Eternity Base

Chapter 11

Conner, after her initial shock seemed to be on track. She was supervising Lallo as he filmed the body from different angles.

“How long do you think he’s been down here?” Sammy asked, as the rest of the party piled up their baggage in the dimly lit space at the base of the stairs. Riley glanced over at Sammy. “Your sister seems to think he’s been here since the base was closed down in ‘71.” He moved back to the body and began checking the man’s clothing, cracking the frozen fabric. The man wore unmarked army fatigues under olive-drab cold-weather gear — old-style-issue gear, Riley knew. There was no name tag on the man’s shirt.

Riley pulled a poncho out of his rucksack and gently draped it over the body. “Whoever he worked for shot him in the back to keep him from talking about what he saw here. Judging by the size of the wounds, I’d say it was a small-caliber gun — probably a .22. You have to be damn good to kill someone with a gun that small.”

Conner turned to the rest of the group. “We’ve got to find out everything we can about this place. I want to know who built it and why, and then I’m going to nail their asses.”

Conner began organizing the group. She stared down the corridor, trying to pick up details. Devlin’s flashlight reflected off the metal sides of the corridor and faded out after thirty feet. The ceiling, ten feet above, consisted of steel struts holding metal sheeting that blocked out the ice and snow. Conduits, pipes, and wires crisscrossed the ceiling, going in all directions. The corridor itself was about ten feet wide; the floor was made up of wood planks, each separated by a few inches to allow snow and ice to fall through the cracks to the sloping steel floor below.

It was as cold down here as it was outside, but at least they were out of the wind. Riley pulled a sleeping bag from his backpack and helped Vickers into it.

In the excitement of actually entering the base and the horror of finding the body, Conner had forgotten about Vickers’s wound. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked Riley, who was examining the bandage with his flashlight.

“Yeah. We could use some heat, though.”

“There ought to be some sort of generator or space heaters down here,” Devlin said, playing his light around the immediate area.

“You think they would still work after all this time?” Conner wondered.

Devlin coughed nervously, the sound echoing off the walls and ceiling. “Oh, yes. Antarctica is the perfect place to preserve things. The body is proof of that — the man looks the same as the day he died. Think about it. The temperature never gets above freezing. There’s no moisture. No bacteria.

“There are supplies in Shackleton’s hut on Ross Island that were placed there in 1907 and are still edible today. I have no doubt that if we can find the power source down here, or even a portable heater, we can get it going.” He pointed his flashlight at a light bulb set in a cage on the ceiling. “We might even get the lights on.”

Conner peered down the dark corridor again. “Where do you think we’d find that?”

Devlin shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s take a look.”

Conner turned back to the rest of the party. “Sammy, you and Riley stay here with everyone. I’m going with Devlin to see if we can get the power on or at least find a portable stove or something.”

Riley nodded, busy wrapping a binding around the dressing on Vickers’s head. The bleeding appeared to have finally stopped. “Those of you staying here, break out your sleeping bags and get inside. No sense losing any more heat than you need to.”

Devlin and Conner walked side by side down the wood planking. After thirty feet the walls disappeared on either side and they entered a cross corridor. To the left the corridor opened on two doors, one on either side, and then ended about ten feet in. To the right the corridor also opened on two doors. The right-hand corridor ended just beyond the doors, but not cleanly. A pile of snow and ice blocked the way.

Devlin shone his light where pipes on the ceiling disappeared into the pile. “Looks like that’s where some ice buckled the ceiling.”

“Let’s try the doors,” Conner suggested. They turned left and tried the door on the left side first. It wasn’t locked and opened easily. The light of the flashlight revealed a room about thirty feet long and ten feet wide, full of electronic equipment. Conner remembered Freely telling her about the prefab units that had been flown in to make up the station. This was obviously one of them.

After a few moments’ inspection, Devlin turned back for the door. “Looks like some sort of communications setup. We need to find either a storeroom or the power plant.” He pointed his light at several large boxes hanging from the ceiling. “It looks like each of these units is heated separately with electric heaters and the corridors are kept at normal temperature. This setup reminds me very much of what I read about Eights Station.”

Conner remembered Eights Station from her research. It had been established at the base of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1962 and had consisted of eight prefab units flown in by C-130 and buried under the ice, just like this.

“How would electric power be generated here?” Conner asked.

“Most likely oil-burning generators. That’s what runs the majority of the bases here, although they would have had to airlift all that oil. At McMurdo they bring it in by ship, so it’s not a major logistical problem. Here, I don’t know.”

“The man I talked to who helped build this place said they brought in quite a few bladders of fuel.”

Devlin nodded. “Then we need to find whatever burns that fuel.”

Next they went to the door straight across the corridor. This unit was a nicely designed living quarters with three sleeping areas, each separated by a thin wall. Traversing the entire length, they came to a door on the far side. They exited that and were faced with another side corridor extending off to the right and a door directly in front.

“Let’s go straight through until we get to the end. There’s supposed to be four of these in line, according to my source,” Conner said. “If there’s nothing in this row, we’ll work up the middle one.”

Devlin swung open the door and they stepped in. Large stainless steel tanks lined both sides of a narrow walkway. The tanks were open on the top, and banks of dead lights hung low over them. There were pumps and various tubes arrayed throughout the room.

“What is this?” Conner asked.

Devlin shined his flashlight inside one of the tanks. “I don’t know. It reminds me of something I’ve seen before, but I can’t place it right now.”

They walked the length of that unit and through another door. Devlin pushed open the door to the last unit.

“Ah, this is more like it,” he said as he swept his flashlight over the machinery inside. “This must be the power room. Look, there’s a control panel.” He walked over to a console full of dials and switches. “There’s the ‘on’ for the master power, but I’m sure we have no battery power.” He pressed the button with his thumb. Nothing.

“There must be a small auxiliary generator to start the main.” He flashed the light on the other side. “Here we go.”

Conner watched as he knelt down next to a medium-sized portable generator and unscrewed a cap. He shone his flashlight inside. “It’s even got fuel. Hold the light while I prime it.”

Conner hovered over Devlin’s shoulder as he worked. She didn’t know what he was doing, but he obviously did. After about five minutes he stood. “All right. Let’s give it a shot.” He took hold of a knob attached to a cord and pulled.

“Shit,” he muttered when the cord didn’t move. He pulled more carefully, and the cord slowly unwound. Then he squatted and exploded upward. The engine turned over once with a burp. “Damn. This thing is stubborn.”

Conner didn’t say a word. She found it remarkable that they were trying to start a generator that had been in frozen limbo for twenty- five years. The concept of a place where nothing deteriorated or rusted was hard to grasp.

After five more tries, the engine coughed, sputtered, and turned over for almost ten seconds before dying.

“I’ve got it now.” Devlin adjusted the choke and pulled once more.

The generator sputtered again and then roared to life. Devlin let it run on high for a few minutes before he turned down the choke.

“All right. Let’s see how we get the main started while that warms up.” He took the flashlight from her hands and played it over the control panel. He laughed. “They’ve got all the instructions right here, almost as if they were expecting someone who didn’t know how to run this thing. Hell, it’s even numbered.

“We’ve already accomplished step one by getting the auxiliary started. OK. Two is to open up the main fuel line.” He moved to the left of the console and looked up. “Here’s the valve.”

Conner heard a few seconds of metal screeching.

“OK. We’ve got fuel. Now we prime this baby.” Devlin worked for a few minutes, following the instructions step by step. “Last — but not least — we open the power line from the aux to the main generator and give it some juice.”

Conner watched as lights flickered and glowed on the console. Gradually they steadied. Devlin looked over the gauges. “Ready?” he asked.

Without waiting for an answer, Devlin pressed the starter button. The lights on the board dimmed, and they heard a sputtering noise behind the console. The sputtering shifted to a whine and then a rhythmic rumble after thirty seconds.

Devlin was examining another row of controls to the right. “Here’s a bunch of switches labeled north, middle, south, east, and west tunnels.” Conner looked over his shoulder at the schematic of the corridors of the base. At least she could get oriented now. The surface shaft where they had come down opened onto the north end of the east corridor.

Devlin threw all the switches, and light suddenly streamed in through the open doorway. “All right!” he yelled.

Conner flicked on the light switch just inside the doorway. She squinted as the room was flooded with bright light from the overheads. “What’s that for?” she said, pointing at the other end of the room.

Devlin turned. The far end of the unit was filled with a massive control panel with uncountable gauges. It made the main generator board look puny. A three-by-three panel with a triangular warning sign was recessed into the left side. Devlin walked the twenty feet to look over the setup.

“Oh, my god. I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.” Conner hurried up to him. “What’s the matter?” Devlin turned to her, his face ashen. “This is the control panel for a nuclear reactor.”