Eternity Base (20 page)

"It's the same system set up at small airfields. It allows pilots to turn on the airfield light when they approach at night and the tower isn't manned. The antenna is probably built into the roof of the access shaft."

Riley looked at the various gauges. There was no juice left in the batteries, but they were now slowly recharging with the main power on. Even the cold of Antarctica couldn't have kept the batteries alive for twenty-five years.

The two left the radio room and moved on to the next unit. It was another set of living quarters, except this one was more lavish. There were two bedrooms and a small living room. Sammy moved into the smaller bedroom and immediately spotted a large blue binder conspicuously placed on top of the bed. An envelope was taped to the outside of the binder. PETER was written in block letters on the outside of the envelope.

Sammy carefully peeled off the envelope. It was sealed. She stuffed it in her pocket, then picked up the binder and rejoined Riley, showing him only the binder.

With the reenactment of the entry into the base completed, Conner guided her crew to the first unit to the right. She narrated as she led the way. "I have labeled the various units according to their row and column for identification purposes. The row nearest the entry shaft is row A. The next will be row B and so on. The column farthest from the shaft is column one, the middle column is column two, and the one closest to the shaft is column three. Thus we have just left unit A3, which appeared to be a communications setup.

"We are now entering unit A2." Conner went into the living quarters that Riley had exited just minutes earlier. She led Lallo, Kerns, and Vickers through the three rooms, making comments as the camera's eye took in everything. Then she went back out into the tunnel.

"This tunnel, designated the north tunnel on the power supply board, is blocked heading to unit Al. We might be able to get to that unit by going up the west tunnel. We intend to work our way over there.

"Unit B3 is living quarters where we have temporarily left our equipment and where our pilot is catching some sleep." She opened the door directly across the corridor. "We are now entering unit B2."

The first thing that caught her eye as she went through the door was Riley and Sammy at the electric stove. "As you can see, some of our party is already at work using the equipment here to prepare a meal."

Riley ignored the camera and continued stirring a large pot on top of the electric stove. "Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes."

Conner led the way through the kitchen and dining area. "This appears to be the central area for meals and probably was designed to double as the meeting area for the community that was to live here."

They went through the door and into C2, which turned out to be another set of living quarters. Then they crossed over to C3, which contained the strange metal tanks and light fixtures that she and Devlin had discovered earlier.

She spent more time in D3, making sure they got complete coverage of the control panel for the nuclear reactor. As she narrated, she noticed that the grating to the left of the panel had been removed, revealing a dark tunnel. A small sign above the tunnel read "Power Access Tunnel." She assumed that was where Devlin had gone.

"Here we have the controls for a nuclear reactor. We can only assume that the radioactive rods were never put in place, so the reactor is inert and not dangerous at the moment. This base, according to our sources, was established in 1971, just one year before a similar experimental nuclear reactor at McMurdo Station was shut down at great expense to the American taxpayer.

"That, however, does not explain the secretive manner in which this base was built and the way its presence was completely obliterated from government records. Nor does it explain the listing of the aircrew who helped build this airbase—the only aircrew that knew where this base was—as missing in action in Vietnam, when in reality they were here on that day, flying the last mission out of Eternity Base.

"Even more ominous, it does not explain the attempt on the life of the worker from the Records Center who discovered the existence of this base. Nor do we know why the man at the entrance of the base was killed."

Conner slashed her finger across her throat. "Cut."

"Good," Vickers said. "That'll be a real catchy intro. It'll sure make them sit up in Atlanta when we send it."

"Let's get the rest of this place on tape," Conner ordered. "They can edit it in Atlanta."

She led the way to the next unit, D2, which turned out to be an extremely well-stocked library. Not only were there numerous books on the shelves but several file cabinets full of microfiche and three microfiche readers set up on tables.

Unit D1 was a dispensary with enough equipment to outfit a minor surgery and shelves well stocked with drugs.

CI was an indoor greenhouse. Large banks of lights lined the ceiling, and trays filled with frozen soil were held in floor-to-ceiling racks. There were also lights on the bottom of each rack. Someone had spent a lot of time making every inch of space functional in the small room.

The west tunnel was blocked halfway up between B1 and B2 by the buckling of the ice ridge. Unit B1 itself was crushed halfway through. Conner stood next to a wall of ice while Lallo filmed her against the white backdrop. "Here we see that Eternity Base did not totally live up to its name. Despite the remarkable preservation of most of the base and its equipment, as evidenced by the quick startup of the generators and the lights, we see that Mother Nature did not totally spare the base. This destruction is the result of pressure formed by two sections of ice meeting each other and buckling up to form a ridge on the surface."

Conner went back into the main center tunnel. They'd been in all the units except Al, which was blocked. She now turned her attention to the set of large double doors that were on both ends of the main tunnel. She and Vickers pulled open the set to the west. A large dark tunnel appeared. Groping inside the doors, Conner found a lever, which she pulled down. Sparks sputtered out of the ceiling and then nothing. Using the camera's klieg light, they probed the darkness, only to be met by the same wall of buckled ice that blocked off unit Al. It had cut across the base diagonally and continued on through here.

"Let's try the other side." Conner led the way down the main cross tunnel and opened the doors there. She threw the lever and gasped as large arc lights went on, revealing a massive tunnel burrowed out of the ice, extending almost two hundred yards straight ahead. There was a clear central passageway, but the rest of the twenty-yard-wide tunnel was crammed with mountains of supplies.

Conner moved down the aisle, letting Lallo photograph the labels on the boxes. Most of it was food. The last fifty yards of the storage tunnel housed a dozen snowmobiles, a bulldozer, a backhoe, several snow tractors of various sizes, and two large cabins on skis that looked as though they could be hooked up to the back of the larger tractors.

The tunnel ended at a metal grating that ramped up, extending to the white ceiling. "What do you make of that?" Conner asked.

"I think that's how they planned on getting these vehicles out of here—and how they got them in," Vickers replied. He pointed at sections of metal grating stacked to the side. "They could run the bulldozer up the ramp and put down the grating as they went until they reached the surface."

Conner looked at her watch. "Let's send this off and then go to the mess hall and get some food."

They retraced their steps back to the east tunnel and turned right until they got to the shaft. At the base, Vickers pulled out the small cassette in Lallo's camera. He gave it to Conner, who attached a special drive to her portable, that digitized the pictures and stored them on the disk. Taking the disk from her, Vickers headed for the surface to burst everything to Atlanta.

Conner, Kerns, and Lallo went into the mess hall, where Riley was ladling something into Devlin's bowl.

"What did you find?" Conner asked as she sidled up to Devlin.

"I went down the access shaft to the reactor, but it was blocked by ice about fifty yards in. I assume the reactor is out that way another hundred yards or so."

"The reactor is five hundred yards straight line distance from the power room. Southwest," Riley added. "As you guessed, the rods aren't in. They were supposed to be brought in and put in place when the base was activated."

Conner and Devlin both turned and looked at him. "How do you know that?" Conner demanded.

"Your sister found the instruction book for this Tinkertoy set," Riley said, holding up a large blue binder.

Sammy reached into her pocket and pulled out the letter. "I also found this."

Chapter Thirteen

I
NTELLIGENCE
S
UPPORT
A
GENCY (
ISA
),
H
EADQUARTERS
S
OUTHWEST OF
W
ASHINGTON,
D.C.

Another exciting Monday morning. Bob Weaver rubbed his eyes as he looked at the message lying on top of his in box. He had no idea what the connection was between all the requests for information (RFIs) listed in it, but he also knew it wasn't his place to know. He was just here to find and forward. He started typing in the data, looking for answers to the questions:

Any further information on Eternity Base?

Confirm information that U.S. Air Force C-130, tail number 6204 from 487th TAS, Clark Base, Hawaii, was reported as MIA 21 December 1971, Vietnam.

Determine actual location U.S. Army Engineer unit, B Company, 67th Engineer Battalion, from August 1971 through December 1971.

Run file on David Riley, former U.S. Army. SSN 906-23-5482.

Run file on Randall Devlin, member environmental group Our Earth. SSN unknown.

Run file on Peter Swenson, Australian national, pilot.

Run file on Samantha Pintella. SSN unknown. Works U.S. National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO.

Priority request.

Falcon 2100 Zulu/l 1/27/96

E
TERNITY
B
ASE,
A
NTARCTICA

"Hydroponics!" Devlin exclaimed, looking at the diagram of the base and the label for unit C3. "I knew I'd seen that somewhere before. They have a setup like that at UCLA." "What's hydroponics?" Lallo asked.

"It's the cultivation of plants in water rather than soil. They set aside unit C3 to grow food just like the greenhouse in CI, except this one uses water instead of dirt." Devlin shook his head. "But I don't understand why they'd need to dedicate two units of their base to growing food when they have the ice storage tunnels." He pointed down at the diagram. "The one blocked ice tunnel to the west looks like it's as large as the one to the east. That's a lot of food and supplies."

"It doesn't seem as though they were counting on a resupply," Conner remarked.

The binder listed the locations of equipment and supplies along with instructions for the use of various equipment, but it didn't say anything about the purpose of the base or who was supposed to use it.

"Look how far away they offset the reactor," Devlin commented. "More than a quarter mile. All that ice in between serves as a very effective shield for the main base."

Conner focused on the one unit they hadn't been able to look at. "Check out the label on unit Al: special supply and armory." She glanced up. "We have to get into that. If we can record weapons on tape, we have a direct violation of the treaty."

"What about the letter?" Devlin prompted. "Will you open it?" Riley handed Conner a pocketknife with the blade open. She slit the top of the letter and pulled out a one-page hand-written note. "Read it aloud," Devlin said. Conner cleared her throat and began reading.

21 December 1971

Peter,

If you are reading this, then your fears were justified and I suppose this was all worthwhile. It seems odd to write this knowing that if it ever enters your hand I shall be dead. Of course, I will have much good company—if one may call the world's population company.

I do not envy you or the special friends you deem worthy of survival here. Until today I saw Eternity Base as a cradle, but your final delivery this morning leaves me with little optimism. The courier who delivered the final shipment will guard your base until you arrive or until the ice claims the base, as per your instructions.

May you enjoy your kingdom.

Glaston—sounds a lot like Claxton, the name Freely had mentioned, Conner thought. They now had the name of the murderer. "The bastards set up a survival base down here!" Devlin exclaimed. Riley looked at Devlin and shook his head. "You mean you just figured that out? Hell, why else do you think someone would put something like this down here and stock it so full of supplies? Why do you think they have the greenhouse and the hydroponics?"