Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

Lasko stood and brushed snow off his spare body. “I will be as long as she doesn’t realize I helped save her.”

“We lost five, Ira, including Ingrid.”

“And we saved six,” the ex-submariner replied sagely. “Don’t think of the names. Just consider the numbers. It’s the only way.”

Anika Klein approached, limping slightly. She’d smeared some of the blood on her head trying to stanch the flow. She studied the wreckage before turning to Mercer. “I’ve got a feeling that one of us is jinxed, and I think it’s me.”

“If you knew what I’ve been through in the past couple of years, you’d know I’m the one with the bad juju.” Mercer was only half joking. “Hey, Ira, can you check over the plane and make sure nothing’s on fire? Erwin, how about an inventory of everything we’ve got that’ll help us?”

“You got it.”

“What about me?” Anika asked.

“As the only doctor in our ranks who can actually doctor people, you’re in charge of our medical needs. Which begins with yourself. Your head’s still bleeding. Then check on Marty. Ingrid died in the crash and he’s… I don’t know. Just check on him.”

Mercer’s next words were cut off by a shout from Ira Lasko. He was kneeling on the half-buried nose of the plane, scooping away snow as fast as he could. “One of the pilots is still alive!”

Marty Bishop reacted quicker than any of the others, racing to the entombed cockpit. He pushed aside Ira and attacked the snow clogging the windscreen as if frenzy alone could somehow expunge whatever he felt about Ingrid’s death. In moments he was able to thrust his upper body through the shattered glass and touch the leather-clad arm thrusting out of the snow and ice. From the position of the arm, it was the copilot who grabbed on to Marty’s offered hand and refused to let go.

Mercer and Ira swung around the plane and approached the cockpit from the cabin. Using pieces of torn fuselage as shovels, they began the laborious digging. Whenever they paused, they could hear Marty reassuring the stricken aviator through the snow. It took twenty minutes to clear away enough of the frozen debris for Anika Klein to worm her way into the cockpit to administer whatever aid the copilot needed.

“Mercer,” she called from the hollow they had dug, “I need two lengths of metal or wood for a splint. His arm is broken. Also, get my bag. I’ve got medical supplies in there I’ll need.”

Hilda had already retrieved the kit and passed it forward. The next ten minutes passed in anxious silence punctuated once by a single shrill scream when Anika reset the arm. It seemed the despair over the deaths of the others had been suspended while she worked.

Slowly, Anika’s backside emerged from the cockpit as she half led, half dragged the wounded man from where he’d been trapped. His arm was bandaged and strapped to his chest, and the countless lacerations on his face had been cleaned. She’d already stitched closed the worst. His skin was stained with antiseptic. “He’s going to be fine. I’ve got him pretty doped up,” she said. “He’s got to be kept warm to minimize shock.” She turned to Marty, who had just entered the cabin from his vigil outside. “I need someone to stay with him. Are you up to it?”

Marty looked from the prone figure on the floor to where Ingrid still sat under a blanket Erwin had draped over her. His voice was iron. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Nice job,” Mercer told Anika when they were outside. “With the copilot, and with Marty.”

“He’s stronger than you give him credit for. Only he doesn’t know it, so neither does anyone else.” She used snow to clean her hands.

Ira came up to them. Whatever mental trick he had used to get over the horrors of the past hour had worked. He seemed as unruffled and composed as always. “What’s our next move?”

“I need to check on the crashed C-97. I want you to get this wreck site into shape. It’s going to be our home for a while. Make sure Marty’s sat-phone is okay so that when the solar max lets up we can get ourselves rescued.”

Once everyone was organized and working, Mercer decided it was time to go. He made sure he had his Geiger counter and a few protein bars stuffed in his sample bag before beginning his walk to the other plane crash. He also took an ice ax, a silver “space blanket,” and a small can of Sterno in case he couldn’t get back before nightfall.

The trek was brutal. Each step broke through the crust of snow, sinking him to his knees. It was an exhausting process to lift his foot clear to take another pace, and quickly his motion more resembled wading than walking. The wind scouring the flank of the mountain range hit him full in the face as he walked, oftentimes powerful enough to arrest his forward progress. He began sweating, and his breaks became more frequent. At each rest stop he would check the Geiger counter, mystified that it had yet to show any radiation. He began to wonder if Delaney’s contamination had come from another source.

Although the wreckage of the C-97 Stratofreighter was only three miles away it took him two hours to reach it. From the air, they had seen only part of one wing and a scrap of fuselage, but as he approached he could see other pieces of debris — a landing gear assembly, a section of the retractable flaps, and a blade from one of her four props. Fifty years of ice movement had obliterated any semblance of order to the debris field, and Mercer was surprised to find as much as he had.

Two hundred yards beyond the wing fragment, the Geiger counter began to click. Mercer clamped his hand to the earphones, checking the display on the handheld unit. The amount of radiation was barely detectable, and his heart slowed again.

Using the counter as a guide, he searched for the area that showed the highest readings. In this fashion he found the bulk of the plane. It lay in a saddle of rock, wedged in place and nearly covered by ice. Only the stump of its vertical stabilizer sticking from the ice was exposed. He swept the Geiger counter along the length of the plane, noting the readings were strongest where he estimated the cockpit would be.

“Why there?” he wondered aloud. If there was a radiation leak on the plane, surely it would come from the cargo section at the rear.

Under the mantle of ice, he could see places were the fuselage had been ripped open by either the crash or avalanche that once covered the plane. He selected one of these darker shadows close to the cockpit and began working with the ice ax. Soon he had settled in to an easy rhythm. He rested every hour, aware that the sun could go down before he got back to the others, but he had to make certain he didn’t get overheated, an ironic condition considering the temperature had dropped below freezing.

By three in the afternoon, he’d chopped his way to the aircraft’s metal skin. The rip in the aluminum wasn’t large enough for him to crawl through, forcing him to hack at it with the ax. Strips of metal tore away each time he heaved back on the handle. It took a further half hour to open a large-enough hole. The slightly elevated radiation reading when he’d penetrated into the plane was still well below a dangerous level.

All the time he’d been working, he’d mentally prepared himself to enter the plane. Yet now that he was ready, apprehension struck. He didn’t know what he would find inside or what it would mean to the survivors relying on him. Resigned to the task, Mercer lowered himself into the aircraft’s belly.

The interior was dim and he flicked on a small penlight. It revealed a ruby-crusted corpse staring at him sightlessly. Mercer scrabbled backward, tripping over his feet and falling heavily. He remained on the floor, ignoring the pain of freezing air in his lungs as he hyperventilated. He’d known there were bodies on the plane, but he hadn’t been ready.