‘Makes you feel like Scott of the Antarctic, doesn’t it?’ Dad shouted over the howling wind.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Didn’t he, like, die?’ May yelled as she jumped down behind them. ‘And everyone else who was with him? Starvation and exposure, wasn’t it?’
‘May-Ling.’ You knew she was being warned when Mum used May’s Sunday name.
‘What?’ May said. ‘It’s true.’
‘Well, maybe this isn’t the best time to hear about it,’ Mum told her.
‘Yeah, May-Ling,’ Zak shouted, and gave his sister a wicked smile.
‘Whatever, freak.’ May stuck out her tongue at Zak and pulled on her goggles.
‘Quite the adventure story, though, eh? Scott, I mean.’ Dad wasn’t bothered by May’s grumpiness. He was used to it.
‘Yeah.’ Zak crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I guess.’
‘Anyway, nothing like that would happen now.’ Dad leant close to Zak’s ear so he didn’t have to shout so loud. ‘This place has everything you could possibly need. Food, light, warmth—’
‘Light?’ May said. ‘I can’t see any light. Everything’s switched off.’
‘— and there are experts here who would put your doctors to shame. Some amazing equipment too.’
‘No welcoming committee, though,’ Mum said. ‘You think they know we’re here?’ She pulled her hood tighter as the wind tried to rip it away.
‘Maybe we are not welcome,’ Dima shouted. A nervous smile wrinkled the saggy skin under his eyes. ‘I am joking, of course. Come on, we see what is going on.’ He jumped on to the ice and closed the door. ‘I leave the plane lights on to help us.’
In the weak glow from the Twin Otter’s windows, and keeping together for warmth and safety, they trudged towards the cluster of buildings. The blizzard battered them, rushing beneath their hoods and forcing its way into their coats, but they leant into the wind and battled on towards the place where they were to be stranded.
Alone.
In their own cold, dark, nightmare.
5
OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA
NOW
The main building of Outpost Zero was a two-storey module called The Hub. Smaller buildings – containing sleeping quarters and workspaces – were connected to it by tunnels. Sturdy legs kept the base raised a couple of metres above the ice, protecting it from snowdrifts. The whole place was designed to withstand temperatures as low as minus one hundred degrees Celsius, and survive storms that could batter it for weeks.
Zak and the others headed straight for The Hub, seeing it loom out of the swirling blizzard. There was no movement from the base, no light, no sign of life – something that puzzled Zak because he knew there wasn’t anywhere for the inhabitants to go. The nearest place was the British Antarctic Survey research station Halley VI, more than five hundred kilometres away.
The wind moaned around the base like a mournful ghost. It battered the new arrivals as they approached, and tiny fragments of ice bombarded them from all directions. Zak was glad he had goggles, otherwise he was sure he would have lost his eyes – if they hadn’t already frozen solid in his skull.
A few metres to the right, the Martian Rover Vehicle – the MRV – was parked between The Hub and the runway. It wasn’t much more than a silhouette in the storm, but Zak knew it was big, with six huge tyres and a cabin like the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Even as big as it was, it still rocked from side to side in the strong blizzard, creaking and complaining.
As they passed the MRV, a dull ache pulsed in Zak’s head as if something was pushing into his thoughts. The feeling of hard ice beneath his boots disappeared and he had the strange impression he was floating in the storm. The MRV was gone. The base too. He was hanging over a vast and swirling black sea that was calling to him, enticing him to fall into its depths. He stared down into its endless darkness, his thoughts spinning and… in an instant he was back on the ice, jolting with the sudden sense of falling he sometimes had when he was drifting off to sleep. The base and the MRV were back – exactly where they were supposed to be – but there was something else; something out of place.
A huge white bear, far bigger than anything he had ever seen in a picture or in the zoo, lumbered out of the storm. It fixed its black eyes on Zak before standing on its hind legs and stretching its mouth wide in a silent roar that revealed stained and terrible teeth.
Zak’s chest tightened and his blood raced, and when the beast dropped on to all fours with a heavy thump, he tried to shout a warning to the others. But he couldn’t speak. His voice caught in his throat as the bear lowered its head and started towards him, picking up speed. It thundered across the ice, an unstoppable monster. Zak stumbled backwards, closing his eyes and raising his arms in useless defence.
‘You OK?’ May’s voice cut into his thoughts.
Zak was confused when no attack came. He opened his eyes.
‘What are you doing, freak?’
He looked at his sister, and noticed the others had also stopped to watch him. ‘You… you didn’t see anything?’
May shook her head. ‘You seeing polar bears again?’
‘Umm…’ Zak peered into the storm. ‘No. No, course not. I just… I dunno, it must have been a gust of wind or something. You know. I slipped.’
May narrowed her eyes. ‘You sure you’re OK?’
‘Yeah. Fine.’ Zak thought he saw movement again, though. A dark shape moving away from the base. And there was a sound whispering in the wind. Tick-tack-tick-tack. Tick-tack-tick-tack.
Like bear claws on the ice.
‘What is it?’ May followed Zak’s gaze, and squinted at the swirling storm. Her face was lost inside the huge orange hood of her coat. She had made such a fuss about it in the shop – Orange? I have to wear orange? Haven’t they got a black one? – but Mum said they both had to wear something ‘high-vis’ in Antarctica. Black wasn’t an option.
‘I guess I thought I saw something,’ Zak said.
‘You are seeing polar bears. What? They’ve flown down from the North Pole for a holiday, have they?’
‘Oh, ha ha.’ But when Zak turned to pull a face at her, he caught sight of the MRV and noticed something else out of place. Zak had seen enough photos to know what the vehicle was supposed to look like, and he could tell something was different about it. Something was missing.
He was afraid to say anything, though, in case he was imagining this too; in case his ‘condition’ was making him see things. But as he stared, a brief change in wind direction gave him a clear view, like windscreen wipers had swept across a foggy screen. It lasted no more than a fraction of a second, but Zak immediately knew what was wrong with the MRV. The place where Han and Chewie would sit when they were about to jump to light speed was gone. Instead of a blunted cockpit surrounded by windows, there was a ragged hole exposing the smashed-up interior of the vehicle.
Zak tried to understand what he was seeing. What could cause so much damage to such a strong vehicle? Then the storm changed, closing around the MRV once more, and he turned to May, wondering if he had even seen it at all.
‘I saw it too.’ Her eyes locked with his.
‘We all saw it.’ Mum came closer.
‘Had to be the storm,’ Dad said.
The storm? But it looked as if the MRV had been torn open. Or bitten. Like something big had grabbed that hunk of junk and bitten right through it the way Zak would bite the end off a chocolate bar. The wind couldn’t do something like that, could it? Not even a giant polar bear could do that.