“How strong?” Hugh asked.
“At first I thought it was about 7.5 on the Richter scale. But in fact it was an order of magnitude larger — 8.4 or 8.5. Roughly as strong as the Alaska quake of ’64… It’s got something else in common with the ’64 quake. Most of the damage done to Fairbanks was caused by soil liquefaction. The ground under the city lost its stability and flowed like thin mud. The ice here seems to have done something like that.”
“Wait a minute, Steve,” said Gerry Roche. “You’ve always said a surge would ride its own meltwater, and make more by friction.”
“That’s happening. But the Beardmore settled too fast — and moved too fast. The only explanation I can come up with is that a good part of the base of the ice sheet just turned to mush and carried the upper layers down the glacier valleys. No one’s ever seen so much ice subjected to such a quake, but now we know that it behaves like an unstable soil.”
“How fast?” Hugh said.
“We estimated that the centre of the Beardmore was moving about five kilometres per hour — maybe more.” He paused and looked at the ceiling. “The Beardmore is a hundred and sixty kilometres long. So it must be spilling its whole length into the Ross Sea every thirty-two hours. If the surge is widespread and moving at the same speed, maybe half the total volume of the ice sheet could be in the ocean in two or three weeks.”
“D’you know how much ice you’re talking about?” Gerry asked incredulously.
“Roughly thirteen million cubic kilometres. Enough water to refill the North Atlantic.”
Will Farquhar raised his hand. He looked both exhausted and excited.
“Wilson and Hollin predicted what would happen, twenty years ago. The ice will spread out, all around the edge of the continent, maybe as far as the Antarctic Convergence.”
Scan McNally interrupted. “That would make one hell of a heat sink, Will. You’d double the albedo of the southern hemisphere.”
“I know.”
“Hey, what’s albedo?” asked Tom Vernon.
“Reflectivity,” Sean explained. “If we got a new ice shelf that size, the southern hemisphere would reflect twice as much sunlight back into space as it does now.”
“And that,” said Will, “means the new ice shelf would be self-sustaining; it would cool the southern hemisphere enough to keep itself intact. Now is the time to invest in Brazilian coffee futures.”
There was a brief burst of laughter.
“There’ll be some more dramatic effects than that,” Steve said. “The whole Pacific basin has probably had some bad tsunamis. You can’t dump billions of tonnes of ice into the ocean without creating terrific waves.”
Carter Benson said: “Let’s stay a little closer to home for a moment. You’re suggesting that the Shelf — the ice right under us — is going to move north.”
“It already is.”
“Then what happens to us? To this station?”
“We’ll move north, too. At a guess about a kilometre or two per day.”
“That’s pretty damned fast,” Carter said. “At that rate Shacktown would be out in the Pacific in a year, if the Shelf hasn’t completely broken up by then.”
“I don’t think it’ll disintegrate,” said Will. “More likely the Shelf will break up into big floes — islands — with not much open space between them. The surge ice will be all broken up, but it should consolidate fairly fast. This winter the whole mess will freeze together — if the surge has slowed by then — and we’ll have the beginnings of a super-shelf. I expect Shacktown will be somewhere in the middle of it.”
“By then we’ll be evacuated,” Sean said.
“Don’t count on it,” Steve replied.
“Oh, come on, Steve—”
“We know Erebus started erupting just before the, uh, icequake. McMurdo was in trouble, and Willy Field was being covered with volcanic ash. If the Shelf is pushing up against Ross Island, it may wipe McMurdo right off the map.”
“Christ,” someone muttered.
“Bruce,” said Katerina, “what are our chances of making contact with McMurdo?”
“Not good.” Bruce sat awkwardly with his left arm in a sling. “The main transmitter is so much junk, and we really need to get the masts up again. I might be able to luck out with one of the smaller transmitters.”
“And McMurdo may not be able to help us anyway,” said Carter.
“What about New Byrd, or the stations on the Peninsula?” Katerina persisted.
“We might get messages through, but they’re no good as places to evacuate to,” Bruce said. “Too far away. And not much chance that they’d have a plane big enough to fly in and get us.”
“McMurdo is still our best chance,” Hugh said. “Al, I know you’ve earned a rest, but the sooner you can go the better.”
“No problem,” Al said serenely. He was sitting in a chair with his feet up on a coffee table, puffing benignly on a cigar. But to Penny he seemed drained, almost numb with fatigue.
“Good,” said Carter. “Colin, how long is this clear spell likely to last?”
The meteorologist shrugged. “At least twelve hours; more likely twenty-four. But I don’t know what it’ll be like at McMurdo.”
“I may not even have to land there,” Al said. “But once I’m close enough for line-of-sight radio, I should be able to find out how they’re doing. And see if they can send a plane down to get us.”
“How soon can you start?” asked Carter.
“Give me four hours’ sleep — another hour to check out the Otter — call it 0530 tomorrow morning.”
“Al, would you like some company?” asked Max Wilhelm.
“Love it.”
“Good enough,” Carter said. “Then I suggest the rest of us pack it in. We’ve had a long, long day.”
“Wait a minute,” said Ben Whitcumb. He stood up self-consciously, hands in his trouser pockets. “Uh, we’ve been talking as if no one else on the ice has problems. What about the people at Amundsen-Scott and New Byrd? They may be in even worse shape than we are.”
An uncomfortable silence fell.
“Very true,” said Steve. “Any suggestions, Ben?”
“I think we ought to fly out to them as well. See how they’re doing, and give whatever help we can.”
Two or three people snorted with annoyance. Steve ignored them.
“I think you’re right. It’ll depend on the weather, and the plane. Not to mention Papa Al. But McMurdo’s got to be our first priority; if it’s okay, we can consider possible rescue flights to other stations before we’re evacuated.”
“Of course, they might show up here first,” Will said. “If there’s a Hercules at the Pole, and they evacuate, they might stop here to pick us up. I must say I don’t feel much like a rescuer just now. Much rather be a rescuee.”
There was another burst of laughter, and some applause. Penny saw the men’s tension vanish. Good for Will. He knows how to cheer us up. She remembered his calm and endurance in the crevasse, and felt comforted. Carter finally ended the meeting, and everyone straggled off to bed.
Jeanne touched Will’s arm as the meeting broke up. “Hullo. Can we talk a bit, if you’re not too tired?”
“Sure. Shall we go have a drink?”
“No, I just want to talk, somewhere quiet.”
“There’ll be no one in the lab.”
The lab was still a mess, and they had to pick their way over broken glass and scattered equipment. Jeanne sat down on a cot sometimes used when observations had to be made all night at frequent intervals. Will sat down beside her.
“Tell me something,” Jeanne said. “When you were down in the crevasse — what was it like?”
His smile changed. “Ah. Well, it wasn’t the first time, you know. But the times before, I thought I knew what I was doing. It was frightening, I’ll admit. But you know, Jeanne, it was really quite lovely down there. Bloody cold, but even so — the light in the ice is the purest blue you’ll ever see, and the ice seems to glow. The sky looks a long way up, and down below it’s just — black. Nothing. You can’t tell how far down it might go. When those bits of the edge fell in, I couldn’t hear ’em hit bottom. But then I was cracking my skull on the wall at that point.”