The Nexus Colony (20 page)

“It had to come from somewhere,” Abbott said.

“Yeah,” Ruger responded. “But how far down or how far in. That thing could have been traveling through the ice for God knows how long.”

“Years, maybe.”

Ruger looked at him. “More than that, Marsh. I’m talking a
long
time here.”

For a few moments, both men were silent, the sobering thought sinking in. Only the faint, barely detectable sound of the groaning ice was present. They could hear it from deep within the narrow crack.

Abbott let out a sigh, and even in the darkness, the cloud of white breath lingered in the still air. “My God, Mike,” he said. “Do you realize what we’ve found?”

“I think I’m beginning to,” Ruger replied. “It’s a piece of a building.”

“Or a vessel. It could be from a ship.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Ruger responded. “We’re too high up in elevation.”

“I wasn’t talking about the ocean, Mike. It could very well be from some type of space-faring vessel.”

“Is that possible?” Ruger answered, not equating the possibility that was going through Abbott’s mind at the moment.

“This thing didn’t arrive here in
our
lifetime, that’s for sure,” Abbott said.

“What are we going to do?” Ruger asked.

“We’re going to see if we can find out what it broke away from,” Abbott answered, pointing the light toward the bottom of the ice wall.

“Let’s get Hilly and Peter down here,” Ruger suggested. “They’re the experts. Maybe they can figure out the path this thing has taken by studying the pattern of the ice fracturing.”

“I’ll get Lightfoot to take a lot of pictures. We may need them later.”

“Let me check out the rest of the floor, first,” Ruger said. “I don’t want anybody falling down that crevasse.”

“Roger,” Abbott responded, then called Lisk one more time to advise him of what they’d found and what his intentions were.

In the course of the next hour, after coaxing Lightfoot to come down the rest of the way, collectively the five men studied the contours of the fractures and the layering of ice. Lightfoot popped off shot after shot of the mysterious structure that looked like a giant appendage growing out of the ice. Grimes theorized that the flow of the glacier had carried the beam upward in the same way that rocks were transported to the surface. That meant that whatever it was connected to at the other end of the beam—and they could now clearly see that it had been torn away from something—it had to be somewhere below. How far below was anybody’s guess. Almshouse had formulated a few theories of his own, but needed to sketch some illustrations to show them.

While the others speculated, Abbott formulated the strategy. Collectively, they agreed to the best course of action where the least amount of preliminary excavating would need to be done to see if they were right. The only thing they needed to agree on was which location was the optimum one to begin digging. The day had already been exhausting. And it was cold down here, a foreboding kind of coldness. Both agreed to call it a day, go back to the camp and get some food and rest. They would talk further this evening before turning in.

It took close to an hour for all of them to ascend the ice wall. Once back at the top, Ruger sensed the change in Allison’s mood almost instantly when he looked at her. Her frown turned to a smile. But he also sensed the change in atmospheric pressure and peered at the ebony sky far off in the distance.

“Good thing we came out now,” he said to Abbott, nodding at the storm clouds.

“We were keeping a watch,” Lisk assured him.

“It’s not the squall I’m worried about,” Ruger replied, shedding the gear which he was encouraging everyone to quickly pack away in the snowmobiles.

“Let’s get back to camp,” Abbott ordered. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. Take an hour to get something to eat, then we’ll meet again in my tent and lay out a course of action.”

With everything secured, they started up the machines and moved off the ridge. Lightfoot wedged himself onto the back of Ruger’s machine behind Allison, whose displeasure at the inconvenience was quite apparent.

They arrived at the camp, and Ruger directed the parking of the snowmobiles exactly where they had departed from. But as he dismounted, Ruger sensed that something was out of place, not the way he had left it. Ruger was subconsciously attentive to every detail, every subtle feature of the terrain, every placement of man-made objects. It took a few moments for him to realize that the configuration of the camp setup had been disturbed. One of the four supply skids had been moved away from the center of the camp where earlier in the day they had been strategically arranged. The sled was near the tent that was being occupied by Prall and Monroe. Ruger snapped his head to look at Prall, who stared back with his usual expressionless face. Annoyed, but not wanting to create another scene in view of the others, Ruger motioned him aside.

Prall’s smugness was grating as he replied, defiantly, “I didn’t move your sled, Ruger.”

“Then who did?” Ruger responded. “Dr. Bryson, maybe? It was moved since we’ve been down in the crevasse. You and Monroe are the only ones who could have moved it.”

Prall was in his face. “I don’t know who moved it, and frankly I don’t care. Why
don’t
you ask Dr. Bryson?”

“Look, Prall,” Ruger replied, angrily, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know if you’re playing games with me or what. But I don’t like it.”

Prall only smiled. Whether he was being intimidated or just didn’t find the confrontation worth the effort, Ruger couldn’t sense. Ruger was glad he was walking away, glad he hadn’t pushed it any further. The anger and the exhaustion were starting to show. But as Prall walked away, Ruger couldn’t help saying, “From now on, Prall, the sleds stay exactly where I put them. Got it?”

“Fuck you, Ruger,” Prall responded over his shoulder.

Ruger knew the comment was meant to infuriate him, but for some reason it didn’t. Maybe he was more tired than he thought. They were all tired. This was no time to expend precious energy on a senseless confrontation. He sloughed off the comment.

“The least you can do is help me move it back,” he called to Prall who was entering the tent.

Prall responded, only loudly enough for Ruger to hear, “Fucking move it yourself.”

Everyone else had disappeared into the tents. Ruger stood alone in the middle of the encampment. The frigid wind began to pick up just like he had anticipated. He hoped it didn’t get too bad an hour from now, or else they’d be prevented from congregating in Abbott’s tent to discuss tomorrow’s plans.

Ruger looked up at the sky. Nearby, it was turning charcoal gray, and he hoped for Abbott’s sake that the communications link-up wasn’t too disrupted by the atmospheric conditions. No doubt, Abbott was sending out the information about what they had discovered deep within the crevasse, although it seemed unlikely the transmission would be received at all.

As Ruger gazed down onto the glacial field below, he took a deep breath to try to calm himself. This guy Prall had been nothing but trouble since he’d laid eyes on him. And then along comes John Lightfoot to compound matters.
Speaking of which,
Ruger thought,
he’s with Allison right now in our tent.
Allison could handle him, though. If anybody could, it was her.

The solitude and desolation of the wild was what made Mike Ruger strong. After several minutes of staring off into the distance, comfortable again in his familiar world, Ruger cleared his mind of the day’s aggravation and started to recap the events. The impact of the discovery of the strange beam was beginning to hit home. Even Hilly had agreed with Peter Almshouse that it could have been there for hundreds or even thousands of years. Maybe tens of thousands. If that was true…

Maybe there was some credibility to this alien thing Abbott’s people kept alluding to. It was confusing, and Mike Ruger told himself that he’d be better off leaving those speculations to people like Grimes and Almshouse. He couldn’t make any convictions one way or the other.

A momentary gust of frigid wind turned his attention back to the present dilemma. He was tired and his resistance was down. The coldness was beginning to penetrate through his clothing.
Oh, well
, Ruger thought.
Might as well get this damn sled moved back before the wind picks up too strong.

The supply sled was heavy. It would take one hell of a wind gust or a sustained wind to move it away from here. Rather than waste more time waiting for somebody to get dressed to come back outside, Ruger gave in and decided to move it himself. It wasn’t impossible to shove it by himself the ten yards distance, it was just pure bull work. Besides, it was smooth ice and should glide easily once he got it into motion.

On the first heave, Ruger managed to move it half the distance, then stepped back to catch a breather. The runners of the sled gouged the ice leaving a distinct trail. He prepared for the second heave, but suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. It hadn’t occurred to him before.

Ruger quickened his pace and walked around to the front of the sled. Squatting, he inspected the ground ice for the distance that remained between the sled and the other three. The ground ice was smooth and highly polished. Ruger looked back at the ice over the ground he had just traversed pushing the sled. The runners had definitely made deep, fresh gouges in the ground ice. That same area, only a minute before, had been just as highly polished.

A strange feeling surged through his body, logic suggesting that the event, no matter how insignificant it may seem, could not have happened the way he perceived it. Ruger quickly pushed the sled ahead again, this time for only a short distance. He had to make sure. There was no doubt. The runners were gouging the ice. The question was, he thought,
How did the sled get moved ten yards away in the first place without making any visible marks on the ground ice?

“It sure as hell wasn’t carried,” Ruger said to himself out loud, knowing that the sled and all its supplies weighed several hundred pounds. But yet it had been moved sometime between the time they left for the second descent into the crevasse and the present. Prall. Monroe. Lisk. And Allison…they had all been up on the ridge…At least he
assumed
they had all stayed there the whole time. He’d have to ask Allison.

Shoving the sled the remainder of the way until it was snug against the others, Ruger made sure everything was secure, then walked toward the tent. Glancing aside, he was certain now that the only evidence of the sled being moved was the runner tracks that he had just made shoving it back to its original location. The only other visible tracks were from where they had come up the glacial slope. He went inside.

It was comfortable. Allison had both stoves cranked up and there was some food heating on one of the burners.

“I was beginning to wonder when you were coming in,” she said. “I didn’t know where you got to.”

He asked, “Did Prall or Monroe ever come back to the camp at any time while we were down in the crevasse?” he asked, removing his outer garment.

“What? No. Why do you ask?” she replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure. I don’t think so,” she answered, pausing as if to recall. “No. I’m sure. Why?”

“I mean, not even for a couple of minutes?”

“I said
no.
They didn’t,” she replied. “I stayed near Al…he’s really not a bad guy, you know. Those other two are like toadstools. They give me the willies. Oh, they stayed there, all right. I think they were guarding
me
for something to do.”

Ruger was silent.

“Is something wrong, Mike?” she asked, her eyes revealing a sudden concern about the way Ruger was asking the question.

“No,” he replied. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s nothing important. Forget I asked.”

Something wasn’t right. There was a disturbance on
The Ice
, and nobody could sense it deeper than Mike Ruger.

T
he communications center was usually darkened, if for no other reason than it was the way the communications officer preferred it. He had become accustomed to working the graveyard shift at every military installation he had ever been assigned, and it had always been dark in those places. He relished the peacefulness of the night. When he came to Vostok several months ago at the start of the Antarctic summer, the disorientation of perpetual light reminded him of long ago in a Siberian outpost.

Even though the facility was windowless, to make it more natural, Vassili Pietrovich fancied the room darkened, pretending that it was nighttime outside like most every other place in the world at one o’clock in the morning. It helped, but it was still annoying. Besides, nobody really cared anyway. They were all sleeping.

Vostok was a lonely assignment, but Vassili Pietrovich was a solitary man. Before coming to work for the University of Moscow’s Polar Research Institute, the Soviet army had benefited from his self-imposed preference to be alone. During the cold war period, he had served at most every remote installation in the hemisphere. Pietrovich had been subjected to extensive psychological testing and screening by the Institute before being selected for this particular job at Vostok. The recognized Antarctic
winterover
syndrome seemed not to have any affect on him at all. He delighted the heads of the Institute, and they were glad to have somebody who could run the communications center with such efficiency while everyone else rested.

This wasn’t the best assignment Pietrovich had ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either. Except for the extreme cold. He didn’t care for that. Russian winters in Siberia and other parts of eastern Europe and Asia were one thing, but this place was a different kind of cold. Uncompromising. Unforgiving. Most of all, eternal. And Vostok’s claim to weather fame was the fact that it held the world record for the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. In 1983, the temperature once plummeted to minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Most microbes can’t even exist at that temperature.

Vassili Pietrovich felt at home with the subtle multi-colored array of all the electronic gadgetry that occupied row after row of gray, metal shelving. The multitude of devices were all neatly stacked according to their function, and Pietrovich made sure that nobody changed things around. The emerald greens and vivid reds of the LED’s gave a soft glow that spoke a fascinating language all of its own. It was something that only people like Pietrovich understood, and it gave them a strange sort of fulfillment to be an integral part of the electronics world. No matter where it was. Even here in the most remote corner of the planet.

The communication center at Vostok was far less sophisticated than McMurdo or Amundsen-Scott, both of which supported the latest American and Japanese technology. But Vostok was still well equipped with functional devices. It didn’t take a great deal of sophistication for Pietrovich to notice that something was out of the ordinary. The room, which was normally filled with a cacophonous level of noise unique to its own, had suddenly become eerily silent. Even the normal RFI—radio frequency interference—which was
always
present as static on the major monitoring bands, had also been silenced like somebody had just come in and turned down all the volume controls. In a momentary quandary, Pietrovich walked around the room to see if somebody was playing a trick on him, which of course, only angered him more.

Pietrovich checked and double checked all the volume controls. Receivers, microphones, speakers, computers—they were all silent, even when the controls were turned all the way up. Only the sound of his reverberating footsteps and his own voice reassured him that he hadn’t lost his hearing. And he certainly wasn’t imagining things.

There was just no plausible explanation. The devices—transmitters, receivers, computers, printers—they were all still turned on, only silent. Even the cooling blowers on some of the machines were silent. Pietrovich went over to the microphone and made a radio transmission check on the international frequency. He tried several other frequencies, broadcasting the standard check in several languages. Still no response. Not even static. And then to top it off, even the telephone line to the administration building was dead.

All the power levels on those devices capable of displaying the function indicated that everything was in the normal mode. Electro-magnetic anomalies, as infrequent a phenomena as they were, didn’t cause this type of reaction by electronic gadgetry. Totally baffled, Pietrovich donned his outer garments and stepped outside into the frigid Antarctic night. Though the sun was still hovering just above the distant horizon, it gave the illusion as if it was late evening.

There was nothing out of the ordinary that Pietrovich could see, except for maybe that the weather far off in the distance toward the mountains was turning the horizon to charcoal gray. Storm clouds were congregating and had begun their pass in front of the dull, orange sun.

The small building that housed the communication center was a quarter of a mile away from the main administration building, and Pietrovich decided that there was no reason just yet to hike the distance to report this until he figured out what was going on. The temperature had dropped considerably since he had come on duty. Shivering from the cold wind that was picking up, he decided to go back inside and re-assess the situation one more time.
Who knows?
he thought. Maybe they were having the same problem all over the facility. He turned his attention away from the direction of the desolate mountains to the west and headed back into the building. Behind him, unnoticed against the charcoal backdrop of the darkening sky, the dancing white lights had just begun to take their strange formation.

Once back inside the entrance portal, Pietrovich made sure the outer door was secure against the wind gusts before entering the cramped working quarters of the station. The situation was the same—all the lights and power levels were on, but everything was still silent. Where there should have been a congruence of human sensory perception, there was a diffusion, as if the normal convention between human and environment had been altered. Pietrovich wondered for a moment whether all the years of working in virtual solitary confinement might be causing his subconscious to rebel. But he quickly sloughed off the thought. He was alert, more convinced than ever that he was in full control of all his faculties. He sat at his control panel and went deep into thought, determined that he was going to find an explanation for this anomaly.

The sun by this time had become blotted out by a sky that had quickly turned to ebony. Had Vassili Pietrovich or anyone else at Vostok at this moment in time been looking toward the west, they would have seen what appeared to be a congregation of white lights coming together from all directions around the horizon. When the formation was complete, it took the strangest of shapes. There were a dozen lights. Six each gathered in formation to form a “V” shape. Then the two “V’s” joined back to back, one inverting itself until the formation appeared like the two had linked to form a common center. Two of the lights moved closer to each other in the upper portion of the top “V”. If anyone would have witnessed it in the sky, their brain would have assigned an asterism to the strange formation much like the ancients assigned the asterisms to the constellations. It looked like a stick figure of a man holding its arms outstretched. The ancients would have viewed it as one pleading with the gods in the heavens for mercy.

Pietrovich did not see the formation against the stormy sky, but he did see the strange asterism on the small radar scope. It suddenly blipped to life, and it took a moment before he realized that it was the distinctive sound of a radar track that had just attracted his attention. He jumped from his seat and hurried closer to the screen. There was definitely something there, off to the west toward the mountain range. If he could see it on the screen, he should be able to see it outside. He couldn’t recall whether anything had been there only minutes before when he had gone outside to check.

And then, almost as if on cue, the radio receiver crackled to sudden life. The volume level was way up, and the tuning knob suddenly began turning all by itself through the low KHz frequency range. Leaning on the edge of the desk in total confusion, Pietrovich watched as the frequencies spun quickly up through the numbers, the digital readout on the blue LED changing rapidly. Then it abruptly stopped right on 3200 KHz.

For a moment, all was silent again. An eerie feeling overwhelmed him. And then out of nowhere, as crystal clear as could have been possible, a transmission started to come over the receiver. Stunned by the strangeness, it took Pietrovich several seconds before he realized that he was hearing Morse code. Morse code was not common to transmissions heard on the Antarctic continent, except for maybe those that filtered in from the ships out on the ocean. But it was there nonetheless, five by five, as clear as if somebody was in the next room tapping out the message.

Pietrovich fumbled at his control panel for pencil and paper and began to jot down the message. It took less than a minute for him to realize that it was short and repetitive. After the third go around to make sure no other letters were being integrated into the message, he had the presence of mind to punch in the recorder. The bouncing needles of the VU meters indicated that the transmission was indeed being recorded. Pietrovich took his pencil and transposed the message. It was in English, but Pietrovich was very fluent. The simple words at first were confusing. And then it sank in. An unexpected fear engulfed him. He shot a quick glance at the radar scope. The formation of blips was still there. Very close. So close in fact, that whatever they were, they were closing in quickly.

Pietrovich’s hand began to shake nervously. There had been occasions during the years of the cold war when the terrifying moments had come to roost, and they always went away. But now, this very moment, a terror that he had never experienced before was gripping him like a vice. He looked at the notepad. There was no mistaking the words. The message continued to pour from the receiver, slowly, methodically, each dot and each dash of perfect proportionate duration that there was no mistaking the letters. Or the two word message.

Frozen with fear, Vassili Pietrovich was unable to move from his chair. The dots and dashes and the blipping continued to echo through the room, no other sounds emanating from any other machines or electronic devices. The words became etched in his brain, and Pietrovich resolved that the time had come when his life was going to end, so great was his terror.

And just when the formation on the radar display seemed to fill up the entire screen, a powerful bright light enshrouded the building, so powerful that it became visible leaking through the walls of the building. The brightness, however impossible that may have seemed, was so intense that even inside protected from its brilliance it was forcing him to shade his eyes. The light changed colors, one moment a green light and the next a blue, all the time giving the impression that whatever was out there was pulsating madly as it shone down on the com center, the brilliance filtering through every crack and cranny where the highly intensified light could find its way into the structure.

And then, as if someone abruptly turned off a switch, the light went out. The message stopped. The radar screen cleared, returning to normal. But most significantly, suddenly the whole communications center came back to life. The familiar noise level returned to normal, and it was as if nothing had even happened out of the ordinary. Except that Vassili Pietrovich sat gripping the arms of the chair in sheer terror of what he had just experienced.

Many minutes passed. In his terrified stupor, he heard the RFI and the occasional transmission that would signify the normal flow of radio traffic.
Have I gone mad?
he thought to himself, and wondered if he was the only one who had just experienced this horrid occurrence.

He sat like this for some time before the muscles of his body relaxed to where he was able to move from the chair. Mustering all the strength left in his body, he took several deep breaths attempting to regain control of his emotional state. Whatever had been out there seemed to be gone. The radar screen showed absolutely no activity. Only a minor trace of the storm that he had noticed previously to be accumulating far off to the west. But the words were still there in front of him. The haunting words he had written down.

Whether by choice or not, Vassili Pietrovich found himself putting on his outer gear. Hesitant, but resolute, he moved out of the working station into the outer portal. The wind had died down as he opened the door and stepped into the Antarctic night. Taking the few steps out from the building to where he could view the direction of the mountain range to the west, he froze in his tracks. In the distance he saw the stick man. It had disappeared from the radar screen, yet it was still here. As if on cue, the white lights suddenly dispersed in all directions until once again, all that was remaining was an ominous, charcoal sky.

Pietrovich looked down at his feet. A few yards in front of him were two objects. They were strangely familiar. Stepping toward them and bending down, he picked up both satchels. One was a large gear pouch, and judging by the weight, it contained something inside. The other was smaller, lighter. A gust of wind brushed against his face, jolting him back to reality. He was certain that the satchels had not been lying here before when he had first come out a while ago. They both were right in the center of the path. He couldn’t have missed them, because he would have had to sidestep them or else trip over them.