Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

Once, on a terrible storm off the Grand Banks, she had seen a ship break its back. The hull had come apart with a horrific noise; black water had boiled in, instantly flooding the ship's deepest compartments. Nobody had a chance to get off: all were sucked down into the deep. It was a sight that still disturbed her sleep to this day.

She glanced at Howell. He had noticed the slow recovery, too: he was staring at her, frame rigid, round eyes white in a deathly pale face. She had never seen him so frightened. "Captain..." he began, his voice breaking.

She gestured him silent. She knew what he was going to say. It was her duty to say it.

She glanced at Glinn. His face remained strangely confident and serene. She had to look away. For all his knowledge, the man did not know the feel of a ship.

The Rolvaag was on the verge of breaking up.

They began to subside into another trough, the wind abruptly dropping to zero. She took the opportunity to look around the bridge: Lloyd, McFarlane, Amira, Glinn, Howell, Banks, the other officers of the watch. All silent. All watching her. All waiting for her to do something, to keep them alive.

"Mr. Lloyd," she said.

"Yes?" He stepped over, eager to help.

This was going to be hard.

A hideous shudder rattled the consoles and windows as the ship took a major cross-swell. When the sound eased as the ship slipped back down, Britton could breathe again.

"Mr. Lloyd," she said again. "The meteorite must go."

Rolvaag ,

7:00 P.M.

ON THESE words, McFarlane felt a queer feeling in his gut. A galvanic charge seemed to spread through his body. Never. It was impossible. He tried to shake off the seasickness and fear of the last harrowing minutes.

"Absolutely not," he heard Lloyd say. The words were quiet, barely audible above the roar of the sea. Nevertheless, they carried a tremendous force of conviction. A hush fell on the bridge as the ship went deeper into the preternatural calm of the trough.

"I am the captain of this ship," Britton said quietly. "The lives of my crew depend on it. Mr. Glinn, I order you to trigger the dead man's switch. I order it."

After the briefest of hesitations, Glinn turned toward the EES console.

"No!" screamed Lloyd, seizing Glinn's arm in a powerful grip. "You touch that computer and I'll kill you with my bare hands."

With a short, sharp motion, Glinn twisted out of the grip, throwing Lloyd off balance. The big man stumbled, then drew himself up, panting. The ship slanted again and a metallic groan ran through the length of the hull. All movement stopped as everyone clung to the nearest handhold.

"You hear that, Mr. Lloyd?" Britton cried over the sound of protesting metal. "That son of a bitch down there is killing my ship!"

"Glinn, stay away from that keyboard."

"The captain has given an order," Howell shouted, his voice high.

"No! Only Glinn has the key, and he won't do it! He can't, not without my permission! Eli, do you hear me? I order you not to initiate the dead man's switch." Lloyd moved suddenly to the EES computer, blocking it with his body.

Howell turned. "Security! Seize this man and remove him from the bridge."

But Britton held up a hand. "Mr. Lloyd, step away from the computer. Mr. Glinn, execute my command." The vessel had begun to heel still farther, and a terrifying crackle shot through the ship's steel, rising in pitch to a muffled howl of tearing metal, abruptly cut off as they began to right.

Lloyd gripped the computer, his eyes wild. "Sam!" he cried, his wild eyes seizing on McFarlane.

McFarlane had been watching, dumbstruck, almost paralyzed with conflicting emotions: terror for his life, desire for the rock and its boundless mysteries. He would rather go down with it than give it up now. Almost.

"Sam!" Lloyd was almost pleading now. "You're the scientist here. Tell them about all the research you did, the island of stability, the new element..." He was becoming incoherent. "Tell them why it's so important. Tell them why they can't dump the rock!"

McFarlane felt his throat constrict — and realized, for the first time, how utterly irresponsible it had been to take the rock to sea. If it sank now, it would drive itself deep into the abyssal mud of the ocean bottom, two miles down, never to be seen again. The loss to science would be catastrophic. It was unthinkable.

He found his voice. "Lloyd's right. It might be the most important scientific discovery ever made. You can't let it go."

Britton turned to him. "We no longer have a choice. The meteorite is going to the bottom — no matter what we do. So that leaves us with only one question. Are we going to let it take us with it?"

Rolvaag ,

7:10 P.M.

MCFARLANE LOOKED at the faces around him: Lloyd, tense and expectant; Glinn, veiled and unreadable; Rachel, clearly as conflicted as he was; Britton, an expression of utter conviction on her face. It was a haggard group, ice crystallizing in their hair, faces raw and bleeding with the cuts of the flying ice.

"We can abandon ship instead," Lloyd said, his voice panicky. "Hell, let the ship drift without us. It's drifting anyway. Maybe it'll survive on its own. We don't have to jettison the rock."

"It's close to suicide to launch lifeboats in this sea," Britton replied. "It's below zero out there, for God's sake." "We can't just drop it," Lloyd continued, desperate now. "It would be a crime against science. This is all an overreaction. We've already been through so much. Glinn, for God's sake, tell her she's overreacting."

But Glinn said nothing.

"I know my ship," was all Britton said.

Lloyd veered wildly between threats and pleas. Now he turned back to McFarlane. "There must be something. Some way , Sam! Tell them again about the value to science, about the irreplaceable..."

McFarlane looked at Lloyd's face. It was ghastly in the orange emergency lights. He struggled against his own nausea, fear, and cold. They couldn't let it go. He seemed suspended: he thought of Nestor, and what it meant to die, and he thought of sinking in the cold dark bottomless water — and suddenly he was very, very afraid of death. The fear surged over him, temporarily usurping the intellectual functioning of his brain.

"Sam! Jesus Christ, tell them!"

McFarlane tried to speak, but the wind had risen and his words were lost in the howl.

"What?" Lloyd cried. "Everyone, listen to Sam! Sam —"

"Let it go," McFarlane said.

An incredulous look filled Lloyd's face, and he was temporarily speechless.

"You heard her," McFarlane said. "It's going to the bottom regardless. The fight's over." A feeling of hopelessness swept over him. He felt a warmth at the corners of his eyes and realized it was tears. Such a waste, such a waste...

Abruptly, Lloyd turned, abandoning McFarlane for Glinn. "Eli? Eli! You've never failed me before, there's always been something in that bag of tricks. Help me here, I beg you. Don't let them drop the rock."

His voice had taken on a pathetic, beseeching tone. The man was unraveling before their eyes.

Glinn said nothing as the ship began to roll again. McFarlane followed Britton's eyes to the inclinometer. All talk ceased as the wind shrieked through the broken bridge windows. Then the terrible sound began again. The Rolvaag hesitated, thirty degrees on its side, everyone clinging desperately, the vessel wallowing broadside to. McFarlane gripped a bulkhead rail. The terror he felt was now helping to clear his mind, sweeping away his regret. All he wanted to do was get rid of it.

"Recover," he heard Britton murmur. "Recover."

The ship remained heeled stubbornly to port. The bridge hung so far out over the side of the ship that McFarlane could see nothing but black water below the windows. He was swept with a feeling of vertigo. And then, with an immense shudder, it gradually began to right.