Time of the Great Freeze (10 page)

"Stop!" he cried. "Toll be paid or ye die!"

Dr. Barnes lifted the power torch. Was he going to gun the chief down, Jim thought? Murder him in cold blood and perhaps touch off a massacre?

"Jim, take your cap," he said. "Fling it high in the air, straight overhead, high as you can. Ted, Dave, get ready to open the sleds to full throttle."

Jim understood. He pushed back his hood, removed his cap, cocked his arm, tossed it high-thirty, forty feet into the air. The eyes of the Dooney warriors followed it.

Dr. Barnes aimed and fired.

The power torch spurted a globe of light. The dropping hat fell into it…

And then light and hat winked out of existence.

The Dooney warriors screamed like women at the terrifying sight. Sudden destruction-a hand that could reach into the sky and destroy-they had never seen anything like it! Panic swept them.

"Full speed ahead!" Dr. Barnes shouted.

The spearsmen were fleeing, the ring breaking up, fur-clad warriors scrambling helter-skelter away from the frightening beings from the sunset land. Only the Dooney chieftain himself stood his ground, roaring like an enraged bull, bellowing to his men to return to formation, thundering at them to strike the invaders dead.

The sleds rolled toward him. With a sudden frenzied cry of anger and frustration, the barbarian chieftain hurled his spear into one of the sleds, and an instant later himself came leaping over the runners and threw himself upon Dr. Barnes!

Jim went into action without pausing to think. In the underground city, he had painstakingly learned how to make the most of his natural endowments, how to focus his strength for maximum effort.
Judo
, it was called, the technique of defense through body leverage. It had been born, so it was said, in a country called Japan, far to the west. Jim knew nothing of Japan, but he knew judo well, and now he employed his knowledge against the Dooney chieftain. He rose and lunged forward, grabbing the powerful old man by his shoulders and pulling him away from his fathers much lighter form. There was no question of using power torches in the cramped confines of the sled, and no time to draw a knife. Jim tugged at the thick-thewed chieftain and swung him around. For an instant they were face to face, and Jim saw the rage in the grim old face, the fire in the furious eyes, the trail of spittle running down the bearded chin.

The chief clawed at Jim, then came charging forward, head lowered to butt. Jim rose high, locked his arm around the thick neck, levered downward and then upward in a quick, instinctive hold.

The chief went flying high over the runners of the sled and came down on the ice with a solid thud, landing on his back. He lay there a moment as if stunned. The sled sped onward, and by the time the Dooney leader was on his feet, a hundred yards separated him from his humiliators.

Panting, Jim glanced at his father. "You all right, Dad?"

"No damage. Just shaken up. I never thought your judo would be so useful," Dr. Barnes said.

Jim glanced back. The tribesmen were still running, scattering in every direction. Alone and storming, the old chief was doing a dance of tempestuous rage on the ice, leaping up and down and ripping at his clothes.

From the other sled, Ted Callison called, "We've got to stop! We need Carl!"

"Someone hurt?" Dr. Barnes yelled back.

"It's Dom! The chief's spear got him-"

Jim caught his breath. Things had happened so quickly as they burst from the ring of spears that he had forgotten all about that wild spear-cast toward the other sled. He stood up suddenly, looked across Ted's sled, twenty feet away.

Dom Hannon lay slumped in the back, against a folded tent. His parka was stained with red, and the shaft of the chiefs spear projected from the lower part of his chest.

The sleds ground to a halt in a shower of ice chips. The Dooney folk were too far in the distance to matter now. Jim and Carl ran to the other sled, with Dave and Dr. Barnes not far behind.

Jim had never seen anyone look so pale. Dom was like a waxen image of himself. He lay limp and unconscious, arms and legs dangling bonelessly. His face was deathly white, and he looked old and shrunken, his whole body seemed even smaller and more wiry than it actually was.

Dr. Barnes opened Dom's parka while Carl readied the medic kit. Carl looked pale himself-he was, after all, only a policeman with first-aid training, not a surgeon.

The layers of clothing were drawn back. Jim bit his lip in sudden dismay as he saw how deeply the spear had penetrated. It was no scratch. The entire bone tip had slashed through clothing and flesh, had buried itself six inches in Dom's body. The angry old barbarian had cast his spear with a mighty thrust.

Carl looked up doubtfully. "We've got to get that spear out of him," he said, "but the point is barbed-"

"Cut it out," Dr. Barnes said. "Cut away the shaft first, and then try to slice through the barbs."

Jim forced himself to watch. Carl worked delicately, but blood spurted all the same. Away came the shaft of the spear, and then, using bone snippers, Carl sheared through the barbs of the point and wiggled it free of the wound. Blood gushed, a river of it. How much blood did someone as thin as Dom have, anyway? How much could he afford to lose?

"Hand me the sterilizer," Carl said softly.

Jim peered down, shaken by the sight of the wound. It seemed to him that Dom's whole chest had been laid open. Was that his heart, throbbing in there? What were those coiling, thrashing serpents in his body?

After a long moment Jim moved away, and climbed out of the sled. He peered to the westward, saw the tiny dots of the Dooney folk far to their rear. Then, shrugging heavily, he scuffed at the loose layer of snow above the ice, and went back to the other sled to wait.

It seemed as though days went by. But the sun was still high in the heavens when Carl and Dr. Barnes rose, long-faced and dark of visage. Carl's hands were covered with blood, and smears of blood stained his light blond hair. Jim looked across, and saw his father slowly shaking his head.

"It's no use," Dr. Barnes said. "Only a miracle could have saved him. We just aren't miracle workers."

They hewed a grave in the ice, and laid Dom to rest six feet down, and covered the place over, leaving no marker, for who could tell what desecration would be performed on him if they marked where he lay?

When the job was done, they entered the sleds and journeyed sadly onward.

The Dooney folk had had their toll after all.

The following morning, the slope leveled out, and they knew they had reached the Atlantic. There was no rejoicing. The day was another cold, bleak one, and their mood of mourning deepened. Behind them now lay the entire American continent-and the body of one of their number.

The nature of their journey was changing at this point. Thus far they had traveled over mile-thick glacier with solid land beneath. But the glacier had thinned in a gentle slope of more than a hundred miles, sweeping down to the edge of the sea. Now the sea lay before them-a sea of ice, frozen solid as far as the eye could tell, but treacherous of underpinning, unpredictable, dangerous. From here until they reached the European continent, the menace of an ice breakup would hover over them. They would never know whether the ice beneath the runners of their sled was sixty feet thick, or six hundred, or six inches-until the moment when they crashed through the fragile crust.

It
looked
solid enough. That was all they could go by.

Dr. Barnes decided on a cautious approach, at least at the outset. Halting the sleds, he explained that someone would have to walk out onto the ice and test its strength. "If it'll bear one man's weight, of course, that's still no guarantee it'll hold up under a sled. But at least this way we'll know if it's really weak."

They drew lots, and Chet Farrington was chosen.

He seemed unperturbed. "Just be ready to fish out fast if I go under," he told them.

He started out on the ice.

He walked the first twenty feet as though he were walking on a bridge of glass, spanning a mile-deep abyss. Taking step after gingerly step, he edged out onto the shining white surface of the ice pack. But he seemed to build up confidence as he went along. Soon he was striding merrily, jauntily. He was a quarter of a mile away when he turned and waved to the men in the sleds.

Another twenty yards and he was dancing on the ice, jumping up and down to test its strength. Again and again he bounded up, landed with both boots digging into the ice, and strode on. In ten minutes he was only a dot in the distance.

"Looks safe enough," Ted Callison said. "At least this part. I'm for going."

Dr. Barnes nodded. "So am I," he said. "But one sled at a time. There's no sense doubling the risk."

"Okay," Ted said. "My sled goes, then. You follow us if we don't get into any trouble."

The sled slid forward. It carried only two passengers, Ted and Roy Veeder.

Jim watched, taut-nerved, ready to scramble out onto the ice if the sled broke through and slipped into water. But nothing went wrong. Picking up speed as it went, the sled edged out steadily onto the ice pack, and soon it had caught up to Chet, far in the distance.

Jim looked at his father. He nodded. Dave Ellis, at the controls of their sled, opened the throttle and they set out after Ted and Roy and Chet. Soon, both sleds were side by side, moving speedily and smoothly over the ice.

It swiftly became evident that their extra caution had been unnecessary-at least this close to shore. The ice felt solid and substantial beneath them. Probably the pack was several hundred feet thick here, sturdy enough to support any number of sleds.

They halted in midafternoon. Ted's sled was far in the lead at that point, but it came to a stop and waited for the other to catch up with it.

What looked like open water lay just ahead.

"It's a lake," Ted told them. "I scouted it while I was waiting for you. We'll have to detour. It's at least a mile long, but there's solid ice all around it."

"Just a big hole in the ice," Roy Veeder added. "I wonder what it's doing here?"

They parked the sleds and advanced on foot to inspect the open water. Oddly, the ice seemed sturdy right up to the edge of the "lake." It was as though some giant had spooned out a great chunk of ice, and had filled the gaping hole with water.

"Summer melt is beginning," Dave Ellis remarked. "There must be a warm current passing through here that keeps this little stretch clear." He knelt at the edge, broke off a brittle chunk of waterlogged ice. "See? It's starting to melt back. This hole will probably double in size by July, and then gradually freeze again through the winter."

"Does it go right down to the bottom?" Carl asked.

Dave grinned. "Your guess is as good as mine. But it looks to be at least a hundred feet deep. Maybe it goes clear down to the sea itself."

Jim walked out on the rim of the crater in the ice field, and looked down. The water was so blue it seemed almost black. He cupped the palm of his hand, drew a little water up, tasted it.

"Salty," he said. "I think it's ocean water."

"I've got an idea," Chet Farrington announced suddenly. "I'm going to go fishing!"

Everyone laughed-everyone but Chet, who turned out to be dead serious. As a zoologist, he said, he wanted to get a close-up look at fish, after having studied them secondhand all his life. "Besides," he admitted, "they say that fish are good to eat."

"Are you a zoologist or just somebody who's always hungry?" Roy Veeder wanted to know.

"Both," Chet said blandly. He ran back to the sleds and rummaged in the supply stores until he found a thirty-foot length of wire. He bent one end of it into a sharp hook and embedded a synthetic food pellet on it. To the general amusement of all, he sat down by the edge of the water and cast the line in, and waited as though he expected to be pulling fish out by the dozen at any moment.

Jim and some of the others stood by him. All animal life was new and full of wonder for Jim as much as for Chet, and he longed to see a fish, to touch its scaly sides, to examine its gills. But when ten minutes had passed without a nibble on Chet's line, Jim started to give up hope.

Back at the sled, Ted Callison had the radio set out again. His face was set in an expression of rigid concentration as he delicately adjusted the dials.

There was the crackle of static, the sputter of noise…

And then a voice.

"London, yes. Who is this, please?"

"New York calling. Callison, Ted Callison. I'm with Raymond Barnes and his party. Is this Noel Hunt?"

"Can't hear you, New York!"

"
Is
…
this
…
Noel
…
Hunt
…?"

"Go on, New York," came the reply. "We are getting you now, New York."

Ted pinwheeled his arm to signal the others. Jim ran to his father, who was studying the ice near the edge of the water, and called, "Ted's got London on the radio, Dad!"

They gathered around-all but Chet, who went on dangling his line stolidly as though the entire success of their journey depended on his luck as a fisherman.

Jim heard the tinny words: "You've left New York, you say?"

"That's right," Ted said eagerly. "Eight of us-no, seven, now. We're on our way across the ice. We're coming to visit London!"

"Is this an official party?"

Callison looked to Dr. Barnes for advice. The tall man shook his head slightly.

"No," Ted said. "Not official. Just… just seven people coming to London. We've already gone about a hundred fifty miles. We should reach you within a month."

"How are you traveling?"

"By sled," Ted said. "We're coming across the ice."