Eternity Base (16 page)

Devlin laughed. "There is no night in the summer down here. The sun gets a little lower on the horizon, but it never sets."

"As I said," Conner continued, "I want everyone gathered in this room ready to go at six. That will give us plenty of time to make it down to the plane and be in the air at seven-fifteen. Are there any questions?" she asked.

Riley leaned forward in his chair. "I'd like about thirty minutes to give a little class on how to operate in the cold—particularly how to properly wear your clothing and about cold-weather injuries."

Conner frowned and looked at her watch. "I have to do a transmission back to Atlanta in twenty minutes. I need to get ready to do that, and Vickers has to set up his equipment. Then we all need to get a nap, because it might be our last opportunity to sleep for several days. I really don't see the need for it anyway. We're going to be inside the plane."

"As long as things work out, you'll be inside the plane," Riley replied. "But if things go to crap, you're going to be on the ice."

"Devlin will be with the party, so we'll be able to draw on his experience," Conner countered.

Devlin seemed amused by Riley's comments. "Have you been to Antarctica before, Mr. Riley?" he asked.

"No."

Devlin's lips parted. "Ah. Well, then, what background are you drawing upon for all this information you wish to impart?"

Riley looked him in the eye. "I spent some time in the Special Forces, and we did a lot of work in winter environments. I've been above the Arctic Circle in Norway and Alaska on operations, and I've done quite a bit of work in mountainous regions including the Rockies and the Alps."

Devlin shook his head. "None of that really compares to what you face down here."

Riley shrugged, but his voice was sharp. "It's cold, right? There's a lot of ice and snow, right?" Sammy felt sorry for Riley; she'd dragged him into this when he probably had no desire to even be here.

Devlin spoke as if to a child. "Yes, but it's much colder here, and there's more snow and ice. The terrain is also very unique. I'm not sure that Norway can compare—"

"All the more reason to know what you're doing." Riley held up a hand. "But you're the expert." He looked over at Sammy. "I'm going to get some sleep. I'll see you all at six."

Riley left the conference room and reappeared almost immediately, his duffel bag over his shoulder. He headed toward the door leading outside.

"Where are you going?" Conner asked.

"I'm going to sleep outside. I'll be on the lee side of the building when you want me." With that he stepped outside and the door slammed shut behind him.

"You brought a weird man with you, Sammy," was Conner's only comment before turning to her crew and giving some more instructions.

Sammy tugged on her parka and went outside after Riley. She found him on the far side of the building, digging in the snow. He briefly glanced up at her, but she said nothing, watching his actions.

After completing a slit in the snow, he removed the bungee cord from around an insulated sleeping pad and laid the pad in the bottom of the trench. He unscrewed the valve on the top corner and the pad quickly expanded to full size—a foot and a half wide by six feet long and about an inch and a half thick.

Then he pulled his sleeping bag out of a stuffed sack, released the cinches, and unrolled the bag. He stretched a poncho across the top of the trench and secured the ends with snow, leaving an opening just large enough to crawl into. All done, Riley put the shovel down in the hole and put his bag in a place he had dug out near the head.

"Why are you sleeping out here?" Sammy finally asked, unable to restrain her curiosity.

Riley looked up at her. "I hate sleeping that close to a bunch of people. I'm a very light sleeper, and the slightest noise wakes me up." He gave the tiniest hint of a smile. "Hell, tell the nature lovers in there that I'm just loving nature."

"What's that?" Sammy asked as he started to slip into a thin bag.

"It's a vapor barrier, or VB, liner that goes inside the sleeping bag," Riley explained. "The liner keeps my perspiration inside it. Makes for a damp sleep, but it's better for me to be damp than the bag to be. I can dry out. I might not be in circumstances where I can dry out the bag. And a wet sleeping bag will kill you here."

He proceeded to slide all the way into the trench until the only thing showing was his face. Sammy leaned over. "I appreciate your help."

Riley nodded. "No problem."

"I'm sorry my sister isn't being very nice."

Riley closed his eyes. "You're not responsible for her, Sammy. She's got a job to do."

She turned back toward the warmth of the station. "Have a good sleep."

"You too." Riley's muffled voice floated out of the trench in the snow.

"You all set, Ms. Young? I've got a clear bounce back from the satellite." Vickers did a last check on his equipment.

"Yes." Conner pulled a 3.5-inch diskette with red markings on it from her computer and handed it to him. He slipped it into what looked like an external disk drive for a computer, except it was connected to his satellite communications (SATCOM) transmitter/receiver. The transmitter in turn was hooked—by way of a twenty-five-foot cable snaking out the cracked open window—to the small dish antenna he had placed outside in the snow, oriented at the proper azimuth and elevation to hit the designated satellite.

Vickers checked his watch. At exactly 0600 Greenwich mean, he hit the send key. The disk whirred as its information was relayed to the transmitter and then sent out. After five seconds it stopped.

"All done. We have about nine minutes before the receive." Vickers was already at work on the small keyboard built into the radio, preparing it for the incoming message.

Conner wondered how Riley was doing out in the snow. He was a strange man. Devlin had come to her and told her it was crazy for Riley to be outside, but Conner figured that Riley had made his bed, literally, and now he had to sleep in it. Besides, she wasn't responsible for him, Sammy was.

At ten minutes after the hour the disk whirred again—this time for less than two seconds. Vickers removed the disk and handed it to Conner, then went outside to retrieve the dish.

Conner took the disk and slid it into her laptop. She entered the appropriate program, and the screen glowed:

SNN TRANSMIT/RECEIVE

ENTER CODE:

Conner punched in her personal code and hit the enter key. The disk whirred, the screen cleared, then the message from Atlanta was displayed.

TO CONNER YOUNG 392993 FROM STU

FERNANDEZ 483772 DTG 280400

NOVEMBER 96 NO NEW

INFORMATION HERE RECEIVED YOUR

MESSAGE CLEAR GOOD LUCK

END MESSAGE

Conner hadn't really expected anything. She dumped the message into the hard drive memory and shut down the computer. Time to get some rest before the long "night" ahead. She hoped her sister was already asleep. She didn't particularly want to talk to her now.

She entered the women's bunk room and wasn't surprised to see Sammy sitting on her bunk, wide awake. It was the first time they'd been alone since she'd shown up in New Zealand. Conner ignored her and stretched out on another bed, fully clothed.

"Are you having fun?" Sammy asked.

Conner turned her head. "What do you mean by that?"

"I show up in New Zealand and I find you in bed with someone. I tell you that my life was threatened and that I killed somebody. And your reaction is basically wondering how big a story it will be."

Conner looked back up at the ceiling. "Come on, Sammy. I'm sorry about what happened to you in St. Louis. There's nothing I can do about it now. Getting this story is as important to you as it is to me."

"Is that why you're screwing Devlin ... 'cause he can help you get the story?"

Conner lifted herself up on an elbow. "Listen. Who I sleep with is—"

The door burst open and Riley stood there. "The mess hall, now!" He was gone as quickly as he'd come.

Conner and Sammy scrambled out of bed and rushed to the mess hall to find Riley leaning over an unconscious Swenson. The pilot was slumped in a chair, his clothes covered with melting ice and snow.

"What happened?" Conner asked.

"I found him outside, lying in the snow." Riley was checking the pilot's bare hands for frostbite. "Another five minutes and he'd have frozen to death."

"How'd you find him?" Sammy inquired.

"I heard a noise. Sounded like the main door slamming shut. I don't know." Riley shrugged. "Something just didn't seem right, so I got up and checked."

As Riley spoke, the other members of the team filed in until all were assembled.

"So what happened to him?" Conner wanted to know. "Did he fall and knock himself out?"

Riley shook his head. "I don't think so." He broke open a medical kit, pulled out some smelling salts, and waved them under Swenson's nose. The pilot gagged briefly and then his eyes flickered open. He reached for his head and moaned. Conner stepped behind him for a closer look. Through the thinning hair on the back of Swenson's head, a large purplish bruise was visible.

Conner moved in front of Swenson. "What happened?"

Swenson tried shaking his head, but the pain got the better of him and he held still. "Shit. I don't know. I was going down the corridor to take a piss and someone whacked me on the back of the head. That's all I remember."

Eight sets of eyes met, then shifted uneasily from one to another. The silence lasted for almost a minute.

Riley looked at the other men. "Was anybody awake when Swenson left?"

All three men shook their heads. Riley turned to Conner. "When I came in, all three were in their beds and appeared to be sleeping. You two were in your room. The three people from Our Earth were all accounted for also."

"That leaves you then, doesn't it?" Devlin observed.

Riley shrugged. "Then it would have been pretty stupid of me to rescue him, wouldn't it?"

Conner decided to take charge before things got out of control. "Are you able to fly?" she asked Swenson.

Swenson nodded carefully. "Aye. I don't think I have any permanent damage." He got up, a bit unsteady on his feet.

'Then we leave now." Conner turned to Vickers and Lallo. "Get your gear ready to go. We leave for the plane in fifteen minutes."

After Conner's crew left the room, Devlin turned to her. "What about whoever knocked him out? I don't think it was chance that our pilot was attacked. Somebody is trying to stop us from getting to Eternity Base."

"That's why I want to leave right away," Conner replied. "If we wait around here any longer, whoever it is will have a chance to do something else, like maybe sabotage the plane."

"So we're going to fly with a pilot who just got conked on the head?" Sammy asked.

"I don't have time for this," Conner said. "He said he can fly."

"The odds are," Riley said, "that we'll be transporting our problem with us to Eternity Base—if we find it."

"Once we find the base," Conner declared, "it will be too late. We'll have the story." She pointed at Sammy. "It's the same reason you came down here. The key to stopping these people is to find out who built the base."

Sammy shook her head. "But whoever it is has to be pretty powerful to have been able to infiltrate your team so quickly."

Conner looked her sister in the eye. "I don't think whoever tried to kill Swenson is from my team."

Sammy looked at Riley and then back at her sister. "Are you accusing Riley?"

"I'm not accusing anybody. I'm just being realistic," Conner retorted.

Sammy bristled and Riley stepped between the two women with his hands raised. "Let's chill out," he suggested. "Conner's right. We need to get to Eternity Base first. Standing around yacking isn't going to do us any good." He looked from one woman to the other. "All right?"

Sammy nodded. "All right."

"All right," Conner echoed.

R
OSS
I
CE
S
HELF,
A
NTARCTICA

Conner could hear Vickers humming the theme song from The Wizard of Oz as the plane picked up speed. Swenson pulled in the yoke and the heavily laden Cessna bounced a few times, then clawed into the air. Reaching sufficient altitude, the plane banked and headed for the search area.

Their course followed the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the east. Ross Island faded behind them, and after an hour Roosevelt Island appeared below and then slid to the rear. They slowly closed the distance to the Ford Mountain Range, looming up in front of them. As they approached the first mountains, Swenson increased power; the wings groped in the thin air for even more altitude until the Cessna had sufficient height to clear them.

The plane was as crowded with people and equipment as it had been on the flight from New Zealand. Conner, Kerns, and Riley were on the left side of the plane, one in front of the other; Vickers was in the copilot's seat; and Devlin, Sammy, and Lallo behind Vickers on the right. They'd loaded all the camera equipment along with one backpack of survival gear for each person. If they found the base, Conner wanted to be prepared to stay and get her story.