Shep was still standing over the other dog, whining. Henry hurried to Shep’s side to find his worst fears realized. His beloved Sadie was lying on her side, cold and stiff. Like the rest of his dogs, she’d been cut down with automatic weapons. She’d been hit three times. All around her the snow was stained pink with blood.
He fell to his knees and wept.
The only thought that comforted him was that Sadie probably hadn’t suffered. She’d died with four other dogs, and death had likely come instantly. He guessed his other dogs had been killed as well, but he could find no trace of them.
He still had his sled, and with some difficulty he was able to find most of his gear. It had been strewn around after being searched, then buried under a foot or so of snow — just enough to make it invisible to an aerial- survey team. Some of his food was gone, but he managed to find a few high-energy snacks and his water. Eventually he even discovered his compass and field glasses.
While he was digging around trying to locate his gear under the snow, Shep ran off to the east. Henry called after him, but the dog kept running.
“Shit, they fucked you up too,” muttered the meteorologist. He watched helplessly as Shep disappeared into the distance behind the ice hill.
Sitting on the back of the sled, Henry took stock of his situation. It was clear he’d never get back to McMurdo without dogs. All he could do was survive until a rescue party found him. But he knew that wouldn’t happen, because no one would look for him. McMurdo wouldn’t notice he was missing for at least two weeks, and by then it would be unlikely he’d ever be found.
“The only way out of this is to take a fifty-mile hike, I guess. No problem. Piece of cake.”
Shep’s bark echoed across the ice, and then the voices of other dogs.
Henry ducked down next to his sled and started looking for his rifle. He ripped it from its carrying bag and began assembling it as quickly as he could. Adrenaline started pumping through his veins as he snapped a clip into the base of the survival gun and pulled back the bolt.
Shep appeared suddenly at the top of the ice hill, then ran towards him. A second later three of his other dogs appeared. Soon they were on top of Henry, licking his face and panting gleeful y, glad to be alive and reunited with their true leader. Eventually all the dogs took turns examining the bodies of their col eagues, but soon they were grouped near the sled, ready to be hitched up and mushed on their way back to McMurdo.
Henry Gibbs was not a religious man. The loss of his family had convinced him of the blank unholy randomness of nature. He admitted the power of faith, if only to give each of us false hope — better than no hope at all, he reasoned. Even so, as the deep blue sky domed above him and he reflected over his amazing luck, he had to say a silent prayer of thanks to the powers above for the second chance he’d been given. Four dogs were far short of the nine he needed, but, if he stripped his gear and carried only his essentials, they might just get him to McMurdo.
He hiked to the top of the ice hill and surveyed the horizon with his binoculars. He was alone. Whoever those fake Norwegians were, they had acted very efficiently, like military professionals. They’d left no trace of themselves or their mission. As far as he could see, they’d come and gone like ghosts.
Finally, after three painful hours of sorting through his gear and giving his slaughtered dogs a decent burial, he was at last on his way to McMurdo. Shep and the three others had to strain to get the sled moving, but soon they managed to bring it up to walking speed. Tired and in pain, Henry would gladly have ridden on the sled, but he knew his weight would be the difference between getting to McMurdo and freezing to death out here on the ice.
The strangers had taken just about all of his food, leaving only some high-energy snacks and his sack of dog biscuits. Whatever food value the biscuits had would have to go to the dogs. That left him only the ten granola bars and two packets of powdered milk he’d stashed at the bottom of his knapsack.
He decided to act as though he had no food at all. Even his granola might have to go to the dogs before he got home.
Every hour he stopped the dogs and let them rest.
During those times he’d give each of them one dog biscuit and some water. He had allowed himself only one granola bar, to begin his journey, but had mixed up the powdered milk with some water in his canteen. After about twenty minutes’ rest, he would check his compass, take a sip of milk, and mush the dogs onward towards the north. He knew he had to head towards the magnetic South Pole — this in spite of the fact that the geological South Pole was in the opposite direction. Things could get very confusing in Antarctica.
As he moved farther away from the site of his encounter with the faux-Norwegians, as he now thought of them, his sadness and fear began to subside, to be replaced by rage. Perhaps he was spoiled by the usual courtesies of the local Antarctic citizenry, but he had to admit it was damned rude to shoot a stranger just for asking about the weather. Of course, there might have been some justice to it. He was, after all, a weatherman.
“Figured I was gonna steal their radio… start my own weather station!” he snarled. “Damn good reason to kill a man and his dogs. Damned good fuckin’ reason.”
The day wore on as he and his depleted team pushed north, with only the sun, slipping low across the sky in a long lazy arc, as witness to their efforts. To pass the time, Henry thought about the ice he was crossing. It wasn’t like lake ice or even like a glacier. This was ice that had been forming for millions of years, building in the midlands of the western Antarctic continent and moving towards the sea.
Beneath his tiny sled lay a vast labyrinth of frozen water laid down in layers over the eons. Down there, pollen grains from ancient plants — blown on the world’s winds until they ended up entombed among dust, sand, bacteria, and all the other microscopic traces of history — were sealed forever in layers of ancient ice that, like the rings of a tree, were full of data concerning the history of life.
But the most remarkable thing to Henry about the Ross Ice Shelf was the fact that below the ice was water, not rock. The entire mass on which he stood, some of it over a thousand feet thick, bridged a massive bay, covering over 330,000 square miles, an area the size of Western Europe, and anchored on bedrock on only three sides. He knew that, if the ice ever broke free of the rock and floated, it would raise the oceans of the world more than 25 feet and change the face of human civilization.
At last he could walk no longer. As he raised his tent, he staggered from pain and exhaustion. It took him only a minute to unroll his sleeping bag and crawl into it. Finally he called his four dogs into the tent with him.
“Fuck it,” he said as he observed Shep’s reluctance to enter the tent. “I know it’s against the law of the great Henry Scott Gibbs, polar explorer, but I need to get warm tonight, Shep. So get your butt in here.”
He reached into the sack of biscuits and gave one to each dog, saying, “Don’t spend it all at once.” Shep whimpered a little, as though saying, “This is your idea, not mine,” but, as soon as he entered the little tent, settled happily against Henry. The dog seemed to direct the proceedings with an occasional growl as the other three huskies — Sam, Mol y and Lil Spike — careful y arranged themselves in what little floor space was left. Henry took a painkiller with a sip of milk and quickly fell asleep. For the first time in his life, he slept with a loaded rifle at his side.