After the initial security scans at the heavily armed entrance guardhouse, the two of them were cleared through.
Vanqua said, ‘Chilly,’ vapour pouring from his mouth.
She nodded and they walked down the main tunnel. Its walls, rough and dry as concrete, had the sheen of fine plaster and supported sagging electrical cable and insulated plastic water pipes. The temperature in the corridors never rose beyond zero.
The base was dug into the ice cap and covered with arched roofing. Its network of corridors tended to creep sideways so needed frequent repair. Below its three main domes were accommodation blocks made from modular units flown in as kits. As the main holding-block entrance door opened, condensed vapour billowed out like smoke. They went into the boot room, shed their anoraks and felt-lined rubber overboots. In the next annexe, they discarded their gloves, glove liners and two layers of polypropylene. The temperature here, while not warm, was as pleasant as a winter’s day. They preferred to keep it at a moderate 12 degrees centigrade. Adam Pohl, the base commander, welcomed them. ‘Good trip?’
Rhonda said, ‘Beautiful.’
Vanqua shrugged. ‘I slept.’
‘We’re ready,’ Pohl said, eager to please. The last of his hair sheltered behind his ears but he sported a neat grey beard — cropped to give a decent air-seal on breathing gear for fire crew drills. In the extreme cold here, facial hair became caked with ice and dripped when you entered the warmth of heated vehicles or huts. Yet some of the Antarctic staff at Alpha still wore beards. And, at Vostok, according to the wags, even some of the women.
Pohl and the base administrative officer escorted them to the table for the signing. She looked down at the three orders, each countersigned five times. The names at the top were famous. One of the men was from the Far East, one from eastern Europe, one an African.
She signed at the bottom of all three sheets then handed the pen to Vanqua. But he had produced his own pen, a palladium-coated Lamy Swift. As he clicked the point down, the clip retreated until flush with the barrel. A reflection of himself, she thought. Form obsessed with function, function followed by fatality. She contemplated his face, the smooth skin, fair hair, muscled neck. He was a good-looking man with the attitude of a monk. His dismal, desiccated nature made him almost unapproachable.
He signed the papers. Pohl and the AO witnessed the signatures. Then she walked with Vanqua and Pohl to the electrocution bay.
It was in a converted container. No separate viewing room, no chair. Witnesses stood around the sides on a rubber mat. In the centre of the floor, raised on four ceramic insulators, was an unpadded wooden slab fitted with leg, arm, chest clamps and a head dome. On the wall was the edict: DEATH IS AN ASPECT OF LIFE.
A shivering man with a lined face and neat moustache lay clamped to the slab. His face, the subject of photographs and video clips for twenty years, was sallow now. His head and calves were shaved and he was naked except for a diaper. The subjects were brought in unclothed because it made handling simpler for the vat. The diaper handled involuntary voiding. The electric current paralysed motor functions but sensory functions continued.
The two surgeons fitted the copper-and-sponge-lined dome to the victim’s head. Some of the saline solution dripped down his cheek. They attached the electrodes to each of his calves. The 2400 volts would enter his skull and fork out his legs.
Vanqua asked the man, ‘Are you comfortable?’
She glanced at him sourly. The fastidious prick was funny as a bedsore. But perhaps it wasn’t intended as derision.
The shackled man’s mouth turned down. He ignored it, teeth chattering. The attendants nodded to Pohl and left the room.
There was a small metal box on the wall beside a lever with a rubber handle and gauges showing voltage and amperage. Pohl removed a stethoscope from the box, hung it around his neck and grasped the handle. ‘Is the original verified?’
She muttered, ‘Verified.’
Vanqua repeated it.
Pohl pushed back his sleeve to see the second hand of his watch.
The condemned man roared, ‘I’m cold.’
You’ll be warm in a minute, she thought, you genocide-loving hyena.
She nodded.
Pohl closed the contact.
The man’s brief scream was choked off as he went into spasm. Fists clenched, back arched, his body slammed against the straps. Steam drifted from beneath the metal cap and his face became a strictured mask. According to the manual, his brain would eventually cook at 60 degrees centigrade. But there was evidence that the skull was a bad conductor — that, while the body burnt, the brain still functioned.
Barbaric, Rhonda thought. But the five powers considered this humane. Wolf had recommended that subjects be stripped and staked in the snow — a solution too sensible for the bureaucratic mind.
The man’s face, hands and toes contorted and his sinews stood out against his quickly reddening flesh. His eyes bulged and vomit trickled from his mouth. The skin attached to the electrodes was burning.
Pohl frowned at his gauges. ‘Stupid business. The voltage always drops ten per cent and the current goes up as the body gets saturated. Resistance is the problem.’
Vanqua covered his nose with a monogrammed handkerchief. The room now stank.
After two one-minute jolts, Pohl shut off the power and put the stethoscope to the man’s chest. He shook his head. The heart still pumped. The man’s spasm had relaxed. He shuddered and gasped in a breath.
Pohl went back and threw the switch again.
The body bucked and yellow flame shot from the side of the head. The skin was stretching, the figure swelling as it started to cook.
Rhonda endured the stench by composing a liturgy for electrocutions. How would it go? ‘Peace on earthing and good connections to all primary stakes’?
Pohl still stared at his watch.
Blood now spurted from the nose, the skin of the head smoked and began to peel from the skull.
The power was turned off and Pohl checked the heart again. This time it seemed successful but you could never be sure. They’d had two subjects revive before going into the vat. Pohl nodded, shrugged, and they filed from the room. The corpse had to cool before they could move it.
Vanqua refolded his handkerchief. He seemed subdued. Had the events on the carrier sobered him?
After the three originals were done, they had dinner in the mess where Pohl entertained them with a fund of excellent jokes, all clean. He never offended good taste. Despite the nature of their work, EXIT had many decent people.
Well fed, she went to see the ‘acid drops’.
The room was a dismal space, bare except for the vat, a chain hoist on an overhead rail and two metal chairs. Two of the originals, hideous in death, were chin-strapped and ready for the hook. The third, neck stretched by his weight, was pulled along the rail until he dangled over the tall alloy tank.
Rhonda sat uncomfortably, sticky-date pudding heavy on her stomach. She knew she ate too much. But with diets, knowledge wasn’t power.
Vanqua sat beside her, looking glum. Both department heads had to witness the dissolving and confirm all physical trace had gone.
She nodded and the attendant surgeon pressed a button on the control stalk. He wore protective overalls, acid-resistant boots and a helmet with a visor.
The body was lowered very slowly. A splash would eat through the floor. The air was pervaded by a sharpness that attacked the back of the nose.
As the feet went in, steam rose from the vat. The angled convex mirror attached to the ceiling was clouded now but later would show nothing but the ends of the corroded harness.
As she watched the body go in, she mused on the events of the year. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the ferment in eastern Europe, even China. Developments in Nicaragua, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq. In Angola, Cuba, South Africa, Palestine, Yugoslavia. George Bush now certain to make it in America. An astonishingly volatile time with huge implications for the future. And EXIT, despite internal problems, had done extremely well.