Tai shined her lights down the corridor. "Where do you think we'd find the power source?"
Logan shrugged. "I don't know. Let's go take a look."
Vaughn turned to the rest of the party. "Brothers, Burke, stay here with Smithers. Break out your sleeping bags and get in them. We're going to see if we can find the power source and get some heat going."
Vaughn, Tai, and Logan walked down the wood planking. After thirty feet the walls disappeared on either side and they entered a cross corridor. Straight ahead was a door. To the left, the corridor had a door, which was shut. To the right, the corridor was open for about ten feet, then a pile of ice and snow blocked the way.
Logan shined his light where pipes in the ceiling disappeared into the pile. "Looks like that's where some ice buckled the ceiling."
"Let's try the door on the left," Tai suggested.
They turned left and tried that door. It wasn't locked and opened easily. The flashlights revealed a room about thirty feet long and ten wide, full of electronic equipment.
"Looks like some sort of communications setup," Tai said. "Everything's way out of date, though."
Logan pointed his light at a pair of large boxes that hung down from the ceiling, one at either end. "This is one of the prefab units. Looks like they're each heated separately by those space heaters. That leaves the corridors under the ice at outside temperatures. The top of each unit is probably heavily insulated to keep the rising heat in."
"How would the power be provided?" Vaughn asked.
"Most likely oil burning generators," Logan said. "That's what runs the majority of the bases here, although they would have had to airlift in all that oil. At McMurdo they bring it in by ship, so it's not a major logistical problem. Here, I don't know."
Tai nodded. "The man I talked to who helped build this place said that they brought in a quite a few bladders of fuel."
Vaughn turned for the door. "We need to find whatever it is that burns that fuel, then."
Next, they went to the door that had been straight across. This unit seemed to be a nicely set-up living quarters. There were three sleeping areas, each separated by a thin wall. Traversing the entire length, they came to a door on the far side. They exited that and were faced with another side corridor extending off to the right and another door directly in front.
"Let's go straight through until we get to the end," Vaughn said.. If there's nothing in this row, we'll work up the next one over."
Logan swung open the door and they stepped in. Large stainless steel tanks lined both sides of a narrow walkway. The tanks were open on the top, and banks of dead lights hung low over them. There were pumps and various tubes arrayed throughout the room.
"What is this?"
Logan shined his flashlight inside one of the tanks. "I don't know. It reminds me of something I've seen before, but I can't place it right now."
They walked the length of that unit and went through the door. The last unit on the row beckoned. Logan pushed open the door and they walked in.
"Ah, this is more like it," Logan said as he turned the flashlight on the machinery inside. "This must be the power room. Look, there's a control panel." He walked over to a console full of dials and switches to the left of the door. "There's the 'on' for the master power, but I'm sure we have no battery power."
He pressed the button with his thumb. Nothing.
"There must be a small auxiliary generator around here to start the main off of." He flashed the light on the other side. "Here we go."
Vaughn watched as he knelt down next to a medium-sized portable generator and unscrewed a cap, shining his flashlight inside. "It's even got fuel. Hold the light while I prime it."
Vaughn hovered over his shoulder as Logan worked. After about five minutes Logan stood. "All right. Let's give it a shot." He held a knob attached to a cord in his hand and pulled.
"Shit," he muttered as the cord didn't move. He pulled more carefully, and the cord slowly unwound. Then he squatted and thrust upward. The engine turned over once with a burp. "Damn. This thing is stubborn."
Vaughn didn't say a word. He found it remarkable that they were trying to start a generator that had sat down there for almost half a century. The concept of a place where nothing deteriorated or rusted was a hard one to grasp.
After five more tries the engine coughed, sputtered, and turned over for almost ten seconds before dying.
"I've got it now." Logan adjusted the choke and pulled once more. The generator sputtered and then roared into life. He let it run on high for a few minutes and then turned the choke down.
"All right. Let's see how we get the main started while that warms up." He took the flashlight from Vaughn's hands, played it over the control panel and laughed. "They've got all the instructions right here, almost as if they expected someone who didn't know how to run this thing to try and start it. Hell, it's even numbered.
"Okay, we've already accomplished step one by getting the auxiliary started. The next step is to open up the main fuel line." He moved to the left of the console and looked up. "Here's the valve."
Vaughn heard a few seconds of metal screeching.
"Okay. We've got fuel. Now we prime this baby." Logan worked for a few minutes, following the instructions step by step. "Last-but not least-we open the power line from the aux to the main generator and give it some juice."
Vaughn watched as lights flickered and glowed on the console. Gradually they steadied. Logan looked over the gauges. "Ready?" he asked.
"Yes."
He pressed the starter button. The lights on the board dimmed, and they heard a sputtering noise behind the console. The sputtering shifted to a whine and then a rhythmic rumble after thirty seconds.
Logan was examining another row of controls to the right. "Here's a bunch of switches labeled north, middle and south, east and west tunnels." Vaughn looked over his shoulder at the schematic of the corridors of the base. At least he could get oriented now. The surface shaft where they had come down opened onto the north end of the east corridor.
Logan threw all the switches, and light suddenly streamed in through the open doorway. "All right!" he yelled.
Vaughn looked at the doorway and flicked on the light switch just inside of it. The room was flooded with the glow from the overheads. He looked down at the other end of the room. "What's that for?"
Logan turned. The entire far end of the unit was filled with massive control panels with uncountable gauges. It made the main generator board look puny. A three-by-three-foot panel with a triangular warning sign was recessed into the left side. Logan walked the twenty feet to it and looked the setup over.
"Oh my God. I don't believe it. I don't fucking believe it."
Tai and Vaughn hurried up to him. "What's the matter?" Tai asked.
Logan looked at Vaughn, his face ashen. "This is the control panel for a nuclear reactor."
CHAPTER 9
Geneva, Switzerland
The head of the North American Table stood up when his counterpart from the Far East entered the anteroom to the Intelligence Center. They barely had time to greet each other as the door opened and one of the Assessors gestured for them to come into the I.C.
An extra chair had been set up, and the two took their places in the center of the room. The video screens around the room flickered with various images and data, none of which the two got to take in, because as soon as they put on their headsets, the High Counsel spoke.
"There have been reports from various sources that a small team left New Zealand and traveled to the Earth First South Station in Antarctica. This small team subsequently departed by aircraft from the station on a mission of unknown intent. We find this intelligence to be highly disturbing, given the timing, Senior Assessor."