The second descent down into the crevasse took far less time, simply because they rappelled directly back to the spot where Ruger had found the structural beam. This time, Abbott took along the handheld radio secured to his outer gear to keep in contact with Lisk.
Above, Allison Bryson again felt the abandonment when Ruger and Abbott dropped out of sight. The mood quickly changed as all five men disappeared over the edge, the only sound being the squeaking of the ropes as they stretched against the heavy strain. Beside her along the ridge, Prall and Monroe still sat like gargoyles, silhouetted against a sky that she noticed was turning to an ominous gray far off in the distance. On the tip of the horizon, it had become like ebony. She had seen enough of that disturbing type of darkness before here in Antarctica to know that somewhere out there, severe weather was taking place. The wind direction seemed to favor them. She had learned that from Ruger. Perhaps the weather would pass them by.
A grayness was now cast upon the glacial slope, but the polished ice still emitted a hint of sparkle despite the waning sunlight. Inside her suit, a shiver found its way down along her spine. She only wished she’d remembered to urinate before they’d come back up to the ridge.
In the world of ice exploration, there was one cardinal rule. You didn’t do anything out here unless somebody was along to bail you out when you made your mistakes. Ruger had no problem with that. He had a problem, though, with John Lightfoot. Lightfoot, as it turned out, for all the bravado and panache, suffered from acrophobia. The son-of-a-bitch is terrified of heights, Ruger had found out, and in a way he pitied the man who was fighting desperately to overcome his fears just for the sake of getting a few photographs, which he’d probably never get to see anyway. Ruger couldn’t fault the man, despite his dislike for Lightfoot. But as a result, Ruger, accompanying the slow rappelling Lightfoot down the ice wall, was the last one to reach the location where the vaulted ceiling began.
The other three men hung in the semi-darkness of the surreal world in total silence. The yellow beams of the carbide light illuminated the massive structure attached to the underside vault of the ice. It gave the impression that it was holding up the entire Mulock Glacier above.
“Holy shit…” Lightfoot whispered in amazement, as if raising his voice would have committed some act of sacrilege. He hung swaying slowly next to Ruger who was silently studying the beam with his light. “I’ve got to get a picture of this,” Lightfoot whispered again, fumbling trying to reach his satchel hanging free from a strap at his side.
“Just hold off, John,” Ruger suggested, catching a peripheral glimpse of Lightfoot’s intention.
Abbott, who had been awaiting Ruger’s arrival, said, “The rest of you wait here while Mike and I make a run to see if we can hit bottom.” Abbott called Lisk on the radio to inform him of their intention.
Lightfoot, ignoring Ruger’s half-hearted warning not to play around with trying to retrieve his camera, was too taken by the surrealism of the icy abyss. He thought he had seen everything there was left to see out on The Ice. Lightfoot was totally in awe of the whole new world surrounding him, and the creative juices began to flow giving him a whole new perspective of Antarctica.
Lightfoot somehow managed to get one of his two cameras out of the gear bag and maneuvered it into position . The camera already had a flash unit mounted on it, but he had difficulty activating the tiny switch to turn on the thyristor circuit because of the bulky gloves. Lightfoot had a pair of closely-woven, synthetic, fingered gloves that he always used when taking pictures in the extreme cold. They allowed him to retain dexterity while handling the cold metals. But the damn things were in the bottom of the gear bag. He wouldn’t have been able to rappel wearing his camera gloves.
Lightfoot continued to curse to himself because of his logistical predicament. He was wearing functional clothing for photographing in harsh conditions, but because of having to rappel down the ice wall, the camera gear bag had to be toted along separately, slung around on his back. Normally, his one-piece windsuit and bib-fronted insulated salopette trousers were ideal for protecting his camera which would be slung underneath. Now he had to hassle with dangling in the air while trying to swing the gear bag back around to the front.
Ruger and Abbott had already begun their descent as Lightfoot composed his first shot, which was of the two of them descending down into the darkened abyss. Almshouse and Grimes both were watching him with curiosity. Almshouse, who had an interest in photography himself, asked, “How do you keep them from freezing up?”
“What? The cameras?” Lightfoot replied, not looking up but answering aside. “These are Olympus OM-1’s. A bit outdated by today’s standards, but I still like them because they’re lightweight and have a minimal amount of electronics. I got these from one of their tech reps years ago. Never got rid of them. Nowadays I only use them in extreme cold. They’ve got special molybdenum and silicone lubricants. Won’t freeze up…well, anyway, won’t freeze as quickly when the temperature gets ridiculous.”
“Too bad you can’t take a time exposure from this position,” Almshouse said.
“Hopefully…” Lightfoot snapped off another shot, “…I’ll get some at the bottom. Later.”
Though it was quite apparent Lightfoot was the consummate professional, Grimes and Almshouse couldn’t help being entertained by his contortions as he tried desperately to get his precious pictures. What he saw in his own mind was beyond what Grimes was seeing. This place—this compromising position hanging in the air—wasn’t exactly to his liking. But they waited, hanging just below the vaulted ceiling of the ice cavern. Ruger and Abbott, at that same moment, had arrived at the bottom.
It was cold. A penetrating kind of coldness, unlike the super dry environment on the surface of the continent. Down here, the air for some reason seemed slightly saturated with moisture, but it shouldn’t have felt that way. But at least there was no air movement to make the wind chill a factor. It was a different world, a lost world, a world neither made nor meant for humans or any other life form above the microbe level. Yet the humans were here, exploring its cavernous depth simply because it existed, searching for the tempting secrets that had been unwittingly revealed that perhaps should not have been revealed.
And it was dark. There was perhaps only enough light present to reveal the subtle geometrical patterns of the fractures where the stress had ripped open the crevasse, exposing the inner mechanism of ice, probably the most powerful force in nature. And far below still, underneath the massive weight of the ice, the earth’s mantle was crushed under pressure so unbelievable that men could only attempt to explain in human terms that which they cannot possibly fully comprehend.
Ruger’s depth perception was usually excellent, but even he had difficulty finding his footing at the bottom where the “V” of the crevasse signaled the temporary cessation of the splitting. The floor was uneven, splintered, and it made for difficult movement once he tried to move around, after having let go of the slack in the rope. His carbide light cast an ominous, shadowy effect. Ruger panned the bottom of the abyss. When the light reached the area where Abbott had set down, Ruger saw him holding the last few feet of rope. Both of them had run to the end, which made the depth about a hundred and fifty feet from the surface.
“The fracture’s recent,” Ruger said in a low voice, and it reverberated through the cavern.
“Abbott to Lisk,” he heard through the radio static.
“Go ahead,” came the response.
“We’re at the bottom,” Abbott replied, almost reverently.
“Roger,” Lisk responded.
Where they had touched down, as their eyes became adjusted to the darkness, they saw they were in a cavern that had somehow opened up in the interior wall. Ruger imagined that it looked like an enormous bubble of air had once been trapped here and, like the inside of a gelatin mold, had somehow managed to escape being crushed by the massive weight of the ice above.
But whatever the cause or the reason
, the bottom part of the crevasse, at least at this location, was gouged inward revealing a cavern with a vaulted ceiling reminiscent of an ancient cathedral. Barely visible through the darkness, about halfway to the surface, they could make out the dangling images of the other three men, silhouetted against the thinly lighted crack of the ice ceiling. Once, Ruger saw a flash of light, correctly assuming it was Lightfoot doing what he was brought along to do.
“How do you know it’s recent?” Abbott asked.
“Huh?” Ruger responded, jolted back into the reality of the predicament. “Yeah. I said that the ice is fractured and the edges are still relatively sharp,” he replied, running his gloved hand along a crystal spike. “If this crevasse had been opened up for a long time, the edges would be smoother because of sublimation.”
“How long is recent?”
“I’ve no idea, actually,” Ruger replied. “I’m just telling you what I’ve learned from Hilly. I’m sure he’ll be able to give us a better answer.”
“Doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?” Abbott said, panning the walls with his light. “Jesus,” he said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Look,” Ruger said, pointing his light. “Over there. I think the crevasse goes down even deeper.”
Unhooking their rappelling gear, both men cautiously moved along the uneven floor, side stepping the shards of splintered ice as they moved toward what looked like a continuation of the split. Ruger stopped several feet short to peer over the edge. He was right. The crevasse continued, and the split here was narrow where the solid floor ended.
“A crevasse within a crevasse,” Abbott commented aside.
“It’s actually just one,” Ruger responded. “We’re standing on the part that hasn’t split yet.”
“That’s encouraging,” Abbott said, tossing a small piece of ice down into the darkness. They listened, but didn’t hear it hit any bottom. “Guess you didn’t bring enough rope, huh?”
“No need,” Ruger responded, and Abbott turned his head to see that Ruger was shining his light on the ghostly, structural beam. It appeared like it was fused to the curved ceiling of the vault. At the base of the beam, it was contorted as if it had been twisted and then torn from whatever it had been previously attached to. Ruger judged the whole length of the beam to be about fifty feet. Below the bottom portion of the twisted metal, there was only the ice wall.
“It had to come from somewhere,” Abbott said.
“Yeah,” Ruger responded. “But how far down or how far in. That thing could have been traveling through the ice for God knows how long.”
“Years, maybe.”
Ruger looked at him. “More than that, Marsh. I’m talking a long time here.”
For a few moments, both men were silent, the sobering thought sinking in. Only the faint, barely detectable sound of the groaning ice was present. They could hear it from deep within the narrow crack.
Abbott let out a sigh, and even in the darkness, the cloud of white breath lingered in the still air. “My God, Mike,” he said. “Do you realize what we’ve found?”
“I think I’m beginning to,” Ruger replied. “It’s a piece of a building.”
“Or a vessel. It could be from a ship.”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Ruger responded. “We’re too high up in elevation.”
“I wasn’t talking about the ocean, Mike. It could very well be from some type of space-faring vessel.”
“Is that possible?” Ruger answered, not equating the possibility that was going through Abbott’s mind at the moment.
“This thing didn’t arrive here in our lifetime, that’s for sure,” Abbott said.
“What are we going to do?” Ruger asked.
“We’re going to see if we can find out what it broke away from,” Abbott answered, pointing the light toward the bottom of the ice wall.
“Let’s get Hilly and Peter down here,” Ruger suggested. “They’re the experts. Maybe they can figure out the path this thing has taken by studying the pattern of the ice fracturing.”
“I’ll get Lightfoot to take a lot of pictures. We may need them later.”
“Let me check out the rest of the floor, first,” Ruger said. “I don’t want anybody falling down that crevasse.”
“Roger,” Abbott responded, then called Lisk one more time to advise him of what they’d found and what his intentions were.
In the course of the next hour, after coaxing Lightfoot to come down the rest of the way, collectively the five men studied the contours of the fractures and the layering of ice. Lightfoot popped off shot after shot of the mysterious structure that looked like a giant appendage growing out of the ice. Grimes theorized that the flow of the glacier had carried the beam upward in the same way that rocks were transported to the surface. That meant that whatever it was connected to at the other end of the beam—and they could now clearly see that it had been torn away from something—it had to be somewhere below. How far below was anybody’s guess. Almshouse had formulated a few theories of his own, but needed to sketch some illustrations to show them.
While the others speculated, Abbott formulated the strategy. Collectively, they agreed to the best course of action where the least amount of preliminary excavating would need to be done to see if they were right. The only thing they needed to agree on was which location was the optimum one to begin digging. The day had already been exhausting. And it was cold down here, a foreboding kind of coldness. Both agreed to call it a day, go back to the camp and get some food and rest. They would talk further this evening before turning in.
It took close to an hour for all of them to ascend the ice wall. Once back at the top, Ruger sensed the change in Allison’s mood almost instantly when he looked at her. Her frown turned to a smile. But he also sensed the change in atmospheric pressure and peered at the ebony sky far off in the distance.
“Good thing we came out now,” he said to Abbott, nodding at the storm clouds.
“We were keeping a watch,” Lisk assured him.
“It’s not the squall I’m worried about,” Ruger replied, shedding the gear which he was encouraging everyone to quickly pack away in the snowmobiles.
“Let’s get back to camp,” Abbott ordered. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. Take an hour to get something to eat, then we’ll meet again in my tent and lay out a course of action.”
With everything secured, they started up the machines and moved off the ridge. Lightfoot wedged himself onto the back of Ruger’s machine behind Allison, whose displeasure at the inconvenience was quite apparent.
They arrived at the camp, and Ruger directed the parking of the snowmobiles exactly where they had departed from. But as he dismounted, Ruger sensed that something was out of place, not the way he had left it. Ruger was subconsciously attentive to every detail, every subtle feature of the terrain, every placement of man-made objects. It took a few moments for him to realize that the configuration of the camp setup had been disturbed. One of the four supply skids had been moved away from the center of the camp where earlier in the day they had been strategically arranged. The sled was near the tent that was being occupied by Prall and Monroe. Ruger snapped his head to look at Prall, who stared back with his usual expressionless face. Annoyed, but not wanting to create another scene in view of the others, Ruger motioned him aside.
Prall’s smugness was grating as he replied, defiantly, “I didn’t move your sled, Ruger.”
“Then who did?” Ruger responded. “Dr. Bryson, maybe? It was moved since we’ve been down in the crevasse. You and Monroe are the only ones who could have moved it.”
Prall was in his face. “I don’t know who moved it, and frankly I don’t care. Why don’t you ask Dr. Bryson?”
“Look, Prall,” Ruger replied, angrily, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know if you’re playing games with me or what. But I don’t like it.”
Prall only smiled. Whether he was being intimidated or just didn’t find the confrontation worth th
e effort, Ruger couldn’t sense. Ruger was glad he was walking away, glad he hadn’t pushed it any further. The anger and the exhaustion were starting to show. But as Prall walked away, Ruger couldn’t help saying, “From now on, Prall, the sleds stay exactly where I put them. Got it?”
“Fuck you, Ruger,” Prall responded over his shoulder.
Ruger knew the comment was meant to infuriate him, but for some reason it didn’t. Maybe he was more tired than he thought. They were all tired. This was no time to expend precious energy on a senseless confrontation. He sloughed off the comment.
“The least you can do is help me move it back,” he called to Prall who was entering the tent.
Prall responded, only loudly enough for Ruger to hear, “Fucking move it yourself.”
Everyone else had disappeared into the tents. Ruger stood alone in the middle of the encampment. The frigid wind began to pick up just like he had anticipated. He hoped it didn’t get too bad an hour from now, or else they’d be prevented from congregating in Abbott’s tent to discuss tomorrow’s plans.
Ruger looked up at the sky. Nearby, it was turning charcoal gray, and he hoped for Abbott’s sake that the communications link-up wasn’t too disrupted by the atmospheric conditions. No doubt, Abbott was sending out the information about what they had discovered deep within the crevasse, although it seemed unlikely the transmission would be received at all.
As Ruger gazed down onto the glacial field below, he took a deep breath to try to calm himself. This guy Prall had been nothing but trouble since he’d laid eyes on him. And then along comes John Lightfoot to compound matters. Speaking of which, Ruger thought, he’s with Allison right now in our tent. Allison could handle him, though. If anybody could, it was her.
The solitude and desolation of the wild was what made Mike Ruger strong. After several minutes of staring off into the distance, comfortable again in his familiar world, Ruger cleared his mind of the day’s aggravation and started to recap the events. The impact of the discovery of the strange beam was beginning to hit home. Even Hilly had agreed with Peter Almshouse that it could have been there for hundreds or even thousands of years. Maybe tens of thousands. If that was true…
The Nexus Colony Page 19
