The Ice Fortress

by Hannah Ross

  “Annette is a friend to us, and to the valley,” Scott said, “Though we may disagree on, ah, some points.”

  “My opinion counts for little on this score. You go ahead and meet them. I’m going back,” Ne Tarveg said, whipping around and striding off. Scott shrugged. He was used to the big man’s moods and surliness by now, and went ahead cheerfully enough to greet Annette, Chris and Adam, who were all dressed in identical orange parkas and carried identical large backpacks.

  “Hello, Annette. I see you’ve come well equipped.”

  “Yes, we’ve brought plenty of provisions this time. Don’t want to, er, cut into anyone’s stores if supplies are thin.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “Was that…” Annette squinted after Ne Tarveg’s receding figure. “That man who… I mean, whose father…”

  “Yes. That’s Ne Tarveg. I hope you excuse him. He really needs to get some rest.”

  “Don’t worry, Scott. I wasn’t exactly expecting a Welcome banner from that guy, you know. And we’re determined not to give anyone any trouble. We’ve brought our own tents and thermal sleeping bags, and are all ready to set up a field camp.”

  Scott shook his head. “I don’t know how wise that would be, Annette. The threat against the settlement is by no means gone. I wouldn’t advise you to sleep under the open sky. Why don’t you lodge with us? We’d be happy to have some visitors.”

  Annette was about to protest, but Chris spoke across her. “Thanks, Scott, that’s very kind of you.”

  Scott walked with the researchers to his house. Along the way, they spotted Ne Tarveg from a distance, practicing his bow by shooting a bundle of tied-up grass. His back was rigid and turned right at them, and he never bothered to look aside.

  At the beginning of the next waking interval – it couldn’t be called the next day, as all the days by now melted into one long stretch of light – Scott, Omrek and Rayven gathered another hunting party. It wasn’t like Scott to be so enthusiastic about hunting, but he realized that supplies were dwindling. The Anai needed meat, whale blubber for cooking and lamps, sealskins to make clothes. So they collected a party of ten men, and they carried two lightweight fishing boats between them. Ne Tarveg opted to stay behind and protect the village.

  “Will you be joining us, Annette?” Scott asked, taking his fishing net off a peg.

  Annette shook her head. “No, Scott, thanks. We won’t be tracking the pterosaurs today. We’re here to collect some specimens from the river. The local freshwater life is fascinating.”

  “Be safe,” Tahan said, getting up from her weaving frame and putting her arms around him. Despite the light and the commotion, Niri was sound asleep in her crib in the middle of the living space.

  “I want to go,” Egan said complainingly. “I’m strong enough to help, look!” he flexed one of his arms, showing off a bicep. Scott stifled a grin.

  “You’ll be one of the best hunters in a few seasons,” he told his stepson.

  “But I want to come now.”

  “If you behave yourself, Egan, we’ll go fishing later,” Tahan said. “And you can collect some of those freshwater snails for our guests. I think Annette will find them interesting.”

  The ordinariness of this day, and these plans, however, were disrupted just as the hunters set foot on the stepping-stones of the river. A shadow fell down from the sky, and a whoosh of wings was heard, accompanied by a blood-chilling screech. Scott took one look up, whipped out his whistle, and blew as hard as we could. A second later, an answering whistle sounded from the village.

  As one, the men turned around and ran back, ready to defend their homes. Back in the village, there was a commotion as the women and children ran for shelter, while the warriors hastened out, bows and spears ready. The pterosaur homed in for the village, circling up above. A few spears flew up, but fell short of their mark.

  “Spears are useless! It’s too high up! Everyone, take up your bows, quick!” Ne Tarveg’s voice boomed above the crowd, loud and urgent. His arrows were the first to shoot up. Notch, draw, loose – his bow never rested, and one of the arrows caught the beast in its wing, causing a savage howl of pain. It only served to enrage the pterosaur further, however. The beast circled even faster, swiveling its long neck as it sought the easiest prey.

  All of a sudden, the sound of many footsteps was heard from behind, followed by an ear-splitting gunshot. Scott whipped around and saw a group of Russians from Siyanie, headed by Sergey Pechersky, who were running to their aid. “Stop!” he called out. “Stop, you don’t have permits to use firearms here!” he shouted, but his voice was lost in the commotion.

  The beast, goaded by the noise, lost caution and circled lower above.

  “Strelyat’!” Pechersky called out, and though Scott didn’t understand the meaning of the word, it became plain enough as a rain of bullets shot up. Several of them caught the pterosaur in its flapping wings, causing it to falter in its flight. Ne Tarveg took advantage of this, and steadily drew back his bowstring. One of his deadly obsidian arrows hit the beast in the eye, and it threw back its head and howled in agony as red droplets of blood spattered the men below.

  “No!” A woman yelled desperately from behind. “No, no, don’t kill it! Nooooo!”

  It was Annette, who dashed forward like mad and caught one of Ne Tarveg’s massive arms. Almost without looking, he shook her off roughly, making her tumble down. He drew another arrow, and the string of his bow strummed. This time, the arrow caught the reptile in its long flexible neck, and it must have hit a major blood vessel, for dark red fluid poured down in a torrent. The men quickly dashed aside to keep from being crushed as the great beast came crashing down. The earth shuddered as it fell. The reptile emitted one last shriek of agony, twitched once, and lay still.

  A great silence fell. Annette was still on the ground. Scott walked over to her, took her by the arm, and helped her up. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  She was weeping, not with pain or fear, but with rage, and her streaming eyes were fixed on Ne Tarveg.

  “How could you! How! It’s a unique species – this is genocide!” she spat. He didn’t understand, and gave her a cold, uninterested look.

  “You did not cry like this when my father was killed.”

  He walked over to his fallen prey and, with an expression of loathing, kicked the carcass of the great reptile. It did not move. The beast was dead.

  The lingering silence was broken by a wave of cheering from the Anai. Now that the outdoors were safe, Tahan hastened forward with the children. “Scott! Are you alright?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine…”

  “Everyone is fine,” Ne Tarveg said, turning to the Russians, “but we might not have been, if it weren’t for these men. Thank you,” he said in thickly accented English.

  “It is lucky we happened to be here,” Pechersky answered with an accent almost as thick. “You are brave men, but you need better weapons, or these beasts will kill you.”

  Annette dragged her sleeve across her face, rubbing her red and swollen eyes. Chris and Adam, who stood behind her, looked shell-shocked. “We are going up to the base,” Annette told Scott, “and giving a signal to McMurdo. I want to go back. And make no mistake, I’ll be reporting this.”

  “Please do. You are certainly within your right,” Scott answered shortly, starting to lose his patience. “I hope the Antarctic Committee forgives the Anai people for defending themselves from these beasts.”

  “Annette, wait. If there’s a specimen ready to be analyzed, it would be stupid to waste the opportunity,” Adam said. “We should make arrangements to transport the carcass to McMurdo. Think how much we can learn!”

  The researchers and Scott joined the group of observers milling around the giant beast’s carcass. It was massive, at least thirty feet long from snout to tail, and terrifying even in death.

  Scott approached the giant reptile as if mesmerized. It looked like the dragons of old legends,
with its shiny sleek bluish-green scales, long horny snout, sharp teeth exposed in a snarl of deathly agony, and huge bat-like wings that were spread out on the ground like a grotesque, partially folded umbrella. The one eye that was not pierced by Ne Tarveg’s arrow was open, bright yellow and glassy-looking, with a vertical catlike iris.

  He bent down and touched the smooth scales, and was startled to realize they are warm. “Come on over!” he called to Annette and the PhD students. “You have to feel this!”

  Adam was the first to comply, and let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Damn, they are warm-blooded!” he exclaimed.

  “It makes sense,” Chris nodded, approaching and running his hands over the carcass. “Controlling their body temperature probably helped them survive in such extreme conditions. Naturally, they would still rather live in a warm place like the valley, though.”

  “That is why they keep coming back, I believe,” Scott said. “They are drawn to the warmth, and maybe on some level they remember their ancestral home used to be here.”

  Ri Koer, the elder, lifted his arms up to the sky and began a low, rumbling chant with occasional high-pitched tones. It was the song of gratitude sung by hunters and warriors, and those whose lives had been saved from great danger. Others began to dance, forming a circle around Ne Tarveg, who stood with his head held up high, and his hands still clutching his spear and bow.

  Annette threw one savage look in their direction. “Barbarians,” she said under her breath. She joined her colleagues in examining the pterosaur’s carcass. “The classification will be more difficult that I thought, I believe,” she murmured, peering closely at the long, flat-shaped head. “The shape of the teeth, and these wings… if only we had been able to capture it alive!”

  “Do you think the helicopter can take it to McMurdo?” Chris asked.

  Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. It probably weighs over a thousand pounds. You’d better ask Stan.”

  The research party communicated with Stanley via radio, and contrary to his custom, when he arrived he left the helicopter behind at the AN-85 base, and descended into the valley to behold the fallen beast with his own eyes. The Russians, Scott noticed, promptly faded into the background, clearly not wishing to announce their presence.

  Stanley let out a low whistle as he circled the enormous carcass sprawled upon the ground. “Damn,” he murmured. “Who’s the badass that brought this thing down?”

  “Ne Tarveg,” said Scott. Stan looked aside and glanced at the big Anai warrior who stood apart, his arms folded. The war dance was still going on, and several people brought out drums and began a low, rumbling, haunting melody.

  “Man, I’d go and shake his hand, but it seems like Dr. Geels is ready to rip someone apart, limb from limb.”

  A small crowd of Anai followed every move of Stan’s with their eyes, clearly finding him as interesting as the giant reptile. Stan’s skin, brown on the verge of ebony, was nearly as exotic and fascinating in the eyes of the fair-skinned Anai as the monster brought down from the sky.

  “You think you’re up to taking it to McMurdo, Stan?” Annette asked, pointing at the dead reptile. She looked calmer now, but her eyes were still red and a little puffy.

  “I can try, if you guys give me a hand with hoisting it up with some rope. The question is, how do we get it up to the base? It’s a steep climb, and this beast probably weighs more than half a ton.”

  “Could you try to land here, in the valley?”

  Stan looked around doubtfully. “I could try, but it would be against regulations. No machinery is allowed here.”

  “Right. I forgot about that.”

  “We’ll try to haul it up,” Scott put in. “Stan, you get the ropes, and I’ll gather some men to help you.”

  The engine of the helicopter made a deafening noise as it strained in protest against the near-impossible weight, and for a moment Scott thought it wouldn’t work. The chopper rose up in the air eventually, though, and headed in the direction of McMurdo, bearing with it Annette Geels and her two assistants. Scott followed its progress with a wistful look.

  Tahan came closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You wish you were going with them, aren’t you?”

  Scott covered her hand with his palm. They were standing at the landing site of AN-85, and a blast of icy wind made them catch their breaths. “I will have a chance to go to McMurdo soon enough,” he said. “For now, we have some more pressing matters here. Like the supplies, the adjustments to guard duty… and the Russians.”

  “Those foreigners,” Tahan nodded. “However you look at it, we must thank them, I suppose. They helped our people to escape a great danger. I’m afraid this isn’t over yet, though,” she added, her expression darkening.

  Chapter 9

  When Scott made it to McMurdo, he found Annette Geels, together with Chris and Adam, insanely busy in the laboratory. Annette was barely able to tear her eyes away from the microscope to greet him.

  “Hi, Scott. Come on in and take a look at this! I’ve never been so excited in my life.”

  “What do you have there?”

  “A sample of vascular tissue. It’s quite different from any other reptile I have ever seen. I believe these will be classified as a family of its own. As they are warm-blooded, they are like aliens to the reptile world. The hypothalamus is surprisingly mammal-like.”

  “Have you dissected the specimen, then?” Scott asked, caught up in scientific enthusiasm.

  “We have taken scans and samples, enough for an extensive analysis, but very carefully so as not to damage the whole. Once we have taken all we need, the carcass will be transported to New Zealand, where expert taxidermists will work on preserving it. It will be the centerpiece of the Back to the Jurassic exhibition that will be held in Wellington in a few months.”

  “Well, this has worked out alright, then. You got your sensational specimen without violating the Antarctic Treaty yourself. The research you do on this will likely make your career.”

  Annette frowned. “I would give up on all that if I could bring this magnificent creature back to life. An analysis of the reproductive system shows it was a female, and we extracted several eggs that look to be in an advanced stage of development. She was probably going to lay a clutch. I want to kick something when I think that the species might go extinct just after its discovery, all because of human rashness and stupidity.”

  Scott shook his head. “Don’t forget about the circumstances, Annette.”

  She turned away from the microscope and looked him square in the face. “If you ask me,” she said, “that big brute – Ne Tarveg, I think you called him – is on some sort of irrational vendetta against the entire Antarctosaurus species!”

  “Can you blame him? One of them killed his father.”

  “They are animals, Scott. Carnivores seeking prey. It is really quite ridiculous –“

  “You think there’s no more than that? If they are just looking for food, there’s plenty at the bay. They want the valley.”

  “Well, it is part of their natural habitat. They have evolved there.”

  “But they can’t be allowed there again. They can’t coexist with people.”

  “I still think the Anai would do better to relinquish their hold on the valley,” Annette said stubbornly. “This would correct a… a great historical injustice.”

  Scott fought the urge to roll his eyes. “The Anai can’t all settle at McMurdo, even if they were inclined to leave their homes. But they are not. We are not. Nature was made to serve men, not the other way around, Annette.”

  She snorted. “You sound like a narrow-minded dogmatic bureaucrat of two centuries ago. By the way,” she went on, “I have reported the Russians to the Antarctic Committee. There isn’t an official statement yet, but they have already contacted Siyanie with a warning, and the entire station will be searched for firearms. I hope the Anai aren’t collaborating with those… those rampant criminals.”

  “The Russians have
their own agenda. We don’t pry into it,” Scott said. He decided it was best not to mention that Pechersky and his comrades were given right of passage through the valley and to the bay, and had set out there in order to trace the place of the pterosaurs’ lair. He also opted to keep his mouth shut regarding the fact that Omrek and Ne Tarveg chose to accompany them.

  Annette, however, was staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Be honest, now, Scott. What do you know about the Russians?”

  “Not much. Their station is newly established.”

  “It is unclear what the purpose of Siyanie actually is. And this Pechersky is a shady character. He is no scientist. In fact, I’ve made some background checks, and it doesn’t appear that he has much education at all. He’s just a big burly boxing champ that somehow made his way up to the parliament.”

  “Listen, Annette, I understand you have a bone to pick with the Russians. I assume Ray Douglas is backing you up on this. You don’t really need my support to go against them, and most likely the Antarctic Committee will take your side.”

  “The civilized, law-abiding side!”

  “Whatever you say. I’m rather more interested in this specimen you’re analyzing.”

  “Despite everything, this is a unique opportunity to learn,” Annette said, brightening up again. “Here, let me turn on the laptop and show you this little presentation I’ve been compiling. See here? The layer of subcutaneous fat? Its thickness and structure make these creatures amazingly adapted to cold. Oh, and of course, we are collecting and preserving genetic material. This way, even if the species is destroyed – and as much as I’d like to believe otherwise, the colony, if it even exists, probably doesn’t hold more than a few specimens – these pterosaurs can be cloned and brought back to life.”

  A chill went through Scott at the thought of this. “Cloned?” he repeated. “Wouldn’t a special permission be needed to do that?”

  “Why, of course. But you don’t think it might be declined, do you? In good conscience, we can’t allow these magnificent creatures to go extinct. Of course, if we want to get a viable colony, it’s most important to have genetic diversity. Oh, and both sexes, of course.”