A Thousand Degrees Below Zero

by Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER III.

  Teddy Gerrod was stuffing his feet into heavy, fur-lined arctic boots.Ten or twelve soldiers were loading clumsy, awkward-looking engineson improvised sledges resting on the ice at the foot of the fortembankments. Others were putting equally ungainly iron globes withwinged metal rods attached to them on other sledges. A dozen befurredand swathed figures came down the slope of the embankment and examinedthe preparations. A naval launch ran smartly alongside the edge of theice, and a messenger came over at the double to the commandant of thefort, who stood by Teddy Gerrod. The messenger saluted.

  "Sir, the object dropped from the black flyer was a tin float having amessage attached. The smoke was from a smoke fuse, lighted to attractattention."

  He handed over the letter, saluted again, and retired. The commandanttore open the letter and read it through, then swore frankly.

  "A threat to freeze the Croton reservoir and cut off New York City'swater supply if an answer to his previous demands is not given withinforty-eight hours! And he can do it! Mr. Gerrod, you've simply got tosettle this business. New York would go crazy if the people knew this.There'd be no way to supply the water the city has to have. And sevenmillion people without water----"

  Teddy smiled grimly.

  "I'm going to try. Professor Hawkins is usually right, and we ought tobe able to do something about this berg."

  A second messenger came up and saluted.

  "Sir, Lieutenant Davis reports that the plane has been recovered andLieutenant Curtiss' body examined. There are no bullet marks, and thebody seemed to be frozen solidly. He cannot say, as yet, what causedLieutenant Curtiss' death."

  "Frozen," said Teddy laconically.

  "In mid-air?" asked the commandant sharply. "And in a fraction of asecond, wearing heavy aviator's clothing?"

  Teddy nodded, and buttoned up the huge fur coat in which he wasenveloped.

  "I'm ready to start off now, if the sledges are."

  The little party moved away from the shore. The heavy mist still hungover the expanse of ice, but near the shore the ice was thinner. Thesledges were roped together, and Teddy walked at the head. The partytugged at the ropes on the sledges, puffing out clouds of frosty breathat every exhalation. Teddy had taken the compass bearings of the steamplume, and after he had gone a hundred yards from the shore the wisdomof his course became apparent. They were completely surrounded by athick fog in which objects five yards off were lost to view. Teddy,leading the small column, could not be seen except as a dim and shadowyfigure by the men hardly more than two paces in his rear. He referredconstantly to his compass, and once or twice glanced at the thermometerhe had strapped on the sleeve of his great coat.

  "Forty degrees," he murmured to himself. "And in New York it'seighty-four in the shade. The ice must be colder still because it's dryand hard."

  The party toiled on. Presently small snow crystals crunched underfoot.

  "Frozen mist," said Teddy, and glanced at his thermometer. "H'm!Twenty-two degrees. Ten below freezing."

  The party stopped for a breathing spell.

  "I hope you men smoke," said Teddy, "because it's going to be cold afew hundred yards farther on. We'll come clear of this mist presently.If you smoke, and inhale, it'll probably warm up your lungs a little.You don't need it yet, though. Any of you who haven't pulled down theflaps of your helmets had better do so now."

  A moment or so later they took up their march again. The sledges,with their heavy loads, were cumbersome things to drag over theuneven surface of the ice. The men panted and gasped as they threwtheir weight on the ropes. Teddy felt the air growing colder still,and presently noticed that the mist no longer seemed to be as thickas before. He glanced down at the front of his heavy fur coat. Itwas covered with tiny white crystals. He held up his hand with thethick mitten on it to form a dark background, and saw numberlessinfinitesimal snowflakes drifting slowly toward the ice under his feet.His thermometer showed two degrees above zero--and New York, six milesaway, was sweltering in August heat!

  "Not much farther," he called cheerfully. "We're almost there."

  They panted and tugged on, a hundred and fifty yards more. Then theystopped and stared.

  Three hundred yards away the great column of steam was issuing from theice. A hollow hillock of snow and ice rose to a height of twenty feet,like the miniature crater of a volcano. From it, in an unbroken stream,the mass of steam emerged with a roaring, rushing sound. It rose fivehundred feet before it broke into the plumelike formation that was socharacteristic. There was a space, perhaps six hundred paces across,in which there was no mist. The cold was too intense to allow of theformation of fog. Water vapor condensed instantly in that frigidatmosphere. But around the clearing the mist rose from the surface ofthe ice. It became noticeable when it was merely waist-high, then roseto the height of a man, and climbed to a height of fifty feet in acircular wall all about the strange white open space. Teddy, looking atthe top of the wall of vapor, saw that it undulated gently, as if waveswere flowing back and forth around the tall column of steam.

  The men began to unload their sledges. The awkward little trenchmortars were set in place and careful measurements made of thedistance to the steam plume. While the men labored, Teddy moved forwardtoward the central cone. Five degrees below zero, fifteen degrees belowzero, thirty degrees below zero----His breath cut sharply when it wentinto his lungs. Teddy put his mittened hand over his nose and face topartially warm the air before he breathed it in. Now, even through theheavy, arctic clothing he wore, he felt the bitter cold. He detachedthe thermometer from his sleeve and clumsily tied it to a cord. Hehad hoped to be able to lower it down the rim of the crater, but thatwas impossible. He flung it toward the hillock of snow and ice, letit remain there an instant, then hastily drew it back to read it. Theether in the thermometer had frozen into a solid mass in the bulb ofthe instrument.

  Teddy went back to where the men had made ready. Four of the wickedlittle guns would fling their three-hundred-pound bombs into the centerof the column of steam. If all went well, at least one charge of T.N.T.would explode far down the orifice.

  The propelling charges had been inserted, and now the slender rods wereput into the muzzles of the short, squat weapons. The winged bombs werebalanced on the muzzles like top-heavy oranges on as many sticks. Athalf-second intervals, the four guns went off one after the other.

  Before the last had exploded, or just as the flame leaped from itsmuzzle, the hillock of ice rose as in an eruption. Four crackingdetonations blended into one colossal roar that half stunned the littlefur-clad party. The rush of air threw them from their feet. Whenthey rose again a huge hole showed in the center of the clearing, agaping chasm that went down deep into the heart of the ice. A cloud ofyellowish smoke floated above them. And the column of steam had ceased!Only a few stray wisps of white vapor floated up from the opening.

  "It's done!"

  Teddy gave orders for a quick return to the fort. The mortars could bereturned for. At the moment the important thing was to send the news toEngland and Japan.

  The return trip was made quickly, and Teddy made hurried explanationsto the commandant of the forts of what should be done. Men shouldbore deep holes twenty feet apart, the holes to be along the edges ofclearly defined sections of the ice. Simultaneous blasts should be setoff, and the sections would float free. The iceberg would not growagain. It was done for.

  Cablegrams were prepared and rushed through to Folkestone, Yokohama,and Gibraltar. If men took trench mortars and fired shells that wouldfall down the holes from which the steam issued, the cause of the icecakes would be destroyed and the ice itself could be blasted off andtowed out to sea to melt.

  Teddy rushed back to the professor's home to report to him the fullverification of his theories, and it was there and then that the firstauthentic explanation of the ice floe was given to the world. Word ofhis effort and of the disappearance of the steam plume had precededhim, and as he sped uptown in the taxicab newsboys were already onth
e streets with their extras. Only the front pages--showing signs ofhaving hastily been hacked to pieces to make room for the story--hadanything about the latest development, and those extras are singularlyperfect reflections of the public attitude at that time.