Ice Reich (21 page)

"Of course if there
is
no train, then it might be possible to take a rest right here," Fritz now went on. "We
are
next to a lake here, albeit a frozen one. Have some lunch, order a stein, talk about gardening..."

"Fine," Schultz said in exasperation. "I'm sick of your moaning. You stay with the gear while we push to the end of the valley. We'll be back before dark."

"You're leaving me alone?"

"And good riddance," one of the soldiers said.

"Oh. You know, I've felt safer in a Hamburg back alley."

"If you don't stay here and shut up, you'll never see Hamburg."

The mountaineers trudged on, Schultz looking sourly at the enclosing hills of red pumice. It looked like pictures of another planet, the sergeant thought. The ice of the lake was old, never thawing, and sculpted into uneven frozen waves by sun and scouring winds.

They nursed their water. Dr. Schmidt had warned them not to risk drinking anything that could be a source of disease. Now they saw there were hot springs ahead at the base of the second volcano, the pools steaming placidly in the cold air. The mineral water spilled down a series of terraces stained yellow and ocher, the hot trickles melting a thin wedge of ice at the end of the frozen lake. Upslope a glacier from the second volcano had bulldozed to a halt, its ice and snout of gravel debris hanging over the springs.

Schultz climbed up to the pools to look about. Some had dried, leaving behind a residue of brownish dust carried up from inside the earth. But no sign of prior Norwegians, nor clues to the disaster. A gust of wind caught some of the dust and a plume of grit blew over the squad of mountaineers, forcing them to squint against it.

"Jesus, what a damnable place," the sergeant muttered. "And we haven't found a thing that is useful."

A soldier nodded in wan agreement.

Then he sneezed.

"Greta!"

Hart had crept as close to the lip of the chute as he dared, wild with despair and hopelessness.

Then in the blackness below he heard it, faint against the roar of the falls. "Owennnnn! Oh my God, Owen! I'm in the water! Please help me!"

Her voice was like an electric shock to his system. "I'm coming!" he shouted hoarsely. "Hang on!"

The pilot scrambled back to the packs, grabbed a line and the lantern, and hurried back, splashing down the middle of the stream. He set the lantern on an overhanging boulder where it would serve as a beacon, tied off the rope, and cast it down the falls. Seizing the rough hemp, he began lowering himself backward, cold water foaming over his thighs. A flashlight tucked downward in his belt offered meager illumination. She'd slipped down the chute as if carried on a log flume.

"Owen, I see you!" she called. "I'm in a pool, a lake!"

The chute grew steeper as he went down, bending until it was vertical. The chimney the water fell down opened into a much vaster space. Hart leaned out. He could see light reflecting on black water and could hear her down there, pleading with him to hurry. His own arms ached from the effort and his heart hammered. Down, down...

He was out of rope.

He hesitated only a moment. There really was no alternative, was there? He would rescue her or he would die trying. Because the alternative was unacceptable.

He let go and plunged.

He was braced for a shock of cold water, the kind that sucks away air and threatens to stop the heart. Instead he hit a black pool that was surprisingly warm. When he surfaced, spitting out water that had a brackish taste, she was on him, sobbing joyfully, clinging to him in a warm dark lake underneath a frozen, fiery mountain.

They were alive.

He kissed her, fiercely, possessively, and she kissed him back this time, as greedy as he. They sank while holding each other in a hug of reunion and then broke apart to struggle up, laughing and coughing.

"Drowning in a volcano and we think it's funny," he sputtered.

She was treading water, the light so dim she was only a silhouette. "It
is
funny, Owen. I was terrified when I fell, certain I was about to smash onto the rocks. But now you're here and the water is warm. It's like nothing is real anymore."

They swam back to the base of the cliff where the stream poured down, grasping a wet ledge to rest. Far above, Hart could see the lighthouse-like beacon of the lantern. And across the black water was a blue glow. He pointed to it. "What's that?"

She looked, blinking away the water. "Ice, it looks like. So strange. A glacier? I don't know."

"Stay here and rest."

He swam out toward the glow, noticing as he did so the play of warm and cold currents across his body and a swirl of matlike organisms against his arms and legs. A diaphanous fuzz that seemed to dissolve when he tried to grasp it. The rock ceiling gave way to ice above, he finally saw, an arching vault of frozen water spangled with millions of tiny crystal icicles fed from the pool's condensing steam. The ceiling of ice seemed to dip down to the water somewhere in the gloom beyond. Pale blue light from a remote sun seeped dimly through what must be an immensely thick lid. The lake was under some kind of ice cap: perhaps it was the frozen lake of the valley he and Fritz had observed. And in the juncture between hot underground volcanic springs and frozen overhead ice was this tepid netherworld, dusky and secret, laden with some kind of strange growth.

He swam back to Greta. She was plopping handfuls of the organic mats on the ledge by the waterfall, creating a pile of brown goo.

"This is weird," he said in her ear above the rush of water.

She nodded. "I suspect we have a kind of loop, meltwater descending, heating, rising, carrying minerals from the depths of the island. And these primitive growths fed by... what? Chemical energy? Can life thrive underground? It is
amazing
."

"If it doesn't kill us."

"If it does I've at least lived to see this." Her head kept rotating to take it in, excited as a child. "And maybe something like this vegetation will
save
us."

"That goo there?" he said doubtfully.

"Have you heard of penicillin?" she asked, smiling mischievously. "It comes from mold. Or lysozyme? It comes from the stuff in your nose."

"The joy of slime. Remind me to stay away from biologists."

She laughed, splashing him. He splashed back.

"Stop, I'm wet enough!"

He reached out more tenderly and brushed beads of water from her forehead. Combed watery jewels from her hair. She shivered but didn't shy from his touch.

Then she turned abruptly and scooped another palmful of living fuzz and slapped it onto her cache. "And how am I going to get this back?" She looked at the sloppy organic mess instead of him, all science again.

"Here." Hart shed his wool shirt, leaving a sleeveless white undershirt. He scooped the organism onto it and tied the sleeves. "You're going to owe me a cleaning, Miss Heinz."

"If you can get me back to a laundry, I'll clean it." She shivered again, from cold this time. They'd been in the water too long and were beginning to feel chilled despite its heat. "Owen, how are we going to get up that chute?"

He looked at the distant beacon of the lantern. "The rope isn't too far above, maybe twenty feet." He pointed. "The stream comes out of a tunnel, or chimney. If we can climb to that we can wedge ourselves, our back to one side and our feet on the other, and then climb."

She looked up doubtfully. "I don't know if I can."

"You will because you must. Come on, before we get so cold we can't function."

With a thrust of his arms he boosted himself to a sitting position on the ledge, Greta watching the play of muscles in his shoulders. He took off his boots and tied them around his neck, instructing her to do the same. "For a better grip on this wet rock." He ran his belt through the makeshift sack of algae and awkwardly stood, leaning away from the falls to search for handholds. The basalt was rough enough that they were plentiful, but the plunge of cold water seemed to want to pry them off the cliff. Greta seemed stuck, incapable of climbing up farther. "Wait!" Hart said.

He scrambled up by himself, shouldering through the water until he could brace himself in the chimney and reach the rope. He jammed the shirt with its algal cargo into a crevice and dragged off his pants. No time for modesty, and hell, it was dark anyway. He tied one leg to the rope and let the other drop. Another four feet, at least. He looked down to where Greta was clinging. She nodded, then let herself go and fell into the lake. Treading water, she shed her shirt and pants as well. Swimming back to the cliff face, she flung them up. He added them to the rope and pulled to test. It seemed strong enough. He let himself down, felt her reaching arms on his leg, seized one of her wrists... and slowly she began climbing. He let her scramble up him and clutch his chest and shoulders for reassurance. Greta was panting, her skin goose-bumped by the cold.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"Try to climb up past me."

Greta took a deep breath and continued, pushing against him. She reached the rock tunnel and wedged herself, grasping the rope and resting a moment. Hart climbed up next to her and brought the bottom of the rope up, untying her shirt. "Here, or you'll scrape your back." She braced her wet skin against his as she pulled it back on. She was slick, cold. Now that they were closer to the lantern he could see the tiny shadow of erect nipples in her wet bra as she buttoned. He wanted to touch them.
You'll make us both fall, you ass
. If she noticed his look she gave no sign.

"That was the worst. We're going to make it, Greta."

Wordlessly she turned her head and kissed him again, her expression solemn. Then she grasped the rope with both hands.

"Try not to be late." As she climbed past him he noticed her bare legs were bruised from the fall. Rivulets of water ran down her thighs.

He wanted her so much.

She was standing in the stream and breathing heavily when he hauled himself over the lip of the water chute. He was clad only in his underwear with the bag of algae belted to his waist, and felt faintly ridiculous. But she looked beautiful in the lantern light, wet and gleaming. Her shirt, still half unbuttoned, ended at her thighs. Her hair was a wild tangle. Hart knew his own desire was all too apparent as he looked at her. He didn't care.

Without speaking she turned and waded back upstream toward the sandy bar. The pilot coiled the rope, untied their clothes from its end, took the lantern, and followed.

She was waiting, pale and perfect. She had unbuttoned the shirt and it hung open, letting him see the rise of her breasts above her bra. Her neck was high, its line and the clavicles of her shoulder making an arabesque of curves echoed in her waist, her hips, her thighs. He ached to possess her.

"We must dry these," she said, all business except that her voice caught a bit. She reached for the soggy bundle of clothes and turned away to climb up to the hot rocks around the steaming spring, draping the clothes on them. He watched the delicate architecture of her back as she worked, the play of bone and muscle. Then she stepped down and stood to face him again, shaking her head to get wet hair away from her shoulders. He could see the aureole of her nipples through her soaked bra. They looked like twin dark moons. The triangle under her wet panties was a shadowy gate. And yet she was hesitant. She crossed her arms to hug herself, still cold, her thighs pressed together.

He stepped toward her.

"We didn't plan this," she said softly.

"No, we didn't." The tips of his fingers touched her cheek and he brushed away a drop of water. Or was it a tear?

"Hold me, Owen. I'm so cold."

His arms enclosed her and she huddled inside them. He leaned to nuzzle her ear, her neck. She was shivering again.

"I love you, Greta."

"Please don't say that." The plea was unconvincing.

"I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone. I've loved you since I saw you beside the fire at Karinhall but didn't fully admit it myself until you fell and for a terrible moment I thought I'd lost you forever. I love you and would rather die than not have you. I'd
half died
before I met you. I'd gone numb after Antarctica." He kissed, finding her neck, her cheek, her lips, the tip of her tongue. "And you made me alive again..."

"Owen, please, I'm still confused, I think this may be wrong..."

"You know it isn't wrong."

"It must be. Jürgen, the expedition..." But then she kissed him, hard and hungry, aching, unfolding her arms to grasp his shoulders. She broke away to gasp. "This is so irrational, so emotional..."

"You know how right this feels." He kissed her again.

"So unscientific..."

"To hell with science."

Her eyes were wet, luminous, her breath coming in quick gasps. She blinked them shut. "I think I love you too, and it makes me afraid. That I love you so much."

He stroked her back, the wet cotton on her rump, and she arched under his hand, sighing. "You'll catch a chill unless you get all these things off," he whispered in her ear, his voice thick.

Greta bit her lower lip and nodded. She broke free and turned, presenting her back. He unfastened her bra and she let it drop, the white straps slipping down her white arms. Hart could see the ripe swell of her breasts at her sides. Then she tugged her panties down too, wiggling a bit to get them off her hips, her bottom round and firm. Bending, she laid her underwear on the rocks, carefully smoothing. Then she turned to face him, naked, trembling. She held out her hand.

"Your laundry, Mr. Hart?"

He peeled off his undershirt and shorts and gave them to her. He was erect and rock hard, his blood pounding in his ears. He was shaking too. How long? he thought. How long since he'd been with a woman he truly loved?

She tossed his things on the rocks.

And then they were together again, she melting against him this time, clutching desperately, opening her mouth to his kisses, hungry for them, and an exultant roaring filled his head that blotted out the sound of the river. His hands ran down her back, slipped over her buttocks, felt her soaking wetness, and his penis was nuzzled by her damp fur as she pressed hard against him. He cradled a breast.