Ice Station Death

by Gustavo Bondoni

  “I thought so. You can’t even understand what it means to be poor. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the people you oppress. What about the native Argentines, the people who were here before we Europeans arrived? Or, even women. Have you stopped to think about the plight of women in our society?” She sneered. “Oh, I almost forgot. You’re from the upper classes. Maybe the Opus Dei hasn’t mentioned that it’s not a great idea to make women have ten or fifteen kids?”

  “I don’t have any children, Camila.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it!” This last was a screech, and for the first time since he’d realized who his assailant was, Javier wondered if he should rush her. This was a stressful time for everyone, and she might do something stupid before she came to her senses.

  The question was whether she would react in time to fire before he could reach her. Normally, he’d have expected a woman to be unable to fire the gun, but the first thing Camila had done when he’d handed it to her was to thumb the safety. She could shoot him if she chose.

  Maybe if he dove at her feet she would be caught out. He tensed.

  “Are you even listening? You’re here to be judged.”

  “If this is a trial, don’t I get to defend myself?”

  “Why should you? None of your victims gets to choose to avoid being oppressed by you.”

  “Why do you insist on that? I have never oppressed anyone. I’ve spent my entire life protecting my people.”

  “Correction. You spend your days ordering the people who do the protecting around. If things get tricky, you’ll be the one sitting in an office giving instructions, while the sons of the poor do all the dying.”

  “Listen…”

  “Stay where you are. If you move, I’ll shoot you.”

  “All right. Calm down. Just remember that if you shoot me, you’ll be the one on trial when we get back.”

  “We aren’t going back. Haven’t you noticed? We’re not in the world we knew anymore. You might think we’re in Antarctica, but we haven’t been here since we landed. The sun hasn’t set, and it will never set again. We’ve moved beyond. This isn’t the world of men, it’s a place of judgement.”

  For a second he remembered feeling the same thing, out on the ice. For the barest instant, he wondered if she might actually be right. Then he mastered himself. “Don’t be silly. It’s just the way the sun moves in the summer. You’re a scientist, you should understand that.”

  “So you admit that the fact that you were assigned to lead our expedition was just so the army could control us?”

  “What? No. Where did you even get that idea?”

  “One sees things a lot more clearly once you accept that you’re never going back to your old life.”

  “Come on, Camila. Let’s get you back to the ship.” A thought struck him. “When was the last time you ate anything?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. You know perfectly well that you left me to die in that concrete box with all the other people who weren’t from your class. What did you care about my students? They were just laborer’s sons.”

  “Are you insane? And besides, what is this about my class? As if you weren’t just as much a part of my class. Where’d you go to school, anyway?”

  She hesitated and Javier knew he’d struck a nerve. There were subtle cues that one could spot in Argentina to tell whether a person came from a well-to-do background. Though Camila never wore designer labels or spoke of her life in any detail, other than the single slip about having sushi once a week, Javier would have bet quite a bit of cash that she was from an upper middle class or upper-class family. He’d never have found any takers for that bet, either. Even the most innocent soldier from way out in the boonies would have spotted her a mile off. Maybe it was the way she stretched her words in what Argentines called the language of the porteños, the people from Buenos Aires, so-called because the city had long been the country’s most important seaport. If that wasn’t it, there was something else, working below the level of consciousness that was giving him the vibe.

  “Where I’m from makes no difference. It’s where I choose to be that matters.”

  “Yeah, eating sushi once a week. I suppose you must be choosing a strange kind of poverty.”

  She took three steps forward and smashed the gun across his face, breaking his lip.

  He cursed himself for being caught by surprise. Not because of the pain—the blow had done no serious damage—but because her attack had been the perfect moment to take the gun away from Camila. He should be able to disarm her with little trouble once she became distracted… but would she become distracted again?

  “I’ve been at every demonstration. I’ve stood in the rain in front of the house of Congress to pressure the plutocrats inside to remember the people. I’ve marched against the International Monetary Fund, I’ve been at all the rallies in favor of legalizing abortion. The fact that these things won’t benefit me or my family directly make them more noble, not less.”

  “More noble than what?”

  “Than people like you, who allow the poor to be trodden underfoot.”

  “What do you know about that? What do you know about me? You know absolutely nothing, other than the fact that I’m in the army and that you’re mad at me for leading the expedition.”

  “Do you really think it’s about that? Do you think the entire universe would shut us off for something as silly as a job title? No. There’s so much more here at stake than the fact that your ego was too big to accept having a woman in charge.”

  Javier just stared at her. How could she possibly be serious? “I had no say in this. I didn’t want this assignment. If it had been up to me, I’d be back in Buenos Aires with my friends.”

  “I already told you. This isn’t about you. It’s about bigger things, justice on a cosmic scale.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She was walking to and fro now as she spoke, waving the gun around in distraction but too far away to lunge at. He wondered if he should try it anyway. How long before she tired of the crazy talk and just shot him?

  She suddenly stopped and smiled at him sadly. “No. I suppose you don’t. Ironic, isn’t it, to die before you’ve understood… well, anything, really.” She shrugged. “But it’s not my job to enlighten you, just to judge you.”

  She turned back to him, gun steady now. She was silhouetted against the mouth of the cave and, fifteen meters behind her…

  Natasha.

  He stayed perfectly still. Every bone in his body wanted to scream to her that she should run to get help, to save herself from this crazy person. But he knew that to do so would only serve to call Camila’s attention to her.

  Natasha came closer, apparently unaware of what was happening in the cave and then she stopped. A look of alarm crossed her features and then, without warning, she disappeared off to the side of the cave.

  Javier relaxed. She probably wouldn’t be in time to bring the crew to save him before things in the cave came to a head—he was tensing for a final suicidal lunge—but she would be safe, and she would be able to tell people what had happened to him. They could track Camila down and arrest her.

  The scientist smiled at him. “So I guess this is it. Since you won’t be able to understand the deeper nature of your crimes, let me just say this: the powers that hold us here have given me authority to judge you. I’ve done that, and found you guilty of oppressing the brave and true workers of the world.”

  She raised the gun and Javier was about to spring out of the way when they heard a noise outside.

  “What is that?” Camila asked. She kept the gun trained on him.

  “It… It sounds like Metallica,” Javier replied. The riff from Enter Sandman was easy to identify, even though the bass from whatever speakers here carrying the music was a bit tinny.

  Was it a tribute to Breen? After all, that was the same song the American had chosen at the base… but on
ly a few people knew that.

  And then it hit him. That song was on his cellphone, and the speakers, the last he’d seen of them, had been in Natasha’s pocket. Had she actually set up the system here on the ice? If so, what was she trying to achieve? Even if she succeeded in distracting Camila, which, for the moment, it appeared she had, the woman was armed, and Natasha wasn’t. Besides, the battery on his phone wouldn’t hold out for long it that was what was powering those speakers.

  Camila backed out of the cave slowly, keeping him covered. She emerged and looked around. Left, right. It was clear from her body language that she couldn’t find the source of the interruption.

  “Show yourself!” she yelled.

  Javier decided it was now or never. If she was a good shot, she’d fill him with lead long before he made it near her, but he had to try. He rolled to one side and then, using the impetus from the roll, came to his feet.

  His eyes never left the gun. Camila’s reflexes were good. As he was standing, she was bringing the Browning to bear. He would never make it unless she missed him completely.

  Then the completely unexpected happened. The gun wavered as Camila suddenly pointed it away. Three shots rang out.

  He hesitated for a moment then, as he was about to close the gap, something dropped from above the mouth of the cave, eclipsing the wan light for a moment. It landed with a thud atop Camila.

  The woman screamed.

  For a single second, Javier thought the shape must have been Natasha. She could have climbed around the cave and dropped in when Camila went to investigate the music. That had to be it.

  But the figure was much too large to be Natasha. As his eyes came to grip with the scale, the black blob resolved itself into a nothosaur, one of the small ones. The creature gripped Camila with its jaws to the sound of cracking ribs and squelching noises that didn’t bode well for her and then bounded into the distance.

  Javier emerged and picked up the fallen Browning. There should still be a few bullets in it.

  The music had stopped. He hoped that was because Natasha realized it would attract more of the creatures, and not because she’d been crushed between razor-edged teeth.

  Concern for her flooded him. “Natasha?” he called.

  “Not so loud. Do you want to be lunch for the next one?”

  She emerged from the side of the cavern and they embraced. Then she pulled back and gave him a hard look. “You know you’re going to have to explain that, don’t you? In the middle of all of this, you must have really done something to that girl for her to forget everything that’s happening around here and try to kill you.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you I have no clue what this was about?”

  “I might. But what did she say it was about?”

  “I really couldn’t follow her reasoning. I think she’s crazy.”

  “And now, I don’t believe you after all. Every single guy on the planet says the same thing about their ex.”

  “Ex? I never even met her until we set off.”

  “So what? A week’s plenty of time to get to know someone you’re locked on a ship with.”

  He was about to argue, about to plead his innocence, when he saw her half-smile. Then she laughed at him. “You should have seen your face. It was priceless.”

  He allowed himself a chuckle. “You’re evil, aren’t you?”

  “Didn’t you know? All Russian women are evil. They bring us up that way so we can marry the men who run the oil companies.”

  He knew she was teasing him again, but she’d put the poker face back on. Flustered, he changed the subject.

  “Did you know it would bring one of the monsters? The music, I mean.”

  She nodded. “We called them from miles away with the subaquatic one. I thought they’d be able to hear this pretty easily, so when I spotted one of them a few meters away, it came to me. By the way, your playlist reads like something my dad would listen to. Don’t you have anything new?”

  “Hey, it worked, didn’t it? I’m just happy you didn’t try to take her on yourself.”

  “With this arm? She would have kicked my ass. If I’d had both hands, I could take her, even if she outweighed me by ten kilos.”

  “Ten kilos? I don’t think…” Javier caught her look and stopped. “Yeah. She was on the plump side, wasn’t she?”

  “So you did notice?”

  “Wait, no fair. I have no way to win.”

  “I told you. They train us from birth. You’ll never win again.” She went up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips. “Just don’t forget that and you’ll be fine.”

  She took him by the hand and they headed towards the Irizar.

  Chapter 22

  They only made it about thirty meters in the direction of the Irizar when Javier spotted two of the small creatures standing in their way. He was always surprised at how his brain refused to scale them correctly on the open ice: if someone had asked him how big they were, he’d have said that they were the size of a large dog or a small pony.

  The reality, that they were as long as two cars parked one behind the other if you counted the tail, just didn’t register until you came much closer. The creatures were bent over something.

  “Ugh. They’re eating the bodies,” Natasha said.

  “That’s strange. They usually take the bodies to their nest.”

  “Maybe they know these are already dead,” she replied. “Or perhaps it’s just a question of hunger. Our arrival meant that these creatures have been running around and expending a lot of energy. Plus, you have to remember that they need to keep warm in this cold climate. So they need to eat.”

  “Yeah. I’m more concerned about how to get around them without being seen. We might need to circle over there, and try to get onto the ship from the left.”

  “Don’t they call it the port side?”

  He was about to snap at her that it didn’t really matter what sailors called the parts of their ship when, once again, he saw her smile. Her sense of humor was going to take a bit of getting used to. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Shouldn’t I be? Try to remember that just a couple of days ago I thought I was going to die. I saw a lot of my friends on that boat torn to pieces in front of me. Then I thought you were dead… Now, it almost looks like we’re both going to make it out of this alive. Yeah, I’m in a good place.”

  “We’re not out of this yet.”

  “And they say Russians are gloomy.”

  He chuckled. “Do you forget who invented tango? Argentines will always give Russians a run for their money when it comes to negativity in the face of near success.”

  “I always thought tango was sexy.”

  “Then you need to listen to the words. Back when it started, tango was all about betrayal and sadness. Fitting, I guess, because it was the music of the poor people’s brothels.”

  “Sex. I told you.” She caught his look. “All right, I’ll behave. We should be safe while they’re feeding as long as we don’t get between them and their food.”

  They began to edge around the nothosaurs, describing a wide circle that would eventually lead them to the Irizar’s port side.

  Javier was tense, pistol in his gloved hand, trying to look in every direction at once. Natasha on the other hand, appeared perfectly relaxed. She walked along beside him like they were strolling through a garden.

  In the end, they reached the icebreaker without incident. A guard posted on deck spotted them and, without speaking, tossed a rope ladder over the side. When they came aboard, the man embraced them.

  “Welcome back,” he said.

  “Thanks. How many made it back?”

  “We’ve been picking up stragglers for the last hour or so, but most…”

  “I know. I was there.”

  They headed back towards Natasha’s cabin. The ship had never seemed particularly crowded, but now it was positively deserted. Very few sailors or soldiers could be seen scurrying abou
t, and no clumps of friends were smoking beside the railings. Javier wondered how many of the original three hundred-odd passengers and crew were still alive. Fifty? A hundred? It was hard to tell, but the decimation was obvious.

  They sat on Natasha’s bed. For a moment, she turned serious. “What was that all about? Why did that woman want to kill you?”

  “I already told you, I don’t know.”

  “Look into my eyes and tell me again.”

  “I have no clue. Really and truly. Camila seemed normal. A bit resentful that I was in charge of the science team, but I thought she was normal otherwise.”

  “You were in charge of the science team?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” She thought about that for a few moments but then shook her head. “No. Though it would make her mad, it’s not enough to kill you for. Another scientist, someone who could steal her publication thunder… Yeah, I’d kill them in a heartbeat,” she smiled to show that she was joking, “but not some soldier put in charge for admin reasons. That makes no sense. She must have had other reasons.”

  “You mean apart from being completely insane?”

  “But what triggered it?”

  “How should I know? My training teaches me how to shoot people when I have problems with them… it said nothing about dealing with psycho ladies.”

  “Yeah, that would have worked, too.”

  “If she hadn’t caught me by surprise, I would have been happy to shoot her.”

  “Oh, really?” she cocked her head at him.

  He didn’t know the right answer to that one. Was she worried that he was some kind of Neanderthal who’d shoot a woman dead? Most women he’d known would have been appalled at the mere mention of the possibility, but somehow, he felt that Natasha might be different. For all the polish that she must have acquired in England, he thought she might be disappointed if he said he’d never shoot a woman. He decided that honesty would be the best idea in the long run.

  “Maybe I would have shot her in the leg or something.”

  She laughed. “I guess I’ll just have to live with that.”