She looked at Cain.
‘Say Scott Base. That’ll square with the Herc.’
‘We’re from Scott Base. Over.’
The reply wasn’t instant. ‘Affirmative on base. We don’t have you visually. Over.’
‘We’ll try to fix that. Over.’
‘Received. We stay here for today. Too much drift obscuring the slots. Got a quad on board but we’d slot if we tried to visit. Forecast tomorrow is fine. We think we’ve got you on the radar and we’ll try to get to you tomorrow. Sked tomorrow, 900 hours on channel 8? Confirm please. Over.’
‘Thanks, trav. Very welcome. Looking forward to tomorrow. Nine hundred on eight confirmed. Out.’ She looked at Cain. ‘Could they be from Amundsen Scott?’ It was the American South Pole base.
‘Unlikely.’
‘McMurdo?’
‘Too far off.’
‘And how come they don’t ask difficult questions?’
‘May not be locals.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Raul crowed, ‘You see? A step into the unknown. That’s the way to live at every moment of your existence. Admit all possibilities.’
Hunt’s jaundiced look. ‘Gustave, you’re alive because of us — not you.’
The next morning was fine. Clear skies with hard-packed snow and, further off, fields of low sastrugi. And the searing brilliance of the hazardous sun. Raul called a council of war. They conned Eve into handling the second radio exchange — hoping her accent would make it convincing.
‘If you talk about the Hagg,’ Cain told her, ‘call it a haggis. Kiwis call them that.’
The sked went well but the response was now even more cautious. When Eve asked who they were they said a private expedition.
Hunt looked sceptical. ‘They’re playing it close to the chest.’
Bell and Cain took turns to monitor the far-off speck, standing back to the wind but turning every so often to check, stamping to try and keep warm. But the traverse didn’t move.
During his downtime, Cain checked on the pope. The old man had survived so well because he’d stayed sheltered. He made sure John was as comfortable as one could be in a tilted plastic box on a white hell, then read more of the manuscript while John watched his frowns. The difficult second chapter was titled ‘Effort versus Entropy’. The terms were unfamiliar and it was heavy going.
‘You seem to be attempting a realignment of your Church.’
‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do…’ John stared at the glare through the slanting window. ‘I never wanted this job, but I haven’t ceased to do it. The Church has abandoned its metaphysics for a sloppy feel-good approach that has no tone. I’m pointing that out.’
‘At the moment you sound as much a hardliner as Wojtyla.’
‘Far from it. Don’t miss my point. I’m not preaching control and suppression. God knows we’ve had enough of that. Discipline and doctrine are no substitute for life.’
‘I’m also starting to see that I’ve never understood your religion.’
The pope looked at him soberly. ‘Good. Try to remember the means is not the end. But still, you change the means at your peril. An odd statement from someone they considered a dangerous eccentric, wouldn’t you say?’
Cain nodded slowly. Every time he spoke to this man, new depths of understanding were offered. ‘You make me feel a pygmy.’
The pope chuckled. ‘You’re not that. But there’s always more to see. You have some idea of what I’ve come to but forget the tradition that produced me.’
‘I misunderstood you?’
‘No. But if you stumble on the last act of a play, don’t be surprised that there was a first.’
Bell’s shout from outside. Finally the traverse had moved. Cain got out and crunched toward him through the energy-sapping snow. They stood on the glaring expanse under the glaring sky, watching the specks crawl. The austerity of the scene, the quality of the light, the sense of space, stillness, loneliness, was astonishing.
‘Grandeur. Isolation.’ Bell lowered the binoculars, revealing white frost patches on his nose and cheeks. ‘I have to say, this place is magnificent.’
‘Pity it kills you. Where’s your face mask?’
‘Can’t stand the thing.’ He pulled up the adjustment straps on his gauntlets then used the pile-facing of one to warm his cheeks and nose. That nose, Cain knew, would soon be hard and, later still, black. His plastic surgeon wouldn’t be impressed. Raul and his troops didn’t understand what frostbite could do to them, the eventual, terrible stabbing pains. Later the red raw flesh. Then the blackening, gangrene. Well, he’d warned them — and respected their right to damage themselves as they wished.
Raul was in the Hagg’s front cabin with Hunt and Eve handling communications. Mullins had gathered combustibles to make a fire. He’d poured kerosene over the pile and now had the plastic container from inside the back cab. As he emptied the last of their spare engine oil on the mound, his unwieldy gear, in profile, made him resemble a painted egg on legs.
Bell handed the glasses to Cain. ‘They’re moving very slowly.’
‘It’s big stuff. Converted wide-track bulldozers hauling up to 50 tonnes each. They’d average 4 kilometres an hour — a bit under walking pace.’
There were two trains. They shimmered and floated but looked real enough. By noon, one was far off on the horizon as if maintaining its original course and the other was heading towards them.
Cain and Bell went out again, numbness striking into their limbs.
‘The one in the distance,’ Bell said, ‘looks like a mining rig. Seems to be carrying lengths of pipe.’
‘That could be why they’re so coy. The Antarctic Treaty vetoes mining and everyone bleats about doing pure science but the bottom line’s political advantage — finger in the pie.’
Raul’s head appeared through the roof hatch. ‘They’ve got us on radar and seen the smoke. You can come in and defrost.’
While the mining train became a shimmering speck far ahead, the other grew enormous as it closed in. When they emerged again to watch it, it looked conventional enough — the sledges at the front stacked with fuel drums and heavy items to smooth out the track. Then came living vans, workshop and generator vans — converted shipping containers all.
Bell gasped, ‘It’s big.’
‘Could have everything — even hot showers.’
‘Fantastic.’
When it was a few hundred metres away, two men came out and stood on the metal catwalk that ran the length of an accommodation sled. All the sledges had a side catwalk with steps each end and A-frames steered the front runners. This was some rig — full scale, elaborate, no expense spared.
Raul, Mullins and Hunt joined them on the ice just as the snowplough on the dozer lost its glint.
‘Shit,’ Bell yelped, ‘they’re turning, veering off. Are they worried about crevasses?’
‘They’re suspicious more likely.’
‘Get those skis on.’ Raul waved an urgent arm at Bell. ‘And get the guns. But keep them out of sight.’
His men freed the skis they’d strapped, days ago, to the ramp boards.
The train was now side-on to them, running parallel. Hunt had the binoculars. ‘The guys on the porch are sussing us out. One’s going inside.’
‘They’re changing course again,’ Raul bellowed, ‘heading away!’
Cain glanced back at the Hagg. The wind had lifted the corner of the tarp. A small section of the striped design was visible. That? Or had they radioed their base?
Raul, his chance of survival disappearing, yelled at Bell, ‘Go, go!’ He slung an M–4 across his back and squeaked across the snow, paused, panting, dizzy, then started to lumber toward the train as Bell went past him on the skis. Mullins was stumbling as fast as he could, carbine ready, desperate to live. Cain knew they’d soon be exhausted. The big oaf was already limping.