by Max McCoy
"Well, the alternative is to find a bearing where the signal is strongest, and plot a line from there. Problem is, we won't know how far we have to go before acquiring the target. It could be beyond our fuel range."
"I see the problem," Indy said. "We'll do the best we can. Keep monitoring that frequency, and let me know if you pick up anything."
"Sir?" Sparks asked.
"What is it?"
"We haven't had much of a chance to talk, and I just wanted—" The freckles on his cheeks were engulfed in a blush of red. "Well, I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to be a part of this. My father's dead, and my mother back in Iowa had to sign the papers to allow me to join the army, since I'm not eighteen yet."
"What town in Iowa?" Indy pulled up a crate and sat down.
"You probably never heard of it," Sparks said. "It's a little place called Payne Junction."
"I know the place," Indy said. "It's on the Missouri River. There's some Indian mounds nearby that I visited once."
"Right!" Sparks exclaimed. "My dad ran a little filling station there until a truck tire he was fixing exploded. The rim got him right in the forehead. I guess that's why he never let me fix flats."
"I'm sorry," Indy said. "It's tough to lose a parent. My mother died of scarlet fever when I was twelve. I still miss her."
"That's horrible," Sparks said. Then he added: "I still miss my dad, too. He was a great guy. He kept telling me that anything was possible if you just worked hard enough—and had enough imagination."
"He sounds like a great guy," Indy said.
"He was kind of a science buff, and when I was little I started reading all these magazines he had around the shop—you know, stuff like Amazing Stories. They're published by a guy named Hugo Gernsback, and I guess he wanted everyone to get excited about technology and what the future could be like. That's what got me hooked on electronics. I still read 'em, too."
"Your dad gave you quite a lot," Indy said.
"Yeah." Sparks smiled. "My mother still doesn't understand, though. She hates those magazines, mostly because of the robots with the naked girls on the covers. I joined the army because I was tired of building crystal sets and knew I couldn't get my hands on equipment like this anywhere else. Also, to help my mother out. We had to sell the station after Dad died, and it's been pretty rough on her."
"The Depression's been pretty rough on everybody."
"She told me that if you're a soldier, you have to expect to get shot at. But isn't that what we fought the Great War for?" Sparks asked. "I mean, so nobody would have to be shot anymore?"
Indy swallowed and looked away.
"That's the idea, Sparks," he said. "But sometimes things don't work out the way we hope. There's still a lot of evil in the world, and I'm afraid we might see some of it on this trip. We might even get shot at."
"I know," Sparks said. "I'm not afraid. I just wish everybody could see the future like my dad did."
"Everybody gets afraid," Indy told him. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. But if things do get dicey around here, I want you to stick as close as you can to me. Now, I've got to go check on the rest of the crew. Keep listening, okay?"
"Roger," Sparks said.
Indy climbed into the cockpit.
"Clarence." Indy tapped the pilot on the shoulder. Clarence took off his headphones and they put their heads together so they could talk privately beneath the engine noise.
"You need to promise me something," Indy said. "If anything happens to me, I'd like for you to personally look after our radio operator. Sparks is a bright kid, and I couldn't stand it if anything happened to him."
"Sure," Clarence joked. "But if anything happens to you, who's gonna look after me?"
Indy laughed and slapped him on the leg as he climbed through the cockpit and down into the nose, where Goodwin was at the navigator's desk in the bombardier's Plexiglas compartment. He was filling a cup from a thermos of coffee and updating their position on the map with a grease pencil.
"Wow," Indy said as he looked at the clouds and the ocean whispering past beneath them. "Doesn't this view ever bother you?"
"No," Goodwin said. "I'm not particularly afraid of heights."
"I didn't think I was, but this view may change my mind," Indy said. "Everything on schedule?"
"Like clockwork so far." Goodwin glanced at his wrist-watch. "We'll set down at Reykjavik in about twenty minutes and refuel again. Do you have any idea yet where we're going to set up base camp?"
"No," Indy said. "I don't have enough information yet. I need some kind of indication where the Graf Zeppelin is. Without that, we could be locating camp a thousand miles in the wrong direction."
"Quite so." Goodwin held a finger up and pressed the headphones against his right ear. "Captain says Sparks has a message," he said. "Maybe it's about the big tin balloon we're looking for."
"Thanks." Indy made his way back up the cabin. "What is it, Sparks?"
"I've received a coded message from Markham," the boy said as he worked out the letters on his clipboard against a mimeographed code key. "I've about got it. There. What's LZ-127?"
"That's the Graf Zeppelin," Indy said.
"LZ-127 sighted off South Cape of Spitsbergen Island by Norwegian fishermen at zero-nine-thirty hours," Sparks read. "Heading NNE. Altitude five hundred feet. Speed unknown. Acknowledge."
"Where the heck—"
"It's here," Goodwin said as he unrolled a map. He had come up from the nose to hear Sparks decipher the message. "At the edge of the arctic ice pack. A group of islands owned by Norway and known officially as the Svalbards, but commonly called by the name of the biggest island, Spitsbergen."
"Where's the Graf headed?" Indy asked.
"Nor-northeast will take them around the edge of the islands, possibly into the ice pack itself," Goodwin said.
"What are they doing so low?" Ulla asked.
"They're either meeting with a refueling ship," Indy explained, "or they are searching for something in the water. My money is on the latter. How far away are we now?"
Goodwin used a protractor to measure the distance. "About fifteen hundred miles," he said.
"Right," Indy said. "And the top speed of the Graf Zeppelin is about eighty miles an hour."
"But from the sighting, she appears to be going considerably slower than that," Goodwin said.
"Let's say she finds what she's looking for and heads flat out. Theoretically, we could catch up with her how soon? Somebody, help me out."
Sparks made some furious computations.
"It will take us six and one half hours to reach Spitsbergen, where we refuel," he said. "That will give the Zep a head start of about five hundred and thirty miles, which we can close in another two hours and twenty minutes. But by then, the Zep will have put another sixty miles or so between us. What that boils down to is a rendezvous point that is twenty-one hundred miles away—less than ten hours, with just the one refueling stop. After Reykjavik, of course."
"Let's say they make a dead run for it, in any direction," Goodwin said. He took a compass from his flight suit and drew a circle representing a six-hundred-mile radius around Spitsbergen Island.
The penciled circle passed over the northeastern coast of Greenland, across a thousand miles of sea to thinly slice the coast of Norway, and through the Barents Sea to within a hundred miles or so of the North Pole.
"No matter which direction they turn," Goodwin said, "we can catch them within ten hours. Not only that, but we'll still have enough fuel left to make it back to Spitsbergen, no sweat."
"How will we know if they change their heading?" Indy asked. "There won't be any Norwegian fishermen where they're headed."
"The closer we get," Sparks said, "the better the odds we have of picking up their radio traffic to Berlin."
"That's right," Goodwin said.
"Unless they're maintaining radio silence," Indy said.
"Even so, it's the only chance we've got," Goodwin said.
"Five minutes to landing at Reykjavik, Commander," Blessant called over the intercom. "I suggest everyone don their cold-weather gear now, if you haven't already done so."
"'Commander'!" Ulla punched Indy in the ribs, a little harder than playfulness would allow. "I like that better than Doctor."
"We have to make a decision now," Goodwin said. "Or else we'll just waste time on the ground."
"Hold it," Indy said. "Let's take a minute and consider the disadvantages of the plan. First, we've already been in the air for nearly twenty hours. Sergeant Bruce, how is the Penguin holding up?"
"That magneto has gone out," Bruce said, struggling into his fur-lined suit, "and it will take at least an hour to change. If we go on, we'll have to count on the redundants. No real risk there, I suppose. Otherwise, the Pen—I mean, the B-18P—seems to be holding up quite well. All systems nominal."
"All right," Indy said. "What about the weather?"
"It's clear and holding. Barometer is steady."
"Good. Now, what about a base camp?"
"No time to set one up," Goodwin said.
"Maybe not." Indy paused. "Sergeant, how long will it take to refuel at Spitsbergen?"
"Twenty minutes, tops," Bruce said.
"Okay," Indy said. "That's enough time to unload our camp gear and leave one person behind to set it up and operate the radio."
"But which one of us?" Goodwin asked.
Indy looked apologetic. "You, I'm afraid."
"Not me," he said. "I'm the navigator. Anyway, I have to stay with the stupid plane, because Markham put me in charge of all the paperwork."
"Well, I need Sergeant Bruce in case something goes wrong," Indy said. "Blessant is necessary, for the obvious reasons, and Sparks is indispensable. That leaves Ulla and Clarence."
"The civilian woman would be the clear choice," Goodwin suggested.
"Not really," Indy said. "And don't ask me to explain. It will be clear when the time comes. Goodwin, can you fly this aircraft?"
"Fly it?" he asked. "No, sir."
"There you have it." Indy shrugged. "Clarence stays as well. You're getting off at Spitsbergen and setting up the radio and base camp there. You can hand your paperwork over to Sparks."
"But Colonel Markham—"
"Colonel Markham put me in charge of this expedition, down to every rivet in this aircraft," Indy said. "I don't have time to justify my position to you. Besides, you're the only one of us besides Sparks who is capable of triangulating radio positions on a map, correct?"
"I suppose...." Goodwin didn't look happy.
"Then climb into your cold-weather gear," Indy said. "Ulla and I will help you get the supplies unloaded as quickly as we can while the others ready the plane. Don't look so glum, Lieutenant, you've just pulled the safest detail on this expedition."
"Yes, Commander," Goodwin said stiffly.
"Oh, and remember," Indy told Goodwin. "If you get a bearing on anything of interest on that radio equipment, you act as if you are a remote observing station radioing back to our grounded plane on Reykjavik, right?"
"Right."
"Sir," Sparks interjected. "Colonel Markham is waiting for an answer. What should I send him?"
"Tell him this: 'Message received. Unable to intercept because of mechanical difficulty. Landing Reykjavik for repairs. Will advise. Out.'"
"But, sir!" Sparks cried. "That's against regulations."
"What do you think the odds are that the Nazis are listening to us and can break our codes as easily as we break theirs?"
"The odds are excellent," Sparks said.
"So why tell the buggers we're coming after them?" Indy asked. "Let them—and Markham—think we've broken down. They've known every move I've made so far. Let's throw 'em a curveball on this one."
Sparks nodded appreciatively.
"But, Dr. Jones," he said. "If we are deceiving our own people about our location as well as the Germans, and won't be giving our coordinates back to Goodwin at base camp on Spitsbergen, then who will know where to find us if we're forced down on the ice?"
Indy had no answer to this question.
As soon as the wheels had stopped rolling, the crew of the Penguin went to work. While Clarence fueled the aircraft Blessant and Sergeant Bruce worked to attach the strange-looking skis to the landing gears. The wheels themselves fit through the middle of the skis; in flight, the gears would be unable to retract completely, but would be tucked up under the aircraft like some kind of awkward bird.
"I hope this field is level," Blessant shouted to Bruce as he quickly ratcheted the bolts on the skis down. "There's not six inches difference between the skis and the bottom of the wheels."
In twenty-three minutes, the hatches were closed on the Penguin and the engines started.
"What's the barometric pressure?" Blessant asked Sparks over the intercom.
"Twenty-eight five," he answered. "Elevation above sea level here is eight hundred twenty."
Blessant adjusted the altimeter.
"I'd hate to run into that famous volcano they have here," Blessant joked. Then he checked manifold pressure and oil temperature on both engines.
"Everybody strapped in?" he asked over the intercom.
"We're ready to roll back here," Sparks answered. Bruce was beside him, still sweating from the exertion.
"We're go down here as well," Indy reported. Ulla was in the navigator's seat and Indy was strapped into the forward gun position, with the runway just beneath his legs.
"Throttle up," Blessant said. "Clarence, you're going to have to help me hold her steady on the runway. There's a wicked cross wind. Keep a light touch on the rudder, but keep her straight."
"Check," Clarence said.
As the engines revved to a screaming pitch and Blessant took his heels from the brake, the Penguin lurched forward and began to pick up speed. The starboard wheel hit a hole and bottomed out the skid, which threatened to send the aircraft slewing off the runway.
"Keep her straight," Blessant shouted.
"I will, if you can avoid the potholes," Clarence grumbled.
At fifty miles per hour the runway was a blur of gray beneath Indy's feet, but the plane seemed reluctant to leave the ground. He could see the end of the runway approaching, and beyond it a pile of the black volcanic rocks.
Indy closed his eyes.
"Remind me not to sit up here again," he called back to Ulla.
Blessant pushed the throttles forward again, and at sixty-five miles per hour, the wheels lifted off the ground. Then the tail came up, and the plane floated on ground effect for a moment but hesitated to go any higher.
"Flaps!" Blessant yelled, and Clarence adjusted the wheellike device between the cockpit seats.
The aircraft now took flight in earnest, and Blessant pushed the throttles nearly to their stops. The engines screamed and the Penguin gained altitude as it made a sweeping turn to the northeast.
"Need to make a note that the flaps should be set steeper on takeoff when using the skids," Blessant said calmly.
"Yeah," Clarence said. "And I need to make a note about carrying a change of undershorts. Boy, I'll bet landing will be a hoot."
The landing at Spitsbergen was not quite the "hoot" that Clarence had predicted. The Penguin settled gently down and skidded to a rest on a vast snow-covered plateau that served as the airfield adjacent to a Norwegian weather station. Indy helped Goodwin unpack the base camp while the others—after a bit of haggling and pleading with the weather crew about the necessity for more fuel—rolled out fifty-gallon drums of aviation fuel.
As the Penguin taxied around the ice and then roared back down the snow-packed runway, Goodwin stood with his new Norwegian companions and waved gamely. The sun had dipped below the horizon behind them, turning the western sky into a fiery orange smudge.
"I've got a signal," Sparks said an hour later.
"Are you sure?" Indy asked.
Sparks closed his eyes and cupped his hands over the earphones, in
an effort to mute the noise from the engines. Then he reached out his right hand and tweaked the frequency dial just a bit.
"Yes, I'm sure," he said. "It's weak, and warbling a bit, but it's at fourteen dot three-five-zed. It's a tone, every thirty seconds."
"Let me listen to it," Indy said.
Sparks offered him the earphones.
Indy heard nothing but static for a few seconds, and then there was a peculiar dwit! sound. He returned the phones to Sparks, who clamped them back over his cap.
"Can you get a bearing?"
"I'll try," he said, then punched his intercom. "Sir, could you hold it steady as possible for a few moments? I think I have a target. What's your heading now? Good, keep it there and I'll let you know."
Sparks closed his eyes and spun the antenna wheel around this way, and then that, and then adjusted some switches. He swung the wheel again, then settled on one spot where the signal seemed to be the loudest. He looked up at the face of the antenna compass and jotted down the bearing on his clipboard.
"Captain Blessant?" he asked. "I think I've got it. Your heading, whatever it is now, let's call that zero. Now come port thirty-seven degrees."
The plane banked slowly and in a few moments leveled out again.
"Now, let me check." Sparks spun the antenna to the left, then stopped. "Back a degree or two." The change in direction was nearly imperceptible this time. "Good, that's it. The signal is straight off our nose."
Sparks made a note of the bearing and the time on his clipboard.
Indy went to the cabin window, which was badly frosted. He tried wiping the ice away with his sleeve, but it was on the outside.
"It's still dark," Sparks said. "You won't be able to see anything. The sun won't be up again for another couple of hours or so."
"That soon?"
"Land of the midnight sun," Sparks said. "We're well within the Arctic Circle now. The nights will get successively shorter until, on June twenty-first, the sun won't set at all."
"Where is this heading taking us?" he asked.
"Well, we're heading almost due east now," Sparks said, looking at the map. "There's nothing out there but sea and icebergs."
"Do you think the signal will last?"
