It was dark, a kind of twilight. Faint light coming from somewhere to her left. But she could see that the whole cab of the snowtrack was lying on its side, the treads up against the ice wall. They must have landed on a ledge of some kind. She looked upward--the mouth of the crevasse was surprisingly close, maybe thirty or forty yards above her. It was near enough to give her a burst of encouragement.
Next she looked down, trying to see Evans. But it was dark everywhere beneath her. She couldn't see him at all. Her eyes slowly adjusted. She gasped. She saw her true situation.
There was no ledge.
The snowtrack had tumbled into the narrowing crevasse, and wedged itself sideways within the crevasse walls. The treads were against one wall, the roof of the cab against the other, and the cab itself was suspended over the inky downward gash. The door on Evans's side hung open.
Evans was not in the cab.
He had fallen out.
Into the blackness.
"Peter?"
No answer.
"Peter, can you hear me?"
She listened. There was nothing. No sound or movement.
Nothing at all.
And then the realization hit her:She was alone down there. A hundred feet down in a freezing crevasse, in the middle of a trackless ice field, far off the road, miles from anywhere.
And she realized, with a chill, that this was going to be her tomb.
Bolden--or whoever he was--had planned it very well, Sarah thought. He had taken their transponder. He could drive a few miles, drop it down the deepest crevasse he could find, and then go back to the base. When the rescue parties set out, they would head for the transponder. It would be nowhere near where she was. The party might search for days in a deep crevasse before giving up.
And if they widened the search? They still wouldn't find the snowtrack. Even though it was only about forty yards below the surface, it might as well be four hundred yards below. It was too deep to be seen by a passing helicopter, or even a vehicle as it drove by. Not that any vehicle would. They would think the snowtrack had gone off the marked road, and they would search along the edge of the road. Not way out here, in the middle of the ice field. The road was seventeen miles long. They would spend days searching.
No, Sarah thought. They would never find her.
And even if she could get herself to the surface, what then? She had no compass, no map, no GPS. No radio--it lay smashed beneath her knee. She didn't even know in what direction Weddell Station might be from her present location.
Of course, she thought, she had a bright red parka that would be visible from a distance, and she had supplies, food, equipment--all the equipment that guy had talked about, before they set out. What was it, exactly? She vaguely remembered something about climbing supplies. Crampons and ropes.
Sarah bent down, managed to free herself from a toolbox that had pinned her foot to the floor, and then crawled to the rear of the cab, balancing carefully to avoid the gaping, wide-open door beneath her. In the perpetual twilight of the crevasse, she saw the supply locker. It was crumpled slightly from the impact, and she couldn't get it open.
She went back to the toolbox, opened it, took out a hammer and a screwdriver, and spent the better part of the next half hour trying to pry the locker open. At last, with a metallic screech, the door swung wide. She peered inside.
The locker was empty.
No food, no water, no climbing supplies. No space blankets, no heaters.
Nothing at all.
Sarah took a deep breath, let it out slowly. She remained calm, refusing to panic. She considered her options. Without ropes and crampons, she could not get to the surface. What could she use instead? She had a toolbox. Could she use the screwdriver as an ice axe? Probably too small. Perhaps she could disassemble the gearshift and make an ice axe out of the parts. Or perhaps she could take apart some of the tread and find parts to use.
She had no crampons, but if she could find sharp pointed things, screws or something like that, she could push them through the soles of her boots and then climb. And for a rope? Some sort of cloth perhaps...She looked around the interior. Maybe she could tear the fabric off the seats? Or cut it off in strips? That might work.
In this way, she kept her spirits up. She kept herself moving forward. Even if her chance of success was small, there was still a chance. Achance.
She focused on that.
Where was Kenner? What would he do when he heard the radio message? He probably had, already. Would he come back to Weddell? Almost certainly. And he would look for that guy, the one they thought of as Bolden. But Sarah was pretty sure that guy had disappeared.
And with his disappearance, her hopes for rescue.
The crystal of her watch was smashed. She didn't know how long she had been down there, but she noticed that it was darker than before. The gap above her was not as bright. Either the weather on the surface was changing, or the sun was low on the horizon. That would mean she had been down there for two or three hours already.
She was aware of a stiffening in her body--not just from the fall, but also, she realized, because she was cold. The cab had lost its heat.