The Nexus Colony (37 page)

The mother ship, momentarily going unnoticed by the men on board the LC-130, had somehow
blinked
off to the side of the rising cloud out beyond the orbital path of the aircraft. As the plane moved through the air some distance away from the cloud, suddenly the air turbulence intensified, threatening to tear the fragile aircraft into pieces. The wind buffeted the wings, stressing the airframe to the point where everyone on board was certain that the end time had arrived and they would drop from the sky into the oblivion below.

The de-pressurization of the immediate atmosphere within a several mile radius of the orbiting plane created a series of air pockets that bounced the plane around like a piece of debris flapping in the breeze. The air turbulence became so intense at one point that the men’s eyeballs were jarred with such force that they were unable for a few moments to focus on the devastation still continuing below.

As the plane flew its pre-destined flight path through the hurricane-force cloud of turbulence still rising from the glacier, they watched horrified at the awesome power of the aliens. What was left beneath them after the initial detonation appeared now as a bubbling cauldron of molten magma, and as another man later put it…
a volcano could not have frightened me more than the terror I felt looking down into the mouth of that hell.

When the atmosphere immediately surrounding the area of the glacial valley finally stabilized, most of the men on board the LC-130 were too busy praying to comprehend that somehow the aircraft had managed to stay structurally intact. Whether the aliens had a design in that would never be understood. Most aircraft engineering experts, upon later evaluating the eyewitness accounts of the incident, unanimously agreed that considering what had taken place in the air, the LC-130 should have disintegrated. But the fact remained that it had not.

No one would be able to recall precisely when it was that the mother ship and the twelve disks departed. Whether they had left in grandiose fashion, or simply
blinked out
as they had appeared so often, no one knew. Only one fact remained. They were not to be seen again on the Mulock Glacier. They would be seen only once more in the land of Antarctica.

The LC-130, after having made numerous orbits around the Mulock Glacier along the alien-chosen flight path, suddenly leveled to the precise heading the pilot had previously set for McMurdo. The yoke controls unlocked. The pilot had to fly the plane by himself all the way back to McMurdo. Marshall Abbott sat in the co-pilot’s chair beside him to ensure the pilot—and everyone else for that matter—that the extraordinary event was now ended. Some of the men stared off into space in shock, including the co-pilot who would later remember very little. Marshall Abbott, Mike Ruger, and the rest of their group would forever remember the parting image of the Mulock Glacier as the plane banked away tangent from the orbit.

Pure white steam now rose slowly skyward even as the massive pool of bubbling magma began the rapid cooling process. Huge walls of ice rising hundreds of feet high above the pool of molten rock began breaking off in gigantic chunks, falling into the bubbling caldera. The process would continue like that for the next several days until the molten pool was cooled down enough to form the initial crust, and the vaporization of the ice would slow to where the newly-formed crater would begin to fill with water from the melt. It would take only a day beyond that for the frigid air to reclaim the liquid water and turn the lake back into a frozen mass.

The rising steam would dissipate enough in a day for aerial reconnaissance photographs to clearly show the devastation that had taken place. And yet, in the aftermath of this most extraordinary of events, evidence of this newest sea of ice, in the days and months to come, would be silently erased by a power that not even the aliens could match. For Antarctica is ice, and ice is Antarctica. It would reclaim all that previously was.
The Visitors
may have been here through the millennia, but even
they
are ephemeral. In this time, in this place, on this most unique of planets, only
The Ice
remained eternal.

T
he base doctor had insisted that Vassili Pietrovich spend a day or so in the infirmary or at least away from his duty station, but all that accomplished was creating a greater amount of friction than what already existed. After the harrowing experience a day ago, the base doctor was concerned about Pietrovich’s psychological state of mind. For after all,
close encounters
—the Russian scientists unabashedly embraced the term—were nothing new to the Russian agenda, which treated them more openly, unlike the American scheme of debunking when dealing with this type of business.

Pietrovich had been ordered to take at least one day off, but his commanding officer, the base manager, later recanted the order when such a furor developed.
What was the difference?
Pietrovich argued, whether he was isolated in the communications center or isolated in the drab infirmary or his cramped quarters? He might as well continue his function. Besides, the whole base had experienced the anomaly. He only happened to be the one at the front line closest to whatever those things had been. But whatever the motivation or rationale for the change in decision by the base manager, Vassili Pietrovich was back at work in the outer station.

It was at precisely at one nineteen a.m.—the
exact
time when the event had started twenty four hours ago—that things began to happen all over again. Pietrovich had been sitting at the console in front of the low band receiver when suddenly the lights in the entire facility began to flicker. Just like they had twenty-four hours ago. And when the whole center abruptly went eerily silent for the second time, Pietrovich thought his heart had momentarily stopped beating. Cold fear shot through his body like stinging needles. Vassili Pietrovich began to pray to his God for deliverance, for he was sure that this time the demons were going to end his life on this earth.

The sequence of events that began happening were the same except for one detail. Yesterday there had been twelve images on radar tracking. Today there was only one. He glanced over his shoulder at the enormous blip on the green display screen. Either the object was hovering so close to the facility that it was probably going to squash it into the ground, or the thing was so massive that the radar signature was humongous. Or maybe both.

As fear enshrouded the helpless man, he tried desperately to control his shaking hands, but his terror was so acute that it became as if blinders were pressing against his peripheral vision. He looked straight ahead, too horrified even to want to look around the room anymore.
This isn’t happening! Please tell me this isn’t happening again!
His heart thumped inside his chest cavity, and he swore it was the only sound that reverberated in the room for several minutes.

But it was
deja vue
all over again. Just like before, the radio receiver in front of him—the very same one through which the Morse code message had emanated yesterday—crackled to life all by itself while every other device in the room remained eerily silent. The dial began spinning through the frequencies, the digital readout on the blue LED’s changing rapidly. Pietrovich’s eyes were focused solely on the readout. He knew where the numbers were going to stop. On 3200 KHz.

For a moment, everything was silent again. Pietrovich knew that the frequency was open, his keen sense of listening to radio communications all these years telling him that a transmission line was open, but at this moment free of any radio frequency interference. He waited, terrified by what he anticipated was certainly going to happen next.

The message poured through the receiver. This time, Vassili Pietrovich did not bother to jot it down. The dots and dashes were just as clear and precise as they had been yesterday. The same two simple English words repeated over and over again.…

The message jarred him. Spinning around, he looked at the radar scope again. The massive blip was still there, stationary. He knew what was to happen next. Moving his hands up to cover his eyes from the brightness he knew was only seconds away, he arose from the chair and walked toward the clothes rack where he had hung his outer garments. The brightness was intense only for a few seconds, and the familiar pulsating of the different colors once again seemed to filter through every crack in the structure.

The message continued to emanate from the receiver even as Pietrovich was getting dressed, constrained by some unknown force that seemed to compel him to accomplish this task. His hands still trembled wildly as he fumbled to pull the zipper up on his bib overalls. Pulling the parka hood over his head, he stepped into the outer portal of the facility. Then he opened the outer door and stepped into the Antarctic night.

There was a deathly silence all around, and even the wind had abated into nothingness. The furry hood wrapped around his head extended several inches to the front, cutting off his peripheral vision. He peered directly ahead. The bright blue beam was perhaps only twenty yards in front of the outer door, touching the ground directly over the pathway, extending skyward like a giant column holding the heavens at bay. So great was his terror that Vassili Pietrovich could not at first bring himself to look upward toward the obvious source of the blue beam.

He stood motionless for several minutes, helpless with abandon. Then slowly, compelled, he raised his eyes toward the heaven. What he saw was beyond human description. Its enormity blotted out the entire sky. His knees buckled and he crumbled to the ground. And then, in the midst of the blue beam, there suddenly appeared four forms that were descending rapidly down through the shaft as if riding on a plunging elevator. The descent slowed, coming to a gentle stop when the forms reached ground level.

For another moment, Pietrovich waited on his knees for whatever fate was going to befall him next. Then quite unexpectedly, the blue beam blinked out. Above in the sky, there was a subtle trace of pulsating colors. And then there was nothing. The enormous object had vanished with an instantaneous
blink.

For how long he remained on his knees staring up into the empty sky, Pietrovich would not later be able to recall. But for certain, a period of time elapsed before Pietrovich came to his senses. It was the frigid wind brushing against his face finding its way down along his skin beneath the garments. He shuddered at the coldness, and the shiver went along his spine forcing him to get off his knees and stand up.

For a few brief moments, he had forgotten about the four figures that had come down the blue shaft of light. His knees buckled momentarily again as the four forms stood unmoving only twenty yards away, their heads bowed low to where Pietrovich could not see their faces. Their attendance certainly appeared to be in human form. Unsure of whether
they
were even aware of
his
presence, Pietrovich gathered all his courage and slowly moved toward the silent forms.

As he made his approach, the forms began stirring, as if his own movement had suddenly triggered their awareness. By the look of their initial reaction to the predicament, all four of the figures must have been asleep as they began stretching their limbs. Pietrovich stopped a few yards from them. The four figures at first looked at each other. Then at Pietrovich. He could see their open faces rimmed by the furry parka hoods. Whether their look of astonishment was because of him or not was immaterial.

They were people, all right. Three men and a woman. For another minute, all five of them stood silent and unmoving. And then the cold wind seemed to shock each of them back into the reality of the harsh Antarctic environment. The woman wrapped herself in her arms to ward off the coldness, and Pietrovich suddenly became overwhelmed with compassion. He found himself for some reason responding in English, “Come inside with me. It’s warm there.”

He heard a whispered
thank you
from the woman before he extended his arms for her to hold onto, as she appeared to be weak when she stepped forward. The other three men quickly regained their strength and started moving around for several seconds.

A minute later, all four of them were moving around, stretching their limbs, clearing the cobwebs from their heads. Pietrovich could only watch with bewilderment as four desperate souls tried to re-orient themselves into reality. He heard the men asking each other,
What happened? Where was I? Where were you? The last thing I remember…
and confused faces only stared at each other, silent. And then abruptly the four strangers were again quiet. They all turned toward Pietrovich who stood helplessly in front of the group, his arms extended as if to welcome them from their sojourn, wherever that might have been.

One of the men stepped slowly forward, stopping a few feet in front of him. The man looked back at his other three comrades, who now were all focused on the trembling Pietrovich. Turning again to face Pietrovich, the man reached out a hand in greeting and said in a low, distinct voice, “My name is John Lightfoot…”

For the first time in his life, Vassili Pietrovich passed out.

T
here is a silence in Antarctica. It is not an undisturbed silence, for nature resounds in all her fury. It is rather a silencing of humans, not because of their absence, but because Antarctica permits them to say very little.

The frigid breeze blew gentle against his face weaving through the thick beard until it found its way down inside his collar. He shivered, but it made him feel alive. He closed his eyes momentarily to take in the peacefulness of the quite isolation.

He opened his eyes. Mike Ruger tried to sort through the events of the past thirty six hours. To say their arrival back at McMurdo was anything but hectic would be an understatement. When the plane finally touched down, Ruger thought Hilliard Grimes was going to dive out through the cargo door to be the first one to kiss the ground. Aside from that, there were several minutes of mass confusion. It wasn’t until some time later when things calmed down that the impact hit home. They had lost four of their comrades. He had lost Allison.

But questions had to be asked and somebody wanted the answers right away. Despite total exhaustion—even the Base Manager Jimmy Morrison argued with the military doctors that these men should be allowed to take a hot shower, eat, and rest for a bit—there was too much going on for anybody to calm down.

Ruger took a back seat to Marshall Abbott who continued arguing with both base and military officials over the confidentiality of what had occurred out on the Mulock Glacier. Government classified material. None of the military’s business. A whole lot of shouting and hollering. At this point, Ruger didn’t care anymore
how
they told their story or
who
they told it to. It was over. But even worse than that, he felt the pain of a terrible loss. An anger and hatred far greater than he had ever known. His feelings for Allison Bryson had grown with such subtle intensity that it took all this time for him to realize just how much he had fallen in love with her.

And now she was gone. Ruger had been adamant against her going out on the glacier in the first place, but the maddening politics of this rotten society we live in have no regard for personal lives. About as little as those alien beings they’d encountered have for the whole human civilization.
We’re all tools for somebody’s agenda in one way or another.

That was yesterday. Today his whole world had changed yet again. It would have been hard for anyone to feel the elation Mike Ruger felt when, earlier this morning about seven thirty, he was suddenly awakened by Jimmy Morrison from a restless, troublesome sleep. Ruger thought he was dreaming again as he was being shaken by his smiling friend.

“Mike! Mike!” Morrison was calling his name. “Wake up, buddy! Come on. Wake up!”

“Wha…” Ruger responded groggily.

“Wake up, man. Good news! Real good news!” Morrison waited to see if Ruger was comprehending any words.

“What?” Ruger asked, trying to focus on Morrison’s face. “What’s going on?”

Ruger forced himself to sit up.

“I’ve got the best news you’ll ever hear, my friend,” Morrison responded.

Ruger shook the cobwebs out of his brain, holding up his hand for Morrison to pause for a moment. “Yeah, I’m awake. What’s going on?”

Morrison was smiling. “Allison’s alive,” he said, letting the words deliberately sink in for a moment.

“What?” Ruger responded hesitantly, still thinking he must be dreaming.

“You heard me. She’s alive. All four of them are alive.”

Ruger tried to get up off the bed but Morrison held him in place.

“I want to see her,” Ruger exclaimed.

“Just hold on, Mike,” Morrison replied. “Relax a second here. Let me talk.”

Ruger realized just how exhausted he was. The muscles in his body weren’t responding very well, and he was sore as hell.

Morrison gently pushed him back down onto the bed. Ruger’s head flopped back onto the pillow. Morrison kept on smiling.

“Lay back down, man,” Morrison said. “Just lay there and listen for a minute. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. Where is she, Jim?”

“She’s safe.”

“Where?”

“Vostok.”

“
Vostok?
” Ruger replied, trying to rise up again. Morrison gently shoved him down again.

“That’s right.” Morrison was still smiling. “Apparently somebody—or rather
some thing
—dropped them off there. Sometime after one o’clock this morning. Details are still a little confusing as to what in the hell happened over there.”

“Vostok…Why Vostok?” Ruger kept repeating.

“I don't quite know what’s going on, but those Ruskies are buzzing in turmoil. Something pretty big went down, but nobody seems to know what yet. We’re sending a plane over later this morning to pick them up…”

“I’m going…” Ruger started to say.

“…no you’re not. I’ve got my staff working out some details as we speak. Red tape and all that bullshit. You know.”

“I want to be on that plane, Jim,” Ruger insisted, trying to get up again. Morrison pinned him down.

“You can’t. You’re under government detention.”

“What?”

“Look, Mike,” Morrison assured him. “Just try to get some rest. I’ve got everything under control. We’ll have Allison and all the rest of them back later today. Everything is fine. There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Is she all right?”

“She’s in perfect health. They all are. The Ruskies told us that they’re just tired and that they all had the
shit-skie
scared out of them. That’s all.” Morrison smiled. Ruger smiled, too, for the first time in a long while.

That was about ten hours ago. A small gust of wind brushed against his face reminding him that he was still standing outside peering into the Antarctic desolation. He had talked to Allison just a short time ago from the communications center, and the sound of her voice sent pangs of wonderful emotion through his whole body.

“Are you all right?” he had asked her.

“Yes. I’m fine. I was so scared, Mike. So scared…”

He hesitated a brief instant, then said, “I want you here with me…” He almost told her that he loved her right then, but wanted to say it to her face.

There was a moment of hesitation, perhaps the longest moment of Mike Ruger’s life before he heard the most important words he had ever heard.

“I love you so much…” and he thought perhaps she began crying, but the communications link was full of static.

But they talked for several minutes more, and it seemed that so many plans were made in the span of that short time period. Yes, she would stay with him wherever he decided to go. Or maybe he would just tag along with her wherever her work took her. It didn’t matter. They’d be together.

And now he was standing here outside alone waiting for her to come back from Vostok. Storybook ending. But it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. He wasn’t sure if it would
ever
end. They—all of them who had been out on the Mulock Glacier—they were going back to the States post haste at the “request” of the U. S. Government. That was to be expected, though. God only knows it was going to take at least ten governments to sort out what they had all just gone through.

The plane had left McMurdo earlier about one o’clock headed to the Russian base. It was ETA’d back here about eight thirty. It was going to be a long five hours. He’d be over at the hanger waiting when it arrived. Even though he and Allison had gone through that terrible ordeal together, they really weren’t
together
. They were only in each other’s presence.

Mike Ruger still needed his solitude. The preliminary questioning had concluded earlier that afternoon. Everybody was getting a little testy. Abbott and Lisk were still fighting with the military people who thought they were in charge of the whole thing. Abbott and him were consumed in military protocol and jurisdiction, whatever that was.

There were some security people assigned to watch over each one of them who had been involved in the event. They were important “witnesses” as the military guys had said. Ruger had to get away from these people for a little while.

He started to dress in his outer garb when the security guard assigned to him said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Ruger looked at him. “Outside for a while.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t do that.”

Ruger only looked at him again. The kid looked more scared than any of them had been out on the glacier. “You got a problem with that?” Ruger responded.

“Yes, sir. You’re supposed to stand down. I’m to keep an eye on you.”

Ruger only laughed and continued to dress, saying, “What do you think I’m going to do? Hail a taxi and leave?”

And here in the quietude of the late Antarctic afternoon, Mike Ruger looked out at the yellowish, surreal sun teetering indifferently on the top edge of the distant mountain range. He realized it was quite a bit lower today than it had been the last time he took a few moments to take in its serenity. No doubt it was. The Antarctic winter was approaching rapidly.

He thought about what they had all gone through physically. That none of them suffered any devastating effects from the cold and the exposure was nothing more than good old-fashioned earth-type luck. He closed his eyes yet again, trying one last time to etch forever in his memory this image of the ephemeral sun. He opened them.

Ruger recalled an astronaut had once described the moon as magnificent desolation. Antarctica may be earth, but it, too, was magnificent desolation.
The Ice.
Some say that it has been here forever. Some manage to put it into perspective, that it really is only temporary. Whatever.
The Ice
and the humans have not yet reconciled, and in the grand scheme of things, it is questionable they ever will.

But it was a disappearing world nonetheless, as isolated and as rugged as it may seem. It wasn’t really a matter of whether the face of Antarctica
was
going to change. It was
how.
The destruction of the alien colony only heralded that a truth—an incredible truth almost beyond modern man’s comprehension—had been there buried for thousands of years. It was gone now. Totally annihilated. Pressed into oblivion by its caretakers. No evidence left behind. Probably destined to become a myth rather than a historical fact, because the knowledge of a lost alien settlement was now in the hands of the government. But it didn’t matter to Ruger. Truth or legend. People would come to look again and again and again. Antarctica could never be the same.

Mike Ruger always knew that someday this desolate paradise would be destroyed, simply because humans insisted to come here to find themselves. He would never have thought that it was going to be destroyed while humans searched for what they are not.