Earth

• MESOSPHERE

time of year, Davis Strait thronged with traffic. Great freighters plowed the choppy waters, following strobing marker buoys all the way to Lancaster Sound and the shortcut to Asia. Solar arrays and rigid wing-sails lent the sleek vessels a family resemblance to the clipper ships of yore, on which men once upon a time had risked their lives seeking this selfsame Northwest Passage. Now and then, the shadows of dirigibles, like passing clouds, darkened the sea nearby. The zeppelin crews, bound for Europe or Canada, leaned out to wave at the high-tech sailors below.

It was a far cry from when Roald Amundsen had come this way, to spend three hard years battling toward Alaska. Today the voyage took two weeks, and all looked peaceful here in the realm of the midnight sun.

Of course, Stan Goldman knew, appearances can be deceiving.

From this height he could make out a place along Greenland’s western verge where a vast, growling glacier met the open sea. Beacons detoured commerce round a chain of lumbering behemoths wrapped in reflective foil. The insulated bergs resembled great, silvery, alien mother ships, as mammoth engines pushed them south toward thirsty lands.

Eventually, the giant island would run out of white treasure, unbelievable as it might seem up here, where a snowy plateau still spa

And yet, there is a cost. There’s always a cost.

Stan had just finished reading dire news about these northern seas. Species counts were down again. No one had seen a bowhead whale in years. And migratory birds, the litmus of ecological health, were laying fewer eggs.

Many blamed the old nemesis, pollution. Down below, UNEPA and Kingdom of Denmark launches sniffed among the great freighters as if any captain would dare drop even a paper cup into this heavily policed waterway. Actually though, climatic changes, rather than dumping, might be at fault. Temperate-zone creatures could flee the spreading deserts by moving north. But where could polar bears go when their dens turned to slush?

Of course, palm trees wouldn’t be growing up here any time soon. A man immersed in those bright waters would still be unconscious in minutes and dead from hypothermia inside an hour. And six months from now, the sun would vanish for another winter.

There are limits, Stan reassured himself. Mankind may be able to mess with the climate, but we can’t change the seasons or shift Earth’s axial tilt.

Almost at once, however, he reconsidered. Is even that beyond our reach now? He pondered some implications of Alex Lustig’s equations and found himself weighing notions unimaginable only weeks ago. I wonder if it might be possible to…

Stan shook his head firmly. Such meddling had already brought about nothing but calamity.

“Kalâtdlit-Nunât.”

Stan turned to his traveling companion. “I beg your pardon?”

Teresa Tikhana lifted a small reading plaque. “Kalâtdlit-Nunât. It’s what the Inuit people — the Eskimos — call Greenland.”

“The Inuit? I thought their second language was Danish.”

Teresa shrugged. “Who says two languages are enough? How does the saying go? ‘A man with only one ethnicity stands on just one leg.’… Come on, Stan. How many languages do you speak?”

He shrugged. “You mean besides International English and Physics?… And the Maori and Simglish and Han they taught us in school?” He paused. “Well, I can get along in General Nihon and French, but…”

He laughed, seeing her point. “All right. Let’s hear it again.”

Teresa coached him till he could pronounce a few indigenous politenesses. Not that there’d be much time for idle chitchat where they were going — a rough outpost in the middle of a wasteland. He’d always wanted to see this tremendous frozen island, but this mission wasn’t for tourism.

Stan glanced across the aisle. The other members of their expedition had gathered near a forward window, whispering and pointing as the cargo ships and vacuum-packed icebergs fell behind. Stan listened now and then, to make sure the technicians kept their voices low and stayed away from taboo subjects.

“You’re sure we can’t use the old NATO base at Godhavn?” Teresa asked. “It’s got every facility. And the science commune using it now is pretty free and open, I hear.”

“They’re mostly atmosphere researchers, right?” Stan asked.

“Yeah. First set up to monitor radioactive fallout from the Alps. Now they’re part of the Ozone Restoration Project, such as it is.”

“Reason enough to avoid the place, then. You’d surely be recognized.”

The woman astronaut blinked. “Oh, yeah.” Self-consciously Teresa brushed back strands of newly blonde hair, dyed just for this journey. “I — guess I’m just not used to this way of thinking, Stan.”

In other words, she hadn’t the advantage of growing up as he had, during the paranoid twentieth, when people routinely maintained poses for the sake of anything from ideology to profit to love — sometimes for whole lifetimes.

“Try to remember,” he urged, dropping his voice. “We’re breaking Danish territorial law, bringing you in under a false passport. You’re supposed to be on vacation in Australia, right? Not halfway around the world, smuggling undocumented gear into… Kal3tdlit-Nunat.”

She tried to look serious, but couldn’t suppress a smile. “All right, Stan. I’ll remember.”

He sighed. If their conspiracy hadn’t been critically shorthanded, he’d never have agreed to bringing Teresa along. Her competence, charm and fascinating mind would be welcome of course. But the risk was awfully great.

“Come on,” she said, nudging his elbow. “Now you’re starting to look like Alex Lustig.”

Nervously, he laughed. “That bad?”

She nodded. “I thought we ’nauts were a sober-pussed bunch. But Lustig makes Gle

Maybe, Stan thought. But how would you look if you had that poor boy’s burdens on your back?

Stan withheld comment though. He knew Teresa, too, was suffering from a. coping reaction. Her way of dealing with this awful crisis was to go into denial. Certainly she’d never let it interfere with her work, but Stan imagined she simply let the reason for their desperate venture slip her mind, any chance she got.

“It’s poor Alex’s upbringing at fault,” Stan answered in his best Old Boy accent. “English public schools do that to a lad, don’t’cha know.”

Teresa laughed, and Stan was glad to hear the pure, untroubled sound. She has enough reason for denial. Of all the members of their cabal, she had been the first struck personally by the lashing tail of the taniwha — the monster in the Earth’s core.

More of them would share that honor before long. Stan thought of Ellen and the grandkids and his daughter back in England. Faces of students and friends kept popping up at odd moments, especially during sleep. Sometimes it felt like going through a photo album of treasures already lost.

Stop. It’s useless to maunder this way.

He sought distraction outside. The Northwest Passage lay behind them, now. To the left, fleets of smaller boats could be seen threading craggy offshore islets, bound for a bustling seaport just ahead.

“Godhavn,” Teresa said, reading her guidebook again. She gestured at the piers and factories lining the bay. “And what does the Net say is this city’s principal industry?” She inhaled deeply through her nose. “I’ll give you three guesses.”