Conner was trying to get over her jet lag while at the same time trying to sort out her feelings. Her greeting with Devlin after getting off the plane had been awkward, somewhere between a lover’s hug and the polite handshake two professionals would bestow on each other. There was no doubt now, though, as the team settled into metal folding chairs in front of a tacked-up map of Antarctica, that Devlin was all business.
Conner stood in front of the group to lead things off. “Devlin and I have decided to depart tomorrow first thing in the morning.”
“How long a flight is it to where we’re going?” Lallo asked.
“We’ll be in the air almost ten hours,” Devlin answered. Ignoring the groans, he turned to the map. “By the way, the base that Our Earth runs down there is called Aurora Glacier Station. It’s located here, on Ross Island, about fifteen miles from McMurdo Station, right next to — what else? — Aurora Glacier. Right now we’ve got eleven people down there, but seven are out on the ice shelf doing research and won’t be back for a while, so we’ll be able to squeeze in without much trouble.”
Conner stood back up. “The plan is to fly down there and start the search immediately. I faxed Devlin some xeroxed photos of the base when it was built, and he has some ideas about where to look.”
As Conner sat back down, she felt a little disoriented. The sun was setting in the west, yet her body felt it was time to be getting out of bed.
Devlin used his finger to point on the map. “Eternity Base appears to be set in a sort of basin, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Based on the flying time I was given — two hours — I’ve estimated it to be about five hundred to six hundred miles from McMurdo, straight line distance. That places it in one of three locations: to the south here at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Transantarctic Mountains; to the east at the edge of Marie Byrd Land where King Edward the VII Land juts out into the Ross Sea; or to the northwest here along the Adelie Coast.
“The order in which I’ve just shown you these possible sites is also the order in which I think we should look. Six hundred miles from
McMurdo along the Adelie Coast puts you almost right smack on top of the French Station, Dumont d’Urville. I doubt very much that Eternity Base is in this area for several reasons. First is simply that it would have been built too close to an already established base — d’Urville. And the Russians also had a base in ‘71 farther east along that coastline, here — Leningradskaya.
“Additionally, I and many of my colleagues from Our Earth have been in this area several times conducting protests over the airstrip the French have been trying to build there for the last four years. We have made numerous overflights of the area and spotted nothing. Also, there’s no doubt the French themselves have extensively searched that area.
“It’s possible the base is here along the coast to the east, but I like the location in the Transantarctic Mountains, because if the purpose was to hide this base, putting it there would locate it much farther south than any known existing bases except for Amundsen-Scott Base, which sits right on top of the geographic South Pole itself. This area is along the original route explorers used to reach the South Pole. Both Amundsen and Scott traversed the Ross Ice Shelf and traveled up glaciers into that mountain range. Nowadays, though, expeditions bypass the mountains, going around either to the east or west. The area has not been extensively explored. Therefore it is my recommendation that we look first in this region.
“What I’ve done is make a montage of the silhouettes of the mountains around Eternity Base along with azimuths at which the pictures were taken. Fortunately we were able to determine this from the shadows. Then, as we fly along the mountains, we’ll try to match the outlines.”
Devlin held up a piece of paper with an outline of three jagged peaks poking above a sea of ice. “This is the view we should see along a due north azimuth. Mountains whose peaks manage to make it above the ice are called nunataks. As you can see in this picture, we have three very distinctive nunataks — two large pointed ones on the flanks of this rounded one. This three-mountain setup is what we should be looking for.”
“How common are nunataks?” Vickers asked.
“Not as common as this map would make you believe with all these mountain ranges drawn on it,” Devlin replied. “The Antarctic ice sheet averages more than twenty-five hundred meters thick. That’s more than eight thousand feet. So a mountain has to be very high to clear the ice sheet.
“If we can find these three — and they are rather unique — and line up exactly on azimuth, then we will be along the line that Eternity Base lies on. In fact, I think there might be someone from our organization at Aurora Glacier who might even be able to identify these mountains and save us a lot of time.”
“This may be a stupid question,” Vickers said, “but wouldn’t this place be totally covered up by now? After twenty-five years it would seem like there’d be quite a bit of snow on top.”
“Good question.” Devlin rubbed his chin. “I do think Eternity Base is most likely totally covered over by now, but not from snowfall. There isn’t much accumulation down there, but the wind would pile ice and snow up against any exposed structure. However, we do have a plan for that.
“As I explained, we can get pretty close if we find these mountains. Once we do that, we land and use sonar to try and find the base. It’s similar to the way fishermen look for schools of fish. We have two backpack sonar sets at the base, which are used for research on the ice cap. We can use those to shoot down into the ice as we ski along the azimuth. The metal and different density of the base ought to show up clearly. According to our information, Eternity Base covers a large area underground.”
Conner wondered what contingency the builders had designed to find the place if it was covered up. She doubted very much that they had overlooked that major problem when they’d built it. “What’s the weather like?” she asked.
Devlin walked over to a table and switched on a radio set. “Let’s find out. We have high-frequency contact with our base, and just last month we finally got the people over at McMurdo to give Aurora Glacier the weather reports. Before that we were on our own.” He glanced at Conner as he fiddled with the radio. “We’re not quite rich enough yet to have satellite communications.”
Conner returned the look, trying to determine what he meant by that. This trip was going to be even more intriguing than she had thought.
Conner thought it was interesting that McMurdo hadn’t been giving weather reports to the Our Earth people. Typical government mentality. Our Earth represented a potential threat, so the party line was probably to ignore them, or to make their life as miserable as possible. On the other hand, she imagined that the Our Earth people wouldn’t exactly ingratiate themselves to the various government personnel down there.
Devlin fiddled with the dials and then picked up the microphone. “Aurora Glacier, this is Auckland. Over.”
There was no answer, and he repeated the message. Finally the radio crackled with a woman’s voice. “Auckland, this is Aurora Glacier. Over.”
“What’s the weather look like? Over.”
“The latest from McMurdo at 1900 Greenwich mean: present readings. Temperature minus 29 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds north, northwest at 23 knots. Barometric pressure 29.4 rising. Ceiling 1,200 feet, overcast. Visibility 4 miles with some blowing snow.