Time of the Great Freeze

by Robert Silverberg

  "Hand me the sterilizer," Carl said softly.

  Jim peered down, shaken by the sight of the wound. It seemed to him that Dom's whole chest had been laid open. Was that his heart, throbbing in there? What were those coiling, thrashing serpents in his body?

  After a long moment Jim moved away, and climbed out of the sled. He peered to the westward, saw the tiny dots of the Dooney folk far to their rear. Then, shrugging heavily, he scuffed at the loose layer of snow above the ice, and went back to the other sled to wait.

  It seemed as though days went by. But the sun was still high in the heavens when Carl and Dr. Barnes rose, long-faced and dark of visage. Carl's hands were covered with blood, and smears of blood stained his light blond hair. Jim looked across, and saw his father slowly shaking his head.

  "It's no use," Dr. Barnes said. "Only a miracle could have saved him. We just aren't miracle workers."

  They hewed a grave in the ice, and laid Dom to rest six feet down, and covered the place over, leaving no marker, for who could tell what desecration would be performed on him if they marked where he lay?

  When the job was done, they entered the sleds and journeyed sadly onward.

  The Dooney folk had had their toll after all.

  8

  A SEA OF ICE

  The following morning, the slope leveled out, and they knew they had reached the Atlantic. There was no rejoicing. The day was another cold, bleak one, and their mood of mourning deepened. Behind them now lay the entire American continent-and the body of one of their number.

  The nature of their journey was changing at this point. Thus far they had traveled over mile-thick glacier with solid land beneath. But the glacier had thinned in a gentle slope of more than a hundred miles, sweeping down to the edge of the sea. Now the sea lay before them-a sea of ice, frozen solid as far as the eye could tell, but treacherous of underpinning, unpredictable, dangerous. From here until they reached the European continent, the menace of an ice breakup would hover over them. They would never know whether the ice beneath the runners of their sled was sixty feet thick, or six hundred, or six inches-until the moment when they crashed through the fragile crust.

  It looked solid enough. That was all they could go by.

  Dr. Barnes decided on a cautious approach, at least at the outset. Halting the sleds, he explained that someone would have to walk out onto the ice and test its strength. "If it'll bear one man's weight, of course, that's still no guarantee it'll hold up under a sled. But at least this way we'll know if it's really weak."

  They drew lots, and Chet Farrington was chosen.

  He seemed unperturbed. "Just be ready to fish out fast if I go under," he told them.

  He started out on the ice.

  He walked the first twenty feet as though he were walking on a bridge of glass, spanning a mile-deep abyss. Taking step after gingerly step, he edged out onto the shining white surface of the ice pack. But he seemed to build up confidence as he went along. Soon he was striding merrily, jauntily. He was a quarter of a mile away when he turned and waved to the men in the sleds.

  Another twenty yards and he was dancing on the ice, jumping up and down to test its strength. Again and again he bounded up, landed with both boots digging into the ice, and strode on. In ten minutes he was only a dot in the distance.

  "Looks safe enough," Ted Callison said. "At least this part. I'm for going."

  Dr. Barnes nodded. "So am I," he said. "But one sled at a time. There's no sense doubling the risk."

  "Okay," Ted said. "My sled goes, then. You follow us if we don't get into any trouble."

  The sled slid forward. It carried only two passengers, Ted and Roy Veeder.

  Jim watched, taut-nerved, ready to scramble out onto the ice if the sled broke through and slipped into water. But nothing went wrong. Picking up speed as it went, the sled edged out steadily onto the ice pack, and soon it had caught up to Chet, far in the distance.

  Jim looked at his father. He nodded. Dave Ellis, at the controls of their sled, opened the throttle and they set out after Ted and Roy and Chet. Soon, both sleds were side by side, moving speedily and smoothly over the ice.

  It swiftly became evident that their extra caution had been unnecessary-at least this close to shore. The ice felt solid and substantial beneath them. Probably the pack was several hundred feet thick here, sturdy enough to support any number of sleds.

  * * *

  They halted in midafternoon. Ted's sled was far in the lead at that point, but it came to a stop and waited for the other to catch up with it.

  What looked like open water lay just ahead.

  "It's a lake," Ted told them. "I scouted it while I was waiting for you. We'll have to detour. It's at least a mile long, but there's solid ice all around it."

  "Just a big hole in the ice," Roy Veeder added. "I wonder what it's doing here?"

  They parked the sleds and advanced on foot to inspect the open water. Oddly, the ice seemed sturdy right up to the edge of the "lake." It was as though some giant had spooned out a great chunk of ice, and had filled the gaping hole with water.

  "Summer melt is beginning," Dave Ellis remarked. "There must be a warm current passing through here that keeps this little stretch clear." He knelt at the edge, broke off a brittle chunk of waterlogged ice. "See? It's starting to melt back. This hole will probably double in size by July, and then gradually freeze again through the winter."

  "Does it go right down to the bottom?" Carl asked.

  Dave grinned. "Your guess is as good as mine. But it looks to be at least a hundred feet deep. Maybe it goes clear down to the sea itself."

  Jim walked out on the rim of the crater in the ice field, and looked down. The water was so blue it seemed almost black. He cupped the palm of his hand, drew a little water up, tasted it.

  "Salty," he said. "I think it's ocean water."

  "I've got an idea," Chet Farrington announced suddenly. "I'm going to go fishing!"

  Everyone laughed-everyone but Chet, who turned out to be dead serious. As a zoologist, he said, he wanted to get a close-up look at fish, after having studied them secondhand all his life. "Besides," he admitted, "they say that fish are good to eat."

  "Are you a zoologist or just somebody who's always hungry?" Roy Veeder wanted to know.

  "Both," Chet said blandly. He ran back to the sleds and rummaged in the supply stores until he found a thirty-foot length of wire. He bent one end of it into a sharp hook and embedded a synthetic food pellet on it. To the general amusement of all, he sat down by the edge of the water and cast the line in, and waited as though he expected to be pulling fish out by the dozen at any moment.

  Jim and some of the others stood by him. All animal life was new and full of wonder for Jim as much as for Chet, and he longed to see a fish, to touch its scaly sides, to examine its gills. But when ten minutes had passed without a nibble on Chet's line, Jim started to give up hope.

  Back at the sled, Ted Callison had the radio set out again. His face was set in an expression of rigid concentration as he delicately adjusted the dials.

  There was the crackle of static, the sputter of noise…

  And then a voice.

  "London, yes. Who is this, please?"

  "New York calling. Callison, Ted Callison. I'm with Raymond Barnes and his party. Is this Noel Hunt?"

  "Can't hear you, New York!"

  "Is… this… Noel… Hunt…?"

  "Go on, New York," came the reply. "We are getting you now, New York."

  Ted pinwheeled his arm to signal the others. Jim ran to his father, who was studying the ice near the edge of the water, and called, "Ted's got London on the radio, Dad!"

  They gathered around-all but Chet, who went on dangling his line stolidly as though the entire success of their journey depended on his luck as a fisherman.

  Jim heard the tinny words: "You've left New York, you say?"

  "That's right," Ted said eagerly. "Eight of us-no, seven, now. We're on our way across the ice. We'r
e coming to visit London!"

  "Is this an official party?"

  Callison looked to Dr. Barnes for advice. The tall man shook his head slightly.

  "No," Ted said. "Not official. Just… just seven people coming to London. We've already gone about a hundred fifty miles. We should reach you within a month."

  "How are you traveling?"

  "By sled," Ted said. "We're coming across the ice."

  "But how will you cross the water?"

  "What water?"

  "The Atlantic!"

  "So far it's frozen," Ted replied. "Mostly, anyway. We hope to make it all the way across. We'll be seeing you soon, London!"

  "Why… why are you coming?" the faint voice out of the speaker said, perplexed.

  "Why?" Ted asked. "Why not? It's time for a visit, isn't it? Three hundred years underground is long enough. We're on our way, London!"

  There was silence from the other end, strange after Ted's jubilant whoop. Jim frowned. Why no word of encouragement, why no expression of excitement? The Londoner seemed merely baffled that anybody should want to undertake so arduous and improbable a journey.

  "Are you still there, London?" Ted asked after a moment.

  "Yes. Yes. But… all right, New York. Good-by, now. Good-by, New York!"

  "Hello?" Ted said. "Hello, hello, hello!"

  He looked up, shaking his head, and turned off the set.

  "They don't sound very friendly, do they?" Jim said.

  "Maybe he was just startled," Carl suggested. "After all, to find out that an expedition is actually coming across the Atlantic-"

  Dr. Barnes shook his head. "Even so, he might have seemed a little more enthusiastic. I wonder what sort of welcome we re in for, when we reach the other side. If we make it."

  * * *

  They were ready to leave. All but Chet. He had not eaten lunch with them, he had not helped to charge the sleds; he still sat by the edge of the water, long legs folded weirdly underneath him, patiently dangling his line into the water.

  "Should we leave him behind?" Ted Callison asked. "He doesn't need us, anyway. He can live off the fish he catches."

  "Then he'll go hungry," Roy said. "He hasn't caught one yet, has he?"

  Chet ignored the banter. He peered into the dark water as though trying to hocus fish onto his line with sheer will power. Suddenly he stiffened and tugged at the line.

  "I've got a bite!" he yelled. "Something took the bait!"

  "Reel it in, man!" Ted Callison urged him. "Maybe you've caught a whale!"

  The shining line came up out of the water. Chet stared in dismay. A wriggling, flopping creature no more than five inches long dangled from the end of his line.

  "Some whale!" Ted Callison roared.

  "A monster!" Carl whooped.

  Chet's embarrassment seemed to overwhelm his scientific curiosity. Red-faced, he muttered a curse and made as if to throw the tiny fish back into the water without even pausing to examine it.

  "Wait," Jim said. "Let me see!"

  He took the line and held it up. The fish was beautiful. Its sleek, scaly body glimmered like quicksilver in the sunlight. Beady eyes looked at him in mute appeal. The little creature's body seemed perfectly designed, shaped by a master hand, magnificently streamlined for a life in the water. Fascinated, Jim studied it a long moment. Then, carefully, he disengaged the hook and returned the fish to the water. It sped away like a streak of flame and was lost to sight.

  Jim remained, staring at the water.

  "What's the matter?" Ted asked him. "You hypnotized or something?"

  "It was a fish," Jim said. "I saw a fish!"

  "Of course you did. What of it?"

  "How many fish did you ever see in New York?"

  "Why, none," Ted said. "So?"

  Jim shook his head. "You don't understand, do you? Doesn't it excite you to be up here, seeing something new every day? Animals, fish-the sun, the moon, the stars…"

  "Well, sure, those things are interesting," Ted agreed.

  "It's more than just interesting to see them," Jim insisted. He fumbled for words. "It's… it's… oh, I don't know, it's like discovering the whole world all at once. It makes me feel dizzy. I want to grab hold of the moon and the sky. I want to sing loud enough to be heard down in New York. Just seeing a little squirming fish makes me feel that way. Do you realize we're the first New Yorkers to see a fish since… since around the year twenty-three hundred?"

  Jim realized that Ted was looking at him as if he had gone insane.

  "You don't understand, do you?" Jim asked quietly.

  The short, stocky man shrugged. "You're just over-enthusiastic about being up here," he said. "I guess it's a natural reaction, when you're young. You'll outgrow it."

  "I hope I don't," Jim shot back at him. "I wouldn't want to get as crusty and cantankerous as you are-Methusaleh."

  He sensed that Ted was having some fun with him. Callison was only twenty-four, after all, which didn't really give him the right to regard himself as a patriarch and Jim as a child.

  Ted grinned suddenly and threw his arm around Jim's shoulders. "Sure," he said. "I think it's the greatest thing in the world to be looking a fish in the eye. I mean that. Otherwise why would I be here?"

  * * *

  Later that day they had an entirely different kind of creature look them in the eye.

  They were on their way around the lake, which was turning out to be bigger than Ted's first estimate had it. Having traveled three miles to the north, they were beginning to curve eastward again. They were sledding over solid ice a hundred fifty yards from the edge of the water when the creature bobbed up out of the depths and regarded them curiously.

  It was enormous. It stood shoulder-high out of the water, and a huge head decked with two fierce-looking tusks confronted them. Flippers sprouted where arms should have been. The creature looked like some grotesque parody of mankind, with its whiskers and its solemn little eyes, but no human being had ever had two-foot-long tusks like those.

  "What is it?" Jim asked in a hushed voice.

  "Walrus, I think," Chet Farrington said. "Relative of the seals, if that helps you any. Mammal. Lives in cold water."

  Jim fingered the stud of his power torch. "Do you think he's going to attack?"

  "Best I remember from my natural history books, they aren't flesh-eaters," Chet said. "They live off shellfish."

  "He doesn't look unfriendly," said Roy Veeder.

  Indeed, he seemed positively friendly. He was at the edge of the ice, now, flippers leaning out onto the ice shelf, and he was regarding them quizzically and with great curiosity, showing no sign of fear. The vast beast looked gentle and intelligent.

  "Wait a second," Chet said. "I want a closer look."

  "Same here," said Jim.

  They left the sled and walked slowly toward the walrus. At close range it looked even stranger, Jim thought. But when he had come within a hundred feet of it, it turned and slipped into the water, and vanished from sight with astonishing speed.

  Later that afternoon they encountered the walrus again, or one of his relatives. But this time the meeting was a less peaceful one. The walrus was under attack!

  A group of fur-clad hunters had somehow lured the creature up onto the ice and had cut off its retreat to the water. Surrounding it, they were stabbing at it with wicked-looking spears of bone. When the sleds came upon the scene, the New Yorkers quickly de-toured and headed away. One encounter with spear-wielding huntsmen had been enough for a while. The hunters were too busy with the walrus to pay attention to the party of travelers that had come upon them. Jim looked back, awed by the bulk of the beleaguered creature that reared nearly a dozen feet into the air, snorting and howling at its attackers, and then flopped helplessly down on the ice again as the hunters closed in for the kill. Jim felt a pang of sadness as he watched the nightmare scene of death being enacted on the ice. The walrus had seemed so gentle, so friendly. And now here he was, bleeding from a dozen wounds, su
ccumbing to the onslaught of men.

  Jim forced himself to be realistic. Men must eat. There were no hydroponics laboratories on the ice pack, no factories for the manufacture of synthetic foods. The walrus was food-thousands of pounds of it. His tusks, his bones, would all be useful as knives and utensils; his thick hide would go for clothing, his fat for oil, his very sinews for rope and for cord. Every day was a struggle for life, in the ice-world, and where man and walrus shared the same habitat, only one outcome was possible.

  The struggle seemed over now. The walrus lay still.

  Two of the hunters detached themselves from the group and began to run after the sleds, shouting.

  "They see us," Jim said. "What do they want?"

  "They're waving to us," Dave Ellis said. "They want us to stop. Here we go again!"

  "Halt the sled," Dr. Barnes ordered. "Let's see what they want."

  Dave looked startled. "But…"

  "They aren't armed. Halt the sled!"

  Dave eased the sled to a halt. Nearby, Ted Callison had brought the other sled to a stop also. The two huntsmen, panting and gasping, came running up alongside.

  "Strangers!" they called. "Wait, strangers! Wait!"

  They spoke English. Simply from their appearance, they seemed as far beyond the unfriendly Dooney folk of the shore as the Dooneys had been beyond the primitive, monosyllabic hunters that had been encountered farther inland. These two were tall and straight-backed and clean-shaven, and seemed almost like New Yorkers dressed in fur garments, rather than savages of fierce and bestial ways.

  One of them, a lanky, blue-eyed man of about thirty, his lean face tanned and wind-toughened, called out to them, "Why do you flee? Claim your guest-rights!"

  "We do not understand," Dr. Barnes replied.

  "There has been a kill," the blue-eyed hunter answered, pointing to the fallen walrus. "You are strangers come among us. The law of hospitality requires us to feed you. Why flee, then?"