There was another knock at the door.
“Sheeesh,” said Henry. “Never a dul moment.” When he opened the door Grimes stuck his head into the room, and immediately his eyes fell on Sarah. “Well,” he said, “can’t keep you two apart, can we?”
Henry opened his mouth to protest but Grimes cut him off. “The admiral wants to see you. Both of you.”
After a dizzying walk through dimly lit corridors, they entered a room lit only in red. Once Henry’s eyes had adjusted to the dark he could see the computers, the lights and the display screens. Compared with the tight quarters everywhere else on the ship, the room was almost labyrinthine.
“This is the com,” said Grimes.
A large blue screen blinked on before their eyes. A glowing tactical display grid was superimposed over a ghost image of the Ross Ice Shelf as seen from space. The screen shifted to complex topographic maps rendered in green grid lines, then back again to the tactical display. A blinking red square showed the position of McMurdo Base. Near it, a large green square outlined the mountainous terrain Henry recognized as the area of the volcano, Mount Erebus. He immediately noticed that the display also revealed data he hadn’t thought anyone actually knew — for example, there was a rendition of the bottom of the ice shelf as well as its top.
Admiral Schumacher, a small man in a white uniform, stood talking on a phone while gazing at the display. As the group entered the room he waved to General Hayes. A moment later he hung up the phone and took the general’s hand.
“Nice to see you, Tony.”
He and Hayes exchanged pleasantries for a while. Then Hayes introduced his guests by name.
The admiral smiled at everyone but Henry. In fact, the admiral couldn’t seem to call Henry by name, even after they’d been introduced, referring to him only as “the witness”. It made Henry feel like a nonentity.
Assuming the rudeness was because he was the only civilian in the room, he took it in his stride. He’d been treated that way by the military before.
Schumacher pointed to the tactical display and announced to the group that the Enterprise was authorized to monitor the situation in western Antarctica. Although he never mentioned the atomic blast, Henry could see the spot where it had occurred marked by a flashing yellow circle. The admiral told them his people had detected a subductive anomaly below the ice shelf that morning, and that the geologists theorized that the “shock wave” had blasted loose a massive piece from the bottom of the ice shelf. He added that the geologists were still trying to determine what had happened, since no tsunamis had been reported.
“We have tentatively concluded that the ice may have sustained major damage — way beyond the obvious cracks and the huge hole on the surface. The tremor that shook you awake this morning was not related to the volcano, as we originally thought.”
The phone rang and the admiral picked it up. A minute later he excused them all, saying he’d have to continue the briefing later — they’d be notified.
They found themselves back in the hall.
Later, when Henry thought about it, he realized that the admiral had never even shaken his hand, and nor had he looked him in the eye.
One of the admiral’s aides, escorting them back to their quarters, informed Hayes that the witnesses were “officially under Naval protection and might be required to assist in matters supporting the interests of the United States and the world”.
“Did you hear that, Gibbs?” asked the general.
“I did, sir,” said Henry. “Do you care to translate?”
The general smiled. “I’ll have to work on it.”
“What was that Schumacher said about the ice?”
Grimes asked the general. Hayes took another sip of coffee and passed the plate of sweetrol s over to Henry, who’d been eyeing them greedily. Sarah took one too. They were sitting in a small lounge area that was reserved for guests of the admiral. It had a TV, a card table and a stereo. Unlike the bunk rooms, it was panelled in wood. It even had a bar, although this was locked — not even the general knew anything about a key.
Henry waited for someone other than him to answer Grimes’s question, but it seemed he was the only one with any knowledge on the subject.
“Well, Grimes,” he said, “I think the admiral was saying a chunk has fall en off the bottom of the ice shelf.”
“And what does that imply?” asked Sarah.
“No one knows,” said Hayes, examining his sweetrol. “They think it may have drifted to the bottom and rebounded back to the ice. That might have been what rocked McMurdo this morning.”
“How big a piece would that be?” said Grimes.
Henry tried to remember the tactical display. “If what I recal on the screen was actual scale, then I think it was as big as… say, Long Island.”
The general nodded. “That sounds about right.”
“Long Island?” exclaimed Sarah. “You’re joking.”
“No,” said Henry. “A few years back, the Ross Ice lost a piece — an iceberg — the size of the state of Delaware. And there’ve been bigger ones than that. Pieces of ice the size of states — of small countries, in fact — break off from a lot of the different shelves; Ross, Larsen, all of them. It’s a normal occurrence.”
“My god,” said Sarah. “I had no idea.”
“Few do,” answered Henry. “The problem with the Ross Shelf is that all that ice is just hanging there over deep water — at least, that’s what we think. There’s lots of debate about it but most people reckon that if it should ever break…”
“We’ve heard it, Gibbs,” said Grimes. “You said it yourself. It ain’t gonna happen.”
The general chewed thoughtfully on his roll. “If we were sure of that, Kai, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about it, would we?”
“No comment, sir,” said Grimes, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.
The general looked back at Henry. “I was enjoying your lecture on the big ice. Care to continue?”
Henry smiled. “You just happened to hit on a favourite topic of mine. Some day I’d like to write a book about it.”
“I guess that was a loaded question,” said Hayes wryly. “Treat us to just the short form this evening, if you don’t mind.”
Henry got out of his chair to get more coffee. Shep was immediately on his feet, panting and wagging his tail. Henry noticed Shep’s tongue dripping on the carpet.
“It’s hot as hell in here. Look at Shep. He’s not used to this heat. Is there somewhere we could stay that’s not so hot?”
He poured his coffee and put about five packs of sugar in it. Sarah noticed the sugar and raised her eyebrows. Henry laughed. “Sugar freak. Old icer’s habit.”
“Quickest energy on earth,” said Hayes. “Tell me, Gibbs, what do you make of that chunk that fell off the bottom of the ice shelf?”
Henry, patting Shep, didn’t answer at once. “Just hang in there, old boy. I’ll find you a cool spot.”
An ensign sitting at the next table overheard him and looked at the dog. “Nice malamute, sir. Half-dog, half- wolf.”
Henry smiled. “I wouldn’t pet him without letting him smel you first.”
“I know. I wouldn’t,” said the ensign. “It is hot in here, sir. Especial y for an ice dog. I’ll get the heat turned down some if I can.”
Henry watched the man leave the room and smiled. Then he looked at the general.
“The ice?” prompted Hayes.
“Oh, yeah. My guess is that, when the nuke went off, it was like a pellet or a beebee hitting a sheet of glass; little hole on one side, big hole on the other. Something about resonance in a super-cooled fluid.” Then Henry shrugged. “Just a wild guess.”