Conner flicked on the light switch just inside the doorway. She squinted as the room was flooded with bright light from the overheads. “What’s that for?” she said, pointing at the other end of the room.
Devlin turned. The far end of the unit was filled with a massive control panel with uncountable gauges. It made the main generator board look puny. A three-by-three panel with a triangular warning sign was recessed into the left side. Devlin walked the twenty feet to look over the setup.
“Oh, my god. I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.” Conner hurried up to him. “What’s the matter?” Devlin turned to her, his face ashen. “This is the control panel for a nuclear reactor.”
Chapter 12
“How could they put a nuclear reactor down here? I thought reactors were huge and had lots of safety devices and all that,” Sammy asked. It was the first time she had said anything since Devlin and Conner had returned from their recon mission. The members of the team were huddled in their sleeping bags, listening to an excited Conner finish her report on the base.
“I say we go to the first set of living quarters you found and set up,” suggested Riley. In answer to his own proposal, he threw his gear over his shoulder, helped Sammy to her feet, and headed off. They left the corpse in the corridor, covered with a blanket, letting the cold continue its task of preservation.
Entering the room, Riley switched on the ceiling heaters as the rest of the team settled in. Devlin was still agitated by their most recent discovery — more than he had been over the discovery of the body. He answered the question Sammy had asked out in the corridor. “McMurdo had a nuclear reactor: the U.S. Navy set it up in ‘61 and got it on line in ‘62. They thought it would alleviate the problem of bringing in all the fuel oil every summer and would be a cheap and effective way to keep McMurdo supplied with power.”
“What happened?” Vickers was seated on a chair, leaned against the wall, obviously feeling better.
“The plant was closed in ‘72—the year after this place was built. They had a leakage of coolant water into the steam generator tank. The navy shut the thing down, and it took them three years to remove
it. When we get back to Aurora Glacier Station, I can show you where the reactor was. They put it on Observatory Hill right near Erebus, which in and of itself wasn’t too smart, since Erebus is still an active volcano.
“They shipped the reactor and a hundred and one drums of radioactive earth back to the United States and buried them somewhere. But even that didn’t make the site clean enough. The navy had to dig out more earth and ship it back. The site wasn’t opened up for what the military termed unrestricted use until 1979.”
“There’s no way they could have left a reactor down here unattended for twenty-five years,” Conner said. “I don’t know much about them, but I do know they require constant attention.”
Devlin nodded. “You’re right. But this one is off line. The plan must have been that when they reoccupied this place, they’d bring the rods with them and use the oil generators until they could get the reactor on line. But, even so, the fact that the U.S. government put a nuclear reactor — even one without the nuclear fuel — down here and abandoned is unbelievable.”
Lallo was more concerned with immediate matters. “What now? We have to wait out the storm, but what do you want to do in the meantime?”
Conner stood in front of the group. “We need to explore. Now that the lights are on, we should be able to figure out what this place was built for and maybe who built it.” She looked at Vickers. “Can you work?”
Vickers nodded. “The bleeding has stopped. As long as I don’t hit my head again I should be all right.”
“OK.” Conner was all business. “Let’s get out the cameras and take some initial footage. I want to start at the top of the staircase and work our way in, as if we were entering for the first time.”
Kerns and Vickers started opening the cases of camera and sound equipment. Devlin grabbed his flashlight and headed for the door. “I’m going down to the power plant to see what I can find out about the actual reactor. They must have offset it from this base, and maybe I can find the location.”
The room rapidly emptied until Sammy was left with Riley and Swenson. The pilot walked over to one of the beds and flopped down on it. “I’m going to catch me some shut-eye so I’ll be ready to fly when this storm does break.” With that he pulled the pillow over his head.
“Let’s take a walk,” Riley suggested to Sammy.
They could hear Conner and her camera crew clattering on the stairs in the access shaft. Riley walked to the doorway straight across the hall and entered the first unit that Devlin and Conner had explored.
Riley switched on the lights. It was obvious this was some sort of communications setup. Against the walls were several radio consoles with chairs in front of them. Riley flicked the on switch for one, and the set hummed. “They’ve got a lot of redundant commo equipment here,” he remarked to Sammy. He pointed. “That’s an HF — high frequency — radio. That looks like a SATCOM — satellite communications — rig. I used both types when I was in the service.”
He fiddled with the knobs, trying to see if he could get something. A dull hiss was all that came out of the speakers. Riley suddenly slapped his hand on the panel in disgust. “Shit. Sometimes I’m so dumb. The antennas probably blew away a long time ago, if they ever put them out.”
Sammy pointed to the far left corner of the room where a large number of wires ran into a shaft that disappeared into the ceiling. ‘That must be where the antenna wires run up next to the entrance shaft.”
A transmitter on the other side caught her attention. Several large boxes containing long-lasting batteries surrounded it. A placard on the front read “Eternity Base Transponder. Frequency: 45.83.”
“What’s this?” she asked.
Riley came over and examined the set. “That’s how the builders of this base planned to find it once it was covered over. The transponder is set to be initiated by a plane’s radio. The pilot dials up the proper frequency — 45.83 — on the radio and presses his transmit button. That turns on this transponder. The pilot then homes in on the radio beacon.
“It’s the same system set up at small airfields. It allows pilots to turn on the airfield light when they approach at night and the tower isn’t manned. The antenna is probably built into the roof of the access shaft.”
Riley looked at the various gauges. There was no juice left in the batteries, but they were now slowly recharging with the main power on. Even the cold of Antarctica couldn’t have kept the batteries alive for twenty-five years.
The two left the radio room and moved on to the next unit. It was another set of living quarters, except this one was more lavish. There were two bedrooms and a small living room. Sammy moved into the smaller bedroom and immediately spotted a large blue binder conspicuously placed on top of the bed. An envelope was taped to the outside of the binder. PETER was written in block letters on the outside of the envelope.
Sammy carefully peeled off the envelope. It was sealed. She stuffed it in her pocket, then picked up the binder and rejoined Riley, showing him only the binder.
With the reenactment of the entry into the base completed, Conner guided her crew to the first unit to the right. She narrated as she led the way. “I have labeled the various units according to their row and column for identification purposes. The row nearest the entry shaft is row A. The next will be row B and so on. The column farthest from the shaft is column one, the middle column is column two, and the one closest to the shaft is column three. Thus we have just left unit A3, which appeared to be a communications setup.