The Ice Limit

by Douglas Preston

  "I see. Bring Hill's body to the medical hut, please. We wouldn't want it to freeze before Dr. Brambell arrives; that would be inconvenient."

  "So who was this other man?" McFarlane asked.

  Instead of answering, Glinn turned away and murmured something in Spanish, just loud enough for McFarlane to catch: "You are not a wise man, mi Comandante. Not a wise man at all."

  46: Isla Desolación

  July 23, 12:05 P.M.

  THE STORM eased, and forty-eight hours passed without further incident. Security was beefed up considerably; guard duty was tripled, additional cameras were installed, and a perimeter of motion-detecting sensors was sunk into the snow around the operation.

  Meanwhile, work on the sunken roadway proceeded at a breakneck pace. As soon as one section was built, the meteorite and cart were dragged along, inch by inch, to rest only while the capstan was repositioned, a new section of roadway built, and the previous section filled in. Safety precautions around the meteorite had been redoubled.

  At last, the excavators reached the interior of the snowfield. Here, sheltered beneath almost two hundred feet of solid ice, the meteorite waited while digging teams cored through the snowfield from both ends.

  Eli Glinn stood inside the mouth of the ice tunnel, watching the progress as the great machines worked. All had gone according to plan, despite the two recent deaths. Half a dozen thick hoses snaked out of the hole in the ice, diesel fumes and soot spewing from their ends: a jury-rigged forced-air system to suck exhaust from the tunnel while the heavy machinery carved through the ice. It was beautiful in its way, Glinn thought, one more engineering marvel in a long list since the project had begun. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were rough-edged and irregular, fractal in their endless knobs and ridges. A million cracks and fissures ran away in crazy spiderwebs across the walls, white against the shockingly deep blue of the ice. Only the floor was even, covered with the omnipresent crushed gravel over which the cart would travel.

  A single row of fluorescent lights lit the tunnel. Peering ahead, Glinn could see the meteorite on its cart, a red blob inside an eerie blue tube. The tunnel echoed with the crashing and grinding of unseen machinery. There was a wink of headlights in the distance, then some kind of vehicle made its way around the meteorite and came toward him. It was a train of ore carts, full of glittering blue shards of ice.

  The revelation that the meteorite could kill by touch had startled Glinn more than he cared to admit. Despite that he had instituted orders never to touch the rock directly, he had always considered this merely a judicious precaution. He sensed that McFarlane was right: the touch had caused the explosion. There seemed to be no other possible answer. A strategic recalculation had become necessary. It had caused yet another revision in his failure-success analysis—one that required virtually all of EES's computer capacity back in New York to process.

  Glinn looked once again at the red rock, sitting like a huge gemstone on its bed of greenheart oak. This was the thing that killed Vallenar's man, killed Rochefort and Evans, killed Masangkay. Strange that it had not killed Lloyd. It was undeniably deadly... but the fact was, they were still ahead of schedule on fatalities. The volcano project had cost fourteen lives, including one meddling government minister who insisted on being where he shouldn't have been. Glinn reminded himself that, despite the strangeness of the rock, despite the problem of the Chilean destroyer, this remained essentially a heavy moving job.

  He glanced at his watch. McFarlane and Amira would be on time; they always were. And he could see them now, stepping out of a snowcat at the mouth of the ice tunnel, McFarlane lugging a duffel bag full of instruments. In five minutes they were at Glinn's side. He turned to them. "You've got forty minutes until the tunnel is complete and the meteorite is moved again. Make good use of it."

  "We intend to," said Amira.

  He watched her pulling gear out of the duffel and setting up instruments, while McFarlane silently took pictures of the rock with a digital camera. She was capable. McFarlane had learned about her reports, as he had expected. This had had the desired effect: it put McFarlane on notice that his behavior was being scrutinized. It also gave Amira an ethical dilemma to occupy herself with, always helpful in distracting her from the thornier moral questions she had a tendency to ask. Moral questions that had no place in a cold-blooded engineering project. McFarlane had taken it better than the profile predicted. A complicated man, and one who had proven himself unusually useful.

  Glinn noticed another cat arriving, also with a passenger. Sally Britton stepped out, a long coat of navy blue wool billowing out behind her. Uncharacteristically, there was no officer's cap on her head, and her wheat-colored hair gleamed in the lights of the tunnel. Glinn smiled. He had also been expecting this, ever since the explosion that killed the Chilean spy. Expecting it, even looking forward to it.

  As Britton drew near, Glinn turned toward her with a genuinely welcoming smile. He took her hand. "Nice to see you, Captain. What brings you down here?"

  Britton looked around, her intelligent green eyes taking in everything. They froze when they saw the meteorite.

  "Good God," she said, her step suddenly faltering.

  Glinn smiled. "It's always a shock at first sight."

  She nodded wordlessly.

  "Nothing great can happen in this world, Captain, without some difficulty." Glinn spoke quietly, but with great force. "It's the scientific discovery of the century." Glinn did not particularly care about its value to science; his interest was solely in the engineering aspects. But he was not going to eschew a little drama, if it served his purposes.

  Britton continued staring. "They said it was red, but I had no idea..."

  The roar of heavy machinery echoed down the ice tunnel as she stared: one minute, then two. At last, with obvious effort, she took a breath, pulled her eyes away, and faced him.

  "Two more people have been killed. But what news we've had from you has been slow in coming, and rumors are everywhere. The crew are nervous, and so are my officers. I need to know exactly what happened, and why."

  Glinn nodded, waiting.

  "That meteorite is not coming on board my ship until I'm convinced it's safe." She said it all at once and then stood firm, her slim, small form planted on the gravel.

  Glinn smiled. This was one hundred percent Sally Britton. Every day he admired her more.

  "I feel exactly the same way," he said.

  She looked at him, off balance, obviously having expected resistance.

  "Mr. Glinn, we have a dead Chilean naval officer to explain to the authorities. We have a warship out there somewhere, a destroyer that likes to train its guns on us. Three of your people are dead. We have a twenty-five-thousand-ton rock that, when it isn't crushing people, blows them to bits, and you want to put it inside my ship." She paused a moment, then continued, her voice lower. "Even the best crews can get superstitious. There's been a lot of wild talk."

  "You are right to be concerned. Let me brief you on what happened. I apologize for not coming to the ship myself, but as you know we've been fighting the clock."

  She waited.

  "Two nights ago, during the storm, we had an intruder from the Chilean ship. He was killed by an electrical discharge from the meteorite. Unfortunately, not before he murdered one of our men."

  Britton looked at him sharply. "So it's true? Lightning shot out of the meteorite? I didn't believe it. And I sure as hell don't understand it."

  "It's actually quite simple. It's made of a metal that is a superconductor of electricity. The human body—human skin—has an electrical potential. If you touch the meteorite, the meteorite discharges some of the electricity circulating inside it. Like a blast of lightning, only greater. McFarlane has explained the theory to me. That's what we believe killed the Chilean, as well as Nestor Masangkay, the man who first discovered the meteorite."

  "Why does it do that?"

  "McFarlane and Amira are working on that question now. But m
oving the rock is the priority now, and they haven't had time for further analysis."

  "So what's to prevent this from happening on my ship?"

  "Another good question." Glinn smiled. "We're working on that one too. We're taking great precautions to make sure no one touches it. Indeed, we had instituted such a policy even before we realized that touch could trigger an explosion."

  "I see. Where does the electricity come from?"

  Glinn's hesitation was very brief. "That's one of the things that Dr. McFarlane is studying right now."

  Britton did not respond.

  Quite suddenly, Glinn took her hand. He felt a brief, instinctive resistance. Then she relaxed.

  "I understand your concerns, Captain," he said gently. "That's why we are taking all possible precautions. But you must believe we will not fail. You must believe in me. Just as I believe in you to maintain discipline aboard your ship, despite the nervousness and superstitions of the crew."

  She looked at him, but he could see her eyes irresistibly drawn back to the great red rock.

  "Stay a while," said Glinn softly, smiling. "Stay and watch us bring the heaviest object ever moved by mankind to your ship."

  She looked from the rock toward him, then back to the rock, hesitating.

  A radio on her belt chirped. She immediately freed herself and stepped away. "This is Captain Britton," she said.

  Watching the change in her face, Glinn knew precisely what she must be hearing.

  She replaced the radio. "The destroyer. It's returned."

  Glinn nodded. The smile had not left his face. "No surprise," he said. "The Almirante Ramirez has lost one of her own. Now she's come to get him back."

  47: Rolvaag

  July 24, 3:45 P.M.

  NIGHT WAS falling over Isla Desolación. Coffee cup in hand, McFarlane watched the twilight gather from the solitude of the fly deck. It was a perfect evening: clear, cold, windless. In the distance, there were some remaining streaks of clouds: mare's tails of pink and peach. The island lay etched in light, unnaturally clear and crisp. Beyond, the glossy waters of Franklin Channel reflected the last rays of the setting sun. Farther still lay Vallenar's destroyer, gray, malevolent, the name Almirante Ramirez barely legible on its rust-streaked sides. That afternoon it had moved in closer, nosing into place at the entrance to Franklin Channel—their only route of exit. Now it looked as though it planned to stay.

  McFarlane took a sip of coffee, then impulsively poured the rest over the side. Caffeine was the last thing he needed right now. There was already a tremendous tension in his gut. He wondered just how Glinn was planning to deal with the destroyer, on top of everything else. But Glinn had seemed calm that day; exceptionally calm. He wondered if the man was having a nervous breakdown.

  The meteorite had been moved—painfully, centimeter by centimeter—through the icefield and down the sunken roadway to the edge of Isla Desolación. It had finally reached a bluff overlooking Franklin Channel. To hide it, another of Glinn's corrugated metal shacks had gone up. McFarlane examined the shack from the deck. As usual, it was a masterpiece of deception: a rusty contraption of secondhand metal that listed dangerously. Bald tires had been piled in front. He wondered how they planned to lower it into the hold; Glinn had been exceptionally cagey. All he knew was, it was going to happen in a single night: that night.

  The hatch opened and McFarlane turned at the sound. He was surprised to see Glinn, who hadn't been on board the ship, as far as he could tell, for almost a week.

  The man sauntered over casually. Although his face remained gray, there was an easiness to his movements. "Evening," he said.

  "You seem awfully calm."

  Instead of replying, Glinn removed a pack of cigarettes and, much to McFarlane's surprise, slid one into his mouth. He lit it, the match flaring against his sallow face, and took a long drag.

  "Didn't know you smoked. Out of costume, anyway."

  Glinn smiled. "I allow myself twelve cigarettes a year. It's my one foolishness."

  "When was the last time you slept?" McFarlane asked.

  Glinn gazed out over the peaceful waters. "I'm not sure. Sleep is like food: after the first few days you stop missing it."

  He smoked in silence for a few minutes. "Any fresh insights from your time in the ice tunnel?" he asked at last.

  "Tantalizing bits and pieces. It has an atomic number in excess of four hundred, for example."

  Glinn nodded.

  "Sound travels through it at ten percent the speed of light. It has a very faint internal structure: an outer layer and an inner layer, with a small inclusion in the center. Most meteorites come from the breakup of a larger body. This one is just the opposite: it looks like it grew by accretion, probably in a jet of plasma from a hypernova. Sort of like a pearl around a grain of sand. That's why it's somewhat symmetrical."

  "Extraordinary. And the electrical discharge?"

  "Still a mystery. We don't know why a human touch should trigger it when nothing else seems to. We also don't know why it is that Lloyd, alone, escaped getting blown to bits. We've got more data than we can even begin to analyze, and it's all contradictory."

  "What about the way our radios were knocked out after the explosion? Any connection?"

  "Yes. It seems that after the discharge, the meteorite was in an excited state, emitting radio waves—long-wavelength electromagnetic radiation. That accounts for the interference with radio communication. Over time, it died down, but in its immediate vicinity—say, inside the tunnel—the meteorite was still throwing off enough radio noise to defeat radio traffic for several hours, at least."

  "And now?"

  "It's settled down. At least until the next explosion."

  Glinn puffed silently, savoring the cigarette as McFarlane watched. Then he gestured toward the shore, and the rickety shack that concealed the meteorite. "In a few hours, that thing will be in the tank. If you have any last reservations, I need to know now. Our lives at sea depend on it."

  McFarlane said nothing. He could almost feel the burden of the question settling on his shoulders. "I simply can't predict what's going to happen," he said.

  Glinn smoked. "I'm not asking for a prediction, only an educated guess."

  "We've had the chance to observe it, under various conditions, for almost two weeks. Except for the electrical discharge apparently caused by human touch, it seems completely inert. It doesn't react to metal touching it, or even a high-powered electron microprobe. As long as our safety precautions are kept rigidly in place, I can't think of any reason why it should act differently in the holding tank of the Rolvaag."

  McFarlane hesitated, wondering if his own fascination with the meteorite was causing him to lose his objectivity. The idea of leaving it behind was... unthinkable. He changed the subject. "Lloyd's been on the satellite phone almost hourly, and he's desperate for news."

  Glinn inhaled blissfully, his eyes half closed, like a Buddha. "In thirty minutes, as soon as it's fully dark, we bring the ship up against the bluff and begin loading the meteorite on a tower built out of the tank. It will be in the tank by three A.M., and by dawn we'll be a good way to international waters. You can relate that to Mr. Lloyd. Everything is under control. Garza and Stonecipher will be running the operation. I won't even be needed until the final stage."

  "What about that?" McFarlane nodded toward the destroyer. "Once you start lowering the rock into the tank, it's going to be exposed for all to see. The Rolvaag will be a sitting duck."

  "We will work under cover of darkness and a predicted fog. Nevertheless, I will be paying a call on Comandante Vallenar during the critical period."

  McFarlane was not sure he had heard correctly. "You'll be doing what?"

  "It will distract him." Then, more quietly, "And it will serve other purposes as well."

  "That's insane. He might arrest you, or even kill you."

  "I don't believe so. By all accounts, Comandante Vallenar is a brutal man. But he is not crazy."


  "In case you hadn't noticed, he's blocking our only exit." Night had fallen, and a cloak of darkness had settled over the island. Glinn checked his gold watch, then pulled a radio out of his pocket. "Manuel? You may commence."

  Almost instantaneously, the bluff was lit up by banks of brilliant lights, bathing the bleak landscape in a cold illumination. A swarm of workers appeared as if out of nowhere. Heavy machinery growled.

  "Jesus, why don't you put up a billboard saying: 'Here it is'?" asked McFarlane.

  "The bluff is not visible from Vallenar's ship," Glinn said. "It's blocked by that headland. If Vallenar wants to see what this new activity is about—and he will—he'll have to move the destroyer back up to the northern end of the channel. Sometimes the best disguise is no disguise at all. Vallenar, you see, won't be expecting our departure."

  "Why not?"

  "Because we will also continue the decoy mining operation all night long. All the heavy equipment, and two dozen men, will remain on the island, working at a feverish pace. There will be occasional explosions, naturally, and lots of radio traffic. Just before dawn, something will be found. Or at least it will look that way to the Almirante Ramirez. There will be great excitement. The workmen will take a break to discuss the discovery." He flicked the butt away, watching it sail into the darkness. "The Rolvaag's tender is hidden on the far side of the island. As soon as we depart, the tender will load up the men and meet us behind Horn Island. Everything else will be left behind."

  "Everything?" McFarlane let his mind run over the shacks full of equipment, the dozers, the container labs, the huge yellow haulers.

  "Yes. The generators will be running, all the lights will be left on. Millions of dollars' worth of heavy equipment will be left on the island in plain view. When Vallenar sees us move, he'll assume we're coming back."

  "He won't give chase?"

  Glinn did not respond for a moment. "He might"

  "What then?"

  Glinn smiled. "Every path has been analyzed, every contingency planned for." He raised his radio again. "Bring the vessel in toward the bluff."