Dark Winter

by William Dietrich

  “I loved Abby. She failed at loving me. So I’m giving her the quicker end. I opened some valves and the fuel level is rising in the arch, creeping up her parka where she’s tied, and she’ll either drown on jet fuel or ignite like a torch when it flashes into fire. Either way it’s relatively quick, and really quite merciful compared to freezing to death in the cold. I’m just letting her think about her rejection of me before her death comes. Believe me, you’ll envy her - in your own last hours. I lied about what it would have been like if we’d left you on the stake. Freezing is a terrible way to go.”

  “Bob, it’s not too late,” Lewis groaned. “Tell us what you’ve done. Help us make it right. Help us fix it. We can fix it.”

  “The arch is filling with spilled fuel.” Norse nodded solemnly. “The dome is becoming a bomb. If you’d left things alone you would have incinerated in the galley before you knew what was happening, which was the mercy I had planned for you. Now you can watch it from out here, your shelter vaporizing. The living will envy the dead.”

  The group looked up at him in disbelief. “But why?” Dana finally asked, her voice quavering.

  “Because people don’t work. Because it all falls apart on the way to Pluto.”

  There was a low keening sound as the winter-overs began to comprehend what he must have done. An enveloping dread at their fate.

  “Unfortunately you didn’t give me time to destroy the generator at the Hypertats so there’s a chance you can linger for days, maybe weeks. So I’m really leaving you with a final choice. The dilemma is my final gift to you. You can go back into the dome and try to save Dixon and risk dying with her. Or you can retreat to the emergency camp and try to save yourselves.”

  He reached in his parka and they stiffened, but it was only to pull out a sheaf of paper. “As you’re freezing to death you might read some notes I made. It explains why you’ll choose to save yourselves. Why our collective failure was inevitable. Why your mistake was in trusting each other. Trusting anybody! Every one of us is selfish at the final moment. So don’t pity Abby. Pity yourselves.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m guessing the rest of you have about thirty minutes.”

  “Tell us how to shut it off, damn it!” shouted Geller.

  “This way,” said Norse. And with that he turned the gun, pressed its twin barrels against the roof of his mouth, and fired.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The top of the barrier that sealed off the fuel arch had not been carefully crafted enough to keep out intruders but not air. There were cracks to see through and enough of a stench of petroleum to announce the explosive danger. The surviving winterovers spilled down the entry ramp to the archways and were bunched at the makeshift fuel arch wall, puddles leaking ominously from its base and the barrier groaning at the weight of the rising fuel behind it. The group boosted Lewis up to a crevice so could shine a light into the gloom beyond. He reeled from the fumes, shouting down to the others to break out the fire masks. Then he took a fresh breath, held it, and shined his light inside.

  The sight was sickening. The fuel arch had become a black combustible lake, the tanks emptying to fill the Quonset-shaped structure a third of the way up its walls. Part way down he saw a slumped figure tied to some of the tank plumbing, the fuel lapping at her chest. Abby!

  Something was bobbing in the fuel beside her. He played his light across it and recognized a half-inflated weather balloon. What the hell? Wires went every which-way into the fuel and above it, and just as lines of longitude converged at the Pole, the wires converged upon some small implement hung above the rising lake. He shined his light on that, trying to figure out what it was.

  With recognition came fear. The flare gun! Lewis dimly recalled Norse asking it be brought to him.

  What fools they’d been.

  As the fuel level rose, the balloon was rising with it. One of the wires leading into the ooze was slack but as the balloon floated upward...

  Norse had turned the entire station into a time bomb.

  Lewis pulled his head back, dizzy from the fumes, thinking desperately. Then he slid down the ladder.

  “Did you see her?” Molotov asked.

  Jed was coughing, reaching for a fire mask. One step ahead, Norse had claimed. “She’s there, and I can’t tell if she’s still alive. The whole arch has become a lake of fuel, with gases above it. Norse wasn’t lying, he opened some valves. The fuel’s rising and I don’t see how we could find the valves in that goop to shut the flood off.”

  “Jesus,” Geller said.

  “Listen, that’s not the worst of it. The bastard has rigged some kind of trigger, I think. I’m not quite sure how it works, but one of Jerry’s weather balloons is floating on the fuel and as it rises a wire is tightening on the trigger of a flare gun.”

  “What?” Dana asked.

  “When the fuel level gets high enough, I think, the flare gun goes off.”

  “Of course!” said Perlin, their plumber. “Simple. Like the way a float in a toilet tank rises high enough to trigger a valve to shut off the refilling water.” He was thinking. “A wire from the trigger goes to pulley at the bottom and up to the balloon...”

  “However he rigged it, Norse has been thinking about this for a long time,” Lewis said. “He wants us to abandon Abby. He wants us to abandon the dome.” He looked at the others. “He wants us to give up.”

  “What else can we do?” asked Hiro with resignation.

  “I don’t think we have a choice, Jed,” Mendoza added.

  “Yes we do,” spoke up Molotov. The Russian looked grimly resolute, glancing up the wall in speculation. “There is always a choice. I made a choice when I wrongly accused Lewis here. I made a choice when I helped created this mess. Now I make another choice. You Americans go back. I will break inside and swim to her!” It was the growl of a bear angry at his own mistakes. The decision of a man eager to either make up for the past or be annihilated by it.

  “Wait,” said Lewis, thinking furiously. “Isn’t that what he’s counting on us to do. Treading oil when the gun goes off? What we need to do is keep the toilet tank from filling. If we can spring a leak in the arch, the fuel will start draining out as fast or faster than it’s pouring in from the tanks. Right? It stabilizes, drops, and then we go get Abby.”

  “Jesus,” said Longfellow, their electrician. “A single spark...”

  “It’s risky as hell. Even if we get Abby we may lose the fuel, unless we can somehow pump some of it back in. But if we don’t...”

  “We lose the dome,” Geller said.

  They hesitated.

  “We lose more than that,” Dana said.

  “You mean we lose another person,” said Lena. “That is what I am thinking. That I am tired of losing people.”

  “No, that’s crazy,” protested Linda. “I know it’s terrible but we lose everyone is we stay here.”

  “Damn right,” Calhoun warned. “We go up in flames. I’d rather freeze.”

  “Would you, Steve?” asked Dana. “Norse said that’s worse.”

  “Well, we go to the emergency camp, then. At least it’s a chance. We lose us all staying here.”

  “I think if we don’t try, we lose our soul,” Dana said. “I agree with Alexi. I was wrong, too. I want to save what’s left.”

  Calhoun groaned but didn’t reply. They could hear the sound of swirling fuel.

  Lewis looked at the others, their hesitation, their despair. “The archway is buried in snow,” he reminded. “The only real exit for the fuel is right here, where we’re standing. I’m proposing releasing it in here, letting it dam up against the generator wall and the outside ramp, and building a temporary dike to keep it out of the dome proper. Then I go in after Abby.”

  There was a long silence, an unspoken debate.

  “That’s just crazy,” Linda moaned.

  “Yes. Like running naked to the Pole.”

  The others glanced around, starting to make mental measurements of what they had to ach
ieve. “Well, if we’re going to do it, then let’s do it,” Mendoza finally said, grimly determined. “Six of us with me to build the dike! The rest of you breach that wall!”

  Most of them began to move. Calhoun and Linda still hesitated, watching the others.

  “Ah, the hell with it,” surrendered Calhoun. “At least it will be quick.” He pointed up the wall. “All right, start tart with that beam there. That will give access to this panel.”

  “There’s enough weight from the fuel that it will help pry ‘er loose!” Geller added.

  And at that, Linda Brown blinked and acquiesced. “I know some crates we can drag to help build the dike,” she said fatalistically.

  “Then drag!” shouted Dana. “We don’t know how taut that wire is!”

  Masks and tools were passed out. Extra gloves were stuffed in to make a barrier between prying crowbars and bare metal, in hopes of minimizing sparks. The large rampway doors were dragged open wider, letting in more cold but helping to dissipate fumes.

  The removal of Geller’s beam started a small breach in their barrier. Fuel from the arch began spraying out in a ghastly plume, spattering the snowy floor of the archway intersection behind them. Pools of congealing petroleum began to form. The work stopped for a moment, the winter-overs uneasily eyeing this new fountain and its rich stink.

  “Hurry up, dammit!” Geller roared. “We’ve got to move!”

  They started again with new ferocity. Bolts were screwed out and a panel of plywood began to bulge, pulling its own nails, squealing at it bent. As it did so the flow of fuel turned from fountain to pulsing flood, its weight pushing aside the barrier and pouring out onto the snowy floor in a dark river, swirling past BioMed and reaching the far generator wall, where it splashed as oily surf and began pooling into a new lake. An entire panel came off and the flood quickened, an artery of syrup. Their lake deepened, even as the rise of the one in the fuel arch began to reverse. They were wading in a petroleum sea, oily waves oscillating back and forth in their enclosure. The fuel lifted Biomed off its foundation and sent it floating, bouncing and scuttling against one wall. The spreading fuel would have poured into the dome proper if the makeshift dike hadn’t delayed it. Small rivulets broke through that thin barrier and ran toward the galley and science building.

  As the pool spread, Norse’s triggering balloon bobbed in place a moment and then began to sink. Abby played his light over Abby, wondering if she was still alive.

  “How taut is the wire?” Geller yelled.

  “We’re still here, aren’t we?” Calhoun grunted.

  The fumes built, half poisoning them. Lewis was increasingly terrified there’d be a spark. “Okay, we’ve got a breach, that’s enough!” he decided. “The rest of you retreat!” They didn’t have to be told twice. The survivors threw down their tools and waded for the ramp, the fuel swirling around their thighs, a combustible fog roiling ahead of them up into the night. If it ignited, they’d be vaporized. They splashed up the slick ramp, falling and grunting, crawling up the oily beach into the dark and cold of the outdoors, soaked from fuel and coughing and woozy as they pulled off their masks. The reddish black patina grew gummy in the cold and began to freeze.

  “Smoking or nonsmoking?” Calhoun tried to crack.

  Lewis watched them go, waiting for the tidal current swirling out from the fuel arches to subside as the two pools equalized. The flood became sluggish, its overall depth cut in half. More oil was breaking through their hasty dike, running into the dome, but that served to keep the fuel from deepening again as the tanks continued to drain.

  Still no explosion.

  It was time. Lewis waded to the breached wall. The fuel was thick and syrupy with cold, fogged and tarlike. It was a prehistoric swamp, viscous and evil. He pushed his way past the break and shone his light around. The archway walls glistened with the sheen. “Christ, what a mess.” With their tanks emptying he didn’t know how they were going to survive the ice, but at least they’d evaded the fire. He could plainly see the trapped woman.

  He pulled his mask aside for a moment. “Abby!”

  There was no answer.

  He waded into the fuel arch and felt his way to the catwalk, mounting its stairs and pulling himself along it where the fuel was now just ankle deep. He could see the high tide mark of the petroleum on the walls, the liquid dripping, the balloon like a distant buoy.

  He counted the tanks off as he advanced, coming to the one where Cameron had been killed. It was here that Abby hung like a tired scarecrow. The balloon was sinking beside here, the wire to the trigger of the flare gun slacker now but a board to another, tighter wire was floating beside it. The contraption looked more complex than it had to be.

  He vaulted over the rail into stomach-deep fuel and waded toward the woman. She was limp as if dead, fuel having stained her to her chin, her body looking small and wilted. The flood had stopped an inch from her mouth.

  “Abby?”

  No response. He slapped her.

  She jerked into crude consciousness and began coughing. He unstrapped one arm, then another, and she fell into his arms. Lewis had never seen anything so implacably heartless as this insane execution attempt. He dragged her to the catwalk, pushing her up onto it and leaning her against the railing. She doubled over and vomited. When she came up gasping, he put an extra oxygen mask over her face. Abby sucked in air, reeling, tears streaming down her face.

  “Abby, where did he turn the valve! Where’s the valve! We need to save what fuel we can!”

  She shook her head.

  “Where? Which pipe?”

  She pulled away the oxygen mask, gasping to speak. “The wire! The flare!”

  “I know! We got the fuel level to go down! We beat his clock!”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No! Two wires! One if too high. A board if too low...”

  Lewis saw what she was pointing at. Norse had anticipated them again. A second wire on the trigger was tightening as the fuel level fell and its board sank with it.

  Good God. He’d brought nothing to cut it with.

  “Run!”

  She put on her mask and he pushed her frantically down the catwalk. The grating was slippery but the fuel had drained below it now. Gripping the slick rail they ran as best they could, banging into the sides of the arch, looking back at the poised and hanging flare through a stinking fog of petroleum fumes, the slack wire growing tauter as the board pulled down.

  Then they descended the catwalk stairs and went through the breach, wading across the petroleum pond to the ramp leading outside. It was molasses, clinging to them, beseeching them to stay. Behind them fuel was running across the hard-packed snow towards the modules, its fumes curling upward to the roof of the dome. It was a gray haze in the dome lights, the generator still chugging obediently behind the other wall.

  The pair crawled up the ramp, both slick with stinking fuel, the wetness beginning to freeze on their clothes.

  “Go, go, go!” Lewis shouted to the others. “Get as far away as you can!”

  Someone screamed. They were running.

  There was a reflected flash as the flare was set off, releasing red light like a glimpse of Hell. With a gassy roar, the fuel arch blew up.

  *******

  The shock wave of the blast kicked Abby and Jed the last few feet up the ramp and knocked the scattered group as flat as a strike of bowling pins. The violence hit an instant before the sound did, and then for another instant everything at the Pole was noise. The pulse of super-heated air kicked up a wall of loose snow that expanded outward across the station like the penumbra of a star, an expanding blizzard, rushing a half mile in all directions before puffing out.

  The snow over the fuel arch erupted like napalm, its wall of flame shooting skyward in an upside down curtain. BioMed disintegrated instantly, its fragments spewing into the entryway. The opposite wall guarding the generators blew inward into kindling and a gout of flame and plasma gases seared into the generator room like
the exhaust of a rocket, melting the electrical connections and setting the gym ablaze. In an instant, power to the dome was snuffed out.

  Fire leaped over the crude dike and flashed through the dome itself, the gases igniting and the resulting energy punching vents in the dome as if it was made from foil. Smoke and heat shot up through the ventilation hole at the top of the structure in a volcanic plume, spattering the complex with a rain of debris. Thousands of icicles broke off the roof of the dome and rained down on the arena below like breaking glass, a maniacal tinkle against the thunder.

  The fireball knocked the habitation modules askew from their foundations. Pipes were torn off, electrical cables snipped, and each metal box was seared with flame, roasting from orange to black in seconds. Crates flared into torches, banked ice cream flashed into steam. For a minute, the entire dome was an inferno.

  Yet the explosion was a mere spark in a universe of implacable cold. Antarctica, for a brief moment punched aside, imploded back inward once the shockwave passed. The ice was determined to reclaim its dominance. Snow turned to steam and slush. The most volatile gases had vaporized and what was left began to burn more sluggishly as the heat consumed itself by turning a tinder-dry environment into a melting one. The blast had created a stinking lake. Fuel leaked down into the ice cap and spread into surrounding snow. Flames roared, smoked, melted, and sputtered out. The ruptured tanks burned fiercely, sending a column of smoke boiling a mile high into the sky, but the blaze retreated to its heart almost as swiftly as it had expanded. With it went the stored energy that was to have kept them alive for the rest of the winter. There’d been a flash of oily violence, and now a grim guttering.

  Their lifeblood had been consumed.

  Shakily, the survivors stood. Miraculously, none had been hurt, and none had caught on fire. The searing heat was already a dim memory, replaced once more by relentless cold. They shivered.

  Their spaceship had been destroyed.

  Wordlessly, Geller handed over to Lewis some papers he’d snatched from Norse’s dying hand.