Colony

by Benjamin Cross

“Do you like dogs, Doctor Ross?”

  “I’m okay with dogs,” he replied. Not that it was an entirely relevant question. The beast panting away in anticipation as his master went to open the side door was clearly ninety per cent wolf.

  “His name is Fenris,” Lungkaju said, throwing open the door. “He is very friendly.”

  The dog immediately bounded onto the tarmac and advanced. Callum had seen large Malamute dogs before, but by any standards Fenris was enormous. His back was easily waist height, and as if to put his stature beyond doubt, he proceeded to plant his forepaws squarely on Callum’s shoulders and lick the side of his face.

  Callum stumbled backwards with the weight of the animal, and Lungkaju tugged the dog down by his collar and led him back into the cabin. “He likes you,” he said, reclosing the door.

  Callum wiped the saliva from his cheek. “Thank Christ.”

  Once both men were seated, Lungkaju wasted no time firing up the Kamov’s engines. The roar of the rotor blades was quickly reduced to a background hum within the insulated cabin, and moments later the aircraft rose smoothly up and away from the airport.

  Below, Callum could see the landscape thrown into sharp relief. The line of Kola Bay disappeared into the horizon, the fjord gouged deep into the rugged peninsular. Either side, the tundra was uneven, cut by rivers, lakes and gorges, and the thin cover of greenery was strewn with forbidding grey-brown outcrops of serrated rock.

  As they accelerated north, the city of Murmansk itself puttered into being and then sprawled along the eastern side of the bay. Its concrete aura barely dwindled before merging into the next great scar. “The naval settlement at Severomorsk,” Lungkaju said.

  From here the land either side of the estuary shattered. A chaos of islands, rivers and fjords tussled for space, and the waters of the bay teemed with commercial vessels. Then before long the whole fragmented scene thinned away, until only a solitary tanker remained lonely against the vast blue-grey expanse of the Barents Sea.

  With the coast behind them, Lungkaju seemed to relax. He shuffled back in his seat and reached inside his coat pocket, withdrawing a small leather flask. He unscrewed the top, took a draught and then offered it up to Callum. “Vodka?”

  Callum had worked in Siberia enough times to know that vodka was practically a dietary staple for many indigenous peoples, part and parcel of a different cultural mind-set. But then none of his previous Siberian acquaintances had ever been flying him a thousand miles in a turbo-charged helicopter before. He nodded at the flask. “When you’re flying?”

  Lungkaju belched out a laugh. “Do not worry, Doctor Ross. I have flown many times. Many, many times. You are in very safe hands.”

  Not feeling overly reassured, Callum finally accepted the flask and took a gulp. The burn of the neat vodka was as unpleasant as he remembered.

  “So how long is it going to take us?” he asked, handing back the flask.

  “Four hours,” Lungkaju replied. He took another swig. “We will be on the Albanov in time for dinner.”

  Lungkaju was Nganasan, the most northerly of the indigenous Samoyedic clans in Russia. Callum had co-directed an excavation on the banks of Lake Taymyr seven years before, so he already knew a thing or two about the culture. This delighted Lungkaju so much that he awoke a snoring Fenris to tell him the news.

  “Doctor Callum Ross has been to Lake Taymyr, Fenris! That is very brilliant because our family are from Lake Taymyr!”

  Evidently not sharing his master’s excitement, Fenris looked around, nonplussed, before replacing his massive head in-between his paws and falling back to sleep.

  They passed the next hour in conversation about Callum’s job as an archaeologist, the other specialists already waiting on the Albanov and the project ahead of them. Attention then turned to Lungkaju and his involvement. At this he frowned, straining to remember something crucial. At last he exclaimed, “Statistic! I am what you call a statistic. The company must give a small number of jobs to Nganasan and our neighbours or they get into trouble with the government. I am useful to them because I can fly and because I speak different languages.”

  “You seem very well educated,” Callum said.

  “Because I am lucky,” he replied. “And old. Did you know that I am fifty years old?”

  Callum had figured late thirties, maybe even younger. But now he knew the truth, a few tell-tale creases did seem to emerge on the pilot’s cheek, crumpled as it was by his trademark grin.

  Lungkaju set them down on the Anna Ioannovna as scheduled. Callum stretched his legs for a couple of minutes, but the icy wind soon drove him back inside the cabin. He waited as Lungkaju directed the fuel crew and Fenris relieved himself furtively against the back of the fuel car.

  The vessel was enormous, easily a football pitch in length, with a large bronze-coloured deckhouse and its own helicopter perched alongside the Kamov on the helipad.

  “The Albanov is bigger,” Lungkaju boasted, as he re-entered the cabin and initiated the engines. “Very soon we will be there, Doctor Ross, and you will see. Soon your journey will be over.”

  Inside his pocket, Callum’s fingers closed around the quartz pebble. He watched out of the window as the helicopter accelerated and the endless grey ocean disappeared into the horizon. “I wish I could believe that,” he replied.

  Chapter 2

  Icebreaker

  1

  “Well, if it isn’t Indiana McJones!”

  Callum did his best to smile as the American man with adolescent sideburns and horn-rimmed spectacles skipped towards him across the dining room. His hair was jet black and he wore a thick, gold chain around his neck.

  “Dan Peterson,” he said, hand outstretched. “It’s good to meet you at last.”

  “Callum Ross.”

  “Of course you are. Come on over and let me introduce you to everyone. We’ve been expecting you.” He turned and strutted off back between the tables.

  The main dining room on the Albanov icebreaker was on the eighth floor of the deckhouse. Panoramic windows were set within the outward-facing walls, overlooking the southern end of the island and taking in the rugged coastline. From the helicopter, the inland tundra had looked as if it had been churned up by a massive plough. Much of it was still covered in snow and it looked as beautiful as it did inhospitable. It also looked a hell of a lot larger than Callum had expected. In the distance, a massive ice-cap squatted over the southern half of the range, the northern half emerging as a tangle of peaks, which stumbled on out of sight.

  Lungkaju had set them down on the Albanov late afternoon. He’d been right about the size of the vessel. It was enormous, much larger than the Anna Ioannovna, easily the largest ship Callum had ever been on. No sooner had they stepped foot on board, than he and his equipment had been subjected to half an hour of stringent security checks. Despite his protests that it was sleep and not food that he really needed, he had then been whisked straight up to the dining room to play meet-and-greet with the rest of the team. He fought and failed to stifle a yawn. Then he forced a smile and followed after Peterson.

  The table Peterson made for was one of thirty or forty, all lavishly set. It was surreal. Having spent the afternoon heading ever further from civilisation, dinner in the equivalent of a five-star restaurant was the last thing Callum had expected. The people awaiting him at the table were well dressed, as if attending a conference at a plush hotel rather than embarking on fieldwork within spitting distance of the North Pole.

  Peterson gestured Callum towards the remaining laid place at the head of the table. As he manoeuvred himself into the appointed seat, a portly, older-looking man with bushy white hair spoke out in a Russian accent. “It is a beautiful view, is it not, Doctor Ross?”

  “It’s like something out of Tolkien,” Callum replied.

  “You are probably wondering why the glacier sits only to the sout
h?”

  Callum had not been wondering that at all and the directness of the question took him by surprise. Should he have been wondering that? Was it something the others had all immediately wondered? What he had actually been wondering was how on earth he was going to survey such a vast area in only two months, glacier or not. Out of politeness he replied, “It crossed my mind.”

  “The answer is simple,” the man said, running a hand through his wiry moustache. “There is a high density of tectonic fault lines here, radiating from the Gakkel Ridge.”

  “Gakkel Ridge?”

  “The large oceanic fault line running to the north-west.”

  “Of course,” Callum replied; he had never heard of it before in his life.

  “This is why Franz Josef Land is divided up into so many islands,” the man continued, “and why there is such a high level of local geothermal activity. It is my belief that the northern end of this island sits on top of a hydrothermal circulating convection cell. There may be fissure swarms in the bedrock allowing the groundwater to penetrate and form vertical convection systems.” Looking pleased with himself, he added, “I will be interested to try and verify this.”

  Before Callum could reply, Peterson said, “That’s Doctor Semyonov. Don’t worry, none of us understand what the hell he’s on about most of the time either. Isn’t that right, Nikolai?”

  Doctor Semyonov did his best to ignore the remark and returned to prodding a fork disconsolately into his side salad.

  “Now,” Peterson continued with a flourish, “this here’s the beautiful Doctor Ava Lee, our resident—”

  “Yeah, okay, take a seat, would you, Dan, we’re all quite capable of introducing ourselves.” The lady seated to the left of Doctor Semyonov stood up and held out her hand. She looked to be in her forties, with dark eyes, thin lips and short brown hair. “My apologies,” she said. “Ava Lee, vertebrate palaeontologist,” she shot a glance at Peterson, “and resident Canadian. Nice to meet you.”

  “And you,” Callum replied, noticing that Peterson seemed oddly invigorated by his dress-down. “I read through a couple of your papers on my way to Murmansk. I never thought dinosaurs would have lived at such high latitudes.”

  She smiled. “Most people don’t. It’s because it doesn’t fit in with our notion of T-rex wandering around humid swamps full of tropical insects and ferns.”

  “You suggested some of them may have survived the meteor strike as well.”

  “This is, of course, complete nonsense,” Semyonov broke in. “There is not a single secure example of a non-avian dinosaur fossil known from a Tertiary context.”

  “Well now, that’s not exactly true, is it, Nikolai?”

  “Oh, boy, you’ve started something now!” said Peterson with undisguised glee. “Better have yourself a seat, those two’ll be at it for hours. Let me introduce you to Doctor Lebedev, ecologist with the Russian Academy.”

  It was the first time since entering the room that Callum had really noticed the girl seated to the right of Doctor Semyonov. Evidently the youngest member of the group, there was a stillness about her that Callum found immediately calming. Her features were strong, and her eyes were green and searching. She smiled pleasantly and nodded acknowledgement.

  “Nice to meet you, Doctor Lebedev,” he said.

  By the time the meal arrived, Callum’s appetite had returned with a vengeance. As they ate, they discussed his journey and then his work as an archaeologist, before he brought the conversation back to the island itself. “So what sort of wildlife can we expect out here?”

  “Oh, there’s nothing much living way out here, old buddy,” Peterson replied, the hint of mischief on his lips. “There’s the odd gull, maybe, but otherwise it’s a lot of barren rock—”

  “Actually, there are over a hundred varieties of native flora alone,” Doctor Lebedev corrected him. “I would expect chickweed, buttercup, poppy, one or two saxifrages and many different species of moss.”

  “What about animals?” Callum asked.

  “Mainly birds. There may be as many as forty species, but the rock ptarmigan is the only year-round. Also Arctic fox, possibly Arctic squirrel, and of course polar bear, genetically distinct population.”

  “Then there’s your marine mammals,” Peterson added. “You’ve got your pinnipeds, so bearded, ringed and harp seals, and your whales, beluga, killer and Greenland right. Then you’ve got walruses and narwhals.”

  “I guess they come under your remit then,” Callum said, tucking into his dessert.

  “Hell no! Those critters are far too big to do anything for me. No, I’m here for this little guy.” He sat up and stretched the sides of his T-shirt out to display the monstrous face emblazoned on the front. “This little fella’s an arrow worm, a form of microscopic carnivorous plankton.”

  Callum cast a glance through the window and across the remains of the surrounding pack ice. Glistening and criss-crossed with deep fissures, it besieged the island off into the distance. “And they live at these temperatures?”

  “They don’t just live here; they thrive. And they’re a doozy of a bio-indicator. Arrow worms are healthy, the ecosystem’s healthy. Period. Say, you’ll have to drop by the lab when I’ve collected a few samples. It’ll be love at first sight, guaranteed.”

  “Labs are on Deck 3,” Doctor Lee said. “I’ll show you later if you like. Or if you’re beat already then there’s a tour after the director’s briefing tomorrow. You know about the briefing?”

  Callum shook his head.

  “Mr Volkov’s giving us a briefing first thing tomorrow. Then it’s pretty much a full day of safety inductions. You know the score.” She paused. “Have you met Mr Volkov yet?”

  “Not yet,” Callum replied.

  “Ha!” said Peterson. “Then you’re in for a real treat.” Without drawing breath he continued, “Say, when we’ve finished up here, do you wanna come check out my baby?”

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll come and see the plankton another time.”

  “Not the arrow worms,” Peterson replied with a snort. “This is something much prettier.”

  2

  The elevator stopped on Deck 1 and Callum followed Peterson along the corridor. They stopped at a door next to the main entrance and Peterson tapped a code into the security keypad. The door clicked open and they proceeded through to a narrow staircase leading below the main deck.

  “We could’ve taken the scenic route,” Peterson said, his voice echoing in the close confines, “but I figured neither of us was dressed for it.”

  “So says the Hawaiian surfer,” Callum replied, following the flip-flopping of sandals down the stairs.

  “Texan, actually. Grew up on Galveston Island on the Gulf Coast. There’s plenty of good surfing off Galveston, and diving. It’s where I first fell in love with the ocean.”

  A doorway emerged up ahead. Peterson entered the authorisation code, pushed through it and hit the lights. Holding it open for Callum, he extended his arm out towards the centre of the room in a dramatic gesture. “Et voila!”

  The room was extensive and largely empty of furnishings, giving it the appearance of a vast car body repair shop. Around the edges were a few collapsible tables bearing a scattering of mechanical components. More parts were stacked up in boxes in the far corners and against the walls, alongside compressed gas canisters, lengths of corrugated hose and racks of scuba gear.

  In the centre of the room stood Peterson’s baby.

  “Let me introduce you to the Sea Centaur,” he beamed, adding, “Sea Centaur, allow me to introduce Callum ‘Indiana’ McJones.”

  It was a marine research submersible, state of the art by the looks of it. Oval in shape, the craft appeared to be about eight metres long from the tip of its nose to the end of its rear-mounted propeller cage. It was perhaps half that across, including the lateral project
ions, like pectoral fins, on either side. Several panes were set within the vessel’s grey upper body, with its surmounting dorsal fin, and the underbelly was lined with pipes and set with numerous hatches. ‘SEA CENTAUR’ was written in bold letters along either flank, while ‘NOAA’ was printed in a smaller font towards the tail.

  “NOAA’s short for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” Peterson said. “That’s who I work for. If it’d been up to me I would’ve christened this baby NOAA’s ARK. But I guess I’m just too far ahead of my time.” He gave Callum an enthusiastic slap on the back. “So what do you think?”

  “I think it looks like a mechanical shark,” Callum replied.

  Peterson’s eyes lit up. “That’s exactly what it is! The designers tried to combine the capacity and manoeuvrability of Mir-class and other modern research subs with the aerodynamics of a Seabreacher.”

  “What’s a Seabreacher?”

  “A play-thing for the rich and famous. They’re quite a recent innovation, personal watercraft that can skim around on the surface like a regular motorboat, submerge a short distance, maybe five or ten feet, and leap out of the water as well. Their body form simulates that of a dolphin or shark.”

  Callum re-examined what was obviously a very heavy, very complicated, undoubtedly very expensive contraption. “Are you telling me this thing can leap out of the water?”

  “Hell no!” Peterson answered. “Not unless the operator has a hankering for a free lobotomy, which I can tell you he doesn’t. But it is a good deal faster and more manoeuvrable than most other research subs, and it can operate fine on the surface as well.”

  He paused to gauge his audience’s reaction. “Technologies are advancing rapidly to allow us access to the Arctic safely and affordably. The enhanced speed of this baby means that in ice-locked conditions the host vessel can drop us off at a distance from destination without having to muscle its way through to drop us exactly in position. If the water’s a sufficient depth, the Sea Centaur can be deployed somewhere more accessible and then travel quickly underneath the ice sheets. And if she meets with obstacles or the ice becomes too thick then we can retract the fins and try to circumnavigate whatever’s in the way. If it gets too messy or shallow down below then we can even breach the surface, travel across fissures and polynyas if need be. It’s like survival here. It’s all about versatility.”