Icequake: A Prophetic Survival Thriller

by Crawford Kilian

  “It’s like ice on a pond in the winter,” he said to Penny one day. “You keep throwing rocks in, the water’s too stirred up to freeze. It calms down a little and bingo, ice.”

  “And we’re the minnows down at the bottom.”

  “Yeah.” Gerry smilingly lit the stump of a cigar.

  “Oh, please don’t!” she snapped. She was intensely conscious of the way things smelled these days: the latrines, the mess hall, the men who troubled less and less to keep themselves clean.

  “You don’t like it, you can leave,” Gerry retorted. “It’s not like I had a whole lot of pleasures to choose from.”

  She stalked out of the geophysics lab. Everybody and everything seemed to grate on her. The kitchen was a stinky, noisy pit where she slaved for a surly, self-pitying Terry and a slatternly Suzy. The mess hall furniture felt so greasy that one night, she had washed it all, only to find it just as bad a day later. The lounge was a claustrophobic box cluttered with shabby armchairs and couches, always filled by shabby men. The Kiwis’ and Australians’ nasal whines made her grit her teeth; the Brits’ accents weren’t much better; the Canadians’ slow drones made them sound like retarded Americans. She was ashamed of herself for it, but the Russians’ mutilated hands nauseated her.

  Even the greenhouse was no solace. The fluorescent lights made her head ache, and the plants looked like drab, stunted parodies of what they might have been in a proper climate. Penny sat on the same bench where she had scrawled her impressions of the icequake all those long months ago, and glowered at the floor where she and Steve had taken part in the least graceful copulation in polar history.

  *

  On June 20 everyone began preparing for the Midwinter Day party; this meant extra work for the kitchen people, and Penny was exhausted when she got to her cubicle a little before midnight. Steve was asleep already, but he woke when she turned on the light and began noisily undressing.

  “Hi, love. Had a long day, eh?”

  “Yes, I had a long day, eh. I washed a lot of dishes, eh. I fed a lot of overgrown boys, eh. I’m goddam tired, eh. Why don’t you turn over, eh, and go back to sleep, eh?”

  “With pleasure.”

  Good; she’d annoyed him. “Don’t bother to be sympathetic — just go back to sleep and I can listen to you snoring all night.” She threw her clothes in a corner. “Keep yourself warm tonight; I’m sleeping in the top bunk for a change. At least I won’t have you thrashing all over me in your sleep, and groping me in the morning, if there ever is a morning in this goddamn shithole.” She turned off the light and hoisted herself awkwardly into the bunk. The sleeping bag there was cold, and out of habit she’d taken off her long underwear, but she would be damned before she’d get out and put it back on again.

  “I can’t stand much more of this, Steve. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Thank you, Gordon Ellerslee.”

  “Drop dead. Gordon’s not the only one who thinks we ought to do something, do something, do something! And you just want to sit and gloat over your goddamn seismographs and think about how famous you’re gonna be.”

  There was a long silence. Then she felt the bunk sway as he got up. The light went on, blinding her. Steve put on his pants and shirt.

  “What are you doing now?” she demanded.

  “Moving out, Pen.” He pulled on his boots and began lacing them; she noticed how cracked and calloused his hands had become from weeks of work in the seismograph tunnel. “I’m sorry. This was all a bad mistake, I guess. I’m sorry.” He rolled up his sleeping bag and put it under his arm.

  “Not as sorry as I am.” Penny turned over and glared at the raw plywood wall until he turned out the light, opened the door and quietly left.

  *

  The party was not a success. The Dolans’ special dinner was so good and so plentiful that it made some people resentfully aware of how little they got the rest of the time. Beer and wine were abundant, and two or three of the men were drunk before dessert. When the party got under way in the lounge, Roger Wykstra — with five cans of Swan Beer already in him — knocked over the big bowl of rum punch and nearly got into a fight with Terry about cleaning it up. Various bawdy toasts were drunk to Shacktown’s couples, embarrassing and annoying the women. Penny and Steve were absent, prompting cheerfully obscene comments from some, and alarmed gossip from those who already knew that they’d split up.

  By 2200 half the station had turned in and the other half were quarrelling drunkenly. Carter ended the festivities half an hour later by enlisting Howie as bouncer and dousing the lights and heat.

  *

  Katerina and Ivan shared the last of the Bulgarian brandy she had brought with her to Shacktown last November. They lay comfortably bundled up in bed, listening to the Dolans’ arguing next door.

  “Like student days in Odessa,” Ivan sighed. “Remember that Polish couple? Spitting at each other, throwing plates, and making love like cats all night.”

  “Trust an old tomcat like you to remember that. You used to be one of her greatest admirers.”

  “Another long memory!” He put down his empty glass and nestled under her arm, his eyes closed. His beard tickled her breasts. “This too I remembered at Vostok. I would lie in my bag, listening to the ice breaking all around us, feeling everything shake, and I would dream of you. Of the little scar on your breast, and the freckles on your shoulders, and that mole on your cheek. And now this seems like the dream.”

  She kissed the top of his head. “To me, you are a wonderful dream also.” Terry’s voice, thick and bitter, rose over Suzy’s sobbing. “Ach, these people — they are much too real. Like spoiled babies someone has left us to look after.”

  Ivan grunted. “I do not understand them. As individuals they are fine, wonderful people. Al and Will are very brave men — Hugh and Carter, good leaders — all are good people. But, my God, the bickering, the resentment! Never would they be picked for a Soviet station. Yet they survive, while our own people — ”

  “Hush, hush.” He had been having nightmares about the Vostochni who had left for Mirny before the icequake. “They are good people. But with nothing to do, they fall apart. If Hugh told them to build a ladder to the moon, they would be happy again.”

  Ivan was silent for a moment. “No wonder these English swarmed all around the world. Without something to conquer, they go mad. If it goes on like this, when they find us in the spring there will be four Russians and nobody else.”

  “No doubt a Soviet plot.”

  His laughter was so loud and delighted that it brought an unexpected end to the squabbling next door.

  *

  Two nights after the party, Penny came back to her cubicle to find Ben Whitcumb sitting at her desk.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you. Hi.”

  “Hi. Look, I’d love to talk, but I’m pooped. Some other time, okay?”

  “Penny, this isn’t what you think it is. I just want to talk for a while.”

  “I don’t think it’s anything at all. And I don’t want to talk at all. Good night, and goodbye.”

  Ben shrugged and stepped towards the door, but as he passed he gripped her shoulders and kissed her. Penny brought the heel of her hand up hard under his jaw, and he staggered back against the doorframe. He caught his breath, grinned uncertainly and shook his head.

  “Well. Well. I can take a hint. Sorry to be a — nuisance.” And he sidled down the corridor.

  Penny sat down on the edge of her bunk, breathing hard and a little high on adrenalin. Before it wore off, she went out and down the corridor to Don Treadwell’s cubicle. She rapped on the door and went in. Don was doing a watercolour of the greenhouse; he looked up at her, surprised.

  “Hi. I want a lock on my door. Got one in stores?”

  “I think I might, Penny. Have you lost anything?”

  “No, and I don’t intend to.”

  She began to realise that she must look a bit distraught, wit
h her hair greasy and uncombed and her cheeks flushed. Don studied her with a hint of a smile.

  “Well, there’s no point in lookin’ for a lock right now, because we couldn’t install it tonight, could we?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, think of the noise. People are getting’ ready for bed, you know.”

  “All right, all right. First thing in the morning, then.”

  She wandered aimlessly from one hut to the next, proud of having coped with Ben and horrified of what might happen if someone like Gordon or Simon or even placid Howie decided to move in on her. Gordon would — and she —

  Neutral, public territory seemed safest. She went into the mess hall. There was Gordon, sitting with Simon and Al; Penny nearly turned and ran, but Al beckoned her over.

  “Hi, Pen. Thought you’d had enough of this dump for one day. Keep us company.”

  “Oh — sure.” And she pulled up a chair next to Al, across from the other two. They were examining a map of Antarctica on which various pencilled lines had been scrawled.

  “Brother Ellerslee’s got an idea,” Al said.

  “Yeah?”

  Al tapped a finger on the map. “Cape Hallett.”

  Penny remembered flying over it on the way to McMurdo, but it had been hidden in clouds. There was — or had been — an American weather station there, and an airstrip for emergency landings. It stood on a corner of the continent overlooking the Southern Ocean at the point where it merged into the Ross Sea, and it was a very lonely place.

  “We’re about seven hundred kilometres from Hallett now,” Gordon said. “About half as far as Vostok was when Al and Will flew there. If Al could reach Hallett, he could either radio to New Zealand, or refuel and fly on out.”

  “If Hallett is still there,” Al said. “And if there’s a radio, and conditions are right, and if there’s fuel.”

  “Even if there’s none of those things,” Gordon answered solemnly, “you could come back, or tough it out there for the rest of the winter. Hallett will be the first place they’ll reach in the spring — maybe even sooner.”

  Al laughed. “So I freeze my buns while you guys sit here nice and snug, worrying yourselves sick about me.”

  Gordon looked disconcerted; he tugged his nose as if, Penny thought, a good argument were lurking inside it. Gordon was, for him, deferential. She wondered why, when he usually blustered at everyone, and why he should be talking to Al when the two of them for some reason had said nothing to each other for weeks.

  Simon spoke up: “There’s always a risk, Al. Sure, you’re the guy who gets stuck, and you always have been. You know that.”

  “Mh.” Al raised his eyebrows. He looked down at the map between his big, blunt hands, and Penny felt she could read his mind: he was thinking of the long flight across the new Shelf, under a dark sky, with the yellow-green twilight low on the Grid South horizon. Or with a black, shrieking storm that blotted out everything, including himself and the plane.

  And then across the ocean, she thought. Aloud, she asked: “Could you make it all the way to New Zealand?”

  “No.” He pointed to a cluster of islands Grid South of Cape Hallett, far out in the Southern Ocean. “There’s a weather station at Cape Smith in the Balleny Islands. That’s seven hundred kilometres from Hallett. It’s only been there about two, three years, and the Kiwis may have shut it down. But… there’s an airstrip, and probably a few drums of JP4 It’s a gamble — sort of like drawing three cards to an inside straight.”

  Al sat back and looked at the map. His face was unreadable. “Well, I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay,” Gordon nodded. “That’s fair enough.”

  *

  July 2 started with a clear, star-filled sky, but the temperature soon rose ominously, and by noon another blizzard had come roaring down from the Southern Ocean. It blew itself out by evening, leaving high drifts over the station. Hugh sent out a whisking party, but they came back almost at once; it was impossible to work in darkness and blowing snow with the temperature at -30° and gusts up to seventy k.p.h.

  “It’ll be better in the morning,” Colin told that night’s seminar. “Looks like a day or two of clear weather ahead. I think. Good whisking weather.” Everyone groaned at him.

  “If we got good weather coming,” Gordon said, “I got a suggestion.”

  “Let’s hear it,” said Hugh.

  Gordon presented his idea for a flight to Cape Hallett. He was calm and deliberate; Penny thought he sounded a bit like Steve. When he finished and sat down, there was a moment of silence. Hugh broke it.

  “Ordinarily, I would approve or reject a proposal like this one on my own authority. Under present conditions, however, I feel we ought to have at least a consensus. Plus, of course, Al’s opinion. Anyone want to speak against the idea?”

  Penny looked across the lounge at Steve. He winked enigmatically at her and steepled his fingertips.

  Will got up. “I think it’s daft. Most of us haven’t really seen what the surge has done — but I have, and Steve, and a few others. Al’s seen more than anyone. It was bad enough when we had daylight, but now — my God, not in a Twin Otter. A Hercules, perhaps. But not in a small plane like ours. Not until September, anyway, and maybe not even then.”

  “Very good, Will. Anyone else?” No one spoke. “Anyone want to support Gordon’s idea?”

  Hands went up all around the room. “Don.” Don Treadwell stood up, looking diffident. Penny couldn’t recall the last time he’d spoken in a seminar.

  “I feel it’s dangerous, yes, but we have got no choice. We are on rationin’, but the food is still running out. We’ll have our last steak sometime this month, at this rate, and by August we’ll be out of potatoes, flour, rice — we’ll be eating canned fruit and survival-pack rations. We are going to be mighty hungry by spring. If Al goes, maybe we’ll get out of here before then.”

  “If Al goes,” Penny said, “I want to go with him.”

  The look on Steve’s face was hard to judge: he was surprised, but something else showed as well — alarm? Concern? Contempt? Relief? It took away most of her pleasure in causing a sensation; how could she have lived with a man for months and still not be able to understand him or predict his reactions?

  “I think it should be me,” she went on. “Al shouldn’t have to go alone, and Shacktown shouldn’t lose anyone essential. That leaves me.” No one said anything. Penny saw some of the men exchanging looks. She left unsaid her main reason: that if she stayed, someone was going to get hurt.

  “Perhaps we can consider that,” said Hugh, “after we’ve heard from Al.”

  “I’m willing to go,” Al said quietly, “and I’ll be glad to have Penny come along.”

  Hugh stroked his thick red moustache. “Very well. Penny and Al will make a sortie to Cape Hallett in the morning. Now, we’ll need a detail to dig out the hangar doors as soon as the wind drops a little. Any volunteers?”

  Chapter 11 – Sortie

  “You’re sure you want to go through with this?” Hugh asked. He and Al were the only people in the mess hall; it was about 0600 on the morning of July 3. Each man had a cup of instant coffee; the real coffee had run out a week before.

  “Give me an alternative,” Al said. He sipped his coffee, grimaced and lit a cigar.

  “Wish I could. At least you’ll have a chance to get back if Hallett’s no use.” He looked hesitant, then: “What about Penny? That all right?”

  “Yeah. She’s okay. She doesn’t go nuts when she’s scared, and she’s not dumb.”

  “So she’ll be some help.”

  Al laughed and coughed on cigar smoke. “If I need help, I’ll be beyond help. She’ll be company, and she’ll be out of people’s hair.”

  “Boy, I’m glad to be getting outa here.”

  Hugh grunted. He studied the portrait of Shackleton on the wall beside them. “It’s our household god I’ve been thinking a good deal about these days,” he said. “Bloody good man he was.
I keep thinking how he got everyone across the ice when the Endurance broke up — hauling their lifeboats, getting them to Elephant Island, and then sailing across the worst ocean in the world to get help. And not a single death. Every last one of ’em brought out safely.”

  “Including; one who’d had a heart attack,” Al smiled.

  “I take a lot of consolation from that, yes,” Hugh said. “Of course, Shackleton himself died of one a few years later. Good God, this coffee is rotten. Well, we haven’t a lifeboat, so I can’t sail off to South Georgia. But do me a favour — don’t get killed.”

  “I won’t. Believe me, I won’t take chances.”

  “Good enough.” Hugh put out his hand and rested it lightly on Al’s wrist. “We’ll be praying for you.”

  *

  Penny woke; someone was rapping lightly at her door.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Suzy, love.”

  “C’mon in… Hi. What time is it?” She looked at her watch: 0717. “I’d better get up. Is the weather still okay?”

  “I guess so. Have you talked with Steve?” Suzy asked suddenly. Penny had been expecting the question.

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you should. He’s worried about you.”

  “As well he should be. Why, did he say something to you?”

  “Didn’t need to. The poor bastard’s been moping around like Ben on a bad day.”

  Penny was pulling on her boots. “I’ve seen him, all right. And a million other guys like him. They’re so out of touch with their real feelings they don’t even know how to feel sorry for themselves. Steve’s more worried about losing the Otter than losing Al and me.”

  Everyone showed up for breakfast, and there was a mood of anxious cheerfulness in the mess hall. Penny and Al sat with Hugh, Will, Jeanne and Herm, their meal repeatedly interrupted as people came over to wish them luck. Steve and Tim were among them.

  “I think you’re bonkers,” Steve smiled, “but have a good time.”

  “We’ll drop you a postcard,” Penny said.

  “Do.” He nodded and turned away. Penny was so intent on noticing her reaction to him that she didn’t react at all.