The Nexus Colony (29 page)

The urge to urinate, which had been with her even before she came back to the surface, had finally driven her to the point where it was either let go—and risk a total breakdown of body resistance if too much of the liquid soaked through the absorbing pad inside of her garments—or find some innovative way to urinate in one of the containers. Desperation had set in. There really wasn’t much of an option at all.

The wind had picked up again and the wind chill factor had dropped considerably in the past hour. She had protected herself by huddling down in the big snowmobile under a protective cover. The fear of frostbite crossed her mind frequently, but there was no way to tell if any damage was prevalent. Her mind told her that her body was all right. Deciding now that she had no choice but to risk the frigid conditions for the short time it would take to relieve herself, driven by desperation, she boldly announced her intentions to Monroe.

“…and I would appreciate some privacy, Mr. Monroe,” she scolded, “since you refuse me the right to return to my tent!”

Monroe only looked at her with the same expression of indifference. But he took the hint. He got up and walked away, heading down along the ridge line parallel to the crevasse opening. It was sufficient, and Allison was able finally to relieve herself of the awful discomfort.

One thing was certain for Allison Bryson. This simple experience that she had taken for granted her entire life would never be forgotten, if for no other reason than the mere adventure of momentarily exposing bare skin to the harshest conditions on earth. It was bad enough with the wind howling at her back as she fought to maintain her balance in such an awkward position while holding the cup. If she felt like she had been stranded here on the surface for an eternity, she thought she would
never
finish…

She saw the object in the far distance just above the horizon. Zipping herself back up as quickly as possible, not taking her eyes off its movement, Allison watched for well over a minute before she was able to identify it. Monroe had taken the binoculars. She turned. Monroe was still quite a distance away along the crevasse edge. He was staring off in the opposite direction, apparently still unaware of the approaching aircraft.

Allison watched for another several minutes. She was certain now of its configuration, and it brought a renewed feeling of encouragement. It was a familiar LC-130 Hercules transport plane, maybe even the same one that had brought them out here several days ago. Abbott must have contacted them at McMurdo when he was up here a few hours ago. But it didn’t matter anyway. She was getting on that plane one way or another.

It circled the encampment in an apparent attempt to attract attention. Cupping her hands over her eyes, she squinted to see if Lightfoot had come out to respond. Turning around, she saw that Monroe had finally spotted the plane and had lighted a flare, as huge billows of bright red smoke dissipated into the heavy wind flow. Its force disseminated the smoke rather quickly, and she realized how much the wind speed was picking up.

But the smoke screen was enough to attract the attention of the aircraft, as it broke away from the circle pattern and flew directly overhead. Monroe. The aircraft. He was still standing stupidly on the ridge about a hundred yards away waving at the plane as it now circled their position. The plane made a wide bank, apparently setting itself up for final approach to make a landing down on the glacial field. Before Allison realized what she was doing, she spontaneously leaped back onto the snowmobile, turned on the key, and was moving down the slope at a rapid rate of speed. Never looking back, frightened out of her wits, she headed straight for the encampment and the runway to meet her liberators, wondering if it was bullets whizzing past her head or just the pockets of Antarctic air
whumping
inside her parka hood.

The plane was beginning its taxi down at the end of the ski-drag runway when she arrived at the encampment. Allison hadn’t handled a snowmobile for quite some time, and almost wiped out one of the Scott tents trying to stop it. Momentarily out of control, she somehow managed to avoid disaster. Blasting the horn frantically, she waited for Lightfoot who still hadn’t appeared. She screamed his name to the top of her lungs over the whistling wind. Looking back, she was somewhat relieved to see that Monroe wasn’t following her. Yet.

The horn blared again. Still no sign of Lightfoot. The plane had reached the end of the runway, coming to a stop far short of the flag marker Ruger had set at the end. Common sense told her that either the aircraft was empty, or the head wind was so strong that it literally halted the plane.
Where are you, Lightfoot, you bastard?!
she screamed inside her head.

The plane was making its turn, taxiing along the ski-drag trail.
The hell with you!
she thought, temporarily abandoning hope that she’d at least have an ally, even though it had to be Lightfoot. Hitting the throttle, she zoomed out of camp, narrowly missing the huge circular depression that she had seen earlier through the binoculars.

By the time Allison was slowing her approach to the aircraft’s stopped position, the rear cargo door was already open and three men emerged. As she moved closer, she saw the one of them was talking on a hand-held radio. The idling engines and the howling wind blocked out any chance of hearing what was being said, but she was certain the man was talking to Monroe who was probably still up on the ridge.

As Allison brought the machine to a stop, the three men walked toward her.

“I’m Dr. Allison Bryson, and I…“ she started to say, but before she could get out another word, the man with the radio cut her off.

“Step off the machine, please,” he ordered.

Taken back, she replied above the din, “Excuse me?”

The man made a gesture to the other two men, one of whom gently, but firmly, held her by the arm directing her off the snowmobile. They said nothing,

“What do you think you’re doing?” she protested, yelling.

One of the men mounted the machine and maneuvered it next to the cargo door where a fourth man had brought a sled down the ramp. They quickly attached it to the rear tow bar of the snowmobile.

Allison stood frightened as two of the men zoomed off on the machine headed toward the encampment.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded to know. “Who
are
you people?”

“Please step over to the plane, ma’am,” the man with the radio ordered.

“Look, I don’t know who you people are, but I think I can take a pretty good guess,” she tried to yell above the louder din of the airplane engines.

“You’re welcome to step inside, ma’am, to get out of the wind,” the man offered. She couldn’t see his face. It was bundled up and covered by a ski mask. It didn’t look like he had a beard. Most men in Antarctica wore beards.

“Thank you!” she replied sarcastically. “I think I will. And while I’m at it, I think maybe I’ll make myself comfortable, because I’m going with you!”

The man didn’t respond. The interior of the cargo hold was cold, but at least it was out of the wind. There were two other men inside, but they said nothing and didn’t bother to acknowledge her presence. The hold was empty. Looking out one of the portholes, she could see the snowmobile off in the distance. It was by-passing the encampment. Why she hadn’t thought about it before, she didn’t know. These people were here for one reason and one reason only. They were picking up the frozen body.

Confused and frightened, Allison turned away from the porthole to where the man with the radio was standing at the top of the ramp to keep out of the wind. Belaying her panic, she gathered what courage was left in her terrified body and walked up to the man.

“My name is Dr. Allison Bryson,” she began, realizing she had said that before. She struggled to keep the tone of her voice as professional and as unemotional as possible. “I work for the National Science Foundation. I am here on field assignment for the United States government, and I demand to know what is going on.”

“Ma’am, if you’ll just kindly take a seat, we’d appreciate that,” one of the other men said, who had come up behind her unnoticed. He had a thick, southern drawl.

“I don’t want to sit down,” she responded, still trying to remain calm. “Don’t you people
hear
me? Don’t you people
care
what I’m trying to tell you? I think we’re in trouble out here…my colleagues and me…they’re down there in that crevasse up on the ridge…we’ve got to get out of this place and
we want to get on this plane
!”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the only response.

Whatever Allison tried to do to establish some communication with these people during the next ten minutes, it fell on deaf ears. These men were obviously military, and she was met with total indifference. They had their agenda. The radio conversation went back and forth, presumably with Monroe, the voice of whom she still couldn’t quite discern. The men on the snowmobile had arrived on the ridge. The cargo was secured to the sled. They were on their way back to the plane.

Allison watched the approach of the snowmobile from the porthole window. It passed by the encampment at a high rate of speed. In a few short minutes, it arrived at the cargo ramp.

“Ma’am?’ the southern voice said, startling her yet again. “Would you step outside please?”

“What?”

“Outside, please,” the man said again, this time leading her by the arm toward the cargo ramp.

“What are you doing?” she protested, having to side step the other two men who were manipulating the cable that was about to pull the loaded sled up the ramp.

The man with the radio said, “Ma’am, if I was you, I’d clear myself and that machine of the aircraft. We’ll be taking off as soon as this ramp is closed.”

“
You’re what?!”
she exclaimed in disbelief.

“I’d do it now, ma’am,” the man replied. He was now yelling as the engines had begun to rev.

Allison began to panic again. They had pushed her gently down the ramp. These people weren’t joking. They were throwing her off the plane and were preparing to take off. Frantic, she had no choice. The snowmobile was still idling at the foot of the cargo ramp. The hydraulics whined as the ramp began to close like some giant and ancient castle drawbridge. Running to the machine, all she could think about in her moment of hysteria was being sucked into the backwash of the props. In a panic, she leaped into the seat, yanked the throttle, and steered the snowmobile away from the plane, almost dumping the machine in her haste to get away.

The LC-130’s engines roared to full life. Behind her, she heard the change in pitch as the aircraft began its takeoff down the ski-drag runway. When she was a safe distance away, she stopped and turned to watch the aircraft lumber effortlessly into the air and start its ascent into the darkening sky. She couldn’t believe this was happening. In a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes, the plane had landed, loaded the body on a sled, and had taken off again literally abandoning all of them to
The Ice
.

These were definitely government people. Most likely Abbott’s. They were
all
crazy, and Abbott was the craziest of them all.
If Mike had been here…
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest cavity. She felt the urge to urinate again. Ruger was still down there in the bowels of the ice.
Are they ever coming back?
she pondered in a panic.
Maybe they’re all dead. Maybe they’re…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden fierce gust of wind that almost threw her off the machine. The storm front had up until this point been staying far off in the distance, but now she could see that the storm was moving toward their position.

Squinting in the direction of the ridge, she hoped that Monroe at least had the presence of mind to inform Abbott of the pending severe weather. She saw the speck on the ridge horizon. It had to be Monroe. The faithful little puppy dog. He wouldn’t abandon his post. He hadn’t come after her, but then again, why should he? She wasn’t going anywhere. Especially now.

Frightened, despondent, Allison decided the only thing left was to go back to the tents. At least she’d have some shelter and a little food. And check in on Lightfoot who, at the moment, was the only welcome prospect in her life. The wind now roaring against her back, she struggled to steer the snowmobile toward the tents.

Allison sensed that something was wrong, terribly wrong, when she stopped the machine next to the depression in the ice at the center of the camp. For one thing, the zipper of their tent was open halfway, and Allison knew right away that Lightfoot couldn’t have been inside or else he would have secured the tent. Things were in disarray. She’d only half-heartedly taken notice before. A feeling of uneasiness overcame her. Something out of the ordinary had happened in this place. Or maybe it was
still
happening.
Is this place earmarked for abandonment?
she thought, shuddering.

The frigid wind howled at her back, penetrating deep to her skin. She had been exposed outside to the elements far too long. Her resistance was way down. Panic was turning to abandon. Despaired and alone, she pledged to herself that she wasn’t going down without a fight. Whoever…or
whatever
…presence was out here in the god-forsaken wilderness. Braving whatever fate was lurking beyond the tent flap, Allison Bryson unzipped the door and crawled inside.

* * * * *

“…get…Colonel…Abbott…” Monroe’s voice crackled through the static as Ruger struggled to decipher what he was saying. For some reason, the radio coms were filled with interference. Ruger stood at the bottom of the crevasse peering upward along the sheer walls through the narrow crack in the massive ice sheet. Such a short distance for radio communications. Just by the lighting conditions, he could tell that the weather topside was changing. It had changed considerably in the last twenty minutes since Ruger had gone back inside to check on their progress and to convince Abbott that at least he should give him the radio so he could have Monroe send down some field food ration packets. It was evident Abbott wasn’t about to leave the structure until he was certain they couldn’t crack the code to gain access to whatever was inside. If indeed there even was a code or even a physical entrance.