty people hurt, some pretty bad. And not much food. Over.”

  “Well, we’ll try a drop. I’ll circle twice and drop three bundles. I’m sorry, but they’ll have to come down at once. I can’t risk more runs. Over.”

  “Great, Al. Just great.” He coughed for several seconds. “Air’s pretty bad down here. Hey, how’s Shacktown? Over.”

  “Okay, so far. Harry, where’s everybody else? Over.”

  “Most of ’em flew out right after the eruption started. After our planes reached New Zealand, the Kiwis sent down every big plane they had. They had to land at Outer Willy — we ferried people out there by helicopter. Boy, Al, you’ve missed some of the best fucking flying anybody ever saw. Over.”

  “I believe it. So what about you characters? Over.”

  “I don’t know, Al. There hasn’t been a helicopter from Outer Willy since yesterday afternoon. Tell you the truth, we’re scared shitless. Some of our guys may not make it if they ain’t taken outa here pretty damn quick. Over.”

  Al pressed the button on his mike and then released it. He didn’t know what to say. Then he turned to Max.

  “They need our medical stuff. On the next pass I need you to drop all three bundles. Snap ’em to the static line. Then slide the door open and make sure it’s secured. I’ll yell when the bundles should go.”

  “Good.” Max unstrapped himself, carefully stowed the camera and went into the passenger compartment.

  Visibility was getting worse. Something the size of a grapefruit arced across the Otter’s path; Al grunted as he watched it vanish below the nose of the plane. Even a graze by something that big could kill them.

  The Otter made its final approach. Judging from the clouds swirling around the reactor buildings, winds at the surface must be coming from Grid North-East at about thirty k.p.h. Al adjusted course and speed.

  Wind howled into the flight compartment, sulphurous and filled with a gritty, bitter-tasting dust. “Now!” Al screamed. He glanced back over his shoulder into the passenger compartment and saw the last of the bundles slide down the static line and out the door. Max made his way to the door and slid it shut; when he got back into his seat, his cheeks were streaked with frozen tears.

  Al banked the plane and watched the bundles drop. One had lost its chute and streamed in, a tiny orange speck that vanished into the ash-encrusted ice. The other two drifted down to land within half a kilometre of the reactor buildings, upslope from the ice.

  Al thumbed his mike. “Okay, Harry, your supplies are on the ground and I see some people going out to retrieve them. Uh, we lost one bundle. Sorry. Anything else? Over.”

  “Thanks, Al. Listen, any chance of coming back with your old Huey? At least we could get some of the worst cases off of this goddamned hill. Over.”

  “Wish to God I could, Harry But I wrecked the helicopter right after the quake. Over.”

  “Drunk again, huh? Well, old buddy, thanks for everything just the same. And keep in touch. Even a postcard now and then. Over.”

  “Will do. And when they do fly you guys out, don’t forget to mention that we’re still out on the Shelf. We need rescuing, too. Over.”

  “Okay, Al. Good luck to all of you. And thanks again. See you in Christchurch next week. Over.”

  “I’ll buy you a beer, Harry. Over and out.” Al turned to Max. “Ready to go home?”

  “Almost.” Max pointed at the shrouded bulk of Erebus. “I’d like a look at the crater. Would it be safe?”

  “Sure, if we stay upwind and fairly far away.”

  He turned the Otter back over the Shelf and across McMurdo Sound, then followed the mainland coast Grid South towards the open sea. The glaciers of the Royal Society Range, at least, did not seem to be surging, but most of them were relatively small and unconnected with the continental ice sheet.

  The plane rose until, at four thousand metres, it was above the summit of Erebus. Though the air was very thin, it was at least clean. Al squinted up at the pillar of smoke.

  “We should be able to get in fairly close if the wind doesn’t change. But I’ll just make one pass.”

  “Good. One will be plenty.”

  Al dropped the Otter’s nose a few degrees, and the plane began a long, shallow dive. As they neared the crater, he found himself keeping his eyes on the instruments. The smoke and ash had seemed to be rising as slowly as from a small campfire, but at close range the ejecta were moving with terrifying speed. The sound was almost as bad as that of the surge, and shook the whole aircraft.

  Now they were so close that the entire field of vision was a moving, mottled, grey-black wall, billowing in oily clouds. The Otter banked steeply to the right, giving Max a clear view of the crater. He snapped photos rapidly for several seconds. Then, above the constant roar there came a sharp detonation, followed by a flash of red-orange light and a shock wave that nearly flipped the plane over. Al fought to steady it, and then looked down.

  About a quarter of the rim of the crater was collapsing, sliding down into the lava of the caldera far below. In a fiery parody of calving bergs, the avalanche overwhelmed the caldera; glowing jets of lava shot up around the edges of the smoth
ered pit. Thousands of tonnes of ice, carried down in the collapse, flashed into steam, rose as clouds and fell again as snow. The crater grew even darker; the roar subsided to a deep, almost subsonic growl.

  Max turned from the window and gestured frantically towards the Shelf. Nodding, Al put them on a course straight for home. He tried to find Observatory Hill as they passed over it, but it was lost in fog and smoke. The new volcano was still erupting violently, in irregular bursts.

  “The worst hasn’t happened yet,” Max shouted. “The main crater has blocked itself up. More lava will find its way out through the satellite cone. And it’s too close to those poor buggers on the hill.”

  Al stared out at the broken blue-white surface of the Shelf as it slid slowly under them. As he watched, the ice darkened and turned pink: the sun, though fairly high in the sky behind them, was shining redly through the dust of Erebus.

  “I should’ve tried to find a landing site,” he said. “There must have been someplace to put the plane down. There must have been.”

  “Al, Al, if there had been, they’d have told you. There was no place. Not for an Otter.”

  Al checked his bearings and glanced at the mountains off to the right. “We’ve passed Outer Willy again. Even if no one’s there, there must be a helicopter. I could fly back in that and at least get out the worst cases.”

  Max looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “That’s up to you, Al. Just remember the people at Shacktown too. Without you, the rest of us are as good as dead.”

  “I know what I’m doing.” He turned the plane in a long arc until Ross Island again stood on the horizon before them. “Outer Willy’s probably moved about as far as Inner Willy has,” he said. “So we should see it a couple of kilometres Grid South of where it ought to be. Keep your eyes open as we come up to Black and White Islands.”

  “Right.”

  This time Al found the field without difficulty. The Shelf around it had fractured into a big rectangular island about five kilometres long and three wide. The ski-way and buildings had received a light dusting of ash, but otherwise the field seemed undamaged. Three bright-orange helicopters stood near the GCA hut; not far away was a Hercules, evidently poised for take-off but unmoving. Ski tracks showed that aircraft had recently left; but the ash on and around the Hercules was ominously undisturbed. Nor were there any signs of life: no steam vented from the huts, and nothing moved. Al buzzed the held at fifty metres, then climbed a little and circled.

  “Nothing. Everyone’s left.” He shook his head, uncomprehending. “How could they? How could they?” Then he lined the Otter up with the ski-way and prepared to land.

  Max began to feel afraid. They were coming in from Grid North, so rapidly and steeply that it looked as if they might crash into the abandoned Hercules. Both men were watching the ski-way intently, so the hash on the horizon was only peripherally visible, an orange Bicker that might have been the glint of sun on metal. Max looked up.

  “Al, pull up. Full up fast.”

  Al stared at him, then followed his gaze.

  The satellite cone — and most of Ross Island — had vanished. Over the Shelf moved a shockwave of blackness, travelling at a speed perhaps half that of sound. Above it a ragged black cloud was climbing through the murky sky, spreading as it rose. Whatever light might be inside the cloud was lost in its oily thickness, dense enough to make the smoke of Erebus seem like a morning mist. Within sixty seconds the new cloud had risen to an altitude of ten or twelve kilometres, and at its top was perhaps ten kilometres wide. It blotted out the sun; Ross Island and the Shelf around it sank into darkness.

  Al caught his breath, unable to understand how so much matter could be moved so high, so far, so fast. For a dizzying moment he lost all sense of scale and distance; surely it must be a smaller, closer, slower eruption.

  Instinct alone made him level off, climb and bank steeply over the deserted huts of Outer Willy, turning for the safety of Grid North.

  “The satellite cone — ” Max whispered, and then the shock wave hit. The plane shook violently, rose and began to nose down. Al wrestled the controls, knowing that they might be flipped over if he didn’t bring the nose up.

  Suddenly it was past. The air was still turbulent, but the Otter was again behaving like an aircraft and not like a leaf in the wind. Far off to the right and left, sunlight glistened on ice, but for many kilometres around them the Shelf was darkened by the shadow of the cloud. A second shock, less violent than the first, jolted the plane and was gone.

  “The satellite cone,” Max said again. “The satellite cone. It must have collapsed to well below sea level — water flooded in — like Krakatoa.” Like a sleepwalker, he got out of his seat and went into the passenger compartment. From the windows at the rear, he watched the cloud rise and spread and sink back into itself. He watched for a long time, until the plane finally outran the shadow of the cloud and the sun glared serenely into his eyes. Then he went back to his seat, and said nothing.

  Halfway back to Shacktown, as they were passing over a heavily fractured region, Al saw a long dark streak cutting at an angle across a field of high sastrugi. They went down for a closer look, but Al knew what it was: a crashed Hercules.

  There was not much left of it but a spray of blackened metal fragments half-melted into the ice. Only the tail section was intact, and the letters RNZAF were clearly visible. Debris was strewn for a couple of kilometres; Al circled the site three times at low altitude, but no survivors could be seen.

  “Wouldn’t expect any in a hit like that,” he mumbled. “Well, Max, that was our rescue party.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They were on a course for Shacktown, and they went down less than thirty-six hours ago — there was hardly any drift on the wreckage.”

  “Why did they crash?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe some mechanical problem — they probably tried to set down for repairs and ploughed into the sastrugi. Something like that.” His voice shook a little, and he looked sadly down at the crash for one last time. “They deserved better than that.”

  *

  Penny and Steve lay amiably in each other’s arms in their new cubicle. It was at the end of the bunkhouse, next to the Dolans’, and as private as any room in the building could be. Still, they talked in murmurs — partly to avoid disturbing Suzy, but mostly for the pleasure of it. It was the evening of Saturday, February 9.

  “It hurts when you kiss me,” she complained.

  “I’m sorry. Can’t get affectionate without getting rough.” He kissed her again, very gently. “Poor old Pen. That’s the worst sunburn I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yours is almost as bad.”

  “I know. We must look like a couple of amorous pomegranates.” His nose was blistered and peeling, and his cheeks — what little had been exposed between his beard and his sunglasses — were almost maroon.

  “Oh well,” he sighed. “It must be the same for a lot of people.”

  “Why — the ozone?”

  “Yes.” He was silent for a few seconds. “Millions of people must have been badly burned by now — worse than we are. Especially in the tropics, but everywhere. God knows what’s happening to animals and insects.” He touched her hand very gently. “Frostbite hurt?”

  “A lot.” She pulled the hand out of their sleeping bag. “Jesus, look how it’s peeling. Steve — are we really going to have to winter over?”

  “Looks like it.” He didn’t sound disturbed. “Max’s photos made it seem real — even more than watching the surge.” The still-damp photographs of the Ross Island eruption had been the subject of a long, grim meeting in the lounge that evening.

  “But they’ve got to send more planes,” Penny said.

  “Mm — not so sure,” he mumbled sleepily. “They’d have to fly in dangerous weather, with no radio, and no good landing zone between Christchurch and here. The Kiwis have sent one plane and it hasn’t come back — for all they know, it picked us up and cra
shed at sea.” After a moment he went on. “They probably have enough to worry about at home, and not just the ultraviolet. The surge must have caused some bad tsunamis, and maybe the volcano did, too. Every coastal city in New Zealand would be hit — just about every city around the whole Pacific, for that matter.”

  “Well — they’ll still want to know what’s happened down here.”

  “Eventually. Anyway, so what? It’s not so bad. We’re through the worst of it, and there’s plenty to study.” He grinned. “You’ll get a book out of it.”

  “If it’s not ancient history by the time we get out of here.” She felt annoyed by his acceptance of their predicament: it seemed unpleasantly stolid and passive of him to regard the disaster as just something to be studied. But it was so good to be in bed with him, with no need for long underwear, that she swallowed her resentment almost at once.

  Next door Suzy heard the rhythmic creaking of the bunk and felt an annoying stab of envy and self-pity. Poor old Terry was lying in pain in the infirmary, and all she could think of was sex. She put in her earplugs, turned over and went unhappily to sleep. Jeanne and Will, further down the corridor, were also about to make love.

  “It’ll sound crass and unromantic, Jeanne, but I’m worried about something.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll get pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  She chuckled and patted his face. “Don’t worry, love. Don’t worry.”

  Something in her voice surprised him: a mixture of fright and amusement. “What — ”

  “I’m already pregnant.”

  “Are you, now.”

  “Please don’t be angry with me, Will. I couldn’t stand that.”

  “Oh, I’m not angry, but I must say I’m impressed.”

  “Impressed by what? Women do get pregnant, you know.”

  “Not and march twenty kilometres over the Shelf from a wrecked helicopter.”

  “Not if they’ve got no choice.” But she felt flattered.

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell us?”

  “I thought I could manage all right. And I didn’t want to be fussed over, or make everyone feel they ought to slow down for my sake.”