"We're a lot higher here than on the Dakota," Mike announced. "Its so cold that the moisture in our breath freezes as soon as we exhale. That creates a cloud of millions of tiny ice particles." His own beard glistened with frost as he spoke.
Bruce made a snowball and threw it at Mike. Sherrine grinned and made a rainbow ring. "A lot of my mundane friends," she said to Alex, "think that explaining a phenomenon 'ruins the magic.' I think the explanations just make it more magical than before. 'Danes live in a world where everything happens on the surface; where everything is a symptom--like the rainbows. But a cloud of microscopic crystal prisms is as magical as an unexplained rainbow any day."
When they set out again, Bruce and Mike took the skis to give Steve and Thor a rest. The tall, brawny Thor took over as Alex's sledge driver. He seemed drawn and introspective. He was the only one who had not joined in the rainbow making. His breath sparkled with colors the same as everyone else's, but it didn't seem to delight him.
After a few minutes of riding, Alex leaned his head back and studied Thor's face. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" he asked.
"Wrong?" Thor wouldn't meet his eyes.
"You've been acting distracted ever since we left the Valley."
The hum of the snowmobile motor and the hiss of the sledge runners over the ice were the only, sounds, until Thor said, "There was a family in that car."
Alex remembered tail fins protruding from an ice wall. "People? Dead?"
"Sure, dead. I got a look in while the tank was draining. The front seats had filled in with snow and ice, but I could see the shoulders and the backs of the parents' heads. The back seats--" He paused and swallowed.
"The back seats were clear. There were two kids there. A boy and a girl; maybe six and four. I don't know. They were lying there with their eyes wide open, as white as parchment, coated with frost. There was ice around their eyes where they'd been crying."
"Nothing decays in this endless cold. If it weren't for the frozen tears, I might have thought they were staring back at me."
Alex glanced at Sherrine driving the snowmobile. She did not seem to be listening. He remembered thinking about mammoths earlier. He pitched his voice low. "You didn't tell the others."
"No. Would you a have?"
"We should have done something."
Thor nodded thoughtfully. "See if you can describe it."
"I don't know. Dig them out. Bury them?" On Earth, he'd heard they buried their dead. It seemed a waste of organics to Alex, but "custom is king of all."
"The glacier will bury them," said Thor. "The job's half done."
"It doesn't seem right to just leave them there."
"No, it doesn't. But what could we have done? Broken our necks trying to et them out? What would we have dug the graves with inside the car, at least they're safe from wolves. You know what bothers me the most?"
"No, what?"
"The accident must have happened ten, twelve years ago, when most of these towns were evacuated. Hundreds of cars must have driven past. My mother told me that this country once spent millions of dollars to free two whales trapped in the Arctic ice. Why didn't anyone stop to help those people back then? Those children might have still been alive!"
Alex couldn't think of any way to answer him. It wasn't his planet. He hadn't been there. He wondered what the evacuation had been like. A panicked flight? A black, depressing recessional? A car skids off the gassy roadway and plows into a snowbank. No one stops. No one cares enough to stop. The country has turned its back on technology. Small is beautiful but small is also poor; and the country could no longer afford to care.
As the sun dropped toward the horizon, a curious green tint came over everything. The ice and the clouds, perfect white but moments before, glowed like emeralds. To the right, the sky itself was green from the horizon halfway to the zenith. Sherrine and Doc stopped their snowmobiles and everyone stared.
"The sky looks like a lawn in spring," said Sherrine.
"Yeah," said Thor. "And the clouds look like bushy summer treetops. It's a floating forest."
Green was not a color Alex was used to seeing. Black, white, silver, yes. But green was the color of control panel lights; of shoulder patches; the plant rooms, of course, and the spider plants in every compartment; and a few corridor walls here and there. Still, of all the places he had thought to see green, the heart of a glacier was not one.
He asked Sherrine, "Is sunset always like this?"
She turned in her saddle. "No. Sunsets are normal, red. I'd heard it was different when you got far enough onto the Ice. Nobody knows why."
Mike was uncharacteristically silent. He muttered something about static discharge, but neither too loudly nor too confidently. Finally, Bruce shouted. "Come on! This isn't getting us any closer to Brandon." His voice was harsh and had a ragged edge to it. When the others looked at him, he turned his head and looked abruptly away.
"Right," said Steve. "Doc, rev it up. It'll be dark soon." The other sledge pulled out ahead and Sherrine fell into line behind.
"Alex?"
For a moment, Alex could not figure who had called him. Then he realized that it was Gordon on the comm link. The kid was finally communicating. He tongued his radio. "Yeah?"
"How much farther must we go?"
Alex shook his head; but Gordon couldn't see him from his sledge. "I don't know. I've lost track. Should we be broadcasting?"
"Is low power. Carries how far?"
"Don't know. I guess it's all right. We're a long way from anything."
"I think the one they call Robert is worried."
"Yeah." Alex thought he knew why. Bruce had been keeping track of their progress. The others might get distracted by rainbows and green skies, but Bruce always kept the goal firmly in mind.
"I'm cold," said Gordon. "But my readouts tell me it's only minus fifteen degrees Celsius. That doesn't make any sense. Neg fifteen isn't very cold."
"Ever hear of wind chill, Gordo?"
"Wind chill. No, what is?"
Oh, Gordo, Gordo. Of course he didn't know. The only wind in Freedom was Lonny Hopkins making a speech. "Gordon, the human body cools by convection, right? We dump excess heat into the surrounding air."
"Yes? Is why we need radiators on the station."
"Uh-huh." The main problem in the habitats was to keep from roasting. No one ever heard of too cold. "Well, what if the air around your body was constantly moved away and replaced by fresh, unheated air. It would seem colder, wouldn't it?"
Gordon thought that one over. "I guess so."
"Look, as your body heat warms the surrounding air, it reduces the heat fall and the rate of heat loss slows. So you feel warmer. But keep the cold air coming in and you'll dump your excess calories faster. It's--What did you say, minus fifteen degrees Celsius? The wind is enough to lift granular ice particles. Call it forty kilometers per hour. So the temperature feels as if it were, oh, minus thirty seven degrees Celsius."
"Alex."
"What?"
"Well, it doesn't help me feel any warmer, but at least when I freeze to death, I'll know why."
Okay, Gordo, be a snot. But he's right. We are not going to make it. It was too cold, and Brandon was too far. The space suits, with their heaters, had been left behind with the scoopship. They would have been incriminating, too hard to dispose of; and the trip was supposed to have been a short one. The suits wouldn't have saved them anyway. Sherrine and the others would freeze; Gordon and Alex could wait on their backs until the batteries gave out. Better that they all go together.
It was getting colder and the wind was picking up. And it wasn't just Gordo depending on him. There were these Downers as well. It was his fault they were out here. Sure, he was going to freeze along with them; but do passengers really feel better because the captain went down with his ship? Soon enough, he and his friends would be frozen as solid as those children in the car.