Ice Reich (19 page)

"What an honor." Her voice was sarcastic.

"Or not, whatever you wish. My point is that to simply burn the corpses and sail away would be even crazier. Perhaps we can stop a future plague with our discovery. Make this island safe for a base. Understand a new polar biology. Greta, we're doing the right thing."

"Then why the spores? Why does Schmidt care about the spores?"

"He's a scientist, like you."

"No he isn't. He's a doctor and hardly even that— a quack pathologist— cracking open those Norwegians' chest cavities like a greedy coroner to look for spore coats. Why?"

"To understand the biology. To locate the source."

"I'm not stupid, Jürgen."

"To
learn,
Greta."

She shook her head. "I read the literature. I know what a government could do with the right plague bacteria..."

"Like the British in Scotland?"

"With a spore-coated microbe..."

"Like the British and anthrax? Their sly little experiments, on the possible eve of war?"

"You don't know that for sure..."

"I know far, far more about such matters than you'll ever know." He failed to keep a note of condescension out of his voice. "Greta, you're a good biologist, but you're as naive about politics as that ill-educated American. The Great Powers want to crush the Reich, darling.
Crush
it. Before it grows too strong. Because we represent the future. And if something like this can buy us time..."

"Don't talk about him like that."

"Who?"

"Owen. He's good at what he does and yet you always mock him, insult him."

"He's nosy and contentious. And
you
always flirt with him."

"That's a lie! You're so insecure..."

"I'm simply tired of that damned American and tired of you defending him. We should never have asked him aboard. Now I simply ask that we— you and I— focus on Germany."

"Don't patronize me with your Nazi patriotism! Schmidt doesn't want to buy time. He wants to build a weapon!"

"To counter
their
weapons, to make
their
evil unusable. Can't you see that? Schmidt thinks we've stumbled on a power never before seen. And Germany can use it to preserve a balance of power."

"Jürgen, I don't want to work on this," she said in frustration. "Not with that ghoul Schmidt. I saw him at that funeral pyre on the beach— he was completely in his element. Let's just go home, get on with our lives..."

"This
is
our life. And you
will
work on it!"

"Listen
to me! These dishes could kill us! What if they break? I swear, I'll destroy the cultures!" Her warning sounded real.

He stared at her then with surprise, a surprise that swiftly evolved to barely contained outrage. His face was tight from lidded anger and his voice quieted with menace. "Now you listen to me, Greta Heinz. You
will
work on it as a loyal member of a Reich expedition— or by all the saints I'll not protect you from the consequences when we return! I'm not going to allow your childish and simplistic view of things to derail our future!
My
future."

She looked so shocked at his vehemence that her look halted him. He bit his lip, struggling to regain control of his emotions. His face twisted with the inner pain of self-betrayal. He took a deep breath. "What you don't understand is that I love you," he finally managed, more weakly. "I
love
you, Greta. And all I'm asking is that you do this one thing, work on this one discovery, for
us.
For us and for the Reich. For Germany. As the right thing to do."

Her face screwed up. "Jürgen, I can't!" she pleaded. "I'm frightened!"

"I'm frightened too. By the possibility of failure." He looked at her solemnly, his expression confessing his need. "You can't let that happen to me." He took off his mask and gloves and leaned stiffly to kiss her rigid cheek. Then he walked out.

Hart stood still, frozen. There was a small sound. Greta was weeping.

The tears were running into her mask and she lifted her rubbered hands up to try to brush them. Then she angrily tore the gloves off, flinging them and the mask in a corner. "Damn it," she sobbed, "damn all men, damn these plates, I'm so afraid of these cultures— "

"It didn't kill everyone."

Her head jerked up. Hart felt he could hardly breathe.

"It didn't kill everyone," he repeated. He clumsily stepped out from the storage locker. She whirled.

"You!"

"We found a diary and— " He lifted a hand toward her.

Instantly, her anger fastened on him. "My God! How long have you been standing there? How
dare
you— "

"Greta, please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I came to the lab to share this news but you weren't here and then I heard footsteps and, and..." It sounded lame, he knew.

Her face was shiny with tears. "What did you hear? How long were you there?"

He shrugged.

"You heard everything, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I wasn't trying— "

"Get
out,
leave here now!"

"Two survived the disease— "

"Get out, get out, get out! God, I hate
both
of you so
much!"
 

He backed to the door, cringing from her rage, and then shut it behind him, leaning against it, his eyes closed.

Inside, he heard her wail. "God, how I wish I could get off this cursed ship!"

* * *

Hart couldn't sleep, his mind a tumult of emotions. Always a disaster, every time he went near her. Would she tell Drexler? He'd be lucky they didn't throw him overboard as a damned spy. Lord, he was tired...

Then there was a thump and he found himself stunned. He realized he'd slept finally, and not just slept but descended into the drugged sleep of the exhausted. Now he had rolled out of his bunk. The deck was sharply canted and bright polar sunlight poured through his porthole. "What the hell?" Were they sinking again?

The pilot became aware of loud banging and clanging but realized groggily that it was the noise of purpose, not confusion. There was a deeper rumble of pumps. He looked at his watch. It was early afternoon; he'd slept a long time. Groaning, he stood unsteadily against the tilt, feeling gritty. The Norwegian diary had skittered across the floor and he picked it up and inserted it under his mattress, then dressed clumsily and made his way to the top deck.

The
Schwabenland
was moored against the half-sunken
Bergen,
sailors swarming over both. Cables from the higher German ship had been strung to winches on the Norwegian one. Some of the German cargo had been temporarily unloaded onto the
Bergen
's deck and more— the numbered crates that had puzzled him— were being ferried ashore. Selective flooding of compartments and winching had tilted the
Schwabenland
far enough to port to allow the breach in the hull to clear the water. Lifeboats had been tied alongside the long gash and sailors were beating, cutting, and riveting metal. At the raised bow of the Norwegian ship a section of plating was being cut away with a shower of sparks. Ropes had been strung to bar entry to the interior of the Norwegian whaler but even so, the sailors wore precautionary gauze masks. Heiden was stalking this way and that, closely observing and issuing orders.

Hart looked for Fritz and didn't spot him. He approached Heiden.

"Why are supplies going ashore? Are we staying?"

"No," Heiden replied. "Jürgen's idea. A cache for next year."

So the Germans planned to return. "Have you seen Fritz?"

The captain shook his head. "No. If you do, tell the lazy bastard to get to work."

"Do you know when we can leave?"

"When my ship is repaired." The tone was impatient and short.

The pilot backed off and went to the stern, looking morosely out across the cold lagoon. Once more, Antarctica had proved a disaster. Drexler despised him, despite their successful flight together. Greta apparently hated him. The clash with the whalers had probably eliminated any chance of cheerful publicity. Fritz had disappeared. He felt utterly alone.

And then she was at his elbow, the hood of her parka down, her red hair stealing softly across his shoulder as she leaned on the railing. He started, it was so sudden.

"
Who
survived?"

Her question was clinical, betraying nothing. She looked at him flatly. "Well? Who survived, Owen?"

"Two of the sailors," he half stammered. "The Norwegian whalers. They lived, and took a lifeboat, and sailed out of the lagoon. I doubt they finally made it."

She nodded, absorbing this. "How?"

"I don't know. They didn't know. They were exploring a cave, and they came out, and then the disease hit except that they didn't get it..."

"A cave? What cave?"

"The one Fritz and I found. I mentioned it last evening at the meeting. There, you can see it from here." He pointed across the caldera to the crater wall.

She followed his arm, then looked back again. Her tone was still peculiarly detached, as if she'd used up all her emotions the night before. "What was in the cave?"

"I don't know. They didn't say. We didn't explore. There's a hot spring and a sulfur smell— I think it's an old lava tube— and that's all I know. I thought you might know. That's why I came to your lab."

She thought a long time about this. "Do you know what the temperature of this harbor is?"

"No."

"One point eight degrees centigrade. Comfortably above freezing. Peculiar, no?"

"Is it?"

"The ocean outside the crater is below the freshwater freezing point; only salt and pressure prevent it from turning solid. But in here the water is warmer. There's no ice and the crater slopes have little snow: this is a warm place, yes?"

"It's a volcano, Greta."

She nodded. "Exactly. Alive with heat and energy." She looked across the water, studying the cave. "I remember you spent part of your childhood spelunking. Correct?"

He grinned uncertainly. "The best years of my life."

"Owen, I want a cure."

"A what?"

"An antidote to whatever killed the Norwegians. Do you think it could lie inside that cave?"

"That's what I came to ask
you.
Last night, I mean. I... I'm sorry I listened."

"You
should
be sorry." She smiled sadly. "Do you know why I don't always like you, Owen?"

He didn't answer.

"Because you always seem to know a little too much about me. Just like Jürgen."

He didn't know how to respond.

"Well, I have reproduced a microbe, and now I want a way to kill it. As a safety valve. As a way to retain control over whatever you crazy men try to do next. And I'm intrigued by this cave. Will you take me there?"

"Me? I thought you were angry."

"I
am
angry. But I'm also calm. I can't afford the luxury of my anger."

"So is this for Jürgen? Or for Germany?"

"You won't help me?"

"I didn't say that."

She bit her lip. "It's for science."

"Ah. Like this voyage."

"And for me."

He bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Then I'll do it."

"And for us."

"Which us?"

She didn't reply.

"You want to go now?"

She shook her head. "Tonight. When Jürgen can't see. He'd never let me go with you."

"We'll be looking for a cure?"

"We'll be looking for something to make all this madness worthwhile."

"It looks dark."

"It's a cave, Greta."

They were standing by the spring. The brief night of late Antarctic summer was ending and the dome of brilliant stars above the crater rim was fading into a ceiling of faint blue. Across the dark caldera the lights of the
Schwabenland
illuminated its embrace with the crippled
Bergen
.

Up to this point, Greta had been bold and assertive: collecting exploration gear from hanging lockers, commandeering a row ashore from the night watch on the vague pretext of inspecting the ashes of the pyre, and shouldering a pack for the hike along the beach. She'd said little, determined to get away from the ship while the other officers were still asleep. Now that she and Owen were facing the mouth of the lava tube with its scent of sulfur, he could hear a note of hesitation in her voice. Going underground did that to people. Hell was imagined deep within the earth.

"Thousands of years ago people used caves for shelter," Hart said, trying to be reassuring. "And we'll have plenty of light." He snapped on a flashlight and led the way to where he and Fritz had unearthed the diary. Then a gas lantern was pumped and lit. They blinked in the glow, reassured by its steady hiss. "We'll go slowly. You pick the direction and I'll try to find the way." He gestured to the lengths of bright cloth hanging from his belt. "We'll tie a survey ribbon at every turn and junction. Like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs."

She smiled at that memory. "All right." He knew that despite her natural uneasiness she'd made up her mind to go in. Just like Drexler, he admitted. Another German who doesn't back off.

Unlike a limestone cavern there was nothing colorful about this volcanic one. The tube was like entering the encrusted circulatory system of a smoldering heart. The basalt was a dull black-red and there were no stalactites. In a few places water dripped.

For the first hundred yards the entry tunnel was fairly level and broad. A few openings branched out to tempt a detour but Hart's flashlight revealed that they ended quickly in collapses of rock. Slabs of basalt had also fallen off the ceiling of the central tunnel, periodically forcing the pair to squeeze around them. The pilot didn't reveal his uneasiness at the possibility of a cave-in but wondered how often eruptions or earthquakes occurred. Giving some reassurance was the occasional boot print. The Norwegians had come this way and nothing had disturbed their mark in the year since.

The tube dead-ended at a chimney, or at least that's what it seemed like to Hart. A large vertical tunnel hundreds of feet high and deep led upward and down into the mountain. He shined his light to where the beam was lost in the gloom, the fissure giving him a slight sense of vertigo.