Three thousand feet underground, a boom-mounted drill came alive with a percussive jolt, its tungsten carbide bit boring into solid rock. Protected from its deafening clatter inside their safety cabin, the drill controller and his assistants breathed filtered air behind the face shields of their high-efficiency, closed-circuit respirator helmets.
Two thousand feet underground, a large jaw crusher began grinding and smashing the contents of its mineral fill chamber, the first stage in the yield’s multistage separation process.
A thousand feet higher, a pair of specialized trolley-assisted haul trucks, slung low for tunnel clearance, started forward on an inclined concrete ramp. On a stone shelf several levels beneath the surface, their semiprocessed loads would be stored in excavated pockets until ready to be moved into the open and rigged for helicopter airlift to the coast.
Soon after Erebus quieted, the trucks ceased to roll.
The deep drilling continued longer, a departure from the original requirement that it start and stop in tight coordination with Erebus’s rumbling expulsions. Once needed to preserve secrecy, the precaution was now followed only when opportune. Methods had changed after a half decade of continuous production. Engineering breakthroughs, advanced sound-baffling techniques, the current depth of excavation, and a shrewd, cavalier willingness to exploit every aspect of the unique environment had all led to terrific progress since the initial investment bore first fruit.
Five years. Expanding markets. Soaring profit margins. Things were going sensationally well. Output had reached an unbridled peak, and further growth was a given provided operations were allowed to keep running smoothly.
Like any other commercial organization, the Consortium was determined to ensure that no obstacles arose to interfere with its success.
The broad subject of the meeting was UpLink International, and those in attendance had come with understandable and fairly similar concerns.
His sky-blue eyes astute behind his reading glasses, Gabriel Morgan smiled from the head of the conference table; a great, expansive, vigorous whopper of a smile. Lots of teeth, his fleshy mastiff cheeks drawn up, his wide brow creased under a deliberately uncombed thatch of silver hair. Every facial muscle enlisted to make it the heartiest smile possible.
This was not to say his attitude was light or blasé. Albedo was his brainchild, and he better than anyone else at the table understood that this session had been called to deal with a matter of pressing importance. But a smile could be spirited and serious at the same time, no contradiction. He’d learned that under the tutelage of his father at a very young age, the same way his father had learned from his grandfather. As chairman of the group, Morgan knew one of his fundamental responsibilities was to exude calm authority, soothe jitters, allay undue fears. Reassure his partners that he had a full awareness of the developments in Antarctica, knew their particulars top to bottom, and would by no means allow them to progress into a crisis situation. That they amounted to minor stumbling blocks, bothersome but easily remediable hassles.
Morgan trusted his ability to manage, and knew one of the keystones of his success was a talent for passing his confidence right on down the line. Business executives and government officials from several different countries, the people around him were behind-the-scenes movers, concealed switches embedded deep within the world’s political machinery. Men and women who could trip the right circuits and — by virtue of their relative obscurity — initiate activities their nominal superiors either would not or could not authorize. But he was the prime mover. The well of encouragement they turned to when their buckets needed replenishing. And his smile was an invaluable, pliable utensil that helped him ladle out the goods.
He shifted his thickset frame in his chair. On his immediate right, Olav Langkafel, a quiet but integral cog in Norway’s Energy and Petroleum Ministry, was voicing an anxious hypothetical about the close reconnaissance capabilities UpLink might have out there on the ice. Morgan decided to address it with an example that would also hopefully resolve some of the issues raised by his six other guests. Give them the overview they seemed to be missing.
“Before you go on with that last what-if, let me ask you a question,” he said, raising a finger in the air. “Are you by any chance acquainted with the term ‘zoo event’?”
Langkafel was momentarily nonplussed. Morgan supposed it wasn’t too often that he got interrupted.
“No,” he replied. “I am not.”
Morgan slid his glasses down the bridge of his nose, regarding the Norwegian over their solid-gold rims. A man of few words, Langkafel. Blond hair and mustache, fair complexion, stern features. In his navy-blue suit, white shirt, and red tie, he gave off an almost regimental air.
Morgan added a dimension of wise understanding to his self-assured smile… with just the merest hint of condescension thrown in to keep Langkafel in line. It was a delicate balance. His goal was to communicate that he was far enough ahead of the game to have expected Langkafel’s response, but that the expectation signified neither dismissiveness nor a lack of respect.
“The phrase is pretty obscure,” he said. “Caught my ear a while back, though, and stuck with me. I like how it’s sort of mysterious, but not so dramatic you’d think a Hollywood screenwriter dreamed it up. It refers to something that happened near Bouvetoya Island, right at the edge of the Antarctic Circle, a frigid hunk of rock I’m betting you have heard about. Your country’s held a territorial claim on it for a while, correct?”
Langkafel nodded rigidly. “Bouvetoya is a designated nature preserve with few natural resources worth mentioning. Its chief value is as a site for satellite weather stations.”
Morgan knew that, of course. And he had known Langkafel would know. But he wanted to spread around the verbiage, engage the group, get his points across without appearing to lecture. It was an approach he’d borrowed from trial lawyers: When the goal was to deliver information through someone else’s his lips, you never asked a question whose answer wasn’t entirely predictable. Whether you were in the courtroom or boardroom, the essential tactic was the same.
Mindful of his digestive problems, Morgan resisted the tray of biscotti in front of him, and instead raised a glass of carbonated mineral water to his lips. He drank slowly, watching buds of filtered sunlight shrivel on the burgundy curtains over the room’s terrace doors. Two floors below, in the main hall of the restored medieval guild house he had occupied since his lamented flight from the States, the art gallery his family had run for nearly a hundred years was silent, its staff having canceled the day’s appointments at his instruction. With dusk, the specialty shops and fashion houses along the right bank of the Limma would be closing as well. Morgan imagined their owners offering courtly good-nights to prosperous clients, the musical tinkle of chimes above their shutting entries, and then their lights blinking out one by one. That was Zurich for him. A city of ritualized decorum and sterile elegance. Of priggish, elitist bankers and financiers.
And, Morgan thought, of ultimately civilized exiles.
He put down his glass, scanning the group around the table, his eyes gliding from person to person. Stored in his mind were two curricula vitae for each of them — the public and private, sanctioned and unsanctioned, licit and illicit details of their personal lives and careers. All were tangled up in invisible strings, pulling some while they themselves got pulled by others.