by Jonah Buck
Then Denise noticed something she hadn’t seen before. The man’s clothing had shifted because of the way he was holding onto her baggage. The butt of a revolver poked out of his jacket pocket. When the man was at rest, it would slide back down into the depths of his parka, but the stooped, awkward way he was forced to walk pressed the gun upward until it was peeking out at her.
Denise filed that image away in her mind. Why would they need guns here? It certainly wasn’t because of the wildlife. This was the Antarctic, not the North Pole. There wouldn’t be any polar bears around here. They lived on the opposite side of the planet. The South Pole didn’t really have an equivalent to the polar bear. She couldn’t think of a good reason why someone would need to traipse around with a weapon down here, not unless they were worried about something.
She took a moment to glance at the other French scientists who had come out to greet them. None of them spoke except for Dr. Benoit. She couldn’t tell if any of the rest of them had weapons ferreted away in their jackets. All of them were moving quickly, as if they were anxious to get back inside, but that didn’t necessarily prove anything. Any sane person would be eager to get out of this. Even with all their layers, the wind could cause frostbite and hypothermia.
They passed the research station’s first building, a little concrete blockhouse. A small fleet of motor sledges was parked next to it under a small overhang. The unfastened end of a tarp flapped wildly in the wind as they trudged past.
Dr. Benoit was still talking, evidently enjoying his role as the group’s unofficial tour guide. “And just over that ridge there is the penguin rookery. We’ll make sure to get you over there at some point when the weather calms down a bit. It would be a bad idea to try to trek out there right away, though.”
“Of course. Of course. We’ll be here a few days. Plenty of time,” Denise said, just responding without thinking too much. She was more interested in taking in as much of the facility as she could right now. That’s what she was here for. The Squires wanted her opinion as a monster hunter as to whether or not there was anything to be worried about down here. The fact that one of the researchers had come out to greet them with a gun in his pocket was a bit odd, but it wasn’t as if Delambre Station was on fire and full of bug-eyed aliens when she arrived. So far, there wasn’t any serious sign that anything the Squires would be interested in was going on.
They passed another building on the edge of the compound, and Denise realized it was a hangar. There were a couple of small biplanes parked inside along with a large tank of fuel. Maybe she could talk Benoit into allowing Fletch to take her up in a plane to reconnoiter the area a bit better. All she could see from ground level was ice, rock, and more ice.
“Oh, good. Airplanes. If it’s alright with you, we’ll want Mr. Adams here to take us on a little air tour eventually.”
“That can probably be arranged. Under the right conditions of course. You’ll have to stay away from some areas, though. There’s unstable ice. And poor weather. I’ll give you a map when we get inside so you can avoid certain areas. Mostly, you should stay near the coast. The interior is…not a pleasant place to find yourself. Yes, quite dangerous. You should stay away.”
Behind her, Cornelia and Metrodora were trudging along with their own luggage. If they were here strictly on as a pleasure trip, they wouldn’t need entire trunks just to carry their cold weather gear. A .577 Nitro Express was a large weapon though, and it had to be buried under a lot of jackets and parkas to completely hide it. The same went for the ammunition, which had to be packed in tight to prevent it from rattling and making too much noise. Denise would be perfectly happy if she only had to break out the clothing items and not the weapons.
A couple of paces behind Cornelia and Metrodora, Fletch had noticed the planes parked in the hangar. He looked out at the ice in front of the building, the station’s makeshift runway, and then he glanced back at the planes. Denise couldn’t tell if he was hoping to try one out later or if he was exasperated that this place was even more developed than he initially thought.
After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, Benoit led them to the door of the largest building. Denise looked back, her legs aching and her face stinging, to look back at the shoreline. It was less than a quarter of a mile away.
Denise was in good shape. She’d spent years traipsing across the grasslands and forests of southern Africa, carrying supplies on her back and a rifle in her hands the whole time. She hadn’t let herself slip since retiring from the big game hunting business.
Even so, just trying to move in this environment was exhausting. Shuffling around in multiple layers of thick, padded clothing slowed her down and threw off her stride. Trying to keep her balance on the ice, which bulged or sank ever so slightly based on the contours of the landscape beneath, was also surprisingly draining. Plus, she was used to travelling in the heat, not this biting, infernal cold.
Looking back at the shore, so surprisingly close, she realized that if she was going to do any exploring or surveying, she would need to do most of it with the aid of one of the motor sledges or the station’s airplanes. Trying to get anywhere on foot would be a quick way to end up exhausted out in the blinding white yonder, and that was a good way to end up stone cold dead.
Dr. Benoit pushed the door open, and the wind nearly sent it crashing inward. He managed to get a grip on the handle before the door crashed all the way open, though. “Now, allow me to show you to your quarters. This is the main living area and research center for the entire base. Most of the other outbuildings you’ve seen house supplies or other necessities. This is where all the real activity is, though.”
Denise stomped her feet on the ground, partly in a vain attempt to warm up a little and partly to scrape some of the ice off her feet. She stepped inside and blinked against the glow of the fluorescent lights, so different from the glare of sunlight against ice.
The first thing she noticed was the surprising amount of medical equipment. Off to the left, she spotted several gurneys lined up against the wall. Each gurney had thick leather straps attached to it. Denise looked at the restraints for a moment.
The gurneys were both empty. There was also a folded-up wheelchair, also with restraints. They were all lined up near a door labeled radiographie.
Denise didn’t speak French. She had no idea what radiographie meant. Probably the radio room. The medical equipment was odd, though. A research station of this size no doubt had an infirmary, but she didn’t see any indication that there was one hidden away in this hallway.
Benoit noticed her gaze. “The science quarters are that way. It takes up most of the building, actually. You will have to excuse our mess. We are always swapping out equipment and haggling over space for some new device or another. It is nothing personal, but we will have to ask you to stay out of that end of the building. We have some very sensitive and delicate instruments through there, and it would cost us weeks of data if they were disturbed in the slightest. You understand, I’m sure.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” Denise said. She understood, alright. Now she knew she needed to find some way to stick her nose in there, if only for a moment.
Now that she’d had a couple of seconds to look around, she couldn’t help but notice just how new everything looked. There wasn’t any wear or tear on anything she could see. She looked up and noticed a set of metal pipes running the length of the ceiling. The metal shone like it had just come off the factory floor. There wasn’t a spot of corrosion or any chips around the casing. It didn’t even look like there was much dust up there.
“Follow me,” Benoit said, leading Denise and her companions in the opposite direction of the radiographie room.
“I must admit that I’d never heard of Delambre Station until quite recently. Only once I started looking for a way to visit Antarctica a couple of weeks ago, as a matter of fact. When was this place built?”
“It’s quite new,” Benoit said, not really answering the question.
“Do you like it? They spared no expense.”
“Yes, it seems very nice,” Denise said.
“You flatter us.”
Denise probably was flattering the place. It was an extremely utilitarian space. The walls were poured concrete, lacking decoration. The doors were all made of heavy duty metal, again always spotless. The floor was just concrete too, but it had some sort of rubberized matting over it so people with ice stuck on their boots were less likely to either trip or track slush everywhere. It reminded her more of a prison than anything else, but it was still impressive that the French had built it at all.
They turned down a corridor and went through the mess hall. It was a large, brightly lit room with tables enough for maybe fifty people. There was one somber-looking man with a beard sitting at a table, reading a book and trying to spoon some sort of gruel into his mouth without losing too much of it in his unruly facial hair. He glanced up as the little parade meandered past him, then he went back to his book.
“We’ll have proper introductions once you’re all stowed away, but that’s Dr. Louvain. Brilliant surgeon, but he doesn’t speak much English. You probably won’t have much to do with each other.”
The fact that the bearded man was a surgeon reminded Denise of the medical gear she’d seen near the science wing of the building. Then she realized that she hadn’t seen anyone else here except for Dr. Louvain and the party that had come to the docks to greet her. That was only seven people in total, but there was enough space here for many more people than that.
“How many people work here at Delambre Station?”
“Does it seem a little empty to you? It probably does. When it was being built, the construction teams also lived onsite. We’re just the first group of researchers to use the facility. The population will expand a bit once summer rolls around and conditions become a bit more hospitable. Plus, we hope to eventually have more stations deeper into the interior of Antarctica itself. In a couple of years, this place may be more of a waystation for people travelling further inland. We built it with some extra space with that in mind. It may seem a bit lonely now, but maybe even we will host more tourists such as yourself in the future.”
They entered another hallway and stopped in front of a doorway. Benoit pushed the thick, metal door open and revealed a space not much larger than a prison cell. There was a cot and a cheap dresser, neither of which looked like they’d ever been used before.
“You’ll be staying here,” Benoit said. “It may not look like much, but it’s a lot nicer than sleeping in a tent outside. Just having an indoors to come in to is quite a step for Antarctic exploration.”
“This will do nicely. Merci,” Denise said, busting out one of the few French words she actually knew. Best to stay on Benoit’s good side if she really wanted to know more about what was going on here.
“But of course. Glad to be of assistance.” Dr. Benoit started to turn around to talk to one of the other scientists before something occurred to him. “I suppose I should make you aware of one last thing. It will be better to get it out of the way now.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. You will have free access to the crew area here on the station. Your room here. The mess hall. You can even visit the small library we keep, if you wish. All the books are in French, though. However, as I said before, you must not, under any circumstances, enter the science facility. Our equipment is exceptionally sensitive. We cannot have any accidental influence in the data.”
“Of course.” Denise would try to worm her way into seeing what was inside there later, but it was better to seem agreeable first.
Benoit glanced at some of the other French researchers gathered in the hallway before he said anything else. He licked his cracked lips. “There is something else, though. I realize you will want to explore a bit outside, especially if we get a break in this wind.”
“Absolutely,” Denise half-lied. Being one of the first women to ever walk around on the southern-most land in the world was fun on an intellectual level. Feeling the cold slap her in the face like a drunk husband took the charm off real quick, though.
“We have a few teams out in the field. This is very important. If you encounter any of our people out there on the ice, don’t approach them. Come back here and tell us where you saw them, if it looks like they might be in trouble. Whatever you do, don’t try to help them. We have the proper equipment here at the station to deal with any problems. Do you understand me? Don’t try to help them.”
Denise nodded. The truth was, she didn’t understand at all.
FOUR
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
Denise sat in the mess hall, spooning her meal around. Cornelia and Metrodora sat on either side of her. Technically, it was late in the evening, and they were having dinner. With the perpetual sunlight outside and the buzzing overhead lights inside, it didn’t really matter, though. Denise could see how that could quickly grow disorienting. If someone’s sleep schedule were thrown off, it would be hard to distinguish three o’clock in the morning from three o’clock in the afternoon. It all looked the same.
One of the French researchers was also in the mess hall, sipping from a bowl of steaming soup. Benoit had given them the man’s name in a whirlwind of introductions earlier, but Denise had already forgotten it amid the rapid-fire list of new names and faces. She had no idea if the man spoke any English.
“We’ll wait until he leaves,” Denise said in Afrikaans, nodding in the man’s direction. She would have carried out the whole conversation in that language; she was fairly confident that none of the scientists here spoke the tongue. However, Metrodora could understand a lot of Afrikaans, but it was harder for her to speak it. They were going to have to use English for any conversations that involved all three of them. Plus, Denise was worried that the gears of suspicion would start turning in Benoit’s head if he walked in and heard them talking in a language no one else on the station could understand.
She and Cornelia started a half-hearted conversation about the weather while the Frenchman finished his meal. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them, but Denise wanted to discuss some sensitive matters, and their rooms were too cramped to host three people very easily. Metrodora scratched out notes in her journal while Denise and Cornelia chatted.
Finally, the researcher picked up his bowl and retreated out of the mess hall, meandering off in the direction of the laboratories in the science wing of the facility. Denise waited until she’d heard the man’s footsteps recede down the hallway before she got down to brass tacks.
“Alright, let’s pool our impressions here. We’ve all had a little time to wander around the facility and gather our thoughts. Metrodora, you’re the one who probably has the best idea of what the Squires are looking for. Have you spotted any smoking guns yet?”
Metrodora closed her notebook and put her pen away. “There is some unusual activity here.”
“Want to unpack that for us a little?”
“Fine. This facility is extremely new. Just constructed.”
“I noticed that, too.”
“Everything I’ve seen points to this place being thrown up quite quickly. Within the last few months or so, probably. They aren’t even completely done building their main docks, yet. They would have started construction during the last few months of winter. Normally, there would be no reason to be so eager to start building at that time. It would be cheaper and safer to wait until the warmest months to undertake such a project. That timeline seems to match up with roughly when the meteorite fell to earth here. Give or take the couple of weeks it probably took to find the impact site, of course.”
“Can I ask you something?” Cornelia asked, craning around to look at Metrodora.
“I reserve the right not to answer.”
“Alright, fair enough. How’d you get involved with St. George’s Squires?”
“They found me as a child wandering near the edge of a containment area, a region they’d fenced off due to
the dangerous or unusual fauna there. There was a breach, and one of the specimens escaped. I don’t remember any of it very well, but the farm I grew up on was destroyed when the creatures escaped. It was apparently a matter of luck that I survived. Someone thought I showed promise, so they kept me around instead of giving me to an orphanage.”
“How many of these containment areas you mentioned are there?”
“In Africa or the world as a whole?”
“Let’s stick with Africa.”
“Several dozen, spread out in remote locations. There’s considerably more elsewhere, though. India and Australia are particularly rich in unusual biological specimens.”
“And what exactly counts as an unusual biological specimen as far as St. George’s Squires are concerned?”
“It’s a multi-prong test. Something can fail part of the test but still catch our interest because it satisfies the other elements. First, we ask if the specimen in question is biologically divergent from its closest living relatives. What are its closest living relatives, and just how different is it from them? Then, we look at the creature’s natural range of habitat. How widespread is it, and how many specimens are likely to exist in the wild? Finally, and this is perhaps the most important question, just how dangerous is it?”
“So what exactly does your organization do when it finds a new monster?”
“Monster is considered a plebeian term among the Squires.”
Denise was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Metrodora was kind of a snot. “Yeah. I know you’re here to play nanny to us on this job because your boss is interested in whatever’s down here, but Cornelia and I are monster hunters. If it’s eating people, folks can hire us to deal with it. We’ve seen some things. You don’t have to talk to us like we’re children.”
Metrodora scoffed. “Please, you’re not monster hunters. That would imply you’re professionals. You’re just a couple of regular hunters who have been lucky enough to survive some unpleasant incidents and think you know everything now. You don’t have protocols. You don’t have facilities. You’re a couple of ad-hoc cowboys who have caught our attention. If you impress us here, we might give you some real training and access to our archives so you actually know what you’re talking about in the future.”
