Colony

by Benjamin Cross

  “Thank you for relocating yourselves and your full bellies, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our humble lecture room.”

  He signalled for the lights to be dimmed, and the enormous screen on the wall behind him lit up. “Harmsworth is one of the smaller of the 191 uninhabited islands that make up Franz Josef Land, the world’s most remote Arctic archipelago.”

  He produced a red dot pointer. Then, with a swift about-turn, he aimed the pointer at the image of the Arctic Circle, which flashed up on cue behind him. He circled the little cluster of specks below the ‘Barents Sea’ label.

  “Only two other land masses on earth are as far north as you are now – Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland’s extreme north.” The image flipped to a close-up of those areas, and Volkov indicated each in turn. He then slid the pointer back into his pocket and turned to face his audience once more. “Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen. This is the edge of the known world. If you believe in Santa Claus, then this is your chance to meet him.”

  There were a few titters of laughter, notably from Peterson. Then Volkov continued, “When you step outside of these walls, the most important thing to remember is that nature does not want you here. The peoples of northern Siberia call it ‘the Land of White Death’. And for good reason. It has survived undiscovered by science for longer than any other landmass on the globe, and it will work hard to defend that isolation. The temperature can reach as low as minus fifty degrees. Last year’s average was…” He looked to Lungkaju, who replied, “Minus fifteen, Mr Volkov.”

  “Minus fifteen. If you stay here long enough, you will get frostbite. If you venture out without the correct clothing and equipment, you will get hypothermia and die. If you feel the urge to lick metal, your tongue will get stuck, and I and everybody else on board will laugh at you.”

  There was another rumble of laughter. This time the officials joined in as if fondly recalling the times when this had actually happened.

  “But it is not all doom and gloom. You lucky people are with us to enjoy the summer, which means that you can expect only minus one or two degrees on most days, perhaps even plus one if you are very lucky. But if you are anticipating any romantic sunsets to photograph and post on Twitter then you can think again. You will experience no such thing. What you will experience is the midnight sun. The cold light of day, twenty-four hours a day for the rest of the summer. After this, if any of you are fortunate enough to remain here with us, you will experience polar night conditions, continual darkness and the Arctic winter.

  “I’m sold! Where do we sign up?” Peterson called out.

  Volkov eyed him cautiously. “If, like Mr Peterson here, none of this is bad enough for you to want to leave us directly, then I must warn you that there is also a killer on the loose. Latest reports indicate that he weighs approximately 1,500 pounds and stands approximately three metres tall. His name is Ulmus. Ulmus Maritimus. But you will know him better as… the polar bear.”

  A murmur of excitement passed around the audience.

  Volkov continued, “This is the largest land carnivore our planet has to offer. He is hungry and he has made his home here. His sense of smell is so well developed that he has already sensed your arrival. Whenever you venture out to look for your rocks or to take your samples, you will be accompanied by an armed patrol. Especially you, Doctor Lebedev,” he pinioned her with his gaze, “as you will be seeking him out directly, I presume.”

  Doctor Lebedev replied to him in Russian and Volkov answered back. The exchange was short, and, though he didn’t understand a word, Callum could tell that it was a long way from amicable.

  With a snort of irritation, Volkov ended the conversation and brought his attention back to the rest of the group. “One last thing. We have been told to expect unusual solar flare activity over the next few weeks. This is nothing to worry about, but our satellite communication systems may be affected. I am told that any interruption will be infrequent and minimal, but you should be prepared for some short-term disruption to internet and radio communications.”

  “Will there be any warning?” Callum asked. “Only, I’ve promised my son—”

  “I repeat, Doctor Ross. Any interruption will be infrequent and minimal. There is unfortunately no way to predict if or when this might occur.” Volkov checked his watch. “Now, I see that it is almost time for your tour of the island, so I will say nothing further. If you could collect your emergency supplies and reassemble by the helipads at the stern, the guides will be waiting to introduce you to Harmsworth.”

  “Great,” Peterson said, springing to his feet. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

  “In the air,” Doctor Lee corrected him.

  5

  By the time the group had changed into their outdoor gear and reassembled at the stern, the Kamovs were fired up and waiting. Beyond the nose of the nearest aircraft, Callum could see Lungkaju, shades and headset already dwarfing his face, priming the controls. Lambie, another of the indigenous guides, was busy with the controls of the other craft.

  Driven by the wind, the group divided itself quickly into two and boarded.

  The main cabin had a high ceiling and four rows of detachable seating. Callum followed the first few people on board and sat next to the window on the forward-facing second row. Beside him sat Doctor Lebedev. In front of him, also beside the window, sat Dan Peterson. Callum could hear the other two members of the team, Doctors Lee and Semyonov, already embroiled in a fresh campaign of academic sniping in the rows behind.

  With the door secured, the helicopter lurched up off the deck and hummed its way out over the water. Within moments they were approaching Harmsworth’s southern shore, and Lungkaju’s voice boomed out over the PA: “I will fly around the whole island so that you can see all of him.” He then repeated himself in Russian, before banking the helicopter and beginning to pass over the bay. “Valerian Cove,” he announced.

  Callum watched as the parallel helicopter shadows crossed the expanse of shingle side by side and then manoeuvred into file. Lungkaju in front, they were following the rugged coastline west. Close to shore the ice was fragmented and thin; in places it was absent. Where the surf broke free it clawed against the beach, flecking the light grey pebbles with slush.

  “The ice will melt quickly now,” Lungkaju said. “In a few weeks it will mostly be gone.”

  “Death throes of the ice floes,” Peterson remarked.

  Further westwards the shingle gave way and the relief rose up to form a series of bluffs. Stumps and stacks of exposed rock clustered just off shore, forcing their way up through the residual sheets.

  “Harp seal colony,” Peterson said, pointing a gloved finger towards the foot of the cliffs.

  Callum could see several clots of white fur between the rock pools. The seals’ black eyes and huddled pug snouts turned upwards as one to investigate the sound of the helicopter, while several of the more cautious members heaved themselves to the edge of the rocks and slipped away into the safety of the water.

  As Callum looked on, Doctor Lebedev leant past him towards the window. In her eagerness to catch a glimpse of the seals, her nose squashed up against the glass and she almost swiped Callum as she brought her hand forward to try and protect her eyes from the sun’s glare.

  “They look healthy,” she said.

  “I bet they don’t look so healthy once all the building work starts,” Peterson replied, with a smirk. He made the sound of a pneumatic drill and held his hands up to grasp the imaginary handles.

  Doctor Lebedev turned to Callum and muttered something in Russian. Her face was close enough that he could see the fine grain of her make-up and make out the few pale freckles dotted around her eyes and nose. To his surprise he found that he could also understand her.

  “Mu’dak!” she had said. Arsehole!

  For Callum, the days of being able to hold any but the m
ost basic of conversations in Russian were long gone. The years since his last visit had chipped away at his vocabulary until all that remained were the most basic of phrases and a colourful lexicon of curse words, which still came surprisingly naturally.

  “Da, mu’dak,” he replied. Yes, arsehole.

  She stared at him, uncertain whether he was just mimicking her. Then her eyes brightened and she laughed.

  Callum laughed too.

  “Suka!” she said, holding his gaze.

  “B’lyad!” he replied.

  “Khui!”

  “Piz’da!”

  “What are you guys on about?” Peterson broke in. “What the hell’s so funny?”

  Callum’s eyes searched the vital green of Doctor Lebedev’s, just inches away.

  She mouthed something that he didn’t quite catch, but which he took to mean, Please don’t tell Peterson I just called him an arsehole.

  “Nothing,” he replied at last. “Just my shameful Russian.”

  The Kamov made its way north along the low-lying serrations of the western coast. When Callum returned his attention to the world below, he found that the thin scatter of harp seals had been replaced by a heaving walrus colony. Alarmed by the helicopters’ presence, they had churned themselves into a frenzy and were now stampeding out into the water.

  “It is not good to scare them like this,” Doctor Lebedev said.

  Sensing her concern, Lungkaju steered them away.

  The relief rose sharply inland, creating a wide coastal plain. Beyond this the island dissolved into a series of rock-strewn valleys stretching on towards the foot of the glacier. As they passed over the centre of the plain, Callum spotted something below. He strained to make it out, but it looked like a cluster of derelict buildings organised around an area of hardstanding.

  “Is that an airfield?” he called through to Lungkaju.

  “This is an old military base,” came the reply over the PA. “The Soviet army built it, but it was never finished.”

  Callum felt a twinge of disappointment. “Did anybody else think we were the first ones here?”

  There were murmurs of general agreement from the rest of the team.

  “The government would not tell you about these things,” Doctor Lebedev said.

  “Did you know?” Callum asked.

  She shook her head. “I was told nothing either.”

  As they reached the island’s north-western extent, the helicopter banked sharply around a long isthmus jutting out into the sea and ending in an ellipsis of craggy islets.

  “Nansen Rocks,” came the announcement.

  Doctor Lee said something about eroded late cretaceous sediment, while Doctor Semyonov counter-claimed almost reflexively for mid-Jurassic.

  From the centre of the northern coastline all the way across to the east, a row of massive cliffs fronted onto the sea.

  “This is Svayataya Point,” Lungkaju said. “There are many birds here. Very many birds.”

  The helicopter moved out over the edge of the precipice, descended and flew low along the face of the cliffs. In places they rose to a height of over two hundred metres or more. Time and the elements had gouged fissures into them, and landslides had left great overhangs as well as islands of fallen stone off shore.

  Just as Lungkaju had predicted, the face was alive with nesting birds. Silence descended in the cabin as the helicopters disturbed more and more of the birds from their ledges, and they became so thick in the air that the pilots were forced to swerve out to sea.

  “Here’s your forty species,” Callum said to Doctor Lebedev, somehow recalling their conversation at dinner the night before.

  “This is funny,” she replied with a knowing smirk, “I count only one.”

  Past Svayataya Point, as the birds thinned out and the land descended sharply back to sea level, the helicopter continued south along the east coast. Then Lungkaju turned inland once more and made towards the central ridge of high ground. It rose swiftly in vertebral chunks. To the south, the Hjalmar Cap held dominion over the turrets of ancient rock. Up close, the ice revealed its infinite, angular faces, some purest white, others an intense blue. It was a cascade suspended and frozen in time.

  To the north, the ice dwindled away to nothing and the base of the ridge was riddled with tunnels.

  “In there,” said Doctor Semyonov suddenly. “In there you will find the thermal fissures!”

  “That’s great, Nikolai,” Peterson called through to him. “But what do we need hot springs for when there’s a sauna on the ship?”

  “Because that sauna will not power the Harmsworth facility.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, power the facility?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” said Doctor Lee, sensing blood. “Doctor Semyonov here believes that there’s enough thermal energy on this island to provide a fully renewable energy source for the processing plant. He’s been pitching it to the powers that be from day one. Only thing is, he’s still got to prove it. Oh, and they’ll never buy it either.”

  “Typical western cynicism,” Semyonov retorted.

  “Typical eastern short-sighted bullshit!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I will land now,” announced Lungkaju, “and you can walk for a while.” He took a furtive swig from his vodka flask, radioed through to Lambie and spoke to him in Nganasan. Soon afterwards, the helicopters set down on Valerian Cove.

  “Please be familiar with your survival kits,” Lungkaju said. “There is an emergency tent, very strong, a bolt gun for securing him to the bedrock, some flares, a can of bear spray and a survival tin. Hopefully you will not need any of these things, but you should keep your rucksack close whenever you are on the island.”

  As soon as the side door was thrown open, the wind whipped into the cabin.

  “Jesus H Christ!” Peterson said, pulling his hat down around his ears. “I hope you’ve packed your thermal kilt, McJones.”

  As the team jumped out, Lungkaju handed each member a thin adjustable strap with a red LED set centrally. “It is an emergency locator,” he said. “If you are in trouble, then please press the button and your signal will be picked up on the Albanov. Watch for bears and do not wander off the beach.”

  Callum fastened the locator around his wrist and then began picking his way across the shingle towards the shoreline. The stones crunched underfoot. Splinters of gnarled driftwood were scattered widely. Excreted by the receding floes, cracked by the salt and bleached silver-white by the sun, they were formed into loose piles, like the skeletal remains of long-dead sea creatures.

  He reached the water’s edge and stopped. So this is it. The Arctic.

  The Albanov was anchored majestically off shore. The surrounding sky was clear and endlessly blue. A number of other islands were visible in faint outline along the horizon. Their features were dulled by the matt sunlight, giving them the appearance of distant icebergs, dark and mysterious, lurking on the edge of existence.

  He reached down, selected a pebble and skimmed it along a fissure in the ice. Below the ripples, the shallows were smooth and crystal clear, and he could make out the edge of a kelp forest, the brown strands bowing with the current. Along the edge, and in between the belts of kelp, the seabed was strewn with multi-coloured rocks, rust reds, greys, blues and blacks, all glowing green with algae.

  As the ripples widened, a second stone tripped through them and dropped into the water. He looked around to see Doctor Lebedev standing next to him.

  “Your turn,” she said, another pebble waiting in the palm of her glove. Her pale cheeks were red with cold, and where the few fine strands of ebony hair had escaped from below her hat, the wind picked them up and whipped them underneath her chin.

  He skimmed again, watching as the pebble caromed off a chunk of ice and disappeared without a jump.

 
“It’s the gloves,” he said with a grin.

  Doctor Lebedev frowned playfully. Her follow-up attempt managed only two small skips.

  “You are right, Doctor Ross. It must be the gloves.”

  “Callum,” he replied.

  She smiled. “Darya.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did you say to Mr Volkov earlier, in the meeting?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I told him that Harmsworth is dangerous enough without a lot of frightened people wandering around carrying guns.”

  “And what did he say?”

  She tutted at him. “Now that is two questions, Callum.”

  6

  Ptarmigan lay stretched out on his bed. Technically it was one o’ clock in the morning. But with the goddamn sun up at all hours of the night, it might as well have been one in the afternoon.

  The day’s induction had left him feeling totally drained. Volkov could’ve talked forever, and being cooped up in the helicopter with all those corporate cocksuckers was almost unbearable. He took a deep breath.

  On top of the chest of drawers beside him was an irritatingly pointless bedside lamp, next to which sat the copy of Ship of Fools. He stared along the book’s spine. Then he reached out and ran his hand absent-mindedly across the cover.

  Since speaking to Finback last, he had studied the plans in such minute detail that they were practically burnt into his visual cortex, complete with annotations. He needed to be prepared for anything. He needed contingency.

  The ability to memorise images and text like this was a skill which he had always had. His whole life, people had been crediting him with a photographic memory, but he knew that it wasn’t quite that simple. For Ptarmigan, memory was more a matter of discipline and determination. It was the sad fact that these were virtues most people lacked in abundance that made him a goddamn memory magician by comparison.