Ice Hunt

Matt’s throat closed tight. He suddenly realized where they were and what she was about to attempt. “No, no, no…”

“Oh yes,” she answered him. The nose of the plane dropped sickeningly. She spiraled out a bit and back around.

At the base of the cliff, a river flowed out. Eons ago, an earthquake had rattled Arrigetch, toppling one peak against another. This created a Devil’s Pass, a breach left under the two tumbled peaks.

It was one of the exits from Arrigetch.

Jenny dove toward the river, aiming for the opening in the rock. Her angle was too steep. But at the last moment, she pulled hard on the wheel and throttled down, almost stalling the props. The Otter leveled out a foot above the stream, then shot into the Devil’s Pass.

Instantly the world went dark, and the dull roar of their engines trebled—but daylight lay directly ahead. It was a straight passage, no longer than forty yards. But it was also tight, leaving only a yard to either side.

Jenny was humming again.

“They’re still behind us!” Craig called out.

Matt turned as the Cessna ducked into the tunnel. The other pilot was determined not to lose his target.

Matt clenched a fist. Their last desperate maneuver had been for nothing. The other pilot matched Jenny trick for trick. It was hopeless. Beyond the tunnel lay the open mountains. There would be nowhere to hide.

“Hold tight, folks,” Jenny warned as they neared the far end of the tunnel.

“What are you—?”

Jenny shoved the wheel. The plane dipped. The floats struck the stream hard and skidded over its surface, casting a flume of water behind them. As the plane bounced back up, they were out of the tunnel and sailing high into the air.

Matt searched behind them as Jenny banked away.

From the tunnel mouth, the Cessna appeared, tumbling out, rolling end over end, wings broken. One of the propellers bounced free and spun up the snowy slope.

Matt turned back to his ex-wife with awe. The sudden backwash from her bounce against the stream had struck the other plane’s props and wings, causing the Cessna to bobble and brush against one of the tunnel walls.

A fatal mistake.

Jenny’s voice trembled. “I hate tailgaters.”

4:55 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

It was like stepping into a different world. The Crawl Space outside the Russian ice station was a natural warren of ice caverns and chutes. As Amanda passed over the threshold, she left not only the warmth of the station behind, but also all man-made structures.

Just outside the double doors to the base lay rusty piles of plate steel, bags of old concrete, stacks of conduit, and spools of wire. When it was first discovered, it was assumed the natural space in the ice was used as a storage annex, hence its nickname.

A structural engineer with the NASA group hypothesized that the station may have been constructed within a natural cavern inside the ice island, requiring less excavation. He suggested the Crawl Space might be the tiny remnant of the larger cavern system.

But outside such idle speculation, the Crawl Space held little fascination for most of Omega’s scientists. To them, it was just the janitor’s closet of the base. Only the geologists and glaciologists seemed truly fascinated by these back rooms and ice chutes.

“This way,” Dr. Ogden said, zipping his jacket up to his chin and pulling the fur-lined hood over his bald head. The biologist grabbed a flashlight from a stack near the door, flicked it on, and aimed past the cluttered entrance hall to the dark passages beyond. When he stood a moment longer, Amanda thought he might be speaking to her, but with his back turned, she couldn’t tell for sure. Before she could ask, he set off down toward the warren of tunnels.

Amanda followed. At least the geologists had spread sand on the ice floor for better footing. As she continued, leaving the lighted entrance behind, the air grew much colder. For some reason the motionless air seemed icier than on the surface. She lifted her warming mask from the belt of her thermal suit and flicked on the switch.

Henry Ogden continued, winding his way, passing side caverns, some empty, some stacked with gear. One alcove even contained butcher-wrapped packages and crates marked in Russian. Perishables, Amanda imagined. No need for freezers here.

As they continued deeper, she noted evidence of the scientists’ handiwork here: walls pocked with bore holes, some survey stakes with little flags, some pieces of modern equipment, even an empty Hostess Ding Dong box. She kicked this last aside as she passed. The new inhabitants of Ice Station Grendel were certainly leaving their unique footprints here.

Distracted by her surroundings, Amanda quickly became lost. Passages crisscrossed in all different directions. Dr. Ogden stopped at one of the intersections and searched the walls with his flashlight.

Amanda noted small spray-painted marks on the ice. They seemed freshly painted and varied in colors and shapes: red arrows, blue squiggles, and orange triangles. They were clearly signposts left behind by the scientists.

Henry touched a green dot, nodded to himself, and continued in that direction.

By now, the tunnels had narrowed and lowered overhead. Amanda had to hunch as she followed after the determined biologist. In the strangely still air, sparkles of ice crystals shone in the flashlight’s glow. Here the walls were so glassy that she spotted air bubbles trapped in the ice, glinting like pearls.

She ran gloved fingers along the wall. Silky smooth. Such tunnels and caves were formed as the surface ice melted in the summer’s heat, and the warm water leaked through cracks and fissures, flowing downward and melting out these shafts and pockets. Eventually the surface froze again, sealing and preserving the cavern system below.

Amanda gazed at the blue glass walls. There was a beauty here that warmed the cold. As she craned around, her heel slipped. Only a frantic grab for a spar halted her tumble.

Dr. Ogden glanced back to her. “Careful. It’s pretty slippery from here on.”

Now you tell me, she thought, and pulled herself back to her feet. She realized the spar she had grabbed was not ice. It was a chunk of rock protruding from the ice. She stared at it a moment as Dr. Ogden continued. It was one of the many inclusions, she realized, described by the geologists. She touched it with a bit of reverence. Here was a rock from whatever landmass this glacial chunk had broken away from eons ago.

Gloom settled around her as the biologist rounded a bend with his flashlight. Amanda hurried after him, regretting that she hadn’t collected one of the flashlights herself. She watched her footing now. Here the passages were not sanded. The geologists must not have ventured into this section of the Crawl Space yet.