Deep Ice
by
Karl Kofoed

Henry's watch alarm nagged at him for fifteen seconds. Then silence, except for the sound of windblown ice crystals testing the orange-and-blue nylon of the tent. But Henry Scott Gibbs had reset his internal clock. He knew there would be no aurora tonight, and probably not for a couple of nights.
      September on the Ross Ice Shelf. This time of year the Antarctic winds herald the coming of summer with relentless squalls that rise from nowhere and linger or disappear seemingly with a will of their own.
      Sometimes he'd try to be invisible from the wind after he'd set his automatic cameras to monitor the ice-fire rings of blue and green that hung overhead, painting the snow with eerie undulating light and shadow. He had to make sure the cameras were working. Couldn't afford to waste film if they weren't. So he had to wait and sleep in short shifts, waking every hour until the sun's slow rise, and then moving on to a different location.
      The wind had been nagging at him lately. It almost seemed nervous. He had the notion it might subside if it couldn't find him; if it didn't know he was there; if he hid from it like his dogs did, lying low and letting the snow drift over them as they slept. Once, as an experiment, he'd piled snow over himself; it had seemed to work, but then he'd remembered that snow is ideal insulation. The wind was unaffected.
      He didn't mind the cold. And he'd always been a loner. That's why he was here, on his own with just a pack of dogs for company, smack in the middle of the largest, deepest and most massive block of ice in the world - the Ross Ice Shelf.
      Somewhere in the back of Henry's brain an automatic switch brought him halfway to consciousness. He did his best to suppress it. His left eye opened briefly and he surveyed the darkness around him. He could sleep. From the sound of the snow on the tent he knew the winds were hitting fifty miles per hour.
      He heard one of his dogs howl a soft complaint. Was it his favourite, Sadie?
      "Spoiled brat," he mumbled.
      It would be nice, he thought, to have his two best friends, Sadie and Shep, curled up next to him, but he knew that to roust the dogs out of their slumber was pointless - it would just stir them up and make them all colder. Best to leave them alone.
      Rolling over in his Arctic Blast sleeping bag, he started drifting off. In a few hours, he promised himself, he'd try the radio again. Maybe this time he'd get a weather report. He pulled an arm free of the heavy bag to cool off a little. He was getting hot. His friends used to laugh at him for walking around in the dead of winter in upstate New York wearing only a T-shirt. He would put on a vest when it got really cold.

#

When he opened his eyes again it wasn't his watch but his dogs that were sounding the alarm.
      The sun was barely up. He cocked his head to listen, and smiled devilishly. The wind had stopped tugging at his tent.
      "Fooled ya . . . bitch," he muttered to the wind. "Thought I'd bought it. Thought I was dead, didn't you?"
      His dogs continued the incessant barking. He interrupted his own musings with a sudden burst of impatience. "What the hell are you crappin' about?" he yelled. "Shep! Shut those bastards up!"
      Sadie was whimpering outside the tent. She was the older of his two favourite malamutes, and he admitted openly to coddling her. But now she was at work and had to deal with the elements like the other dogs. Besides, if he let her into the tent when it got cold he'd have to let Shep in too; then the whole team would want in. Shep was Sadie's son and had taken over her role as lead dog. He was fierce and independent but obeyed Henry's every whim.
      Henry had owned many dogs in his ten years on the Antarctic ice, but none of them outshone Shep. He'd almost lost Sadie a year earlier when they crossed a hidden fissure in the ice. Luckily she had been tied to the rest of the team. She had dangled helplessly, twisted in the nylon cords. He remembered her yelps echoing in that bottomless green chasm for the better part of a half hour before he was able to secure the sled and haul her up. A strap had broken her left front leg and rendered her slightly but permanently disabled. By that time Shep had been experienced enough to take over the role as leader of the team. What amazed Henry was Sadie's willingness to step down as leader. As soon as he had made the switch, she had immediately assumed a different role. She would run ahead scouting for danger, always seeming to know exactly where Henry wanted to go.
      Sadie, Shep and the other seven dogs were Henry's only family. Every human who had ever been close to him had died, and now, at forty-five, he had one mission in life: his career. The yacht accident in the Bahamas that had taken the lives of his mom and dad, his wife and two kids had left a scar on his soul he knew would never heal. It had been five years since the news had come over the radio, the cold impersonal voice of a coastguardsman saying that the Felice was last reported floundering in a storm, radioing a mayday.
      He had been halfway around the world studying the deep ice when it happened, and somehow the distance had made it harder. By the time he got back, two weeks had passed and all he could do was identify bodies. Everyone he loved was gone. It was as though he was being punished by an angry god for ignoring his family. He hadn't lingered, even for the funeral.
      Henry unzipped the tent and squinted into the daylight. Shep and Sadie were standing near the tent facing the west. All he could see were their backsides and their wagging tails. He had to force his way through the snow that had drifted around the tent during the night. He looked at his thermometer. Flat on the zero mark.
      "Downright balmy," said Henry as he stood up to scan the horizon. The vastness of the Ross Ice Shelf always astonished him. It was easy to imagine himself alone in the world, and the idea didn't bother him at all. Maybe he deserved to be alone. He'd be the first to admit he didn't really like people all that much. And now his dogs were telling him someone or something was out there on the ice.
      He lifted his binoculars and examined a dark patch far off on the horizon.
      Something was moving out there, but it didn't seem to be moving towards him.
      The dogs continued to bark.
      "Shut up, you fuckin' furbags! I can't hear myself think!"
      Sadie, at his side, wagged her tail and, as always, ignored his complaints and curses.
      He focused the binoculars and studied the dark dots silhou-etted on the white edge of the world. It was a large team, maybe two. A sizeable group. He watched as they slowly disappeared over the horizon.
      Putting down his field glasses, he walked slowly around the tent, checking the lines and testing the flaps, pausing every so often to scan the horizon.
      His team was hungry, so he began the chore of feeding them and himself. But before he did that he had to pee. Usually his pee would tell him how cold it was. If it froze before it hit the ground, the cold was a challenge even for him. His college roommate at Minnesota University had called him the man with antifreeze for blood.
      "Today's a wet snow day. Summer's comin' soon," said Henry, studying the yellow-green mark his vitamin-stained urine had made in the snow. He pulled his radio out of his chest pocket, lifted its antenna and punched in a code.
      "Now for the morning report," he said. "Unless you really are broken."
      He listened to the static for a minute. He could tell the batteries were strong and that the sound was just electronic static, not a garbled broadcast.
      "Fuck it!" He smacked the unit a few times with his gloved hand.
      No use. He cursed himself for having thought a smaller radio would be an improvement over his old Stromberg-Carlson. Now he regretted trading it to Doc Swede at McMurdo for the piece of technological crap he was holding. Disgusted, he lowered the antenna and, resisting the urge to throw the radio away, stashed it in his vest pocket and headed back to the tent.
      "Time for chow, guys," he called.
      The dogs answered with a chorus of barks and whines.

#

After breakfast he cleaned his cookware with snow and stowed it in its place on the sled packs. He took down the tent and packed it too on the sled. In another twenty minutes he'd hitched up the dogs and mushed them in the direction of home.
      McMurdo Base, located on solid ground at the edge of the great ice shelf, was at least fifty miles away. Relatively close by Henry's standards, but without a radio he knew he was at risk. He wasn't worried much about his own safety but he didn't want his dogs to get hurt. Not on his watch. They were innocents, and they were in his care. He'd let his own family down once and it had cost him everything. Even if his only family in the world was now a pack of dogs, he wasn't going to let them down.
      Shep leapt forward to lead the pack. He barked smartly at the other dogs, who responded with a unified lurch that snapped Henry's head back. His hands lightened on the bar and he kicked the ground with three or four thrusts of his right leg. The sled broke free of the ice and moved towards the north. Sensing their accomplishment, the dogs yelped with delight.
      "Shut your wet gobs! I'm tired of your shit this morning."
      After they had travelled a mile or so he stopped the team and tried his radio again. Still nothing but static. He remembered the group he'd seen that morning off in the distance. It occurred to him he might be able to get a radio from them and avoid his long trek back to McMurdo.
      "Splendid idea," he said, turning the sled slightly towards the east. "Henry Scott Gibbs of the Antarctic - meteorologist, explorer, now diplomat - you're a pisser!"
      Suddenly Shep stopped running, moved off to the right, and started barking. Sadie ran to the front to see what was happening. Henry stopped the sled, thinking Shep might have found a deep crack in the ice.
      It proved to be a trail left in the snow by a large party, no doubt the same group he'd seen that morning. As he examined the marks in the snow, his experience told him he was looking at the trail of three dog teams and as many as thirty people. Tread marks indicated the party had a tractor hauling a heavy cargo sled.
      "What's this?" snapped Henry as he examined the tracks. "Shit, this place is getting too crowded. Next they'll be holding the Winter Olympics here. And you can bet they won't tell me about it. Always the last to know. Well, Shep and Sadie," he added, "I guess we got some socializing to do if we want to get our hands on a damned radio."
      Sadie ran alongside the sled as they followed the trail, her grey-and-white mottled coat rippling as she ran. Henry loved to watch her run, and now she seemed fully healed of her injury. Only once in a while did she lose a step to her old war wound. "Atta girl," he called to her, and he smiled as he caught her taking a quick look at him at him while pretending to ignore his praise.
      Shep barked, looking ahead and sniffing the snow. Henry wondered why McMurdo hadn't told him there was such a large party out on the ice. For a bureaucracy, they were generally on top of things. Nobody wanted to be part of a rescue mission in this part of the world. The Ross Ice Shelf had gobbled up whole dog teams with sudden storms, blasts of bitter cold, and deep fathomless cracks in its skin. You don't sneak around in Antarctica. Not if you want to live. Everybody learns the two cardinal rules: communication and cooperation. Even Henry followed these rules. He always checked in. He wanted nothing more than to head south and continue his photography of the aurora. He'd been out only a week or so and wasn't due back for at least a month.
      Henry cursed as he saw the tower loom above the snow drifts in the distance. Off to the right was an ice hill - an upheaval caused by some anomaly in the ice. He deduced he was approaching a team of researchers.
      He stopped the dogs and examined the group in the distance through his binoculars.
      He'd slightly overestimated the size of the group he was following. There were about twenty men setting up a camp and raising a drilling rig from the back of the tractor. As he watched, he had to admire the efficiency of their movements. Each person was moving with a purpose.
      It was still morning. They had all day to set up camp. Henry wondered why they were in such a hurry. He could see the tower was a drilling rig and had already begun boring into the ice. Then he saw the flag unfurl from a mast at the top of the drill rig.
      "Norwegian," he said.

#

When they saw him they didn't wave, but cordialities weren't always the rule in Antarctica. You generally had your hands full of something out on the ice. Except for the tourists, most people on this continent were either stuck here and wanted off or were reclusive scientific souls who didn't care if anyone else was around or not. Unwelcome visitors could be on either end of that line. But scientists at least had their work to talk about, and everybody wanted to know about the weather. Once Henry had seen a fistfight suddenly stop because one of the combatants had said something about a coming storm and the other felt compelled to get more information. Most of the time people got along because they simply had to.
      Henry waved at the Norwegians. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the three men watching him approach raised their arms to wave back. Then he noticed they had weapons strapped to their backs.
      He revised his guess: this must be a group from the Norwegian military on a training mission.
      "Hellooooo!" he bellowed as loudly as he could.
      One of the strangers reached for his weapon, but the man next to him seemed to tell him to put it away.
      As he neared the group, Henry got a strange feeling about them. He decided to stop his team and walk over to say hello. Perhaps if he talked to them for a while they might not be so jumpy. He remembered his rifle was broken down and stowed somewhere in with his tent gear. Why it occurred to him to think this he couldn't say. He decided to unhitch the dogs. They'd pulled hard to gain on the party they'd been following and deserved a rest. He reached into the canvas sack on the rear of the sled and counted out nine large bone-shaped treats.
      "Here you go, bandits," he said as he tossed one to each of the dogs. When he looked again at the Norwegians, they were walking towards him.
      "Hello, friend," one of the men called.
      Henry saluted. "Greetings, gents," he said. "Norwegian marines, eh?" The men looked at one another. Then the leader, the man who seemed to be in charge, stepped forward and presented his gloved hand to Henry.
      "Cold enough for you?" he asked with a laugh.
      "That's a new one," said Henry sarcastically. The other two men laughed.
      "You all speak English," Henry observed.
      "Not all of us," answered the man, glancing over his shoulder. Then he looked Henry over carefully. "What brings you here, friend?"
      Henry smiled broadly. "Lookin' for beer and pussy. What else?"
      The men didn't laugh at first. Then one of the soldiers in the rear snickered. The leader of the group didn't seem amused. "No . . . let me guess," the man said. "You're a travelling comedian. Bob Hope, eh?"
      "Actually I'm a meteorologist, but I'm doing a study of the aurora," said Henry, sensing the man was losing patience with him. He had some trading to do before he got his ass kicked. "Fact is, I need two things. First, a weather report."
      The man surveyed the skies with his eyes and smiled, but didn't move his head. He kept his attention focused on Henry. "Looks like a nice day to me," he said.
      "My name's Henry Gibbs, out of McMurdo. My radio went out yesterday and hasn't worked since. I was hoping you gents might have a spare radio you would sell or loan or trade," said Henry. "Just don't ask for one of my dogs," he added with a grin, patting Sadie who sat dutifully at his side.
      The man looked back at his two companions. "Either of you have a spare radio for this gentleman?" he said. The two men just shook their heads.
      Henry couldn't see why the men were acting so ominously. He wasn't good at humour, but he would try anything to get a radio. He noticed one of the men was smoking. He recalled his Norwegian grandmother asking his grandfather for a cigarette in their native tongue. He'd heard her say it so often that he'd never forgotten the words.
      "Har du en sigarett?" he said in Norwegian, approaching the man.
      It was as good a conversation starter as anything else. In fact, he'd quit smoking, but he missed the habit from time to time. Seeing the man's cigarette had made him suddenly want one. Besides, this far from civilization he wouldn't have the opportunity to get hooked again.
      The man continued to puff on his cigarette without any change of expression. He didn't seem to understand what Henry had said.
      "Gee," said Henry, "is my Norwegian that bad? That was my grandma's favourite Norwegian phrase. She didn't teach me much, but I remember that's exactly how she always asked my grandpa for a smoke." He laughed. "She never carried them . . . she always bummed from him."
      The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic cigarette box. He held it out to Henry, but only after the leader had nodded his approval.
      "It surprised us that you knew Norwegian," said the soldier. "My name's Werner."
      The leader scowled at him but said nothing.
      Henry took the box, opened it and removed a filter-tipped cigarette. Then he remembered his Grandpop Lars's pat answer when Grandma Frieda bummed his smokes. "Those things will kill you!" he would say in Norwegian. "Have another." Then his grandpa would wink devilishly at the kids. Henry smiled at the man who'd given him the cigarette.
      "Dette vil ta livet av deg! Ta en til!" He added a wink like his grandpa's. But the man's expression still didn't change.
      Henry looked at the three men. "Are any of you Norwegian?" he asked.
      "Some are," said the leader. "We're not."
      Henry nodded. It wasn't unusual to find multinational groups exploring the Antarctic, particularly since the ozone hole had made headlines all over the world. But, if these men were military and showing Norwegian colours, it was odd the soldiers with the group didn't understand the language, particularly the commander.
      He felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the piercing wind. Something was wrong.
      "How about that radio? Or at least can I get a report on the weather?" he continued as though the previous conversation hadn't occurred. "I haven't been out that long, and I'd really hate to have to go all the way back to McMurdo for only a damned radio. Can't you guys help me out?"
      The leader of the three men was older than the others by at least ten years. His greying hair and beard were well manicured, unusual in Antarctica where people don't always have the opportunity to get their faces wet, and generally don't see much of each other's faces anyway. The man cocked his head to the left and smiled. He pulled his automatic weapon off his shoulder and flipped the safety off.
      "I think we can help you out, all right," said the man.
      Then he shot Henry.

#

Numbness gave way to pain as Henry regained consciousness. He opened his eyes but saw only darkness. Moments passed before he remembered that he'd been killed. His chest stung and ached. Slowly, carefully, he tried his lungs. He inhaled until the pain prevented it. Coughing, he rose to a kneeling position. He brushed the snow off his face and looked around.
      It was easy enough to work out what had happened. He'd been covered lightly with snow and left for dead. But, even if he might for all he knew be mortally wounded, he was certainly far from dead yet. How long he'd been there he couldn't say. The deep blue of night was giving way to a soft peachy glow at the edge of the world. He recognized the lighting as the crack of dawn.
      He felt his side, where he hurt the most. "Fuck!" He took off his right glove and pushed a finger into the tear in his parka. It touched warm wetness, then the pain prevented further exploration of the wound. He carefully probed his chest. His middle finger slipped rudely into a clean hole 9 millimeters in width.
      "Shit! I'm killed for sure."
      But he wasn't killed and he knew it. He touched the crushed plastic-and-metal shell of his radio, the broken radio he'd carried in the pocket over his heart. His chest hurt like hell, but the deflected bullet had only grazed his ribs and ripped his parka.
      He fell backwards into the snow in relief and amazement and stared into the sky. Above him, the aurora and the Southern Cross combined to greet his eyes.
      "Well, that useless piece of crap saved my life," he said into the face of heaven. "Is that some shit or what?" Then he remembered his gear, his sled . . . his dogs. He rose to his feet and looked around. He could barely make out in the soft light the overturned frame of his sled and, next to it, the bodies of his dogs.
      "Sadie?" he said. When he turned to run to the sled he felt a pain in his shoulder. A second shot must have grazed his shoulder.
      But he was going to live.
      He counted the bodies of four of the dogs. Sadie and Shep were nowhere to be seen.
      Henry knew he'd have to wait for daylight before he did anything else. He had a flashlight but was afraid to use it. The people who had shot him might not be far away.
      He righted the sled and fell into it with a groan.
      In a few minutes he was asleep, with only the stars and the aurora to cover him.
      When he awoke again the sun was above the horizon. His chest and side hurt terribly when he took a breath. He coughed twice and grimaced with pain. Then he heard the soft whimpering of a dog. Maybe a hundred feet away, Shep was standing over the body of one of his followers.
      Henry struggled to his feet and surveyed the area. There was no trace of his would-be killers. Even their tracks had been erased. They had covered his packs with snow, but not deeply. He could see they must have given his things a quick search, then left.
      Shep was still standing over the other dog, whining. Henry hurried to Shep's side to find his worst fears realized. His beloved Sadie was lying on her side, cold and stiff. Like the rest of his dogs, she'd been cut down with automatic weapons. She'd been hit three times. All around her the snow was stained pink with blood.
      He fell to his knees and wept.

#

The only thought that comforted him was that Sadie probably hadn't suffered. She'd died with four other dogs, and death had likely come instantly. He guessed his other dogs had been killed as well, but he could find no trace of them.
      He still had his sled, and with some difficulty he was able to find most of his gear. It had been strewn around after being searched, then buried under a foot or so of snow - just enough to make it invisible to an aerial-survey team. Some of his food was gone, but he managed to find a few high-energy snacks and his water. Eventually he even discovered his compass and field glasses.
      While he was digging around trying to locate his gear under the snow, Shep ran off to the east. Henry called after him, but the dog kept running.
      "Shit, they fucked you up too," muttered the meteorologist. He watched helplessly as Shep disappeared into the distance behind the ice hill.
      Sitting on the back of the sled, Henry took stock of his situation. It was clear he'd never get back to McMurdo without dogs. All he could do was survive until a rescue party found him. But he knew that wouldn't happen, because no one would look for him. McMurdo wouldn't notice he was missing for at least two weeks, and by then it would be unlikely he'd ever be found.
      "The only way out of this is to take a fifty-mile hike, I guess. No problem. Piece of cake."
      Shep's bark echoed across the ice, and then the voices of other dogs.
      Henry ducked down next to his sled and started looking for his rifle. He ripped it from its carrying bag and began assembling it as quickly as he could. Adrenaline started pumping through his veins as he snapped a clip into the base of the survival gun and pulled back the bolt.
      Shep appeared suddenly at the top of the ice hill, then ran towards him. A second later three of his other dogs appeared. Soon they were on top of Henry, licking his face and panting gleefully, glad to be alive and reunited with their true leader. Eventually all the dogs took turns examining the bodies of their colleagues, but soon they were grouped near the sled, ready to be hitched up and mushed on their way back to McMurdo.
      Henry Gibbs was not a religious man. The loss of his family had convinced him of the blank unholy randomness of nature. He admitted the power of faith, if only to give each of us false hope -better than no hope at all, he reasoned. Even so, as the deep blue sky domed above him and he reflected over his amazing luck, he had to say a silent prayer of thanks to the powers above for the second chance he'd been given. Four dogs were far short of the nine he needed, but, if he stripped his gear and carried only his essentials, they might just get him to McMurdo.
      He hiked to the top of the ice hill and surveyed the horizon with his binoculars. He was alone. Whoever those fake Norwegians were, they had acted very efficiently, like military professionals. They'd left no trace of themselves or their mission. As far as he could see, they'd come and gone like ghosts.
      Finally, after three painful hours of sorting through his gear and giving his slaughtered dogs a decent burial, he was at last on his way to McMurdo. Shep and the three others had to strain to get the sled moving, but soon they managed to bring it up to walking speed. Tired and in pain, Henry would gladly have ridden on the sled, but he knew his weight would be the difference between getting to McMurdo and freezing to death out here on the ice.
      The strangers had taken just about all of his food, leaving only some high-energy snacks and his sack of dog biscuits. Whatever food value the biscuits had would have to go to the dogs. That left him only the ten granola bars and two packets of powdered milk he'd stashed at the bottom of his knapsack.
      He decided to act as though he had no food at all. Even his granola might have to go to the dogs before he got home.

#

Every hour he stopped the dogs and let them rest. During those times he'd give each of them one dog biscuit and some water. He had allowed himself only one granola bar, to begin his journey, but had mixed up the powdered milk with some water in his canteen. After about twenty minutes' rest, he would check his compass, take a sip of milk, and mush the dogs onward towards the north. He knew he had to head towards the magnetic South Pole - this in spite of the fact that the geological South Pole was in the opposite direction. Things could get very confusing in Antarctica.
      As he moved farther away from the site of his encounter with the faux-Norwegians, as he now thought of them, his sadness and fear began to subside, to be replaced by rage. Perhaps he was spoiled by the usual courtesies of the local Antarctic citizenry, but he had to admit it was damned rude to shoot a stranger just for asking about the weather. Of course, there might have been some justice to it. He was, after all, a weatherman.
      "Figured I was gonna steal their radio . . . start my own weather station!" he snarled. "Damn good reason to kill a man and his dogs. Damned good fuckin' reason."
      The day wore on as he and his depleted team pushed north, with only the sun, slipping low across the sky in a long lazy arc, as witness to their efforts. To pass the time, Henry thought about the ice he was crossing. It wasn't like lake ice or even like a glacier. This was ice that had been forming for millions of years, building in the midlands of the western Antarctic continent and moving towards the sea.
      Beneath his tiny sled lay a vast labyrinth of frozen water laid down in layers over the eons. Down there, pollen grains from ancient plants - blown on the world's winds until they ended up entombed among dust, sand, bacteria, and all the other micro-scopic traces of history - were sealed forever in layers of ancient ice that, like the rings of a tree, were full of data concerning the history of life.
      But the most remarkable thing to Henry about the Ross Ice Shelf was the fact that below the ice was water, not rock. The entire mass on which he stood, some of it over a thousand feet thick, bridged a massive bay, covering over 330,000 square miles, an area the size of Western Europe, and anchored on bedrock on only three sides. He knew that, if the ice ever broke free of the rock and floated, it would raise the oceans of the world more than 25 feet and change the face of human civilization.
      At last he could walk no longer. As he raised his tent, he staggered from pain and exhaustion. It took him only a minute to unroll his sleeping bag and crawl into it. Finally he called his four dogs into the tent with him. "Fuck it," he said as he observed Shep's reluctance to enter the tent. "I know it's against the law of the great Henry Scott Gibbs, polar explorer, but I need to get warm tonight, Shep. So get your butt in here."
      He reached into the sack of biscuits and gave one to each dog, saying, "Don't spend it all at once." Shep whimpered a little, as though saying, "This is your idea, not mine," but, as soon as he entered the little tent, settled happily against Henry. The dog seemed to direct the proceedings with an occasional growl as the other three huskies - Sam, Molly and Lil Spike - carefully arranged themselves in what little floor space was left.
      Henry took a painkiller with a sip of milk and quickly fell asleep. For the first time in his life, he slept with a loaded rifle at his side.