"We taking the snowcat?" Hans Brune asked.
"It's only a mile," Amanda replied.
The German tutted and rolled his eyes. His teeth were already clacking, his body shivering, even though he was encased in so much clothing he was barely identifiable as human.
"Come on, Hans," Amanda said. "I've already been down there once this morning."
"Stupid," Brune said. "You know the rules."
"You going to report me?"
Hans shook his head, then smiled. The expression was hardly visible behind his snow goggles.
"So if we're going to walk, let's walk," he said. "I'm freezing my balls off already."
"You still have balls?" Amanda asked.
"Big. Heavy. Hairy."
"Like a bear's."
They started walking, and Glazkov listened to the banter between his two companions. He knew there was more than friendship between them – he'd seen creeping shadows in the night, and sometimes he heard their gasps and groans when the wind was calmer and the silence beyond the cabins amplified every noise inside. None of them had mentioned it, and he was grateful to them for that. On their first day here they had all agreed that any relationship beyond the professional or collegial might be detrimental to their situation. While they weren't truly cut off, and their location was less isolated than it usually felt, there were no scheduled visits to their scientific station for the next six months. Hart and Brune probably knew that he knew, but there was comfort in their combined feigned ignorance.
He knew Amanda had a husband back home in America. Hans, he knew little about. But Glazkov had never been one to judge. At almost fifty he was the most experienced among them, and this was his fifteenth camp, and the fourth in Siberia. He'd been to Alaska, St Georgia, Antarctica, Greenland, and many other remote corners of the world. In such places, ties to home were often strengthened by isolation, but sometimes they were weakened as well. Almost as if such distances, and the effects of desolate and deserted landscapes, made the idea of home seem vague and nebulous. He had seen people strengthened by their sojourns to these places, and he had seen them broken. He knew the signs of both. Most of the time, he knew better than to interfere.
Amanda led them away from the research station and toward the steep descent into the valley. The trees grew close here, hulking evergreens heavy with snow, and beneath their canopy the long days turned to twilight. But once they were into the thick of the forest the snow was not so deep, and the going was easier.
Glazkov, Hart and Brune were here as part of an international coalition pulled together to study the effects of climate change. While politics continued to throw up obstacles to meaningful action, true science knew no politics, and neither did the scientists who practiced it. Sometimes he believed that if left to real people, human relations would settle and improve within a generation. Sport, music, art, science, they all spanned the globe, taking little notice of politics or religions, or the often more dangerous combination of the two. So it was with their studies into climate change. Deniers denied, but Glazkov had seen enough evidence over the past decade to terrify him.
"So what were you doing out here on your own?" Brune asked.
"Couldn't sleep," Hart said. "And I heard a noise. Felt something. Didn't either of you?"
"No," Brune said.
"Not me," Glazkov said. "What was it?"
"A distant rumble. And something like... a vibration."
"Avalanche," Brune said.
"It's possible," Glazkov agreed. "Temperatures are six degrees higher than average for the time of year. The snowfalls've been less severe, and there's a lot of loose snow up in the mountains."
"No, no, it wasn't that," Hart said. "I've seen what it was."
"What?" Glazkov asked. He was starting to lose his temper with her teasing.
"Best for you to see," she said. They trudged on, passing across a frozen stream and skirting several fallen trees, walking in silence for a while. "I thought it was an avalanche," Hart said, quieter now. "Wish it was. But the mountains are ten miles away. This thing... much closer."
Glazkov frowned. For the first time since she'd woken him, she sounded nervous.
"Should we call this in?" he asked.
"Yeah, soon," she said. "But we need photos."
"We can do that afterward."
"Not if it goes away."
They walked on through the snow, emerging from the forest into a deeper layer, grateful for their snow shoes. Brune shrugged the rifle higher on his shoulder, and Glazkov glanced around, looking for any signs of bears. There was nothing. In fact...
"It's quiet," he said.
"It's always fucking quiet out here," Brune replied.
"No, I mean... too quiet." He almost laughed at the cliché, but Hart's and Brune's expressions stole his breath. Heads tilted, tugging their hoods aside so they could listen, he could see realization dawning in both of them.
Far out on the desolate Yamal Peninsula, three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, there were few people, but they were used to hearing the calls, cries and roars of wildlife. Brown bears were common in the forests, and in more sparsely wooded areas there were elk. Musk deer were hunted by wolves. Bird species were also varied, with the great eagle owl ruling the skies. Some wildlife was dangerous, hence the rifle. Yet after twelve weeks here, not a shot had been fired.
"Nothing," Brune said. He slipped the rifle from his shoulder, as if the silence itself might attack them.
"I didn't notice before," Hart said. "Come on. Not far now, and we'll see it from the ridge."
"See what?" Glazkov demanded. Hart stared at him, all the fun vanished from her expression.
"The hole," she said. "The hole in the world."
Oh my God, she's right, Glazkov thought. It really is a hole in the world. But what's at the bottom?
"I didn't go any farther than this," Hart said.
"I don't blame you," Brune said. "Vasily?"
"Sinkhole," Glazkov said.
"Really?" Hart asked. "It's huge!"
"It's inevitable. Come on."
They started down the steep slope into the valley and the new feature it now contained. Glazkov thought it might have been over five hundred feet across. With the sun lying low, the hole was deep and dark, only a small spread of the far wall touched by sunlight. At first glance he'd had doubts, but there was no other explanation for what they were now walking toward.
A melting of the permafrost – an occurrence being seen all around the globe – was releasing vast, stored quantities of methane gas. Not only a consequence of global warming, but also a contributing factor. In some places such large quantities were released that these sinkholes formed overnight, dropping millions of tons of rock into vented caverns hundreds of feet beneath the surface.
"We'll need our instruments," he said. "Methane detectors. Remote camera. Everything."
"So let's go back and get it all," Brune said. "And we need to call this in. We really do."
"Yes," Glazkov said.
"Yeah," Hart said.
But they kept walking toward the hole, hurrying now, excitement biting at their heels.
It took fifteen minutes to descend to the valley floor. It would take a lot longer to climb back up, but Glazkov didn't care. He could already detect the eggy trace of methane on the air, but it didn't smell too strong for now. It started snowing again, and as they followed a stream across the valley floor toward the amazing new feature, visibility lessened. The stream should have been frozen at this time of year, and much of it still was. But a good portion of the water flowed. Approaching the hole's edge, Glazkov heard the unmistakable sound of water pouring down a rock face.
"What was that?" Brune asked. He was frozen behind them, head tilted.