Al thumbed his mike. “Okay, Harry, your supplies are on the ground and I see some people going out to retrieve them. Uh, we lost one bundle. Sorry. Anything else? Over.”
“Thanks, Al. Listen, any chance of coming back with your old Huey? At least we could get some of the worst cases off of this goddamned hill. Over.”
“Wish to God I could, Harry But I wrecked the helicopter right after the quake. Over.”
“Drunk again, huh? Well, old buddy, thanks for everything just the same. And keep in touch. Even a postcard now and then. Over.”
“Will do. And when they do fly you guys out, don’t forget to mention that we’re still out on the Shelf. We need rescuing, too. Over.”
“Okay, Al. Good luck to all of you. And thanks again. See you in Christchurch next week. Over.”
“I’ll buy you a beer, Harry. Over and out.” Al turned to Max. “Ready to go home?”
“Almost.” Max pointed at the shrouded bulk of Erebus. “I’d like a look at the crater. Would it be safe?”
“Sure, if we stay upwind and fairly far away.”
He turned the Otter back over the Shelf and across McMurdo Sound, then followed the mainland coast Grid South towards the open sea. The glaciers of the Royal Society Range, at least, did not seem to be surging, but most of them were relatively small and unconnected with the continental ice sheet.
The plane rose until, at four thousand metres, it was above the summit of Erebus. Though the air was very thin, it was at least clean. Al squinted up at the pillar of smoke.
“We should be able to get in fairly close if the wind doesn’t change. But I’ll just make one pass.”
“Good. One will be plenty.”
Al dropped the Otter’s nose a few degrees, and the plane began a long, shallow dive. As they neared the crater, he found himself keeping his eyes on the instruments. The smoke and ash had seemed to be rising as slowly as from a small campfire, but at close range the ejecta were moving with terrifying speed. The sound was almost as bad as that of the surge, and shook the whole aircraft.
Now they were so close that the entire field of vision was a moving, mottled, grey-black wall, billowing in oily clouds. The Otter banked steeply to the right, giving Max a clear view of the crater. He snapped photos rapidly for several seconds. Then, above the constant roar there came a sharp detonation, followed by a flash of red-orange light and a shock wave that nearly flipped the plane over. Al fought to steady it, and then looked down.
About a quarter of the rim of the crater was collapsing, sliding down into the lava of the caldera far below. In a fiery parody of calving bergs, the avalanche overwhelmed the caldera; glowing jets of lava shot up around the edges of the smothered pit. Thousands of tonnes of ice, carried down in the collapse, flashed into steam, rose as clouds and fell again as snow. The crater grew even darker; the roar subsided to a deep, almost subsonic growl.
Max turned from the window and gestured frantically towards the Shelf. Nodding, Al put them on a course straight for home. He tried to find Observatory Hill as they passed over it, but it was lost in fog and smoke. The new volcano was still erupting violently, in irregular bursts.
“The worst hasn’t happened yet,” Max shouted. “The main crater has blocked itself up. More lava will find its way out through the satellite cone. And it’s too close to those poor buggers on the hill.”
Al stared out at the broken blue-white surface of the Shelf as it slid slowly under them. As he watched, the ice darkened and turned pink: the sun, though fairly high in the sky behind them, was shining redly through the dust of Erebus.
“I should’ve tried to find a landing site,” he said. “There must have been someplace to put the plane down. There must have been.”
“Al, Al, if there had been, they’d have told you. There was no place. Not for an Otter.”
Al checked his bearings and glanced at the mountains off to the right. “We’ve passed Outer Willy again. Even if no one’s there, there must be a helicopter. I could fly back in that and at least get out the worst cases.”
Max looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “That’s up to you, Al. Just remember the people at Shacktown too. Without you, the rest of us are as good as dead.”
“I know what I’m doing.” He turned the plane in a long arc until Ross Island again stood on the horizon before them. “Outer Willy’s probably moved about as far as Inner Willy has,” he said. “So we should see it a couple of kilometres Grid South of where it ought to be. Keep your eyes open as we come up to Black and White Islands.”
“Right.”
This time Al found the field without difficulty. The Shelf around it had fractured into a big rectangular island about five kilometres long and three wide. The ski-way and buildings had received a light dusting of ash, but otherwise the field seemed undamaged. Three bright-orange helicopters stood near the GCA hut; not far away was a Hercules, evidently poised for take-off but unmoving. Ski tracks showed that aircraft had recently left; but the ash on and around the Hercules was ominously undisturbed. Nor were there any signs of life: no steam vented from the huts, and nothing moved. Al buzzed the held at fifty metres, then climbed a little and circled.
“Nothing. Everyone’s left.” He shook his head, uncomprehending. “How could they? How could they?” Then he lined the Otter up with the ski-way and prepared to land.
Max began to feel afraid. They were coming in from Grid North, so rapidly and steeply that it looked as if they might crash into the abandoned Hercules. Both men were watching the ski-way intently, so the hash on the horizon was only peripherally visible, an orange Bicker that might have been the glint of sun on metal. Max looked up.
“Al, pull up. Full up fast.”
Al stared at him, then followed his gaze.
The satellite cone — and most of Ross Island — had vanished. Over the Shelf moved a shockwave of blackness, travelling at a speed perhaps half that of sound. Above it a ragged black cloud was climbing through the murky sky, spreading as it rose. Whatever light might be inside the cloud was lost in its oily thickness, dense enough to make the smoke of Erebus seem like a morning mist. Within sixty seconds the new cloud had risen to an altitude of ten or twelve kilometres, and at its top was perhaps ten kilometres wide. It blotted out the sun; Ross Island and the Shelf around it sank into darkness.
Al caught his breath, unable to understand how so much matter could be moved so high, so far, so fast. For a dizzying moment he lost all sense of scale and distance; surely it must be a smaller, closer, slower eruption.
Instinct alone made him level off, climb and bank steeply over the deserted huts of Outer Willy, turning for the safety of Grid North.
“The satellite cone—” Max whispered, and then the shock wave hit. The plane shook violently, rose and began to nose down. Al wrestled the controls, knowing that they might be flipped over if he didn’t bring the nose up.
Suddenly it was past. The air was still turbulent, but the Otter was again behaving like an aircraft and not like a leaf in the wind. Far off to the right and left, sunlight glistened on ice, but for many kilometres around them the Shelf was darkened by the shadow of the cloud. A second shock, less violent than the first, jolted the plane and was gone.
“The satellite cone,” Max said again. “The satellite cone. It must have collapsed to well below sea level — water flooded in — like Krakatoa.” Like a sleepwalker, he got out of his seat and went into the passenger compartment. From the windows at the rear, he watched the cloud rise and spread and sink back into itself. He watched for a long time, until the plane finally outran the shadow of the cloud and the sun glared serenely into his eyes. Then he went back to his seat, and said nothing.