David Brin - Earth

But what astronomy gave, astronomy could take away. By the fifteenth century, cycles had turned again. The “little ice age” — a time of scanty summers and scarcer sunspots — froze the rivers Seine and Thames at Christmastime, and icebergs were seen off Spain. Ironically, Irish sailors reported news from the struggling Greenland colony only decades before another dawning — when Christopher Columbus and John Cabot drew the world’s attention back to strange lands rimming the ocean sea. But by the time voyagers next set foot on the great island, all sign of living Europeans had vanished.

Stan found it hard to imagine history repeating itself here. The wharves and factories all shared a thick-walled look of determined permanence, as if defying nature to do her worst.

And yet , Stan pondered. Other eras had their certainties, and look at them now .

Soon the cannery town fell away as their pilot steered up one of the broad valleys, carved over ages by endless tons of ancient, compressed snow. Now the vales below flowed with newborn streams. Reindeer clattered over algae-stained rocks, spooked by the airship’s shadow into skittish flight.

Up ahead lay the grand glacier itself. Here, and in Antarctica, the ice ranges grew three kilometers thick, storing half the fresh water on Earth. Only the fringes of that stockpile had melted so far, but when it thawed in earnest, the world’s coastlines would really start to rise.

The removal of so much weighty ice couldn’t help but affect the crust underneath. Rebound-reverberations were already being felt far away. In Iceland, two fierce new volcanoes sputtered. There would be more as time went on.

Especially if we don’t solve the problem of gazer beams coupling with surface matter , Stan thought. It still puzzled him that resonant gravity waves sometimes set off tremors in the outer crust. He hoped there’d be an answer soon, or just trying to get rid of the taniwha might cause massive harm.

Two days to get set up… another three to grow our thumper and test Manella’s data-links to the other stations… got to figure ways to work in tandem with Alex’s group — and George’s and Kenda’s …

He’d gone over it all so many times, and still it seemed a wild-eyed plan — trying to shove a superheavy, microscopic bit of folded space into a higher orbit by poking at it repeatedly with invisible rays… yep, it sounded pretty farfetched, all right.

Stan caught a metallic glint up ahead, just short of the fast-approaching ice sheet. That- must be their goal, where the glacier’s retreat had recently revealed clues to an enigma. Where some believed an awful killing had taken place a long time ago.

They say every spot on Earth has a story , a library of stories to tell. If that is so, then this island specializes in mysteries .

With rising impatience Stan watched Greenland’s second coast, its inner shore, where a new, encroaching fringe of land lapped against a continent of ancient whiteness.

The tiny scientific outpost perched beside an icy rivulet, near enough towering cliffs to wear their shadow each long arctic morning. A greeting party waited by the mooring towers as automatic snaring devices seized the zep and gently drew it down.

Every other dirigible landing in Teresa’s experience had been at commercial aerodromes, so she found this rough-and-ready process fascinating, and oddly similar to the no-frills approach used in space.

The pilot certainly would have let her sit in the cockpit, if only she identified herself. But of course that wasn’t possible. So she made do instead by leaning out the window like a gawking tourist, bursting with questions she wasn’t allowed to ask and suggestions she dared not offer. After the gondola settled with a bump and scrape, Teresa was the last to get off, lingering by the control cabin listening to the crew go through their shutdown checklist.

The Tangoparu techs had already begun offloading their supplies when she finally debarked. Teresa started over to lend a hand, but Stan Goldman called her to meet some people wearing knit caps and Pendleton shirts. It was hard to pay attention to introductions, though. She felt distracted by the ice plateau, towering so near it set her senses quivering.

Then there was the smell — cool, invigorating, and inexplicably drawing. She helped her colleagues haul the gear and inflate their solitary dome. But all the while Teresa kept glancing toward the glacier, feeling its presence. At last, when all the heavy labor was done, she could bear it no longer. “Stan, I’ve got to go to the ice.”

He nodded. “I understand. We’ll erect the toilet next. I’m sorry…”

Teresa laughed. “No, I mean really. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. It’s just something I have to do.”

The elderly physicist blinked twice and then smiled. “Of course. You worked hard studying gravitonics all the way out here. Go ahead. We’ll just be setting up the vats anyway. You won’t be needed until tomorrow morning.”

She touched his sleeve. “Thanks, Stan.” Then, impulsively, Teresa leaned over and kissed his grizzled cheek.

The Tangoparu team had set up some distance from the rest of the settlement, so she shunned the main path and set off cross-country, over the gravelly moraine. Having never approached a primary glacier before, she had no way of judging distances. There were no trees or familiar objects for comparison; by eye alone, it might be anywhere from one to ten kilometers away. But her inner sensoria told Teresa she could make it there and back before supper. Anyway, nothing out here could harm her even if she miscalculated. In her thermal suit she could even wait out the brief summer night if she had to.

No, this wasn’t a dangerous place — certainly not compared to space.

Nevertheless, her heart leaped in her chest when a shadow swept the pebbly surface, looming from behind her with startling speed. Teresa felt its sudden presence and whirled in a crouch, squinting at a blurry form like a huge ball cupped in an open fist.

She sighed, straightening and trying to pretend the abrupt appearance hadn’t scared the wits out of her. Even against the afternoon sun, she recognized one of those Magnus effect minicranes, used all over the world for utility lifting and hauling. They were to helicopters what a zep was to a stratojet. In other words, cheap, durable, and easy to run on minimal fuel. Like zeps, minicranes maintained buoyancy with inflated hydrogen. But this smaller machine moved by rotating the bag itself between vertical prongs. A queer, counterintuitive effect of physics let it maneuver agilely.

Shading her eyes, Teresa watched the operator lean out of his tiny cabin. He shouted something in Danish. She called back. “ Jeg tale ikke dansk! Vil De tale engelsk ?”

“Ah,” he answered quickly. “Sorry! You must be one of Stanley Goldman’s people. I’m on my way to the dig now and could use some ballast. Do you want a ride?”

Actually, she didn’t. But Teresa found it hard to say no. After all, it would be selfish to stay away from camp any longer than she had to.

“How do I board?”

As the machine drew close, the whir of the spinning bag was no longer swept away by the wind. The small control assembly hung suspended beneath by two forks from the central axis, and its engine gave off a hissing whine. In answer to her question, the pilot simply leaned down and offered his hand.

Well, she who hesitates is lost…

Teresa ran to meet the little airship. At the last moment, she leaped, his grip seized her wrist and she was hauled, gently but swiftly, inside.

“Lars Stürup,” he said as the bouncing settled down. There was a hiss of released gas and they began rising.