Gillian Anderson - A Dream of Ice

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Not enough,” Flora admitted. “This is a lab and it was a workplace accident. They happen.”

Adrienne frowned but she decided not to pursue the issue now. She didn’t like Flora but she couldn’t afford to conflate that with the truth of what Flora had just said.

Flora surprised her then. “Besides, Haugan is not gone. Not really. Not if some theories are correct.”

Adrienne took a step forward. “Doctor, I think the ultrasound may be affecting you—”

“Be quiet. Here’s something you don’t know,” the woman went on. “The civilization that created these artifacts proved that there is life after death. More than proved it, in fact. We think they systematized their access to it.”

Adrienne stared at her. “Myth.”

“Fact.”

“What are you going off of?”

“Partial translations. Very partial. Drawings. A gut feeling and dreams.”

“Dreams?” Adrienne’s voice was soaked in doubt and frustration.

“ Shared dreams,” Flora stressed. “As we gathered these artifacts together, my associate Mikel and I began to have the same dreams.”

“Elaborate, if you don’t mind,” Adrienne said.

Flora did not respond. She felt fine, still, but she was puzzled and transfixed by the miracle of what she was seeing in the chamber. Cautiously, she reached into the node and removed the top artifact. When nothing changed, she slid it, carvings faceup, beneath the main stone.

Instantly they felt the room heat up. Within three seconds sweat was beading on their foreheads.

“Whatever you just did, undo it!” Adrienne pleaded.

Flora didn’t hear her. She was suddenly having difficulty breathing. The heat was as powerful as a sauna set on high. Her head felt heavy and she put a hand on the back of her neck.

“Dr. Davies!” Adrienne shouted. “Grab the artifacts and get out!”

Flora heard a hum and saw that the main stone was vibrating. She reached a weakened hand forward and carefully removed the top artifact from the stack.

“Doctor!” Adrienne screamed. “Don’t be gentle about it!”

Flora took two at once but she was trembling at the knees now. She placed the objects in the crook of her arm. Then she realized she was not the only thing shaking, so was the floor. Suddenly, all the stones began to wobble madly. The bottom one dropped from the stack and hit the floor. Flora reached down as fast as she could manage and saw that the black floor panel was bubbling. She pulled the artifact from the chaos.

Adrienne yelled something incoherent and started to move into the chamber, but she found that her feet wouldn’t lift properly. The concrete floor was liquefying and creeping toward the doorway, as if trying to escape the room. With effort she could lift her boots free from the slow sludge but it took a lot of muscle.

She looked up to scream at Flora again and saw the entire stack of artifacts collapse and fall to the floor. The main stone almost leapt from the pile and Flora was able to snatch it midflight as the other artifacts hit the bubbling, oozing black panel. She grabbed at the scattered stones and managed to retrieve them all, albeit dripping black liquid. Then she tried to turn and run but the floor gripped the edges of her shoes as it flowed.

Adrienne took a giant, heaving backward step from the doorway. She almost fell over but shoved the edge of the tray at the wall to gain equilibrium. She was horrified to feel the wall soften beneath its edge and jerked the tray away as soon as she felt balanced. Then she yanked her other leg out of the doorway too.

“Throw them to me!” she told Flora.

Flora, still lunging slowly forward, threw the first artifact, then the next, and the next. It was so hot she wanted to vomit. She felt tears in her eyes as she saw fragments fly from the wooden artifact as Adrienne caught it. Only the petrified center was left now as the rest of it melted into the custard concrete floor.

Flora held the last artifact, the main stone, the Serpent, which was vibrating so hard she could feel the waves through her arms down to her feet. Her vision clouded, suffused with red and she thought she smelled sulfur. Vaguely she could hear Adrienne screaming at her. She took another weak step forward and with all her willpower, she let go of the Serpent in Adrienne’s direction.

The stone tumbled through the air and Adrienne dove forward and snatched it from the liquid concrete. Then the girl disappeared from the doorway. Flora heard the sound of running and suddenly realized she was hearing again. Her mind was clearing. The heat was lifting. She was gaining more control of her limbs. She lurched from the room and the floor seemed steady beneath her so she stopped, resting against a wall. She looked back at the chamber. The black panels had melted halfway down the walls. Long drips trailed from the panels on the ceiling. But the melting had stopped. The floor was still. The panels were no longer bubbling.

“Damn it!” she heard from down the hall. “We need another room!”

Adrienne was heading back down the hall in Flora’s direction, yelling. “I’ll get the rest of the panels. That deep freezer will give us fifteen minutes, max!”

“But he’ll die !” Siem der Graaf shouted.

The taller man blocked Eric Trout’s path to the spiral stairway. They were standing nearly nose to nose in the “jam tart,” the large red module that served as Halley VI’s social hub. Eric’s mustache hung in two tendrils past his chin, and days of sharp frustration had burned his typically jovial expression to a frazzle.

“Der Graaf,” Trout huffed, “this is essentially the only situation where the title ‘base commander’ actually means something. Step aside.”

The younger man opened his mouth to speak but just shook his head.

Trout’s chin sank into the collar of his heavy turtleneck. “Der Graaf, we’re following orders strictly on this. We start the move off the ice shelf in thirty minutes.”

Trout raised a thick-fingered hand and gently pushed Siem to the side, then hurried down the stairs.

“But surely you don’t need everyone for the move,” Siem argued, following on his heels. “You will have excess personnel, in fact. Or do you plan to have them sitting around inside the modules as you tow them?”

“Anyone without a specific job will be in the trucks and bulldozers, heading to the new location.”

“Fine. Then give me two men for just that amount of time, before you need them to start hanging pictures back on the walls.”

Trout fired back a severely disapproving look.

“Two men and Ski-Doos to save a life!” Siem said, pressing the commander.

Trout turned to face him in the empty dining area.

“You cannot have them,” Trout said finally. “We have to turn off everything for the move except the hydraulics. No electronics. Communications will be off. It’s unconscionable to send out one man, let alone three, on a dangerous rescue mission with zero radio contact. I simply cannot, der Graaf. I will not.”

“Then you’re killing him.”

“He did this to himself, without orders,” Trout replied. His expression softened. “Has it not occurred to you he might want that?”

“What, to die?”

“No,” Trout said. “Not to endanger anyone else ! You said he sent you back—”

“I don’t think he fully understood the danger,” Siem replied. “No,” he went on. “I think he just made the greatest discovery of his life and he wasn’t thinking clearly. He would want to live to see it brought to daylight.”

“Der Graaf, I’ve spent five winters and summers on the ice, watching people’s minds bend in the twenty-four-hour darkness or light. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to ascribe logic to someone behaving illogically. That’s how to get more people killed!”