The Voyage

by Douglas Falk

  “Yeah…yeah. Whatever we find down there, if we do find something…we need to document it, store it, file it. For safekeeping. If we are to blow the lid off this thing, we need hard proof that conclusively shows that we are being lied to about where we live by the power elite,” John pointed out. “Unless we provide the public with something that would hold in court, our quest might turn out to be fruitless.”

  “We are not letting this one slide. I’m glad you are equally as zeroed in on that as I am. But go to bed now, John. We are still miles away from hypothetical domes to touch or mythological far away lands to discover. And do not worry too much about Seydoux and the rest—that is a problem for another day. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.”

  Not a bad idea. I’ve been standing out here for far too long, a bit of rest would do me good.

  He took his hand from the railing and turned to William. “Yeah, I think you may be right. A couple of hours of sleep is what I need. What about you?”

  “I think I’ll stay here for a little while longer. There’ll be dawn soon, and I don’t want to miss it for the world. Our first sunrise in Antarctica…Jeez Louise. How far we have come. We’ll have boots on the ground come morning,” he whispered to himself excitedly.

  “Good night, then,” said John drowsily, and he walked over the deck with gentle steps towards the sliding doors. Just as soon as he opened the door, he heard his friend shouting from behind.”

  “Captain Cook!” yelled William and saluted him from afar. “Sleep tight, Captain Cook!”

  John rolled his eyes. He saluted him back and walked straight into the warmth and shut the doors, taking the stairs down to the fourth floor. He walked onwards and finally found his cabin and threw himself on the bed with the grace and elegance akin to an inebriated sloth hanging loosely from a tree in a South American rainforest.

  How on Earth did I get this tired? Did I wrestle the Yeti and manage to forget all about it?

  He undressed himself clumsily and threw all the clothes carelessly on the floor. He rolled into the bed au naturale and covered himself under the quilt.

  This is the highlight of the day. Being buried under a heavenly duvet en route to the greatest adventure known to Man. The toughest challenge I will ever face.

  He shut his eyes and hoped to fall asleep right as the head touched the pillow. But the array of a hundred thoughts still echoed in his head. His thoughts drifted towards the final destination. The end of the road. Suddenly, his mind’s eye drifted off to a picture he had seen long before, but he could not recall where.

  A painting, to be precise, but what was the name of the painter? I have it on my tongue. Flame…Flammarion! Yes, Flammarion. Camille Flammarion. The French astronomer. I must see that picture again!

  He opened his eyes, reached for his Samsung Galaxy, and searched.

  The painting of a man peeking behind the curtain of the firmament of God, the man who reached the ends of the Earth…lifting the veil. He beholds the kingdom of God outside the firmament as described in the Bible. Oh yes. There it is.

  Is this what awaits us in the end? Christians do say that the Earth is the footstool of God and that the Lord dwells outside of this realm, looking down on us. Watching our every step. I’ve been a sceptic of all religions for as long as I can remember, and I have barely even set foot in church in all my life, but very soon, I have a feeling that this scepticism towards the idea that we are divine creations inhabiting a very special place indeed will wash away. Not only for me, but for the entire population of Earth. If we succeed…if we succeed.

  14

  “Monsieur Piccard! I can see the whole city from here!”

  The skyline of the city of Augsburg shrunk slowly but surely before John’s gaze as he looked down from the hot air balloon.

  “Don’t peer over that ledge, fool. Keep your eyes on the gauge instead. We are on our way up to the stratosphere in order to collect scientific data and measure cosmic particles, not to sightsee. Pay attention to what the instruments are detecting. That is your job,” said Piccard sternly.

  The balloon rose upwards rapidly, and soon enough he could barely discern the city features any longer. Just seconds later, they found themselves in the thick of a cloud layer, and John felt the early, but ever so familiar, symptoms of hyperventilation. He tried to draw breath, but it did not work—it felt as if he was being suffocated with a pillow by some unknown assailant. The winds were blowing like no tomorrow, and he fell to his knees in the basket and crouched to the middle of it in hopes of staying safe.

  “Almost there!” screamed Piccard. His wavy black hair flapped around like a pennant on a particularly stormy day at the beach. He adjusted his glasses and held on tight.

  “We’ll reach maximum altitude soon. Not long until we cap out. Hold on tight!”

  Only moments later, the balloon’s ascent came to a halt, and they found themselves to be perfectly stationary thousands of feet above Earth. Piccard undonned his leather hat, and John followed suit. He saw Piccard peering over the ledge, still crouched in foetal position in the middle of the basket.

  This is eerie. We are perfectly still. I don’t even feel a breeze here.

  He pulled himself together and rose to his feet, slowly.

  I can handle heights. I don’t suffer from vertigo…usually. This is just like looking down from the Eiffel tower, just much higher. It’s just the same…

  He peered over the edge, and what he saw made him keel over in the basket.

  Not only the height, but the Earth…the horizon…I can see so far! I can see too far, and the horizon is still at eye level! How high up are we? How is this possible?

  The sound of three loud thuds flung him out of the bed like a cannonball.

  My God. Where am I? Oh right. I’m here.

  He looked out through the small window in the cabin and was instantly blinded by the light that came pouring in. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he looked more closely.

  There’s not a cloud in the sky. We’re bathing in sunlight.

  When he looked down from the sky and let the eyes wander down to ground level, he saw it. Ice! A large wall of ice stretching as far as the eye could see, straight in front of him. It was not particularly tall—only about fifty to sixty feet high, from what John could guess. But it was tall enough—the shoreline could very well be called an ice wall by someone without making a mockery of the concept.

  Three more thudding sounds echoed through the cabin. The knocks came from outside of the door, and he could make an educated guess as to who was standing outside.

  “John!” he heard a familiar voice cry through the door. “Wake up, for heaven’s sake! We are here.”

  John rose to his feet half naked and rushed to the door. He opened it.

  “Are you ready? Breakfast in the dining hall in five. We eat a sturdy breakfast, pack our gear…and then we are a-go, my friend. This ship will head back to Perth at three o’clock.”

  “What time is it? And where are we now, exactly?”

  “Nine in the morning. We are about five miles west of McMurdo Station, right in the thick of the Ross Ice Shelf. It was Seydoux who planned the course, and he made the decision to make land somewhere not too close to the known outposts, such as McMurdo and Casey Station. But still close enough in order for us to readjust our course towards that place, should everything go south and we feel compelled to throw in the towel and hand ourselves over to the authorities. Over my dead body! I will not stop walking until we find what are here to discover. The plan is for us to make our way towards the known walking route that stretches between the Ceremonial South Pole and McMurdo Station, once we are out of harm’s way of the actual McMurdo Station of course. We will not show up at their research station flaunting our equipment or announcing our purpose here…but we will walk their road. Seydoux first suggested that we should have made land near Casey Station, but I vetoed him. Casey Station is too far away from the road I told you about.”

&nbs
p; John stretched himself and got dressed. He put on the thermal underwear William had given him the other day, a union suit of exquisite quality—it would come in handy, he said. The man himself wore a long, white fur jacket…and something else, pinned on his chest. It was a silver brooch that appeared to be shaped like a large dog.

  “What on Earth is that thing? There are no dogs in Antarctica. I may not be the expert, but I know that much. Wrong continent.”

  William sighed. “I’ve told you to watch Game of Thrones several times now. You should have caught up with that before we got here…it’s a bit late now. Anyway, the pin needle represents the dire wolf of House Stark. Can’t you tell the difference between a dog and a wolf?”

  John rolled his eyes more ferociously than he ever had before.

  This brooch may just take the cake when it comes to his cringeworthy antics.

  “And will this proud wolf give you the inner strength you will need for our walk? Give you the spiritual guidance that you need for the hardships to come?”

  “Well when you put it like that, it does sound rather…”

  “Ridiculous? Superstitious?” asked John.

  William shrugged. “I guess. By the way, you look just like Jaime Lannister,” said William.

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Of course you don’t. Let’s have that breakfast now. Come along!”

  The promise of a sturdy meal to start the day off ended John’s persecution, and he followed along.

  Well, I guess there’s no harm done in extensive display of pop culture nerdiness. After all, we are in the one place on Earth where shallow opinions don’t matter.

  The smell of fried bacon and sausage oozed through the corridors on the ship, and John took that as a promising omen. They entered the hall and served themselves with bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and toast washed down with a jug of steaming hot black coffee.

  “I dreamt of Auguste Piccard tonight,” John revealed as he claimed a table for them in the far side of the hall.

  “Wow, really? The Swiss inventor? Did you dream of his notorious balloon flight? Get out of here!”

  “I’m not making this up. I did dream of it. It might have had something to do with that it was one of the very first items of research I ran into when you persuaded me to look into this thing. It just stuck in my mind how he went further up in the air than anyone ever had…the first man who ever went up to the stratosphere. In the early thirties, I believe. And he said…”

  “That the Earth appeared to be a flat disc, with upturned edges.” William smiled. “Of course I know of that forgotten piece of history. It’s not something one forgets. He’s without a shadow of the doubt the first human being who saw how the Earth looks like from above a height like that. And he declared it as being perfectly flat.”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy. And nobody believed him.”

  “No, they did not. Although, I guess you could make the case that he didn’t even realise what he actually saw. In 1930, the narrative was too far gone already. The debate ended long ago, so he must have been mistaken. I don’t know if the scientific community would have branded him as a liar or the like, or given him the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up as an optical illusion. Even though their own math clearly says that the horizon would not rise to eye level at that altitude. Geometrics 101. Science is a dogma, my friend—now and then. Now and then.”

  John looked around in the dining hall and noticed that there was barely a soul to be seen, barring some of the Savannah kitchen staff. “Where are the rest?”

  William shrugged and attacked a large slice of bacon with his fork. “Asleep, I guess. Or they’ve already eaten and are busy preparing themselves. As you may know, this is the day of days. Everyone’s preparing in their own way. I wonder where our self-proclaimed adventure-god Jacques Seydoux is, though.”

  “I thought he’d be here too, lurking about,” said John.

  All of a sudden, Nathan Barnaby rushed into the dining hall sweating and excited. “You!” he shouted. “The both of you! We have visitors. Come with me!”

  Who are these visitors that Nathan’s talking about? Are we caught already?

  John downed his lukewarm cup of coffee and donned his jacket. They both followed Nathan through the corridors leading out to the bow of the ship. John noticed that they, whomever they may be, had put up a provisional ramp connecting the bow of Savannah to the icy shoreline ahead. In other words, their first steps on Antarctic shores would be easier than one may have thought. There would be no climbing or ice scaling required. They stepped onto the ramp and balanced their way forward…and all of a sudden, their boots had made first contact with the so-beleaguered southernmost continent of Earth.

  If it now even is a continent, so to speak.

  Antarctica! They looked at one another, and their faces revealed that they were now equally as excited to get to the task at hand. He took a deep breath and inhaled the fresh polar air. It was not nearly as cold as he had thought it would—he looked at the weather application in his phone, which telegraphed the current temperature as minus twenty-four degrees Celsius. Out of nowhere, strange-sounding shrieks began to cry from somewhere inland. A cacophony of nasal, screeching voices crying out in symphony…and it sounded like they came from somewhere nearby.

  What on Earth could produce a sound like that? It sounds like a rusty car engine that’s refusing to start up.

  “I’ll take you to our hosts. Jacques and Jamie are there already.”

  John trembled on the inside.

  Hosts? What kind of host would live here? Antarctica has no indigenous population. Everybody knows that.

  They waded through the thick snow in less than five minutes, and it suddenly dawned on John what the source of all the noise could be.

  Oh yes. Our hosts. I forgot.

  A huge flock of penguins waddled around in disarray, each one louder than the last.

  “Emperor penguins,” said Nathan. “Endemic to Antarctica. There’s only a handful of men in the world who ever had the pleasure of standing face to face with these creatures, so take a good look while you can.”

  Jamie sat crouched next to a juvenile penguin and petted it gently. Seydoux stood with his arms crossed and looked at the chaotic scene with a displeased look on his rugged face. “Worthless animals, of no use to us. But harmless, I suppose. If you count inane noise as harmless, which I don’t.”

  John saw a penguin in the midst that was to his liking. He walked into the fray and slowly removed the glove on his right hand in order to pet it. It was a large adult penguin with black and white plumage and yellow stripes around its neck.

  He’d be a perfect mascot for my favourite football team back home.

  Gathered around the adult penguin were three emperor penguin chicks, much shorter than their parent, all in grey-feathered plumages. John noticed that it seemed to be the chicks who were responsible for all the racket.

  I suppose they’re hungry and underfed. When we’ll be in their situation some weeks from now, I hope we’ll make less of a noise about it.

  “So what next?” John asked Seydoux as he rubbed the neck of the penguin.

  “We are to head back to the Savannah, and we’ll unload the whole lot. The whole shebang, copain. Everything we’ll need, we will drag out of her belly. After lunch, we’ll rendezvous on deck and have ourselves a drink. And then we leave the ship for the last time, and our mission commences. No time to lose, eh? We are supplied for many weeks again, but even the most well-stored of supply carts will run out on the road if the worst should happen and we find ourselves outside of God’s grace. The key to all successful expeditions is to put as many miles as one possibly can behind for the day. So buckle up, mes amis. I think we have experienced enough of the wildlife for one day. Back to the Savannah!”

  They obeyed the Canadian, and the quintet marched swiftly back to the Savannah, which lay anchored precisely where they left her. One after the other with Seydoux in charge, they walke
d the ramp from the ice shelf to deck. They were back on the Savannah, and all was well.

  After lunch, which consisted of a healthy load of goulash soup to each man and woman, they gathered on deck as agreed upon. They had now unloaded all the clothes, tools, technical equipment, medical supplies, and all other necessities they brought with them from Perth. They were ready to walk the walk.

  “Mesdames et messieurs! Ladies and gentlemen. We are ready! Eager to walk the entire way to a place few ever set foot on. The South Pole. There is a reason to this: it’s painfully hard to get there. And especially tricky without any aid from a government institution. Doing it off the books is almost unheard of, that I can promise. We’d have to look back to the days of Amundsen in order to find any comparison. But get there we shall. Are you ready, or am I just talking for myself?”

  Seydoux looked into the eyes of each and every one of his four companions, who were circled around him.

  “More than ready!” said Jamie enthusiastically.

  “Absolutely!” said Nathan.

  “Ready,” said William.

  John nodded in approval.

  It’s for real now. No turning back. The Savannah would return home in no more than an hour, and then it’s adieu and farewell. I do not feel ready in the slightest, now when it truly dawns upon me how dangerous this expedition might turn out to be. But I have to put up a front. Appearances are important.