The Nexus Colony (19 page)

Behind her, Prall and Monroe sat motionless on the snowmobiles that were strategically parked on the slight downside crest of the ridge, supporting the ropes. The two men reminded her of gargoyles, and she shuddered at the thought of the unpleasant episode these men had just put all of them through.

Impatient, Allison said to Peter Almshouse, “What if they find something down there?”

“They already have.”

“No. I mean…what if they’ve found something significant. Something we can’t explain?”

Almshouse looked at her, and for a brief instant, she thought that all of them—her included—they all must look like gargoyles peering through dark face masks, thick puffs of white smoke reminiscent of fire-breathing creatures.

“We’ll explain it,” he answered.

“Do you really believe in this extraterrestrial stuff?’ she asked him.

“Oh, it’s real, Allison,” Almshouse replied. “It’s as real as you and me.”

She looked down along the rope at Mike Ruger, who was apparently giving some last minute instructions to a terrified John Lightfoot.

“If it’s as real as you say,” Allison said, “what if there are some of them down there?”

“We’ll see.”

“No. I’m serious,” she said.

Almshouse responded, “I don’t think there are any of them down there. That’s not their agenda. I suspect that if anything, we’ll either find a craft or a structure. I don’t think they’re here.”

Allison pondered his suggestion for a moment. “But they know we’re
here
, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Almshouse replied after a moment’s hesitation. “We think so.”

“That’s why you showed us those reports, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’re real, aren’t they?”

“Yes. They’re real, Allison. Those events on the report occurred. Perhaps a little distorted as to exact detail, but close enough for significance.”

“I don’t understand any of this that’s going on,” she replied, confused.

Almshouse let out a sympathetic laugh. “Neither do we, Allison. We don’t know
why
they react or interact the way they do. Nobody can figure it out. We spend as much time studying the discipline of intelligence as we do studying the effects these entities cause. We can’t figure out how to communicate with them. We can’t even agree on whether they
want
to communicate.”

“This is getting more serious than I thought,” she commented.

“The alien protocol…” Almshouse continued. “It doesn’t fit the human psyche. The only commonality is the physicality of both our existences. And we’re convinced that their physical dimensional state while interacting with us as they do is not their natural state. They’re…
inter-dimensional
. They’re in an altered state of existence, if you will. But at the physical level…that’s our only link. The only area where we’ve been able to make any progress in understanding them.”

“It’s frightening, what you’re telling me,” Allison said.

“Damn right it’s frightening,” Almshouse replied. “These artifacts are just one more piece of the puzzle. We…all of us out here…we’re just one more piece of the process trying to put it all together. Unfortunately, so far the puzzle contains more pieces than the human mind is capable of assembling.”

“That’s encouraging, Peter. Really is.”

Ruger called up, “You have Lightfoot’s camera satchel?”

“All ready,” Almshouse replied, passing it down to Ruger. A second satchel contained a few extra carbide lights and some basic excavation tools. Ruger was going to carry them down and leave them there if need be. Ruger had brought along a small winch, but in the rush of the moment, he opted not to break it out of the supply sled. Abbott wanted to get back down there. If need be, Ruger could rig it up later.

The second descent down into the crevasse took far less time, simply because they rappelled directly back to the spot where Ruger had found the structural beam. This time, Abbott took along the handheld radio secured to his outer gear to keep in contact with Lisk.

Above, Allison Bryson again felt the abandonment when Ruger and Abbott dropped out of sight. The mood quickly changed as all five men disappeared over the edge, the only sound being the squeaking of the ropes as they stretched against the heavy strain. Beside her along the ridge, Prall and Monroe still sat like gargoyles, silhouetted against a sky that she noticed was turning to an ominous gray far off in the distance. On the tip of the horizon, it had become like ebony. She had seen enough of that disturbing type of darkness before here in Antarctica to know that somewhere out there, severe weather was taking place. The wind direction seemed to favor them. She had learned that from Ruger. Perhaps the weather would pass them by.

A grayness was now cast upon the glacial slope, but the polished ice still emitted a hint of sparkle despite the waning sunlight. Inside her suit, a shiver found its way down along her spine. She only wished she’d remembered to urinate before they’d come back up to the ridge.

In the world of ice exploration, there was one cardinal rule. You didn’t do anything out here unless somebody was along to bail you out when you made your mistakes. Ruger had no problem with that. He had a problem, though, with John Lightfoot. Lightfoot, as it turned out, for all the bravado and panache, suffered from acrophobia.
The son-of-a-bitch is terrified of heights
, Ruger had found out, and in a way he pitied the man who was fighting desperately to overcome his fears just for the sake of getting a few photographs, which he’d probably never get to see anyway. Ruger couldn’t fault the man, despite his dislike for Lightfoot. But as a result, Ruger, accompanying the slow rappelling Lightfoot down the ice wall, was the last one to reach the location where the vaulted ceiling began.

The other three men hung in the semi-darkness of the surreal world in total silence. The yellow beams of the carbide light illuminated the massive structure attached to the underside vault of the ice. It gave the impression that it was holding up the entire Mulock Glacier above.

“Holy shit…” Lightfoot whispered in amazement, as if raising his voice would have committed some act of sacrilege. He hung swaying slowly next to Ruger who was silently studying the beam with his light. “I’ve got to get a picture of this,” Lightfoot whispered again, fumbling trying to reach his satchel hanging free from a strap at his side.

“Just hold off, John,” Ruger suggested, catching a peripheral glimpse of Lightfoot’s intention.

Abbott, who had been awaiting Ruger’s arrival, said, “The rest of you wait here while Mike and I make a run to see if we can hit bottom.” Abbott called Lisk on the radio to inform him of their intention.

Lightfoot, ignoring Ruger’s half-hearted warning not to play around with trying to retrieve his camera, was too taken by the surrealism of the icy abyss. He thought he had seen everything there was left to see out on
The Ice
. Lightfoot was totally in awe of the whole new world surrounding him, and the creative juices began to flow giving him a whole new perspective of Antarctica.

Lightfoot somehow managed to get one of his two cameras out of the gear bag and maneuvered it into position . The camera already had a flash unit mounted on it, but he had difficulty activating the tiny switch to turn on the thyristor circuit because of the bulky gloves. Lightfoot had a pair of closely-woven, synthetic, fingered gloves that he always used when taking pictures in the extreme cold. They allowed him to retain dexterity while handling the cold metals. But the damn things were in the bottom of the gear bag. He wouldn’t have been able to rappel wearing his camera gloves.

Lightfoot continued to curse to himself because of his logistical predicament. He was wearing functional clothing for photographing in harsh conditions, but because of having to rappel down the ice wall, the camera gear bag had to be toted along separately, slung around on his back. Normally, his one-piece windsuit and bib-fronted insulated salopette trousers were ideal for protecting his camera which would be slung underneath. Now he had to hassle with dangling in the air while trying to swing the gear bag back around to the front.

Ruger and Abbott had already begun their descent as Lightfoot composed his first shot, which was of the two of them descending down into the darkened abyss. Almshouse and Grimes both were watching him with curiosity. Almshouse, who had an interest in photography himself, asked, “How do you keep them from freezing up?”

“What? The cameras?” Lightfoot replied, not looking up but answering aside. “These are Olympus OM-1’s. A bit outdated by today’s standards, but I still like them because they’re lightweight and have a minimal amount of electronics. I got these from one of their tech reps years ago. Never got rid of them. Nowadays I only use them in extreme cold. They’ve got special molybdenum and silicone lubricants. Won’t freeze up…well, anyway, won’t freeze as quickly when the temperature gets ridiculous.”

“Too bad you can’t take a time exposure from this position,” Almshouse said.

“Hopefully…” Lightfoot snapped off another shot, “…I’ll get some at the bottom. Later.”

Though it was quite apparent Lightfoot was the consummate professional, Grimes and Almshouse couldn’t help being entertained by his contortions as he tried desperately to get his precious pictures. What he saw in his own mind was beyond what Grimes was seeing. This place—this compromising position hanging in the air—wasn’t exactly to his liking. But they waited, hanging just below the vaulted ceiling of the ice cavern. Ruger and Abbott, at that same moment, had arrived at the bottom.

It was cold. A penetrating kind of coldness, unlike the super dry environment on the surface of the continent. Down here, the air for some reason seemed slightly saturated with moisture, but it shouldn’t have felt that way. But at least there was no air movement to make the wind chill a factor. It was a different world, a lost world, a world neither made nor meant for humans or any other life form above the microbe level. Yet the humans were here, exploring its cavernous depth simply because it existed, searching for the tempting secrets that had been unwittingly revealed that perhaps should not have been revealed.

And it was dark. There was perhaps only enough light present to reveal the subtle geometrical patterns of the fractures where the stress had ripped open the crevasse, exposing the inner mechanism of ice, probably the most powerful force in nature. And far below still, underneath the massive weight of the ice, the earth’s mantle was crushed under pressure so unbelievable that men could only attempt to explain in human terms that which they cannot possibly fully comprehend.

Ruger’s depth perception was usually excellent, but even he had difficulty finding his footing at the bottom where the “V” of the crevasse signaled the temporary cessation of the splitting. The floor was uneven, splintered, and it made for difficult movement once he tried to move around, after having let go of the slack in the rope. His carbide light cast an ominous, shadowy effect. Ruger panned the bottom of the abyss. When the light reached the area where Abbott had set down, Ruger saw him holding the last few feet of rope. Both of them had run to the end, which made the depth about a hundred and fifty feet from the surface.

“The fracture’s recent,” Ruger said in a low voice, and it reverberated through the cavern.

“Abbott to Lisk,” he heard through the radio static.

“Go ahead,” came the response.

“We’re at the bottom,” Abbott replied, almost reverently.

“Roger,” Lisk responded.

Where they had touched down, as their eyes became adjusted to the darkness, they saw they were in a cavern that had somehow opened up in the interior wall. Ruger imagined that it looked like an enormous bubble of air had once been trapped here and, like the inside of a gelatin mold, had somehow managed to escape being crushed by the massive weight of the ice above.

But whatever the cause or the reason, the bottom part of the crevasse, at least at this location, was gouged inward revealing a cavern with a vaulted ceiling reminiscent of an ancient cathedral. Barely visible through the darkness, about halfway to the surface, they could make out the dangling images of the other three men, silhouetted against the thinly lighted crack of the ice ceiling. Once, Ruger saw a flash of light, correctly assuming it was Lightfoot doing what he was brought along to do.

“How do you know it’s recent?” Abbott asked.

“Huh?” Ruger responded, jolted back into the reality of the predicament. “Yeah. I said that the ice is fractured and the edges are still relatively sharp,” he replied, running his gloved hand along a crystal spike. “If this crevasse had been opened up for a long time, the edges would be smoother because of sublimation.”

“How long is recent?”

“I’ve no idea, actually,” Ruger replied. “I’m just telling you what I’ve learned from Hilly. I’m sure he’ll be able to give us a better answer.”

“Doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?” Abbott said, panning the walls with his light. “Jesus,” he said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Look,” Ruger said, pointing his light. “Over there. I think the crevasse goes down even deeper.”

Unhooking their rappelling gear, both men cautiously moved along the uneven floor, side stepping the shards of splintered ice as they moved toward what looked like a continuation of the split. Ruger stopped several feet short to peer over the edge. He was right. The crevasse continued, and the split here was narrow where the solid floor ended.

“A crevasse within a crevasse,” Abbott commented aside.

“It’s actually just one,” Ruger responded. “We’re standing on the part that hasn’t split yet.”

“That’s encouraging,” Abbott said, tossing a small piece of ice down into the darkness. They listened, but didn’t hear it hit any bottom. “Guess you didn’t bring enough rope, huh?”

“No need,” Ruger responded, and Abbott turned his head to see that Ruger was shining his light on the ghostly, structural beam. It appeared like it was fused to the curved ceiling of the vault. At the base of the beam, it was contorted as if it had been twisted and then torn from whatever it had been previously attached to. Ruger judged the whole length of the beam to be about fifty feet. Below the bottom portion of the twisted metal, there was only the ice wall.