"Good."
In a matter of minutes, they had moved several hundred yards from the road. The ice there was bare and hard, the treads of the snowtracks scratching and squeaking as they crossed it.
"You're on ice now," Bolden said.
"I noticed."
"Won't be long now."
Evans was looking out the window. He could no longer see the road. In fact, he wasn't sure anymore in which direction it lay. Everything now looked the same. He felt anxious suddenly. "We're really in the middle of nowhere."
The snowtrack slid laterally a little, across the ice. He grabbed for the dashboard. Sarah immediately brought the vehicle back under control.
"Jeez," Evans said, clinging to the dashboard.
"Are you a nervous passenger?" she said.
"Maybe a little."
"Too bad we can't get some music. Is there any way to get music?" she asked Bolden.
"You should," Bolden said. "Weddell broadcasts twenty-four hours. Just a minute." He stopped his snowtrack, and walked back to their stopped vehicle. He climbed up on the tread and opened the door, in a blast of freezing air. "Sometimes you get interference from this," he said, and unclipped the transponder from the dash. "Okay. Try your radio now."
Sarah fiddled with the receiver, twisting the knob. Bolden walked back to his red cab, carrying the transponder. His diesel engine spit a cloud of black exhaust as he put the snowtrack in gear.
"You think they'd be a little more ecologically minded," Evans said, looking at the exhaust as Bolden's snowtrack chugged forward.
"I'm not getting any music," Sarah said.
"Never mind," Evans said. "I don't care that much."
They drove another hundred yards. Then Bolden stopped again.
"Now what?" Evans said.
Bolden climbed out of his vehicle, walked to the back of it, and looked at his own treads.
Sarah was still fiddling with the radio. Punching the buttons for the different transmission frequencies, she got bursts of static for each.
"I'm not sure this is an improvement," Evans said. "Just let it go. Why have we stopped, anyway?"
"I don't know," Sarah said. "He seems to be checking something."
Now Bolden turned and looked back at them. He didn't move. He just stood there and stared.
"Should we get out?" Evans said.
The radio crackled and they heard "--is Weddell CM to--401. Are you there, Dr. Kenner? Weddell CM to--Kenner. Can you hear--?"
"Hey," Sarah said, smiling. "I think we finally got something."
The radio hissed and sputtered.
"--just found Jimmy Bolden unconscious in--maintenance room. We don't know who is--out there with--but it's not--"
"Oh shit," Evans said, staring at the man in front of them. "That guy's not Bolden? Who is he?"
"I don't know, but he's blocking the way," Sarah said. "And he's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
There was a loudcrack! from beneath them. Inside the cab, the sound echoed like a gunshot. Their vehicle shifted slightly.
"Screw this," Sarah said. "We're getting out of here, even if I have to ram the bastard." She put the snowtrack in gear, and started to back away from the vehicle in front of them. She shifted, starting the snowtrack forward again.
Anothercrack!
"Let's go!" Evans said. "Let'sgo! "
Crack! Crack!Their vehicle lurched beneath them, tilted sideways at an angle. Evans looked out at the guy pretending to be Bolden.
"It's the ice," Sarah said. "He's waiting for our weight to break through."
"Ram him!" Evans said, pointing ahead. The bastard was making some hand gesture to them. It took him a moment for Evans to understand what it meant. Then he got it.
The man was waving goodbye.
Sarah stomped on the accelerator and the engine rumbled forward, but in the next moment the ground gave way completely beneath them, and their vehicle nosed down. Evans saw the blue-ice wall of a crevasse. Then the vehicle began to tumble forward, and they were encased for an instant in a world of eerie blue before they plunged onward into the blackness below.
SHEAR ZONE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6
3:51 P. M.
Sarah opened her eyes and saw a huge blue starburst, streaks radiating outward in all directions. Her forehead was icy cold, and she had terrible pain in her neck. Tentatively, she shifted her body, checking each of her limbs. They hurt, but she could move all of them except her right leg, which was pinned under something. She coughed and paused, taking stock. She was lying on her side, her face shoved up against the windshield, which she had shattered with her forehead. Her eyes were just inches from the fractured glass. She eased away, and slowly looked around.