Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

Lucy sat behind Petrovitch. Sandwiched between them was the carpet bag: zipped inside it along with all his other kit was the sealskin-wrapped case. He could feel it pressing into his back.

[You are going to run out of land.]

“Yeah, where we’re going, we don’t need land. The sea ice’ll be thick enough.” He squinted down at the controls. “I’m more concerned about running out of fuel. These things burn meths like it’s going out of fashion.”

[Based on the vehicle’s previous performance, you have sufficient for another forty-five kilometres. However, Lucy Petrovitch is an extra load on your engine. This will cut the range to around thirty kilometres unless you lower your speed.]

“How about the chasing pack?”

[There are too many unknowns. Judging from the position of the satellite phones some of them carry, they are travelling faster than you. This might mean they catch you up, or it might mean they empty their fuel tanks before they reach you.]

“And this will all happen in the next ten minutes. Those planes out of Eielson? How are they doing?”

[The ones that attacked Deadhorse are returning to base. They have scrambled two more that were not at combat readiness, but since Eielson is some six hundred and forty kilometres away, those aircraft will not be overhead for another half an hour at least.]

“This isn’t inspiring me with confidence.”

[I can all but guarantee their planes will not find our planes. My chief concern is that they are guided to their target by visual cues given by personnel on the ground.]

“Can you jihad the planes?”

[These are the Wild Weasel variant that are specifically hardened against electronic countermeasures. Sasha, again: just because they are Americans does not mean they are stupid.]

“I’ll take that as a no.” They were close to the sea. Ahead of them was the pressure ridge of ice that had been forced up on to the shore by the tides that still raised and lowered the water that lay beneath. “In fact, if I didn’t know any better, they’ve got us pretty much where they want us.”

[Considering all the resources expended to make sure you were never supposed to get this far, we are technically ahead.]

“Go on, make it worse, why don’t you?”

[As you wish. If you cannot locate suitable access, you will need to carry the snowmobiles over the broken littoral zone to reach the flat pack ice.]

“ Yobany stos , stop it.”

Lucy interrupted, speaking over the link even though she had her head against his shoulder blades.

“What are we going to do?” She’d worked it out. Michael had been talking to her at the same time as Petrovitch.

“The obvious thing.” Ahead of them, at the mouth of the river, Avaiq had already throttled down. Thick slabs of bluewhite ice stood cracked and jumbled in front of him, as chaotic as a Victorian graveyard.

Petrovitch pulled up next to him. He tapped Lucy’s hands so he could dismount.

“There’s usually a way through along the sand spit that sticks out into the bay,” said Avaiq, pointing north-east.

“Good,” said Petrovitch. He laid his bag across his seat and unzipped it. He took out the sealskin, and tied it tightly on to the snowmobile’s carry-rack.

“Sam? You can’t,” said Lucy, though she already knew that he could.

“Yeah. I’m doing that thing that fathers do at times like this.” He unclipped the axe and threw it into the snow. “So let’s assume we’ve had the argument, the tears, the rest of it, and it turned out that I was right all along. Go.”

She unslung her carbine and gave it to him.

“Avaiq will see you safely on to the ice. Michael will guide Maddy to you. There is,” and he popped up a map, “a massive iceberg grounded some five k offshore. Make for that.”

Avaiq looked confused. “Aren’t you…?”

“No. No, I’m not. You’re going to drive behind to make absolutely certain that the alien doohickey doesn’t fall off.” Petrovitch threaded his arm through the gun’s strap, picked up the bag and the axe, and started towards the ice ridge. Halfway there, he turned and shouted. “What are you waiting for? Pascha? ”

“Sam?” said Lucy over the link.

“We’re not discussing this. You and the artefact go. I stay.”

“I just wanted to say that I love you very much and you’re the best replacement dad a girl could hope for.”

“If I cry, my targeting system won’t work properly.” He kept on walking. “You can say all this as you drive. Probably better that you don’t, though. I don’t need distracting.”

She slid forward to take Petrovitch’s place and opened the throttle. The engine roared, and she drove off, heading east along the coast. Avaiq stared at Petrovitch for a moment, then followed Lucy. The two of them vanished into the fog bank, and he watched the glow of them in infrared fade and wink out.

He looked around. It wasn’t the best place to make a last stand, but he guessed that choosing somewhere appropriate wasn’t a luxury that most people in his position could afford. He climbed up the ice barricade to the top. He could hear motors buzzing away, but the noise seemed to be coming from all around him. That couldn’t be the case, so he slowly turned his head and ran the waveforms through an analyser.

He could discount the two sources behind him. The ones ahead were coming at him in a line, stretched out wide so they could cover the maximum area without losing sight of each other.

That would work to his advantage.

“Tell me as soon as they’re picked up.”

[Due to the nature of the aerial threat, the Freezone units are maintaining complete radio silence. I have instructed Lucy to do the same. Their links are switched off so they do not emit any radiation at all. Confirmation will come as an audiovisual signal, which you will have to confirm.]

“Distress flare, then. Okay.” He checked his pistol, and sorted through his bag for the gifts from the Freezone’s weaponsmiths.

A couple of quantum gravity devices: old school, but still terrible. Three pop-ups, which he would have planted already but he’d run out of time. He had a good arm on him to increase their range. A remote, too. He ought to get that going now.

He worked quickly: it came in almost unrecognisable parts that clipped together around a first-order antigravity sphere. The remote would hover at knee height, and move around with little electric fans. On the bottom was a hook, and on that hook he hung one of the gravity bombs.

He talked to the remote, and it hummed into life, rising from his lap and spinning around once. Then it headed off back towards the land, dipping and lifting as it crossed the ground. It would have probably been better if he’d got hold of some white paint from somewhere, but at the very least it’d be a distraction they’d waste bullets on.

He was set. He zipped up the bag and threw it on to the ice behind him, then got into position for sniping. The noise of motorised vehicles grew loud, and the first dark shapes appeared out of the fog. Three of them, thirty metres apart: not the end of the line, but not the middle of it either. Somewhere on the right flank.

Petrovitch pasted the three targets with crosshairs, and let his onboard computer take over. One, two, three. Explosive rounds, meant for protecting a young woman from predatory polar bears, hit the widely separated men within a second. Each projectile bored into a chest, then detonated. One of the skidoos caught fire as stray chemicals ignited leaking fuel. All three drove on, riderless. The snow-rimed shore was marked with stark red blood and ruined, steaming corpses.

The echo of the explosions and the sudden run-on of the snowmobiles before they crashed into the ice wall ahead of them was not as loud as the silence that followed.