Frozen Hell

by John W. Campbell Jr.

  Around him, the wind made a faint, whispery sound somewhere between the screech of fingernails on slate and the hiss of snake-scales on glass, broken only by an occasional shout from the direction of the plane. Twelve different national flags, planted in front of the station’s main building, snapped and cracked like whips. A few stray snowflakes swirled down from a leaden sky.

  Jason dropped his two overstuffed satchels onto hard-packed snow, turned from the Basler BT-67 that had shuttled him here from Christchurch, via McMurdo Station, and stared out across what seemed an endless expanse of white. Only a lone black windsock and what looked like a couple of distant storage sheds broke the unending white of the landscape. An old joke popped into his head: What’s white and white and white? A polar bear eating ice cream in a snowstorm.

  He snorted and rubbed his eyes. Too long without sleep. He hadn’t even gotten the usual layover in Christchurch. Now he was getting punchy.

  A thousand miles of ice-desert stretched in every direction. Pictures online didn’t prepare you for it. The huge, unending bleakness of it all. Even the sky seemed faded and dull by New York standards. The true ass-end of the Earth.

  Shouldn’t there have been someone waiting to meet him? He glanced back at the sleek mid-sized plane that had disgorged him minutes before. Its props still turned with a steady whump-whump-whump, as men and women in parkas bustled around the open door in its side. Supplies out, baggage in. And people. There had to be thirty-five or forty scientists and researchers waiting to board. Going back to civilization before the six-month-long Antarctic night overtook the Amundsen-Scott Station. He alone had gotten off.

  He turned toward the low sun, white as the snow and dazzling without the haze of pollution to filter it. Only a few more days until the sun dipped below the horizon, dropping the temperature and cutting off all the Antarctic bases from the outside world until spring.

  “Dr. Cosgrove?” a man’s voice called from his right.

  Jason turned, eyebrows rising. “Here!” he called.

  A tall, stocky man with a scraggly black beard jogged toward him. Unruly curls stuck out from under a green stocking cap, and he wore a puffy red coat zipped to the neck. He thrust out a gloved hand, which Jason took. The fellow had a crushing grip.

  “I am Milos Pappas.” He pronounced it MEE-los PAH-pahs. His breath puffed visibly in the air. “I am the chief greeter for the station, and also dinner cook. Very pleased to meet you, Doctor,” he said.

  “Call me Jase,” Jason said. Everyone did.

  “Jase, yes. I trust your journey was good?”

  Jason tried to laugh, but the sound came out like a crazy bark. He bit it off.

  “No,” he said, “everything was horrible. I hate to fly, and I’m here under protest. I’ve had maybe two hours of sleep in the last three days. I’ve been bullied into this, and—”

  Milos raised his hands. “Not me! I am—how you say—only the messager?”

  “Messenger. Sorry.” Jason took a deep breath and looked away. Hold it together. Just a few more minutes… “I don’t like having to run to Antarctica to fight for my grant money.”

  “Fight?”

  “I was told the funding for my research project might be pulled if I didn’t get here within 36 hours to argue my case. Twenty million dollars for Asteroid Belt mining, gone—like that!” He snapped his fingers. “And no explanation why.”

  Milos shook his head. “Yes, the newcomers, they are—what is your word? Intense?”

  “The newcomers?”

  He nodded. “They do not wear uniforms, but we know they are American military, all very top-secret hush-hush. They are here for maybe two months. Why the secrecy? I do not know, but all make guesses. One guess, it says they are excited for a meteor in the ice. Another guess, it says they are finding vast new oil fields. Me? I cook the food. Too many questions get you only trouble.”

  “Or save your life,” Jase said.

  Milos considered, then shrugged. His gaze dropped to the bags at Jason’s feet. “This is all you are bringing?”

  “I didn’t have much time to pack.”

  “I shall help you get the right stuff later. Plenty of everything, with the main season over. But first, the big-dog newcomers wait for you.” He grabbed both bags, turned, and lumbered for the main building. “This way, my friend!”

  * * * *

  Jason found himself hustled through a series of hallways. It might be the end of the research season, but the base still hummed with activity. He passed rooms full of people and equipment of every variety imaginable, a cafeteria with a dozen tables, and an empty rec-room with a ping pong table, a pool table, and a jukebox. At last they reached a small conference room. There, two men with laptops worked side by side. They broke off their discussion as Milos swept in and dropped Jason’s bags in a corner.

  When the man on the right stood, Jason recognized him—Colonel Franklin Bloch. With his hawk nose, steel-gray hair, and coolly aloof gaze, Bloch made a lasting impression. He had been the one who Skyped Jason, informing him that his funding was under review and would likely be cut off if he didn’t drop everything and get to Antarctica on the next plane. Or series of five planes, as it turned out.

  The other man was of Asian descent—Chinese, Jase guessed, from his high cheek bones—and wore thick glasses with black plastic frames. His shaved head made guessing his age difficult, but he had the look of a man who had seen a lot of action over the years. He had also been on that video call. He hadn’t spoken a word, though, just studied Jase across the video link like a shark picking out its next meal.

  “A pleasure to meet you in person, Dr. Cosgrove.” Giving a forced smile, Bloch came around the table and extended his hand.

  Jase shook it, and found it disturbingly limp and moist, like shaking hands with a mushroom. He had to make a conscious effort not to wipe his palm off on his pants.

  “I’m here. What’s this about my funding?”

  “Sit down, Jase,” Milos said cheerfully. “I shall get you coffee?”

  Jase glanced over, hesitated, then nodded. He could use the caffeine. “Thanks. Black, please.”

  Milos glanced at the other two. “For you also?”

  Both shook their heads. Milos headed for a Keurig machine on a table against the wall and began pushing buttons and fumbling with k-cups and mugs.

  Bloch said, “This is Artemis Wu. He’s chairman of the Armed Forces Research Grants Committee.”

  “But I thought everything was settled,” Jason said, looking at Wu. “My project was approved and funded six months ago. Why make me drop everything and rush out here?”

  “Two reasons,” Wu said, “First, I require the services of the premiere metallurgist in the world. Second, time is a factor. The weather is about to change, and I needed you here before it does.”

  Jason snorted. “If you want the best metallurgist in the world, you picked the wrong guy. You want Nick Armstrong—”

  “Dr. Armstrong died five days ago,” Bloch cut in.

  Jason stared at him. “That’s not possible. He’s barely 40—”

  “Suicide,” Wu said, studying his fingernails. “The Antarctic…did not agree with him.”

  “No way!” Jason’s legs felt weak. He had known Nick for the better part of two decades. They’d gone to M.I.T. together, gone to class together, partied together, worked off and on together over the years. Sure, Nick liked to drink…liked it a little too much, sometimes. But suicide? It seemed impossible.

  Gulping, he sank down in the chair. Nick…dead. They’d talked only a few months ago.

  Then he realized what Wu had said. The Antarctic didn’t agree with him.

  “Nick was here?” he asked, looking up.

  “Yes. You must finish his work.”

  Bloch returned to his chair, took a sheet of paper from a manilla folder, and slid it across the table. He followed it with a silver Cross pen.

  “Sign at the bottom,” he said, “and we’ll get moving.”
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br />   “Black coffee,” Milos said. He set a mug—WORLD’S BEST DAD! it proclaimed in big red letters—in front of Jason, then left, closing the door.

  Slowly Jason picked up the paper. It was a nondisclosure agreement. He’d signed a couple of them in the past, when he’d done corporate research, but this one struck him as exceptionally draconian. Matters of national security…prison and a multi-million-dollar fine if he so much as shared the project name.… Crazy, all of it!

  He shoved the paper away. “I can’t sign this!”

  “It is, of course, your choice,” Bloch said, “but I strongly recommend it.”

  “Or you’ll cut my funding.”

  Bloch shook his head, smiled. “I only said that to get you here.” He spread his hands apologetically. “Mining the Asteroid Belt is a good idea. It’s necessary if our space program is to thrive. But you’re still in the early planning stages, and your associates will manage until your return. You can speak to them every day by secure sat-link, if you like. We have a far bigger project, one of immediate global importance, and we need your help now. Once you have the details, I’m certain you will agree that it takes precedence over everything else. Including asteroid mining. In fact, I guarantee it.”

  Jason snorted. “There must be a dozen others available who would do as good a job.”

  Artemis Wu spoke for the first time. “No false modesty, Doctor. I only work with the best. And now that’s you.”

  “Forget it,” Jason said. He shoved his chair back and stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.”

  “Ah…about the plane,” Bloch said. “Bad news, I’m afraid. The one that brought you here is full for the outbound flight. We’ll get you the next available seat, of course. Unfortunately, as you know, there are no commercial flights from this base, and passengers leave as space allows. There is only one more flight scheduled this season, and I hear it’s also fully booked. A spot for you might open up in the spring…by fall at the very latest. But look on the bright side. I understand you get a medal and a certificate from the station for wintering here. And possibly a tee-shirt.”

  “Or,” said Wu, “you can join my team, be well compensated for your time, and do your country a service. A vital service.”

  Jason stared at him. “That’s blackmail.”

  Wu smiled his shark smile. “No, Doctor. A job offer. And as a goodwill gesture, you have my word that I will continue to throw my support behind your asteroid mining project when you return to it. You will find me a valuable ally.”

  Ally. Not friend. Did Wu have friends?

  “Can you tell me anything about Nick’s work?” Jason asked. “What was he doing?”

  “It’s classified.” Bloch said.

  I can’t believe they’re doing this, Jason thought. The bottom seemed to be dropping out of his stomach. I can’t believe they’re going to strand me here, whether I want to work for them or not.

  Wu leaned forward and set something the size of a walnut on the table. It was made of a silvery metal. One side had bubbled and melted; it had been exposed to very high temperatures.

  “What do you think of it?” Wu asked.

  Jason reached out and touched it with his fingertips. Cool and hard, it had an almost greasy texture. He picked it up—and gasped. It was feather-light, far lighter than aluminum, or any other metal he knew of.

  “Where did you get this?” he demanded. He met Wu’s cool, steady gaze. “What is it?”

  “You must sign the nondisclosure agreement first,” Bloch said. He twitched it forward again.

  Jason took a deep breath. What would he be getting himself into? What had Nick been working on? What was this metal, and where had it come from?

  For a heartbeat, he stared down at the paper, then picked it up and read it a second time, slowly and carefully. The terms hadn’t improved. But as the general said, it did specify compensation…twenty thousand per month, for the duration of his involvement with the project. It guaranteed six months of work, plus an option to extend employment for another six months by mutual agreement. It meant wintering here. But if Wu meant to keep him here, anyway…

  Idly, he rubbed his thumb across the lump of strange, silvery, light-as-air metal. Metal like nothing he had ever seen or heard of before. Nick must have been working on it.

  It was the discovery of a lifetime. The possible uses in aircraft—in spaceships—even for his own asteroid-mining project—stretched before him.

  If it could be mass-produced, it would change the world.

  He bit his lip. He had to be part of it.

  He signed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  En Route to Army Corps of Engineers

  Special Operations Base, Antarctica

  On the two-hour helicopter trip from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to the Army base, Jason barely noticed Wu and Bloch’s presence. The general sat up front, next to the pilot. Bloch sat in the seat next to Jason, typing fast on a small laptop computer.

  “Reports,” the colonel told him, voice tinny and distant in the headphones.

  Jason barely nodded. He was already pawing through a satchel stuffed with Nick’s papers—scribbled notes, field reports, test results—trying to make sense of the work.

  From what he could tell, Nick had made almost no progress. Clearly the Antarctic had gotten to him. His journal spent as much time complaining about migraine headaches and night-terrors as it did documenting tests on the metal fragments. The journal painted the picture of a man slowly falling apart under immense stress and close confinement. Worse, no one at the base had recognized danger signs until Nick hanged himself.

  And the metal… It defied analyses on so many levels, at least with the tools available at the army base. He knew more about what it wasn’t than what it was.

  Non-radioactive.

  Non-conductive.

  Acids had no effect.

  The most interesting results came when he used a small foundry to discover its thermal properties. It melted at 1,180 degrees—roughly 300 degrees more than zinc, but 40 degrees less than aluminum. Given those properties, it shouldn’t have been harder than steel.

  Then, against all logic, it burned explosively at 1,640 degrees.

  He dug out a pen and scribbled a few notes in the margins of Nick’s journal, double-checking all the calculations. The energy output seemed to violate Hess’s Law governing constant heat summation. That, or Nick had made a series of gross mistakes and miscalculations. And that wasn’t like Nick.

  He sat back, staring at the calculations, trying to wrap his mind around the implications. Could Hess’s Law be wrong?

  He jumped when Col. Bloch’s voice broke in on his thoughts:

  “Dr. Armstrong got that same look the first time he tried to analyze the metal.”

  “There must be a mistake somewhere,” Jason said, turning to meet his gaze. “The math is wrong.”

  “Or we don’t understand how the universe really works.”

  Bloch cleared his throat, then proceeded to explain about the object found in glacial ice. “We suspect it to be a 19-million-year-old spaceship,” he said flatly.

  “A…spaceship?” Nick started to laugh, but Bloch didn’t seem to be joking.

  “This is the second one we’ve found,” the colonel said.

  “No shit?”

  “Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers. “A research station found the first one in 1938. They accidentally blew it up when they tried to melt the ice with thermite.”

  “That was a monumental bit of stupidity. Thermite burns at more than 4,000 degrees.”

  Bloch nodded. “It was a different age. They weren’t prepared the way we are.”

  “How come word never got out?”

  “Hard to prove, when you’ve blown up the evidence.”

  True. “Tell me about the metal.”

  “We have a team from the Army Corps of Engineers tunneling down to the spaceship. They have been passing through a debri
s field—it’s mostly rock and dirt thrown up by the crash impact. But they found a few lumps of this super-light metal.”

  Jason rifled through the journal pages. “Nick destroyed…let’s see…two of the fragments during testing, when they caught fire in his lab. How many others are there?”

  “Four more.”

  General Wu broke in, voice tinny over the earphones. “News from the base. The tunnel has entered a larger debris field.” He turned in the front seat and faced Jason for the first time since they had left the Amundsen-Scott Station. “They have made several new discoveries that will interest you.”

  Jason leaned forward. “More of this metal?” he asked.

  “Much larger pieces, yes.”

  “Great.” They needed decent samples. “You have to get one to a lab with a scanning electron microscope, and I need an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer.”

  “Yes. I believe Dr. Armstrong ordered one of those X-ray things shortly before his death. It hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Put a rush on it. I need an elemental analysis of the metal. Given the properties, it might even contain exotic matter with negative mass…or something even bigger.” Jason paged back through the journal, looking for a passage he’d read half an hour before. “Nick thought there might be something screwy with it on the molecular level. Some sort of forced bond that shouldn’t occur—can’t occur—in nature.” He looked up. “This is important. If we can replicate this metal, it will change everything in the world, from toasters to airplanes. You have to send it out for analysis immediately.”

  There was a sharp click on the audiochannel, and the general faced forward again. Jason could see him talking, but couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the ’copter’s rotors.

  Bloch had heard him, though, and shook his head. “Negative. The general doesn’t want word leaking out. See what you can do on site.”

  “These notes complain over and over that facilities are inadequate.”