by Jack Du Brul
“Let’s saddle up,” Marty bellowed and gave a cavalryman’s closed-fist gesture.
The Toyota Land Cruiser would drive point, since it was the most maneuverable and fuel-efficient vehicle in the convoy. Geo-Research had hired a former European rally racing champion named Dieter to drive it. Werner, Greta, and Igor Bulgarin, who had the most experience on the ice out of anyone on the expedition, would ride with him. Their job was to scout for the easiest routes when the ground became too broken.
The Surveyor’s Society team was assigned to the first Sno-Cat and each member would take turns driving it. The vehicle’s controls were nearly the same as any truck with the exception of the steering wheel. To change directions, the ’Cats had levers that activated brakes on the tracks.
As team leader, Marty took the first turn in the driver’s seat, with Ira next to him. Mercer sat on the large bench seat behind them. The rear portion of the ’Cat was accessible from the cabin but was packed to the roof with personal gear and the radar sled.
“Get the goddamned heater cranked,” Ira complained. “I’m freezing already.”
The turbo-diesel fired on the first turn of the key, surging for an instant before settling into a powerful growl. A white jet of exhaust burst from the back of the Toyota. Over the sound of their own vehicle they could hear the other three ’Cats come to life. Dieter gave the SUV a burst of gas, and her bulbous, under-inflated tires dug into the snow.
Marty jammed the Sno-Cat into first gear, and they began crawling forward, keeping to the tire tracks left in the Land Cruiser’s wake. He worked the levers to test the Sno-Cat’s steering response. “It’s like driving a tank.”
Because of the loads each ’Cat towed, their speed was limited to fifteen miles per hour. The ride in the cabin was smooth if monotonous. After the first hour, everyone but Mercer had lost his sense of wonder. Like a frozen Sahara, ice stretched flat and featureless in every direction, broken only rarely by humps of yet more ice. The sun made the landscape dazzle like a world of diamond chips. Without their dark glasses, the reflection would have blinded them all.
Strung out like elephants in a circus parade, the four Sno-Cats doggedly followed the trail laid down by the Toyota. With the weather clear, it was easy to keep to the track, but as the morning wore on, the wind picked up and a whiteout developed with a suddenness that startled them all. One moment everything was normal, and an instant later the visibility dropped to zero as a swirling maelstrom of ice particles and snow whipped around the cabin. The storm screaming over their heads was strong enough to rock the massive vehicle.
“Jesus, is this normal?” Marty shouted louder than necessary.
Ira chuckled. “According to Igor, this is nothing.”
The radio under the dash crackled to life. “How are you doing back there?” Werner was checking on his people. “Igor says this should die out in a minute or two. Or it will go on for a few days.”
Ira plucked the microphone from its bracket. “We’re hoping for the first option.”
A new voice came on the radio. “This is Erwin. I’m in the last Sno-Cat, and the wind’s already dying down. We’ll be ready to go in just a minute.”
The wind dropped just as abruptly as it had risen, but in its wake the men were subdued. This had been just a taste of the Arctic’s fury. After a lunch of military MREs, Ira took over the driving. The terrain became more fractured, jarring ridges of ice and snow that the ’Cat hit with kidney-punishing regularity. Their speed dropped to ten miles per hour.
Two hours later, Werner Koenig’s voice came over the radio. “This is a call to all Sno-Cats. I just got word from the Njoerd. They have reached a position off the coast close enough to Camp Decade for them to launch the helicopter carrying the advance team and the materials to construct our first home on the ice. If we reach the base tonight, we will have a more comfortable place to sleep than these Sno-Cats.”
Ira grabbed the radio from Mercer. “Then let’s get the lead out. Marty just took his boots off, and I don’t think we can stay in the ’Cat tonight without gas masks.”
At six, they took a vote to stop for dinner or suffer through tepid MREs again. Werner estimated that they were forty miles from the base, and if they stopped, they’d be forced to spend the night in the vehicles. Grumbling but unanimous, they decided it was Meals Ready to Eat one more time.
Mercer took the Sno-Cat’s driver’s seat, and Marty pushed himself into a cramped position between the front seats so he could talk with Ira and him. The sun’s fading light caused the ice to glow as twilight crept over the caravan. The sky’s soft pastels of purple and rose were mirrored by the landscape, cut only by black shadows cast by frigid hummocks. It was clear enough to see a star’s reflection. Like the night before, it remained light long after the sun had vanished. The western horizon was lit as if it hid a vast city below its rim. When the half-moon rose, its ice-born twin doubled its illumination.
Perhaps a half mile away, the beams of the Toyota headlights cast two funnels of light on the ice. It was reassuring yet illustrated their total isolation. The vehicle was the only puddle of light on the ice, a tiny beacon in a land where man was an unwanted interloper. Ira’s earlier reference to moonscape was uncannily accurate. The thermometer on the dash showed the outside temperature was -25 degrees Celsius, or about zero degrees Fahrenheit.
“GPS says we’re about ten miles from the camp,” Werner announced an hour later. “But as you can tell, the ground is pretty broken again.”
The range of mountains and hills below the ice sheet had distorted the terrain, so the vehicles were continuously ascending or descending icy upthrusts. The ride was more even than the earlier fractured zone but still their progress was slowed. Dieter needed a few attempts to find the best gaps between the ridges and the Sno-Cats were forced to stop when the Toyota scouted for level passes. Each pause seemed to take longer than the last. With the base so close, everyone’s frustration mounted and yet Werner’s prompts kept them focused and alert.
Mercer was just reaching for the microphone to suggest that they should stop for the night when Igor’s voice filled the Sno-Cat. “On other side of this last ice wall is base camp. We just saw it! We are coming back for you now. Hot meal and warm bed in fifteen minutes.”
Like a wraith, the Land Cruiser came out of the swirling snow, ice dust caught in the corona of its lights dancing on the wind. Dieter, who had to be exhausted from nineteen hours of driving, executed a U-turn when Mercer flashed his headlights. The last dash to the camp was surreal. Mercer was tired and should have turned over the driving to Marty. He had to fight to keep himself alert. The falling snow mesmerized him, drawing his attention to individual flakes with alarming frequency. He squeezed his eyes closed, shaking his head to clear it.
“You gonna make it?” Ira asked.
Mercer shot him a crooked grin. “If I don’t, you don’t.”
The first camp building erected by Geo-Research’s advance team stood alone. Constructed in sections of insulated plastic, it had been snapped together like a child’s toy. Once they all got to work in the morning, this building would be the mess hall/communications shack. For tonight it was their communal bunkhouse. Around the building were pallets for the four ten-person dormitories, two room-temperature laboratories, and two ambient labs used to store and study ice cores. The disassembled ice-coring drill tower was in one of the trailers.
“I just hope Werner’s a deep sleeper,” Mercer told Ira.
“Why?”
“Because when we get inside I’m having a drink and I don’t want to hear him complain.”
“We’ll join you,” Marty said. “I’ve got bourbon and Ira brought a bottle of scotch.”
Dawn broke crisp and clear. After a breakfast of powdered eggs and coffee, Werner Koenig handed out work assignments and the crew set themselves to building their camp. While the Geo-Research team all sported matching black snowsuits with their company’s name and their own stitched in gold over their
hearts, Igor’s people and the Society’s group wore a mishmash of Arctic gear, some of it army surplus and some of it store-bought. The only thing they all shared in common was the heavy moon boots. They were cumbersome but with so much fresh snow on the ground they were also necessary.
After running the Sno-Cats over a wide area to compress the snow, the floors of the buildings were laid out in a rough circle with the mess hall at its center. Then the ’Cat hauling the wall sections made a circuit of the camp and the numbered pieces were dropped at each base. It was a matter of standing the walls onto the insulated floor and locking them with a special tool provided by the manufacturer. Roofs were placed with a crane mounted on one of the Sno-Cats. In all, the whole process took three hours per building.
The early energy that sustained the crew waned as the frigid air sapped their strength. And yet they slogged on. By five in the afternoon the last cold lab was finished. They ate in silence that night after loading two of the dormitories with their personal gear.
The following day was spent storing all the provisions and stocking the laboratories. The work was easier than the previous day’s and the temperature had risen above freezing. The steadily drifting snow turned into a constant drizzle that soaked anyone outside in a matter of moments. The compacted snow became ice as flat and slick as a hockey rink. Mercer’s suggestion to use a Sno-Cat to corrugate the crust with its tracks was met with remarkable success.
At dinner, Werner thanked everyone for their work, praising each one by name for their contribution. He said that Geo-Research would finish the last few chores in the morning, freeing up the others to begin their work. The scientists would arrive by a ski-equipped cargo plane in the afternoon and he asked Igor and Marty for a list of any additional equipment that they felt they needed so it could be put aboard.
“Oh, Igor, I have a communication for you from Dr. Klein.” He handed a piece of paper to the Russian.
Igor read it and grunted.
“Looks like bad news,” Mercer said, stacking the dishes on the table for Ingrid, the cook’s assistant that Marty had bedded aboard the Njoerd, to pick up.
“Da, she won’t make tomorrow’s flight here. She must wait two days for the first helicopter resupply.”
“What happened to her anyway?”
“I don’t know. Some accident is all I was told.”
“I don’t blame her for wanting to miss the construction party,” Marty Bishop said with a tired sigh.
“I do not think she is shy of work,” Igor defended. “I have not met her, but her application to join my team was impressive. She has climbed the tallest mountains on four continents, including the Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest point. And almost made it to the top of Everest. She works as a trauma doctor in Munich’s largest hospital and has published several papers on survivor’s stress. When I contacted her references, all gave her highest marks.”
“Sounds impressive to me,” Ira said.
Igor grinned. “She also sent picture with her application. You want impressive? Wait until you see her.” He bunched his fingers and kissed them away like an Italian. “Beautiful.”
The sled weighed nearly two hundred pounds and had been designed to be towed by a vehicle. When they started their search the third morning, they tried using the Land Cruiser, but the uneven terrain made it too difficult to control. It fell on the men to push the ground-penetrating radar unit, an exhausting task since their search grid was on a long slope. The uphill legs left the men panting and dangerously overheated.
All were thankful that the area wasn’t larger than it was.
Because Camp Decade had been secured to an under-ice mountain, it had remained stable as the glacier flowed around it. The Surveyor’s Society had requested Geo-Research establish their new base within a quarter mile of where Camp Decade lay hidden. On the fourth pass with the sled they found a corner of the base, a discovery met with cheers but they knew that was only part of the battle. Now they had to map the entire facility and locate the main entrance, where they would sink their shaft.
Camp Decade was laid out like a huge letter H. One long leg contained storage areas and a cavernous garage that once had a ramp to the surface. The other leg was designated for crew accommodations and laboratories, with the bulk of the administration area connecting the two segments. There were countless side chambers attached to the complex as well as a long tunnel running from the garage that led to the small nuclear reactor that had powered the facility. The Air Force had assured the Surveyor’s Society that there had never been a single incidence of radiation leakage, and the reactor had been one of the few things removed when the camp was abandoned.
As Mercer watched the monitor attached to the radar set reveal dark shadows thirty-five feet below them, he kept a surreptitious eye on the Geiger counter he had borrowed in Iceland. The unit was an old Victoreen model CDV-700 6A that he had cajoled from Thorsteinn Jonsson, the director of Reykjavik’s small geology museum. He hadn’t seen Jonsson since the volcanologist had hosted the conference that first brought Mercer to Iceland years earlier, and Jonsson had been reluctant to lend out his only counter until Mercer gave him a hundred-dollar “rental fee.”
The photograph of cancer-ravaged Stefansson Rosmunder was too compelling for Mercer to trust the Air Force’s assurances. Before first light, he’d gotten up and walked the entire area, sweeping the ice with the Geiger counter. The machine hadn’t uttered more than a few clicks, which indicated normal background radiation. There was one spot, presumably over where the reactor had once been buried, that sped up the counter but the levels were far below anything dangerous.
He didn’t tell the others what he had done, nor did he reveal the counter as they worked now. He’d seen people panic at just the presence of one of these little machines. To the uninformed, the slow clicks of ambient radiation sounded as dangerous as the tail shake of a rattlesnake. He kept the counter in a pack hanging from the side of the sled and wore the earphones that Thorsteinn had given him. Since he was the only person who knew how to operate the radar unit, no one questioned the extra equipment. If he’d found something, he would have told them immediately, but after completing half of this slower sweep, he felt that the military had told the truth about the site. There was no hazardous radiation anywhere near Camp Decade.
At noon, Mercer downloaded the raw data they had accumulated onto a laptop computer that would create a digital version of the base. Because of the thick ice, the resolution was poor and the images were grainy and blurred, but there was still enough detail for him to pick out individual features. The radar had penetrated through the roof of Camp Decade, so the pictures resembled an X ray. Inside the facility, he could see wall partitions and even furniture. It was eerie because he was the first person to see inside the camp in fifty years.
He was also very relieved. While the facility was anchored to bedrock and protected from glacial pressure by a peak of rock on its upflow side, he had harbored the fear that the entire place had been ground to debris by the shifting ice. The radar scans showed it had had little problem weathering the past five decades.
“All right, let’s wrap this up for now,” Mercer said, shutting off the radar and checking the computer and GPS system that was part of the sledge. “We’ll compare this data with the original drawings done by the engineers who built this place.”
Even without the additional Geo-Research scientists, the mess hall was crowded for lunch, and they had to wait until afterward to clear enough room on one of the tables to spread out their findings. The original drawings had been scanned into the computer, so Mercer brought up the shadowy images recorded this morning and overlaid them with the neat architectural sketches. Instantly, they had the orientation of the base locked down and saw they had only mapped a third of the sprawling complex. Still, it was enough for them to extrapolate the location of the main entrance and determine its GPS coordinates.
Mercer pointed to the spot on the computer screen. “X marks t
he spot.”
“You sure?”
“Do you think I want to dig two holes out there? With your permission, Marty, we can start tunneling through the snow to reach the base.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Bishop replied. “Why don’t you go out and mark the area over the entrance? Ira, you go get the Sno-Cat with the crane and plow attachments and haul over the plastic sleeves and hotrocks. I’ll tell Werner that we need one of his people for a while.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Mercer agreed.
“How goes your search?” Igor Bulgarin had appeared with Erwin Puhl at his side. Both men had just entered the mess hall and were covered in snow.
“Oh, God!” Ira made his face into a frightened mask. “It’s the Yeti!”
Roaring with laughter, the Russian placed a huge arm on the much shorter Puhl. “And this is my Yetette.”
“We’ve already located the entrance, Igor. We’re going to start digging right now.”
“So quickly?” Bulgarin sobered. “You Americans, I don’t know how you do it.”
“I take it you’re not having any luck finding meteorites?”
He laughed again. “Is success if I find one or two this trip.”
“How’s Koenig’s group coming?” Mercer asked.
“All morning they work to mount the drill tower on one of the trailers to make it potable.”
“Portable,” Erwin corrected. “Beverages are potable.”
“This coffee isn’t.”
“Da, portable. Is not going well, I think.” He frowned. “Germans are supposed to be good engineers. These people, bah! Like children with Legos.”
“How about you, Erwin?” Mercer asked. “What’s the weather forecast?”
“That I can’t tell you.” Puhl removed his coat. “But don’t expect the satellite phones or radios to have the best range for a while.”
“Atmospheric interference?”