It looked like Fritz! Owen began looking for a place to land.
Glaciers nosed into the valley but were too steep and broken to serve as a safe runway. Hart flew over the enclosing ridgeline again and scouted the smoother slopes on the seaward side. There was a promising plateau of snow near the flank of the volcano that formed the island's snug harbor. The pilot put down there and climbed out, squinting at the darkening sky.
The wind was rising so he ran lines from the wings and tied them to metal swastika stakes he found in the back of the plane. "The first practical use of these damned things the whole trip," he muttered to himself, driving the stakes into the hard snow. He wrapped a tarp around the engine cowling and another around the cockpit bubble and set out with his backpack and the drug. The empty panorama was intimidating but the pilot admitted he actually liked being alone again for a moment. It reminded him of his independence in Alaska.
The most direct route led down the face of a glacier cut by crevasses, but he decided it would be safer to circle to the flank of the volcano and descend its smoother slope into the valley. The hiking was uncomfortable. His feet slipped on snow patches and loose rock and the gauze disease mask warmed his face but also tended to ice up. When he reached the frozen lake at the bottom he confirmed that its ice was as strange as the rest of Antarctica. Pockets of dust had melted into its thick covering at a faster rate than more reflective places, producing a labyrinth of waist-high undulations or frozen waves.
He hurried on. As he neared the site where he'd spotted the sprawled SS soldiers Fritz skittered down a pumice slope to meet him, waving his arms to get Owen to stop short. The sailor was masked with a handkerchief like a bandit. They paused at a cautious distance.
"Don't come any closer, Owen, as much as I'd love to give you a hug, my friend! Your airplane made me happier than a lingerie merchant in a heated harem!"
"Don't be too enthused. Before you get to fly away you have to walk to the Dornier, Fritz. Several miles."
"Better than sitting here! I was about to freeze stiffer than Nazi protocol!"
Hart smiled. "Well, your tongue is still working, at least. Is the rest of you sick?"
He nodded. "I thought maybe I'd escaped but I'm beginning to ache. The truth is, I'm frightened. I'm babbling because I've seen what the disease does to others. It's monstrous."
The pilot threw him a canteen. "Drink this. It may save your life."
Fritz lifted the bottom of his mask and took a swig. "Ach!" He sputtered and coughed. "What is it? Penguin pee?"
"Medicine. I know it's vile. I've had some myself."
"So of course you want to share." He cautiously drank again.
"Greta thinks it may be an antidote, an antibiotic, that fights the plague microbes. It's terrible but you've got to drink as much as you can. We found it in that cave."
Fritz drank some more and grimaced. "Marched, diseased, now poisoned: I've had better cruises. Still, if this doesn't help I'm going to die, my friend." His eyes were somber.
"The others?"
"Gone already. Horrible pain. Some of them contorted like pretzels."
"Yet you're too unsociable even for microbes?"
"No, just for Schultz, God rest his soul. He was so tired of my complaining that he left me not far from here while the rest went to the end of the valley. By the time they got back a couple were already coughing. I put on a mask and moved away— you can imagine how popular that was— but it's the only reason I'm still alive. I took the radio up the slope to alert the Schwabenland and then came back to try to get the survivors moving before this storm hits. It was too late. Schultz was the last, and he died two hours ago."
"My God."
"We're in hell, Owen. A cold hell."
Hart hoisted his own canteen and drank, wincing. "You're probably contagious. We'll have to share the drug and then be quarantined on the deck of the Schwabenland."
Fritz nodded. "Drexler's been dreaming of that the whole voyage, I suspect. Though the best reason to live is to see his face when he realizes I'm the only survivor." He took another mouthful. "But that assumes you can get us out of here." Some snowflakes were beginning to fall. "I suggest we hurry to your plane."
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Why hasn't he returned?"
Greta stared out at a darkening world. Atropos Island was gray, fogged by increasing snow, and the sea was growing rougher. They could see spray hurling skyward at the caldera entrance as the swells built, the Schwabenland wallowing miserably as it crept to maintain station in case Boreas came back. Icebergs drifted by like dreadnoughts, Heiden periodically snapping orders to change course slightly to stay out of their way. Yet there was no sign of Owen Hart. Nor had the field radio taken by the mountaineers issued any more calls. The crew was anxious. Even high on their bridge the officers could hear the labor of pumps keeping thudding pace with the slow leakage around the iceberg patch in the hull. The leak was still manageable but as the swells had mounded and the ship creaked, the invasion of cold seawater had grown worse.
"I told you it was madness to let him go," Feder fretted. "And madness to stay here waiting when we should be making for a proper port. We seem determined to compound one mistake with another."
"How can you say we shouldn't wait when he may just be pinned down by weather?" Greta demanded.
"Because if we wait too long we may be pinned as well!"
"That's quite enough, Alfred," Heiden growled. "We're in no danger of sinking. And if you two hens want to cackle at each other, do it off the bridge."
Feder scowled. "I just want it on record that I pointed out the dangerous weather the first time we got into trouble out here."
"Recorded. Now, silence!"
Drexler saw an opportunity and moved close to Greta, careful not to try touching her yet. "I know how fond you've become of Hart," he offered quietly. "I understand your worry. But he's a resourceful outdoorsman. I'm sure he's all right."
She sighed. "It's just so frustrating to have him all alone out there so soon after— " She stopped. "It's just so hard to wait, Jürgen. And what if I was wrong about the cave organism? What if he trusted me and flew off to his death from the disease?"
"That's nonsense. You acted on the best knowledge you had. We're all struggling. You, Hart, myself. And didn't you try it in your bottle? It must do some kind of good."
"I just wish I was sure."
"Could you try it on the cultures?"
"Owen took all the antidote." She hesitated. "And besides, the cultures are gone."
"What?"
"I destroyed them, Jürgen. I warned you I would. We've had enough death."
He looked at her in shock. Careful, he thought. Control your emotions or you'll lose her. She'll run away.
"Are you angry?"
He swallowed. "Surprised," he managed. "It seems… unscientific."
She looked away.
"Well." His face twisted in dismay. "I'd hoped to bring something back to Germany, but…" Preserve what you have, some instinct told him. He tried a different tack: "You and I have had some differences, Greta. But that hasn't changed my… my feelings for you. Whatever has happened, please remember: I'm still your friend."
She nodded, looking relieved. "Thank you. I value that, Jürgen."
He turned away to hide his wince.
The hike to the plane exhausted Fritz. The Boreas was behind a ridge on the opposite side of the lake from where the mountaineers had died and the little sailor insisted on minimizing the distance by cutting across its frozen surface. But as Hart warned, the eroded frozen waves proved a slippery nightmare difficult to scramble over. They both fell several times. Worse, their subsequent direction up the valley wall in the growing snow drifted off course and they got themselves onto the snowy crust of a glacier. They trudged mindlessly up its gloomy slope until there was a crack and Fritz almost dropped out of sight.