The 6th Extinction (18 page)

The small Twin Otter plane bucked like an untamed stallion as it crossed high over the iceberg-choked Weddell Sea. The winds worsened as they neared the coast.

“These bastarding katabatics are kicking me in the arse!” the pilot explained. “If you’re feeling lurgy, I got airsickness bags back there if you’re going to chunder. Don’t go messin’ my girl up.”

Gray kept a firm hold on the strap webbing of his jump seat. He was belted in tightly along one side of the cabin. At the back, crates of gear and supplies rattled and creaked. He was normally not prone to motion sickness, but this roller coaster of a flight was testing even his mettle.

Jason sat across the cabin, his head lolling, half asleep, plainly unfazed by the turbulence. Apparently he’d had plenty of experience with this storm-swept continent. Instead, the kid seemed more afflicted by the twenty-four hours of long flights to get to the south end of the world.

At least this was their last leg.

Earlier today, just after sunrise—which was
noon
this side of the world, the beginning of their dark winter—they had flown from the Falkland Islands to the Antarctic Peninsula, landing atop a rocky promontory on Adelaide Island, where the British maintained Rothera Station. That flight had been aboard a large, bright red Dash 7 aircraft, with
British Antarctic Survey
emblazoned on its side. At Rothera, they had switched to this smaller Twin Otter, similarly painted, and set off across the Weddell Sea toward the Brunt Ice Shelf: a floating hundred-meter-thick sheet that hugged the far coastline in a region of East Antarctica called Coats Land.

As they made their approach, the aircraft’s twin props chopped into the polar airstream—called the katabatic winds—which rolled down from the higher elevations of the inner mountain ranges to roar out to sea.

Their pilot was an older UK airman named Barstow, who clearly had had plenty of arctic experience. He continued his ongoing commentary and tour. “Did you know the name of these winds comes from the Greek word
katabaino
, which means
to go down
?”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to us,” a voice grumbled behind him.

Joe Kowalski huddled in the back. His large frame was folded nearly in half to fit into the cramped space. He looked like a shaven-headed gorilla crammed into a sewer pipe. He kept his head ducked from the low roof—not that he hadn’t hit it a few times during the bumpy ride over the Weddell Sea.

Kat had sent the big man along on this mission as additional support and muscle, while voicing another reason, too.
Get him out of here. After his breakup with Elizabeth Polk, all he does is mope around these halls
.

Gray wondered how Kat could tell the difference. Kowalski was never a beam of sunshine, even on his best days.

Still, Gray hadn’t complained. The guy might not look or sound it, but the former Navy sailor had his own skill set, which mostly involved things that go
boom
. As Sigma’s demolitions expert, he had proved invaluable in the past. Plus his cantankerous attitude sort of grew on you, like mold on bread. Once you got used to him, he was all right.

Not that I would ever admit that aloud
.

“You can see Halley Station up yonder,” Barstow called back. “It’s that big blue centipede sittin’ atop the ice.”

Gray twisted to look out a window as the Twin Otter banked toward a landing.

Directly below, the black seas rode up against cliffs of blue ice, the walls towering as high as a row of forty-story skyscrapers. While the Brunt Ice Shelf appeared like a craggy coastline, it was actually a tongue of ice protruding into the sea, sixty miles across, flowing out from the higher glaciers of Queen Maud Land to the east. It moved at a rate of ten football fields every year, calving into bergs at the end, broken by the warmer waters of the Weddell and by the motion of the tides.

But what drew Gray’s full attention was something perched atop those cliffs. It did indeed look like a centipede. The Halley VI Research Station had been established in 2012, using a unique design of individual steel modules, each colored blue, connected to one another by enclosed walkways. Each pod rested on stilt-like skis with the height controlled by hydraulics.

“That’s the sixth version of Halley,” Barstow said, bobbling the craft in the wind. “The other five were buried in the snow, crushed, and pushed into the sea. That’s why we have everything on skis now. We can tow the station out of deep snow or keep it ahead of the drifting ice.”

Kowalski had his nose to the window. “Then how come it’s so close to that drop now?”

He was right. The eight linked modules, all lined up in a row, sat only a hundred yards from the cliff’s edge.

“Won’t be there much longer. Be movin’ her inland in a couple more weeks. A group of climate eggheads have been doing a yearlong study of melting glaciers, tracking the speed of ice sliding off this bloody continent. They’re just about done here, and the whole lot will be shippin’ out to the other side of Antarctica.” The pilot glanced back to them—which Gray didn’t appreciate as the Twin Otter was in mid-dive toward a landing. “They’re heading over to the Ross Ice Shelf. To McMurdo Station. One of your Yank bases.”

“Eyes on the road,” Kowalski groused from the back, pointing forward for extra emphasis.

As the pilot swung back to his duty, Gray turned to Jason, who had stirred at the jostling and noise. “McMurdo? You still have family there, right?”

“Near there,” Jason said.

“Who’d want to live out here?” Kowalski said. “Freeze your goddamned balls off if you even tried to take a piss.”

Barstow snorted a laugh. “Especially midwinter, mate. Then you’d likely lose your todger, too. Come winter, it’s monkeys out there.”

“Monkeys?” Kowalski asked.

“He means it’s damned cold,” Gray translated.

Jason pointed below. “Why’s that one section of the station in the middle painted red and all the others are blue?”

“It’s our red-light district down here,” Barstow answered, fighting the plane to keep level as the ice rose up toward them. “That section is where all the fun happens. We eat there, raise a few pints on the rare occasion, play snooker, and have tellies for watching movies.”

The Twin Otter landed and slid across a plowed surface that doubled as a runway. The entire craft rattled and thrummed atop its skis, finally coming to a stop not too far from the station.

They all exited. Though bundled deep in thick polar jackets, the winds immediately discovered every gap and loose fold. Each breath was like sucking in liquid nitrogen, while the reflected glare of the sun sitting low on the horizon was blinding off the ice. Sunset was only a half hour away. In another couple of days, it wouldn’t rise or set at all.

The pilot followed them out, but he kept his coat unzipped, his hood down. He turned his craggy face up to the blue skies, as if basking in the last moments of sunlight. “Won’t be this warm for much longer.”

Warm?

Even Gray’s teeth ached from the cold.

“Got to get your tan when you can,” Barstow said and led them toward a set of stairs that climbed up to one of the giant blue modules.

From the ground, the sheer size of the station was impressive. Each pod looked as big as a two-story house and was elevated fifteen yards above the snow-swept ice by four giant hydraulic skis. A full-sized tractor could easily drive
under
the station, which from the parked John Deere nearby probably occasionally happened.

“Must be how they tow the modules,” Jason said, eyeing the American-built piece of machinery. He then squinted at the ice-encrusted bulk of the station. “Whole setup looks like something out of
Star Wars.
”

“Right,” Kowalski agreed. “Like on the ice planet Hoth.”

Gray and Jason looked at him.

His perpetual scowl deepened. “I watch movies.”

“This way, gents,” Barstow said, motioning for them to mount the stairs.

As they clomped their way up, knocking snow from their boots, a door opened above and a woman in an unzipped red parka stepped to the top landing to greet them. Her long brunette hair was combed back from her face and secured against the wind in an efficient but still feminine ponytail. Her physique was lithe and muscular, her cheeks wind-burned and tanned. Here was a woman who clearly refused to stay locked inside the station.

“Welcome to the bottom of the world,” she greeted them. “I’m Karen Von Der Bruegge.”

Gray climbed to her and shook her hand. “Thank you for accommodating us, Dr. Von Der Bruegge.”

“Karen is fine. We’re far from formal here.”

Gray had been briefed about this woman who served as both the station’s lead scientist and base commander. At only forty-two, she was already a well-regarded arctic biologist, trained in Cambridge. In the mission’s dossier, Gray had seen her photographs of polar bears in the far north. Now she was on the opposite side of the globe, studying colonies of emperor penguins that nested here.

“Come inside. We’ll get you settled.” She turned and led them through the hatch. “This is the command module, where you’ll find the boot room, communication station, surgery, and my office. But I think you’ll be more comfortable in our recreation area.”

Gray took a look around as she led them through her domain, noting the small surgical suite with a single operating theater. He paused at a door leading into the communication room.

“Dr. Von Der Bruegge . . . Karen, I’ve been trying to reach the States since we reached Rothera Station over on Adelaide, but I keep failing to get a substantial signal.”

Her brow crinkled. “Your sat phone . . . it must be using a geosynchronous connection.”

“That’s right.”

“Those work poorly when you cross seventy degrees south of the equator. Which pretty much means all of Antarctica. We use an LEO satellite system here. Low earth orbit.” She pointed to the room. “Feel free to make a call. We can give you some privacy. But I must warn you that we’re in the middle of a solar storm that’s been affecting our systems, too. Very bothersome, but it makes the aurora australis—our southern lights—quite spectacular.”

Gray stepped into the room. “Thank you.”

Karen turned to the others. “I’ll take you to our communal area. I’m guessing you could use some hot coffee and food right about now.”

“I never turn down a free meal,” Kowalski said, sounding less mournful.

As they exited through a hatch into one of the enclosed bridges between the modules, Gray closed the door to the communication room and stepped to the satellite phone. He dialed a secure number for Sigma command and listened to the tonal notes as a scrambled line was connected.

Kat answered immediately. “Did you reach Halley Station?” she asked, not wasting any time.

“Probably shook a few fillings out of my molars, but we’re here safe and sound. We still have to await the arrival of whomever Professor Harrington is sending here. Then maybe we’ll start getting some answers.”

“Hopefully that will happen soon. The news out of California has been growing grimmer over the past couple of hours. A storm front is moving into the area, with the threat of torrential rains and flash floods.”

Gray understood the danger. Any containment of that quarantine zone would be impossible.

As Kat continued, some of her words were lost amid pops of static and digital drops. “You should also know that Lisa’s brother is showing . . . signs of infection. He had a seizure twenty minutes ago. We’re still trying to determine if it’s secondary to his exposure or a surgical complication. Either way, we need to get . . . handle on this situation ASAP before all hell breaks loose.”

“How’s Lisa holding up?”

“She’s working around the clock. Driven to find some way of helping her brother. Still, it’s got Painter worried. The only good news is that we may have a possible lead on the saboteur of the base. We’re following up on that right now.”

“Good, and I’ll expedite what I can here. But we still have an hour until Professor Harrington’s contact is due to arrive to ferry us to his location.”

Wherever the hell that was
.

Kat’s impatience rang through from a world away. “If only he wasn’t so damned paranoid . . .”

Gray appreciated her frustration, but he was nagged by another worry:
What if Harrington had a good reason to be paranoid?

3:32
P
.
M
.

Back home again . . .

With the sun close to setting, Jason took advantage of the view. He sat at a table before a two-story bank of triple-glazed windows that looked out across the ice field to the expanse of the Weddell Sea. Massive ships of ice dotted those dark blue waters, sculpted by wind and waves into ethereal shapes that towered high into crests, arches, and jagged blue-white sails.

He had joined Sigma to do good, to keep the nation safe, but he had also hoped to see more of the world. Instead, he spent most of his time buried underground at Sigma command, and now on his first real field assignment . . .

I get sent home
.

He had spent part of his childhood in Antarctica, with his mother and stepfather, who still worked near McMurdo Station on the other side of the continent.

Now I’ve come back full circle
.

He sipped dourly from a cup of hot tea, listening to the chatter from the handful of base personnel who shared the recreation area. The red module was broken into two levels. The lower half contained the dining facilities, while a corkscrew staircase led up to a loft that held a small library, a bank of computers, and a conference area. There was even a rock-climbing wall that ran between the two floors.

Directly behind him, a trio of men played pool, speaking in what sounded like Norwegian. Though the site was a UK station, it drew an international group of researchers. According to Dr. Von Der Bruegge, the place normally housed fifty to sixty scientists, but they were downsizing of late as the dark winter months approached. Their numbers had dwindled to twenty, and only a dozen or so people would remain through what would eventually be perpetual night.