Keys in.
He shone the torch round the cabin. He had driven a snow plough before but the arrangement of levers was unfamiliar here. To hell — there was a gear stick, accelerator, wipers, lights, brake. He’d figure it out on the move.
He settled the skis and backpack, closed the door and turned the key. It took several turns before the thing clanked hideously into life. He didn’t know if it could be heard above the wind. Just move.
He slipped the gear in and moved. Got it out of the shed and well away from the building before turning right to pick up the track at the north side. In the dark he couldn’t see the track. He flashed the lights briefly, but the broad shovel was sticking out, blocking the view. Just a dazzle of snow, twin embankments hazily visible ahead. Evidently that was the track, swept by the snow plough.
He drove between the embankments, and switched the headlights on again. In the glare, high walls of snow passed slowly on each side; and presently began curving right — east. Yes, this was it. On the chart the only track east led to the coast: Tunytlino. He ran for another minute, and stopped.
He switched the interior light on and inspected the controls. Found the lever for the shovel and lowered it out of the way. Now, the wipers going, he could see clearly — at least the two embankments he had to drive between. Ahead the lane ran straight, no signs of the plough’s earlier tracks. With the heavy snow falling there would soon be no sign of his own. All to the good. The thing had no speedometer and was certainly not a racer. Still, only thirty kilometres to the coast. It was just before one o’clock; he thought he could make it in an hour, and started again. And almost immediately stopped again.
He switched off the engine; and then the lights, too.
A helicopter was chuntering overhead. Even above the engine he’d heard it. A big one. There seemed to be more than one. Or was it the same one, circling to find the landing strip?
He opened the window and looked up. Through the whirling hail of snow he could see, intermittently, the hazy beam of a searchlight. The landing strip was switched off; the pilot was hunting for it. Maybe a telephone crew to see to the fault Strange, at one in the morning. But communication crews worked round the clock. He started up again and drove on, with the lights off. From the air, he knew, he couldn’t be seen, the vehicle shrouded now in snow.
He drove for several minutes, and stopped and cut the engine again. the clatter was still in the air, but distant now. The guy hadn’t landed yet, or if he had was making a hell of a row, his rotors still going. But no sign of a beam through the heavy snow and the helicopter was well behind him, so he switched on the sidelights and got moving again, pensively.
The line crew had arrived unexpectedly fast. He’d been right to move fast. The Chukchee at Baranikha would be awake by now and raising hell. He drove on, musing; the track dead straight, glaring white between the snow embankments, the sidelights for the time being sufficient.
At ten past two the first village appeared, Tunytlino.
A semi-circle of shacks, their backs facing him, chimneys smoking. The smoke was coming towards him. No lights showed and he couldn’t make out the sea; all frozen now, of course.
He switched everything off, opened the window, and listened. No dogs. The wind hissed only a little now, but it was coming from the sea. And the snow was definitely less. Already, from the sea, a different weather system.
A single street ran behind the shacks — a cleared stretch, at least. A path had been made from it to the track he was on, which simply petered out a hundred metres ahead, the embankments falling away. There he had to turn right.
He thought he had better get down and see how.
Coal smoke was in the air, acrid, from the sleeping houses. He crunched through the new snow, the village dead silent, and walked beyond it until the houses stopped and the cleared path ran out. Now he saw the sea. The beach shelved, a long way, perhaps two hundred, metres, and the flat plain began. Utterly featureless. The Bering Strait.
To the right, everything similarly featureless. Another white plain, set above the sea. All the way along, the shore line shelved. The temperature had definitely risen here, some mistiness in the air, a few snowflakes whirling. Between the flakes and the snatches of mist he could see a star or two. All the land flat ahead. Okay.
He turned and went back.
In the silence, switching on the engine, he gritted his teeth at the racket Couldn’t be helped. He kept the lights off, drove the last bit of track, turned right along the coast and kept going. The mirrors, all the glass areas, were snowed up and he leaned out of the cab to look back. A light had come on in one of the houses, but soon went out. He had been heard; but without interest. He switched to headlights and drove on.
The last few days he had slept little. But even sleepless, he seemed to be dreaming. He was driving a snow plough along the Bering Strait. Out in the darkness was America. In between, the two islands, locked in ice. All he had to do was walk there. Just get himself in position.
Leymin next, twelve kilometres.
Patches of mist, sudden squalls of snow; the weather changing every few minutes. But a night of changing drifts would cover his tracks anyway.
Just under the half hour, Leymin.
He turned inland, kept distance with the village until the shacks had passed, and returned to the coast.
To Veyemik, another fourteen kilometres. The chart had shown wavy contour lines here, but he could see no contours.
In a few minutes he came on them. The ground rose suddenly, the shore dropping below. And now on his right, snow-covered rocks, rising. The rocks became a cliff, and he was wedged between it and the drop on his left. He slowed to a crawl. No way of turning here. And no point in backing anyway. To return and go inland would mean only some other kind of contours, perhaps impassable: the chart had shown a chain of them.
He kept on, at a walking pace.
Veyemik was on a creek, so there had to be a descent to it: sea level. Whether you could drive down was another matter; it could be a precipice. Get as near as possible, have a look at the place. If necessary ski to it — not so far now. But there was the problem of the vehicle. He couldn’t abandon a snow plough, leave evidence of where he’d gone.
He crawled on, peering ahead. The frozen strait was now a long way below, and the track very narrow. It could simply peter out and he’d be over the side.
And then, in a minute, everything had changed again.
The track veered seawards, a sudden squall blew in, snow spattering the windscreen, wipers working double time. And gone. Calm. Flakes twirling in the air, and below, the creek. He could see it clearly, the shoreline broken, quite a wide inlet. At the other side of it, a huddle of houses: Veyemik. And a long easy slope to it.
He drove down, dropped smoothly on to the creek, crossed it to the other side, and came out behind the houses.
Three o’clock.
He switched the lights and the engine off, and got out to have a look.
To seaward, nothing — a great plain of ice, snow-covered. This was it. The islands were now due east. In the plough he could go the whole way. Except, of course, he couldn’t. The thing would be detected at once. Both islands were certainly observation posts full of electronic devices. It would have to be on foot. From here the distance was greater than from Cape Dezhnev; perhaps fifty or sixty kilometres, but a simpler run, less chance of error — due east. Even with the little skis he could do it in five, six hours. Totally exposed, of course, if anyone knew where he’d gone. Time to lose the snow plough.