Breakthrough (18 page)

As the water poured out, the weight of the sub quickly changed and it began to roll backwards, taking the hatch opening back beneath the water.  Lightfoot scrambled against the hull’s rotation, staying upright as it turned.  Less than thirty feet away, the heads of Emerson’s two junior crewmen popped up unharmed.  Now all eyes were on the area of water in front of the twisting sub.

After several seconds, both Clay and Caesare surfaced and looked around.  They spotted Emerson and Tay and pointed back to the sub.  “Get the Triton!” they yelled.

Everyone looked to the K-955 and spotted the small Triton, flopping back and forth, miraculously still clasped in the sub’s retractable claw.  Lightfoot scrambled down to the tiny rover and unhooked it.  He then pulled it behind him as he slid down the side of the K-955’s belly and into the water with the Triton in tow.

All five men slowly made their way to the ship’s platform.  Emerson and Tay reached over the side and pulled them up one by one, grabbing Lightfoot and the Triton last and hefting it up over the heads of the others who all sat slouched forward, feet hanging over the end, trying to catch their breath.  Emerson and Tay set the Triton down and joined the rest of the men, sitting down behind them.

After a long silence, Emerson reached over and put his hand on Clay’s shoulder.  He gave him a broad smile.  “I was afraid we might just lose you two.”

Clay looked at Emerson and returned the smile, his chest still heaving.  His soaked hair hung down pasted against his forehead with water streaming down over his face.  “The thought crossed our minds once or twice.”

Emerson turned to his crewman.  “Whitey, Ballmer, you guys alright?”

Whitey, the larger of the two nodded his head.  “Yep.”  Next to him Ballmer merely held up his hand and gave a thumbs-up.

Emerson turned to Caesare.  “Caesare?”

Caesare put his hands behind him and leaned back on them.  “I’m okay.”

Emerson took a deep breath and looked at the K-955 rolling back and forth in the rising swells.  The sub had deep scrapes covering most of its side but remained on the surface still tethered to the Pathfinder by the large steel cable which was slack, yet still visible below the surface of the water.  “Anyone else really starting to hate this place?”

28

Kathryn Lokke reached up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before opening them.  She looked at her watch and then peered around the tent.  5:00 a.m. and only Andrew’s sleeping bag was empty.  Pierre and Tadri remained completely buried inside their own bags, neither leaving any skin exposed.  Kathryn looked at the thin layer of ice which formed around the base of the triple layered, insulated tent.  She thought about how even the most modern materials still could not keep you from freezing your butt off.  At least you still
felt
like you were freezing it off.  She was sure that in reality these advanced materials provided some serious protection in spite of the attention they paid to the cold that still managed to get through.

Kathryn turned onto her back and closed her eyes for several minutes, trying to gauge her chances of getting back to sleep.  Eventually, she frowned and turned back over.  She grabbed her thick knit cap and put it back on her head then pulled the sides down over her ears.  She quietly pulled herself out of her bag and sat up, putting her thick jacket on, followed by her insulated pants and Gore-Tex boots.  She managed to unzip the vinyl zipper without waking Pierre or
Tadri and poked her head out.

The sun was low on the horizon which was white in every direction.  Kathryn glanced at the second tent and could see an orange-blue glow from the small flickering flame inside.   She pulled the large door flap open and stepped out, quickly re-zipping it from the outside.  Even without the wind, the early morning air felt like it penetrated through her clothes immediately.  She ran across the twenty feet of frozen ground and flung open the tent flap as fast as she could.  Without a second’s delay, she jumped inside.

Andrew looked up from his aluminum coffee mug.  “Morning,” he said in a low voice.

“Good morning.”  She zipped the door closed and turned to sit down on one of the small lightweight collapsing chairs on the other side of the burner.  She leaned in close to the flame which was keeping the coffee hot and the tent warm.  She picked up a mug, scraped some ice out, and poured herself a cup.

Kathryn really did not care for coffee but decided three days ago that she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Taking a sip, she frowned at the bitterness and wrapped her hands around the warm metal cup.  She looked absently around the tent.  Most of their geological gear lined the far wall, including two laptops and a satellite phone.

“Things ar
e going well, eh?” asked Andrew, in this thick New Zealand accent. 

“Touch wood
,” she said with a grin which was the Kiwi equivalent of the same American phrase.  She looked around for a piece of wood to tap.  Both looked around the tent and laughed quietly when they realized that everything around them was made with lightweight metals and fabrics.

Andrew finished his coffee and reached down for the small Teflon coated frying pan.  “So,” he said, “I know the official reason for you all being here.  But it doesn’t seem to wash out.”  He lit a match off the burner and used it to ignite a second.  “If you already knew the extent of the Shelf slide, why come back with so many in such a mad rush?”

Kathryn looked at him and then quietly glanced down at the flame in front of her.  “Pride.”  She kept gazing and then shrugged and looked back at him.  “And a little arrogance, I guess.”

He put the pan on the flame and dug into the food chest to retrieve some eggs and a strip of bacon.  “Your pride or theirs?” he asked with a knowing grin.

“Mine.”

“Ah,
” Andrew nodded. “So your pride and
their
arrogance, eh?”

She smiled behind her cup.  “
How’d you know?”

“Politics aren’t limited by country.  We’ve got our own share of dramas down here.”  He cracked open two eggs into the pan.  “In fact, I got a mate working in one of our government branches.  The things he tells me leave me in no hurry to get back.”

“How did you wind up out here?  I can’t tell if you’re a researcher or a soldier.”

Andrew laughed.  “Ah, I’m a soldier, but I do a little research
too.  Have to.  Not to mention that conditions out here are rough enough that you tend to want to help out a bit just to get things wrapped up quicker.”  The eggs started to bubble and he reached for the plastic spatula.  “You want these over easy again?”

“Please.”  Kathryn watched him flip the eggs.  He was not a bad cook, in fact, after factoring in the environment she decided he was an excellent cook.  “Do you lead people out here a lot?”

“Ah yeah,” he said dragging his words.  “Few years ago, a team from China was out and they got lost in a snow storm.  Only two of the five made it back and the ones that did were in pretty bad shape.  We had offered to go out with them until they acclimated and all, but they refused.  After that we started going out with everyone, no exceptions.”

“Better safe than sorry,
” She nodded.  “I’m afraid to think of how we might fare if the weather turned bad on us.”

“Nah
,” he smiled again.  “You’d be alright with us.”  He flipped the eggs onto the small metal plate and slid the bacon on top.  He handed it to Kathryn and reached back into the chest.  “If we leave early, I’ll be able to make us all a big farewell breakfast.”

Like Kathryn and her four person team, the rest of the teams also landed without incident, except for one failed snowmobile on the last drop.  Thankfully, it was the three man team
, and they were still able to manage with one machine.   The rest of the project had so far gone fairly smoothly and with over half of their work done, they were expected to leave a full two days early.  Something
everyone
was happy about.

The teams had already placed most of the seismographs along the fault line.  The new models were solar powered and connected via a direct satellite link.  About the size of a large shoe box
, they would be able to measure any changes on the Shelf up to fractions of an inch in any direction.  The majority of work in the next two days would be primarily measurements and sample gathering.

Kathryn turned around when she heard the unzipping of the tent door behind her.  In stepped
Tadri, who seemed to zip it back up even faster than she did.  “Did I hear someone talking about breakfast?”

“Yeah you sure did,” Andrew replied, “have a seat and
I’ll fix ya right up.”

“Bless you.” 
Tadri sat down next to Lokke and drained some coffee from the percolator.   She let out a gentle groan with her first sip.  “Coffee has never tasted so good in all my life.”

Andrew smiled.  “Yeah, the Antarctic will do that.  Everything hot tastes better, and everything cold tastes a little worse.”

“Must be why we all started crying over your stew last night,” Kathryn said and they all laughed.

Tadri
looked at Kathryn.  “How many more of the SatQuake units do we have to place?”

“Just three more.  The rest of the trip should be
mostly data collection.”

“Any problems with the other teams?” 
Tadri had turned in early the night before, before Kathryn had made her rounds checking in with the other teams over satellite phone.

Kathryn shook her head.  “Not really.  A few hardware units that don’t seem to want to work, couple of small injuries from tripping, and a lot of complaints about the food.”  She smiled at Andrew waiting for a reaction.

“Heeey,” he said, as he handed a plate of eggs to Tadri.  “Can I help it if the other gents can’t cook like me?”

“All in all, it’s been pretty smooth.”  Kathryn continued.  “We really lucked out with this weather and everyone is eager to leave early.”

“You know,” Tadri said to Kathryn.  “There were a lot of unhappy people when you told us what we were going to be doing.  A lot of people complaining that this was just a political axe to grind for you.  But I think this has been good for everyone.  Most of us had not just gotten soft, but I think some of our skills had gotten a little rusty too.  I know a lot of people are probably still pissing and moaning on the outside, but I think everyone will be better for this.”

“Thank you.”  Kathryn gave a gentle raise of her eyebrows.  “To be honest, I thought I was going to get a wave of resignations over this.” 

Tadri winked.  “Well, you might still get a few.”

“Ju
st hope they are the right ones,” Andrew grinned.

Kathryn and
Tadri looked at each other as if Andrew somehow knew who the problem members of the department were.  They both burst out laughing.

Kathryn’s four person group was out on the ridgeline by 7:00 a.m.  Two hours later, Pierre was positioning one of the seismographs while Kathryn and Tadri measured the width, depth, and horizontal shift of the fissure caused by the quake.  Andrew walked ahead examining the ground for signs of cracks or weakness in the ice.  A few falls from the other teams had resulted in only minor injuries, but a collapse under foot could easily result in something much worse, ranging from a broken ankle or compound fracture to a cave in from which it would take too long to get someone out, if at all.  Ironically the vast majority of deaths in the remote regions of the Antarctic were caused by smaller injuries that prevented the victims from getting out of the elements in time.  This was a lesson that all of the guides explained to Kathryn’s people on the first day and repeated frequently.

The two women approached the edge of the large crevice and looked down at one of the deepest gaps they had seen.  They guessed it was close to fifty feet deep and tip toed carefully along the edge, knowing that the edge was often still unstable. 
Tadri knelt down and positioned her small laser unit for what felt like the ten thousandth time.  She turned it on and looked at the bright red line extending across the gap.  Then she turned the small wheel along the bottom, slowly dropping the angle of the laser until the bright spot appeared on the lip of the opposite wall.  Tadri read the figure on the display.  “Forty three feet, seven and three eighths inches.”

Kathryn stood behind her and entered the measurement on a large handheld device which automatically locked in their GPS location.

Tadri then turned a second laser downward, focusing on the bottom of the crevice.  “Fifty three feet, three inches and one sixteenth.”

Kathryn entered the numbers and frowned.  She hit a button and displayed all of the measurements in a spreadsheet view. 
Running down the list she noticed something.  “Hmm.”

Tadri
stood up and turned around.  “What’s up?”

“Have you noticed a trend here as we move south?”

Tadri thought a minute.  “It’s getting deeper isn’t it?” 

Kathryn nodded. 

“That’s not good,” Tadri said.  “If it’s getting deeper the further in we go that makes it very unlikely it’s a surface fracture and –“

“And it extends
through
the Shelf,” finished Kathryn.

A few hundred yards away, Pierre secured the last leg of his SatQuake.  He stood up and dusted the ice off his knees.  He looked south at the rest of the group and started to turn when something caught his eye.  He turned and looked back down at the seismograph below him.  The red light on top was lit.  Pierre stared at the bright LED bulb for a moment and then reached down and hit the reset button.  The light went off.  He nodded and picked up his pack.  He turned and took a few steps before stopping again.  He turned back to the SatQuake.  The red light was on again.

Pierre grabbed the walkie-talkie from his hip and held it up to his mouth.  He pressed down the transmit button.  “Hey Kathryn, you there?”

Kathryn heard Pierre’s voice on her own hip and grabbed her walkie-talkie.  She looked back at Pierre who she could see clearly but was well out of earshot.  “Go ahead Pierre.”

“I think we have a bad SatQuake unit here.” he said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The alert light keeps coming on.”  He looked around and did a three hundred and sixty degree scan.  “It’s either not working right or the sensor is too sensitive.  There’s no other noise around to pick up.”

“Did you try the reset?”

“Yep,” Pierre answered.  He pressed the reset again and watched the light go off.  After several seconds it came on again.  “Just tried it again.  Still comes back on.”  He looked back the way they came.  “Didn’t have this problem on any of the others.”

“Is it syncing with the satellite alright?” asked Kathryn.

“Seems to be.  Both battery and satellite lights are green.”

“That’s strange,” said Kathryn. “I wonder what the problem is.”

“Beat’s me.  What do you want me to do?”

“Just leave it.  I’ll note that it’s having issues.  Grab the snowmobile and come on over.”

“Will do.  Gonna grab a snack.  See ya in a few.”  He replaced the walkie-talkie on his hip and knelt down to dig through his pack for an energy bar.

Kathryn watched Pierre in the distance rummaging through his bag.  She looked down at
Tadri who was folding up the laser.  “Looks like we have a bad seismograph.”