Clive Cussler - Fast Ice

The technician manipulated a lever on the control panel, guiding the stainless steel chute out over the pool. At the touch of a button, it tilted downward and the doors of the hopper opened.

Ice began to pour down the chute, arriving in a rush, splashing and spreading out as it hit the water.

Tunstall and Liang stepped back to avoid being doused. Novikov got his feet wet and cursed, while the technician moved the chute from side to side, spreading the ice evenly.

When the last of the ice had fallen, a frozen layer covered the entire pool. In some places, it was jumbled up in small ridges, in others it had frozen together in blocks shaped like miniature icebergs.

“Five thousand pounds of frozen water,” Ryland said. “If taken to scale, this would represent a shelf of sea ice thirty feet thick—far thicker than what we actually find in either the Arctic or the Antarctic. But I will account for that.”

Some of the ice had missed the pool. Novikov and Tunstall kicked the chunks back into the water, picking up a few stray cubes and examining them before tossing them in.

The pool had become a pond with a frozen layer on top. The lighted board showed the overall temperature dropping until it read 26.4 degrees.

“Now what?” Tunstall asked. “Do we chant the magic words together?”

Ryland was growing annoyed at her flippancy, but he needed her contributions more than the others at this point. The high-pressure turbines her company built were the key to his plan.

He turned to his assistant. “Release the catalyst.”

The technician pressed an illuminated button, holding it down until it turned from red to green. A pair of doors in the side of the pool opened and a dark liquid began pumping into the water beneath the ice.

The liquid swirled into the pool, twirling out and bending back as it spread.

“Switch to black light,” Ryland said. “I want them to see this clearly.”

The technician turned off the regular pool lights and powered up a bank of purple bulbs. Under black light, the ice took on a whiter hue, looking more like the snow-colored sea version than it had before. The pool itself was like a dark glass, but the injections from either side glowed brilliantly in neon green.

Thirty seconds into the demonstration, the pumps shut down and the doors in the side of the pool closed back up. For several minutes, nothing happened. The guests watched and waited, growing bored and then restless.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Ms. Tunstall said.

“There had better be more than this,” Liang warned.

Ryland glanced at his watch. “Give it time,” he said.

Finally, a crack appeared in one section of the frozen surface. The glowing green liquid rose through the fissure and filled it in, widening the break with each passing second. Additional fissures appeared in other parts of the pool and the ice began to move.

Ryland’s guests looked closer.

To their left, a pile of loose ice broke apart and then bobbed to the surface. It quickly separated into a dozen small pieces, which melted rapidly. To the right, a large circular gap opened, spreading quickly in all directions.

“It’s eating the ice,” Tunstall said.

“Astounding,” Liang added.

Ryland stood quietly, reveling in the moment, as the green liquid spread and the ice dissolved before their eyes.

“As you can see—and feel—the ice is melting despite the temperature remaining below the freezing point,” Ryland said.

“What is the temperature?” Novikov asked, looking up from the glowing waters.

“Twenty-six-point-five,” the technician replied.

The digital board indicated the same.

“The water has not been warmed?” Tunstall asked.

“Test it yourself,” Ryland said, “if you don’t believe me.”

She dipped her hand into the water at the edge of the pool, made a fist as she pulled it from the supercooled liquid.

Her fingers were bright red. “It is very, very cold.”

Ryland offered her a towel to dry her hand. “Colder than it was before.”

“How is that possible?” Novikov asked.

“The miracle of heat transfer,” Ryland said. “The catalyst absorbs heat from the water while it breaks the bonds between the ice crystals. The colder the water, the faster it works. Up to a point, of course.”

“And what is the catalyst?” Tunstall asked.

“It’s a type of microbe, a species of algae that lives under the glaciers,” Ryland explained. “We’ve genetically altered it to be more effective and to reproduce much faster. All we have to do is spread it near the poles and the sea ice will melt away, never to freeze again.”

“Surely it won’t act this rapidly?” Tunstall said.

“Of course not,” Ryland replied. “This is a vastly more concentrated demonstration. But over time the algae will multiply and spread. Within a year, the so-called Northwest Passage will be wide open for navigation. Within two years, there will be no summer ice in the Arctic at all. And the increased heat absorbed by the dark water will warm the frozen tundra of Russia and Canada. The two of you, with all of your new real estate holdings, will become the wealthiest landowners in the world, having bought what was worthless only to see it opened for mining, farming and oil exploration in the blink of an eye.”

He walked around the pool as he spoke. “Ports will be built on the extremities of all northern nations, ships will be needed to carry the new bonanza of trade. Each of you will be in the position of first mover. Each of you will double and triple your wealth and status.”

“And you?” Tunstall asked. “What do you get out of all this?”

“A portion of the wealth you generate will flow to me,” Ryland said proudly. “I’m invested in each of your companies at this point, am I not?”

“You are a minority investor,” Liang reminded him. “A very minor one at that. A long list of others will make much more. Now that I see what you can do, I’m surprised you’ve demanded so little.”

“I have other incentives,” Ryland insisted.

Novikov laughed deeply. He turned to his associates. “He’s working a different game. With a kingdom of his own there for the taking. Isn’t that right?”

Ryland offered a slight bow, as if to say, You have me.

Novikov continued, “We have the north between us. He has the south alone.”

The Russian turned to Ryland, a smile on his face suggesting he felt a great deal of pride for having figured Ryland out. “The Antarctic will be yours. Isn’t that the way you see it?”

“The oil is there,” Ryland said, sounding much as he had when speaking to Kurt. “Oil, minerals, gemstones. All the diamonds that used to be so plentiful here in South Africa. With the ice gone, we’ll walk around and pluck them off the surface, find them in every shovelful of soil. Not to mention rare earths and precious metals, like platinum, gold and tungsten. That is my desire, yes.”

Ms. Tunstall laughed. “They will never let you have it,” she insisted. “They will never let you mar their pristine little paradise.”

Ryland offered a shrug. “When we’re finished, Antarctica will be a gray and barren land. What little animal life exists today will quickly die off. With no wildlife or ‘pristine’ snowscapes to protect and nothing but broken-down glaciers retreating by the day, they will quit caring what happens to it. Mark my words, the prevailing wisdom will change as soon as dollar signs appear.”

The look on Tunstall’s face said she doubted him, but she shrugged instead. Her tracts in northern Canada would be worth billions. “I trust you have scientific proof to back up what you’ve shown us?”

“A data transfer is being sent to each of you as we speak,” Ryland said. “It’s twenty gigabytes of genetic information, climate studies and thermodynamic data. I’m sure each of you have people to summarize it for you.”