From the ground, Cass backpedaled in a panic, skidding along the ice as she watched the melee. Gasping, she rolled to her feet and stumbled down the tunnel, slamming into walls as the grunts and yells from the desperate fight behind her faded. She navigated her way past the ancient rooms and the fragile wooden struts, the sight of which caused a prickle in her scalp as she remembered the accident she’d had months ago.
Retracing her steps in the near dark, she tried to conjure the base schematic from memory. The common room, where the pipe was. Ahead? Yes. There it was, the tiny, cramped opening. She dropped to the ground and crawled through the opening.
The sharp stink of human feces—not sewage—and the overall stench of close living hit her, permeating even the layers of the mask and scarf. She played the light over the room, steeling herself.
Cans and tins of food littered the floor, while the furniture and debris that she remembered from her first visit lay stacked in bizarre towers and shapes. The old shag carpeting had been ripped up and formed into a kind of cocoon in the middle of the room.
Cass crossed the room quickly, keeping an eye out for anything at this point: traps, rotten floorboards, things to slow or injure her. If she remembered the schematic, the old station only had one main stubby corridor that ran from its entrance to the common room she was in right now. Dorms and labs split off from that main artery like flowers on a vine, but it should be a straight shot to the exit.
Careful not to touch anything, she moved across the room and shoved her weight against an old foam-core door. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again, with minimal result: she managed to create a half-inch gap between the door and the jamb.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Desperate, Cass flicked the beam of her flashlight around the room, looking for anything that could help her. Freeze-dried couch cushions, battered old tables, splintered chair legs—none of it was of any help. She fought down panic. No matter who won the fight behind her, the winner would come after her.
She scoured the room. In the far corner, to the right of the entrance, she found something promising: the wall’s paneling had been torn away, exposing a supporting structure of rebar and two-by-fours. With a dozen desperate yanks, she managed to pry away one of the lengths of rebar.
Cass ran back to the stubborn door and squeezed the tip of the rebar into the opening she’d created. Using the metal pole as a lever, she pried open the door first an inch, then a half foot, and eventually a space wide enough for her to slip through.
The hallway beyond had the dark, still atmosphere of a tomb. Crystal mounds of ice and snow had invaded the old base through microscopic cracks, forming alien, curved sculptures along the ceiling and walls. Her heart leapt into her throat at a roar from far behind her in the tunnels. She jogged down the corridor, sparing only a flash of her light and a glance for each room as she passed. At the end of the short hall, a simple set of stairs climbed two stories, ending in a small antechamber and what she’d hoped would be the door to the outside, but turned out to be nothing but a rounded snowbank.
Gasping and crying, she hacked at the pillows of ice with her axe. After a sweaty minute, breathing heavily, she had managed to expose the door. But all her efforts to move it weren’t even as successful as moving the common room door an inch.
She slumped against the wall, then slid to the ground and put her head down on her arms, beaten. A half mile of snow and ice could be pressed against the other side of the door. It was true, after all: Antarctica would kill her. Her death might actually come at the point of Biddi’s axe or Leroy’s curled fingers . . . but it would be the continent itself that defeated her.
Had the early explorers, living so much closer to the edge than the modern expeditions, ever felt this way? Death, always just on the other side of a door or the walls of your ship. Even the scientists of the early twentieth century had to have lived with fear most days, especially during a winter-over when the chances of rescue in the case of a disaster were truly nil. How they even went about their daily work was hard to imagine . . .
The thought stopped Cass. Their daily work .
Slipping and skidding, she hauled herself to her feet and jogged clumsily back down the hall. The early base crew knew that they’d never get the front hatch open during the winter. They must’ve done their work by using observation tubes at the top of the stub-ups she’d been told about. Popping her head into room after room, she found what she was looking for on the fourth try: the telltale horizontal bars of a hatchway ladder leading upward.
She hurried past the relics of a former workstation and flashed her light up the shaft. The ladder ended at what looked in the darkness like a bubble or tiny observatory.
Breathing heavily, she began pawing her way up the ladder. Her axe, hanging from its lanyard, banged against the side of her leg. After twenty slippery steps upward, she found herself at the top of the observation tube, a tiny circular room with a Plexiglas dome for a ceiling. Scratched and scoured after decades of ice storms, it was almost opaque now, but originally was meant to allow someone standing on the last rung a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the night sky in the winter. Primitive by any modern standard, it would’ve been the only way to do basic astronomy in the original days of the South Pole station.
Cass ran her light along the edge of the dome, looking for a weakness or a seam, finally finding it behind her. Wedging herself against the wall of the tube, she pocketed the light, grabbed her axe with both hands, and began bashing at the tiny line that ran up the dome.
She stopped after thirty swings of the axe, out of breath and aching. The brittle dome had begun to give way, however, and the wind moaned through the aperture. It reminded her of the inhuman bellow Leroy had made as he attacked Biddi. The memory made her grab the axe and continue swinging.
At the fortieth whack, the dome cracked a foot up the seam. The wind’s groan turned into a scream, and with the next blow, the Plexiglas split with the sound of tearing cloth. The dome rattled in place for a brief second, then was torn away by the gale. Cass, almost knocked back down the shaft by the force of the wind, pulled out her flashlight and grabbed for the rim of the tube.
Before she could haul herself over the lip of the tube and out, a noise from below made her focus the beam between her feet and down the shaft.
There was nothing but the black hole leading down into the hell that was the old base. Errant flakes of snow, long held at bay by the dome she’d just shattered, floated down into the shaft. Cass’s imagination took hold and she almost saw Biddi, her mask and balaclava covered with blood, or Leroy, with his nightmarish, frostbitten face, looking up at her from the bottom of the ladder.
Cass turned and clawed her way hand over hand around the opening of the rim. Finding a clear spot, she shoved herself belly-first onto the rim, then dumped herself over the edge of the tube. She slid down the slope of ice and snow that had built up around the tube like a toboggan, coming to a stop ten feet below.
Stumbling to her feet on the uneven ice, she spun in place several times, trying to get her bearings in the dark, resisting the fear that was screaming at her to start walking no matter what the direction. Picking the wrong direction now would be fatal.
The wind shrieked in her face and the pitch-black darkness surrounding her was almost overwhelming. At a guess, she was about two hundred meters from base, maybe more, but Shackleton’s red lights and the normal illumination visible through the windows were gone. Panic welled inside her when she couldn’t find even a simple reference point, but then a windblown cloud was pushed out of the way, giving her a momentary view of the base carving out a blocky, black silhouette against the stars. Taking several quick, deep breaths, she oriented herself against the angle of the silhouette and forged ahead, aiming for the southeast corner of the base and the start of what would be her pathway to survival—the SPoT road—if she could find it.
Each small patch of progress forward was contested by the wind, the ice, and the darkness, at times pushin
g her off her feet or suspending her body in mid-step. The wind shifted unpredictably, causing her to stumble as it went from nearly standing her up to buffeting her from the flank. Every few meters, Cass was forced to stop and pan the flashlight back and forth, looking for the telltale road flags, without which she was truly dead.
Numb from the cold and the constant battering wind, with the endless roar in her ears, her perception of the trek took on a surreal, alien feel, a detached journey dialed in from a light-year away. Time was measured only in how many steps it took to close the gap from one highway flag to the next . . . whether it took a minute or an hour to cross that distance was irrelevant.
The moon was full, casting a wavering ghostly image on the ice in front of her that grew in definition and detail as the scud moved off, pushed by a wind crested into a high-pitched shriek even as a shadow behind her became perfectly, crisply outlined in the snow.
Too tired to turn, the best Cass could do was throw herself to the side, letting gravity take her out of the way of the swing of Biddi’s axe. Moving with glacial speed, she rolled over and over in the snow, trying to build up the momentum she needed to get to her feet. Biddi chased after her, swinging the axe in wild, drunken passes. Cass, mesmerized by the motion and her own exhaustion, watched as Biddi raised her axe and brought it down in a two-handed chop.
Cass slipped out of the way, scrambled to her feet, and threw her shoulder into Biddi’s torso, pushing more than striking her. The woman stumbled back, flailing her arms to keep her balance. Clutching her axe in two hands, Cass followed her with desperate swings, missing by wide margins. Staggering, tripping, running, she followed after Biddi. In the face of Cass’s onslaught, Biddi slipped and went down on one knee.
Putting all her accumulated rage and fear into a final swing, Cass brought the axe down in an overhand arc, catching Biddi high in the chest. The point of the axe, sharp as a beak, traveled through the thick layers and lodged deep in her flesh.
Her friend gave a single, strangled cry and collapsed, dropping her axe as she fell. Exhausted, Cass dropped to her knees, then sank to all fours with her head hanging down. The capricious wind died for a moment, leaving the icy plain strangely quiet. Biddi moaned; whistling, burbling noises rose from her chest.
Blood, black and shiny in the stark moonlight, spilled from the gap between Biddi’s parka and scarf. Cass’s axe was still stuck obscenely in her chest and Biddi pawed weakly at it for a moment, then her hands slowed, then stopped, then fell away.
Cass crawled the few feet separating them. Reaching out, she gently pushed back the scarf and the blank inhuman mask of the balaclava, exposing Biddi’s face. Her friend’s eyes, open to slits, widened slightly, then sunk back again. Her lips were moving. Cass bent forward.
In the suddenly silent icy world, Biddi sighed. “Cassie, love. Save us, won’t you?”
Her breathing thickened, then stopped.
Cass sunk onto the ice next to her, lying there for a long moment as the wind picked up again. Flecks of snow began to collect on Biddi’s face, sticking to her nose and eyelashes and cheeks. In only a minute, ice had covered Biddi’s eyes and snow had filled her mouth, transforming her from something human into a feature of the landscape, another part of the ice.
When she could no longer recognize her friend’s face, Cass rolled onto her back and looked up at the stars. The light of her headlamp shone skyward like a bloody beacon. Sleep, beckoning, pulled her into a black abyss and her arms spread wide, as though asking for a hug or making a snow angel.
An aurora, like a ghostly green ribbon, tore across the sky. It’s beautiful , she thought, glad to have seen it. A feeling of peace enveloped her. The voice in her head nagged at her to get up, to fight, but she gently shut it away. Her struggle was over, and it was enough to have tried.
She wished for the people she had failed—in her past, in the present—to forgive her.
So she forgave herself.
And then she closed her eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
In the distance, pinpoints of light wavered and winked like stars. Minutes passed and the tiny, flickering lights, spaced as orderly as diamonds on a necklace, became round moons, then pale planets bobbing and moving in a line until they materialized as the headlights of a convoy of giant Vityaz snowcats wending their way along the SPoT road.
Ice crystals, thrown into the air by the deep-toothed tires, glittered as they fell back to earth. Shackleton was the obvious goal, but just as the snowcats poked their nose toward the base, the herd slowed, then veered toward the red beam of a headlamp shooting toward the sky. Pulling close, one of the giant machines stopped with a lurch. Frozen, nearly unconscious, Cass turned her head to watch as the door opened, only mildly interested. Four men, big as bears, hopped out of the cab and waddled over to her.
One of them knelt by her side and, pulling his scarf down, he flashed her a bearded smile she hadn’t seen in nearly a year. “Vozlyublennaya , what’s a nice girl like you doing out on a night like this?”
“Oh my God.” Cass clutched at him. “Vox.”
He put a mittened hand along her face. “It is just Sasha now, Blaze.”
With his arms around her, he helped her to her feet. Step by step they walked to the snowcat. The three other men, with the painstaking care reserved for a child or a saint, raised her into the cab. White clouds billowed into the night as the door opened, then was shut quickly.
The Russians held a quick conference, then three of the Vityaz continued on toward the American base. The last turned and headed for the safety of Orlova, leaving the wreckage of Shackleton, and the lives of the crew who’d manned it, behind.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The fictitious Shackleton South Pole Research Facility, as stated in the text, is based on the very real Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, but I’ve taken poetic license in describing its construction and usage, as well as the lives of the people who live and work there. Ice-heads who have spent time at Amundsen-Scott will, I hope, forgive the many liberties I’ve taken and appreciate the facts when I’ve used them.
I’ve played fast and loose with the salutogenic theories of Aaron Antonovsky, but his work is fascinating and worthy of study, as are the investigations into the phenomenon of T3 syndrome. Any misunderstandings of his work or the broader field of Antarctic psychology are my own.
The Lyubov Orlova station is fictitious and was invented solely for storytelling purposes; to my knowledge, there is no base, Russian or otherwise, near the Amundsen-Scott facility. The name of the station is my homage to the MV Lyubov Orlova , the ship I took on my sole visit to Antarctica (though not the South Pole), which has since been decommissioned and lost at sea. The ship, in turn, was named after the lovely and talented Lyubov Orlova, “the first recognized star of Soviet cinema.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would not have been able to write this novel without the help, direct and indirect, of the following people, places, and things.
The love and support of my family and friends form the foundation for any novel I write. I include in those two groups my extended family at Thomas & Mercer, who have helped and mentored me along the way. Thank you all.
Special thanks goes out to my editor Jacque Ben-Zekry for believing in the project from the start and providing great advice and humor along the way; Caitlin Alexander, who improved this book by several orders of magnitude over one incredibly intense month of editing; and Jon Ford, whose eagle eye caught the many mistakes that (somehow!) slipped through the first dozen drafts. Thank you all for your patience, sensitivity, and expert advice.
The blogs of the legendary Bill Spindler ( www.southpolestation.com ) and world-traveler Jeffrey Donenfeld ( www.jeffreydonenfeld.com ) were so instrumental to my research that this book wouldn’t exist in its present form without them. Additional invaluable information—including some breathtaking photography—came from the personal blogs of Marc Ankenbauer ( www.glacierexplorer.com ), Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin ( ww
w.ulterior-motors.com ), and Marco Tortonese ( www.marcopolie.blogspot.com ).
Other helpful online resources included the National Science Foundation’s United States Antarctic Program website (www.usap.gov ) and the Antarctic Sun (antarcticsun.usap.gov ), the continent’s largest (only?) newspaper.
For an inside view of the lives of some of the quirkiest, bravest, and most singular people on the planet as well as achingly beautiful cinematography, nothing beats Anthony Powell’s documentary film Antarctica: A Year on Ice (www.frozensouth.weebly.com ). If you have a chance to view it, you’ll find that, far from exaggerating what it’s like at the bottom of the world, I barely did it justice.
Written resources include Kim Heacox’s Antarctica: The Last Continent , a poetic and sensitive treatment of the continent’s history and significance; Kim Stanley Robinson’s Antarctica , a novel that delivers profound ruminations about the future and past of Antarctica, as well as humanity’s role on it, while spinning an entertaining tale at the same time; Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World , the stunning and eloquent account from a man who nearly gave his life in those heroic early days of Antarctic exploration; and Caroline Alexander’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition , with its awe-inspiring photography by Frank Hurley and, of course, the even more jaw-dropping account of Ernest Shackleton’s unprecedented voyage.
Background on the psychological effects of wintering over, confinement psychology, and general information on Aaron Antonovsky’s fascinating theory of salutogenesis was gleaned from “The Psychology of Isolated and Confined Environments: Understanding Human Behavior in Antarctica” by Lawrence A. Palinkas.
Technical details about snowmobiles and their maintenance were cribbed from the excellent American Snowmobiler magazine ( www.amsnow.com ).
I received encouragement and sage advice from Jil Simon, David Jacobstein, and Maria Schneider. David Mugg and his wife, Sarah (McMurdo, 2013), gave generously of their time, sharing their pictures, stories, and knowledge of life at the bottom, including the disappointment that comes from discovering you only have mint Irish cream liqueur to drink until the next flight arrives from Christchurch.
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