The wind on deck was piercing now, numbing exposed flesh in only a matter of seconds. Piercing also was the gunmetal blue of the sea and sky, the latter marred by only a few streaming wisps of cirrus cloud. It made a vivid contrast to the stark white castle shape drifting slowly past the cutter’s quarter, the bulk of the iceberg showing as a wavering green mass below the ocean’s surface. This was only the first outrider of the pack. To the north, off the bow, the horizon shimmered with a hazy metallic luster, what the arctic hands called “ice blink.”

Smith felt someone brush lightly against his elbow. Valentina Metrace was standing close by at his side, and he could feel her shiver. Dr. Trowbridge had emerged from the deckhouse as well and stood at the rail a few feet away, not speaking or looking at Smith and his team. Other members of the cutter’s crew were also coming topside, watching the passage of the pallid sea specter.

The first enemy was in sight. Soon the battle would begin.

Chapter Nineteen

Wednesday Island

“Core water samples, series M?”

“Check.”

“Core water samples, series R?”

“Check.”

“Core water samples, series RA?”

Kayla Brown looked up from where she knelt beside the open plastic specimen case. “They’re all here, Doctor Creston,” she replied patiently, “just like yesterday.”

Dr. Brian Creston chuckled and flipped his notebook shut. “Have patience with an old man, child. I’ve seen Mr. Cock-up drop in on many an expedition at the last minute. There’s no sense in getting sloppy in the home stretch.”

Kayla snapped the latches on the case and tightened the nylon safety strap around it. “I hear you, Doctor. I don’t want anything to come between me and that beautiful, beautiful helicopter tomorrow.”

“Really?” Creston reclaimed his pipe from the cracked chemistry retort he’d been using for an ashtray, and bent down slightly to peer through one of the laboratory hut’s small, low-set windows. “Actually, I’ll rather miss the place. I’ve found it…restful.”

For the moment there was a hole in the weather over the island, and the low-riding sun struck white fire off the drifted snow outside. The Wednesday Island Science Station consisted of three small, green prefabricated buildings: the laboratory, the bunkroom, and the utility/generator shack, set side by side in a row and spaced some thirty yards apart to eliminate the risk of a spreading fire.

Established near the shore of the small frozen bay at Wednesday’s western end, the station was protected from the blast of the prevailing northerlies by a shoulder of the Island’s central ridge. Thus, each flat-roofed hut had been only half-buried in drift.

Kayla Brown stood up and brushed off the knees of her ski pants. “It’s been a great experience, Doctor, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but like we say back home, ‘Can we please stop having fun now?’”

Creston laughed. “Understood, Kayla. But aren’t you going up with the crash investigation team when they arrive? After all, you were the one to first spot the wreck.”

The young woman’s face fell. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve thought about it, and it would probably be interesting, but…the men aboard that plane might still be up there. I’m willing to give that a pass.”

Creston nodded. Leaning back against the big worktable in the center of the laboratory, he began to lightly fill his pipe from the dwindling stock in his tobacco pouch. “I quite understand. It might not be the most pleasant of experiences. But I must confess, I’m getting bloody curious about that old bomber, especially given how they keep ordering us to stay away from it. It makes a person suspect there might be a bit more to this story than’s being let out.”

Kayla Brown braced her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes in feminine practicality. “Oh, come on, Doctor! You know how historians and archeologists are. They hate to have amateurs fumbling around a dig, jumbling things up. You wouldn’t want someone messing with your core samples or radiosonde balloons, would you?”

“Point taken.” Creston struck a wooden kitchen match. Holding it to the bowl of his pipe, he puffed experimentally. “But trust a woman to squeeze all the mystery out of things.”

At that moment Ian Rutherford slid open the accordion door in the partition that separated the main laboratory from the little radio room that took up one end of the hut. “Got the latest met gen, Doctor,” he said, holding up a sheet of hard copy.

“How’s it look, Ian?”

The young Englishman grimaced theatrically. “I suppose you could say mixed. We’ve got a mild front moving in. It might hold off through tomorrow, but for a day or so after that we’re going to be spotty.”

“How big a spot, lad?”

“Variable northerly winds up to force five. Low overcast. Intermittent snow squalls.”

Kayla rolled her eyes once more. “Oh, nice! Perfect flying weather!”

“And that’s just the start,” the youthful Englishman went on. “We’ve been put on a solar flare warning. Commo’s going to be dicky as well.”

“Dear me.” Doctor Creston sighed a cloud of aromatic smoke. “Someone put the kettle on. I think I hear Mr. Cock-up coming up the walk.”

“Oh, come on, Doc,” Rutherford grinned. “It won’t be that bad. Ops should only be bitched for a day or two at the most.”

“I know, Ian, but just remember who’ll be waiting for us on the ship. Dear old Count-the-Pennies Trowbridge will be certain I deliberately brewed up a storm during extraction just to put him over budget.”

There was a shout from somewhere outside the lab building, muffled by the thickly insulated walls. Boots pounded in the snow lock entryway, the inner door crashed open, and Stefan Kropodkin pushed through into the laboratory, crumbs of compacted snow spraying off his Arctic gear. “Did Doctor Hasegawa and Professor Gupta get in?” he gasped, tearing back the hood of his parka.

Creston straightened from the edge of the worktable, setting his pipe back into the retort ashtray. “No, they haven’t. What’s wrong?”

The Slovakian gulped air. “I don’t know. They’ve disappeared.”

Creston frowned, “What do you mean, disappeared?”

“I don’t know! They’re just gone! We were on the south beach, about three kilometers out. Professor Gupta wanted a last look at the ice buildup rates along the shore, and we were assisting him. The professor told me to photograph some of the formations, and he and Dr. Hasegawa went on ahead, around the point. I lost sight of them.” Kropodkin took another shuddering breath. “When I followed after them, they were gone.”

“Damn it! If I’ve told Adaran once I’ve told him a hundred times. Keep your group together! Did they have a two-way?”

Kropodkin nodded. “The professor had a radio.”

Creston looked to Rutherford. “Did you hear anything on the local channel?”

The Englishman shook his head.

“Then get on the set. Call them.”

“Right-oh!” The Englishman disappeared through the door of the radio shack.

Kropodkin sank down on a stool, dragging off his heavy overmittens and gloves. Kayla Brown anxiously passed him a bottle of water. “I went on for about another kilometer,” he continued after taking a drink. “I called for them but there was no answer. No sign. I began to worry and I hurried back here. I thought maybe they had gotten past me somehow.”

“They must have gone inland or out onto the shore drift for some reason.” Creston scowled.

“There’s no answer on the local channel, Doc!” Rutherford yelled from the radio room.

Kropodkin looked from Dr. Creston to Kayla, a mix of concern and fear crossing his features. “There was one other thing, beyond where they disappeared. A half-eaten seal on the beach. A polar bear kill. Fresh.”

“Are you sure it was a seal?” Kayla asked, a tremor in her voice.