“Hello?” Al repeated, less confidently. The blankets at the far end of the room moved a little. A man’s eyes glinted in the lamplight.
“You are here,” he said thickly. “You are the Shackleton men?”
“That we are.” Al picked his way across the slippery floor; Will shut the door behind him and followed.
“We are very glad you come,” the man smiled. He was gaunt and pale; his thick grey-black beard was matted. “I am Ivan Grigorievich Varenko.” And he slowly extended a bandaged, badly frostbitten hand. Al took it gently.
“I’m Al Neal. I think we met once, a couple of years ago at Mirny. And this is Will Farquhar. Where are the other men?”
Ivan tugged at the blankets on either side of him, revealing two sleeping men; they breathed shallowly, as if dreaming, and did not wake. Both looked as ravaged as Ivan himself. He nodded towards the one on his right, a very young man with a sparse blond beard and a half-healed scar across his forehead. “Yevgeni Pavlovich Shtein. Geophysicist.” The other was middle-aged and moonfaced, with a beard as white as Al’s. “Kyril Matveivich Borisov. Aircraft mechanic.”
“Are they sick?” Al asked quietly. He and Will squatted awkwardly by the men’s feet.
“We are all sick. Frostbite. Scurvy.”
“Your wife told us you were well.”
“I — I do not want to worry herself. If I say we need help, and you cannot help — what use? You know, I do not think you could reach us.” The smile flashed again. “I am very happy you surprise me.”
“Can you walk?” asked Will.
“No. Not well. For last week I must crawl to radio.” He nodded towards a table across the room, where an ancient field transceiver stood; it was hooked up to a hand-cranked generator. Will looked at Ivan’s bandaged hands and imagined what it must be like to operate the radio. “Every day we try, we try. Until yesterday, nothing. I nearly stop.”
Al looked at his watch. It was almost noon, Shacktown time, but only about 1000 local time. Sunset would be around 1630 or 1700. There wasn’t much margin for delay, and he didn’t want to spend a night here if he could help it.
“Where are the fuel drums?”
“In green shed near airstrip.”
“We’ll have to refuel as fast as possible. Then we’ll come back and put you on board. It shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half.”
They went back outside and walked as quickly as they could to the shed Ivan had mentioned. Its doorway was solidly drifted over; Will had to go back to the Otter for a couple of shovels, and they spent fifteen minutes digging their way in. Al looked inside and nodded.
“Well, well. Genuine JP4, all right.” The drums stacked inside were stencilled US NAVY VXE-6. “I’ll bet I dropped some of these myself.”
“You’re joking.”
“Back in the old days, we couldn’t do enough for each other, us and the Russians. But we didn’t want to take their fuel for our own flights, so we used to airdrop a few drums every now and then, so we could fly out on our own gas. Then everybody got snarky, and we didn’t come here so often anymore. And the Russians were too proud to use what we left.” He saw that the seals on the drums were intact, and broke one. A little clumsily, he tilted the drum and poured some fuel through a scrap of cloth.
“Looks okay. There might be some sediment on the bottom, but I’ll check for that while we’re tanking up. Let’s get a move on.”
They had to wrestle the drums outside and then roll them a hundred and fifty metres to the Otter. Seven drums would be needed to fill the Otter’s tanks. Will cursed the plane for needing so much, and Al for misjudging their fuel consumption on the flight in. But at last they were ready, and the process of pumping the gas into the tanks took less time than he expected, even with Al’s pauses to check for contamination. By 1345 Shacktown time, the job was done. Al looked up at the sky.
“Warming up. We’re going to get some weather.”
They went into the hospital building with flashlights — whose batteries did not quite freeze — and found a stretcher. It wasn’t easy: the interior was a mass of collapsed partitions, overturned furniture and broken glass. Then they returned to the main building.
“Now — who’s going to be our first passenger?” said Al. He unrolled the stretcher.
“Kyril Matveivich,” Ivan said at once. Kyril shrugged and grinned, showing several missing teeth, and tried to get up. His legs wouldn’t support him; Will and Al had to carry him. There was a nasty, putrid stink from his boots; Al recognised it at once as gangrene. They wrapped him in blankets and carried him outside.
Kyril must have been inside for a long time, the sunlight made him grunt and shut his eyes, and his lids promptly froze together. But he made no complaint during the ten minutes it took to reach the plane. They got him inside and gently lifted him into a seat. Will pulled a sleeping bag out of one of the survival packs and gently drew it over Kyril’s legs — partly to keep him warm, and partly to suppress the smell. Kyril looked around the cabin with obvious professional interest; he seemed to be pleased with what he saw.
“Khorosho,” he nodded. “Otter very good.”
It took three more trips to load the airplane: two for Yevgeni and Ivan, and one for some boxes of scientific records and personal effects, including a small bronze bust of Lenin. Then the JATO bottles had to be attached.
“Want me to go through the checklist?” Will volunteered when everyone was strapped in.
“Don’t bother,” said Al, his hands and eyes moving smoothly over the instruments. He taxied to the far end of the ski-way and turned the Otter around. It was almost 1500 hours, Shacktown time. The sky was rapidly growing overcast.
“Dos vidanya, Vostok,” Al said.
The Otter began to move, slowly at first, and then accelerated. Near the end of the ski-way Al ignited the JATO bottles, and everyone was slammed back into his seat. The engines howled, sucking at the thin air, and then they were climbing at a shallow angle above the seracs. Will shouted from sheer exuberance; cheers and laughter came from the cabin.
“Those are three tough buggers,” Will said.
“Yup. Good men.” Al rummaged in his anorak and found some cigars. He put one in his mouth and handed the rest to Will. “See if anyone wants a smoke.”
They circled the abandoned station, gaining altitude, and then turned Grid West-South-west. Smelling of fuel, cigars, excrement and gangrene, the Otter pursued the sinking sun.
Chapter 9 – Pressure
It was dark by the time they reached the centre of the Shelf, but the TACAN signal was fairly clear. Al even made voice contact with Roger Wykstra, and told him that all was well but that the Russians would need immediate medical attention.
“Okay, Papa Al, I’ll tell Kate. We’ll start sending up a flare every three minutes until you start your approach. And the ski-way will be marked by fires. Anything else? Over.”
“Boy, all the comforts of home. Ah, tell Terry to throw some steaks on the fire, and no nonsense about rationing. We’re all starved. Over.”
“Will do. Mind your step, now. Over and out.”
A few minutes later they saw the first flare sparkling like a star over the dim blue surface far ahead.
“Bang on course,” Will said. “What a bloody navigator!”
“Nothing to it,” Al grinned. “I just followed the smell of my own fear.”