by Gabriel Hunt
“Well, it can’t be any worse than what we’ve got here,” Gabriel said. He gestured toward Nils. “I’ll tie the rope under your arms, lower you down.”
“I can lower myself,” Nils said, climbing awkwardly down onto the driver’s seat.
“All right,” Gabriel said. The tall Swede took hold of the rope and dropped through the windshield, rappelling downward against the ice wall.
“Nils is coming down,” Gabriel called. “Help him off at the bottom.”
Moments later, they heard a cry of pain as Nils touched down. “Got him,” Velda shouted.
“Everything okay?” Gabriel said.
“Just my ankle,” Nils shouted. “It’ll be fine.”
“Not broken?”
“No, just twisted.”
As they spoke, Gabriel hauled the rope back up, tied Velda’s pack to the end, and lowered it. He felt a series of tugs at the bottom as Velda undid the knots, then a lightening as she pulled the pack off. He repeated the maneuver, sending down a bundle of loose gear tied up in Millie’s sleeping bag.
“Here’s the rest,” he shouted.
Again, the wait, then Velda’s voice.
“Got it.”
“Okay, Rue,” Gabriel said. “Your turn.”
Rue looked doubtfully down the rope and back up at Gabriel.
“I’ll hold it steady,” Gabriel said.
“Great.” She took hold of the rope with both gloved hands, but didn’t begin letting herself down.
“Time to go,” Gabriel said.
“I’m going!” she replied indignantly. “What, do you think I’m scared?”
“If you are—” Gabriel began, but before the words were out she was shimmying down the rope into the chasm, the bright red of her parka slowly swallowed up by the blackness.
He held on tightly to the top of the rope, trying to minimize its torsion as she descended. “You doing okay?” he called after a minute of unbroken silence.
“What do you think?” Rue called back. “If I wasn’t, you’d’ve heard me screaming.” A moment later, she called, “I’m down.” Then: “Man! It’s cold as hell down here. When we get out of this, you owe me a trip to a goddamn hot spring, Hunt.”
Gabriel smiled and slapped Millie’s big meaty shoulder. “You ready?”
“You know,” Millie said, his steaming breath labored as he grabbed hold of the rope, “the town I grew up in is only seven feet above sea level. Seven feet, Gabriel. I can’t help but ask myself what the hell a decent God-fearing Chalmetian like me is doing freezing his ass off and making like a yoyo at twenty-eight-hundred feet. It ain’t natural, I tell you.”
“Go on, you big baby,” Gabriel said.
“How do I keep letting you talk me into this kind of thing?” Millie asked, lowering himself hand over big hand down the rope, which swayed despite Gabriel’s best efforts to hold it steady. “I oughta have my head examined.”
The Spryte groaned and shifted under Millie’s considerable weight on one end and the even greater weight of the piled-up ice on the other. A sudden lurch shook the vehicle. Gabriel tasted an icy metallic fear in the back of his throat. The rope bearing Millie’s weight swung to one side and a barrage of colorful swearing echoed up the chasm.
“Don’t want to rush you,” Gabriel called down, “but…shake a leg, okay?”
“What’s happening up there, boss?”
The groaning and creaking was getting louder, and though the darkness was now almost complete, by peering closely Gabriel could see the metal frame of the Spryte bulging inward. “Not your problem. Just get down.”
Suddenly, Gabriel felt the rope jerk in his hands. There was no weight on it anymore. A moment later, he heard a heavy impact. “What happened?” he shouted.
“I got down,” Millie called. “Figured I could stand to drop the last dozen feet or so. Wasn’t the slickest landing ever, but I’m in one piece. Now you, boss. Get your ass down here.”
Gabriel didn’t need to be told twice. He took hold of the rope and pushed off, sliding down as quickly as he could into the blackness. His head was aching from the altitude and his breath was leaden in his constricted chest but he pushed all that aside and concentrated only on lowering himself into the chasm.
Above him, he heard the sound of metal twisting, and he felt the motion transmitted through the rope. The Spryte couldn’t fall any farther—could it?
It was a chance he couldn’t afford to take. He slackened his grip on the rope and slid, as quickly as he was able. He could feel the walls of ice narrowing around him until he had to twist his body sideways in order to slip down between them. Another noise came from above, the sound of metal snapping this time—and a moment later, there was no tension in the rope at all. It had been severed, and Gabriel was falling.
Chapter 11
There was a moment of blind plummeting, the useless rope still gripped between his hands. Then he hit—but where’d he’d expected to strike solid ice, he felt something soft under him instead. Millie’s arms wrapped around him from behind and set him down gently on the ground.
Velda swung the light around.
They were in a long narrow corridor of ancient ice that glowed blue in the flashlight’s glare. Above their heads, the crack leading up to the crushed Spryte was the only opening. Everything else was sealed solid, the ice bulging around them in an oval pocket that was disturbingly reminiscent of the spine and ribs of some enormous animal, viewed from the inside. Only in one direction was there any way they could go—and who knew how far?
“What do you think, Nils?” Gabriel asked. “Think there may be another way up? Nils?”
The big Swede was bent over, sorting through a pile of smashed equipment scattered across the ground. It was the contents of the first pack, Gabriel realized, the one that had fallen out of the Spryte when they were still aboveground, the one that had plummeted past Nils while he’d been clinging to the ice ledge. Nils was gathering up what he could, sorting the hopelessly broken from the salvageable.
“Velda,” Nils said, excitedly. “Look at this. These are not mine.” He held up a pair of broken goggles.
Velda took the goggles from him and examined them up close in the flashlight’s beam.
“They’re his!” she said, her voice shaking. “They are, aren’t they?”
“I think you might be right,” Nils replied. “They certainly look like your father’s. I don’t think any of the rescue team lost their goggles while searching, and no one else has been anywhere near this area recently that we know of.”
“So he must have been down here,” Velda said, almost to herself. She swung the flashlight around. “His last transmission, it must have been from here…”
“Then where’s his radio?” Gabriel said. He didn’t add, And where’s his body?
Velda aimed the light toward the passageway at the far end. “Nowhere else he could’ve gone.”
“By an amazing coincidence, there’s also nowhere else we can,” Rue said. “Who’s up for a walk? It’s too damn cold just standing around.”
Millie used the severed rope to rig a strap for his bundle and slung it over his shoulder. Hunched over to pass under the low roof of ice, he made his way to Rue’s side. Velda stood silent for a moment, holding the goggles and looking away down the dark tunnel. She put the goggles into her pack, then shouldered it.
“Let’s do it,” she said.
Gabriel nodded and took his place by her side. Nils brought up the rear, not too badly slowed by his limp or his need to walk bent over almost double due to his height.
The natural corridor narrowed and widened as they went, twisting first to the left and then back to the right. They came to a section where the ceiling got so low that even Rue had to bend over to keep walking, and then it became lower still. They were forced to creep forward first on their hands and knees and then on their bellies, pushing the packs ahead of them. As they inched forward, Gabriel noticed that the ice beneath them was becoming a downward
slope, gradual at first, then increasingly steep. Gabriel could feel himself starting to slide. He had to arch his back and wedge himself against the ceiling as he went, to prevent himself from slipping.
“Can you see anything?” Gabriel asked Velda, who was in the lead with the flashlight.
Before she could answer there was a grunt and a cry and both Millie and Rue came sliding down behind them, slamming into Gabriel and sending him headfirst into Velda’s boots. The four of them slipped and slid and bounced off one another until they hit the bottom of the slope, wind knocked soundly from their aching lungs.
Standing unsteadily, Gabriel picked up the flashlight from where it lay. The light was flickering, and he had to slap it twice before it returned to a full, steady beam.
He shone the light around the room. It was an enormous cavern, the walls composed entirely of the curious red ice they’d seen on the surface. The roof was perhaps seventy-five feet overhead and angled sharply. Thousands of glittering crimson stalactites hung from it, some finger-sized, some well over forty feet long. They were not smooth and rounded like traditional stalactites, but sharp-edged and faceted, like giant crystals. Equally varied and equally sharp stalagmites reached upward from the floor of the cavern. The resulting impression was that of standing inside a cathedral-sized geode.
“It’s…amazing,” Velda said. The surfaces of the strange, mineral-laden red ice seemed to pick up the tone of her voice and resonate until the resulting cacophony was almost unbearable. As the sound swelled and echoed, a few smaller stalactites came loose from the ceiling and rained down around them like crystal daggers. One caught Millie on the arm, slicing easily through his parka sleeve. He pulled his arm back with a sudden intake of breath. He bit down on a hiss of pain but the short, truncated sound was picked up and relayed all across the cavern and back again, as if whispered by gossiping old ladies.
Nils appeared then, crawling through the narrow tunnel the rest of them had exited in an uncontrolled, headlong rush. He began to say something but Gabriel held his finger to his lips and shook his head. Nils nodded and remained silent. Even the faint sound of their breathing was amplified, every facet of every crystal humming with each exhalation. Scanning across the room silently, Gabriel could make out a tall, narrow opening in the opposite wall. It was the only way out he could see. They were going to have to make their way across to that opening—and they’d have to do it without uttering a single sound.
The razor-edged stalagmites made a straight shot across the cavern impossible, their jutting facets turning the ground of the cavern into a particularly nasty labyrinth. After seeing what a tiny one had done to Millie’s thick parka, Gabriel was quite sure he didn’t want to brush against any of them by accident. Carefully, he began to pick his way along a circuitous, spiraling route that avoided the densest patches of crystals. He waved for the others to follow.
They followed, and spoke not a word. But even their cautious, sliding footsteps were amplified to an accusatory racket by the singing crystals.
They’d made it nearly three-quarters of the way across when Rue lost her footing on the slick ice. She reached out instinctively for balance and gripped one of the nearest stalagmites. The sharp edge sliced open the palm of her glove and slid deep into the flesh of her hand. A high-pitched yelp of pain escaped from her throat before she could stifleit.
For a second, the team stood frozen as the sound doubled and qua drupled into a jagged siren wail echoing through the crystalline chamber. First the smallest crystals and then larger ones began to detach and drop all around them.
“Run!” Gabriel spat in a harsh constricted whisper that was immediately snatched up and echoed back by the crystals.
They made a break for the narrow opening, tearing at top speed through the deadly rain of crystal blades. The clashing racket had become so loud and piercing that Gabriel had to cover his ears as he ran, the pain in his ear drums outweighing even the sting of the cuts inflicted by the falling crystals.
When Gabriel made it to the shelter of the tunnel opening, he reached out to grab Velda and Rue, pulling them to safety. Millie was close behind but Nils had fallen about twelve feet back, a foot-long crystal piercing his calf like an arrow.
Millie turned back, dodging the falling crystals, and swiftly hauled the silent, bleeding Swede up in his arms. Gabriel clenched his fists as Millie darted and weaved, eyes cast up at the ceiling, trying to guess where the next deadly missile would plunge.
One fell directly in front of him, smashing to shrapnel against the ground, the sound of its impact setting off sympathetic vibrations in the crystals all around the point of impact. Millie kicked a large fragment out of his path, put his head down, and barreled forward. He made it into the tunnel just seconds before a truly massive stalactite, as wide around as Millie himself and twice as tall, came crashing down. It fell against the tunnel entrance, sealing it. The terrible screaming of the resonating crystals was muffled at last.
Gabriel looked around as Millie set Nils down on the ground. This tunnel was also roofed with the glittering red ice—but here the ice was smooth and flat, not lined with crystals. He laid one palm against the nearest wall. No vibrations, even when he quietly whispered, “Testing…testing…” He tried it louder. Nothing happened.
“It’s okay, we can talk,” Gabriel said. His voice sounded muted and distant in his ringing ears. “Everybody all right?”
“Man, that stings,” Rue said, holding up her cut hand and poking at the slash in her glove.
“I’m okay,” Velda said. “How’s Nils?”
The team gathered around the fallen Swede.
“I am all right,” Nils said. “It is not so very bad.”
Gabriel bent close and examined the crystal protruding from Nils’s calf.
“I need to pull it out,” Gabriel said. “But first I’ll need something to handle it with so I don’t cut my fingers.”
Millie unslung his bedroll and pulled out a heavy pair of pliers. Gabriel took them from him and positioned the jaws on either side of the crystal. “Good news is,” he told Nils, “something this sharp ought to come out cleanly. You ready?”
The Swede nodded. “Yes. I am ready.”
Gabriel gently squeezed the pliers closed. He pulled on the crystal and it came free with a moist, smacking sound. A heavy flow of blood followed. Gabriel motioned to Velda.
“Quick,” he said. “Get the first aid kit out of your pack.”
She dug through her pack while Gabriel rolled up the leg of Nils’ freezer suit and applied direct pressure on the wound. When Velda handed him the first aid kit, he was able to quickly clean and bandage the cut.
“How about me, doc?” Rue said, holding her palm out to Gabriel.
Gabriel spent the next half hour playing doctor, checking and cleaning everyone’s slices and scratches, including his own. By the time he had everyone bandaged up, he was beginning to feel light-headed and exhausted.
“We need to eat again,” Nils said from where he sat propped up against one wall. “And rest.”
Gabriel didn’t argue. Millie set to work chipping ice while Nils rationed out a handful of energy bars he’d salvaged from his pack. They laid out the three sleeping bags they had—Nils’s, Velda’s and Millie’s—and agreed that they would sleep in shifts. Millie volunteered to take the first shift up and handed his sleeping bag over to a grateful Gabriel. Rue offered to join Millie and the two of them sat huddled together by the blocked mouth of the tunnel, talking softly about their favorite food while chewing the dry, tasteless energy bars and washing them down with ice melt.
Gabriel looked over at Velda, but she did not return his glance. She seemed sealed up inside herself, utterly single-minded and driven. There was certainly no hint of invitation as she bedded down on the far side of the tunnel and rolled over with her back to him. It was as if Gabriel had imagined the intimacy they’d shared back at the research station.
But he was too tired to give Velda’s behavior a s
econd thought. The instant he pulled off his boots and zipped himself into Millie’s huge sleeping bag, he fell into a deep and comforting dreamless sleep.
Chapter 12
When Millie woke him, Gabriel felt disoriented and dehydrated, a feeling not unlike a bad hangover. He dragged himself upright and slipped his altitude-swollen feet back into his too-tight boots, grunting wordlessly as Millie slid into the sleeping bag in his place. Staggering down the tunnel to empty his aching bladder, Gabriel still felt foggy and half asleep. He kept going till he was a good, respectful distance away from the others and leaned against the wall with one hand while he struggled with the other through far too many layers of snaps, buttons and zippers. By the time he was able to begin relieving himself against the wall, Gabriel found that he was flushed and damp with sweat from the effort. He realized that while it was certainly still cold here, it was substantially warmer than it had been back by the tunnel’s mouth. The wall against which he was leaning felt like rough stone beneath a thin crust of ice, not the solid ice of the section in which they’d slept.
Curious, he headed farther along the tunnel, head cocked and listening. He could have sworn he’d heard—yes, there it was, at the edges of his hearing, a delicate trickling sound.
Running water.
He came around a bend and discovered a tiny, winding stream flowing along a deep groove in the ice.
Gabriel rushed back to the mouth of the tunnel, where he found Nils awake and melting chips of ice over a camp stove.
“Nils,” Gabriel said. “There’s a stream up ahead. About fifty yards down the tunnel.”
“What?” Nils stood, frowning. “That’s not possible. It’s far too cold for liquid water here.”
“Well, it’s warmer there,” Gabriel said. “Much warmer than it is here.”
At the word “warmer” Velda was wide-awake and on her feet.
“It’s just like my father said. We must be getting closer to the place he found. The place he vanished.” She jammed her feet into her boots and hastily began rolling her sleeping bag.