Adams requests recent American satellite photographs of the Arctic. Three days later the pilot returns with a stack of pictures. Adams compares them with the more detailed shots he had taken earlier.
He wishes he had a gravimeter and a set of seismic probes, but must be content with metal pillows to record topographic shifts. Lead-shielded packets of Cobalt-60, emitting gamma rays, help define the terrain, as do the tellurometer (a two-way microwave system) and theodolite (a sighting tube with horizontal and vertical scales).
None of the instruments is completely reliable by itself, and Svalbard is so heavily glaciated that it is difficult to determine the island’s actual topography. He must record a number of observations and test them against one another. There is no room for misinterpretation; faulty mapping could encourage drilling on a precarious site.
He produces a rough map for Carol.
“It’s amazing how glaciation has smoothed out most of the terrain,” she says, “but overall, the structure’s what I expected. This, with the core samples, ought to be enough to lay in a claim for a drilling permit.”
“Good,” Adams says. “We’ve got to run the sound tests on the shelf. Then we can head back to Barentsburg.” “And privacy.”
At night around the fire the engineers drink beer and challenge one another to run naked into the snow. The one who goes farthest gets to sleep late the following day. Tonight there is a tie; the two men shiver near the fire and the Coleman stove, their faces blue. Adams and Carol join them for supper.
“I saw a polar bear this morning,” one says. “Mile or so from the hills.”
“Big?”
“You bet. Thick yellow fur … spooked my horse a little, but it wasn’t much interested.”
“Shoulda shot it. I’m getting tired of bacon.”
“I don’t have a license to carry a gun here.”
“You know they don’t let the Russians carry weapons?”
“Damn straight. I don’t want those bastards poking around here with rifles.”
After several more beers it is generally agreed that if the Russians return to camp, they’ll get their asses kicked.
Carol is asleep. The camp is quiet. Adams lies awake inside the plastic bubble, listening to the wind whip snow around the embers of the fire, the equipment, and tents. The horses chuff and stamp. Ice breaks.
Manscathers. Walkers in the waste.
Old English words for fear.
Gog and Magog.
He wonders where the Russian camp is. Perhaps Redbeard is awake, listening to the ice.
In a geologically active world, what does territoriality mean?
Vyduv: a Russian tribal word for “wind-swept plain.” The man who kissed Carol taught him that.
In two weeks on the island he has seen seven different types of snow: star, plate, needle, column, column with a cap at each end, spatial dendrite, irregular.
One day, pacing out distance on a plain, he paused by his horse to listen. The ground bristled. Worms by the thousands surfaced in a snowbank: Mesenchytraeus, a distant relative of the earthworm. Ladybugs, too, insulated in deeply packed drifts.
He’ll take some to Carter.
He gazes through the plastic bubble at the stars. In the daytime the sky becomes a map. The sun is so intense in the thin air that it glares off the ground, making shapes on the clouds. Reading shadows in the sky, Adams can determine if there is water or rough terrain ahead. At night he’s blind. Light travels so slowly through space. The star at the end of the Dipper appears to him tonight as it was when the first American colonists plotted revolution. What’s up there now?
Carol turns over in her sleep. A thunderous crash along the coast: another block of ice has broken free.
From the U.S. Army manual on survivaclass="underline" “On exceedingly cold nights, dig a hole in the ground, place your weather balloon in the hole so that half of it rests in the snow. Cover the other half with snow a foot deep and let it set for an hour. Tunnel into the balloon, deflate it, and leave the snow dome standing free. Snow, packed tightly, provides sufficient warmth for short-term survival.”
Adams was issued an Army manual at Barentsburg. But not a weather balloon.
The Russians return. Redbeard offers them a nearly frozen bottle of Scotch, looks around shamelessly, asks Adams what progress he has made.
“I know the area pretty well,” Adams says.
Redbeard is discomfited. “You have numbers,” he asks.
Adams shows Redbeard his map.
“You have accomplished no more than we have.”
Adams pours himself a cup of Scotch.
“You expect to find oil?”
“I’m not a geologist,” Adams tells him.
Redbeard turns to Carol. She says nothing.
“There is not enough oil here to make it worth your while.”
“We’ll see,” Adams says. He passes the bottle to Redbeard, who pours himself a cup. Then, to his own astonishment, Adams begins to remove his parka. “Care to join me in a race?” he says.
Ten minutes later, naked Russians run around him in the snow. The bottle is tossed to and fro until it shatters on a sheet of ice. Adams tumbles wildly into a snowdrift — the shock stuns him for a moment. The bare-assed burly men, chests heaving, follow him with prancing steps. The hair on their legs is frozen. They point to one another’s white bodies, laughing with painful abandon.
Adams loads a pack, saddles a horse with help from one of his colleagues. “I’ll be back after lunch,” he tells Carol. “I want to check the coast.”
Forty minutes later he has reached the base of a small snowy cliff. He stops to rest. In his heavy coat he feels warm. The horse is warm. He can see no passage through the cliffs to the sea. He shoulders his pack, dismounts.
He finds a manageable spot on the face of the cliff and digs in his hands. Halfway up, the snow gives out beneath his feet. A low creaking noise. He tumbles backwards.
The slab of ice in his hands disintegrates. Fragments spin about him as he falls, glittering needles shattering in front of his face. Snow swirls into his eyes. A sudden rush of wind knocks the breath out of him.
He feels pressure on his back and legs. Ribs ache. He didn’t fall too far. That probably saved his life. He is pinned, not by ice but by several feet of snow. When the temperature warms and the snow melts a bit, he’ll be able to move. Nothing, he thinks, is broken except one of his bicuspids, upper right. He can wiggle it with his tongue.
Stupid, trying to climb pure snow.
His backpack lies within reach of his left hand. The horse has wandered off a few yards.
His watch shattered in the fall, but he figures someone’s looking for him by now. A light snow has begun — the first in days. If it turns heavy, his tracks will be obscured.
He twitches the muscles in his legs and toes. He can still feel his extremities. The snow is getting heavier.
His tooth aches. He wiggles it, spits blood. His gum throbs — pain in the back of his neck, at the top of his head. He presses the tooth with his tongue, trying to stop the throbbing. The tooth comes loose and he spits it onto the snow.
The discomfort comes from not moving. The snow is actually warm, much warmer than the wind. He doesn’t know how long it takes to get frostbite.
They won’t come after him until the snow lets up.
He digs a shallow hole beneath his head, shoves the backpack in it, and rests his cheek against the cloth. He can feel the circulation in his head.