Ben Hammott: Ice Rift

Suddenly, the ice shook so violently it almost knocked the men to their knees. All shot Henry a concerned look, but there was nothing any of them could do. Until the ice settled, the girls were on their own.

Theo glanced at Max. “Do you think the girls will be okay?”

Max was about to answer when something struck Theo on the side of the head before shooting into the rift. When Theo fell, Max grabbed him and lowered him gently to the ground. Max wondered what had struck Theo. When he glanced around, he realized in horror the spike Jane’s rope was fastened to had gone!

Jane screamed when she fell.

Kyle’s teaching kicked in. She swung the ice axe at the slab of ice whizzing by in front of her. Shards of ice sprayed her face from the blade leaving a deep groove in the ice wall, but it did little to slow her rapid descent. A large chunk of ice bounced off the wall beside her and plummeted into the depths.

Lucy saw Jane fall. She grabbed at her friend’s trailing rope, but it was too far away. She was about to swing over and grab it, when a sound made her glance up. The sharp point of the corkscrew spike Jane’s rope was tethered to headed straight for her. She quickly swung out of its path. It shot by, missing her by inches.

The trembling ice grew still as quickly as it had started.

Helpless to aid Jane, Lucy watched her friend fall until she was swallowed by the sheets of snow and ice blowing through the rift. If a miracle happened and Jane survived the fall, she’d be seriously injured. Lucy climbed down.

It was all Jane could do to keep her wits about her and not panic. Realizing the ice axe wasn’t going to save her, she prepared for the landing. She’d done parachuting before, so she knew that to lessen the impact she should bend her knees and roll as soon as she touched the ground. Though not convinced it would help in this situation, she nevertheless prepared to bend her knees on contact and waited for the impact. She guessed at the very least she’d suffer two broken legs; the pain would be excruciating. She glanced down and caught a glimpse of the ground and something dark directly below her.

The pain she expected to follow her impact with the ice never came. Neither did the end of her fall. Ice slid past her face and then nothing except blackness. She looked down. The dark continued all around her. Momentarily confused, she glanced up. Her rope disappeared through a ring of light; she’d fallen through the ice into an ice cavern. The block of ice that had fallen past her must have crashed through the cavern’s roof. It was doubtful she’d survive the fall now. It would be more than her legs that would break when whatever lay below halted her fall.

Henry’s worried voice cracked from the walkie-talkie in her pocket. “Jane, are you okay? Over.”

Suddenly, Jane’s plummet into darkness came to an abrupt end.

When Max informed him Jane’s tether had failed, and Theo had been injured, Henry tried to reach Jane on the walkie-talkie while Max and Eli attended to Theo. There was a chance she and Lucy had anchored themselves while they waited for the tremor to settle.

Theo wasn’t seriously injured. The spike had caught him a glancing blow without breaking the skin. Max and Eli helped him to his feet. The worried men crowded around Henry when he released his finger from the talk button and waited. He received no reply.

He tried again. “Jane, Lucy, please report your situation. Over”

Lucy had been forced to a halt when she ran out of rope; the bottom of the rift had not been as deep when they’d started their climb and it still couldn’t be seen. Lucy fished the spare rope from her backpack and connected it to her current safety line. After transferring the descender to the new length of rope, she continued her descent. That she’d heard no screams worried her. It was an indication Jane was unconscious or had been killed on impact.

About one hundred feet deeper into the rift, Lucy cleared an overhang of ice and saw the bottom. There was no sign of Jane, but the spike with Jane’s rope still attached was jammed across a hole in the ice. She was about to rappel down when Henry’s voice crackled from her pocket.

The men stared anxiously at the communication device when Henry again tried to make contact. A few moments later, Lucy’s voice broke the agonizing silence.

“I’m okay, but Jane’s fallen through the ice at the bottom of the rift, which is about a hundred or more feet deeper now. I’m going to check on her situation. I’ll update you shortly. Over.”

“Be careful, Lucy. Over.” Henry glanced at the worried faces around him. “Max, Theo, you’re going down. Take a first aid kit and spare rope. If Lucy hasn’t made contact by the time you arrive, apprise me of the situation immediately.”

As soon as Lucy’s feet touched solid ice, she rushed over to the hole and attached her rope to Jane’s. Only then did she peer through the hole smashed through the two foot thickness of ice. It would be a miracle if Jane hadn’t been injured or killed. The rope trailing from the spike disappeared into the darkness, hiding Jane from her view. She grabbed the swaying rope and felt weight on the end. It gave her hope. If Jane had hit the ground it would be slack, but that wasn’t to say she hadn’t been injured or killed on the way down.

Though Henry’s insistence on safety sometimes seemed unnecessary, his vast experience in exploring frozen wastes like Antarctica sometimes, like now, proved invaluable. Lucy pulled the LED head lamp torch―part of the kit Henry insisted they all carry with them when venturing out on the ice―from her pocket, switched it to its brightest setting and shone it into the black depths below the hole. She saw Jane’s head turn to survey her surroundings when she swung into its beam. She was alive. “Are you okay?” Lucy called out.

Jane swung through the darkness, aware she was lucky to be alive. Though the climbing rope was designed to stretch a certain amount in the situation she’d just experienced, she doubted it had been designed for such a long fall. The sudden halt had dug the harness straps painfully into her skin, but a little pain and soreness she could endure—death, not so much. When she lifted her goggles to find out where she was, a light swept over her. Lucy called out. She looked up. Lucy was framed in the entrance eighty feet above her. The light from the torch aimed at her momentarily blinded her when she swung in and out of its beam. “I’m a bit sore and probably bruised where the straps bit, but otherwise okay and glad to be alive. What happened?”

Lucy glanced at the spike spanning the hole before replying. “Your spike came loose,” she called out. “I’ve secured you to my rope so you won’t fall again, but I need to rig up another line to help you out. I’ll inform the others what’s happened and get them to come down and help.”

“Okay,” Jane shouted back.

Lucy retrieved the walkie-talkie from a pocket. “Henry, are you there? Over.”

Henry answered immediately. “Yes, Lucy. Is Jane okay?”

“Jane’s okay. Repeat, Jane’s okay. Over.”

“That’s fantastic news. Over.”

“I think she’s discovered part of NASA’s anomaly. She’s fallen through the ice into a large chamber. I’ve secured her rope, but I need help fixing a second line so she can be pulled out. Over.”

“Max and Theo are already on their way down. Over.”

“Okay. I’ll keep you updated. Over.” She slipped the walkie-talkie back in her pocket and peered into the chamber. “You hear all that, Jane?”

Jane glanced up. “I did, thanks.”

Lucy moved her light through the darkness. “What is this place?”

“It must be the anomaly we were sent to check out, though I’ve no idea why it would affect NASA’s scan.”