The two women approached the edge of the large crevice and looked down at one of the deepest gaps they had seen. They guessed it was close to fifty feet deep and tip toed carefully along the edge, knowing that the edge was often still unstable. Tadri knelt down and positioned her small laser unit for what felt like the ten thousandth time. She turned it on and looked at the bright red line extending across the gap. Then she turned the small wheel along the bottom, slowly dropping the angle of the laser until the bright spot appeared on the lip of the opposite wall. Tadri read the figure on the display. “Forty three feet, seven and three eighths inches.”
Kathryn stood behind her and entered the measurement on a large handheld device which automatically locked in their GPS location.
Tadri then turned a second laser downward, focusing on the bottom of the crevice. “Fifty three feet, three inches and one sixteenth.”
Kathryn entered the numbers and frowned. She hit a button and displayed all of the measurements in a spreadsheet view. Running down the list she noticed something. “Hmm.”
Tadri stood up and turned around. “What’s up?”
“Have you noticed a trend here as we move south?”
Tadri thought a minute. “It’s getting deeper isn’t it?”
Kathryn nodded.
“That’s not good,” Tadri said. “If it’s getting deeper the further in we go that makes it very unlikely it’s a surface fracture and —“
“And it extends through the Shelf,” finished Kathryn.
A few hundred yards away, Pierre secured the last leg of his SatQuake. He stood up and dusted the ice off his knees. He looked south at the rest of the group and started to turn when something caught his eye. He turned and looked back down at the seismograph below him. The red light on top was lit. Pierre stared at the bright LED bulb for a moment and then reached down and hit the reset button. The light went off. He nodded and picked up his pack. He turned and took a few steps before stopping again. He turned back to the SatQuake. The red light was on again.
Pierre grabbed the walkie-talkie from his hip and held it up to his mouth. He pressed down the transmit button. “Hey Kathryn, you there?”
Kathryn heard Pierre’s voice on her own hip and grabbed her walkie-talkie. She looked back at Pierre who she could see clearly but was well out of earshot. “Go ahead Pierre.”
“I think we have a bad SatQuake unit here.” he said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The alert light keeps coming on.” He looked around and did a three hundred and sixty degree scan. “It’s either not working right or the sensor is too sensitive. There’s no other noise around to pick up.”
“Did you try the reset?”
“Yep,” Pierre answered. He pressed the reset again and watched the light go off. After several seconds it came on again. “Just tried it again. Still comes back on.” He looked back the way they came. “Didn’t have this problem on any of the others.”
“Is it syncing with the satellite alright?” asked Kathryn.
“Seems to be. Both battery and satellite lights are green.”
“That’s strange,” said Kathryn. “I wonder what the problem is.”
“Beat’s me. What do you want me to do?”
“Just leave it. I’ll note that it’s having issues. Grab the snowmobile and come on over.”
“Will do. Gonna grab a snack. See ya in a few.” He replaced the walkie-talkie on his hip and knelt down to dig through his pack for an energy bar.
Kathryn watched Pierre in the distance rummaging through his bag. She looked down at Tadri who was folding up the laser. “Looks like we have a bad seismograph.”
“Well, I guess it was bound to happen.” Tadri collapsed the small legs on the unit and slid it back into a thick duffel bag.
“Guess so. They’re pretty reliable though. I can’t remember the last time we had a bad-“
Tadri turned around to see why Kathryn had stopped talking and found her gazing at Pierre in the distance. She looked back at Tadri and slowly pulled the walkie-talkie back from her hip. She held it to her mouth and slowly pushed the button again.
“Pierre. Can you hear me?” Kathryn shot Tadri a worried look as she waited for a reply. Tadri’s eyes suddenly opened wide.
“Yeah Kathryn, go ahead.” came Pierre’s voice.
“Pierre, get away from the ridge.”
“What?”
Kathryn squeezed the small transmitter in her hand. “Get away from the edge!”
“What for?” he asked.
Kathryn looked at Tadri and pressed the transmit button down again. “That unit may not be broken.”
Pierre heard her voice and turned south to look at them. Before he could reply the ice below them began to shake.
Kathryn’s eyes widened. She looked at the ground then back to Tadri. The shaking intensified, causing them to stumble and grab each other for support. “RUN!” she shouted.
Tadri was thrown to the ground and quickly rolled over, continuing forward on her hands and knees as Kathryn looked for Pierre. He had disappeared behind the thick wall of white mist rising from the fractures splitting the frozen ground. Kathryn raised the walkie-talkie to her mouth, trying desperately to stay on her feet. “Pierre?!” she shouted. She tried to peer through the thick mist. “Pierre!” The sound of the quake thundered all around them, and she held the small unit up against her ear. There was no reply. She held the button down again and screamed as loud as she could. “PIERRE!”
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands squeezed the back of her parka like a vice. Kathryn fell to the ground and looked up to find Andrew dragging her behind him away from the giant crack in the surface, which was now opening wider. He trudged forward, stumbling from side to side and struggling to stay on his feet, through the violent shaking. After thirty or forty feet, he finally lost his balance and fell to the ground but continued scrambling forward pulling Kathryn behind him.
The world suddenly felt in slow motion as Kathryn kicked at the icy ground trying to help further their distance. She could see large pieces where they were just standing suddenly crack and fall into what now looked like a chasm inching its way toward them. She twisted her body to the outside and then onto her hands and knees in a desperate attempt to get further away from the edge. She followed Andrew towards Tadri who was also on her hands and knees ahead of them. Something Kathryn noticed but would not process until later was that during their mad scramble, Andrew’s face seemed oddly composed as he kept scanning the area around them and looking backward. How in the world could he remain so focused?
Finally, the rumbling subsided and the ground gradually became still again. They were left on the ground panting, surrounded in a white fog created by the breaking of massive amounts of ice shelf. The crack in the earth was barely visible in front of them through the thick white curtain but it looked frighteningly wide. Kathryn was staring at what little she could see of the giant crack, when she realized that Andrew was patting her down and turning her body from side to side. When he was confident that she had sustained no injuries, he quickly made his way to Tadri and repeated the process.
He returned to Kathryn moments later and pulled the walkie-talkie from her hand. Pressing down on the large button he called out for Pierre. “Pierre, mate are you there?” He moved the device away from his mouth and listened. After a long pause, he shook his head. With a jerk, he ripped a whistle and cord from around of his neck and dropped it into her lap. “Wait here,” he said peering into the thick fog. Without another word, he pulled a small digital compass from a jacket pocket, held it up for a moment, and disappeared into nothingness.