by Bob Mayer
“All done. We have about nine minutes before the receive.” Vickers was already at work on the small keyboard built into the radio, preparing it for the incoming message.
Conner wondered how Riley was doing out in the snow. He was a strange man. Devlin had come to her and told her it was crazy for Riley to be outside, but Conner figured that Riley had made his bed, literally, and now he had to sleep in it. Besides, she wasn’t responsible for him, Sammy was.
At ten minutes after the hour the disk whirred again—this time for less than two seconds. Vickers removed the disk and handed it to Conner, then went outside to retrieve the dish.
Conner took the disk and slid it into her laptop. She entered the appropriate program, and the screen glowed:
SNN TRANSMIT/RECEIVE
ENTER CODE:
Conner punched in her personal code and hit the enter key. The disk whirred, the screen cleared, then the message from Atlanta was displayed.
TO CONNER YOUNG 392993 FROM STU
FERNANDEZ 483772 DTG 280400
NOVEMBER 96 NO NEW
INFORMATION HERE RECEIVED YOUR
MESSAGE CLEAR GOOD LUCK
END MESSAGE
Conner hadn’t really expected anything. She dumped the message into the hard drive memory and shut down the computer. Time to get some rest before the long “night” ahead. She hoped her sister was already asleep. She didn’t particularly want to talk to her now.
She entered the women’s bunk room and wasn’t surprised to see Sammy sitting on her bunk, wide awake. It was the first time they’d been alone since she’d shown up in New Zealand. Conner ignored her and stretched out on another bed, fully clothed.
“Are you having fun?” Sammy asked.
Conner turned her head. “What do you mean by that?”
“I show up in New Zealand and I find you in bed with someone. I tell you that my life was threatened and that I killed somebody. And your reaction is basically wondering how big a story it will be.”
Conner looked back up at the ceiling. “Come on, Sammy. I’m sorry about what happened to you in St. Louis. There’s nothing I can do about it now. Getting this story is as important to you as it is to me.”
“Is that why you’re screwing Devlin ... ‘cause he can help you get the story?”
Conner lifted herself up on an elbow. “Listen. Who I sleep with is—”
The door burst open and Riley stood there. “The mess hall, now!” He was gone as quickly as he’d come.
Conner and Sammy scrambled out of bed and rushed to the mess hall to find Riley leaning over an unconscious Swenson. The pilot was slumped in a chair, his clothes covered with melting ice and snow.
“What happened?” Conner asked.
“I found him outside, lying in the snow.” Riley was checking the pilot’s bare hands for frostbite. “Another five minutes and he’d have frozen to death.”
“How’d you find him?” Sammy inquired.
“I heard a noise. Sounded like the main door slamming shut. I don’t know.” Riley shrugged. “Something just didn’t seem right, so I got up and checked.”
As Riley spoke, the other members of the team filed in until all were assembled.
“So what happened to him?” Conner wanted to know. “Did he fall and knock himself out?”
Riley shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He broke open a medical kit, pulled out some smelling salts, and waved them under Swenson’s nose. The pilot gagged briefly and then his eyes flickered open. He reached for his head and moaned. Conner stepped behind him for a closer look. Through the thinning hair on the back of Swenson’s head, a large purplish bruise was visible.
Conner moved in front of Swenson. “What happened?”
Swenson tried shaking his head, but the pain got the better of him and he held still. “Shit. I don’t know. I was going down the corridor to take a piss and someone whacked me on the back of the head. That’s all I remember.”
Eight sets of eyes met, then shifted uneasily from one to another. The silence lasted for almost a minute.
Riley looked at the other men. “Was anybody awake when Swenson left?”
All three men shook their heads. Riley turned to Conner. “When I came in, all three were in their beds and appeared to be sleeping. You two were in your room. The three people from Our Earth were all accounted for also.”
“That leaves you then, doesn’t it?” Devlin observed.
Riley shrugged. “Then it would have been pretty stupid of me to rescue him, wouldn’t it?”
Conner decided to take charge before things got out of control. “Are you able to fly?” she asked Swenson.
Swenson nodded carefully. “Aye. I don’t think I have any permanent damage.” He got up, a bit unsteady on his feet.
‘Then we leave now.” Conner turned to Vickers and Lallo. “Get your gear ready to go. We leave for the plane in fifteen minutes.”
After Conner’s crew left the room, Devlin turned to her. “What about whoever knocked him out? I don’t think it was chance that our pilot was attacked. Somebody is trying to stop us from getting to Eternity Base.”
“That’s why I want to leave right away,” Conner replied. “If we wait around here any longer, whoever it is will have a chance to do something else, like maybe sabotage the plane.”
“So we’re going to fly with a pilot who just got conked on the head?” Sammy asked.
“I don’t have time for this,” Conner said. “He said he can fly.”
“The odds are,” Riley said, “that we’ll be transporting our problem with us to Eternity Base—if we find it.”
“Once we find the base,” Conner declared, “it will be too late. We’ll have the story.” She pointed at Sammy. “It’s the same reason you came down here. The key to stopping these people is to find out who built the base.”
Sammy shook her head. “But whoever it is has to be pretty powerful to have been able to infiltrate your team so quickly.”
Conner looked her sister in the eye. “I don’t think whoever tried to kill Swenson is from my team.”
Sammy looked at Riley and then back at her sister. “Are you accusing Riley?”
“I’m not accusing anybody. I’m just being realistic,” Conner retorted.
Sammy bristled and Riley stepped between the two women with his hands raised. “Let’s chill out,” he suggested. “Conner’s right. We need to get to Eternity Base first. Standing around yacking isn’t going to do us any good.” He looked from one woman to the other. “All right?”
Sammy nodded. “All right.”
“All right,” Conner echoed.
ROSS ICE SHELF, ANTARCTICA
Conner could hear Vickers humming the theme song from The Wizard of Oz as the plane picked up speed. Swenson pulled in the yoke and the heavily laden Cessna bounced a few times, then clawed into the air. Reaching sufficient altitude, the plane banked and headed for the search area.
Their course followed the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the east. Ross Island faded behind them, and after an hour Roosevelt Island appeared below and then slid to the rear. They slowly closed the distance to the Ford Mountain Range, looming up in front of them. As they approached the first mountains, Swenson increased power; the wings groped in the thin air for even more altitude until the Cessna had sufficient height to clear them.
The plane was as crowded with people and equipment as it had been on the flight from New Zealand. Conner, Kerns, and Riley were on the left side of the plane, one in front of the other; Vickers was in the copilot’s seat; and Devlin, Sammy, and Lallo behind Vickers on the right. They’d loaded all the camera equipment along with one backpack of survival gear for each person. If they found the base, Conner wanted to be prepared to stay and get her story.
Although the magnificence of the peaks that jutted out of the white impressed Conner, what struck her more was the sea of ice that swept the flanks of those mountains. It was hard to imagine an ice sheet almost two miles thick. Devlin had told
her that the ice was so heavy it had forced most of the bedrock surface of Antarctica below sea level; if the ice were removed, the land, relieved of the pressure, would rise above sea level.
Swenson had piloted them over a glacier and through a pass, putting them on the opposite side of the mountain range. Now they flew along the southern edges, looking to their left, searching for the three mountains. Conner had taped the photocopy of the picture against the bulkhead above the left side window, and she and Devlin were scanning in that direction. As Devlin leaned over her right shoulder, she tried to ignore his close proximity, but his body was generating a warmth that was welcome in the frigidness of the plane. She wondered if Sammy was right: was she attracted to Devlin as a person, or because he could be of use to her at the moment—a way to Eternity Base, a warm body on a cold airplane.
Swenson flew straight up the middle of the mountain chain. The weather was remarkably clear, and the peaks seemed startlingly close. Conner felt as if she could reach a hand out the window and caress the rock. She glanced right at the map board on Devlin’s lap. He had their route marked on the plastic cover with a grease pencil.
“Everyone look carefully. McKinley should be coming up soon,” Devlin yelled. His words disappeared into the whine of the engines without any reply from the others.
“That’s McKinley,” Swenson shouted a short while later. He immediately banked to the left, and the nose of the aircraft settled on a northerly route.
Riley reached forward and tapped Devlin on the shoulder, gesturing for the map board. Devlin passed it back and Riley oriented himself, checking the map against the terrain features he could see below.
“Can we move to the right a little bit?” he called out to Swenson. Riley ignored Conner’s annoyed look. Taking her silence as assent, Swenson changed course slightly to the right.
Visibility was unrestricted, and far out to the front through a gap in the range, they could even see the ice pack on the coast. To the left and right, isolated mountaintops poked out of the white carpet of ice.
“There. That’s it,” Riley calmly announced, pointing. Three peaks, against a backdrop of other nunataks.
Conner looked up at the paper taped on the fuselage and then out again. She leaned forward and tapped Swenson on the shoulder. “There. We’re pretty close on the right azimuth.”
Conner leaned across to Devlin. “What do you think, Devlin?”
Riley broke in. “You have to consider the fact that the photo was taken from the ground. We’re up much higher. Ask Swenson to drop down and let’s see how they look.”
The pilot circled down until they were barely a hundred feet above the ice. He pointed the nose straight at the peaks, and all eight of the plane’s occupants stared ahead.
Conner was the first to break the silence. “That’s it. Lallo, get us a shot as we go in.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The North Korean ambassador’s aide studied Loki’s latest report, which had been forwarded in response to his highlighting. This Antarctic thing was very strange. Loki had done a good job summarizing all the information available, but it raised more questions than it answered.
The aide rewrote the information for forwarding. Although there was nothing of apparent importance to his native country, one never knew when something that seemed irrelevant could prove useful. At the very least there was the possibility that the United States could be embarrassed if this secret base actually had been built. That was always good, particularly now.
FORD MOUNTAIN RANGE, ANTARCTICA
“Patience, missy,” Swenson called over his shoulder. “We don’t want to be buckling our landing gear out here. It’s a long walk back.”
Conner ignored the missy comment and concentrated on the three peaks. Swenson was on his fourth pass over the floor of the basin, looking for a spot to land. Conner had no doubt that they were in the right place. It had to be. The peaks matched, and the basin was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The bowl was perhaps ten miles wide by twenty long, open to the south. If they could get down and match the azimuth on the picture with the mountains in the background, she knew they could get close. Very close.
The passes had revealed no sign of any structure, but that didn’t surprise Conner. The ice and snow would have covered the above-surface portions of Eternity Base many years ago.
“All right. I’ve got something that looks like it might work. Everyone make sure you’re buckled up.”
Conner’s hands clenched the back of Swenson’s seat as he slowly let out the yoke and reduced throttle. The ice crept up, closer and closer.
“Let’s be hoping there are no crevasses,” Swenson muttered. The skis touched and they were down—at least for the moment.
“Oh, shit!” Vickers yelled from the right front seat as they became airborne again, bouncing over a small ridge and then slamming into the ice once more.
The plane was shuddering, and the right wing tipped down as the ski hit a divot. They turned slightly right, then straightened. When the plane finally stopped, Conner’s fingers had made indentations in the imitation leather on the back of Swenson’s seat.
“Well, that was fun.” Swenson turned around. “What do you want to do for an encore, missy?”
Conner rubbed her hands to restart the circulation and looked about. “Can you taxi along the ice until we get on the right azimuth to line up the three peaks like in the photo?”
Swenson looked around outside the aircraft. “Well, I certainly can do that, but the ice might not allow it.” He looked at Devlin. “What do you think?”
Devlin licked his lips. “Actually the ice should be all right here. We’re on a pretty solid base. You have to worry about crevasses when you’re on a glacier, but we’re on the polar ice cap now. Should be all right.”
“Let’s do it,” Conner ordered.
‘To the right,” Riley said. Conner looked at him questioningly. “If you want to line them up, go to the right,” he repeated.
‘To the right,” Conner confirmed.
Swenson increased throttle and worked his pedals. The Cessna slithered along.
“Hold it,” Conner called out after three minutes of very slow moving. “What do you all think?”
They looked to the north.
“Yes.” Riley was the first to answer.
“Yes.” Devlin echoed him. The others said nothing.
“Let’s get skiing.” Riley unbuckled himself. He slapped Devlin on the shoulder. “Which do you want? North or south?”
*****
Devlin slid to a halt and looked back over his shoulder. The plane didn’t look very far away, but he estimated he’d come at least four miles. He reached for the sonar emitter slung over his shoulder and pointed it down. As he pressed the trigger, he watched the small screen on the back. After five seconds he slid it back over his shoulder and continued onward.
Every thirty push-offs of his right ski, he halted and repeated the process. The skiing felt good, but Devlin was getting tired and he knew he’d be sore tomorrow. The skis were not true cross-country skis but rather a specially made hybrid that Our Earth used down here. A combination binding connected at the toe and rear. The rear binding could be unlocked for cross-country movement such as this, or locked for downhill.
Devlin had chosen to go north, so he had the mountains to his front. His course was centered on the middle peak ahead. It was very hard to judge distances, but he estimated that the mountains were only about four to five miles away. He sensed he was going slightly uphill as he continued on. The surface wasn’t as flat as it had appeared from the air, and he wondered how Swenson had managed to find such a smooth spot to land. Occasionally, Devlin crossed a low ridge of compressed ice and had to traverse his way up and over in order to stay on line.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. The echo just below the surface shocked Devlin, it was so unexpected. He blinked and stared at the sonar emitter screen for ten seconds. It was still there. Devlin lo
oked around the immediate area. The surface ice was relatively even except for a six-foot ridge running at an angle across his front. There was no sign of anything man-made.
He pulled off his backpack, slid out one of the thin plastic poles with a flag attached, and stuck it in the ice. Then he began to ski, only ten paces now, trying to search out the dimensions of whatever was under the ice. He continued to receive a positive response as he approached the ridge.
Devlin traversed up the small incline and stood on top of the buckled ice. His flag was more than eighty yards away. This had to be the base. He noted an outcropping from the ice ridge about ten yards away and skied along the top to it. Snow had piled up, forming a block perhaps fifteen feet to a side and eight feet high. Devlin aimed the sonar into the snow pile. Positive response. There was something in there too.
Devlin looked to the south. His view of the plane was blocked by a large ridge he had crossed about a mile back. He secured the sonar over his shoulder and skied down off the ridge and back to his ruck. Throwing it over his shoulder, he set out to the south with long glides on the skis. He forgot about being tired.
*****
Conner shivered. She considered asking Swenson to crank the engine and turn on the heat, but she held off. They had only so much fuel and they’d been on the ice now for more than an hour. The windows had fogged over from the breathing of the occupants, and she used her mitten to wipe a small hole in her porthole so she could peer out.
A figure appeared on the horizon, skiing toward the plane with smooth, powerful strides. She kept the glass clear and watched the bundled man come closer.
“One of them is back,” she announced.
Vickers swung open the side door and the wind swirled inside, removing what little body heat had built up in the plane. The skier stepped out of his bindings and passed the skis to Vickers, who slid them along the floor. The man stepped in and the door was shut behind.
