Ice Hunt Page 16

  Yesterday evening, with only the single flashlight, the chamber had been spooky and lost in time. But now, under the glare of the halogen spots, the place had a clinical aspect.

  As before, the dissected creature lay sprawled and staked across the room’s center. But rather than being frosted in ice, appearing old, it now glistened and dripped. The exposed organs wept in trickles and shone like fresh meat on a butcher’s block. It looked like the dissection had started only yesterday, rather than sixty years ago.

  Beyond the carcass, through the sheen and flow of meltwater over their surfaces, the six large blocks of ice had become clear crystal. At the heart of each block lay a curled pale beast, nose tucked in the center, long, sinuous body wrapped around the head, then its thick tail around again.

  “Does their sleeping shape remind you of anything?” Dr. Willig asked.

  Amanda searched her nightmares and found no answers. She shook her head.

  “Maybe it’s because of my Nordic heritage. It reminds me of some of the old Norse carvings of dragons. The great wyrms curled in on themselves. Noses touching tails. A symbol of the eternal circle.”

  Amanda ran along the logic track of her friend. “You think some Vikings might have found these frozen beasts before. These…grendels?”

  He shrugged. “They were the first polar explorers, crossing the North Atlantic to Iceland and glacier-shrouded Greenland. If there’s a clutch of these creatures here, who’s to say there are not others scattered throughout the frozen northlands.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “Just an idle thought.” He stared over at the melting blocks. “But it does raise some misgivings in my mind. Especially with all the death found here in the station.”

  She glanced at him. Dr. Willig knew nothing about Level Four.

  He continued, clarifying his point: “All those Russian scientists and staff personnel. It’s a tragedy. It makes you wonder what happened sixty years ago. Why the station was lost.”

  Amanda sighed. She remembered her first cold steps into the tomb. All the bodies—some skeletal, as if starved; some clear suicides; others had met more violent ends. She could only imagine the madness that must have set in here.

  “Remember,” she said, “the base was lost in the forties. Before the time of satellite communication. Before submarines had reached the North Pole, and before the tangle of Arctic currents was ever mapped. All it would’ve taken is a fierce summer storm, or a communication breakdown, or a mechanical failure in the base, or even a single, lost, resupply ship. Any of these mishaps could’ve resulted in the station’s loss. Back in the 1930s, the Arctic reaches were as remote as Mars is today.”

  “It’s a tragedy, nonetheless.”

  She nodded. “We may have more answers when the Russian delegation arrives in a few more days. If they’re cooperative, we might have a more complete story.” But Amanda knew of one detail the Russians would never be fully forthcoming about. How could they? There was no explanation to justify what had been found on Level Four.

  She noted the oceanographer’s eyes focused on the curled grendels and remembered he had never finished his last thought. “You mentioned some misgivings. Something about the old Norse symbol of the curled dragons.”

  “Yes.” He rubbed his chin, making it slightly harder to read his lips. When he saw her squinting, he lowered his hand. “Like I was saying, the symbol signifies the circle of eternal life, but it also has a darker, more ominous significance. And with all the tragedy found here…the fate of the base…” He shook his head.

  “What else does the symbol represent?”

  He faced her fully so she could read his lips. “It means the end of the world.”

  7:05 A.M.

  Lacy Devlin crouched elsewhere in the Crawl Space. As a junior research assistant with the geology department, her shift under Connor MacFerran did not begin for another two hours. Then again she had already spent most of last night under Connor in his makeshift room here at the base. He had a wife back in California, but that didn’t mean the man didn’t have needs.

  She smiled at the memory as she laced her skates.

  All set, she stood and stared down the long, slightly curved ice tunnel. She did a few stretches, working loose the knots in her thighs and calves. Her legs were her trademark. Long and smoothly muscular, swelling to powerful hips. She had been a speed skater with the U.S. Olympic team back in 2000, but a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her knee had benched her career. She had eventually finished her undergraduate work and moved to graduate school in Stanford. That was where she had met Connor MacFerran.

  Lacy took a few steps in her short-track skates. They were ankle-high, composed of graphite and Kevlar molded to the shape of her feet. When worn, they were as much a part of her body as her own fingers and toes. She also wore an insulated skin suit—striped red, white, and blue—over thermal underwear. And of course a helmet. In this case, not her usual plastic racing headgear, but one of the geologists’ mining helmets, equipped with a light on its brim.

  She started down the tunnel. She had skated many times across the surface of the polar ice cap, but the tunnels were more challenging. The swooping water-melt channels were a delight to fly through.

  She pushed with her legs, extending fully, still feeling a bit of that deep ache from last night with Connor. It added to her exhilaration and excitement. Last night, for the first time, he had said he loved her, whispering it urgently in her ear, panting each word as he thrust into her. The memory warming her now, she barely felt the cold.

  As she began her run, the tunnel slanted in a short decline, increasing her speed. She had a set course that she ran each morning since the discovery of the Crawl Space. It was out of the geology team’s way. There were no interesting inclusions to sample, so the passages in this section were not sanded. Two months ago, she had first walked the course to sight any obstacles and memorize which turns made a complete circuit, ending where she started.

  Lacy sped around the first bend, sweeping up the curved ice wall. The wind of her speed whistled in her ears. She crouched as she came around the corner. Ahead lay a series of switchbacks, a crazy S-shaped twist of tunnel. It was her favorite part of the circuit.

  Balancing herself, she kept her left arm tucked behind her back and swung her right arm in sync with her stride. Back and forth, she pushed with her legs, accelerating into the switchbacks. She hit the twisted section of tunnel with a shout of glee. With each cutback, she flew high up the walls, momentum keeping her riding in perfect balance.

  Then she was out of the switchbacks and into a section that required more attention. Tunnels crisscrossed in a funhouse maze. She braked a bit, slowing to catch the spray-painted markers on the ice. She had memorized the turns, but she knew better than to make a mistake.

  She swung her helmet lamp, which cast its single beam far down the dark tunnel, giving the ice a translucent glow. The markers—orange arrows—were easy to pick out. They seemed to shine with their own light.

  She shot into the first of the arrow-painted passages, passing by dead ends and tunnels that led out to dangerous terrain. As she passed one of these unmarked tunnels, shadows shifted deep inside, but her speed was too fast to get a look. As she shot past, she risked a glance behind her. No luck. She was already too far down the tunnel. The angle was wrong for the beam of her helmet lamp to penetrate the rapidly retreating tunnel mouth.

  She faced forward. At such speeds, her attention needed to stay focused ahead of her. Still, her nerves were now jangled, like someone had drenched her with ice water. She had gone from easy contentment and joy to a hard-edged anxiety.

  She tried to dismiss it. “Just the shadows playing tricks,” she said aloud, hoping her own voice would comfort her. But the echoes of her words spooked her. They sounded unnaturally loud.

  She was now acutely aware of how alone she was down here.

  A small noise caught up to her. Probably a bit of ice sliding and scra
ping down the tunnel. Still, the scritching tightened her jaw. Twisting her neck, she glanced behind her again. The beam of light revealed only empty passage, but the length of view was only twenty yards as the tunnel twisted away behind her.

  She turned back around, almost missing one of the orange markers. She had to brake and kick out with her left leg to make the sharp turn into the correct passage.

  As Lacy shot into the proper tunnel, her legs trembled under her. Fear fatigued her muscles. She realized she should have taken the tunnel just before this one. She had marked this passage because it led outward into a long half-mile single loop. The other was a shortcut, too short for her usual four-mile run. Now she just wanted to get the hell out of these passages and back to other people, back to Connor’s arms.

  As she raced down the loop, she increased her speed, seeking to put some distance between her and the shifting shadows. After a full minute with nothing but her own thoughts, she realized how foolish she was being. There were no more suspicious shadows or noises—just the clean hiss of her blades over the ice.

  She began the climb out of the loop. The passage slanted up and required work to keep moving forward. But her momentum and the smooth ice helped. Shoving with her legs, falling into her familiar rhythm, she raced back out of the loop—heading toward home again.

  A small laugh escaped her. What was she so afraid of? What could be down here? She studied her reaction. Maybe her night with Connor had awakened some deep misgiving in her after all. Maybe this was an echo of guilt. She had met Connor’s wife many times at university functions. Linda was a sweet, gentle woman with an easy, welcoming manner. She didn’t deserve to be so—

  The noise returned. The slippery sound of ice on ice.

  Now it came from ahead of her.

  She braked. Far down the passage, near the end of the loop, shadows shifted. Her light could not reach that far. She slowed but didn’t stop. She wasn’t sure. She wanted to see if there was truly anything to fear. Her light bled ahead as she advanced.

  “Hello!” Lacy called out. Maybe it was another of the researchers, off to explore on his own.

  No answer. Whatever movement she had noted had now stopped. The shadows had settled to their usual stillness.

  “Hello!” she repeated. “Is anyone there?”

  She crept forward, gliding on her skate blades. She followed the glow of her light as it stretched down the passage.

  Ahead, the loop came to an end, reentering the funhouse maze of passages again. Her throat had gone dry and tight from the cold, as if someone were choking her. I only have to get through the maze…then it’s a straight shot back to civilization.

  Despite her momentary flare of guilt, she wanted nothing at this moment but to see Connor. Just the thought of the towering man with his strong hands and broad shoulders quickened her legs. Once she was back in his embrace, she would be safe.

  She climbed out of the loop and into the maze. Nothing was here. “Just tricks,” she whispered to her own heart, “just ice, light, and shadow.”

  She followed the orange markers, like beacons in the night. Twisting one way, then another. Then, from far down in the dark well, her light reflected back at her. Two red spots glowed.

  Lacy knew what she was seeing.

  Eyes, unblinking, large—dead of emotion.

  She braked to a stop, kicking up ice.

  Fear shook through her. She felt her bladder give way a little, the trickle hot in her skin suit.

  She backed a single step, then another. Legs trembled. She wanted to turn and run, but she feared turning her back on those eyes. She continued her halting retreat.

  Then in a blink, the eyes vanished—whether because her light had pulled back or the presence was gone, she didn’t know. Free from their paralyzing stare, she twisted around and fled on her blades.

  She raced, fueled by terror. Her arms flailed, her legs kicked, digging out chunks of ice in her panic. She fled blindly into the maze of passages. Her markers were all designed for a counterclockwise circuit, orange arrows pointing the safe way. Now, as she ran backward through her course, the markers were meaningless. They all pointed back toward the creature behind her.

  In a matter of moments, she was lost.

  She raced down a narrow passage, one she had never been in before, more a crack in the ice than a true tunnel. Her breathing choked into ragged gasps. Blood pounded in her ears. But her own heartbeat was not loud enough to drown out the skitter on the ice.

  Crying, tears flowing and freezing on her cheeks, she scrabbled with her blades. The tunnel widened a bit, allowing her more room to push and kick. She only had to get away…keep moving. A low moan flowed out from her. It didn’t sound like her. But she couldn’t stop it either.

  She craned around, shining the light over her shoulder. Through the pinch in the tunnel behind her, something was shoving toward her. It was huge. Eyes glowed from its bulk, an albino whiteness, a rolling snowbank.

  Polar bear, her mind screamed.

  She remembered the whispers of something picked up on the DeepEye sonar. Movement on the scope.

  She cried out and raced away.

  As she fled around a sharp corner, the floor vanished a few yards in front of her. The bright ice ended at darkness. As a geology student, she knew the name for this: ice shear. Like any crystal, when ice was exposed to stress, it broke in clean planes. On glaciers, this led to ice-shear cliffs. But the same features could be found inside glaciers, too…or inside ice islands.

  Lacy dug in her blades, but her momentum and the downward tilt of the tunnel betrayed her. She flew over the cliff edge and into empty space. A scream, sharp enough to shatter ice, burst from her. She tumbled into the chute, dropping away into darkness.

  The shear pit was not a deep one, no more than fifteen feet, and she struck the ice floor with her blades. The impact was too much. Despite the Kevlar ankle guard, one ankle cracked. Her other knee struck so hard that she felt it in her shoulder. She crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  Pain drove away her fear, traveling out to all her nerve endings.

  She looked upward, to the cliff’s edge.

  Her light rose in a beacon.

  At the precipice, the beast hesitated. It peered down at her with those dead eyes, glowing red in the reflection of her light. Claws dug into the ice. Shoulders bunched as it leaned over the edge. Rapid huffs of mist curled from each slitted nostril as a deep rumble flowed from it, seeming to vibrate the very air.

  Staring up, Lacy knew she had been mistaken a moment ago. With this realization, terror drove sanity to the edges of her consciousness.

  It was half a ton in mass, its skin smooth, shining oily, more like a dolphin’s skin. Adding to this appearance, its head was sleek, earless, but domed high, sweeping down to an elongated muzzle, giving it a stretched appearance. The slitted nostrils rose too high on its face, almost above its wide-spaced eyes.

  Lacy stared numbly. It was too large, too muscular, too primeval for the modern world. Even in her madness, she recognized what she was seeing: something prehistoric, saurian…yet still mammalian.

  The beast studied her in turn, its lips rippling back from its long snout to reveal rows of jagged teeth as bright as broken bone against pink gums. Razored claws sank into the ice.

  Some primitive part of her responded to the age-old instincts of predator and prey. A small mewling whimper escaped Lacy’s throat.

  The beast began its slow climb into the pit.

  7:48 A.M.

  OMEGA DRIFT STATION

  Matt was tired of having guns pointed at him. An hour ago, he and the others had been corralled into a mess hall and were now seated at one of the four tables in the room. A small kitchenette occupied the back half of the space. Empty and cold. Breakfast must have already been served.

  They had been offered leftover coffee—and though it was as thick as Mississippi mud, it was hot and welcome. Craig hunched over his mug, clutching it with both hands as if it was all t
hat stood between him and a slow, painful death.

  Jenny sat beside her father on the other side of the table. Her initial scowl at being forced from her plane had not subsided. If anything, her frown lines had deepened. Her sheriff’s badge and papers had done nothing to dissuade the Navy security team from leading them at gunpoint into this makeshift holding cell.

  As Matt had suspected, after the attack on Prudhoe, no one was taking any chances. The chain of command had to be followed. Matt knew this only too well from his own military days.

  He stared over at the two guards—from their uniforms, a petty officer and a seaman. Each bore a rifle across his chest and a holstered pistol on his belt. Jenny’s weapon had been taken from her, along with the service shotgun stored in the back of the Otter.

  “What is taking them so long?” Jenny finally whispered under her breath, teeth clenched.

  “Communication is still bad,” Matt said. The head of the security team had left twenty minutes ago to verify their identification. But that meant reaching someone on the coast, who, in turn, would surely need to reach Fairbanks. They could be here all morning.

  “Well, who the hell is in charge here?” she continued.

  Matt knew what she meant. The entire security team seemed to consist of the six men who had escorted them to the station. Where were the other Navy personnel? Matt remembered the empty polynya and the docking bollards hammered into the ice. “Those in charge must be out in the submarine.”

  “What submarine?” Craig asked, perking up from his mug.

  Matt explained what he saw from the air. “The old SCICEX stations were serviced by Navy subs. This is surely no exception, especially as deep as we are into the polar pack. I’d bet my eyeteeth that the senior Navy personnel are aboard the submarine on some mission. Perhaps off to help at Prudhoe.”

  “What about the head of the research team?” Craig asked. “There has to be a chain of command among the civilians. If we could get someone to listen…”