Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 114, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 697 & 698, September/October 1999

The Ice Shelf by Clark Howard

©1999 by Clark Howard

Multiple Edgar award nominee and multiple Edgar award winner, Clark Howard added another jewel to his crown recently with his seventh nomination for best short story from the Mystery Writers of America. The honored story: “The Halfway Woman,” EQ 2/98. Known for his dramatic depictions of man confronted with untamable nature, Mr. Howard now chooses his most daring setting yet: the forbidding readies of Antarctica.

The helicopter pilot tapped Patrick Drake’s shoulder and pointed downward out the port-side window.

“There it is, Doc. That’s the Brandon Ice Shelf.”

Drake looked down on a plateau of frozen gravel surrounded on three sides by blue-white glaciers, and on the fourth, three thousand feet below it, by the frigid waters of the Antarctic Circle.

“Little different from Tahiti, huh, Doc?” the pilot said with a wicked grin.

“Little bit,” Drake allowed.

“Say, what’s a big-shot biologist like you coming up here for, anyway?” the pilot asked. “I thought biologists studied trees and plants and things. Nothing green up here for hundreds of miles.”

“Doesn’t have to be green,” Drake replied. “Biology is the science of life. Any living organism. Doesn’t have to be a plant or even an animal. It can be algae, fungus, anything.” With one gloved fingertip, he wiped a tiny spot of mold from the instrument panel. “This is alive,” he said.

The pilot shrugged dubiously. “Say, did you know there’s two women on the team down there? One’s about a four, the other’s an eight, easy. Trouble is, the eight’s married. But not to worry, after you been down there awhile, the four’ll start looking like a ten.”

Drake suppressed a smile. “I won’t be there that long.”

“Say, Doc, do the gals in Tahiti really run around topless, like in the movies?”

“Just the ones under thirty,” Drake told him.

“Damn!” said the pilot. “What the hell am I doing down here close to the South Pole?” Sighing in disgust, he pointed down again and added, “Well, there’s the blockhouse and tent city, Doc. Have you on the ground in about ten minutes.”

The International Science Foundation research team was housed in a dozen small thermal tents pitched in a loose circle around a cement-walled Quonset hut with a fiberglass-lined corrugated steel roof. Half of the permanent building held two huge generators fueled by natural-gas tanks behind the structure. The rest of it was divided into a laboratory, offices, storage rooms, and a recreation/dining area with a small kitchen.

When Drake lugged his duffel bag inside and set it down, he was met by a thin woman with stringy, dishwater-blond hair, wearing glasses. “Hi,” she said, extending a hand. “Sally Gossett. Welcome to what we call the blockhouse. I have the inside duty today. And I’m the four, in case you’re wondering.”

“Hello. I wasn’t wondering.” He shook her hand. “I’m Pat Drake.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Drake.” She tilted her head an inch. “Think you can save the project?”

“I’ll try. How cold is it out there anyway?”

“We’re having a little heat wave. It’s twelve.”

“Above or below?”

She smiled wryly. “Below. We don’t measure above. Take off your gear and come on back to the rec room. I’ve got coffee on.”

Drake zipped off his outer thermal suit and walked back into the rec room wearing threadbare jeans and a brightly flowered Polynesian shirt.

“Didn’t have time to shop, huh?” Sally said, eyeing the shirt.

“Didn’t have time to change,” he explained. “The foundation had the duffel waiting for me in Ushuaia; I imagine there are some more suitable clothes in it.” He accepted the mug of coffee she offered. “What’s your specialty, Dr. Gossett?” he asked.

“Nematodes,” she said. Drake nodded. Microscopic worms in a dry, almost lifeless state of anhydrobiosis. “The others will be in from the field any time now,” Sally said. “Didn’t the foundation give you a background list on us?” he said.

“It’s probably in the duffel with my assignment papers and contract,” he said.

Just then the front door opened and two men entered and began shedding their thermals. When they were down to corduroys and flannel shirts, they walked back toward Drake and Sally.

“Looks like the Bounty has docked,” said one, a round-faced little man who swaggered, but smiled at Drake’s shirt.

“Either that, or summer’s here at last,” replied the other, a big, bearded man who lumbered, but also smiled.

“Edward Latham, ecology,” said the shorter one. “It’s an honor, Dr. Drake.”

“Paul Green, geology,” said the bigger man. “Likewise.”

Drake shook hands with both of them.

Within the next few minutes, two other members of the expedition returned from their day in the field. Harley Neil, a slight, academic-looking young man, was a glaciologist, and Emil Porter, tall and hawkish, was the team’s medical doctor. Bottles of scotch, gin, and vodka were produced and cocktails poured all around in metal cups. The first sips were barely taken when two final people came in and Drake heard a voice say, “Hello, Pat.”

He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. The voice was one he had heard dozens of times on lazy mornings and soft rainy afternoons, and hundreds of times in subsequent dreams. Turning, he looked at a pale redhead with freckles going down the front of a scoop-necked sweatshirt, and a set of direct, tawny eyes that, as always, riveted him.

“Claire,” he said. “Hello. I had no idea you were up here.”

“Didn’t the foundation give you a background list?” she asked.

“It’s probably in my duffel,” he said. “The assignment came up so quickly, I haven’t had a chance to look at the specs.”

“Pat, this is my husband—” Claire began, but she was not quick enough and the man with her stepped forward without offering his hand and said, “I’m Owen Foster. Biology, same as you. And team leader. I’ve heard a lot about the famous Dr. Patrick Drake.”

“You have me at a disadvantage then, Dr. Foster,” Drake said evenly, lowering the hand he had half offered. “I haven’t heard of you at all.”

A moment of stony silence followed, after which Foster smirked and turned to pour drinks for himself and his wife. Then he looked back at Drake and said, “I take it you’re here to rescue us from our inefficiency?”

“I’m here to speed up the schedule if I can,” Drake said, “before the expedition funding runs out. If there’s a problem with inefficiency, I wasn’t told about it. Is there?”

“Perhaps you should determine that for yourself,” Foster said, shrugging. “Are you officially taking over the team?”

“My contract and specific assignment are in my duffel,” Drake said. “Perhaps I’d better go read it before getting into any details.” Quickly swallowing what was left of the gin in his metal cup, Drake looked at Sally Gossett and said, “Since you’ve got the duty today, how about showing me where I bunk.”

“Sure, glad to.” Sally put down her own cup, warning, “Nobody touch that.”

She and Drake dressed in thermals and she led him outside and across the frozen brown gravel to a small, single-occupancy arctic dome tent with an insulated floor, furnished with a cot, camp chair, small desk, and utility storage wall with drawers. A natural-gas camp stove was already burning.

“Heat and electricity never go off,” Sally told him. “Sleeping bag on the cot has quad-flaps, depending on how warm-blooded you are. Snacks, liquor, and other goodies are in the drawers there. Direct phone line connects you to the other tents and the blockhouse; there’s a list of numbers next to it.”

She paused, out of breath, but managed to get in, “So, where do you know Claire from?”

“University of Minnesota,” Drake replied, unzipping his parka. “We were on several projects together over about a four-year period.”

“I take it you didn’t know she was married to Foster?”

“I didn’t know she was married to anybody. She was Claire Dunn when I knew her.”

“She still goes by Dr. Claire Dunn,” Sally said. “Her husband doesn’t like that much; he wants her to be Dr. Claire Dunn-Foster, with a hyphen. I think I should warn you: He’s very possessive.”

“I appreciate the courtesy,” Drake said, “but there’s no need for it. I’m up here to do a job and get back home to Tahiti as soon as I can. I have no time for personalities.”

“Okay, you’re the boss. I think you are, anyway. I’m on duty until nine if you need anything. If not, breakfast is at six. Everybody cooks their own. Except Foster, of course. Claire cooks for him. See you when I see you.”

“Thanks, Sally.”

When he was alone, Drake opened the duffel and found his assignment packet from the foundation. With the official letter of contract and statement of what he was expected to accomplish was a list of the other members of the expedition and their education and experience backgrounds. Her name was at the top of the alphabetical list: DUNN, CLAIRE MARIE; B.S., UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; M.S., UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA; DOCTORATE, UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING. BIOLOGIST. SPECIALTY: WILDLIFE.

Drake shook his head wryly. There was a time, he thought, when that specialty could have been two words instead of one. Wild life. He wondered if she had changed much.

At six the next morning, Drake fried himself sausage and eggs in the blockhouse, ate breakfast with the entire expedition team, then selected a place where he could face them all, and rose to address them.

“As of today, I am the team leader,” he announced, handing Owen Foster an envelope containing a letter relieving him of that responsibility and authority. “I want to make it clear that the reason for this change is not to be interpreted as a reflection of Dr. Foster’s competence or capability; rather, because he is one of the two certified ice divers on the team, it is to relieve him of planning and administrative duties to free him up for more diving.”

Pouring himself a second cup of coffee, Drake shuffled through a sheaf of papers he had brought over from his tent. “Let’s look at an overview of the expedition together and see exactly what it is we’re facing here,” he suggested. “The purpose of this expedition is to try and determine whether the section of the Antarctic ice sheet known as the Brandon Ice Shelf is, because of global warming, beginning to melt faster than previous melting measurements have indicated. If it is melting faster, then, as all of you know, because the Antarctic ice sheets hold about seventy percent of the Earth’s fresh water, the premature melting could mix that fresh water with ocean water and raise sea levels by several feet instead of several inches per year. Such an eventuality would submerge coastlines around the world.

“The governments of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, and others are not convinced that this is actually occurring, but are precautionary enough to admit that it could be. A coalition of a number of coastal countries has therefore contributed to funding this expedition through the International Science Foundation, which in turn put together a team comprised of the seven of you — and I want to interject here that last night I read all of your backgrounds and qualifications, and I’d like you to know individually and collectively that I have never encountered a better, more qualified scientific team than this one. You are an exceptional group, and if any scientists in the world can prove or disprove this premature-melting theory, it is all of you. I consider it a privilege to be working with you.”

There was a big grin from Sally Gossett, a slight sneer from Owen Foster, and an exchange of pleased smiles between the others. Drake continued.

“The problem the expedition currently faces is that of diminishing funds and, consequently, abbreviated time to complete the work and establish findings that will either prove or disprove the premature-melting theory. When the money runs out, the time runs out. So the team either speeds up, works harder, and brings its results in, as they say in the common world of business, under budget, or the team fails, the project is written off, and the world’s coastal countries, if our theories are sound, face almost certain future swamping. In the latter instance, we go back to our scientific lives with our individual reputations more than a little tarnished. On the other hand, if we succeed, and if we are correct, somewhere down this icy road may lie a shared Nobel prize for scientific achievement.”

On that note, Drake paused, studying the expressions of intense interest and excitement that spread over their faces at the mention of the magic words: Nobel prize. Sally’s grin faded to a determined line, Claire’s brown eyes raised to a compelling stare, even Owen Foster’s sneer gave way to something less caustic.

“What do you want us to do, chief?” asked Paul Green, the big, bearded geologist.

“I want everybody to go into ultra-high gear out in the field,” Drake said firmly. “Last night I read all of the overview reports on the project to date, and in my opinion this theory is going to be resolved in five ways: studies in the changes in Sally’s freeze-dried worms; analysis by you, Paul, of ancient volcano ash that you find trapped between the ice layer and the water beneath it; comparison by you, Claire, of the changes in algae, fungi, and bacteria colonizing damp spaces under lichen layers; and by you, Ed, of microorganisms which, because of possible warming, may now be flourishing instead of merely surviving. And lastly, very importantly, the proofs you four find will be locked in by undeniable evidence of changes in algae now known to be living in microbial mats under the ice shelf itself — and that evidence will be brought up by you, Harley, our glaciologist, and by Dr. Foster, who are the team’s ice divers.

“What I want, what this expedition needs, is longer hours in the field, more samples collected, more analysis of those samples, and more dives to bring up under-shelf life. In other words, maximum performance from each of you — beginning today.”

Owen Foster cleared his throat. “What, may I ask, will be your contribution to this effort, Dr. Drake?”

“I will work alternately with each of you, depending on your daily needs, and will assist and advise when and where I deem it necessary. That answer your question?”

Foster nodded brusquely. “No offense,” he said with mock pleasantness. “Just want to be sure you have enough to occupy your time.”

Drake saw Claire blush slightly, and ignored it as if he had not noticed. So, he thought, she’s told him. He paced back and forth several times, sipping his coffee, then turned to face them again. “Can we do it?” he asked, flatly and finally.

“I sure can,” Sally Gossett announced. “The thought of a Nobel prize almost gives me an orgasm.”

“We can all do it,” said big Paul Green.

“Bet your ass we can,” seconded little Ed Latham.

Drake turned to Harley Neil, the glaciologist/ice diver. “Any problem on the diving end?”

“Not from me,” replied the slight, academic-looking young man. He looked at Foster. “How about you, Owen?”

“I’ll carry my weight,” Foster assured him.

Emil Porter, the team’s medical doctor, spoke up next. “I am obliged to point out, Dr. Drake, that your ‘high-gear’ schedule involving longer hours out in the elements, more dives under pressurized conditions, and less rest and recreational time, may well affect the health of individual members. Do you understand that it is my responsibility to see that they aren’t pushed too far, too hard?”

“Certainly,” said Drake. “I was about to address that. I’d like to work with you today on matters of diet, increased vitamins, scheduled hours of relaxation and sleep, and anything else you recommend. I fully appreciate your concerns, Doctor, and am in accord with them.”

“Very good,” said Porter. “I’m pleased to hear that.”

Drake waited a moment, then said, “All right, if there’s nothing else, you’re all excused to go into the field as previously scheduled by Dr. Foster. Ed, I’ll relieve you of block duty so you can also go out. Beginning tomorrow, there will be new schedules posted based on what Dr. Porter and I work out today. Come in at the regular time and we’ll have an open discussion session tonight to finalize our new approach. See you all then.”

Following a shuffling of feet and rustling of thermals, everyone went out into the stark South Pole day, leaving Drake and the medical doctor behind.

“How do you think it went?” Drake asked candidly.

“Very well,” replied Emil Porter. “Very well, indeed.”

“I hope they can do it,” said Drake. “There’s a rough road ahead. It’s going to take dedication from every single one of them to accomplish this.”

“I believe you’ll get that dedication, Dr. Drake, I really do.”

Drake smiled slightly and nodded. “Okay, let’s you and I go to work.”

Drake put in place a new schedule of increased workload that was enthusiastically received by the team members, including grudging acceptance by Owen Foster. In order to show the ex-team leader that he was sincere about his own field performance, he took over dive-technician responsibilities the first day in order to allow Foster and Harley Neil to dive at the same time, instead of one of them always remaining on the surface.

The dive site was about midway out on the ice shelf, a considerable distance from where the frozen gravel ended and an ice plateau began. On three sides of the flat were walls of ice as high as Niagara Falls, while on the open side was a sheer ice wall dropping three thousand feet to Antarctic waters. They were the same walls of ice Drake had viewed from the helicopter. Then, however, it had all looked like a picture postcard. Down here, up close and surrounding, it was more like an awesome, frightening world in which humans did not belong.

A small thermal tent served as dive headquarters, with the dives themselves being accomplished through a circular hole in the shelf that was ten feet in diameter and had been cut, with chainsaws, fourteen feet down to the underside of the shelf, where capped water was met.

“What’s the water temperature down there?” Drake asked as he helped the two men dress in dry suits and attach pressure hoses.

“Just below the shelf it’s warmer than the air up here,” Harley Neil replied. “Naturally, the deeper you go, the colder it gets. I think we’ve both reached forty below, haven’t we, Owen?”

“Just over forty, actually,” said Foster. He studied Drake for a moment. “You’re sure you’re familiar with this equipment?”

“Positive,” Drake assured him. “McCullough pressurizer,” he pointed out, “Warren lowering rig, McKee oxygen supply,” his finger indicated every apparatus at the site, “cable pulls, generator, backup generator, underwater lantern, electrical batteries, radio intercom. Don’t worry, Dr. Foster, I’ll get you back up.”

As Foster shuffled over to get his dive helmet, Drake said to Harley, “You apprehensive too?”

The young glaciologist grinned. “Not me. I love it below the shelf. I feel at home down there. It’s very peaceful. When I die, I’d rather die down there than from cancer or some horror like that up here.”

The last place in the world, Drake thought, that this young man looked like he ought to be was in an ice-diving dry suit. Teaching fourth grade somewhere, maybe, but not getting ready to go down a fourteen-foot hole in an Antarctic ice shelf. Drake smiled and patted the younger man on the back.

Foster and Neil dove to forty-four feet that day, found a microbial mat, which was an underwater colony of black algae formed protectively around itself, part of which they scooped up and gathered into break-proof glass tubes to bring back to the surface. It was a successful first-time dive together for the two men, and Drake raised them back to the surface of the shelf without incident.

The following day, Drake worked in the field with big Paul Green, climbing dark, bare crags that rose from the frozen gravel floor to isolated peaks and pinnacles above, to collect rock samples that the bearded geologist praised as if they were nuggets of solid gold.

“Man, look at this little baby,” he would say reverently, digging out a rock that had on the underside of its bland gray surface layers of splendid yellow, blue, and orange. “This little sweetheart has been kept cold and dry for a million years, Dr. Drake.”

“Call me Pat, please,” said Drake. “Good specimen?”

“One of the best I’ve found,” said Green, putting it gently into his waist pack.

On another day, out with Sally Gossett, Drake was moved by the great passion the young woman had for the remote life that was the subject of her work. Using soft tweezers to remove one tiny, curved, yellow bit of microorganism from within a few grains of sandstone, she said almost in a whisper, “Look, Dr. Drake. This tiny fragment of life may be tens of thousands of years old. Can you believe that? It’s always hungry, always cold, lives in continuous misery, yet it survives.”

“Tell me how,” Drake asked, although he already was reasonably certain.

“Well,” Sally said quietly, “it gets a little bit of natural light every day for an atom of energy, a trace of moisture from the ocean air, and is able to extract an incredibly minuscule bit of mineral from the sandstone for sustenance. And with just that it’s able to survive longer than the oldest, strongest tree in any forest in the world.”

Drake nodded quietly. This young woman, he thought, was not a four on any scale.

After a week, it was clear that the expedition results had increased by a marked percentage, and, according to Dr. Porter, had done so without any adverse health effects on any individual team member. The medical doctor had established a nightly recreation period which required cards, checkers, and trivia games rather than simply sitting around talking while consuming scotch and gin.

“More mental relaxation and less alcohol consumption results in better overall function the next day,” Porter explained. He also established a short calisthenics routine before breakfast every morning. “Wakes up the endorphins in the brain that are the foundation for feelings of good physical and mental well-being,” he said.

Team members, even Owen Foster, went along with everything the medical doctor suggested. And Drake knew why. The magic spun by Alfred Nobel loomed tantalizingly before them. That and their own professionalism. Still, it almost seemed too easy to him, too smooth. He wondered if it would last. He soon found out.

Drake was alone, working on a routine report to the foundation, when his tent phone rang one night.

“Drake here,” he answered.

“Pat, it’s Claire. Is it okay if I drop over and talk to you for a few minutes?”

He could not help hesitating before answering, and it gave her the opportunity to reinforce her request.

“It’ll be all right, Pat. All the men are in a poker game, and Sally’s watching a video movie. Just for a few minutes, Pat, please.” She seemed to force a lightness into her voice. “Listen, I promise not to even take off my thermals.”

“All right, Claire,” he said. “Come on over.”

She was there in less than five minutes, out of breath when she removed her hood and face mask, creating old desires in Drake as she shook out her red hair.

“I ran over to turn on the light in Owen’s and my tent in case he misses me and looks out the window.”

“Claire, I’m not sure this is smart,” Drake said, curbing the warm feeling in the pit of his abdomen.

“It probably isn’t, but it’s necessary, Pat. Look, I’m having a real problem with Owen. He knows about us; our past, I mean. It was stupid, but I told him. I have this thing about honesty in a marriage. I thought he would just consider the past to be the past. But he’s becoming more unreasonable and suspicious every day.”

“That’s ridiculous, Claire. There’s no basis for any suspicion. This is the first time I’ve even been alone with you since I arrived. I’ve made a point of only doing field and lab work with you when there was another team member present—”

“I know that, Pat. And you know it. But Owen doesn’t — not when he’s in the water forty or fifty feet under the ice shelf.” She put a hand on his arm. “Pat, I’m telling you this for the sake of the project. I know Owen. He’s volatile and he’s got a short fuse. He could blow up over this and ruin the entire expedition.”

With her standing close enough to touch his arm, Drake saw that perspiration had broken on her brow and upper lip.

“Take off your thermals,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll catch pneumonia when you step back outside.”

“Thanks,” Claire said with relief, unzipping her sleeves and pant legs to shed the heat-producing outer garb. She sat on the side of the bunk and Drake immediately wished she had taken the camp chair instead. “Listen, can I have one of those little bottles of gin, Pat? I’m very nervous.”

He opened a small pantry on the utility storage wall and twisted the top off a jigger-size bottle of Bombay. He was looking around for a clean cup when she took it out of his hand.

“That’s okay,” she said, and drank it straight from the miniature bottle. When it was down, she smiled and fixed her brownish orange eyes on him in a way that still, after all the years, beguiled him. “Reminds me of when we used to lie in front of the fireplace and sip wine from the same bottle on those icy Sunday afternoons back in Minnesota.” Instantly then, her expression became dejected. “God, Pat, whatever happened to us?”

Drake shook his head dismally. “I don’t know, Claire. Time passes, people change, life paths turn in other directions.” He sat down on the bunk and put an arm around her shoulders. “But you’ve done all right, Claire. You’ve got your doctorate and you’re married to someone in your field of interest. I must tell you that I’ve found Owen to be a really exceptional scientist—”

“The only thing Owen is exceptional at,” Claire snapped, “is being a world-class son of a bitch.” She rose and quickly unbuttoned her flannel shirt. “Would you like to see my bruises, Pat? They’re all recent, since you got here. He only hits me on the body so it won’t show—”

Drake stood and put his arms around her. “Don’t, please, Claire. It’s not necessary. I believe you. What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head against his chest. “I’m not sure there’s anything either of us can do. What is, is. We just have to get through it.” Backing away from him, she rebuttoned her shirt and reached for her thermals. “I’d better go, Pat. I’m sorry about this. I just wanted to warn you for the sake of the project.” Her eyes softened and she lightly touched his cheek with her fingertips. “I would very much like to see you become a Nobel laureate in science, Dr. Patrick Drake. I would be so proud.”

Before he knew it, she was gone, and he was left with the fresh memory of her breasts against his chest. And the thought that they might have bruises on them from the fists of Owen Foster.

The next day, Drake worked with Ed Latham, the swaggering but smiling little geologist. They climbed up to, then out upon, one of the lower promontory glaciers that formed the high walls around the shelf. There, protected by wind panels they put up, they laboriously and methodically used hand-held razor rakes to scrape away layer after layer of ice until, about three feet down, they encountered a strain of light rust running parallel to the surface.

“Iron,” said Latham. “We’re close to something.”

Carefully, he scraped past the redness, dismissing it as scientifically worthless, and dug a few more inches until he reached a second strain that was black as tar.

“Ah, this is what we want,” he said jovially.

“Ash?” asked Drake.

“Yep. Very old ash. From some ancient volcano that used to be here. It got trapped between the ice layer and the water underneath, and froze so quickly that it’s been preserved ever since. Would you hold this collection jar for me, Dr. Drake?”

“Certainly. And call me Pat, please.”

After their climb down, and on the walk back, Drake was staring distractedly out at the starkness of the shelf when Latham asked, “So how are we doing, Pat?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Drake said, when Latham’s voice got through his reverie.

“I asked how we’re doing. You know, the team. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just a little tired today. We’re doing splendidly, Ed. Better than I hoped.”

Except, he thought, for those bruises on Claire’s body.

When they got back to the blockhouse, they found that the gin and scotch had been broken out early by the rest of the team, who were in an exuberant mood over what Owen Foster had collected under the ice shelf on his dive that day.

“Look at these, Pat!” Sally all but screeched, running to him with an underwater collection tube. “Look what Owen found! Look at the color of these!”

Examining the jar, Drake detected, among a small cluster of black algae, several that were not completely black, but rather bluish black. Where did you find them?” Drake asked.

“It’ll all be in my report, Doctor,” Foster said with smug aloofness.

Drake, thoughts of Claire’s bruises still circulating, took a step forward, eyes narrowing, and said, “Don’t get cute with me, Foster, or I’ll have you on the next goddamned helicopter out of here. Now where’d you find them?”

“Forty-nine feet down,” Foster said tightly, his own eyes darkening in anger. “There’s a microbial mat down there that’s definitely different from the earlier ones Harley and I have found. It’s — I don’t know, a tighter mat, more closely formed—”

“Maybe to protect this lighter species,” Claire offered.

“Protect it from what?” Owen snapped, throwing her an annoyed look.

“From warmth that it’s not used to,” Sally interjected. “From warmth that it’s never felt, and is instinctively frightened of.”

“Of course,” Drake said, almost speaking to himself. “Warmth coming from far down. So far down that the water is warmer—”

Now Owen Foster’s expression became excited. “Because global warming is pushing heavier warm water under the ice cap—”

“—and it’s gradually working its way upward,” Drake finished the thought for him.

“I’ll be damned,” Ed Latham whispered.

“Me too,” agreed Paul Green. The big bear of a man and his smaller friend slapped hands like a couple of basketball players.

A silence came over the group then, only momentary, but as if dictated by some higher plane of feeling that somehow governed them all individually and as a group. It was almost religious, perhaps even divine. For a split instant of time, they were like apostles who suddenly found themselves in the presence of their god.

Finally, Drake stepped over and poured a drink for himself. He raised it in a toast.

“Colleagues,” he said, “I think this is our breakthrough.”

Drake worked up a new schedule that night, focusing entirely on the latest evidence gathered from Owen Foster’s dive. Sally, Claire, and Ed Latham were assigned exclusively to laboratory duty, running full-spectrum tests on the new blue-black algae. Porter, the medical doctor, took over block duty and pitched in to help in the preparation of reports. Foster and Harley Neil increased their diving-schedule depth by decreasing the time spent underwater. Drake and big Paul Green worked together as dive techs to expedite the submersions, decreasing dive prep time, and shuttling fresh samples back to the blockhouse lab.

“Keep a tight rein on the dive times and depths, Pat,” Porter cautioned the next morning as the four men prepared to leave for the dive site.

“I will, Emil,” Drake assured the tall, hawkish man. “I’m not going to blow this by being overanxious, believe me.”

By noon that day, Harley Neil had returned to the surface with more bluish black algae, this sampling containing an even lighter blue cast than the previous day’s find.

“How far down?” Drake asked.

“Fifty-two feet,” the young diver replied.

When Foster came up a little while later from fifty-five feet, the bluish tint was lighter still. A subsequent dive by both men that afternoon, down to fifty-nine feet, produced for the first time a greenish black sample.

“They’re getting lighter,” Owen Foster said elatedly as he and Harley sat through routine medical exams by Emil Porter at the end of the day.

“Definitely,” Harley agreed. “I just wish there was some way we could get around the random gathering and be more selective in what we catch—”

“Maybe there is,” Foster said. “Why not each take a second lantern for more light? That way we’ll be able to better distinguish color down there.”

“But what about the weight? A second lantern, I don’t know—”

“We can handle the weight,” Foster said confidently.

Drake cut into the conversation, saying, “You may be able to handle it, but I’m not so sure about the generators supplying the power. I don’t want them running hot. Let’s not rush this, okay?”

Foster glared at him for a moment, then replied grudgingly, “You’re the boss, Drake.”

“That’s right, I am,” Drake said evenly.

And if you don’t like it, he thought, try punching me around.

The next day, Foster and Neil each made two more dives, the first to sixty-two feet, which prompted Emil Porter, who came out to the dive site for samples, to say to Drake, “This worries me, Pat, diving into the sixties like this.”

“It’s got to be done, Emil,” Drake insisted. “The deeper we go, the lighter the algae we find. We’ve got to follow through on this.”

“Then shorten the dives,” the doctor said. “More depth, less time down. Compensate.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll try.”

But that afternoon, on the second dive, with both men at sixty-five feet, Drake let the dive run a few minutes longer.

“This is risky, Pat,” said Paul Green nervously.

“Just keep it to yourself,” Drake said shortly. “This has to be up to Owen and Harley, not us or Emil Porter. They know what they can handle down there.”

But as it turned out, one of them did not. Even though the afternoon dive produced the best, lightest-green-pigmented algae yet found, it effectively eliminated Harley Neil from dive duty.

“You’re grounded,” Dr. Porter announced after the evening physical exam.

“What! Like hell I am!” Harley protested.

“I have the medical authority to keep you out of the water,” Porter said flatly. “I’m exercising that authority.” He turned to Drake. “I warned you, Pat.”

“What’s the basis for your decision?” Drake asked.

“Blood alkalinity is down, systolic and diastolic pressure both up, there’s some ocular expansion, and the beginning of sinus stricture. That enough for you?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned back to Harley. “No alcohol for twenty-four hours, no diving for forty-eight. Then I’ll reevaluate you.”

“Damn it, this cuts the dive schedule in half!” Harley pounded the side of his fist on the table.

“No, it doesn’t,” Drake said. “I’ll take your place. I’m certified.”

Dr. Porter raised one eyebrow sceptically. “How long has it been since you dived?”

“Awhile. But I am certified. Radio the foundation if you don’t believe me.” He bobbed his chin at Neil. “Harley can work as dive tech, can’t he?”

“Of course. He can do anything but go under.”

“Harley, do you have specs on the dry suits we’re using? And a current dive manual?”

“Sure. I’ll get them.”

The thought of the next day was already generating bursts of apprehension in Drake’s mind. He had not dived in a dry suit in more than five years. Any recent diving he had done had been in a wet suit, with scuba gear, in Polynesian and Australian waters. With that kind of history, the smart way to approach the ice-shelf exploration would have been to spend half an hour at twenty feet the first day, forty-five minutes at thirty-five the second, an hour at fifty feet the third, then try a deeper dive. He was going to have to spend about ninety minutes at sixty-plus feet the first day. It was going to be not only arduous but dangerous.

But, he had already decided, it was necessary. If there was going to be an individual Nobel prize for the diver who found the algae that conclusively proved the theory, maybe he would be the one to get it.

Later that night, while Drake was carefully reviewing a schematic of the dry suit’s valves and attachments, Owen Foster walked into his tent without knocking.

“Just what the hell are you up to, Drake?” he demanded.

“What are you talking about, Foster? And don’t you know how to knock?”

“Never mind knocking! And you know damn well what I’m talking about! You set it up with Porter to replace Harley with yourself to make you the lead diver. You want to be the one who brings up the conclusive algae, don’t you?”

“That’s absurd,” said Drake. “I don’t care who brings it up, as long as the team gets it—”

“Will you guarantee to let me do the deeper dives first?” Foster challenged.

“No, I can’t do that.” Drake tried to reason with him. “If I see something that’s deeper than you are, or deeper than you’ve been, I have to go for it. This is a scientific endeavor, not some kind of contest, Foster—”

“Yeah, right,” Foster snapped. “I suppose you’re not trying to impress Claire to get her back either?”

“No, I’m not—”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me she hasn’t been to your tent since you got here?”

“She came to my tent just to talk. She said she was worried about the project—”

“You’re a goddamned liar,” Foster said. From under his parka he drew a serrated ice knife and brandished it malevolently. “You listen and you listen good, you son of a bitch. You’re not getting my wife, and you’re not cheating me out of being the one who brings up the algae sample that proves the warming theory. I am going to be the one the scientific world applauds for that. I am going to be the one whose name goes into the history books, and I am going to be the one on this team who gets an individual Nobel prize!”

Drake eyed the knife warily. “You’re sick, Foster. You need therapy.”

“The only thing I need is for you to stay out of my dive depth tomorrow. I’d gut you right now if I wasn’t afraid it would terminate the project. But if you dive past me tomorrow, I swear I’ll cut your air hose and let you die down there!”

With that, the enraged man turned and stalked out.

No sooner was Foster gone than Drake’s tent phone rang. It was Claire.

“Has he been there?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, he just left.”

“Pat, I’m frightened. He’s losing it. It infuriated him that you were diving with him tomorrow instead of Harley. He’s afraid that you’re going to be the star now, and he’ll be just another team member. Listen, can you come and get me?”

“Come and get you?”

“Just to walk with me from the blockhouse to Sally’s tent. Everyone else is already gone. Sally’s in a two-person tent and said I could bunk with her tonight. She knows that I’m terrified of Owen. Especially since he believes that — well, you and I, you know—”

“I’ll be over in ten minutes,” Drake told her.

When Drake got over to the blockhouse, Claire was not dressed to leave, as he had known she would not be. Instead, she was in the little kitchen with coffee poured for both of them. Drake zipped off his thermals and sat down with her.

“How in hell did you ever get mixed up with a psycho like Foster?” he asked without preliminary.

Claire shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “After you and I broke up, I kind of drifted. I was involved with an aeronautical engineer out in California, until I found out that his fifteen-year-old daughter wasn’t his daughter at all, but a runaway he had been keeping in his home for over a year as an extra bed partner. Then there was a faculty head in Colorado who got me dangerously into the drug scene before I came to my senses and got out. In Texas there was a wealthy rancher, who was the father of one of my students at the University of Houston, who swore that he and his wife were on the brink of a divorce, but whose wife eventually came to me and threatened to gouge my eyes out with her spurs if I didn’t leave her husband alone.” She smiled wistfully. “I just couldn’t seem to connect with anyone who came up to your standards, Pat, which was what I was trying to do. I wanted very badly to come back to you, I even tried to find you—”

“I didn’t know that,” Drake said in surprise.

“It’s true. I called everyone we mutually knew to locate you. I was going to beg you to give us another chance together. But when I finally found out where you were, you were engaged to somebody named Cindy or something—”

“Wendy.”

“—and the two of you had left for Africa on an agriculture project of some kind. So I dropped my desperate quest and started drifting again. When I met Owen, I was down to my last emotion. Unfortunately, I used it on him.” Claire rose and turned off the overhead fluorescents, leaving the little kitchen in subdued countertop light. “Do you mind? I have a raging headache.” Walking to the room’s only window, she pressed a button to electronically raise the thermal shade, and looked out at the ghostly white moonlit night. Drake rose and came over to stand with her.

“So whatever happened to Cindy?” she asked.

“Wendy. She dumped me for a great white hunter. Some guy who worked as a guide for National Geographic.”

“Did you find anyone else?”

“No,” he answered quietly. “I didn’t try. By then I knew I couldn’t replace you.”

They were in each other’s arms quickly then, moving in tandem away from the window, to the far end of the counter where the light barely reached, and where she could sit up on the counter-top and they could open just enough buttons, just enough zippers, move just enough fabric aside for what they both wanted.

“Don’t hold me too tight, Pat,” she whispered. “My bruises—”

While they were locked together, her head thrown back, his mouth on her throat, Drake made up his mind to kill Owen Foster under the ice shelf the next day.

The dive site the next morning had an unusually ominous aura about it. The frigid air somehow seemed thinner and more difficult to breathe, the stratocumulus clouds looked low enough to reach up and touch, and during the night some extraordinary wave of heat, the kind of phenomenon unique to Antarctica, had thawed an inch of ice on the surface of the shelf to create a slush in which the scientists had to maneuver about. “This is downright spooky,” said big Paul Green, shuddering involuntarily. Along with grounded Harley Neil, he was a dive tech this morning.

“Tell me about it,” Harley agreed.

The two men got the dive equipment in place and the generators running, tested everything, then went into the ready tent where Drake and Foster, warily facing each other without speaking, were suiting up. They had everything on except helmet, gloves, and the utility belt which held, on one side, rubber cases containing sample-collection tubes, and on the other, an assortment of small tools to facilitate removing ice or rock in which a microbial mat had been formed by algae for protection.

As the two techs checked each suited diver and helped them on with the belt and gloves, Owen Foster said to them, “I want maximum slack today, beginning at sixty-eight feet. Understand?”

“You don’t want to push it, Owen,” cautioned Harley. “It won’t do the project any good if you end up grounded too.”

“Just give me the slack,” Foster ordered. “I know what I’m doing.”

Harley looked to Drake for approval as team leader. Drake nodded. “Give me the same slack,” he told Harley.

Outside, at the lip of the ten-foot dive hole down the fourteen-foot icy cylindrical walls, at the bottom of which the men could see the cerulean water the shelf covered, the techs placed on each diver in turn the heavy, globelike helmet through which they would receive air and voice communication from the surface. Each diver sat down on an empty equipment crate and waited patiently as his suit was pressurized and the radio reception checked. Several minutes later, they were ready to go.

“Okay,” said Harley, “here’s the routine but required safety speech. Your dry suits are safe in water of this temperature to a depth of eighty feet. You will have maximum slack of depth plus twenty feet during this dive to accommodate lateral movement only. The suit environment gauges are in the control panel on your left sleeve just below the elbow. When the panel lid is opened, there is an illuminated digital screen on its underside, with command buttons for all functions directly under it. Watch your suit pressure and temperature, watch your heart rate, and watch your depth.” He gave each of them a double pat on top of their helmet. “Good luck.”

Protocol required that Drake enter the water first. With a powerful underwater lantern secured over his right shoulder, he backed up to the hole and laboriously descended a metal ladder spiked to the inside wall. In less than a minute, his heavy, weighted boots reached the water, and seconds later he hand-walked the final few rungs and submerged.

Owen Foster quickly followed him.

For Pat Drake, being in the water under the ice shelf was like diving back into prehistoric time. He had never been in a body of water that large and that deep, yet devoid of visible, moving sea life. He felt almost as if he were in a synthetic world, a place surreal and unnatural. Inside the diving helmet, his eyes were wide with wonder, his lips parted in silent exclamation. The powerful high-intensity, mercury-metallic iodide incandescence of his lantern, spreading from fourteen inches square to a light the size of a small theater screen twenty feet in front of him, illuminated for him a domain that few humans would ever see. Its terrain, much like that above the shelf, was pitched with crags, crevices, and fissures that once had been above the water and walked on by creatures long extinct, perhaps even scientifically unknown.

Drake’s reverie was interrupted by the sudden intrusion of a second shaft of light as Owen Foster descended to the level where Drake was treading with one hand on a protrusion of rock. As Foster glided near him, Drake flipped open the control panel on his sleeve and pressed the blue depth button. The digital screen immediately read: 48. He switched on his radio.

“Harley, this is Drake, reporting both divers at forty-eight. Beginning further descent.”

When Foster came into Drake’s field of light, Drake saw that he had in his hand the serrated knife he had wielded the previous night when he intruded in Drake’s tent. Drake trod backward a little along the rock and held his left hand up, palm out, to indicate that he wanted no trouble. He pointed to Foster, then downward with a thumb, signaling for him to take the lead in the dive. Foster pushed off and began to descend.

At fifty-eight feet, Foster paused for several moments. Drake came down to within a few feet of his depth, but kept well away from him in the lateral distance between them. His mind was racing. I’ve got to do this, he told himself, having now admitted to himself that he wanted Claire back, and that the only way for him to get her was for them to be free of Owen Foster. The previous night, after he and Claire had left the blockhouse and parted, he had gone to sleep thinking how wonderful it had felt being with her again, touching her, loving her. But later, in a nightmarish dream, he had seen her naked body black and blue from her husband’s fists, and he had awakened sweating and angry. It was then that he got out of bed and rummaged in the drawers of the utility wall until he found a box of ice nails. Four inches long, their points needle-sharp, they were used on surface ice and rocks, hammered in as hangers for collection vessels. Selecting one of them, he took the cork from an open bottle of wine he had in the tent, cut off an inch of it to push over the nail’s point, and had carried it with him to the dive site that morning. When no one was looking, he slipped it into one of the cases on his dive belt, where it now lay.

Drake reported his depth to the surface again, certain that Foster had done the same, then waited while Foster continued his descent. He saw that Foster still had the knife in one hand, and continued to keep a sensible distance between them. Presently he descended to sixty-five feet and began moving his lantern over a small ridge of crags, looking for signs of mat colonization. He knew that Foster, several feet farther down, could see that Drake was holding back to allow Foster first look in the deeper water. I’ll wait, he thought, until he finds something worth collecting, until he begins to concentrate on his job, and then I’ll drop silently behind him and puncture his suit with the ice nail—

Suddenly Drake’s attention was caught by several dots of color down the wall of the crag. It manifested in the light for only a split instant, but Drake could have sworn it was a very light green, almost lime in hue. Could it possibly have been algae? he wondered. Algae without any blue or black, which were the colors produced by colder water? Squinting, frowning, he moved deeper, closer into the crags. Glancing over, he saw that he was now several feet farther down than Foster, but Foster’s fight was pointed away from him now, and Foster seemed to be occupied with his own search.

Momentarily dismissing the other diver from his mind, Drake began to carefully examine the crag area where he thought he had seen the fight green color. In only a matter of seconds, he had found it: a microbial mat formed by a multitude of millions, perhaps billions, of microscopic organisms that had to have been, because of their fight green color, getting a source of comparative warmth from somewhere.

This is it! Drake thought excitedly. This will be enough to keep the project going, to get more money, deeper diving gear, to let us go far enough down to prove the warming theory—

“Pat, what’s your depth?” he heard Harley’s voice from the surface.

Drake flipped open his control panel and pressed the depth button.

“Seventy-one.”

“That’s deep enough,” said Harley. “Run a gauge check.”

Drake glanced over at Foster. It looked as if he had moved farther away; his light source was about five feet higher and some twenty feet off to Drake’s right. Drake ran the gauge test, pressing a sequence of buttons on his sleeve panel.

“Pressure okay,” he reported. “Valves okay. Power okay. Everything’s fine, Harley.”

“Don’t go any deeper, Pat.”

“Ten-four.”

If I hurry, Drake thought, I can collect this sample, then take care of Foster on the way up. Looking over, he saw that Foster’s light was still in the same place. Quickly unsnapping a collection tube from his utility belt, he used a sand brush to carefully begin moving the light green algae into the tube. When he felt he had enough, he capped the tube and had just attached it back to the belt when he sensed a presence close to him.

Drake turned just as Owen Foster, without his lantern, loomed up in front of him, serrated knife in hand.

Foster moved toward him. Drake backed off and directed the blazing light of his own lantern directly in Foster’s face. Inside Foster’s helmet, Drake saw his eyes squint blindly. Even so, Foster continued forward and Drake saw his hand come up and slash the water in front of him with the knife. Frantically, Drake fumbled in his utility pack for the ice nail. Again Foster advanced, again the knife slashed. After what seemed like an eternity, Drake found the heavy nail and thumbed off the piece of protective cork he had put over its needle point. But when Foster’s knife hewed close to him a third time, he realized that he could not get past it to use the nail without fatally exposing himself. He had hoped to come up on Foster from behind and puncture his dive suit in one of the armpits, where there was less reinforcement; now that plan had been neutralized by the knife and Foster’s unexpected aggression. But Drake knew he had to do something—

In desperation, Drake let himself drop several feet and spun to his right, down and away from the hand that held the knife. Reaching out with the nail, he tried to drive it into one leg of Foster’s suit, but could not reach it. Foster cut recklessly with the knife again, slashing downward, and this time the blade struck Drake’s helmet and twisted out of Foster’s hand. Both Foster and Drake watched the knife float as if in slow motion down out of the light path into darkness and disappear.

Foster regrouped quickly from the loss of his weapon, drew his knees up, and maneuvered over Drake until he was behind him, then lowered himself and locked both legs around the neck of Drake’s helmet. Their combined weight drove them several feet deeper, but that did not concern Drake; he was too relieved by the knowledge that he now had Foster in an irreversible position of vulnerability. Foster no longer had the knife — but Drake still had the ice nail.

Closing his eyes, thinking about Claire, hating this man above him who had beaten her, Drake reached up with the ice nail and pushed its point smartly through the skin of Owen Foster’s dry suit.

There was an immediate reduction of weight on Drake as Foster’s suit depressurized and the legs locked around Drake’s neck went limp. Drake untangled himself from Foster, working down and a few feet away, then held depth, treading.

“Pat, we’re getting a depress warning on Owen!” Harley’s urgent voice sounded. “Where is he?”

“I can’t see him,” Drake bed, “but his light is about thirty feet starboard of me and eight feet above. Want me to go over there?”

“Negative! Stay away from his lines! We’re bringing him up!”

“Ten-four.”

Reaching up, Drake held onto Foster’s feet. He felt tension from above as they tried to pull Foster up, but managed to hold on enough to keep him down. They pulled, he held — for a full minute, until Drake’s arms began to give out. Then he let go. Pull him up, he thought then. You’re bringing up a dead man.

Suddenly Drake felt very warm and cozy in his own dry suit, very secure and almost lightheaded, now that what he had to do was over. He thought of Claire and the life they would have together, of the Nobel prize he would almost certainly receive — an individual prize, too, because he would be the one to bring up the first conclusive proof of premature warming. When the expedition was further funded and they got new, deeper dive equipment, he would personally do all the diving; it would be his name in the scientific history books—

Almost as if it were a sign, a signal, of his new enthrallment with the future, Drake’s peripheral vision picked up something new: a reflection, a gleam, something pinpoint and shiny. It was down five or six feet, over about ten, on the flat facing of an undersea wall. Drake dropped on an angle until he was next to it, and peered out at his finding through the faceplate. His eyes grew wide as they had earlier, but when his lips parted this time it was not in silence.

“I’ll be damned,” he said aloud.

Inches in front of him was the most beautiful colony of algae he had ever seen. Beautiful yellow algae. Beautiful orange algae. Beautiful warm algae. Algae that conclusively proved the expedition’s theory.

“Pat, Mayday!” Harley’s voice reached Drake again. “Mayday, Pat, wake up! What’s your depth? Mayday—!”

Drake lazily pressed the depth button on his arm. The digital numbers read: 93.

Seconds later, Drake’s lungs turned to ice.

Claire lugged her duffel over to the blockhouse and dropped it just inside the door to take off her thermals. Emil Porter was already there, his own duffel in the same place. They were waiting for the helicopter to return for them, its third trip that morning after taking Ed Latham and Paul Green, then Sally Gossett and Harley Neil, to Ushuaia on two earlier trips. As Claire sat down at one of the card tables, Porter poured a shot of vodka into a cup of tomato juice for her. At the same time, she showed Porter an envelope.

“Sally gave me this before she flew out. Pat left it for me in case anything happened to him under the ice shelf.”

“What is it?” Porter asked, sipping his own Bloody Mary.

“A handwritten amendment to a will he has on file back in Minnesota, making me the beneficiary of his foundation dive insurance, and leaving me his beachfront home and laboratory in Tahiti.”

Porter raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Well, you said that Pat was as generous and protective as Owen was petty and possessive. Looks like you knew them both pretty well.” He tilted his head slightly. “Do you realize what this means, Claire? A million dollars from Owen’s dive policy, a million from Pat’s, and now the property in Tahiti in addition. You’re a wealthy woman.”

“Except that I feel a little shabby about what I did to Pat,” she confessed.

Porter reached across the table and took her hands. “Don’t make a guilt trip out of it, Claire,” he said quietly. “What happened to Pat and Owen, they did to themselves. We told a couple of lies: you about having bruises, me about Harley Neil’s fitness to dive. We put Pat and Owen under the ice together, that’s all. Maybe what happened was over you, maybe it was over a Nobel prize, maybe both. Whatever, it was their doing.”

From outside came the sound of helicopter rotor blades. Porter rose and gently drew Claire to her feet, pulling her close.

“Look, based on the sample they found on Pat’s belt, there’ll be a new team up here in thirty days, so our expedition was a success. You and I got what we wanted, each other — plus a lot more, it turns out. Put the past behind you, Claire. Focus on tomorrow. You’ve waited a long time to be happy again. Enjoy it. With me.”

Claire nodded, smiling a slight little smile of solace, and let Porter lead her to the front door to don their thermals.

Moments later, carrying their duffels, they walked together across the great shelf of ice toward the helicopter.