When he had been working here, they had kept it minus eighty and lower, Todd remembered. With insu-suits, minus one hundred was nothing. In this old-fashioned gear, a ten-degree drop felt like fifty.
He watched closely as the guide opened the heat lock. Had the staffers made any modifications? No. Still a simple tog trigger. Secondary insul wall operated by sensor plate. No print lock.
They went through one at a time. Occasionally the heat sensor tripped, and the guides made the next in line wait until the systems compensated for the additional load on their circuits. Eventually, all ten Committee members and the three guides were on the far side. A faint throbbing sound underfoot suggested buried machinery, hectares of it. Indeed, there was that much machinery maintaining the cryogenic chambers.
They were in a refrigerated room lined with monitor screens. “We are in monitor room twelve A,” the lead guide announced. The screens blinked and showed them what lay past the outer wall. Row upon row of cryogenic cubicles reached seemingly to infinity. The immensity of the preservement facility was difficult to grasp. The glacier had been scooped out for a kilometer or more, all around the Core. It formed a deep, vast natural storehouse. Pillars of ice, reinforced by plastimetal tempered against the extreme cold, had been left to buttress the ceiling and distribute the incredible weight above. The screens’ views showed catwalks extending from the balcony beyond the monitor room and running out over the sunken main floor. “This way, please. We have auxiliary monitor screens placed for your convenience along the maintenance bridges . . .”
The outer heat lock opened. The rapidly condensing body heat from the group billowed out and up toward the shimmering roof. “We have very efficient temp and humidity control, especially in here,” the guide told them. “We have to, for the protection of our confinees. I must caution you—do not attempt to go down to the main floor! Your body heat could kill the confinees.”
“They say we’ll melt the bodies if we do that . . .”
Todd squirmed, wanting to challenge the lie. This group might strain the cryogenics systems if it descended to the main floor en masse. But even in this ridiculous gear, they could go down in groups of two or three without harming the preserved people in any way. With insu-suits, they could stay down there for hours, comfortably, and not raise the temperature one degree. He gritted his teeth on his anger, trudging with the others out onto the catwalk.
As they progressed along the narrow bridge, the awesome proportions of Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave silenced all complaints about the cold. Even Todd was stunned. The facility had been much smaller the last time he had seen it. As the bodies continued to arrive, the glacier millers had reamed out more and more space, reaching deep into the ice. Todd squinted, trying to decide if the feeling of distance was an illusion. It could be created by holo-mode. He couldn’t be sure. The preservement area appeared to extend indefinitely, though that couldn’t be true. The floor below was filled with preservement cubicles, surrounding the Core, going out beyond the limits of his vision. Neat rows of meter-wide cubicles, each three meters from the next one in line. The cubicles perched on thick stems—umbilicals feeding from the ice-encased cryo systems underneath, going up into the sealed boxes on the frames above.
The guides halted at an auxiliary monitor screen. Numb, gulping frosty air, the Committee members huddled around them. The guides showed little effect from the cold. The lead guide’s voice was steady, not shaken by chattering teeth. “One of our first admissions to the Enclave, ladies and gentlemen: Dr. Jacob Elias, cubicle one zero jay ee.” The monitor zoomed on extreme close-up of one of the myriad boxes below. Smoothly, the guide explained. “We are equipped to accept confinees even during the Antarctic winter, if the shuttle ships can deliver them to us. We are here to serve Earth and its future generations. Dr. Jacob Elias was admitted July 12, 2030.”
Dr. Elias’s torso was discreetly masked to honor his privacy, but his face was in plain view. The kindly countenance was unquestionably that on modern history tapes. The face was real. Even via a holo-made monitor screen, the man was alive, waiting in frozen sleep.
“Dr. Elias is dying of type B neo-anthrax mutation, as you know. His people wanted to save his artistry and his beloved person for their children and their grand. children’s time. When he slipped into coma, he was delivered to the Enclave. We have preserved him with all care, until the day when medicine can cure him . . .” The hope was that future doctors, yet unborn, could save that incredible mind and those gifted, musical fingers, putting his ravaged body back in working order.
They had been able to preserve Elias. July 2030. Just months too late for Ward Saunder, even if they had been able to recover his body from the ocean. The sperm and ova and DNA banks went operational in March 2030. By July, the preservement chambers were in business, too. They could take this gentle man whose music had brought solace to a stricken world and spoken across language and culture, across battle lines. When he fell ill, while only in his fifties, the imminent loss had been unbearable. The world clamored, demanding something be done to save him. And Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave was ready. Dr. Elias had been one of its prime claims to altruism ever since.
The guides handed out ultra-scan binocs to those on the tour and pointed out the cubicle. Todd peered down at the floor. He couldn’t see much more than he could on the auxiliary monitor. It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t eyeball. He had to get a close look at some of those cubicles, and at the circuitry supporting them. There were ways to bypass the relay monitors and security systems, if one knew how.
A few sections away from Elias lay Natalya Petrovna, the conscience of Asia, the rescuer of thousands of suffering children, during the last years of the Chaos. She hadn’t succumbed to the plague or fallen in war. Age had crept upon her. She had gone to the Enclave willingly, speaking prayers to the Spirit of Humanity and believing wholeheartedly in the hope of life the polar installation offered. Her example had encouraged many others to take the same course. It had even comforted condemned criminals and political dissidents sentenced to the Enclave against their will.
There were other famous, much-loved names in this section below the catwalk. !Kanagai. Gupta. Solana. Loos. Huang. Hirota. Zelinski. Su’biyya. Spirit of Humanity embraced them all, whether Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Havurah Judaic, pagan—whatever religion or thought of the future they might have possessed. This icy fortress was now their mausoleum, and their hope of resurrection.
The guides showed them a number of confinees, then led them farther along the catwalk. They stopped at another monitor station twenty-five meters away. This time the displays on the screen weren’t so heroic. Here were some dissidents, artistic rebels, political malcontents. Almost none of these had volunteered for this living death. But the monitors showed them waiting just as peacefully and safely as Dr. Elias and Natalya and the rest of mankind’s revered elite. Todd wondered where they kept their crop of billionaires, such as Ippolito. Probably safe in the honored sections. But presumably the Human Rights Committee wasn’t interested in them. The rich customers could pay for their own upkeep and watch-dogging. They weren’t sponsored by Protectors of Earth. Technically, the Committee shouldn’t have been overly concerned about heroes like Elias, either. Again, there was plenty of funding from such people’s own governments, and they would come here willingly. It was the true confinee who should be the object of the inspection. Yet only now that they had come this far into the preservement area had they begun to reach some of those people—and the genuine criminals, the capital punishment confinees, lay still farther out.
By now, some Committee members were shivering so badly they could barely see the monitor screens. Chattering teeth sounded through the mufflers and breath masks. Todd estimated they had come much less than a quarter of a kilometer. But already, the agonized tour members must be thinking that inevitably they would have to walk back that far to the monitor chamber and then take a further cold ride until they reached the warmth of th
e Core.
Cold, terrible, overwhelming cold seeped into Todd’s marrow. Racked by shivers, he stared along the catwalk. Did he imagine he saw the icy ceiling curving gently, forming an arc? The perspective gave the impression of the Earth’s shape, a shape he shouldn’t be able to see from this vantage. The preservement area seemed endless, horizonless.
No! It did have a horizon, and an end. Vast as this place was, it was finite. He knew that. But he could no longer think clearly, too seized by the cold.
Todd was hypnotized by the beauty of the ice, by the symmetry of the countless rows of cryogenic cubicles. Awkwardly, his movements hampered by the heavy clothing, he looked right and left. Somewhere port and starboard around the huge circle, there were other catwalks, other tour groups, other shivering Committee members, other smirking Enclave staffers.
“W-we’d better . . . better go b-back,” the ranking Committee member of their group said. “We’ve s-seen enough.”
“Spirit of Humanity, oh, yes!” someone else whimpered.
The guides were sadists. They stopped, but they didn’t immediately begin retracing their steps. “If you’re sure, sir. We will be happy to give you a complete inspection swing. Our facilities are totally available to your Committee. We wish you to be satisfied . . .”
“Sat . . . satisfied,” the man chattered. He was quaking under his mound of furs. “Au . . . author . . . authorization . . .”
“Hurry,” a colleague pleaded.
“Right here, sir.” The guide held an authorization-form plate out for the senior Committee member. “You needn’t remove your glove. In fact, we advise against it. The sensor will pick up your handprint through the fabric, sir.” The guide had to steady the man’s quivering hand until the record was made. “That’ll do fine. We can complete the data when we get back to the Core. This way, please, ladies and gentlemen.”
He didn’t have to invite them more than once. They wanted to run, but they couldn’t. They shambled along, the guides aiding them. A couple of people nearly fell. The guides supported them as they all lurched for the comfort of the monitor chamber. It seemed a very long way off. Todd wasn’t ashamed of his shuddering, as grateful as the others when they slipped into the anteroom and then through the second heat lock. Still needing help, they crawled into the trav-carts, huddling there.
“Have you home in a jiffy,” the guide driver cheerily assured them. If Todd had had the strength, he would have knocked the man out of the cart and pounded his head on the icy floor. Instead, be crouched in the seat, wishing the condensing moisture would form a bubble around him and keep out the cold.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ooooooooo
Illusions, and Betrayals
TODD was no good for anything for more than an hour after they reached the Core. With those from the other returned tour groups, they sat in the lounge sipping hot krill soup and caffa. Gradually, it occurred to him that some of the newer Committee V.I.P.s were trying to live up to their oaths. They had retreated to the Core with everyone else, and they were just as cold. But when they recovered a bit, they started demanding further surveys of the confinees, insisting on seeing numerous political dissidents and criminals.
The Enclave staffers, as usual, were scornfully cooperative, though they hid their contempt very well. “Certainly. This first view, madam, is from preservement circle fourteen, file twelve.” The guides cued a you-are-here map on the monitor screen insert to pinpoint the location. Half a kilometer out into the glacier beyond the preservement heat lock, farther than any of the Committee had been able to go. remembering the cold, many of those watching shivered violently and gulped their hot liquids. “Subject two on the list you presented, madam—the rebel Chandrur, circle fifteen, file eight.” The holomode showed the criminals and dissidents, one by one, just as it had showed the heroes. But here they could watch in considerably more comfort. “Former Presidente Ramirez, circle thirteen, file two. Opposition Coordinator Takao, in circle fourteen, file . . .”
Around the Enclave map, scattered selections, all of them far beyond the catwalk positions where the Commitee had stopped. Guides ticked off the requests methodically. One of the members broke in, saying, “It’d take hours to see them all.” Some of the die-hard idealists who were taking the job seriously groaned as they realized the truth of that. “But—but we have a duty to Earth, to the people . . .”
“We can extend the length of your tour, of course,” the chief guide suggested, “so that you may perform your checks from here or on site. A week?” She was warmly courteous. But Todd didn’t miss the malicious glitter in her eyes. She was enjoying the idealists’ shock.
“A—a week? Isn’t there some quicker way?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. A week is hardly adequate, actually. If you will consult your orientation materials, you will see that we have over one hundred thousand available cubicles and more being set up every day by our staff. If you will give us your lists, we’d better get started. If you wish, we can suit up again and return to the preservement chambers for eyeball inspection as soon as you’re ready.”
There was a lengthy pause. Todd could feel the mental wheels spinning, the ideals shattering. Hearing the stats, making resolutions to see each and every confinee on the Committee’s current inspection list, was one thing. Trying to carry out those resolutions while coping with death by freezing was quite another.
“You see the impossibility of your demands, Tovar?” the V.I.P. Committee leader said with annoyance. His young colleague grimaced, but he knew he was defeated. His support was gone. More tolerantly, his ranking superior told him, “Don’t feel bad. We run into this on every tour. You couldn’t be expected to realize the immensity of the task. It’s all right. We’ve worked out a method to fulfill the Committee’s obligations without killing ourselves in the process.”
“Full rapid scan, sir?” the chief guide asked. “As usual?”
“Yes, yes, get on with it, please. You have the lists . . .” Todd sat back, sipping soup, saying nothing. Collusion? That, or a Committee member who liked his comforts and took the easy way out. Some of the younger members had brought up the matter of insu-suits. They had been sloughed off with pat explanations of insufficient equipment and late tests that questioned the integrity of the suits’ heat retention. Doubtful, overruled by their seniors, the youngsters had quit fighting, especially after being stunned senseless by the cold. They were dedicated, but they had learned to live with the global political system—good, cooperative, peaceable citizens, or they wouldn’t have been selected for the Committee in the first place. Todd wondered if their consciences bothered them, or if they would end up being paid off in perks and favors if they continued to raise a fuss.
Or were there nastier methods of removing them as a problem?
The guide raced through the lists of dissidents and criminals the Committee had been assigned to investigate. The holo-modes provided good imagery. The staff hadn’t let the systems slip since ComLink’s techs had installed them ten years ago. No, eleven, Todd corrected himself. This was February 2041. The last gasp of summer for the South Pole.
Below the lifelike images, readouts checked the states of preservation on the confinees. Everything in order. The dissidents and criminals didn’t die in prison, before firing squads, by electrocution, or in a noose. They weren’t dead here, either, according to the data. Until political affairs settled or time found a cure for criminal insanity, they would remain here.
One holo-mode winked out, and another replaced it. Locators marked the widely scattered cubicles around the outer circle of the Enclave. The onlookers were starting to thaw, resigned to accepting this easier method of inspection. They commented on how serene some notorious warlords looked, or how ready to wake up and speak once more various fallen rulers now seemed. The list was a sampling from all P.O.E.’s member nations and quasi-nations—murderers, political mavericks, defeated generals, rebel writers and artists—the scum of humanity and the politically un
popular and the just plain unlucky.
“How many more, sir?” the chief guide asked. “This is a bit of a strain on the equipment.”
As the Committee leader sped up the requests, Todd eyed the woman guide sharply. She didn’t seem aware of his scrutiny. A strain on the equipment? Gobbledygook! Ward’s patented cryo modification holo-system could handle a thousand times this load. It was so efficient, maintenance was virtually nil. And it was energy-thrifty. No heat problems at all, if it was properly installed—and this equipment was. Yet no one reacted to her statement. The data wasn’t in the familiarization material, and even a tech would have to dig a bit to locate it. Weren’t there any techs on the Committee with that sort of training or knowledge of where to look? Todd surreptitiously studied the faces around him. They accepted her statement. They honestly didn’t know. Who had set up the Committee to eliminate such expertise? More collusion?
Ed Lutz wasn’t supposed to be an expert in these systems, either. That meant that Todd would have to pass himself off as very lucky and bumblingly stupid, a fortunate hit on the right combination—if he got caught.
The requests finished after more than an hour. The systems were still working without visible problems, as Todd had known they would be. There was an audible sigh of relief when the Committee leader finally called a halt. Energies were running down. Most members just wanted to sit around the lounge and continue to recuperate. When a guide offered an inspection tour of the labs, there were fewer takers than anticipated. Enough, though, that Todd saw his chance to lose himself in a crowd. He went along while others returned to their sleeping quarters or chatted with Enclave staffers, fascinated by the life style in this miniature nation at the bottom of the world. Fourteen Committee members, Todd with them, followed a lab supervisor in a leisurely stroll through the tissue-storage file rooms.
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