The Thing: Zero Day Read online

Kleppa didn’t come round easily. Norstad, Strand and Oyvind helped the biologist to his feet and half walked, half carried him to his room. They sat him on the side of the bed and Strand unfastened his boots and pulled them off as Norstad pulled the covers back.

  “What the hell is going on with these guys?” Oyvind asked. He had his back to them, standing in the doorway and looking out into the corridor. “It’s like they don’t care.”

  “Weird, something weird,” Norstad said. “They were all stood around that thing in the ice. Just staring at it.”

  “Then what do we do?” Oyvind asked.

  “Nothing,” Strand replied. “We keep it together and go about our routines… We get them to go about their routines… Kleppa, Kleppa can you hear me? I’m going to come and check on you every hour, okay?”

  “Bjorn’s coming,” Oyvind said.

  Norstad and Strand moved to the doorway expecting the doctor to come in but he passed without even acknowledging their presence. Strand stepped out into the corridor watching as he went towards the tractor workshop.

  “It’s locked,” Strand called. “It’s staying locked.” Bjorn tried the handle and pushed at the door, then turned on his heels and walked back along the corridor to Strand. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? Kleppa is barely conscious and you’re not tending to him.”

  “He’ll be fine,” the doctor said. “You’ll all be fine.”

  ----- X -----

  Strand called everyone to the rec room for a meeting. The music was off. The tone was serious. “I want to talk to everybody about safety,” he began. “When it comes to safety we are all duty bound to put the welfare of camp crew above any other consideration. I know we’ve found something exciting. I’m just as thrilled as anybody, but when it comes to the way we do business it’s safety first, science second, then adventure last and we do things in that order for a reason.”

  The men sat impassively. Norstad found it unusual that none of them had gone for hot drinks. Usually they would have their fingers wrapped around a warm mug with steam rising from it, but tonight they all sat staring into space. It looked as though Strand’s words were going in one ear and out the other.

  “Look at them,” Oyvind whispered to Norstad. “They’re in their own little worlds… what the hell has happened to them?”

  Strand talked for a while to a silent room. He repeated his concerns, he gave his reasons and labelled the point. “Finally, I want to talk about that thing in the ice.” At this, Bjorn, Finn and Hans raised their gaze to glare attentively at the camp commander. “Some of you seem to have changed in disposition since it was brought back and that worries me. Some of you have behaved unusually… Does anybody disagree?”

  The men didn’t respond. They barely seemed to have registered the question. Strand turned towards Norstad and Oyvind and the three of them shared the furrowed brows and tight lips of concern.

  “Things feel strange. Some people here are behaving strangely. So until things are back to rights and I feel assured that we’re operating safely that thing in the workshop will remain locked and off limits… Now I suggest we all try and unwind and relax tonight. Tomorrow, we can start fresh and look at the situation again… Would anybody like to say anything?”

  Silence.

  Unmitigated silence.

  Strand selected some music, contemporary blues, a bit of light rock and roll. He looked to the cook. “Mr. MacCloud, the evening meal, if you please.” He rolled through the keys on his belt, isolated one and gave it to Oyvind. “Bring the beer,” he whispered to both Oyvind and Norstad. “Bring all of it, let’s try and turn these guys back into happy drunken assholes.”

  The food was served. Cabbage soup followed by meatballs and pasta.

  The beer was served. Strand put an open bottle in front of every man and left the opener with the other crates.

  John Lee Hooker played on the stereo, singing Boom Boom, but even the master bluesman couldn’t invigorate the crew. It was painful. A dead party with the host doing everything possible to help the guests have fun. It wasn’t that they rejected Strand, it was more that they gave one word answers to questions that killed conversations.

  Norstad took a single beer. “I’m drinking just this one,” he said privately to Oyvind. “God help me I want to drink myself to oblivion to escape this weirdness but at the same time I want to be stone cold sober.”

  “I hear you,” Oyvind said. “I want to hook that thing back onto the tractor and take it back and leave it there.”

  The evening died a slow death. After a few hours the crew started drifting off to bed at times much earlier than normal. Strand occasionally patrolled the corridor to make sure nobody was trying to get into the workshop, but the men seemed true to their intentions of going to bed and sleeping. By midnight only Norstad, Oyvind and Strand were left in the rec room. “I’ve changed my mind,” said Norstad. “I’m having another beer before bedtime.” He opened a bottle and brought two more for Oyvind and Strand.

  “You know what scares me,” said Oyvind. “They’ve left all that beer. I feel like we’re in the Twilight Zone. In what universe do these guys sit quietly ignoring beer?”

  “I can’t understand Bjorn,” said Strand. “We had a medical emergency and it didn’t register with him.”

  “I’ve known the Doc for five years now,” Norstad said shaking his head. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed he could behave like that.” To Strand he asked, “ Have you got a plan of what to do next?”

  The commander shrugged. “We see what happens tomorrow. If anything is amiss, even slightly, I’ll radio Troll and Tor and inform them we’re evacuating to the American bases. McMurdo preferably. Outpost 31 at a push but that’s a small base like ours.”

  Norstad sucked air over his teeth. “Full evac? For what reason? You can’t say what we’re all thinking… that there’s a thing in a block of ice and people are acting weird.”

  “I don’t even need to say that. There’s only twelve of us here. One is unconscious and eight have diminished capacity for unknown reasons… It would be my decision and I’d happily lose my job over being wrong if it keeps people safe.”

  ----- X -----

  Norstad could hear boots walking the corridor by early morning. There were voices; serious tones. His clock said it was half six. The camp normally didn’t awaken and get moving until eight.

  He sat on the edge of the bed holding his head in his hands. Terrible dreams of being fed rotten food by an old Japanese woman who was offering sex. She was diseased, the woman in his dreams, she offered sex and sweetness but it was bad. The food was rotten and just thinking about it made him gag.

  He stood feeling as though he had a hangover. “Bad dreams,” he mumbled. Jeepers, he felt lousy.

  He opened the door to find Hans and Pederson patrolling the corridor. “Morning fellas,” he said. Both looked at him impassively then walked away. Whatever had happened to them yesterday, whatever mysterious wizardry had been cast upon them hadn’t dissipated. “Ah, to hell with you,” he whispered.

  Before heading to the rec room he tapped on Kleppa’s door. “Hey, Asgeir… Kleppa? Are you in there?” There was no response. Norstad turned the handle and found Kleppa sitting up in his bed, shuddering and trembling with fear. He had the covers pulled up to his neck like a child scared of a dark shadow in their bedroom. “Kleppa, what’s wrong?”

  The biologist looked up. “It’s dying… It’s dying and it needs help before it dies.”

  Norstad sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s dying?”

  Kleppa pulled the sheet down slightly. “The Thing… it’s dying.”

  Norstad rubbed his eyes. “I’m glad you’re talking… but, man, you’re not talking sense.”

  “It’s alive, Norstad,” Kleppa said, suddenly paranoid and looking through his open door. “The Thing in the ice… it’s not dead, but it’s dying in there. It needs to get out.”

  Norstad didn’t pay atte
ntion. “Are you hungry? You missed dinner last night. Are you well enough to come and get some breakfast, or do you want me to bring you some?”

  Kleppa shook his head. “No. I want to go home. I want to go back to Norway.”

  “Alright then. I think perhaps you need a few more hours sleep. I’ll come back and look in shortly.”

  ----- X -----

  Strand watched the crew filter in for breakfast. MacCloud was working diligently, he had the coffee already prepared and spooned out bowls of porridge as each man arrived.

  “Finn, what are your plans for today?” Strand asked.

  “General maintenance,” the engineer answered whilst staring into space. “I’ll check the station integrity.”

  “Ah, ha. And Ingvar, what are your plans for today?”

  “Dog sled check, dog exercise and laundry.” Like Finn, he answered impassively whilst staring into space. It was all it took to convince Strand that something was really wrong in the camp. He went to the radio room and powered up the shortwave transceiver and left for a few minutes whilst the electronics warmed. Like most things in the Antarctic, it was always a good idea to let machines wake up and acclimate before pressing them into service. He dialled the volume low and listened to the background static, then adjusted the squelch to cut the white noise.

  He saw Norstad heading for the rec room and followed him. More of the crew were taking breakfast. All blank faced, staring into their porridge.

  “How are these guys?” Norstad asked. “It doesn’t look any different to yesterday.”

  “It isn’t,” the commander replied rubbing his eyes between thumb and finger. “How about you? You’re looking rough.”

  Norstad shook his head, trying to blow away the cobwebs. “I feel like dirt. Bad dreams and nightmares all the way through.”

  “Yeah, me too. Did you check on Kleppa?”

  “I did, he’s awake and talking but he’s not making a whole lot of sense. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

  “Something’s wrong with everything. I’m about to radio McMurdo Sound and request we all take a trip down there for medicals but I think you should fly Kleppa down this morning. I don’t like that he had a seizure. There’s no history of that happening in his medical file, so as it’s the first time it’s prudent to get him checked out before winter locks us in.”

  Norstad nodded.

  Strand returned to the radio room and checked the frequency for McMurdo coms. The American base was immense and could support over a thousand people. They had radiotelephone and teletype links to New Zealand and rapid emergency transport if they couldn’t handle an event at their own field hospital.

  He cleared his throat and called it out in English. “CQ DX, for McMurdo Station. This is Fafnir Station. Do you read me, over.” He waited… nothing. “CQ DX, for McMurdo Station. This is Fafnir Station...” then he noticed the warning light on the shortwave, a tiny red light with the name VSWR. He set the unit to low power and keyed the microphone. The red light came on again. The VSWR, or v-swar stood for voltage standing wave ratio. When the signal went out of the radio, the VSWR showed how much was reflected back by the antenna. Too much reflection could blow the electronics and damage the set.

  Strand hunted on the shelf between books, cables and spare parts for the v-swar meter and jump cable. He disconnected the antenna from the shortwave and patched the meter between the radio and aerial and keyed the microphone again… The needle of the meter blew straight across to the opposite side of the dial showing the signal reflection at one hundred percent.

  “What the heck?” Strand said aloud. “Is the aerial down?” He got out of his seat and followed the antenna cable to where it passed through a hole drilled in the window frame. He could see the antenna tied up to the roof of the dog shed.

  Then he noticed the problem.

  “Oh, my God,” was all he could say.

  Outside of the window the antenna cable was cut. It wasn’t torn or broken, it was cut. More importantly, he could see on the side of the dog shed the other end of the cable. The length of coaxial between the two buildings had been cut away.

  ----- X -----

  “We must be allowed to carry out scientific work on the specimen,” Bjorn said with some force. “It needs to be eased from the ice gently, but time is against us. We must do it now and I demand you hand over the keys.”

  Strand shook his head. “Nobody is going into the tractor workshop.”

  “That’s not for you to decide,” said Hans. The other two climatology boys flanked him and the trio joined Strand to surround the commander. “You’re not a scientist. You’re a Navy man and you’re going to destroy the most important scientific discovery on Earth through your own ignorance.”

  “You must allow us to do our jobs,” said Pederson.

  “This is too important for you to decide alone,” Moller chimed in.

  “Give me the keys,” Bjorn said with his hand out.

  Strand unclipped the keys from his belt, held them tightly in his fist and pushed his hand and the keys deeply into his pocket. He stepped back to break out of the circle of inquisition. “I’ve given you my answer and the answer is nobody goes in there.”

  “We must get it out of the ice,” Bjorn said, pleading. “We must.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” Strand spat back with incredulity. “That thing came from outer space. It could be covered in space bacteria, space viruses, space disease. I thought you wanted to go back and look at it, but there’s no way in hell you’re going to take it out of the ice. That only happens in a controlled scientific environment, not a tool shed; and it’s done by men who know what they’re doing, not three stoner climate geeks and a half-assed medical doctor… What the hell? You want to thaw it out? You’re ridiculous.”

  Strand turned and left the rec room. He saw the door open to Kleppa’s room and found Norstad in there with the biologist who was shaking in fear and gripping his temples. “It’s dying,” Kleppa said. “It’s dying and they won’t let it die.”

  Norstad shrugged his shoulders. “He’s not saying much else.”

  “That’s the least of our worries. I tried to radio McMurdo Sound and found the antenna cable has been cut. It’s not snapped, it’s cut. Sabotaged. There’s a section of coaxial missing between the station and the dog shed.”

  “What?” Norstad gasped.

  “It’s the thing in the ice,” Kleppa chimed in. “It’s not ready. It can’t let us go until its ready.”

  Norstad and Strand turned their gaze to the mumbling Kleppa. “Can you fly him out?” Strand asked. “Take him to McMurdo and get him checked out?”

  “I can, but if the antenna is down then you can’t operate a beacon. I can fly out, but unless we’ve got perfect weather I wouldn’t be able to find you on the flight back in. We need the navigation beacon.”

  “It won’t let you,” Kleppa hissed. He grabbed at his temples then pressed his eyes in with his thumbs whilst wincing in pain. “It’s sending men to the helicopter now. It needs the helicopter and the tractor and won’t let you leave yet”

  “Kleppa, what are you talking about?” Strand asked.

  “It’s dying. It needs to get out of the ice and it needs to escape.”

  “What’s dying?”

  “The thing in the ice,” he said with a burst of energy. “It’s dying.”

  “It’s dying?” Norstad said. “You think it’s not dead? Why do you think that?”

  Kleppa lowered his hands from his face and made two tight fists. “Because I can hear it whispering.”

  Strand made a small shake of the head. “Prep the chopper. Take him to McMurdo and raise the alarm that we have an unexplained situation developing. I’ll get the beacon repaired.”

  ----- X -----

  Norstad wrapped himself in outdoor gear to prepare the helicopter. Over the cotton base layers he pulled on a fleece jacket and winter coat. It would take at least an hour to get in the air and the weathe
r was already looking bad. He pushed through the exit into heavy snowfall. Flying would suck. Visibility was below a hundred meters and if it stayed like this there was no way he could return.

  He trudged to the chopper stopping to check the antenna cable. Strand was right, it was cleanly cut on both sides and missing almost four meters where it stretched from one building to the next. Who in the hell was so insane they would cut off their coms?

  He thought of what Kleppa was saying. His assertion that he could ‘hear it whispering’. It should have been the rantings of a crazy man. Except it wasn’t. From the moment Kleppa said it, he realised he’d heard something too. Whispers. Temptations. Odd tastes in his mouth and strange stirrings in his groin and stomach.

  He could see two men by the helicopter. They flanked the machine and stared at him, unmoving as silhouettes in the snowfall. “Oh, you’re joking with me…”

  He moved towards them to discover the figures as Ingvar and Finn.

  “Where are you going,” Finn asked.

  “I need to prep for flight, what are you doing out here in snowfall?”

  “If you want to prepare the helicopter,” Finn said, “you will need the blowtorch. It is in the tractor workshop. Do you have the keys.”

  Norstad took a few breaths. He scrutinised the faces of Ingvar and Finn. Why were they so different? They were acting bizarre. Crazy. Insane… but were they crazy enough to cut the line of communication? “Finn? What the heck is happening to you? You’re my friend but you’re acting like a zombie.”

  Finn remained impassive. “You need to unlock the tractor workshop to get the blowtorch.”

  “Oh, really,” Norstad said. “Well… I better go and get the keys.”

  ----- X -----

  Norstad came back into the base and went to find Strand. It was easy, he just followed the sound of the argument coming from the radio room. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You have to let science take command here,” Bjorn was yelling.

  “But you’re not a scientist, Bjorn. You’re a medical doctor. The other guys, they’re climate scientists. The only person who has a remote understanding is Kleppa and he...”

  “...Kleppa can’t be trusted,” Bjorn yelled.

  Strand went quiet.

  Norstad approached and saw Strand raising a hand as though to signal he should keep his mouth closed. “What do you mean, Kleppa can’t be trusted?”

  Bjorn softened his tone. “The type of seizure he had… it can make people delusional. It can make people say strange things. You should not pay any attention to what he says.”

  Strand held eye contact for a moment, seemingly as he tried to find the right words. Norstad had the sense to stay quiet. “And what do you think he’s saying?” Strand finally asked. “You don’t know what he’s saying. I mean, he might agree with you. He might be telling me to let you into the workshop.”

  “He isn’t saying that,” Bjorn said with conviction.

  “But how do you know? I’ve been trying to get you to treat him. You haven’t… and you haven’t spoken to him. So what makes you think…”

  “...Kleppa can’t be trusted,” Bjorn interrupted. “Now give me the keys to the workshop, otherwise I’ll find my own way in.”

  Strand stood up to face his adversary but the doctor was already heading out of the room. “You’ll do no such thing,” he called out, but it was too late, Bjorn was out of there. Strand put his hands on his hips and purged a few deep breaths. “We’ve got real problems here. When you get the chopper up I want you to take Oyvind as well. We have no control here… How long to prep the helicopter?”

  Norstad shook his head. “Finn and Ingvar are outside. They’re expecting me to open the workshop to get the blowtorch.”

  “Ah... I forgot about that.”

  “Everything is in there. The blowtorch, the anti-freeze. I checked the antenna cable and you’re right it’s cut on both sides. We could patch it with co-ax but that’s in the workshop too… I think… I think sooner or later they’re just going to try and break in anyway. They may be trying now. I don’t know why Ingvar and Finn were outside but I’ve got my suspicions.”

  Strand nodded. “I agree.”

  “We could take Kleppa to McMurdo in the tractor,” Norstad volunteered.

  Strand shook his head. “It’s too slow and too far. You would be driving for three days and three nights and you’d have to pull a sled with fuel drums. What we need is to patch the coms, but the coaxial cable is in the workshop. As is the blowtorch, the anti-freeze… and so is that thing in the ice and pretty soon I’m sure these guys will be in there too.”

  Norstad leaned against the doorframe and looked into the empty corridor. In his mind he apologised for all the times he’d thought little of Strand. For all of his social awkwardness the commander was the person you want to be stood next to when the building catches fire. “I don’t know what we should do,” Norstad whispered. “Things are getting weird and we’re slowly being cut off.”

  “We’re not isolated yet. We can use the tractor if we’re desperate. We can open the workshop and get what we need. In a worst case scenario we open the workshop, let those guys in, take what we need and you, I, Oyvind and Kleppa head down to McMurdo to seek help for the others… But my job, my overarching priority is to look out for the safety and welfare of the entire crew.”

  “I don’t think these guys care.”

  “No, they don’t,” Strand said with a sigh. “They’re jeopardising safety for themselves and others.”

  “Then let’s leave them. Let’s go and get help. We’re three guys against eight. Those eight need help and we’re not in a position to do that. I mean, we’ve got a saboteur, or suspect a saboteur has cut the radio line. Do we wait until they damage something else? We’ve tried to help them and they haven’t responded. Perhaps the best thing we can do is go now and come back with help.”

  Strand nodded. “I agree. It’s better than waiting for things to get worse… But first I want to speak with Kleppa. Go and find Oyvind, bring him to Kleppa’s room. We’ll see how the little guy is and we’ll take a vote on what to do next.”

  ----- X -----

  Kleppa was sweating profusely. His skin was white and his eyes darted about as his hands twisted and fidgeted.

  “Kleppa, do you know what is happening with the men, or what has happened to you?” Strand asked. “Do you know? Can you explain it?”

  The biologist nodded rapidly. “It’s dying.”

  “You’ve said that before. Explain to us what is dying.”

  “The thing in the ice… It’s not dead, but its dying.”

  Norstad asked, “How do you know that?”

  “I can hear it… It’s in my mind, trying to hurt me. It wants me to help it out of the ice but I’m too scared.”

  Norstad looked to Oyvind and Strand. “I know this will sound weird, but I’ve felt something strange too. Like a compulsion that I should be in there helping it out of the ice.”

  Oyvind nodded. “I dreamed of exotic women taking me to the workshop to make love. I’ve been thinking about it since I woke up and I feel a strong compulsion to go and check that there aren’t any women in there.”

  Strand screwed his face and held his chin in his hand. “I had dreams of escaping monsters and the only place of safety was the workshop.”

  “That’s what it does,” Kleppa said. “It gets in your mind and makes you do things. But it’s dying. Soon it will die unless it can get out of the ice.”

  “Wait a minute,” Strand said to Kleppa directly. “Are you suggesting that the thing is alive… and it can read our minds?”

  “It’s gonna be real mad when it gets to me,” Norstad mumbled.

  Kleppa shook his head. “Not all people. But it can sense feelings… and send feelings.”

  “How the heck can it do that?” Oyvind asked.

  “It’s from outer space, man,” Norstad said. “Who knows what it can do?”

  “Regardless of wh
ere it came from, that thing has a hold over the crew and I think we can agree we’ve all felt strange compulsions towards it… In the interests of safety I say we make sure it’s dead. If it’s frozen in ice it’s biologically contained and I’d like to keep it that way. So how could we make sure we kill it, whilst keeping it trapped in ice?”

  “Thermite,” Oyvind said. “In a straight drop. We put a canister over its head, or it’s chest and let the thermite melt straight through the ice and through the creature. The heat will cauterize any living tissue as it burns. Then we pack the melt-hole with snow, some water and let it refreeze and the thing is sealed again.”

  Strand nodded, “Norstad, do you agree?” Norstad nodded. “Okay, Kleppa you stay here. Let’s go to the explosives shack and get a thermite charge.”

  The three men left the room.

  Kleppa sat back on his bed and pulled the covers to his chin. “It can hear you,” he whispered. “It knows you’re coming.”

  ----- X -----

  Strand, Norstad and Oyvind prepared themselves at the exit. Decanite and thermite was kept in its own storage shed one hundred meters from the base and dug two meters into the ground. In the event of an accident, the blast was going straight up in the air.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking,” Strand said. “We all go together to the explosives shack. Oyvind, you get what you need. We come back together and head straight for the workshop. Once we’re in, Norstad, you and I make sure the door stays closed whilst Oyvind does what he needs to do.”

  They stepped outside. The wind had picked up and visibility was cut by the snowfall. It wasn’t a blizzard yet but it soon would be. The explosives shack was barely a smudge through the weather. The men took a few steps from the base and grabbed for a guide cable, strung out between the station and the shack as they began the walk against the weather.

  There was a grumbling sound that carried through the air as they reached the shack. “That’s the tractor,” Strand shouted. All three of them turned to look but with a sudden pick up in the weather even the base became obscured. They could see nothing, in the space of a few seconds the weather turned their world into a whiteout where there was nothing but the guideline against their hands and the growling of the tractor’s engine.

  They traversed the guideline, moving in deep snow, lifting their knees high and sinking into deep foot holes. The hundred meter walk left them tired and breathing heavily. Once the weather turned bad it was an effort to walk only one hundred meters.

  Strand held the door open as Norstad and Oyvind came inside. The shack was a relief from the wind, but no respite from the cold. There was no light in the explosives shed so the door was left open to cast light down the stairs. At the bottom, on two racks, were wooden crates of thermite and decanite grenades. Oyvind grabbed two thermite cans and pushed them into his coat pockets, then took a third for good luck. He searched for something, getting on his hands and knees, looking under the shelf units.

  The growl of the tractor became louder.

  Oyvind stood up holding what he was looking for. It was a plant pot. “We need this,” he said passing it to Norstad. “Let’s go.”

  As they came out of the shed they saw the six beams of light coming from above the tractor cab pushing towards them. Then like some mythical beast bursting through the weather, the bright orange nose of the vehicle rushed towards them. Snow kicked up from its four caterpillar tracks as the men dove to the side.

  “RUN!” Strand yelled.

  Norstad lifted himself from the snow and looked at the plant pot he was holding. His instinct was to toss it aside but Oyvind said it was important. He saw the two figures of Oyvind and Strand rushing along the guideline as the tractor spun around behind him. It hit the corner of the explosives shack and pulled one side of the building down, the roof collapsing and falling into the hole above the explosives.

  “Oh, hell no!” Could it explode? Could the shack explode?

  He fought to his feet and ran along the guideline as the sound of the collapsing wooden building filled him with the terror of an impending explosion. The beams of light from the tractor swung around him. Yellow light on the snow casting a long shadow from his running body. His shadow got shorter, the lights grew brighter and the tractor engine intensified as the vehicle rushed up behind him.

  Who was driving? Who the hell was trying to kill him?

  The lights burned on his back and his shadow rushed up to join him. It was going to hit. Norstad turned quickly as the orange nose was right on him and dove to the floor. For less than a second he managed to see the driver. It was Moller, the balloon man.

  Norstad hit the ground directly between the tracks and felt the underside of the tractor hit his shoulder as he fell into the snow. The beast rumbled overhead and away, passing directly over him, his body slipping into the gap between the tracks.

  Norstad looked up to see the caterpillar tracks mowing down the guideline, ripping out the posts and burying the route as the vehicle rushed on towards Strand and Oyvind. He climbed out of the snow and followed, running hard to keep the tractor in his sight as his only real guide back to the camp.

  As the buildings emerged out of the snowfall the tractor engine eased down and the vehicle turned right to head past the dog shed and towards the helicopter, slowly fading from view as it re-entered the blizzard.

  Norstad was staggering and falling with exhaustion by the time he reached the station. He opened the door and was grabbed by Strand.

  “He tried to kill me,” Norstad gasped. “It was Moller. He ran me down.”

  “He tried to kill all of us,” Oyvind gasped.

  Strand threw his gloves aside and pulled off the outdoor coat. He unclipped his bunch of keys. “Have you got what you need?” he asked Oyvind. The man nodded his reply as he took the plant pot from Norstad. Strand held up the key to the workshop. “Then let’s make this fast.”

  ----- X -----

  The station was empty. The men had deserted the rec room and there was no sound coming from any of their quarters. Strand unlocked the door to the workshop and entered first, clicking the lights on.

  The block of ice stretched to almost the full size of the space. Norstad and Oyvind entered and Strand locked the door behind them, trapping the three of them in the room.

  Oyvind didn’t waste any time. He climbed atop the ice and positioned the plant pot.

  “Norstad, get the coaxial,” Strand said pointing to a roll of cable on a high shelf. “And some wire cutters and tape.” Oyvind got off the ice and started unfastening the trigger from the thermite. “What’s the story, Oyvind?” he asked.

  “I need to dismantle it. The grenades throw molten iron in every direction,” he answered whilst unscrewing the trigger. He carefully poured the silvery powder into the plant pot. “When I light it here it will pour through the hole in the pot and fall in a straight line.”

  Oyvind took his cigarette lighter and popped the lid. He sparked a flame and reached towards the thermite.

  Norstad had climbed onto a workbench and was stood on tiptoes to reach the coaxial cable from a high shelf when the whole building suddenly shook, the walls flexing to the sound of cracking wood.

  The workshop doors exploded outwards, ripped out by the tractor. The powerful beams of the tractor lights flooded the space, with blinding glare.

  “LIGHT IT!” Strand yelled.

  The men came rushing in. Hans launching himself at Oyvind as he touched the thermite sending a shower of sparks upwards. Hans threw punches wildly, knocking over the plant pot and spilling the contents as the thermite reaction took hold. The powder was blown across the top of the ice. Once thermite was lit nothing could put it out. Not cold, nor ice, nor the deepest depths of the ocean and had Oyvind’s plan been given a few more seconds the molten iron compound would have burned a hole straight through the thing. Instead the burning powder became a fluid of molten iron rolling across the surface of the ice, filling the room with smoke and steam as it thaw
ed the top layer.

  Strand rushed to help Oyvind but the room had become a blind bar fight as more men joined Hans in attacking. Steam and smoke from the thermite filled the room. The lights from the tractor shining through the open doors turned the atmosphere into a glaring fog. Men’s fists and arms flailed in blind, awkward wrestling as Oyvind was pulled away from the ice block. Norstad was on his back, fallen from the workbench when the doors were ripped open. Strand grabbed Norstad and pushed him towards the outer doors, then went back for Oyvind who was wrestling with Hans. A man at the side, possibly Ingvar, was holding an ice axe menacingly, ready to enter the fray if Oyvind got the better of Hans. Meanwhile, at the ice block, the other men desperately tried to brush away the burning thermite with their sleeves; risking injury to preserve their precious thing.

  Strand grabbed at Oyvind and dragged him out of Hans’ grip and back towards the doors. Hans and Ingvar watched them leave, standing as imposing silhouettes in the steam. The other men surrounded the ice block whilst Bjorn positioned himself at the head as though he were high priest to this alien altar.

  Norstad stepped in to guide Oyvind back out past the tractor, out of the steam and smoke filled air and into the blizzard.

  The tractor was hooked to the doors with chain. Madmen. They’d ripped the doors open with the tractor.

  “Wait,” Oyvind called as they retreated. He went to the back of the tractor and opened the doors to grab a case of decanite charges, still inside since the trip to the craft. He opened his coat and stuffed a few thermite grenades in too.

  Whilst Oyvind grabbed his supplies Strand ventured back to the front of the tractor. Finn was uncoupling the chain from the front tow bar. He checked the workshop doors as though looking for damage. “Finn,” Strand called in a whisper. “Finn, what are you doing?” The engineer looked at the commander briefly then went back to his doors.

  Inside the room, the block of ice was surrounded by the men who had equipped themselves with ice axes. All of them stared at Strand, all of them held their axes menacingly, a silent show of how determined they were to defend their prize.

  Strand stepped back to rejoin Norstad and Oyvind as Finn closed the door.

  Part 3

  Identify Yourself