Zodiac Station

by Tom Harper

  ‘You almost sound like you’re sympathetic.’

  ‘Don’t be cute, Captain. Take a look at yourself – you’re a long way from Kansas here. You want to believe that’s because the United States Coast Guard gives a shit about polar bears? I’m guessing that strapped to the bottom of this tub, you’ve got the most expensive sonar Uncle Sam can afford, colouring in the seabed. So that when this place looks like Galveston with all the supertankers and container ships and drill rigs, our subs can keep an eye on them without crashing into an uncharted undersea mountain. But all that won’t be worth a nickel if the Russians get this satellite radar working. They’ll own the whole enchilada.’

  His mouth had gone so dry he was croaking like a raven. He sucked water from a tube and glared at Franklin.

  ‘The Cold War didn’t go away, they just monetised it. And if history teaches anything worth a damn, it’s that the only thing countries really go to war for is cash. That’s why they sent me to Zodiac.’

  There weren’t any chairs in the sickbay. Franklin leaned against a bulkhead, and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

  Twenty-three

  Eastman

  I said DAR-X are a front and that’s true – but they’re a real oil company. My job was to get close to them, so I could find out if they were working on the satellite thing. So I started leaking them some confidential data from Zodiac, stuff they could use to undermine the global-warming mafia.

  Don’t give me that look, Captain. It was for the greater good. What I do, science-wise – the reason the NSA approached me – is pointing antennas at space. And I was getting some screwy readings. You go to the Arctic because it’s pristine, no cellphones or TV or garage-door openers clogging the signal. But from the noise I was getting, I might as well have parked my telescope next door to Verizon. So I knew something was going down. If the Russians get that radar, they’ll have total mastery of the seas. You think that compares to whether our kids might need more sunscreen in a hundred years?

  DAR-X had their base at Echo Bay, about halfway up the west coast. I went there to take a look round, didn’t find anything. They had a big drill rig that could have been used for an antenna, but it looked real enough. Rumour was they’re not drilling for oil, some kind of natural gas instead, but I don’t know.

  There’s a million places you could hide an antenna on Utgard and nobody’d see it except the bears. But you can’t just stick that thing in the middle of a snowfield. You need infrastructure, power, a way of getting the data back to Echo Bay. So when I heard that DAR-X had been hanging out at the old Commie ghost town at Vitangelsk, I decided to check it out.

  Kennedy tagged along: he had some theory about Hagger, the guy who fell in a crevasse. Not that I thought that was irrelevant – far from it. I figured Hagger most likely found something out about DAR-X, or the radar, or the Russians, and paid the price. I won’t pretend it didn’t freak me out. I’m not James Bond. At the same time, it made me feel Hagger must have gotten close to something. And I was going to find it.

  Kennedy thought Hagger’d been murdered by a jealous scientist. Like I say, he didn’t have a clue. But then, none of us did at that stage.

  I left Kennedy in the main square at Vitangelsk, next to the statue of Lenin, and climbed towards the top end of town. If you ever want to see the hypocrisy of the Communist system, take a look at Vitangelsk. It’s built up the side of a mountain: the workers lived in wooden barracks at the bottom, the managers in brick houses higher up, and everything that really mattered – the machinery, the stores, the processing plant – was up top, along with the power station. I don’t know how much coal they had to burn just so they could mine more of it, but it must have been a ton. You could still see the power cables stretched from roof to roof, down the mountain and right around the town, a total spiderweb.

  When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Commies left Vitangelsk so fast they didn’t even bother to pack. Everything’s kept perfectly in the deep freeze: you can still see papers on the desks and rubber stamps with the hammer and sickle; beer and cookies and bread and pickles, still in mint condition. Hard hats, overalls and pickaxes hanging on pegs at the mine head where the guys finished their last shift. Like Lenin’s tomb, if you’ve ever been to Moscow. It’s hard not to look over your shoulder and wonder if they’re coming back.

  The moment I got there, I knew I had to be close. I got out my spectrum analyser and did an RF sweep, checking all available frequencies. When I got to the C band, the satellite wavelength, it went off the scale.

  There’s maybe thirty or forty buildings in Vitangelsk – too many to explore each one. But if you’re going to mount a satellite dish, the best place is on the roof. I was at the top of the town. I figured if I could get on top of one of the buildings there, I’d have a good view right the way down.

  I got on to the roof of the old machine shop. From above, even that Soviet ruin looked almost quaint. Snow-covered roofs descending the mountain, the frosted power cables running like icicles between them. If someone had lit a fire, you could have imagined you were in a Disney movie.

  I got out my binoculars and scanned the town. Nothing. No satellite dish, no masts, not even a TV antenna. No sign of Kennedy, either.

  I walked across the roof to check the other side. Should have watched where I was going. My toe snagged something just under the snow and threw me forward. I stumbled a couple of steps, threw out my arms and bellyflopped on to the roof a few inches shy of the edge. I lay there a moment, sick with adrenalin and what had almost happened.

  When I picked myself up, I looked back to see what I’d tripped on. A black rubber cable lay in the snow. Where my boot had rubbed off the ice, it looked about a hundred years newer than anything else in town.

  I tugged. It didn’t give more than a couple of inches. I followed it through the snow. It ran all the way to the edge of the roof, where a steel clamp held it in place. But that wasn’t the end of it. It carried on, across the street and down on to the roof of the next building.

  I found the binoculars where I’d dropped them and brushed off the snow. Focusing on the cable, I followed it over the next building, then the next. I lost it there, until I realised it had hung a right and was headed cross-town, where it disappeared behind a smokestack.

  ‘Holy shit.’

  The wires I’d seen from the street didn’t go inside the buildings, like power cables should have. They ran across the roofs, building to building, making a single vast loop around the town. They weren’t power cables; they made an antenna, as big as the town, and you’d never see it because it was all around you. With that thing, you could probably hear what they were saying on Mars.

  Now I knew where to look, I found other cables connected to it, running to the centre of the circle. They all seemed to come together someplace by the main square.

  I ran back there. I hadn’t seen it when I was there before. Now I knew what to look for, I got it straight away. More cables, maybe a dozen in total, running in from every side of town and coming together on the old HQ building like the spokes of a wheel.

  The door was an old piece of wood that cracked open with one good kick. Inside, it looked like the staff had gone for lunch and forgotten to lock up: chairs fallen over, papers blown in the corners, an old calendar from 1991 hanging crooked on the wall. I think if you’d looked, you’d have found old coffee frozen in the bottom of the mug.

  But I figured what I wanted was upstairs. I chased up the first flight – and stopped.

  I was in the right place. A heavy-duty steel trapdoor had been laid across so you couldn’t go up. A padlock, shiny with grease, made sure of it.

  At that moment, I wanted to be on the other side of that door more than I’d ever wanted anything. I got the rifle out and put the muzzle against the lock. I almost pulled the trigger. But I’ve seen that Master Lock commercial (though this was a Yale); I didn’t want to risk a ricochet. I’d have to come
back with the right equipment.

  I was still looking at the lock, wondering if bolt cutters would do the job, when I heard the first gunshot. I’ll tell you, my first thought wasn’t Kennedy: I was certain the Russians had arrived. But I hadn’t heard anyone coming, no snowmobiles or helicopters buzzing around.

  I heard another shot. The echo scrambled the sound so much I couldn’t tell where it came from; not so close I needed to duck, at least. It sounded like one of our Rugers. I’ve spent enough time on the range at Zodiac to know the sound.

  Was it Kennedy shooting? If so, he was more than likely to blow his own head off. But the procedure at Zodiac is that if you hear your buddy shooting, you assume it’s a bear and go help. As Quam liked to say, procedure can save your life. He was wrong about a lot of things, but he got that right. Plus, I’d get a rocket up my ass if anything happened to Doc.

  I ran down the stairs and out into the street, just quick enough to hear another shot. Then two more, almost on top of each other, but I couldn’t get a fix on them with all the buildings around. I followed Doc’s prints heading downhill.

  The shooting had stopped. Normally, you’d assume that meant the bear had gone away – but this was pretty fucking far from normal. And I’d counted five shots. Kennedy must have been out of ammo. I tweaked the radio again, but no answer. Between the buildings and the massive antenna hanging over my head, I didn’t expect anything.

  I searched everywhere. He’d traipsed around like a tourist, which made it harder; sometimes I lost the track when he’d gone inside a building. Finally, I came out on the edge of town, where the cableway heads off toward Mine 8. He’d definitely come this way: I could see his trail. And someone else’s, too, long strides that looked like they’d been chasing after him. Now I was really starting to freak out.

  With so many prints pounding up the snow, I almost missed the bear tracks. But there’s nothing else like them on Utgard. Strange to say, the sight made me breathe easier. If a bear had got Kennedy, there’d be blood, and I didn’t see any. And I’d rather find a bear than Russians.

  I had a flare pistol in a side holster, like always when I’m in the field. I took it out and loaded a cartridge. We carry the rifles because you can kill the bear if you have to, but a flare pistol’s much better for scaring them off before it gets to that.

  The bear tracks headed out of town. I found broken snow where he must have sat down a while, near the base of one of the cableway towers, and more tracks going off across the mountain. Nearby, copper cartridges shone on the ground.

  He used up all his ammo. But where did he go then? I still didn’t see any blood. Another set of footprints led away up the hill. Reasonably fresh, but they looked too big to be Kennedy’s. Probably one of the DAR-X guys who’d been here earlier.

  I’d just about given up when I heard a low clang, like someone pounding on a bucket. I thought it must be some old machinery knocking in the wind. I started back towards town, figuring I must have missed something. The clanging kept going. If anything, it sounded louder.

  Just before I hit town, I looked back. Christ knows, but he was a lucky s.o.b. I saw his arm sticking out of the coal car and realised what it was. I climbed the ladder and saw him huddled in the bottom.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing in there?’

  I got him down. It was a hell of a job, and the story he told about how he got there was crazier still. Chased by a bear, then by a guy with a gun. He wanted to go home – frostbite had nearly crippled him – but I talked him out of it. I was too close. I’d found the antenna; then this gunman – he had to be DAR-X – had almost killed Kennedy. If he came back, I wanted answers.

  You’ve heard this part? I won’t repeat it. Long story short, we froze our asses off all night jumping at shadows, thought we’d found something, and all we got was a sad old man and a dead bear. I mean, can you believe it? Guy shoots a polar bear and he goes around like the fucking Tell-Tale Heart. And Kennedy’s feeling like an idiot, because he more or less accused Ash of murdering Hagger.

  I didn’t tell them what I’d found. I didn’t know who I could trust. But as we lifted off in the helicopter, I knew I had to get back to find out what the hell that antenna was receiving. And where it was going to.

  Twenty-four

  Eastman

  Flying into Zodiac, we could see the wrecked Twin Otter at the end of the runway. Christ knew how long before they got it out: might be a hundred years.

  I was busting to get back to Vitangelsk right away. I grabbed some coffee and cereal from the mess, then found Greta in the shop. She kept that place like your granddad’s basement: tools hanging on nails on the walls, hardware spilling out of plastic boxes, smell of oil and fried metal in the air. She was working on a busted snowmobile, stripped down to her tank top, hair braided back.

  ‘You look good,’ I told her.

  She gave me a look like she could care less.

  ‘Do you have any bolt cutters I could borrow?’

  She took a heavy-duty pair of long-handled bolt cutters off a peg on the wall and gave them to me. You could break into Fort Knox with those things.

  But I wasn’t taking a chance. ‘You don’t have something like a portable gas-cutting torch too, do you?’

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t say anything – but for some reason I felt I had to explain myself.

  ‘One of the struts buckled on my radio telescope. Crushed the cable; I need to get it out.’

  ‘I can help.’

  Was that a straight offer? Or was she calling my bluff?

  ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Be quick. There’s a storm coming.’

  ‘All staff,’ said the speaker on the wall.

  I’d spent a night in the cold, no sleep: I was twitchy as hell. The voice coming out of the speaker almost made me jump into Greta’s arms.

  ‘All staff, please report to the mess for an urgent briefing,’ Quam said over the intercom.

  The Horrorscope on the door said Your future is stormy. Inside, everyone was sitting on the couches – like movie night, only without the entertainment. Anderson had gotten out of bed, I noticed, though Trond the pilot wasn’t there. Ash sat on the end nearest Quam. I wondered if this was about him.

  ‘I have an announcement to make,’ Quam said. Guy couldn’t open his mouth without telling you he was a pompous ass. ‘Following a consultation with Norwich, it’s been decided that all Zodiac personnel will be confined to base until further notice.’

  The room erupted. Quam looked surprised, though he was an idiot if he hadn’t seen it coming. He took a step back, pressed up against the TV like a prisoner facing the firing squad.

  ‘Did the penguins make that decision?’ someone asked sarcastically.

  Quam held up his hand for silence, like an elementary-school teacher with a rowdy class. It was a while before everyone quieted down enough for him to speak.

  ‘We can’t afford any more accidents. With the Twin Otter out of commission, we’re terribly exposed. If anything else happened, there’d be no way to get us out.’

  I didn’t think that would improve morale any. I kept quiet, and watched the others. They’d started shouting again. Ashcliffe said something like ‘health and safety gone mad’; Annabel was listing all the people who funded her research. Show-off.

  ‘I’ve got instruments collecting data up on the mountain,’ said Fridge. ‘Am I supposed to forget about that?’

  ‘Use the data link.’

  ‘The data link is fucked.’

  ‘What about Gemini?’ Annabel said.

  ‘Gemini’s off-limits.’

  ‘My funding body pays a fortune to keep me here so I can do science.’

  ‘Violating this policy will put you in breach of the contracts you signed,’ Quam said. He sounded desperate.

  ‘So what?’ Fridge demanded. ‘You can’t send us home. Will you throw us out into the snow like fucking Captain Oates?’

  ‘That would be a breach of contract,’ As
h said. Heavy with sarcasm. He must have forgotten he was going home anyway.

  I raised my hand. Quam pointed to me, grateful for that gesture of respect.

  ‘Did the assholes in Norwich consider that someone’s more likely to end up dead if we’re all locked in together like this?’

  ‘Enough!’ Quam thumped the TV so hard I thought he’d broken it. Then he really would’ve had a mutiny. ‘I didn’t make this policy, but we all have to stick with it. For our own protection.’

  ‘Who do we need protecting from?’ Anderson asked. If Quam heard that, he ignored it.

  ‘As a positive,’ said Quam, breathing hard, ‘I’d like to announce that this Saturday will be Thing Night.’

  That earned him an ironic cheer. Everybody loves Thing Night.

  Quam went and shut himself in his office. I guess he was regretting not fitting locks. I sat down in my room and thought about what had happened.

  Kennedy’s story was crazy, but it wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened at Zodiac that week. If he wanted to lie, there were easier ways to do it than almost freezing to death in a mining car. And I’d seen the extra set of footprints around the tower. I wished I’d have followed them.

  So who was the guy in the yellow parka? He had to be DAR-X, protecting whatever they had locked in the HQ building where all those wires led. I had to get back there.

  Of course, I wasn’t allowed off base, but I wouldn’t let Quam’s BS regulations stop me. And while I was going off the reservation, I might as well kill a few birds.

  I got out my laptop and wrote an email to a colleague of mine, physicist at Rutgers called Guy Roache.