by JC Ryan
"Right as rain, except for a few tiffs here and there. Nothing serious. I have a very curious Navy Commander here, who would like to see our new toy. Is there any reason I can't show it to him?"
"Find out his clearance level, but I'm sure he has one high enough to see the drone. It's classified secret right now, until the committee can assess its potential as a weapon. After that, it will probably be declassified."
"It's a sad world that we've come to, isn't it?" Summers observed.
"Just be glad you're not in my position," Daniel answered.
Summers reported to Daniel that JR's health and fitness were okay, and that his behavioral issues seemed to be under control. It had been two weeks since JR had defied his authority, and after his conversation with Rebecca, he wasn't certain he should have tried to exercise it in the first place, so he didn't mention it to Daniel. A few more routine remarks were exchanged, and then Summers rang off.
"Cmdr. Anderson, may I ask your security level?"
Anderson could see no reason not to give the information, so he answered that he was cleared at the secret level, and offered to show Summers the documentation. Summers assured him it wasn't necessary and then took him to see the drone that, if it had been properly built to the specifications, would assist him in finding any ruins that may exist on the continent.
The drone looked like a model aircraft, though it resembled no previous aircraft that Summers had ever seen. It was made of an anodized aluminum fabric that had been coated in a striking metallic fuchsia. It boasted two sets of what Summers took to be wings, giving a crisscrossed appearance to the body about two feet back from the nose and two feet forward of the tail, the whole of the body being approximately twelve feet long. At rest, the drone sat on an array of wheeled struts, one under the forward set of wings, with two others and a tripod formation under the rear set. On its back was a disc-shaped object that resembled a UFO.
"Are you going to tell me what it's for?" Cmdr. Anderson asked, though he had a good idea. The device looks like a U.S. Navy E-2b surveillance aircraft.
"Believe it or not, inside that disc are advanced electronics that should be able to map the surface under the ice to a depth of 150 feet. Unless the ice has a significant amount of broken rock in it, this will look right through it, as if it were water. It's capable of flying a grid pattern at a slow enough rate for our computers to take the data it transmits and draw a 3-D map of the surface and down to one hundred and fifty feet below."
Cmdr. Anderson was now suitably impressed. He gave a low whistle and then observed, "I'll bet my counterparts in the other services are dying to get their hands on that," he said. "You could map a minefield with it, couldn't you? And tunnels, missile silos...submarines?"
"I suppose you could," Summers said. "However, under the terms of the treaty they'd have to give it to everyone or no one."
"Damn stupid thing, that treaty," the commander said. "Why couldn't we have retained the advantage?"
"Have you ever read or heard the greeting message that the 10th Cyclers left us?"
"No, not in full. Why?"
"They left a warning that the only way to avert a civilization-ending calamity like the one that wiped them out was to find a way to end war. I can't think of a better way to end war than to put everyone on a technologically equal basis. If everyone believes everyone else's military technology is as good as theirs, then no one will believe they can win, hopefully. That should create an environment where we talk out our differences rather than sending young men to die or to be traumatized so much that they are unable to fit into society."
Anderson had nothing to say to that. A reasonable man, he understood Summers points perfectly. But, what would a career military officer do in a world without war? It was a moral dilemma that he didn't face alone.
~~~
With a continent too vast to map, even with 10th Cycle technology, in one summer season, there was no time to waste. After a three day period, during which most of the crew was encouraged to sleep and rejuvenate, the expedition resumed with fresh supplies. It was really anybody's guess as to where an ancient city might be buried under the ice. Summers insistence that it was likely to be somewhere in the Transantarctic Mountains was based on no more than a hunch, really. If, instead it was hidden by the deepest ice, they wouldn't find it this year. East Antarctica would represent a different set of challenges to thoroughly explore, mainly, the sheer size and the depth of the ice. Even if the drone technology could find it, if it were buried under thousands of feet of ice, it would be nearly impossible to get to it for exploration.
Therefore, Summers felt justified in searching an area where, if the city were found there, it would be more accessible. An added bonus was that the mountains were closer to the South Pole, their base of operations, than the vast reaches of Eastern Antarctica. Since they would be following no established track, Summers, with Nick Rossler's help, had planned on several two or three week treks in a pattern that fanned out from the pole at approximately 15° segments. They would trek to the mountains, make their way into the canyons and valleys as best they could, and rely on the drone to map otherwise inaccessible areas. The resulting map would be analyzed not only for potentially non-natural structures, but would prove invaluable to geologists and other scientific communities in the future.
The first disaster struck during the return trek from mapping the first segment. It was now mid-November, and daytime temperatures were approaching 40 to 45°F. The surface was therefore prone to potholes in the ice, caused by melting of wind-driven snow that was not as compressed as the ice below it. As water seeped into the fissures in the ice, dangerous conditions could arise for the unwary.
With warming temperatures, and brilliantly sunny days that resembled eternal mid-morning, the expedition members were in good spirits despite the arduous work of sample collecting, or other planned experiments. Cindy, the electronics engineer, had less to do during the day than the others, but had volunteered to carry the Geiger counter that Robert insisted on using to take daily readings as they explored canyons and valleys in the mountains. On the fateful day, the group was anticipating heading back to the Pole, and Cindy, carrying the Geiger counter, skipped ahead with youthful exuberance. Robert turned to take a sample from an interesting out-cropping, and when he turned back, Cindy was nowhere to be seen.
"Cindy, where'd you go?" he called. When he got no answer he became concerned and moved forward cautiously. Robert was following Cindy's boot tracks when, a few feet ahead, he could see that they disappeared at the edge of a large crack in the ice. Dreading what he would find, Robert slowed down and secured himself with his ski poles before peering into the crack. A cold dread washed over him when he saw that it opened out and ran deeper than he could have imagined. Cindy wasn't where he could see her.
"Cindy," he half-moaned. Robert knew he needed help. There was no way to lower himself into the crevasse without climbing gear and someone to belay him. He left one ski pole marking the edge of the crevasse and retraced his steps until he could see someone in the distance.
"Help!" He cried. He was gratified to see the other’s head jerk up, a clear indication he'd been heard. He semaphored with his arms to gain the attention of whomever had heard him. In the distance he heard a faint echo as the person passed on his cry for help. Then, the person started toward him.
"No! Go back, we need rescue gear." Robert wasn't sure he had made himself understood, as the echoes resounded through the small surrounding areas. But, the other person had stopped, so he could only hope that some of it got through. Looking back, he could see he was no more than half a mile from the edge of the crevasse where Cindy had disappeared. He started shushing slowly toward the other member of the expedition, seeing when he got closer that it was Stone. With only a few hundred yards between them, he stopped and shouted again.
"Cindy's gone into a crevasse. Can't see her. Bring rescue gear."
Stone made an exaggerated nod with the entire upper
half of his body and then turned and started back towards the rest of the team. Satisfied that he had conveyed the message he needed to, Robert returned to the edge of the crevasse, and laid down spread-eagled on the ice, his head hanging over the edge in a desperate attempt to spot Cindy.
"Cindy!" He called again. Without knowing the condition of the ice upon which he lay, or what hazards might be inside the crevasse, he dare not shout any louder. For all he knew, a loud shout might start an avalanche, either inside the crevasse or on the peaks a few hundred yards away. It seemed like an eternity before Robert heard footsteps crunching on the ice behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Stone, with Roosky and Summers, carrying ropes, ice axes and a light but sturdy stretcher with a harness apparatus.
"What happened?" asked Summers.
"I don't know exactly, I was taking samples and she was ahead of me, sort of skipping," he said, only belatedly realizing how odd it had looked, with Cindy in snowshoes. "I looked up and she had gone out of sight, so I followed her tracks to catch up with her, and they ended here." Robert pointed at the tracks leading right to the edge of the crevasse.
"Oh, bugger. She must have jumped on a snow bridge, you said she was skipping?" said Stone.
"Yeah, that's what it looked like. I know it sounds crazy."
"And you can't see her?" asked Summers.
"No, that's why I went back for help. I'll go in, but I need a belay."
Summers immediately accepted Cartwright's offer, remembering that he was an experienced climber. LeClerc was the smallest, and lightest, but he feared there was no time to return to camp for him. And besides, he may not be strong enough to get Cindy back up if she couldn't help herself. Summers and Cartwright quickly fashioned a rescue rig, with a second harness for Cindy clipped to a ring on the harness that covered Cartwright’s chest. Fastening the belaying rope to the ring at Robert’s waist with a figure-eight knot, Summers positioned Roosky ten feet from the edge of the crevasse, and had him dig in with ice axes to prevent sliding. He then had Stone take a similar position five feet behind Roosky. Finally, he handed Robert a bag of pitons, which he fastened to his harness.
Summers paid out the line slowly from his stance directly behind Roosky. Cartwright, in a hurry to locate Cindy, rappelled on the descent, until he reached a steeply pitched ledge, where he secured himself with a couple of pitons driven into the ice before turning around to look for Cindy. He reckoned the ledge descended about fifteen feet at an angle of close to forty-five degrees. The ledge was so steep that if Cindy had hit it in her fall, she would have slid under the overhang that would have obscured her resting place from Robert's vision from the top of the crevasse. Unfortunately, the crevasse appeared to descend further from the bottom of the ledge, as there was a dark space between the edge that he could see and the crevasse wall opposite. Cindy wasn't there.
Robert felt sick, knowing he'd have to negotiate the ledge carefully to avoid slipping and falling into the deeper crevasse himself. Without being able to see how deep it was, he didn't want to risk not being able to ascend, or worse, yanking the other men in after him. He called up, hoping the others could hear him.
"Can't see her. There's a deeper crack here, going to try to get a look. Hang on, don't let me pull you in."
Summers could hear him, all right. But, he had mixed feelings about the last sentence. If Cartwright was about to make a descent that might budge Roosky, then he had to be ready to make a quick decision. He pulled out his own small ice ax and positioned it above the rope in front of Roosky.
"Okay, ready!" Summers called. The rope went taut again, and Summers paid out more nervously. Suddenly a jerk made Roosky lean back against the loop that surrounded him and dig in his heels, though there was no more purchase to be had. Summers tensed, but no more jerks occurred. After a few minutes with no more movement, Summers told Roosky he needed to check on Cartwright. He handed him the spare ice axe, and walked cautiously to the edge of the crevasse.
"Robert, what can you see?"
"Crikey," he answered. "Cindy's about ten feet down from my location. It looks like she's wedged into a crack that keeps going, and she seems to be unconscious. I don't know if I can reach her, it looks like the only way is for me to go in head first and have you guys haul us out."
Summers hated to ask it, but he couldn't risk Cartwright without knowing. "Are you sure she's alive?"
"No, dipshit, I don't bleedin' know if she's alive, but I'm not just leaving her down there. Even if she's not."
Summers knew there was no way to win this argument. He would have to authorize Robert's plan.
"Do you need us to haul you up and re-rig?"
"No, save your strength for hauling both of us up. I can do it here. Send down the stretcher, though. She may be too injured to haul her up in this spare harness."
Cold dread squeezed Summers heart, as he realized that Robert intended to unharness and tie a makeshift rig around his ankles, so that he could lower himself arms and head first into the narrower fissure. If it gave way while they tried to haul him up, Robert would fall, no doubt pushing Cindy further into the crack and wedging himself in as well. It was extremely risky, and Summers had no choice but to stand by, as Cartwright had made up his mind. He took a spare line and lowered the stretcher. Within a few minutes, Cartwright called, "Okay, I need more line."
Summers hurried back to Roosky's position, and paid out another four or five feet of line slowly. Just then, a single tug on the line indicated that Robert was in position. Within another few minutes, a double tug on the line let them know he was ready to be pulled out.
Roosky now stood, his feet braced against the ice axes, and began to pull, wrapping the rope around his back and securing each foot he gained before hauling again. Stone and Summers coiled it carefully as it grew. For Summers, the process took a lifetime. He could only hope that Roosky was as strong as he looked, and that the sharp edge of the ice wasn't fraying the rope as it scraped across it. After what seemed like hours, Cartwright's boots appeared at the edge of the ice. Now the trick would be getting him up and over the edge without anyone else slipping into the crevasse. With Roosky holding fast, Stone and Summers made their way cautiously to the side, and began pulling Cartwright up by his legs. When they had his legs completely free of the crevasse, they laid him down, bent at the waist, and peered into the crack to determine the best way to relieve him of his burden, the unconscious Cindy, strapped into the stretcher and dangling like a pendant on a necklace.
"She's alive!" Robert cried. "But, I don't know how injured she is. Pull her up first."
"But, that means you'll be upside down until we can get that done."
"No worries, mate. All my blood’s already in my head. Just hurry."
With as much alacrity as they could manage Summers and Stone pulled in the rope that had been used to lower the stretcher, until it was in a horizontal position, secured at the other end to Cartwright’s chest harness. Roosky held fast the entire time, leaning back against the loop around his back as if it were a lounging chair. When finally they had managed to get Cindy free of the crevasse and secure several feet back from it, they went back to pull Robert the rest of the way in. If Cindy hadn't been unconscious and a knot forming on her forehead, everyone would have collapsed in a heap from the long effort. However, it was imperative to get Cindy back to camp.
No one knew how long they had struggled to save her. If he had been asked, Summers would have said hours. But, in fact, it was only perhaps forty-five minutes.
In the meanwhile, Angela had discovered that several members were out of sight, and had bullied LeClerc into offloading a snowmobile that they carried for emergency transport. As the four men struggled back to camp, trying not to jostle Cindy any more than they had to, Angela met them and gave a cry of alarm when she saw they were carrying her friend.
"She's alive, but injured. Can you go get Rebecca? I'm not sure she should be moved with that thing,” Summers asked.
Without
a word, Angela made a tight U-turn, and headed back for camp. She was back within minutes, a white faced Rebecca Mendenhall holding on for dear life behind her. As the snowmobile came to a halt, Rebecca jumped off and ran to the group that had put Cindy down to wait for her.
A quick examination revealed that there were no broken limbs, and as far as Rebecca could tell, no internal injuries. However, the fact that Cindy had not regained consciousness was of concern. Angela ferried first Cindy, then the doctor back to camp, leaving the men to walk back. By the time they arrived, Cindy's head wound was dressed, and Rebecca said she had done all she could until Cindy regained consciousness.
Summers was torn between making the return trip to Amundsen-Scott with all due speed and waiting for the injured girl to regain consciousness so that any injuries that weren’t apparent now could be determined with her help. The concern that transporting her out of the crevasse could have already worsened any injuries that Rebecca wasn’t equipped to discover made him opt for the latter. If the truth were required of him, he would have to admit that the extra time to complete their grid search with the drone added weight to the decision.
~~~
While Rebecca waited and watched Cyndi, Robert asked Summers if he could spare JR to help him finish his geological sampling. It was then that he remembered Cindy had been carrying the Geiger counter. The costly, state-of-the-art device was gone, no doubt wedged dozens of feet below the place where Cindy had come to rest, for it was impossible to tell how deep the hidden crack ran below where Cindy had become wedged. Summers was philosophical. At least, what they had lost was not a human life, God willing. Though Cindy had yet to regain consciousness, Rebecca was hopeful. She was showing signs of awakening soon.
By the end of the day following Cindy's accident, the grid was three quarters finished, with no appreciable results. When Robert and JR got back from their trek into the broken strata of the range, they found the camp in a celebratory mood. Cindy had regained consciousness, and had reported no pain that gave Rebecca any cause for concern about internal injuries. In fact, she was rather enjoying celebrity status. When Robert came striding into camp with JR at his side, Cindy scrambled to her feet and walked swiftly to meet him.