Ice Hunt (14 page)

She stared out at the endless expanse around her and smiled.

One of these days…

But for now, she settled into her seat and appreciated this time alone, away from the cramped and humid station. Overhead, the sun was sharp and the day still subzero. Though the flow of winds continually chafed against her, she was oblivious to the cold. She wore a form-hugging thermal dry suit and hood, used by divers in the Arctic waters. Her entire face was covered by a custom-molded polypropylene mask, the eyeholes fitted with polarized lenses. Only as she inhaled was she reminded of the Arctic freeze, but even that could be warmed by breathing through a battery-generated air heater that hung from the suit. But she preferred to taste the air.

And to savor the experience.

Out here, she had no disability. She did not need to hear the wind or the knife-sharp hiss of her runners over the ice. She sensed the vibrations through the wood, felt the wind’s press, saw the dance of snow over the ice’s surface. The world sang to her out here.

She could almost forget the car accident.
A drunk driver…a basal skull fracture…and the world went silent and more empty
. Since then, she had struggled against pity, both from others and her own heart. But it was hard. A full decade had passed since the accident, and she was beginning to lose her ability to speak clearly. She read the confusion in others’ eyes that required her to repeat herself or to sign. Frustrated, she had channeled her energies into her studies and research. A part of her knew she was isolating herself. But where was the distinction between isolation and independence?

After the loss of her mother, her father had hovered over her, kept her close, seldom out of his sight. And she suspected it wasn’t all because of her deafness. He feared simply losing her. Concern turned into smothering. Her struggle for freedom wasn’t so much to prove that she could live as a deaf woman in the larger world, but that she could simply live independent. Period.

Then Greg…Captain Perry…came into her life. His smiles, the clear lack of pity, his bumbling attempts at flirtation, all had worn her down. Now they were at the threshold of a deeper relationship, and she was not sure how she felt about it. Her mother had been a captain’s wife. It was not a world of isolation or independence. She knew this. It was parties, formal naval dinners, weekly social events with other wives. But did she want that life?

She shook her head, pushing such thoughts aside for now. There was no need to make any decisions right now. Who knew where any of this would lead?

Frowning, she manipulated her pedals to glide the boat in a gentle swing toward her destination two miles ahead: the buried Russian ice station. Earlier in the morning, the head of the biology team, Dr. Henry Ogden, had radioed her, claiming some discovery at the station that had led to a clash with the geology team. He insisted she come out and settle matters.

As head of Omega, Amanda was often called in to arbitrate interdisciplinary disputes. At times, it was like wrangling with a bunch of spoiled children. Though she could have easily sidestepped such a demand on her time, it was a perfect excuse for her to escape the drift station for a day.

So she had agreed, setting out just after lunch.

Ahead, red flags were staked atop the giant peaks of a huge pressure ridge system that extended for miles in all directions. The flags fluttered in the wind, marking the opening down into the ice base. Not that the signal flags were necessary any longer. Parked in the shelter of the ridgeline were four Ski-Doos and two larger Sno-Cats, all painted red. And beyond the vehicles, a scar split the smooth terrain where the Navy had blown a hole through the ice for the
Polar Sentinel
to surface.

As she stared at the opening that led down into the Russian base, a sense of foreboding grew in her. From the mouth of the excavated ice tunnel, billows of steam misted as if from the throat of a sleeping dragon. As of last week, the new occupants of the station had succeeded in overhauling the old generators. Fifty-two of them, all preserved. Surprisingly the lights were found to be working—as were the space heaters. The well-insulated station was said to be quite balmy.

But Amanda remembered her first steps into the icy tomb below. Using metal detectors and portable sonar devices, they were able to find the main entrance and use melt charges and explosives to tunnel down to the sealed doors of the base. The entrance was locked both by ice and a thick steel bar. They had been forced to use an acetylene torch to cut their way into the dead base.

Amanda now wondered if all their effort was worth it. She slipped her sail and gently began to brake as she neared the mountainous line of pressure ridges. In a sheltered valley between two of the ice peaks, a temporary morgue had been set up. The orange storm tents hid the frozen bodies. According to her father, a Russian delegation was already en route from Moscow to retrieve their lost comrades. They would be arriving next week.

Still no one was talking about what else was found down below.

She worked the foot pedals and expertly brought her iceboat around and braked the craft the makeshift parking lot.

There was no one to greet her.

Glancing around, she searched the mountains. They were valleyed in shadows. Beyond them, the terrain was a maze of bridges, overhangs, crevices, and pinnacles. She again remembered the strange few seconds of movement that registered on the DeepEye sonar. Maybe it
was
just a sonar ghost, but the supposition that maybe it was some scavenger, like a polar bear, made her edgy. She stared at the impassable territory beyond the entrance and shivered.

Amanda quickly cranked down her sails, tied them off, and used a hammer to pound in a snow anchor. Once everything was secured, she grabbed her overnight bag from the boat and set off the short distance to the misty tunnel opening.

The entrance looked like any other ice cave that pocked the glaciers of the polar region. It had been widened since she had last been here and was now expansive enough to accommodate an SUV. She reached the threshold and climbed down the chopped steps to the steel door, which hung crooked on its hinges after being forced open. The mist grew thicker here, where the warm air from the base seeped out into the cold. Over the entrance was the sign Captain Perry had described. It must have been discovered when the ice tunnel had been widened.

She studied it. Bold Cyrillic lettering marched across the thick riveted plate, naming the facility:

Ice Station Grendel
.

Why had the Russians named it so oddly? Amanda was versed enough in literature to recognize the reference to the monster in the Beowulf legend, but the knowledge brought no further understanding.

With a shake of her head, she turned her attention back to the door and had to shoulder her way through. Ice constantly re-formed around the hinges and edges of the door. With a popping of steel and ice, she stumbled across the threshold.

A young researcher down the hall glanced over to her. He was kneeling beside an open electrical panel. It was Lee Bentley, a NASA researcher specializing in material sciences. He wore only a T-shirt and jeans.

Was it that warm in the base
?

Spotting her, the scientist lifted his arms in mock terror. “Don’t shoot!”

Amanda frowned, then realized how she must look with her polypropylene mask in place. She unsnapped and tugged it off, hooking it to her belt.

“Welcome to Ice
Sauna
Grendel.” Lee chuckled, standing. He was short, only an inch over five feet. He had once explained how he always wanted to be an astronaut, but missed the height requirement by a mere two inches, hence his assignment to NASA’s material sciences lab. He was up here to test new composites in the extremes of temperature and weather in the Arctic.

Amanda crossed to him, tugging her hood back. “I can’t believe how hot it is in here.”

Lee pointed to the spread of tools on the grated metal floor. “That’s what I’m working on. Everyone’s complaining about the heat. We brought over some air pumps to circulate better, but we figured we’d better get this thermostat problem fixed or the base will start to melt down into the ice mountain.”

Amanda’s eyes widened. “Is that a danger?”

He chuckled again and tapped one of the steel-plate walls. “No. There is three feet of insulation beyond the physical structure of the station. We could turn this entire station into an Easy Bake oven, and it still wouldn’t significantly affect the ice beyond.” He glanced appreciatively around him. “Whoever designed and engineered this place knew their material sciences. The insulation is a series of interlocked layers of asbestos-impregnated cement and sponge blocks. The structural skeleton of the place is combinations of steel, aluminum, and crude ceramic composites. Lightweight, durable, and decades ahead of its time. I would say—”

Amanda cut him off. That was one thing about her fellow scientists. Once they got talking about their field of expertise, they could ramble on and on. And it was a strain reading lips when they slurred into techno-babble. “Lee, I have a meeting scheduled with Dr. Ogden. Do you happen to know where he might be?”

“Henry?” He scratched his head with a screwdriver. “Can’t say for sure, but I’d try the Crawl Space. He and the geology team got into quite a row this morning. You could hear them yelling all the way up here.”

Amanda nodded and continued past the NASA scientist. The base was constructed in five circular levels, connected by a narrow spiral staircase that ran down the center of the structure. Each level had roughly the same layout: a central communal space surrounded by a ring of rooms that opened into it. But each successive level was smaller than the one above it. As a whole, it appeared like a giant toy top drilled into the ice.

The uppermost tier was the widest, fifty yards across. It housed the old living quarters: barracks, kitchen, some offices. Amanda slipped down the hall and entered the central area of this tier. Tables and chairs were scattered about. It must have served as the base’s mess hall and meeting room.

She waved to a pair of scientists seated at one of the tables, then crossed to the central spiral staircase. The steps coursed around a ten-foot-wide open shaft. Heavy oiled cables dropped down into the depths. It connected to a crude barred cage, actually more a dumbwaiter than an elevator, used to haul material from one level to the next.

As she started down the stairs, the steel steps vibrated under her feet, in tune with the chugging generators and humming machinery below. It was strange, like the place was alive again, coming out of a long hibernation.

Amanda climbed down the stairs, winding around and around. She skipped past Levels Two and Three. They contained small research labs and the base’s engineering plant.

There were only two other levels. The bottommost was the smallest, sealed with a single watertight door. It contained the old docking station for the Russian sub, now half flooded and frozen. The conning tower of the sub could be seen through the ice, covered completely over.

But Amanda’s destination was the fourth level. This tier was unlike any of the others. There was no central communal workspace. The stairs here opened into a closed hall that radiated straight out across the level. To one side, a single door opened off this hall, the only access to this sealed floor.

She stepped into the steel-walled hall and spotted the two uniformed Navy guards posted at the door a few steps down the hall. They carried rifles on their shoulders.

The petty officer in charge nodded to her. “Dr. Reynolds.” The other, a seaman second grade, eyed her snug blue thermal suit, his gaze traveling up and down her form.

She acknowledged the petty officer. “Have you seen Dr. Ogden?”

“Yes, ma’am. He mentioned you’d be coming. He asked us to keep everyone out of the Crawl Space until you arrived.” The guard pointed down to the other end of the hall.

A door lay at that end, too, but it didn’t lead into the lab on this floor. It was an exit, a doorway into the heart of the ice island. Beyond lay a maze of natural caverns and man-made tunnels, cored from the ice itself, which the researchers of the station had nicknamed the Crawl Space.

This region had all the glaciologists and geologists walking around with drunken smiles. They had been boring out samples, taking temperatures, and performing other more arcane tests. She couldn’t blame them for their excitement. How many times did one get to explore the interior of an iceberg? She had heard that they’d found a cache of inclusions, a geologist’s term for boulders and other bits of terrestrial debris. As a result of the find, the entire geology team had relocated here from Omega.

Why the clash with the biologists, though? There was only one way to find out.

“Thank you,” she said to the guard.

As she crossed down the hall, she was happy to leave the sealed floor behind her. She’d had a hard time making eye contact with the guards. The guilt of her knowledge weighed on her, dulled her appreciation of the other discoveries here.