Jake was about to reply when the door to the building opened again with a blast of snow and Cody staggered inside. He heaved the door shut behind him and stared at the vehicles in surprise.
‘Christ, do they still work?’
‘No reason why they shouldn’t,’ Bradley said. ‘They were both switched off and in here when the storm hit. If any cables have fried we should be able to find replacements from the communications building.’
‘You set the beacon?’ Jake asked Cody.
Cody nodded. Even wrapped up against the bitter cold with the best Arctic clothing available his skin was still mottled red and seemed raw to look at.
‘It’s done,’ he gasped. ‘But I barely made it back. Storm’s too big.’
Jake looked across at Bradley, whose shoulders fell.
‘And there’s the catch,’ he said. ‘No GPS because the satellites are down. One wrong turn and even with all that fuel we could be stranded. Not to mention the danger of getting stuck in those damned crevasses. Some of them are a hundred feet deep and even a BV won’t get back out, plus they’re probably half filled with snow drifts by now.’
‘We wouldn’t see them,’ Bethany sighed.
‘Maybe we could use maps to track our progress, you know, like people used to do before GPS,’ Bobby suggested. ‘If we set up a beacon at Alert Five, we could home in on that, then away from it heading south. We get a few miles under our belt using that as a reference, we might have enough trajectory to maintain accuracy all the way south.’
‘What’s going on?’ Cody asked.
Jake filled him in on the discussion. Cody digested it slowly.
‘So we’re done,’ he said finally. ‘Even with these things we’re not getting out of here.’
‘Not until the spring,’ Jake said. ‘Whichever way we look at it, we’ll stand more chance of dying than living if we go now. We’re just too far north and the conditions too dangerous to even attempt the journey.’
Cody felt numb and not just from the cold. He could no longer find the strength to say anything and simply stared into space as though he were a machine that had ground to a halt like all the others.
‘There’s nothing more we can do, Cody,’ Bethany said.
Jake turned away from Cody. ‘We’d best get our heads down,’ he said. ‘We can talk again in the morning.’
Jake turned for the warehouse door. Bethany looked at Cody for a long moment and briefly squeezed his forearm as she passed by. Bradley, Sauri, Reece and Bobby all moved off in silence. Charlotte hesitated as she left the room, and looked back at Cody.
‘We’ll think of something,’ she said. ‘We all want out of here.’
Cody managed a barely perceptible nod as Charlotte disappeared.
He didn’t know for how long he stood in silence in the warehouse, staring into space and abhorring the vacuum of despair that seemed to have sucked all emotion from his body and left a crippled, empty shell.
He turned finally and walked out of the warehouse, slamming the door shut behind him. A set of keys jangled in the lock, their metallic tinkle just audible above the howling wind. Cody looked down at them for a long moment, and then yanked them from the lock and set off across the compound.
He walked with his head down, his Arctic hood battered by the howling wind as he fought his way to Polaris Hall. He fumbled with keys in the locks for several minutes before he found the right one and heaved the door open. He locked it behind him before fumbling through the darkened building by flashlight until he found the operations room.
It was dark but warm inside, and the darkness was speckled with hundreds of multi-coloured blinking lights as the satellite receivers continued to record the eerie silence in the world beyond the Arctic Circle.
Cody slid out of his cumbersome jacket and tossed his journal onto a nearby work station.
He hit the lights, illuminating the room, and then sat down in a lightly padded chair in front of a monitor. He spent a few minutes merely examining the room around him: the various stations, computers, screens, immense banks of radios and transponders.
Finally, he got up and moved his journal and coat to another station that faced a series of radios.
Cody had never worked in a military installation in his life, and knew that had he ventured into this building under ordinary circumstances he would have been shot on sight. But now that he was here it was fairly clear how the layout of the room betrayed the general role of the different stations.
The majority of the room was concerned with receiving and analysing signals intelligence. On one wall, a large map of the world was tagged with thousands of frequencies, probably bands used by military forces around the world.
The corner in which he now sat was a listening post, fitted with headphones and various frequency dials. Cody reached out and picked up a set of discarded headphones, then slipped them over his head. A featureless, empty hiss filled his lonely world.
Cody reached out and turned a dial. The dial altered a digital display that read the frequency being listened to. Cody hit a button marked AMPLIFY. The hiss in his ears changed tone and became sharper.
Cody leaned back in the chair and used the instruments before him to set the radios on a band-sweep from the lowest frequency signal to the highest. Then, he set them to sweep both for range and for emergency distress beacons.
Almost instantly the earphones yelped in his ear and he nearly fell out of the chair as a loud, rhythmic claxon rang through his skull.
Cody stared at the banks of radios as the insistent beeping filled his world, and then sank back into his seat in disappointment at his own stupidity. The system was detecting the distress beacon at Alert Five that he had placed himself.
A useful test, he reminded himself.
Cody settled back into his seat and reset the sweep.
***
SAVIOUR
Week 21
My dearest Maria,
I struggle now to write to you, so bleak is our predicament. Though I know we are probably doomed, I cannot bring myself to abandon the hope to which we all cling so desperately.
The winter has been appalling. Storms blast the ice without surcease for days on end, entrapping us within the accommodation block. We are prisoners here, Mother Nature our merciless gaoler. All is darkness, briefly illuminated by aurora that seem meek compared to the tremendous conflagration that consumed the skies months ago.
Our food supplies are perilously low although water is still being pumped from Dumbell Lake without issue. The diesel fuel stocks remain plentiful, but the bitter winter has taken its toll on us all. We are exhausted and suffering from bouts of depression brought on by our hunger and the permanent darkness that enshrouds Alert. Even the arrival of periods of twilight where the ice and sky glow a peculiar blue-grey has not alleviated our symptoms. The lack of contact with the outside world weighs heavily upon our shoulders.
Jake remains in command and his leadership has been unquestioned, but he is tiring physically. I have no desire to take over from him but am offering what support I can. Reece Cain has withdrawn into himself even further. Charlotte is depressed and almost unapproachable, Bethany even more quiet than usual. Bobby remains active and, frankly, is pulling the load for us when it comes to hard work in the storms outside.
Bradley and Sauri remain thick as thieves, but they hunt for us and bring back a variety of Arctic hares, even wolves on occasion. Such food is infinitely appreciated, but sometimes I feel as though we are surviving as much on our hopes of rescue as anything.
The air quality measurements we have continued to take from the Air Observatory have shown a puzzling and ominous trend. Atmospheric pollutants of all kinds are declining over time. Bethany assures us that this can only be caused by one thing. Pollutants have risen consistently for decades during mankind’s tenure on our planet. Now, only humanity’s complete absence of industrial activity can account for the reversal of the trend. Few of us are willing to dwell at length on the c
onsequences of this most damning piece of evidence.
To support it, the rest of the world remains utterly, brutally silent.
I cannot express in words how much I miss you, Maria. I wish I could.
***
10
The ice glowed a strange, luminous blue, glistening and sparkling as though encrusted with a billion diamonds. Shadows cast by ripples in the surface sliced the ice like stripes on a white tiger.
Cody Ryan stood on a low ridge and looked toward Crystal Mountain and Mount Pullen, about nine miles due south of Alert. The saddle between the two mountains was glowing as though aflame, distant bands of cloud ripped and torn by buffeting winds as rays of sunlight soared across the heavens like the outspread fingers of a god.
Cody watched as for the first time in months the sun rose with a sudden flare of bright light that hurt his eyes, brilliant in the clear Arctic air. Though a cold wind fussed its way across the plains he barely felt it, his skin hardened to the polar chill by the harsh caress of a hundred winter blizzards.
Bethany Rogers stood alongside Cody, her arm looped through his. Cody’s other arm was draped across Bobby Leary’s shoulders as they watched the glorious sunrise. Jake McDermott stood with Reece and Sauri, Charlotte Dennis alongside Bradley, whose arm was draped around her waist. Nobody spoke. All simply stood and let the wondrous light wash over them. There was no warmth, even the sun’s immense power humbled so far north.
But that mattered little.
‘Thought we’d never see it again,’ Bobby murmured.
Cody stared at the sun rising agonisingly slowly between the two mountains, a fearsome halo of nuclear fire that had stripped the planet of mankind’s presence and yet now washed over them like the first sip of water after months of drought.
Jake McDermott’s reply was laden with caution.
‘Baby steps,’ he replied. ‘We’ll have to let the ice melt before we can make a move.’
Cody swallowed thickly but said nothing. Bradley hawked up a globule of phlegm and spat it out onto the pristine ice at their feet.
‘Like hell. We’re out of here.’
The soldier turned to walk away but was arrested by Jake’s voice.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ the old man insisted. ‘Just because the sun’s up doesn’t mean that ravines are passable. We need to give ourselves every advantage before we set off because we’ll only get one shot at this. Screw it up and we’ll be pinned down for another winter.’
Cody saw Charlotte’s head fall within her hood, a puff of breath clouding in disillusionment as she turned away from the sunrise and began trudging back toward the base.
‘This isn’t about our chances,’ Bradley snapped back at Jake, his voice loud on the silent air. ‘This is about morale, which in case you hadn’t noticed is about as low as the goddamned temperature right now.’
Jake glanced at Cody for support. From somewhere deep inside Cody dredged up the will to speak.
‘We’ve been up here five months,’ he said to Bradley. ‘A couple more weeks isn’t going to make much difference.’
‘How the hell would you know?!’ The soldier pointed toward the rising sun. ‘A couple of hours could make all the difference. I thought you had family down Boston way? You not worried about seeing them again?’
Cody glared at Bradley from within his hood as a spark of defiance flared through him.
‘We’ll only get a couple of hours of light per day right now,’ he pointed out. ‘At ten miles a day it’ll take us two months to make Eureka. You want to spend all that time cooped up in a Bandvagn, you just go ahead right now! We’ll follow you in a few weeks and probably pass the wreckage of your BV down a crevasse somewhere. Your call.’
Bradley blustered and fumed, but did not reply. Instead he stormed back toward the base, muttering under his breath.
‘He’s losing it,’ Bobby observed. ‘Becoming more of a hinderance than an asset.’
Jake looked at Sauri, who was watching them in silence.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ Jake suggested. ‘He decides to steal a BV, let us know, okay?’
Sauri said nothing in reply.
‘We need to leave,’ Bethany said, ‘as soon as it’s safe.’
‘We will,’ Jake promised her. ‘But right now we’ve got supplies to last us another few weeks and…’
‘It’s not about supplies,’ Bethany cut across him. ‘Brad is right. We can’t survive much longer up here alone. Even if we had food and supplies and everything that we wanted, we’re not supposed to be here Jake. It’s not our place. If we stay too long it will kill us all long before we run out of food.’
Jake watched Bethany as she turned away, her hands shoved in her pockets as she walked through the snow toward the base. He glanced across at Cody.
‘We can’t leave yet,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’
Cody struggled to control his own desperate desire to set off for home, as though he were keeping a lid on top of a boiling cauldron of fury.
‘The inactivity is driving us all crazy,’ Cody replied. ‘Just making some kind of progress might help.’
Jake nodded thoughtfully and made a decision.
‘Okay, get Brad to start up the BVs. We may as well begin training to drive the damned things, just around the base. It’ll set us up for when we leave.’
Cody turned and walked off the ridge, waving for Sauri to join him.
‘Now that we’ve got a little more light,’ Cody said to the Inuit, ‘how about you take that rifle of yours and see if you can find us something to eat that will last longer than hares?’
Sauri nodded and looked up at the horizon.
‘I’ll need Brad with me,’ he said. ‘Polar bears and their pups come out of dens with the spring, and the wolves are hungry.’
‘Sure,’ Cody agreed. ‘I’ll get Brad to instruct me on the BVs. Then he can go with you.’
Sauri was silent for a few moments as they walked.
‘Bethany is a vegetarian,’ Sauri said. ‘She doesn’t eat much of the meat.’
Cody looked down at the Inuit in surprise. ‘I didn’t know. When did she tell you?’
Sauri spoke quietly. ‘She gives me her meat. I give her my biscuits.’
‘What biscuits?’
Sauri said nothing for a long moment, looking down at his feet as he walked.
‘Brad found biscuits in the storage hangar when we moved here. He hid them in case we run out of food and reckoned he and I would take them with us if we decided to try for Ottawa.’
Cody digested this for a moment. ‘Why didn’t you tell somebody?’
‘I told Jake,’ Sauri replied, ‘right after. He said to say nothing to anybody. I think he wanted Brad to leave.’
Cody nodded. ‘How come you got stuck with him? Before, I mean, when we arrived?’
‘The camp commander asked me to keep an eye on Bradley,’ Sauri explained. ‘He said that Bradley was a rotten apple.’
‘No shit.’
‘You say nothing, okay?’ Sauri asked.
‘Nothing.’
Cody walked to the accommodation block and told Brad about the training. For the next hour Cody drove the BV up and down the snow covered runway, avoiding the larger drifts as he practiced. The sun set behind the Winchester Mountains, and the BV’s headlights cut through the darkness as he drove back into the main compound and into the storage hangar where the other BV sat waiting.
‘Nothing to it,’ Bradley clapped him on the shoulder as he sat alongside Cody in the cab. ‘We’ll try rougher terrain later, but as long as you plan ahead you’ll be fine.’
Cody shut off the BV’s batteries and clambered from the cab.
‘First thing in the morning, you and Sauri need to go hunt something tasty, okay?’
‘Fine by me.’
Cody slammed the cab door shut as they walked to the hangar’s main doors and began hauling them closed. As he watched Bradley drive his shoulder into the metal doors he wondered what motivate
d the man to make plans to deceive his companions within just days of their problems starting. Cowardice? Selfishness? Stupidity? Nothing quite fit.
The doors crashed shut and Bradley dropped two heavy latches into place to secure them against the storms. Cody decided to take a chance as the soldier worked.
‘Brad, I need you to do me a favour.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I think that Jake is tiring. He’s burning the candle at both ends trying to keep everybody motivated and it’s wearing him down.’
Bradley secured the latches and stood up. He was a couple of inches taller than Cody and probably twenty pounds heavier, all of it muscle.
‘So?’
‘So I want somebody to help him lead the group.’
Bradley looked down at him for a long beat. ‘You think I’m some kind of asshole?’
‘What?’
Bradley’s wide jaw fractured into a grin. ‘You don’t like me. Nobody here much does because I speak my mind and don’t give a damn about what you all think. You don’t want me to help you lead this little group, and who says you’re taking charge anyway?’
‘It’s not about taking charge,’ Cody replied. ‘It’s about having some kind of hierarchy, no matter how subtle. Jake’s the most experienced of us all but he’s too damned cautious. We need to get out of here.’
Bradley’s grin did not slip. ‘Are you thinking of a mutiny, Doctor Ryan?’
‘A vote,’ Cody said. ‘We pull out in a couple of weeks, not a couple of months.’
‘You think that your girlfriend will go for that?’
‘Bethany wants out, so does Charlotte.’
‘I know what Charlotte wants,’ Bradley replied. ‘What about Cain?’
‘Who the hell knows?’ Cody uttered. ‘But if you, Sauri, Bethany, Charlotte and myself all stand together, we’ll win the vote.’
‘Can’t speak for Sauri,’ Bradley muttered. ‘Hell, he can hardly speak for himself. I can test the water though.’
‘Do it,’ Cody said. ‘Or we’ll be half and half and that won’t achieve a damn thing.’
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