by Karen Dionne
Behind them, the fire exploded with a whoomp that knocked them flat. Too late, she realized what she had done. She scrambled to her feet and slammed the door. The kitchen had no windows, but she didn’t need any. She could see the fireball rolling through the rec room, down the hallways, into the labs and offices and bedrooms, consuming everything it touched.
Everything.
She shuddered, gagged, threw up. Straightened, then threw up again. My God . . . my God—What she’d done was too horrible to contemplate, too enormous to comprehend. She could roast in hell forever, and it wouldn’t be enough.
“We’ve got to get inside!” She grabbed Elliot’s hand and took off for the front door.
Elliot. My God. He was alive. She glanced at him as they ran. He was in his pajamas, slippers flapping, running strongly. Why was he in the freezer? How come he wasn’t ill?
They skirted the building, every window they passed a throbbing yellow. No . . . no . . . please, God . . . don’t let it spread so fast . . . There was still time to get people out . . . There had to be time . . .
They rounded the corner and stopped. The main door was open. Rats poured out into the night as though chased by a demon.
Elliot grabbed her hand and pulled her back as the monster burst through the doorway: a thundering ball brighter than the sun, white-hot at its core, red-black around the edges. They dived to the ice, turning their heads away as the heat blasted past. Windows burst and shattered. Small pops like rifle fire—aerosol cans exploding. Bigger, more ominous explosions. If the fire reached the main fuel storage tanks . . .
She scrambled to her feet as Elliot had the same thought. They ran; stumbling, falling, getting up, stumbling and falling and running again.
They were halfway to the emergency shelter before they looked back. The entire building was in flames. Dirty white smoke poured from an inferno that rivaled Dante’s. Zo put a hand to her mouth as the roof collapsed. The smell of burnt metal hung in the air. Soot drifted onto their hair and clothes.
Elliot slipped his arm around her and pulled her close. He brushed the hair from her face. She flinched.
“You’re hurt.” He turned her chin to face him.
She was hurt, all right: Black eyes, a swollen nose, a bloody ear, a slashed shoulder, burned hands, a chunk of meat missing from her thigh, but that was nothing compared to what she was feeling inside.
“I’m okay. What about you? You look—fine.” Aside from a touch of frostbite on his nose and cheeks, he seemed completely well.
“I am,” he said.
“Elliot, we figured it out,” she went on. “We know why everyone’s sick. The water—it’s contaminated with insulin. Well, not really insulin, but something like it. It’s hard to explain.” She looked him over again. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. While you were gone, I had plenty of time to think. Like you, I figured there had to be something in the water. I switched to orange juice, and right away I started feeling better. I was in the kitchen looking for more when the rats took over and I had to hide in the freezer. I wanted to tell the others what I’d discovered, but I—My God, Zo. The others.”
She didn’t answer. There was nothing she could say.
“Zo! Elliot!” someone called.
She turned around. “Mac!” She ran to meet him and grabbed him in a desperate hug. “I thought—I can’t believe it. You’re alive.”
“So I am. Not feeling particularly great at the moment, but here I am.”
“I gave him the honey just like you told me,” Ben said. “It worked.”
“So I see. What about Ross? Where is he?”
“Right here,” Ross said, coming up to join them from the direction of the maintenance shed. “What’s going on? Who started the fire?”
“Where’s everybody else?” Zo asked. “Surely there are more.”
“I’m sorry.” Ben shook his head. “I checked all the men’s rooms, and Mac and I had just finished the women’s when we smelled smoke. Everyone was already dead.”
“No one survived?”
“I’m sorry, Zo. We’re it,” Mac said. “Ben told me about the insulin. It’s terrible to think that everyone could have been saved if we’d only known.”
Everyone had died? Twenty people had succumbed? The loss was staggering. There was small comfort in knowing they hadn’t been done in by the flames, but not much. And their research—the equipment, the station records—everything they’d worked so hard to accomplish was gone—Her eyes stung.
“We’ll have to go back to the shelter,” Ross said. “Now that the storm’s over, the radio should be working again. We should be able to get an SOS out to McMurdo.”
“Even if it doesn’t, my people know I’m here,” Ben said. “If they don’t hear from me soon, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Wait a minute.” Elliot pointed to Ben. “Who’s he?”
“I’ll tell you everything after we’re inside.” Zo indicated his slippered feet. “Don’t want you to catch your death of cold.”
It wasn’t much of a joke, but they laughed anyway and started for the shelter. Ben with his flashlight led the way, though they no longer needed it. Somewhere over the course of the past half hour, dawn had broken over the bay. The pinks were already turning to orange, the snow and ice a deep shadowed purple. A landscape Zo used to think starkly beautiful. Now all she wanted was to go home.
A tern circled once and retreated. Too much death, too much destruction. Zo squeezed Elliot’s hand, reveling in its warmth, grateful to be alive and walking alongside her husband again. Still, it was going to be a long time before she could allow herself to be truly happy.
Then from the front of the line, Mac screamed.
Chapter 42
It was a terrible sound, more animal than human. “Get it off! Get it off of me!” he yelled again and again.
The rats swarmed over him, devouring him before he hit the ground. No back-and-forth dance like they’d done with her in the kitchen, no toying, no intimidation—just a full-out frontal assault.
The men waded in, Ben swinging his flashlight while Ross and Elliot grabbed Mac’s shoulders. The pack turned on them, snapping and clawing. Elliot’s pajama-clad legs took the brunt. He tried to knock them away, but more rats rushed in. Collapsing from the weight of them, he fell forward.
“No!” Zo screamed.
Ross and Ben picked him up by the arms and legs. “The Zodiac!” Ross yelled. They took off with Elliot dangling between them, his eyes closed, head lolling.
Zo ran after. The attack had lasted barely a minute, yet Mac was dead, and Elliot was gravely wounded. She glanced over her shoulder. The rats were following, pacing them.
Herding them toward the shore.
She understood as clearly as if she were one of them. Shaken, she ran faster, hardly noticing the wound in her thigh.
Then she stopped. These weren’t demons. They were rodents. Fierce, yes; cruel, undeniably, but they were not going to prevail. As of this moment, the reign of terror was over.
She got down on one knee. Picked up a chunk of ice and threw it. Smiled when it connected. Picked up another and threw again.
The rats stopped; agitated, confused. She picked up another chunk.
“Run, Zo! Now!”
She glanced toward the beach. Ben was on his feet in the Zodiac, yelling and waving for her to hurry while Ross untied the moorings. She sprinted for the harbor. The rats took off, but surprise gave her the advantage. She pulled ahead. Ran out in water up to her knees, lunged for the handholds as the Zodiac bucked wildly. Caught one and hung on. Ben leaned over the side, grabbed her jacket, and hauled her in.
She lay in the bottom, gasping, then crawled to her knees and smiled grimly at the rats milling about on the shore.
Elliot lay on the floor beside her. The skiff of water beneath his legs was pink. He shivered violently. She took off her jacket and laid it over him as a wave broke over the bow. Without survival su
its, they were in bad shape, but surely they wouldn’t have to stay out long. The rats couldn’t hold the beach forever. Once they went back to their lair, the humans could regain the shelter.
Then a rat leaped into the water and began to swim, followed by another, and another. Zo remembered Ross’s students’ rat facts, and her heart sank: Rats could swim for miles, tread water for days. “Miniature superheroes,” the kids had dubbed them.
“Start the engine!” she shouted. “Get us out of here! Hurry!”
Ross turned the ignition key and pulled the starter cord. Nothing happened. He pulled the cord again. The motor caught briefly, sputtered, and died. He pulled out the choke, pumped the primer button, and tried again.
She smelled gasoline. “You’re flooding it! Ease off! Hurry! They’re coming!”
“I’m trying!” Ross yanked the cord like a madman until, at last, the motor caught. He revved the engine and they cut across the bay.
“Torgeson!” he yelled and pointed.
It was a good call. The Zodiac had such a limited range, they could never make it to another station. But the rats hadn’t yet invaded Torgeson, presumably because it was too far. They could set up a beachhead on the island using the overturned raft for shelter. The Zodiac carried emergency supplies. Most important, it had a radio. If necessary, they could augment their rations with penguin meat until help arrived; maybe catch a seal or two; make blankets from the skins. Shackleton and his men had survived for two years with little more than a rowboat.
Then abruptly, Ross altered course. He pointed to a dark smudge on the horizon. “Check it out.”
She strained to see, and broke into a grin.
It was a ship.
Chapter 43
Her grin vanished as a rat leaped into the boat. Before she could process what was happening, another scrambled up and over the side. It flopped into the bottom like a fish, swam over to Ross, and darted up his leg. He let go of the tiller to slap it away.
“Watch out!” Ben cried as the Zodiac angled sharply toward the shore.
Ross grabbed for the tiller, as Ben lunged for the rat. He pulled it off and flung it into the sea.
“Here comes another one!” Zo tore open the side locker and found an oar. Leaning over the side, she swatted the rat away. More rats swam up. “Help me!” she yelled to Ben as one after another scrabbled up the sides.
Ross gunned the engine and the Zodiac leaped forward, hydroplaning like a pebble between the ice floes.
“Slow down!” Ben yelled. “You’re going too fast!”
Elliot raised his head. “What’s happening?”
Zo hunkered beside him. “Stay down. Keep your center of gravity low.”
The Zodiac slammed into an ice chunk. She threw herself over Elliot and fumbled for the handholds as they went airborne. They hit the water, bounced, and came down hard again, each impact snapping her head backward. She spreadeagled herself and dug her feet in.
At last, the boat slowed. She looked toward the tiller. Ross was gone.
“Jesus,” she breathed. She scrambled to the pilot’s seat as the Zodiac turned an aimless circle. “Where is he?”
“Over there!” Ben pointed.
She shielded her eyes. She could just make out a small red dot a football field away.
“Hang on!” she cried as she turned the tiller, even though she knew Ross couldn’t hear. “We’re coming!”
She cut around an iceberg bigger than a grand piano and nearly slammed into another. She detoured left, then left again. By the time she hit clear water, Ross was gone.
“Where is he! I can’t see him!”
Ben leaned out over the bow. “I don’t know! I can’t—Wait! There he is! Turn to starboard! I mean port! Oh, hell, just turn right. Now left. Left! More . . . more . . . Slow down, you’re almost there. I said slow down!”
Zo cut the throttle, and let the boat drift to where Ross was treading water. His head was barely above the waves.
Ben leaned over the bow. “Got him!” he cried and pulled Ross in over the side. Ross was shuddering so hard, he looked like he was convulsing. His face was blue.
Zo began to shake.
“Not yet, Amazon Woman,” he said, and managed a wan grin. “You can fall apart later. Right now, just get us on the ship.”
“Aye, Captain,” she said as she aimed the tiller. “With pleasure.”
PART THREE
We did not inherit the earth from our parents. We’re borrowing it from our children.”
—CHIEF SEATTLE
Chapter 44
Ben watched the litter carrying Elliot and Ross ascend to the deck while he waited below in the Zodiac. He hung onto the tie ropes, feet spread for balance. Only the rough seas kept him from dancing. He felt galvanized, alive. Despite all the tragedy of the past day and a half and the final unbelievably harrowing hours, he’d accomplished what he had set out to do: effected a rescue. The proof was right there on the side of the ship, painted in letters that viewed this close were as magnificent as they were impossibly large: Polar Sea. Soldyne’s supply ship.
It wasn’t only the successful mission and the multiple near-death experiences that had him feeling as invincible as a twenty-year-old (though facing down killer rats and deadly disease and surviving a helicopter crash did wonders for the self-esteem). The moment he’d seen the ship on the horizon and realized all was not lost, that he still had years in which to craft his legacy, he’d had an epiphany.
He’d looked at Ross shivering in the bottom of the boat and realized that meeting up with a man he hadn’t seen or even thought of for nearly two decades hadn’t been chance at all; it was providential.
For years Ben had thought he could have it both ways; that he could work for a company that was going to profit by turning icebergs into drinking water and still consider himself a good man who cared about the environment. Now he realized he’d overlooked the “for profit” part of the arrangement. There was too much money involved in a project of this size for hands to stay clean. It wasn’t absolute power that corrupted, it was money, and Gillette was the biggest crook of all.
Finding out that his iceberg had been blasted off deliberately had been a stunner. And yet in hindsight, the news should have been obvious. The berg’s near-ideal location wasn’t coincidence, it was contrived. The business card in Quentin’s wallet was there because Donald’s flunky was moonlighting as an ecovandal. When Ben got back to L.A., the first thing he was going to do was hold a press conference. Knowledge was power, and it felt great to be the one in control.
Even so, he wondered how he’d gone so far off center. Ross’s sister had fallen off the deep end with her radical, ecoterrorism tactics, but he’d sunk so low in the opposite direction, he’d ended up in bed with the enemy. Now his blinders were off. After he exposed Gillette, he was going to hand Soldyne his walking papers. Find a job compatible with his renewed sensibilities. Nothing as supersized and glamorous as turning icebergs into drinking water, but with more meaning. Maybe do some pro bono for an environmentally friendly nonprofit on the side. There had to be hundreds of ways he could use his engineering expertise that wouldn’t impact negatively on the planet. Sarah deserved to inherit a working model.
“Going up.”
Zo tapped Ben’s arm and pointed to the descending basket. He held it steady, then climbed in after her and signaled the crew. As the winch lifted them higher, he looked out over the Southern Ocean. Below them, the Zodiac was a bathtub toy. The smoke on the shore, a distant campfire. As for the rats, they didn’t exist.