The two women approached the edge of the large crevice and looked down at one of the deepest gaps they had seen. They guessed it was close to fifty feet deep and tip toed carefully along the edge, knowing that the edge was often still unstable. Tadri knelt down and positioned her small laser unit for what felt like the ten thousandth time. She turned it on and looked at the bright red line extending across the gap. Then she turned the small wheel along the bottom, slowly dropping the angle of the laser until the bright spot appeared on the lip of the opposite wall. Tadri read the figure on the display. “Forty three feet, seven and three eighths inches.”
Kathryn stood behind her and entered the measurement on a large handheld device which automatically locked in their GPS location.
Tadri then turned a second laser downward, focusing on the bottom of the crevice. “Fifty three feet, three inches and one sixteenth.”
Kathryn entered the numbers and frowned. She hit a button and displayed all of the measurements in a spreadsheet view. Running down the list she noticed something. “Hmm.”
Tadri stood up and turned around. “What’s up?”
“Have you noticed a trend here as we move south?”
Tadri thought a minute. “It’s getting deeper isn’t it?”
Kathryn nodded.
“That’s not good,” Tadri said. “If it’s getting deeper the further in we go that makes it very unlikely it’s a surface fracture and –“
“And it extends through the Shelf,” finished Kathryn.
A few hundred yards away, Pierre secured the last leg of his SatQuake. He stood up and dusted the ice off his knees. He looked south at the rest of the group and started to turn when something caught his eye. He turned and looked back down at the seismograph below him. The red light on top was lit. Pierre stared at the bright LED bulb for a moment and then reached down and hit the reset button. The light went off. He nodded and picked up his pack. He turned and took a few steps before stopping again. He turned back to the SatQuake. The red light was on again.
Pierre grabbed the walkie-talkie from his hip and held it up to his mouth. He pressed down the transmit button. “Hey Kathryn, you there?”
Kathryn heard Pierre’s voice on her own hip and grabbed her walkie-talkie. She looked back at Pierre who she could see clearly but was well out of earshot. “Go ahead Pierre.”
“I think we have a bad SatQuake unit here.” he said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The alert light keeps coming on.” He looked around and did a three hundred and sixty degree scan. “It’s either not working right or the sensor is too sensitive. There’s no other noise around to pick up.”
“Did you try the reset?”
“Yep,” Pierre answered. He pressed the reset again and watched the light go off. After several seconds it came on again. “Just tried it again. Still comes back on.” He looked back the way they came. “Didn’t have this problem on any of the others.”
“Is it syncing with the satellite alright?” asked Kathryn.
“Seems to be. Both battery and satellite lights are green.”
“That’s strange,” said Kathryn. “I wonder what the problem is.”
“Beat’s me. What do you want me to do?”
“Just leave it. I’ll note that it’s having issues. Grab the snowmobile and come on over.”
“Will do. Gonna grab a snack. See ya in a few.” He replaced the walkie-talkie on his hip and knelt down to dig through his pack for an energy bar.
Kathryn watched Pierre in the distance rummaging through his bag. She looked down at Tadri who was folding up the laser. “Looks like we have a bad seismograph.”
“Well, I guess it was bound to happen.” Tadri collapsed the small legs on the unit and slid it back into a thick duffel bag.
“Guess so. They’re pretty reliable though. I can’t remember the last time we had a bad-“
Tadri turned around to see why Kathryn had stopped talking and found her gazing at Pierre in the distance. She looked back at Tadri and slowly pulled the walkie-talkie back from her hip. She held it to her mouth and slowly pushed the button again.
“Pierre. Can you hear me?” Kathryn shot Tadri a worried look as she waited for a reply. Tadri’s eyes suddenly opened wide.
“Yeah Kathryn, go ahead.” came Pierre’s voice.
“Pierre, get away from the ridge.”
“What?”
Kathryn squeezed the small transmitter in her hand. “Get away from the edge!”
“What for?” he asked.
Kathryn looked at Tadri and pressed the transmit button down again. “That unit may not be broken.”
Pierre heard her voice and turned south to look at them. Before he could reply the ice below them began to shake.
Kathryn’s eyes widened. She looked at the ground then back to Tadri. The shaking intensified, causing them to stumble and grab each other for support. “RUN!” she shouted.
Tadri was thrown to the ground and quickly rolled over, continuing forward on her hands and knees as Kathryn looked for Pierre. He had disappeared behind the thick wall of white mist rising from the fractures splitting the frozen ground. Kathryn raised the walkie-talkie to her mouth, trying desperately to stay on her feet. “Pierre?!” she shouted. She tried to peer through the thick mist. “Pierre!” The sound of the quake thundered all around them, and she held the small unit up against her ear. There was no reply. She held the button down again and screamed as loud as she could. “PIERRE!”
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands squeezed the back of her parka like a vice. Kathryn fell to the ground and looked up to find Andrew dragging her behind him away from the giant crack in the surface, which was now opening wider. He trudged forward, stumbling from side to side and struggling to stay on his feet, through the violent shaking. After thirty or forty feet, he finally lost his balance and fell to the ground but continued scrambling forward pulling Kathryn behind him.
The world suddenly felt in slow motion as Kathryn kicked at the icy ground trying to help further their distance. She could see large pieces where they were just standing suddenly crack and fall into what now looked like a chasm inching its way toward them. She twisted her body to the outside and then onto her hands and knees in a desperate attempt to get further away from the edge. She followed Andrew towards Tadri who was also on her hands and knees ahead of them. Something Kathryn noticed but would not process until later was that during their mad scramble, Andrew’s face seemed oddly composed as he kept scanning the area around them and looking backward. How in the world could he remain so focused?
Finally, the rumbling subsided and the ground gradually became still again. They were left on the ground panting, surrounded in a white fog created by the breaking of massive amounts of ice shelf. The crack in the earth was barely visible in front of them through the thick white curtain but it looked frighteningly wide. Kathryn was staring at what little she could see of the giant crack, when she realized that Andrew was patting her down and turning her body from side to side. When he was confident that she had sustained no injuries, he quickly made his way to Tadri and repeated the process.
He returned to Kathryn moments later and pulled the walkie-talkie from her hand. Pressing down on the large button he called out for Pierre. “Pierre, mate are you there?” He moved the device away from his mouth and listened. After a long pause, he shook his head. With a jerk, he ripped a whistle and cord from around of his neck and dropped it into her lap. “Wait here,” he said peering into the thick fog. Without another word, he pulled a small digital compass from a jacket pocket, held it up for a moment, and disappeared into nothingness.
Kathryn and Tadri sat motionless listening to Andrew’s footsteps moving away from them. After a long moment, Tadri scooted next to her and snaked her arm inside Kathryn’s. They huddled together. Their immediate worry was for Pierre, but Kathryn’s thoughts quickly began to spread to the rest of the team. There were a lot of people out here because of her and any
one of them may have been caught in that quake. Jesus, all of them could have been. Her chest suddenly began to feel heavy, and her fear grew into a paralyzing mix of guilt and terror.
Tadri felt Kathryn’s body begin to shake through their linked arms and turned to her. “Kathryn? Are you okay?”
Kathryn looked at Tadri with a helpless stare. She slowly shook her head. “The others.” She trailed off looking back at the fog trying desperately to peer beyond.
Tadri grabbed her gloved hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure everybody’s fine Kathryn! I’m sure everyone got away just like we did.” Kathryn looked back at her. “Including Pierre.”
Kathryn was not so sure. She thought about how quickly and easily those edges fell away. She had to find out. She turned and looked for her large pack which had the long range radio on it, but the thick white mist had already moved past them and enveloped the entire area. Kathryn started to turn when Tadri gripped her tightly.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to get to my pack and call the other teams.”
Tadri turned around. “Do you see your pack?”
Kathryn smirked and pointed. “It’s right over there about forty feet away.
“Are you sure?” Tadri asked.
Kathryn nodded impatiently. “Yes!” Tadri remained silent staring at her. Kathryn took the hint and looked around. They were completely enveloped now and could not see anything. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s right over there.”
Tadri kept a firm grip on her arm. “Do you even know which direction you’re facing? I don’t!”
Kathryn looked again, thinking about the question. “No.” She sighed, slouching back down to the ground.
Tadri looked up. Even the sky was white. “I say we wait until Andrew gets back or until we can actually see something.”
They both sat waiting for what seemed like hours. Finally, they heard the distant crunching of footsteps and stood up excitedly. It took almost a full minute for Andrew to appear out of the wall of mist. They smiled at him but realized he was not smiling back. He stopped in front of them and swung something large around his shoulders dropping it at their feet. It was Pierre’s bag.
Kathryn’s eyes opened wide, fearful of what was coming.
“I can’t find him.”
She immediately felt like she got hit in the chest with a hammer.
“I reckon he fell in. He was pretty close when it started.” Andrew knelt down and unzipped the bag. He dug through it taking a quick inventory.
“Wha-what do we do?” she asked.
“We get our bags and go back to look for him. I didn’t hear anything when I called out for him, but I’m not ready to give up. Get your bags,” he looked at his compass. “They’re just a few meters that way.” As he pointed, Kathryn noted that it was not the direction she was about to head earlier. “We need our equipment and as much rope as we can find. We have some on the other snowmobile. Hopefully, we have enough between the two.”
Both ladies took a tentative step in the direction that Andrew had indicated, but turned back with an uncertain look. He nodded his head, still squatting down looking in the bag. “Just follow the sound back to me, you’ll be fine.”
Andrew led the way back on foot with Kathryn and Tadri riding their snowmobile slowly behind him. The visibility was improving, and they were able to make out the outline of the other snowmobile at almost thirty feet when they arrived. Part of the front skids hung over the edge of the steep drop but amazingly had not fallen in. Andrew quickly tied a rope back to back on the snowmobiles, and Kathryn slowly eased the throttle pulling the second vehicle to safety.
Andrew stood carefully on the edge and peered into the giant white chasm. He could make out the tips of large ice chunks below but could not see anything else further down. “Pieeerre!” he called aloud and listened. “Pieeeeeeerre!” They heard only silence around them.
Andrew changed the lines on the snowmobiles, so each now had their own individual length of rope attached to its rear rack. He pulled hard on each to make sure the machines did not budge.
“What are you doing?” Kathryn asked.
“I’m going down.”
“What? You don’t even know how far down it is!”
He shot her an impatient look. “Look…Kathryn, he’s probably buried which means we don’t have long. It’s probably already too late. But it’s now or never.” He pointed to the snowmobiles. “I need you two to sit on those to make sure they don’t go anywhere.”
Both ladies nodded and planted themselves on the seat facing backwards. Kathryn grabbed her pack and pulled out her radio.
“Don’t!”
She looked at Andrew. “What? We have to find out if everyone is okay. They may need help too!”
“If they do, then my teammates are doing exactly as I am. Besides, we don’t want to make any noise if Pierre is trying to call for help under a meter of snow.” He ran the ropes through his belt and got ready to descend. He planted his feet against the edge and looked back at them. “I’ll be right back.”
29
Clay woke to the sound of his phone. He opened one eye and peered at the bright screen. After taking a moment to push the fog from his head, he accepted the call. “Borger. How goes it?”
“Hey Clay, I wake you up?”
“No,” he said before thinking about the question. “Actually yes, but go ahead.”
“Clay, we’re gonna need to get everybody on a call.”
Clay rubbed his hand across his face and sat up on the bed. “Talk to me.”
Borger paused on the other end. “It’s not what we thought Clay.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s worse,” Borger sighed. “I don’t think we should say too much on your cell. We’re gonna need a secure line. Maybe start with Langford.”
Clay nodded. “Okay, hold tight. I’ll find him and Caesare.” He hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. He raised his eyes and looked around the darkened room. When he had first woke it took him a few seconds to remember where he was. He and Caesare, along with a couple of Emerson’s men, had been airlifted back to NAS JAX last night where they quickly unloaded the Triton. After getting it into a lab, they removed the hard drive and attached it to a computer so they could transfer the data to Borger. It took a couple hours, but once Borger had the data he suggested they all get some rest and give him some time to go over it. That was all the prompting they needed. They procured some quarters reserved for civilian visitors and hit the sack. That was a little over four hours ago. Now it was four thirty a.m., and he needed to find Langford for a conference call. Finding Caesare was easy; he could hear him snoring through the wall next door.
Fifteen minutes later, Langford was the last of the four men to dial into the call. He wasted no time. “What do you have, Will?”
“Well sir, I just got off the phone with Dr. Harding at MIT. We’ve spent the last two hours going over the hard drive data that Clay and Caesare sent over. The Triton captured twelve hours and fifty two minutes of video after losing contact with the ship and slowly spiraled downward in large concentric circles until hitting the bottom. Most of the video is not useful as it captured things above the submersible such as views of the surface or the ship above.”
“Okay, so what are we here to talk about?” Langford interrupted.
“Sir, most of the video was pointing up, but the segments of video pointing below the craft are why I asked Clay to get you guys on a call.” He hesitated a moment before continuing. “The camera on the Triton is an ultrahigh definition camera which records much more detail than what it transfers over its wireless connection, which is what we saw before. With this new data, we can more clearly see the ring. The physical characteristics are more advanced than we had previously believed; for example, the width is thicker than I thought, and I believe it is moving faster than what we had calculated.”
“And what does that change?” asked Langford.
�
��Well, those observations do not change much of our previous assumptions. If anything, they just tell us that the ring probably requires more power than we thought. But it’s the inside of the ring that changes things.”
“Inside the ring?”
“Yes sir,” Borger continued. “We can observe details within the ring’s interior, which gives us some inference; as in a direction.”
Clay spoke up. “What does that mean?”
“I believe the assertion on our video call the other day was that these…people are planning to bring something through the ring.”
Clay and Caesare looked at each other across the table. That was not their assertion, it was Stevas’ assertion. They were sure Langford was thinking the same thing when his voice came over the phone line. “That is correct”.
“Sir, I think we have this backwards. Instead of bringing something through, it…it looks like they may be sending something out.”
There was a long silence before Langford replied. “Alright, give me some time to wake everyone up.”
Secretary of Defense Miller, Chief of Staff Mason, and National Security Advisor Stevas appeared on the video screen within thirty minutes. A few moments later, a video feed from a Pentagon war room with the four Joint Chiefs appeared. In the bottom right hand corner were Langford and Borger’s video windows which were already online along with Clay and Caesare, they were broadcasting from the NAS JAX conference room. Professors Harding and Wong appeared just as Langford began speaking.
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