Mullins took his fingers from his mouth. ‘I’ll tell you now. I didn’t sign on for this shit.’
Jakov said, ‘What we do?’
‘Eat,’ Cain said. ‘Best thing.’
‘I could eat elephant seal.’
‘If you’d seen them crapping in each other’s faces, you wouldn’t.’
The tent was getting warmer. He took off his inner pairs of gloves, examined his hands. They seemed in reasonable shape. He hoped his feet were as good.
During the long cold night, he woke. The wind had temporarily died and a thin moon made the tent a dark blur. He’d been alerted by a sound outside like something dragged through the snow. He looked toward the entrance but there wasn’t light enough to cast a shadow. Then he heard a scratching. He half sat up, angry about the handcuffs.
Someone was out there in the snow. Had they flipped? Hypoxia was a menace, could make you lethargic or deranged.
He waited, watching the entrance.
Hunt? Surely not.
The cinched oval was being opened. Someone was trying to get in. But quietly. Hands now undoing the double zippers on the inside layer.
Then the dark oval of a face, the flash of metal.
Zia had put the knife between his teeth to free his hands.
Flesh on metal. Too late, he knew what he’d done. His lips were stuck to the blade. If he wanted to stab someone, he’d have to wrench off his lips.
‘Bad move,’ Cain said, and elbow-jabbed the others. Mullins jerked up, half-asleep.
Jakov took it in faster. ‘Where you going, old bugger?’ He got his body half out of the bag. His inner gloves were still on. He picked up the kero tin, slammed the base of it into Zia’s face. The face vanished with a muffled moan.
Jakov closed the entrance against the cascading cold. ‘Someone not like you, fellah.’
A snigger from Mullins. The two men settled back.
Jakov said, ‘Out there he die, for sure.’
Cain remembered a saying of Seneca. ‘It’s more honourable than killing.’
‘But pay not so good.’ Jakov’s laugh.
Cain watched the entrance a long time, imagining the proud man outside, his final wish frustrated. After the effort of dragging himself through the snow by his arms, the old scoundrel wouldn’t make it back.
He’d be disoriented already, his blood vessels clamping down, sacrificing his extremities to feed the heart, brain and lungs. He wouldn’t even know the way back to his tent. Soon his fast-pumping heart would slow, his skin become mottled. He’d stiffen, his pulse undetectable, become comatose.
Would he see gardens with running streams? Would he recline on soft couches, in his face the glow of joy as he was attended by ever-young boys like sprinkled pearls? Would he be surrounded by virgins fair as coral and rubies — bashful girls untouched by man or jinnee?
God knew. God knew.
It was best for him this way, Cain thought.
SLOT
The Hagglunds — front cabin crudely patched, tracks squeaking on hardened snow — churned through the brief March night. With each shudder, the surviving headlight and spotlights bounced pools of whiteness on white. For hours the black finger of its shadow had lengthened on the ice but now contrast had faded into gloom.
Bell drove. Cain, in the front passenger seat, stared through the crazed half-covered windshield trying to spot irregularities. Even by day there was often no sign of subsidence or difference in sheen, texture, colour on the snowband that marked a crevasse. He peered ahead, half asleep — affected by the barometric pressure and sheer tiredness. He knew they’d be slotted or stopped by sastrugi long before the fuel gave out.
Behind him, packed in with gear, were Nina, Raul and Mullins. Jammed in the rear cab with fuel drums and tents were the others. He imagined them squashed against the load trying to doze — dirty, languid, unable to think clearly and suffering from lack of sleep.
Nine people in a coffin. As for the tenth . . .
The ice sculpture of Zia in his long johns, knife still frozen to his mouth, was lashed on top of the back cab. In the delirium of hypothermia, the dying general had tried to strip. Raul wanted the carcass as evidence — more weight for the overloaded vehicle.
Above the noise of the diesel, Mullins yelled something and Cain turned back. The lout had one glove off and was prodding blisters on the back of his fingers. He displayed them in the dim light to Nina who sat opposite on a back-facing seat.
Bell put the engine into neutral. They slowed and speaking became less of a task. ‘What is it?’
‘My hand,’ Mullins said. ‘Look!’
‘Gross.’ Nina pulled a face.
‘I signed on to fight. Not for this shit.’
Nina sneered. ‘Major drag, huh?’
Bell called back, ‘Better than taking a round.’
‘Not if I lose my fucking hand.’
‘Put your glove on,’ Cain told him.
Despite the patching and caulking, some air still seeped through chinks. Yet the cabin was warm enough to make their inner layers feel wet and they were exhausted, uncomfortable, filthy after the effort of packing up.
Bell shoved the thing back into gear. He was pooped but his fanatic’s eyes still shone.
Cain had spent the day preparing to start the vehicle. First, he’d activated all the plastic envelopes, packed them around the engine and insulated them with anything he could find. He’d jammed some around the oil sump despite limited room, positioned more over the engine head, the intake manifold, and packed the last of them around the batteries. He’d left it for six hours, then wound the engine in short bursts, trying to warm the plugs without burning out the starter. Then he’d removed the air cleaner — the fittings snapped off in the cold — and sprayed ether from an aerosol can into the intake. A risk, he knew. Too much could break the rings.
When the thing kicked and kept going he felt an irrational sense of elation — then remembered he had to reverse the jackknifed cabs out of the plane. It took prolonged backing and filling, a few inches at a time, before the vehicle was straight enough to make it down the ramp.
Then they had to patch the front cab — using static rope to lash bivvy bags, plane lining and panels over the damage. Next came the loading of gear, topping up of tanks. The radar antenna was wrecked but they jury-rigged the GPS. It was torture in the numbing cold.
He was nodding off. To try and keep awake he glanced behind again.
Raul stared ahead, face in neutral, his eternal summer fading fast, body shaking with each jerk transmitted by the track assembly.
As Cain turned back to the windshield he spotted parallel edges of raised snow.
‘Hold it.’
Bell hit the anchors, shunting everyone, everything forward.
‘Back up.’
Bell hunted for reverse. The vehicle ground astern.
‘Stop.’
He knocked the engine into neutral.
Cain pointed. ‘There.’
‘What is it?’
‘Tracks.’
Raul chipped in. ‘Company?’
‘Our bleeding tracks.’
Raul was up, leaning over the engine cover to look.
‘Not possible,’ Bell said. He rechecked the sluggish needle of the oil-filled compass mounted on the dash. ‘I’ve been watching this the whole time.’ He checked the GPS, pulled out his map, spread it on the steering wheel, rubbed his red eyes, dragged his finger down the paper. ‘Right on target.’
‘They’re ours,’ Cain said.
‘Bullshit. Must be someone else out here. If we only had the bloody radar.’ He banged the useless VDU.
‘Can we follow them?’ Raul asked.
Cain yawned. ‘Sure. And if you do it fast, you’ll end up your own arse.’
Bell ignored him and answered his guru with his usual sickening respect. ‘We don’t know which way they’re heading.’
Mullins leered at the sleepy girl. ‘You’re cute.’
‘What’s your name?’ Nina said.
‘Mullins.’
‘Should be mullet.’ She regarded him with contempt, well aware of her effect on men.
‘See her?’ Cain pointed to the girl. ‘Why’d you think the plane crashed? Check the thing again.’
‘See him?’ Nina pointed to Cain. ‘He fucks my mother. Motherfucker.’
Bell, close to collapse, did it all a second time then slapped the map. ‘I don’t get this. Now we’re in the middle of the ocean.’
‘Some cack,’ the girl jeered. ‘Are we going somewhere? Or is this intermission?’
‘Shut up, bitch,’ Bell said.
She made a lewd gesture. ‘Suck hole.’
‘I don’t find any of this useful,’ Raul rumbled with distaste.
Bell, at the end of his wick, checked the receiver a third time.
‘Well?’ Raul said.
‘Now we’re at the equator. Shit!’
Raul licked his splitting lips. ‘Forget it and use the compass.’
A meek nod from his exhausted disciple.
Cain said, ‘You still think there’s another Hagg out here?’
Raul stared down his nose as if communing with his elemental. ‘Avoid fixed opinions. A rigid attachment to any point of view is destructive.’
‘Spare me the infomercials, Raul.’
‘I must enter a state of self-referral.’
‘What a crock of shit,’ Nina jeered.
Raul snapped at Mullins, ‘Silence her.’
Mullins shook her. ‘Shut up or you get it.’
‘Fuck off, mullet.’ She held her breath.
The cabin chilled, light flickered.
An ugly-looking ice piton rose from the floor, hovered in the air, jagged sides gleaming, sharp point aimed directly at Mullins’s left cheek. Astounded, he shrank back.
Bell yelped, ‘Christ.’
Raul opened his eyes, saw the unbelievable, gaped.
Instinctively Mullins snatched the floating thing, perhaps to turn it on the girl. But his hand was jerked sideways and smashed against the window ledge. As he bellowed with pain and released the piton to hug his bad hand, the metal stake dropped harmlessly to the floor.
Bell rabbit-chopped the girl.
She grunted, fell forward on Mullins.
He shoved her off. She fell back into her seat like a corpse.
Mullins, muttering obscenities, found the piton, picked it up, looked at it amazed.
‘Did you . . . see that?’ Bell was shaking.
Raul nodded. ‘The paranormal. Yes. It proves we are parts of a unified field. A hologram. Give it here.’
Mullins handed the thing across. Raul examined it as if expecting strings. He handed it back, careful not to appear disturbed. ‘The world in its true form is miraculous. The suspension of natural law is — at some level — natural.’ He turned to Cain. ‘Is that why she was with EXIT?’
Cain nodded.
Their tiredness, the extreme situation and the disorienting thin air made the phenomenon seem just another trial.
‘Fuckin’ hell,’ Mullins grouched. ‘I didn’t bloody sign on for this crud.’
‘Stop whining,’ Bell said. ‘If you want your second payment, put up with it.’
‘Second payment. Big deal. I’ll be stuffed.’
Bell, close to collapse, turned to Raul, his drawn face still respectful. ‘What do we do?’
‘Indeed.’ Raul shut his eyes and leaned on the vibrating engine cover. ‘I need to concentrate. Quiet!’ His mouth moved and he presently rumbled. ‘Then which way? Follow? Or go on?’
Bell watched the parody with weary devotion.
Raul finally opened his eyes and addressed the multi-vent heater before him as if it were a sacred relic. ‘We continue as before — using the compass.’
Bell turned back to the wheel, palmed his eyes. ‘Gustave, I’m dead. We’ve got to swap shifts.’
‘Very well. You and Cain swap with Karen and Jakov. They should have got some sleep by now. Mullins, get the medical kit. We’re going to inject that witch and knock her out.’
Cain said, ‘Got a better idea. Put her in the back with the pope.’
Raul’s derisory smile. ‘You think he can cast out devils?’
‘I think he can calm her. That’s all.’
‘Just get her out of my sight.’
It happened early next morning. Cain was in the rear cab, in a rapidly hardening sleeping bag, left shoulder propped against a drum. Bell was jammed beside him, Nina, the pope and Eve opposite. They were woken by a lurch, a crashing, a concussion. When he opened his eyes, Eve was on top of him, yelping, and the cabin was tilted 30 degrees to the side.
The engine had conked.
The sound of wind.
Slotted, he thought, along the crack line. At least they hadn’t gone in.
Bell, buried beneath the weight of the Church, struggled to push the pope off his chest. Then everyone talked at once.
Cain, drowsy and stiff, freed himself from Eve and told the others to stay put. Bell, ever eager, unlatched the side door, now almost above them. Being a fingie, he used one hand and the wind wrenched the door from his grasp.
Cain clambered after him into glare. Sunshine seared through a gap in low cloud but they were almost socked in and all surface definition was obscured by a dense tide of blowing snow. There was no way the second shift could have seen the slot. Raul must have had them steering blind.
He joined the front cabin contingent who were already out on the ice and drift-obscured up to the thighs. He climbed up over the roof to get down on their side, clinging to Zia’s frozen arm to lower himself.
Through gaps in the swirling snow he saw a slot more than a metre wide and perhaps two deep. But the floor was probably false. The Hagglunds lay along it, supported on one side by its tracks and on the other by its cabins.
‘Jeez, we fucked,’ Jakov said. His face was in bad shape — livid sunburns contrasting with ominous yellow patches that would eventually darken. Exhausted after driving for hours, he limped to the vehicle and leaned against it.
Cain said, ‘What’s up with your foot?’
‘Think it die.’
‘You drying your socks?’
‘How? Jeez. First got to get boot off.’
‘Forget about socks,’ Raul snapped. ‘We’re wasting time. How do we get out of this?’ The skin around his eyes was furrowed tight and he had frost nip on his nose and cheeks.
Hunt answered him. ‘If you want the classic ploy, you dig a ramp.’ She still seemed fit and wore her Batman-like face mask. ‘Then you get two other vehicles and haul from the side. As we don’t have those, you winch from ahead off ice anchors.’
‘Can we use the tracks to help?’ Bell asked.
‘No. There’s no differential lock. You’d just spin the free tracks.’
Cain left them discussing it and shuffled forward to look.
As he reached the front of the Hagg, the blowing snow lessened for a moment just as the side of the slot ahead of the front cab sheered off and slid down. The crack ahead was now wider than the vehicle. If they winched forward, it would go in.
The others had come up behind him.
Jakov said, ‘Jeez. No way, José.’
Raul said, ‘Fool. Negativity kills, not situations.’ He turned to Cain. ‘What now?’
Cain looked at the single feature visible — the tilted hulk of the patched Hagglunds with the bizarre shape on the roof. The roof seemed to be floating — a black and orange striped shoal in a white sea. Eve’s face peered from the window in the back cabin door over the tide of waist-deep swirling snow. In minutes the wind had risen. The chill was painful. They were heading for Condition One. His hands already felt like wooden blocks and his nose was running. He pulled his inner hood lower down and leaned against the wind, head averted.
‘Should we put up tents?’ Bell asked.
‘Too late. We could end up chasing them, could lose them.’
&n
bsp; As if to prove the comment, a squall hit them like a wave. Raul and Hunt went flying and surfaced 2 metres away, as if dunked. When they stood, they were pale shapes, half-obscured by flying snow. Hunt adopted wind-walking mode, head down, arms in by her sides. Raul didn’t, tumbled again. The sun had vanished in cloud.
Cain yelled, ‘Right. Everyone back inside!’
While the others struggled to take shelter, he gripped the roof rack on the leaning front cab and walked back to check the heater hoses between the two sections of the vehicle. They’d looked brittle enough yesterday and at 40 below they could break. One hose seemed to have a surface crack but he couldn’t spot a leak. The snow found the crack between his balaclava and goggles, stung his face. By the time he climbed up to the front cab roof hatch he was almost in total whiteout.
He dropped down out of the weather, secured the hatch against the blow and restarted the engine to get warm coolant flowing through the hoses. By then, the thin cabin was vibrating with the gusts. Luckily the patching was on the lee side.
The front cabin cast had changed. He was now cooped with Raul, Bell, Hunt and Mullins.
‘Perhaps it’ll die down,’ Bell said. Then, spotting a look between Hunt and Cain . . . ‘No thanks to you pessimists.’
‘Realists,’ Cain said and parked his stinging hands under his armpits.
It became a hissing blizz that sounded like a passing train. He’d survived blows like it before, in container-huts tethered with chains. The wind had been strong enough to make them creak and shudder, to ripple the steel roofs and cause bottles to vibrate off shelves. Fortunately the slot held the Hagglunds firmly secured. But despite its positive connection with the ice, the fibreglass cabin trembled.
He turned to Hunt. ‘Is the thing in gear?’
‘There’s no park position in the transmission.’ She stomped on the park brake pedal to set the ratchet at the point of furthest depression for maximum stability. Then she called up the back cabin to make sure the others were getting warmth before helping sort out the confusion in the tilted cab. ‘If we run the tanks dry we’ll need the Primuses. Yellow boxes.’
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