Black Ice

by Matt Dickinson

  Mel turned to the two sledges, on which Richard and Carl had been transported for the last three days.

  ‘How are the patients?’ she asked.

  Richard poked his head out of his sleeping bag, blinking in surprise at the intensity of the artificial light which struck his face.

  ‘Are we here?’ he asked groggily. ‘Is this the base?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Mel told him. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, simply, ‘that’s really good.’

  ‘They’re both heavily sedated,’ Lauren told the medic quietly. ‘They’ve both been in a lot of pain, and lying in those sledges for three days is no joke either. They’re going to need quite a bit of care.’

  ‘What about the other one?’ Mel gestured to Carl, who showed no sign of movement.

  ‘He’s worse than the journalist. I haven’t managed to get much out of him at all; he’s extremely debilitated.’

  ‘OK. Let’s get them into the clinic right away.’

  Lauren and Mel began the delicate task of transferring the two injured men onto stretchers and the others hurried to help them. Sean, meanwhile, unhitched the snowmobiles and ran them over to the maintenance shed, where he immediately began to service them. Lauren watched him go with pride; typical of Sean, she mused, to think of the machines before himself.

  Personally, she was looking forward to two things now the six-hundred-mile journey was over: a decent warm drink and a shower. From the doorway of the base, enticing aromas wafted, the familiar reassuring smells which were a part of the fabric of the place. Lauren could detect the distinctive tang of freshly ground coffee, the hot, yeasty fog of Murdo’s morning baking session. They called her, made her want to be back inside the mess room of Capricorn—to reassure herself again that it was still real, to enjoy the camaraderie of her team, the jokes and good-natured piss-taking which were a part of the character of the place. Instead, like Sean, she got stuck into the tasks at hand.

  Carl and Richard were the obvious priority, and they were quickly transported into the clinic where both were rapidly assessed by the doctor.

  ‘You patched them up pretty good,’ Mel told Lauren as she examined the temporary splints and dressings. ‘I’ll deal with the journalist first. Why don’t you take some rest?’

  But Lauren refused to leave, staying to assist Mel through the hour-long operation to X-ray, administer anaesthetic and then set and plaster Richard’s two broken legs.

  ‘He was lucky these weren’t compound fractures,’ Mel observed. ‘He’s escaped serious infection by the looks of it, but I’ll still put him on a course of penicillin to be sure.’

  The skeletal Carl was next, his frostbitten face and hands bandaged and treated with zinc cream and iodine before he collapsed without a word into a bunk.

  ‘He’s lost a dangerous amount of weight,’ Mel observed quietly to Lauren, ‘and he seems in shock. Has he been like that since the rescue?’

  ‘He hasn’t said a word,’ Lauren told her. ‘It’s like his mind has closed down with the stress and trauma.’

  Lauren made sure that both men were given soup and tea, and only then did she make her way to the mess room, where she flopped gratefully into one of the easy chairs. The luxurious sensation of sitting on the soft fabric was heaven after the six days of constant jarring motion on the snowmobiles. The room seemed particularly colourful after so many days of unrelenting ice. The simple patterned rug on the wooden floor—opposing quadrants of yellow and red weave—now looked extraordinarily exotic, whereas before she had hardly noticed it.

  Across the room Fitzgerald was helping himself to tea from a flask. Lauren couldn’t help noticing that he poured his drink into Mel’s personal mug—clearly marked with her name—even though Murdo had put out plastic cups for the new arrivals. Then he crossed to the long table and began to demolish the huge plate of sausages and potatoes Murdo had served him.

  ‘D’yae wanna eat?’ Murdo called over from the galley.

  ‘Not right now,’ Lauren lied. ‘I’ll wait until Sean comes in later.’

  ‘You really should come and join me, my dear,’ Fitzgerald called over to her. ‘This is simply delicious.’

  ‘I’ll hang on for Sean.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Frank broke her reverie, standing before her with the percolator steaming in his hand.

  ‘You bet.’

  Lauren sipped the coffee slowly, wincing a little as the hot liquid brushed against her wind-chapped lips.

  ‘So,’ she asked Frank, ‘what’s new?’

  Frank handed her a sheaf of papers, tightly packed with names and fax numbers.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Calls from the press while you’ve been away,’ Frank told her. ‘Your little rescue mission has stirred up more media interest than you’d believe. The radio’s been red hot all week, and our sponsors have been taking a lot of heat back in London. I tell you, there’s nothing quite like a rescue to get the ratpack jumping up and down.’

  ‘I’ll deal with these in the morning.’

  Sean came in and flopped down next to Lauren, every bit as tired as she was.

  ‘Hey, Sean,’ Lauren told him warmly, ‘you were really tremendous on the rescue. I wouldn’t have wanted to be out there without you.’

  Sean smiled back. ‘Oh. Well, I enjoyed it too. Now we’re back, I guess we’re going to start with the drilling right away?’

  ‘If you’re up to it,’ Lauren told him. ‘I’d like to fire up the plant this afternoon. I want to try and claw back the days we’ve lost, so it might mean some twenty-four-hour sessions if that’s all right.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Sean told her. ‘I’ll keep her running all winter if you want.’

  ‘Thanks…’ Lauren handed Sean a coffee. ‘You want some food?’

  A stab of memory hit Sean. He still had that packet of emergency biscuits from the plane. He patted his right-hand pocket, feeling the bulge.

  ‘Hey … I’ve got some biscuits. I clean forgot about them.’

  He pulled out the distinctive military-green packet and sipped his coffee, opening up the biscuits as he did so. He gave one to Lauren, and then began to eat one himself, only then noticing that Fitzgerald had fixed his attention on him with unusual intensity. Sean tried to ignore the stare, but it quickly became irritating.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing…’ Fitzgerald returned to his normal inscrutable smile as he watched Sean toss the green paper of the biscuit wrapper into a nearby wastebasket. ‘Nothing at all.’

  30

  ‘You’d better talk to De Pierman,’ Frank reminded Lauren. ‘Our sponsor’s getting a little hot under the collar, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh God. I really don’t need a lecture from Alexander right now, but I guess he deserves an update.’

  Lauren followed Frank through to the radio room where he patched her through to London. By good fortune, De Pierman was in his office. His secretary put Lauren through.

  ‘Alexander, it’s Lauren calling from Capricorn.’

  ‘Lauren! I’ve been waiting for you to get in contact.’

  ‘Sean and I got back this morning. The rescue was a complete success. We brought back the three survivors—namely Julian Fitzgerald, Carl Norland and Richard Leighton, the Daily Mail journalist. How’s it been your end?’

  ‘It was fine to begin with—the first few days gave us quite a bit of positive publicity as you set out on the rescue. Then the lack of news set the media looking for a spin on the story … and the spin happened—unfortunately—to be me and my oil operations.’

  ‘Oh.’ Now Lauren could hear the clipped anger in De Pierman’s voice.

  ‘This is rapidly becoming a pain in the neck, Lauren. I’ve got press men camped—and I mean literally camped—outside my offices here, I’ve had photographers on motorbikes tailing me through the streets. I don’t think I’ve had a straight hour I could concentrate on my work since this bloody rescue scenario came up.
My involvement with your project was on the understanding that I was promoting serious science, not feeding some sort of tabloid frenzy.’

  ‘Can’t you explain to them that you’re nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the base?’

  De Pierman tutted in frustration. ‘You think I haven’t tried that? But that’s not the way the media work; my name’s on the Capricorn website as the sponsor, and that makes me fair game in their eyes, especially with a profile like mine. When they can’t speak to you, they turn to me … and, because I’ve got no new news for them, they begin to get pissed off. Listen to this little gem from The Times at the weekend. It’s only a diary piece, but you can’t imagine what trouble it’s caused me…’

  Lauren could just hear the rustle as De Pierman opened a newspaper.

  ‘It’s a piece called “The Slippery Slope”: “Oilman Alexander De Pierman is treading on thin ice with his latest venture, a drilling operation in the very heart of Antarctica. According to the Antarctic Treaty, only genuine scientific bases may be established, but some scientists both here and in the USA have already questioned the objectives of Capricorn commander Lauren Burgess, suggesting that her project has only a slender chance of success. De Pierman is no fool, he knows that Antarctica is the last great reserve of mineral wealth. If Capricorn’s scientific objectives prove to be a front, De Pierman could find himself in contravention of the Antarctic Treaty and looking at a fine of up to fifty million dollars.”’

  ‘God, I’m so sorry, Alexander; the last thing I ever wanted was for your name to be dragged through the dirt.’

  ‘There’s more … there’s a feature on the front page of the Mirror today: “Scientists pull off daring rescue in Antarctica”. Your name’s all over it … and, unfortunately, so is mine. Again. They know you’re expected back at Capricorn today so I guess you’re about to be deluged.’

  Lauren looked down the seemingly endless list of journalists’ calls which Frank had fielded in her absence.

  ‘We already are,’ she told him wearily. ‘It would take me a week to respond to the list I’m looking at here.’

  ‘So, let that explorer—what’s his name, Fitzgerald? Get him to sort out the press while you get on with the science. That’s what it’s all about after all.’

  ‘My feelings entirely.’

  ‘When are we likely to get some results? Something to put these rumours to rest.’

  Lauren sighed.

  ‘We can’t hurry it, Alexander. If we push the drilling too hard, we run the risk of screwing it up completely. We’re scheduled to reach the lake sometime in August, and even that is assuming we don’t get any technical glitches.’

  ‘August? That’s months away.’ De Pierman sounded despondent. ‘Look. Do the best you can. Give me some good news to play with, a progress report in a few weeks’ time, anything positive. I need ammunition to keep the environmental lobby off my back.’

  ‘We’ll do our best.’

  ‘I’m depending on you, Lauren; don’t let me down.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Lauren told him earnestly, ‘and thank you for hanging with this, Alexander; it will all be worth it when we break through to the lake.’

  The radio line went dead.

  Lauren stretched her arms in the air, turning her head to try and ease some of the stiffness in her neck. The pressure. Lauren could feel the tension running through every fibre of her body.

  ‘Frank?’ she asked. ‘Do you sometimes feel like you want the rest of the world to roll over and die?’

  Frank contemplated this with a puff on his pipe.

  ‘I think I got to that point by about the hundredth radio call from the press,’ he told her. ‘I was almost tempted to pull the plug, it got so bad. And today’s no better; we’ve had more than twenty calls this morning.’

  Right on cue, the radio signalled an incoming transmission.

  ‘This is Sarah Armitage at Reuters in London. Can you give us an update on the rescue of Julian Fitzgerald?’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Frank told her as he saw the explorer arrive at the doorway. ‘The man himself has just arrived at the base.’

  Sarah sounded like this news was about to give her a telephonic orgasm.

  ‘Marvellous! Just fantastic! Are we the first to speak to him? Has Associated Press talked to him yet? Put me on to him now!’

  The explorer hastily took the handset from Frank and sat at the transmission desk. ‘This is Julian Fitzgerald speaking.’

  ‘Good morning, sir. I’m delighted to hear you alive and well after your ordeal. Can you tell us more about the rescue?’

  ‘The rescue?’ Fitzgerald found his voice cracking with emotion.

  ‘Well, I only did what anyone would have done for his fellow man under the circumstances…’

  ‘Let me stop you there…’ The journalist’s voice was confused. ‘I was thinking about the rescue that Lauren Burgess and her teammate have just carried out to bring you back to Capricorn base.’

  ‘That? A simple matter of driving a snowmobile … it’s a bit like tootling round the M25, my dear. No, the rescue I’m talking about was the one in which I managed to retrieve the Daily Mail journalist when his plane had crashed down the crevasse.’

  ‘Well, that does sound dramatic. Tell me more about that…’

  ‘It will be a pleasure…’

  Lauren couldn’t listen to any more; she went to her room, suddenly feeling more tired than she could ever remember.

  One thing was for sure, Lauren reflected as she lay in her bed, Capricorn wasn’t going to be the same place now. The three new additions would change the demographic mix, altering the chemistry of the place for good. All three would have to remain at the base for the duration of the winter; there was simply no way a plane could get in and rescue them during the following months. How long would it be? Lauren didn’t like to think about it. Two hundred days? Two hundred and fifty? The three newcomers going crazy with the inactivity.

  Winter was hard on any base personnel—it turned this fairytale land into something altogether darker and more intimidating. Storms were almost constant, temperatures obscenely low. A simple walk outside could cost a life if a whiteout swept the base from view.

  A base was like a pressure cooker in the winter months, a slowly simmering human melting pot waiting for someone to snap. Antarctic veterans called it ‘Big Eye’: the gradual retreat of an individual into a dark—and sometimes violent—world of their own. Lauren knew of incidents from other bases: the Russian scientist who killed his fellow crew member with an axe after an argument over a game of chess, the Argentine medic who deliberately burned down the Almirante Brown station to force his own rescue in 1983. That was why she had worked so hard to choose the right mix of people. And that was why she was beginning to worry now, as she contemplated what this winter would bring.

  It was Fitzgerald who gave her most concern; even though he’d only been at the base for a few hours, Lauren could instinctively sense that his long-term presence might mean trouble. There was something about the way he’d snatched the radio handset from Frank, something irritating about the way he’d cradled Mel’s personal mug in his hands. Tiny details like who drank from which mug were surprisingly important in the day-to-day running of a base like Capricorn; they defined personal territory, personal space, and somehow, Capricorn space already felt violated with Fitzgerald in their midst.

  There was a proprietorial aura about him, Lauren realised, almost like he owned the place.

  I’ll have to watch him, she resolved, resigned to the fact that Capricorn, her cosy, personal little dream domain wasn’t quite the same now and wouldn’t be the same again until the three men were airlifted out.

  She would have to double her efforts in the research, Lauren decided, sink herself into the science as she always did.

  31

  ‘Can’t we try one last time?’ Richard pleaded, his voice desperate. ‘There must be a way to get out of this place. I can fax my ed
itor if it’s a question of money. I’ve got too much to do, there’s so many things I’ll miss … I don’t even know if my job will still be there waiting for me after all that time.’

  ‘Let alone your girlfriend,’ Fitzgerald added.

  ‘Precisely.’ Richard’s gloomy expression took on an extra seriousness as this new thought struck home.

  ‘These two know the reality,’ Lauren told him, referring to the grim-faced explorers sitting on the bed. ‘Once winter strikes in Antarctica, there really is no way in … and no way out. Capricorn is going to be completely unreachable by air for at least two hundred days and maybe more.’

  ‘Because there’s no daylight?’

  ‘Partly, and there’s the added complication of the high likelihood of gale force winds or blizzards. But the real clincher is the temperature. Hercules C130s have an operating range down to a minimum of sixty below freezing; Twin Otters can only handle forty below. We’re already below that, and this winter will take us down to minus seventy, even minus eighty or worse…’

  ‘Worse?’ The journalist tried, and failed, to imagine what could possibly be worse than that.

  ‘Vostok Base gets the prize. Minus ninety-four point five degrees.’

  ‘And the RAF? What about the US Air Force? Haven’t they got a base at the South Pole? Surely they’ve got the know-how to fly in and out regardless of the conditions?’

  ‘Amundsen-Scott base is in the same situation, even in a medical emergency they can’t get a winter flight onto the ice there. Just a couple of years back a doctor called Jerri Neilsen was forced to perform biopsies on herself to analyse a suspect breast tumour. When they found it was cancerous, they still couldn’t find a way to evacuate her, she had to administer her own chemotherapy.’

  ‘That’s it then.’ The journalist blinked back tears. ‘We really are trapped.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lauren told him gently. ‘I know this is going to be tough on you. We’ll give you all the support we can.’

  ‘And you’re not the only one,’ Fitzgerald reminded him. ‘This is just as much a disaster for me.’

  Carl said nothing, but just rocked slightly back and forth in his bed.