Ice Hunt

But those were not the only ghosts who laid claim to the lost base. All the researchers stationed here, including his father, had died — entombed in ice as surely as the poor unfortunates in this hall.

Among so many ghosts, it was only fitting that the Beliy Prizrak, the White Ghost of the Northern Fleet, should stride these halls now, too.

Ensign Lausevic led him onward, half stumbling as he tried to hurry but did not want to rush his superior. “I’m not sure what it means, but we thought you should see it for yourself.”

Viktor waved the man on. “Show me.”

The curved hall followed the exterior wall of this level. They were almost halfway around when laughter from up ahead trailed back to Viktor. They rounded the curve and spotted a cluster of five soldiers. They had been lounging, one smoking, until the admiral appeared.

Laughter strangled away, and the group straightened. The cigarette was hastily stamped out.

The group parted for the admiral. They had been clustered around one of the tanks. Unlike the other dark, frosted vessels, this one glowed from within. The frost had melted and wept down the glass front.

Victor crossed to it. He felt the heat coming from its surface. A small motor could be heard chugging and wheezing behind it, along with a faint gurgling.

“We didn’t know what to do,” Lausevic said, ru

Inside the tank, what was once solid ice was now a bath of warm water, gently bubbling, its ice melted by a triple-layered heating mesh that covered the entire back half of the chamber. The mesh was the source of the light. The outer layers glowed with a ruddy warmth, while the deeper levels shone more intensely, brighter.

“Why wasn’t I alerted to this earlier?” Victor intoned.

“We thought it was a ploy by the Americans to distract us,” one of the other men said. “It’s right by the duct they fled through.” He pointed to a nearby vent. A bit of smoke from the incendiary grenade still wafted through its opening.

“We weren’t sure it was important,” Lausevic added.

Not important? Victor stared at the tank. He was unable to take his eyes from the sight.

Within the tank, a small boy floated, suspended within the bubbling water. His eyes were closed as if in slumber. His face looked so peaceful, smooth, olive-ski

Then his left arm twitched, jerking as if pulled by the strings of an invisible puppeteer.

The young ensign pointed. “It’s been doing that for the past few minutes. Starting with just a finger twitch.”

The boy’s leg kicked, spasming up.

Viktor stepped closer. Could he still be alive? He remembered the missing journals. That was the quest here. To retrieve his father’s notes. To see if the last report made by his father was true. He had read this final report himself, hearing his father’s voice in his head, as if he were speaking directly to his son.

He remembered the final line: On this day, we’ve defeated death.

He watched the boy. Could it be true? If so, the stolen notebooks wouldn’t matter. Here was proof of his father’s success. Viktor glanced to the soldiers. He had witnesses to verify it. Though the exact mechanism and procedure were locked in his father’s coded notes, the boy would be living and breathing proof.

“Is there a way to open the tank?” Viktor asked.

Ensign Lausevic pointed to a large lever on one side of the tank. It was locked at the upper end marked CLOSED in Russian. The lower end of the levered slot was lettered in Cyrillic: OPEN.

Viktor nodded to the ensign.

He stepped forward, gripped the heavy handle with both hands, and tugged. It resisted the ensign’s efforts for a moment. Then, with a loud crack, the lever snapped out. Lausevic used his shoulders to pull the lever and slam it down into the “open” slot.

Immediately a rush of water sounded, not unlike a toilet flushing. From his position, Viktor saw the grated bottom of the tank open. Water flowed down a drain.

Caught in the swirling force of the draining water, the boy’s body spun, arms flailed out. His body seemed boneless, limp. He bumped against the glass, the back mesh. Then, as the water drained fully away, he settled in a loose pile on the bottom of the tank, as lifeless as some deep-sea denizen washed up on a beach.

Then with a soft, damp pop, the seal on the glass released. The entire front of the tank swung open like a door, blowing out compressed air from within. There was a faint hint of ammonia that came with it.

Lausevic pulled the door aside for the admiral.

Viktor found himself stepping forward, dropping to his knees beside the naked boy. He reached to the boy’s arm, draped half out the door.

It was warm, heated by the bubbling bath.

But there appeared to be no life.

His hand slipped from wrist to the small fingers. He tried to will the boy back to life. What stories could he tell? Had he known his father? Did he know what had happened here? Why the base had gone dead quiet so suddenly?

It had been the last years of World War II. The Germans were marching into Russia, laying siege to city after city. Then a remote research station in the Arctic went quiet, late reporting in…first one month, then another. But with the war heating up at home, no one had time to investigate. With communication being what it was and travel through the polar region so difficult, there were no resources for a full investigation.

Another full year passed. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed. Nuclear weaponry became the grand technology, hunted and sought by all. Ice Station Grendel and its research project were now antiquated, not worth the cost or manpower to discover its fate. The currents could have taken the station anywhere. The ice island that berthed it might even have broken apart and sunk, something not uncommon with such floating giants.

So more years passed.

The last report of his father, with its wild claims of breaching the barrier between life and death, was dismissed as exaggerated rants and shelved. The only bit of proof was supposedly locked in his journals, lost with the base and its head researcher.

The secret of life and death.

Viktor stared down at the slack face of the boy, so peaceful in slumber. Lips a faint blue, face gray and wet. Viktor wiped the face dry with one hand.

Then small fingers clamped onto his other palm, harder and stronger than Viktor could have imagined.

He gasped in surprise as the boy’s body suddenly convulsed inside the tank, legs kicking, head thrown back, spine arched up, contorted.

Water poured from his open mouth, draining down the tank’s grating.

“Help me get him out!” Viktor yelled, drawing the boy to him.

Ensign Lausevic squeezed in and grabbed the thrashing legs, getting a good kick to his temple in the process.

Between the two of them, they hauled the boy out to the hall. His body jerked and thrashed. Viktor cradled his head, keeping him from cracking his skull on the hard floor. The boy’s eyes twitched behind their lids.

“He’s alive!” one of the other soldiers said, backing a step away.

Not alive, Viktor silently corrected, but not dead either. Somewhere in between.

As the convulsions continued, the boy’s skin grew hot to the touch; perspiration pebbled his skin. Viktor knew that one of the main dangers of epileptic patients during violent or prolonged seizures was hyperthermia, a raising of body temperature from muscle contractions that led to brain damage. Was the boy dying, or was his body fighting to warm life back into it, heating away the last dregs of its frozen state?

Slowly the convulsions faded to vigorous shivering. Viktor continued to hold the boy. Then the boy’s chest heaved up, expanding as if something were going to burst out the rib cage. It held that swelled state, back arched from the floor. Blue lips had warmed to pink, skin flushed from the violence of the seizures.