Time of the Great Freeze (20 page)

And then it began to snow.

The snow started with a light sprinkling, powdery flakes coming down out of a metallic gray sky. But the coming of night seemed to speed the fall, and by morning, three inches of snow covered the sleds. And still it fell.

"I thought spring was coming," Ted grumbled. "I thought the world was warming up!"

The snow went on falling. It was impossible to see more than a dozen yards in any direction. The convoy sleds kept together until late that afternoon, and then suddenly Jim, who was riding with Colin and Ted, realized that the other sleds were nowhere in sight.

"Stop!" he cried. "We've become separated!"

They halted, and hallooed for the other sleds. For half an hour or more they bellowed into the storm, until their voices were hoarse and their throats raw.

"They're gone," Jim said. "They could be anywhere at all."

"Maybe we'll find them when the snow stops," Colin said hopefully.

But the snow did not stop. It continued for the rest of that day, and on through the night. A foot and a half of fresh, soft new snow had piled up on the hard-packed surface of the glacier. The sled was having hard going. Drifts were sometimes ten feet high, piled by the furious wind, and several times, unable to see in the driving snow, they rode right into one of the drifts and had to dig themselves out.

The power accumulators of the sled reached bottom and gave out. There had been no sunshine for days, and the sled could go no farther until its source of energy returned. They stopped, and pitched the tent, and worked all night to keep from getting buried in the drifting snow. This was the Ice Age with a vengeance! Jim thought. They had had comparatively mild weather their whole journey, but now the angry weather gods were hurling their worst! Snow, snow, and more snow. Would they ever find their way to London? He wondered gloomily what had become of his father and Dave and Carl.

The snow stopped, finally, after three consecutive days. The world was white and clean and new-minted, but the sun did not appear, and the sled could not be charged. They waited. The last of their moose meat went, and still they waited, through one dark day and a second. There were no signs of the other sleds.

On the third day, when the sun remained still behind its cloud covering, Ted went out to hunt. An hour passed, without sign of him, and then a vagrant snowflake spiraled down, and then another.

"Storm coming up," Jim said.

"No," Colin answered. "Just snow blowing out of the drifts."

But it
was
a storm. In fifteen minutes, it was as thick as the last one.

"Why doesn't he come back?" Colin asked anxiously. "Surely he didn't let himself get lost!"

"No," Jim said. "That wouldn't be like Ted."

Jim fired the power torch into the air, and shouted himself hoarse once again. No one appeared, and the snow redoubled its onslaught. Finally, discouraged, he sank down into the sled, his head in his hands. Chet, Dom, Roy-his father, Dave, Carl-now Ted, too! He was alone, except for his new Londoner companion. But for what? To be lost in these eternal snows?

"Hellooooo!" a voice called, far away.

"Hello!" Colin cried. "Here we are! Hello!"

Jim sprang to his feet. A figure appeared, moments later, struggling doggedly through the storm.

It was Ted. He stumbled into the sled, breathless, snow crusting his hair. He carried the body of a wildcat, lean and stringy, not enough meat on it for a single decent meal.

Ted grinned wearily. "Here's dinner-more or less."

Late that day the storm ended. In the morning, the sun rose for the first time in nearly a week, and they started the sled and continued onward.

The weather was better for half a day. Then came more snow, and they had to halt. Hunger bit at their bellies. There was no food left, and in the snow they dared not leave the sled to hunt. Unless some luckless animal blundered right across their path, they would go hungry.

Hungry they went. Gaunt and tired and weak, they brushed snow from their eyes, and hid under the tent, and prayed for the sky to clear and the sun to return. But a quiet realization came over them, one by one, as the day ebbed without a break in the snowfall.

"We aren't going to make it," Colin said.

"Don't say that!" Ted hissed.

"It's true. We'll die in the snow. We'll never get to London."

"It'll clear soon," Jim said, hollowly and without even convincing himself. "It
has
to!"

"And if it doesn't?" Colin asked.

Jim shrugged. "We'll be awfully hungry."

"We're awfully hungry now," Ted said. He managed a faint grin. For the first time he, too, admitted defeat, as he said tiredly, "Perhaps Colin's right. Perhaps this
is
the end of the line."

"You, too?" Jim asked.

"Be realistic," Ted said.

There was silence. Finally Jim nodded. The snow fell like a curtain now, stifling them. He said leadenly, "We came a long way, anyhow. We gave it a good try." When you had done your best, he thought, there was no shame in failure.

Neither of them answered him.

Time stole away. The snow ended for a while, and the sun glimmered, weak and feeble. They did not start the sled.

"Let the accumulator charge," Ted said.

But Jim knew that it was not a matter of the accumulator. It was
they
that had run down. They no longer had the strength to go on. "We've got to keep going," he said.

He started the sled, and guided it on an uncertain course, slowly, bumpingly through the drifting snow. Colin lay curled on the floor of the sled, asleep, while Ted lolled half awake, numb with cold, weak with hunger and fatigue. Jim drove for a mile. Then a kind of lassitude crept over him. He did not feel like bothering any more. He was cold and tired and hungry. Ted and Colin were both asleep, and he wanted to sleep, too. To curl up on a fleecy bed of snow, to close his aching eyes, to rest, to sleep…

He heard a sound in the stillness. A far-off rumbling sound, that grew in volume and rose in pitch, and became a high whine, like that of one of the planes they had seen earlier. Jim smiled. A plane, here? It could only be a dream. And therefore he must be already asleep, he told himself.

Only a dream…

Jim woke.

His eyes fluttered open, and he looked for the snow, and for the sled. But he was in a room like no room he had ever seen. Its lofty ceiling was far above his head. He was lying in a bed, soft and comfortable, in a large room whose green walls pulsed with gentle light. It was a long moment before he convinced himself that this was no dream.

Shakily he rose from the bed. His tattered, filthy journeying clothes had somehow been exchanged for a light robe of some smooth, free-flowing gray fabric that did not seem to crease at all. Iridescent high lights gleamed in the robe; it seemed as though strands of gold were woven in it. He walked toward the window, and found that it gave onto a sort of terrace. Unquestionably, like a sleepwalker, Jim stepped out on the balcony…

And gripped its rail in mortal terror. Sudden dizziness took hold of him. Beads of sweat burst from his forehead. He looked down, down, an unbelievable distance. It was five hundred feet or more to the ground! He had never known a height like that, so sheer a drop.

Far below, tiny dots of color moved. Graceful cars of blue and gold and red, topped with plastic bubbles, raced along in the street. Buildings rose on every side-giant towers, mighty vaults of steel and plastic.

Gradually Jim calmed. The sky overhead was warm and bright, flecked with cottony clouds. There was no snow here. Only the city, stretching to the horizon, tower after massive tower. A graceful network of airy bridges hung like gossamer in the air, linking building to building far above street level.

And the city was shining.

That was the only way Jim could describe it. The sleek sides of the huge buildings gleamed brightly in the warm daylight. It seemed as though row upon row of mirrors, a thousand feet high, blinked back at him.

He stepped back into the room. As he did so, a panel in the wall opened, and a figure entered: a man of middle years, shorter than Jim, whose olive-toned face was partly hidden by a thick black beard.

"Good morning."

"Good… morning," Jim said falteringly.

"Are you wondering where you are? You are in Rio de Janeiro. Our scout planes found you and brought you here, seven days ago. I am Dr. Carvalho."

"Rio-? But you speak English?"

"Oh, yes, we know some languages here," Dr. Carvalho grinned. "You gave us a little difficulty. You were badly frostbitten, and we thought you might lose a few toes. But you are all right. You have slept while we thawed you out."

"There were two others with me," Jim said.

"They are doing well," Dr. Carvalho replied. "They awoke yesterday. Come," the doctor said. "Come see your friends. And our city."

Jim followed him through the panel in the wall. He found himself in a small rectangular enclosure whose luminescent walls were inlaid with tiles of a glowing violet substance.

"Down," Carvalho said, and the enclosure sank.

It glided downward giving no sensation that they were descending, drifting to a silent halt. A wall opened. They stepped out, into another room.

"So you're awake!" Colin said.

The Londoner was garbed in one of the loose robes, too. He looked rested, healthy. Ted stood behind him, grinning broadly. Looking past him, Jim had a better view of the street from this lower floor: he could see people, tanned, happy-faced people, wearing tunics like his. They were on a sliding walkway, five bright metal strips moving at different speeds. This city seemed miracle piled on miracle.

And yet Jim felt a stab of uneasiness.

"Why are we here?" he asked. "Why did you rescue us?"

Dr. Carvalho looked astonished. "We found you in the snow. We could not leave you to die."

"You don't pick everybody you see in the snow, do you?"

"You had a sled. You were obviously city people. We had to know who you are, where you were from. Your friends here have told us everything-how you came from New York, hoping to meet the Londoners, and how you were disappointed."

Jim whirled on Colin and Ted. "You shouldn't have opened your mouth! You shouldn't have said a word to them!"

Colin gasped. "Lord, and why not?"

"Who knows what they want?"

"We want only to be friendly," Carvalho said, his voice gentle. "Why are you so suspicious of us?"

Colin nodded. Almost playfully, he said, "You complained I was suspicious! And now here you are doing the same thing!"

Jim was startled. Then, as he realized how he must have seemed to the others, he began to laugh. It was contagious, then, this business of mistrust! He had fallen into the old trap, the automatic reflex of hostility that had caused so much trouble in the world.

Jim said, "There were other sleds in our party. We became separated from them in the snow."

"Yes. I know."

"Were… did you… were any of those other sleds seen?"

Carvalho nodded. "Yes. Our reconnaissance plane followed them to London. They reached London safely."

"Are you sure? All the sleds?"

"The whole party," Dr. Carvalho said. "They were never in danger. Your sled was the only one that went astray."

Jim let out a long sigh of relief. So his father was safe in London, then. And Dave, and Carl. And even Moncrieff and the Londoners. They had all made it. But Jim still looked troubled.

"What do you want with us?" he asked, a shade too belligerently.

Dr. Carvalho said gently, "You must not fear us, Jim. We of Brazil want only to help you and your people."

"You weren't much help three hundred years ago!"

The doctor looked pained. "For this, we feel great guilt. We turned our back on our responsibilities. But things are different now. The nations near the equator are making plans for aiding you of the north and south. We have much to atone for, and we have already begun. The ice is rolling back. Five, ten miles a year, now, but soon much more rapidly. The world will be reborn. And we must make it possible for your people to reclaim their heritage."

Jim shook his head. "It won't work. They don't want to come out of the ground. They
like
it down there."

Smiling, the Brazilian said, "They will change their minds. Only let someone go among them to tell them how sweet the air smells in spring, and they will come forth."

"They won't listen!" Jim insisted.

"We shall see," Carvalho let one hand rest on Jim's shoulder, the other on Colin's. "We will go to see them. You and Ted and Colin, and a boy from Brazil. Ambassadors from the world of warmth. There must be contact. Your party was the first to emerge. We have waited for someone to come from the underground cities, and now someone has. There is a stirring. Together, we will bring your people forth. The time is drawing near for the melting of the ice, and there is a great deal to be done. Will you help?"

Jim was silent a moment. Carvalho seemed to mean it, he thought. The old isolation of the warm-climate people was dead, then. There would no longer be guards along the borders. Thousands would pour forth from the underground cities-and the people of the warmer lands would stand ready to help the less fortunate ones rebuild their glacier-crushed nations.

Things were changing. With his father and Carl and Dave safe in London, as Carvalho had said, there would be the beginning of a new day of understanding in that city, at least. London had taken three strangers in. That meant London was loosening up, shedding its fear of change, of rebirth. The presence of three New Yorkers there would hurry that process along. Awakening New York might be a more difficult task, but it could be done.