Ice Age

by Brian Freemantle

  It was later calculated that there were only two MPs – both seriously ill in hospital – absent from the House of Commons when a visibly disarrayed Simon Buxton entered the green-leathered chamber. Because it was part of the lunchtime planning, the Foreign Secretary was minutes behind, virtually at the moment when the Speaker was calling the House to order.

  Buxton, who’d frantically – and personally – tried to reach Reynell in Washington after Prendergast had told him Reynell was unavailable, leaned anxiously along the bench and said: ‘Anything since we last spoke?’

  ‘I’ve talked to Washington …’ Prendergast whispered back, although concentrating upon the Speaker’s opening and stopping at the call to order.

  At once the first three of Ranleigh’s seeded questioners competed for the Speaker’s eye to pose the same entrapping question. Buxton’s uncertainty was obvious as he rose at the Dispatch Box to insist that he had been aware of the American declaration before it had been made, that he’d had prior indication of a virulent, fatal disease and that his government was taking every precaution to protect the population. It was such a trite, daisy-chain of meaningless cliches that momentarily there was a hushed silence of disbelief.

  The next skirmisher deputed by Ranleigh used the hiatus to get the Speaker’s nod. ‘Could the Prime Minister inform the House of the whereabouts of the Minister for Science?

  Buxton hauled himself to his feet. ‘At the moment the Minister for Science is out of the country.’

  There was an eruption of discordant noise for which the next of Ranleigh’s troops was prepared, gaining permission for the next encircling question. ‘Could the Prime Minister confirm that the Minister of Science is at this moment personally involved in an expedition specifically connected with the pandemic that this House – this country – has only today become aware of?’

  There was more resignation than weariness in the way Buxton rose. ‘I can confirm that the Minister for Science is part of an international group of ministers actively involved in the investigation of this matter.’

  At his positive moment of commitment, Ralph Prendergast almost hesitated too long with his planned interjection, close to missing the staged tug at the prime minister’s elbow, the moment saved only by the second shocked hiatus at Buxton’s ineptitude. The disorientated, confused man turned, bewildered, at Prendergast’s touch, didn’t hear the Foreign Secretary’s words – because he wasn’t intended to – and visibly shrugged in accepted defeat.

  The vociferous groundswell of protest stilled as Prendergast rose, the moment sufficient for him to command the chamber. He said: ‘I have this afternoon – literally only minutes before entering this chamber – been in contact with the American Secretary of State and the Russian ambassador to London. As a result of those conversations I can inform this House that our minister of science is currently in Siberia personally exploring, as part of the international team to which the Prime Minister has referred, what can only be described as potentially – and I stress the word potentially – an incredible development in the disease that has become public knowledge today.’

  Briefly the shouted demands and questions prevented Prendergast continuing and he stopped until the Speaker’s shouts for order lessened the row.

  ‘I cannot help this House any further, upon the specifics of what the minister for science is doing, apart from telling this House that there is a high degree of personal danger which might become better known in the weeks ahead … What I can tell this House, however, is that a brilliant British scientist has already made a major and significant contribution in finding the cause, cure and prevention of this terrible, fatal condition.’

  Lord Ranleigh was in the drawing room at Lord North Street, watching the live television coverage. He turned to Henrietta and said: ‘Your husband’s the next prime minister, my darling.’

  Henrietta said: ‘Are you sure he’s up to it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if he isn’t,’ said her father. ‘We are.’

  The president’s address to the nation was televised live from the Oval Office, Partington sombre-suited and grave behind a desk specifically measured to appear in proportion to his diminutive stature.

  ‘My fellow Americans, it is my duty to speak to you tonight …’ he began, having to concentrate upon the teleprompt because the speech had needed to be rewritten after the son of a bitch in the English parliament had claimed that the British scientist had achieved a breakthrough.

  It was not until after they had retraced their journey into Irkutsk and turned on to the foothills road towards UstOrdynskiy that Geraldine started noticing the coloured twists in the trees and on bushes, like artificial flowers.

  ‘Prayer ribbons – prayers themselves on the pieces of paper – to the spirits,’ explained Lyudmilla. ‘Shamanism is a very seriously observed religion.’ She pointed to an approaching cluster of houses and unnecessarily said: ‘All blue. Blue’s the colour that defeats the evil eye.’

  In startling contrast, far below now, the azure of Lake Baikal glittered to their right. They turned at Bayanday and began to descend towards the lake, just able to see the rooftops of Yelantsy as the road turned for the final approach to Shara-Togot.

  The cars were neatly parked just before the entrance to the village itself and their driver carefully joined the line. Stoddart approached as Geraldine climbed gratefully out of the car.

  Geraldine said: ‘Everything’s OK.’ She stretched. ‘I’m stiff.’

  ‘You won’t be,’ warned Stoddart. ‘From here on we hike.’

  Twenty-Six

  The spirits snarled and the ground shuddered.

  Or rather, deep in the churning meltingness of Ol’khan’s volcanic core, sulphurous gases exploded to vent noisily through ground level fissures, but in the brooding presence of the cliff-skirted, prehistoric lake it was easy – easier – to imagine the supernatural. They all stopped, startled, and the Buryat driver dropped Geraldine’s medical satchel with a tinkling clatter. For the briefest moment even Raisa Orlov looked uncertain. There was a dialect babble from all the drivers which Vladimir Bobin stopped with curt Russian but the men drew together, nervously.

  Lyudmilla translated. ‘They’re saying they have been told to keep away.’

  They had been climbing unsteadily for more than an hour, although inexplicably the wide track – practically a road – was relatively firm, rocks and stones hammered into a proper surface, and nearly all the shrubs and stunted trees they passed were garlanded in prayer sprigs.

  ‘Do we have suits for them?’ asked Geraldine.

  ‘No,’ admitted Stoddart. ‘I didn’t know they were going to act as bearers.’ To both Bobin and Lyalin he said: ‘There’s a limit to how close we can safely let them get to the caves.’

  Lyudmilla said: ‘It’s still more than two kilometres: maybe nearer three. The track ends about 400 metres up ahead; gets really hard after that.’

  ‘To the track’s end,’ decided Lyalin. ‘They can wait for us there.’

  There were resentful mutterings when the order was relayed, two of the locals – the Listvyanka driver one of them – initially shaking their heads in refusal until another sharp burst in Russian, this time from the mayor. Geraldine’s medical case clattered again when it was angrily picked up.

  The wind was at their backs and sides, becoming colder as they climbed, but in her now chafing body stocking Geraldine still sweated and flying things swarmed, despite the repellent. While they’d paused, Dupuy had smeared more upon his face, making sweat-marked lines, like a Hallowe’en mask. Starting off again he bustled into the very middle of the track, clear of overhanging branches and shrubs, flapping his free hand more often and more wildly than the rest of them. The locals didn’t bother at all, seemingly untroubled by the insects. The apprehensive Buryats lingered at the rear of the straggled line. No one spoke, needing their breath.

  The abrupt sight of buildings as they rounded a bend was another near-halting shock, although this tim
e the locals continued on, carrying the visitors with them. ‘A Stalin gulag mine,’ identified Lyudmilla. ‘Mica, which was used for electrical insulation. Closed down a long time ago.’

  Closer they could see the rusting skeletons of conveyor equipment, although no longer with their carrying belts, and open, rock-moving trucks still neatly parked in a sentry line. After so long the forest and undergrowth that had begun to reclaim everything had intruded or fallen into their inviting openness and flourished with greenery and white and blue flowers so that they now looked like a garden display for giants. Ribboning off to the left were the prisoners’ wood-rotting barracks gradually crumbling under the encroaching trees and shrubs. Strangely barren, in the middle of so much ready growth, was the cemetery where nothing grew except stunted crosses, some of those collapsed, marked simply by the numbers that had been the only identity of the nameless who lay forgotten in their graves. Geraldine guessed that at its busiest the gulag would have held hundreds of long dead slave prisoners and wondered why the locals did not fear their ghosts.

  The disgruntled Buryats shuffled, heads lowered at the instruction to wait. Geraldine said: ‘We’re going to need them eventually – more of them, in fact – to get the bodies down.’

  Lyudmilla said: ‘They won’t do it. To them, bodies like those hold spirits that are only sleeping. To move the bodies wake the spirit.’

  ‘Let’s confront the problem when we get to it,’ said Stoddart.

  To Raisa’s smirk, Stoddart reached for Geraldine’s medical case, which after the slightest hesitation she gratefully surrendered.

  It was the opportunistic Reynell who’d seized the gulag backdrop, posing himself quite alone as if he were its discoverer, but now he was photographing Amanda against the black-holed mine entrance. Further back, the press photographers made a photo opportunity out of a photo opportunity.

  Stoddart called: ‘We’ve still got a long way to go when you’re ready.’

  The change in terrain was immediate just a few steps beyond the hard core of the old mine approach. There was no proper route, little more than an occasional tight gap between trees and underfoot the ground was a greasy mix of ever shifting shale and decades’ mulch of autumn-dropped leaves. Dupuy struggled upwards, head bowed, his collar pulled up against his ski hat to cover his neck, his free hand in constant movement although the insect problem seemed to be lessening. Once, when she slipped suddenly sideways into a thicket, Stoddart freed a hand to offer to Raisa who at first made as if to ignore it, but then took it to be hauled out. Just as reluctantly she stopped when Stoddart told her to, halting the entire line, while he inspected her neck, face and hands – even though she’d checked her hands – and from her left ear lobe and the nape of her neck flicked black spots that could have been ticks. One such was certainly something that was alive.

  Gradually the forest fringe changed, from thick-leafed maple and narrower birch to needle-tipped conifers. It took a further hour of constantly sliding to finally clear the treeline and as soon as they did Stoddart called another halt for each of them to examine the exposed skin of their own hands and faces before doing it for each other. No one found it amusing, although the monkey-cleaning comparison occurred to Geraldine. Away from the protection of the trees, the wind hit them again, freezing now, and before the positive snowline there were white, unthawed oases of previous falls. Underfoot the increasingly frozen ground ironically became firmer and briefly easier to walk upon. Geraldine felt the perspiration chilling upon her, not just against her skin but where it had permeated her clothing to create a second discomfiting layer. They fanned out, no longer in a rough line but spreading sideways, each making their own path. Geraldine wondered how much higher there was to climb; there would soon be a need for thermal protection, although she didn’t believe, from the list Stoddart had produced in Washington, that there was cold weather protection. She doubted sufficient would be available locally. She supposed there would be clothing in Moscow, but that would still take days to ship. The air was definitely thinner, having to be dragged into their lungs in short, panting breaths. Lyudmilla was walking beside her.

  Geraldine said: ‘How much further?’

  The anthropologist pointed slightly upwards and ahead. ‘It’s the other side of that bluff. We’re looking virtually at the back of the cave system. We should suit up.’

  ‘Your call,’ said Geraldine. Cold weather gear wasn’t necessary after all although she guessed Amanda and Reynell would have liked it even for such a short distance.

  ‘We should use our suits from here on,’ declared Lyudmilla, more loudly.

  ‘Where are the caves?’ demanded Reynell.

  Lyudmilla pointed ahead again. ‘Directly around that outcrop.’

  There wasn’t another backdrop – the very much intended backdrop – for the minister’s photographs, Geraldine guessed. And suited and helmeted he – and Amanda – would be anonymous behind their vizors. Life’s a bitch and then you’re dead, she thought, recalling the old cliche that until so very recently had seemed so personally appropriate. What would the diplomats choose, the bitching disappointment or the risk of death?

  ‘We can’t see the caves,’ protested Reynell.

  ‘They’re there,’ promised the unwitting Lyudmilla.

  ‘This is near enough, unprotected,’ frowned Stoddart.

  Everyone was milling around, although keeping to their own space, unsure what was expected. Even with an elevation this high it was difficult to see the far side of the huge expanse of water, more an inland sea than a lake. Until that moment, Geraldine hadn’t thought about it but she hadn’t expected to undress on the side of a wind-blasted, sub-zero Siberian mountain. She did so, though, unconcerned in her body stocking which Lyudmilla immediately noted and nodded at, approvingly. It was abruptly so cold that the breath gasped out of Geraldine. The anthropologist stripped, even less embarrassed – and apparently less discomfited – to bra and pants but then quickly into her allocated suit, as good an estimated fit as Geraldine’s all-in-one earlier. Geraldine was aware of her body stocking being oddly ringed by sweat bands, like the skin of some exotic snake, and wished she was as hard bodied as the Russian anthropologist. Despite her height and stature, Raisa Orlov appeared to carry little excess weight, although the all-in-one underwear that she wore obviously with nothing beneath accentuated her heavy, big-nippled breasts. Despite the rasping wind, Raisa didn’t hurry to get into her suit, actually turning clad only in the stocking to look in Rubens-bodied profile over the lake and Geraldine decided at once that the virologist was posing, although she was unsure for whose benefit. Herself zipped and enclosed to the neck, Geraldine left the head cowl hanging over the bulge of the oxygen supply like everyone else at that moment and was aware of Stoddart beside her, closely studying her suit for damage.

  The suited, although head-free photographers were circling, taking pictures to Amanda O’Connell and Peter Reynell’s posed unawareness. Stoddart said loudly: ‘This isn’t a freak show. There’s no initial need – maybe no need at all – for everyone here to go through whatever we’re going to find on the other side of that bluff. We’re here to conduct the best scientific examination possible on site: tests, too, if they’re feasible. That means only those for whom it’s actually necessary may enter the caves: the Listvyanka institute director, its anthropologist and two entomologists and Geraldine Rothman, Raisa Orlov and Guy Dupuy from the visiting group …’ He hesitated. ‘Are we agreed on that?’

  Reynell said: ‘I’d like to see for myself.’

  Amanda said: ‘So would I.’

  ‘If it’s not possible for everyone to see for themselves today, there’s always tomorrow,’ said Stoddart. ‘Or the day after that.’ For some it was a freak show, he thought, irritated. The difficulty was deciding if the freaks were the long dead or the opportunistic still alive.

  ‘I think what you’re suggesting makes sense,’ said Lyalin.

  ‘Let’s talk about precautions,’ stopped Sto
ddart, at the general movement to go on. ‘Everyone complete their suiting here, now. And check the communication links, which should activate automatically. If anyone snags their suit – even if it isn’t a positive tear – get out of the caves and come immediately back to this spot. We’ll leave the bags here, as markers. And each watch the person next to you to warn if their suits become damaged without their realizing it. Everything quite clear so far?’

  They were mutterings and head nods of agreement.

  ‘Those of you going in remember your main oxygen will last precisely one hour,’ continued Stoddart, the compiler of the equipment. ‘If it runs out, it’ll switch automatically to ten minutes of reserve. By then you’ve got to be out and back here, where you can breathe normally and fit new bottles you’ve all been provided with, in your equipment bags …’ He paused. ‘The suits are completely hermetically sealed; that’s their entire protective purpose and why the wind isn’t cold to your bodies any more. If your oxygen runs out – and remember you can’t risk taking your helmets off – you’ll suffocate. So constantly check your supply time, whatever happens inside. Remember it’s going to take you as long to get out as it takes you to get in. All clearly understood …?’

  There were more nods and mutters.

  Although the face masks and vizors were designed to be as panoramic as possible there was still a severe visual restriction once the helmets were in place and secured. They straggled forward in a vague, follow-my-leader line again, Stoddart at the head. The ground unexpectedly became loose, uncertain boulders and shale they couldn’t properly look down to anticipate shifting beneath them. Lyalin and the institute director separately started brief rock slides where they stumbled. Stoddart had provided large, high-powered rubber-protected flashlights, with wrist straps, which only gave one completely free hand, none for those with other equipment to carry.

  Stoddart rounded the outcrop first, jerking abruptly to a stop as he did so. Over the headsets echoed a sharp intake of breath and the word: ‘Jesus!’ At once he said: ‘Sorry,’ a pause and then: ‘Be very careful. The rocks are even looser here, where the fall’s most obvious. We could even be caught up in an avalanche.’