Chapter 3

Space Visions

"So, what's the alternative?"

"In practical terms, none, I'm afraid." The Deputy Director sipped his black tea, two sugars, laced with real cream, an eccentricity he'd picked up from six years of London service.

"I'm afraid I can only agree. Damn! Damn that antarctic winter all to hell!" The Director immediately calmed himself. His deputy was an old and trusted friend, but that didn't excuse losing professional control. He visibly relaxed himself, leaned back in his chair, and thought for a moment.

"I think we'd better prepare some long-range plans. We'll want to be ready to move in another ground mission the very first moment the weather allows access to the area. And, perhaps, a short-range contingency with an eye to the weather. If we get a decent high pressure system over that area, we might send another flight in for a quick series of low-altitude scans. Get right down on the deck. Fly a tight grid. Get a high-definition scan of its shape and character, at least."

"Yes," the deputy agreed. "And of course, the decent thing would be to recover the bodies. Whatever is left of them. They can be quietly returned to their families—with an appropriate cover story, of course. I'll get our team on it right away. They need more data; they've about exhausted what little we've accumulated so far."

"Very good. Send me copies. Oh ... did we ensure that nothing has leaked out of that ship's charter company?"

"Of course. The contract carried the usual non-disclosure agreement, and we compensated them for the loss of the helicopter, and the extra distance down to McMurdo and out to their home port. They were upset by the loss of their pilot, and the ship's captain was in a mood—I'd call it a mutinous mood over what he felt was unwarranted over-ruling of his professional judgment. We had a quiet word with his employers, and I don't expect any further trouble from that source."

"Good. Well, if we should get a decent break in the weather send in that overflight, don't wait for my approval. You have it. We'll go in with a ground survey as soon as the season allows. I'm not going to sleep easily until I know what the hell is buried there!"

Another week passed and the weather abated. It blew bitterly cold under a crystalline blue sky and ragged clouds. The winds backed to the west-northwest at a steady five to ten knots, bringing a hint of continuing fair weather.

It brought no aircraft. He stood beside his tent using ski poles for support. He scanned the inverted bowl of the sky out to the horizon. He saw no sign of an aircraft.

The radio gear was gone. He need not crawl to the helicopter wreckage. What equipment remained was burned-out husks, partial shells and melted lumps. He did have a hand-held VHF radio but it was hopelessly out of range until an aircraft flew in sight.

He found a bundle containing rescue panels, a set of brilliantly colored fabric panels to stake out on the snow as a large "X" visible from the air in dim twilight or darkness if its reflecting stripes were illuminated. He chose a smooth patch of snow. He hopped and crawled to spread and stake them down. He lifted the burned out oil rag from the holes they'd melted. He refilled them with packing material soaked in oil from a surviving bottle of snowmobile oil. He had a pack of three hand held rescue flares ready, just inside the tent opening. It gave him a feeling of doing something useful toward his rescue. The panels might survive through the next storm.

His wound was healing. The swelling was down, the angry red edges were turning pinkish, and the drainage stopped, all positive signs of no infection. The stitches held. He still rinsed and boiled soiled dressings and reused them. Still, it hurt like bloody hell when he moved his leg the wrong way. He tried very hard not to do that.

He took a food and stove fuel inventory. It would be a race between running out of food and starving, or being swept away by a stronger storm now that winter was coming on fast. The stout little tent, good as it was, had limits. Whipping and thrashing of the fabric and seams would eventually rend it apart. He had no other shelter. He had no knife, nothing to improvise to cut snow blocks. A snow cave might work if there was a sloping bank to burrow into. There wasn't. His windbreak of crates against the upwind side of his tent was holding well enough for now.

He had a routine, and he was sticking to it. Wake up. Do toilet. Melt snow, make water, make coffee and breakfast. Change his leg dressing, melt more snow, rinse and boil the old dressing, hang it from the overhead to dry. Write in his journal. He was recorded his dreams, knowing that what he dreamed was far beyond his life experience. He couldn't guess what would come of it, but he felt a need to write it down. He idly wondered during one long writing session, what would someone think who found this journal beside his body? Would they think he had gone totally mad, deranged and lost in hallucinations?

Mid-afternoon of the impossibly short twilight day would find him hopping around his tent site, inspecting its anchor points, the stacked crates, and the pegged-down aircraft signal panels. He tucked the panel edges into slits cut in the hard-packed snow. He packed snow over the edges, and wetted it to freeze it in place, hoping to prevent the wind from lifting and tearing them away. He worked for hours, slithering along on his side like a seal, securing each panel edge. Whatever snow gathered on him, he brushed away like so much powder. He jealously guarded the oily-rag beacon cans, adding more oil to keep the wadding soaked, and keeping each can clear of drifted snow. Each must light instantly with the touch of a flare when needed.

He guarded against over-exertion. The greatest threat to cold weather survival is not from without, but from within. Sweat and chill are deadly. Sweat too much and the inner clothing gets wet; then it loses its insulation factor; lose insulation and you chill and become hypothermic, and you die. Synthetic fabrics and wool wick away body moisture but they have limits. Cross-country skiers wear polypropylene thermal-knit long-johns, and dress in layers. This wicks away sweat. Removing layers prevents over-heating and sweating. Michael, an experienced winter outdoorsman, was grateful to have both the clothing and the experience to wear it properly. He had no intention of freezing. He'd starve first. More gallows humor, he thought.

The days were dark. By the end of the third week he saw the barest bit of midday twilight. He gave himself long "pep talks" against his sense of foreboding. His physical health was pretty good; he was healing and well fed. But if he succumbed to the gloom of unending darkness, it would be so easy to fall into despair. And madness.

He sensed the "presence" with him in his dreams every night, stronger and more certain. Since the night of the combat memories, when the presence had fled, there had been an acceptance, a resolution. He was also quite comfortable within himself. For the first time ever, he had no nightmares, no waking to find himself soaked in night sweats, screaming. It faded away to memories of days gone, never to return. No, he had not forgotten. He was not even close to forgetting. But the pain and the nightmares were gone.

He felt regret and sorrow, and he despaired that anything good would ever come of the death and loss he'd experienced. But that was an intelligent assessment, he knew, of the truth of it. It was a waste: soldiers would always be called to fight and die. And innocents would flee their homes or die, or would flee and die anyway. It was the way of the world as he knew it, but there was a profound difference. He had been judged. He was not found wanting. His judgment was the harshest kind: he'd judged himself in front of a witness. Now he was at peace with himself.

The fourth week was a week of clear days, clear nights, moderate winds and no storms. But no aircraft came. He was filled with an ominous sense of dread.

Had he been abandoned? Had the agency seen the wreckage and fire-blackened site through their surveillance satellite and written him off? Were they concealing the mission, covering up their failure to return? Could they write off three men and a helicopter so easily?

He knew answer to that. Hell yes, they could. They could and they would. Quite clearly, they had! There'd been time and clear weather enough for a ship to arrive with a helicopter. Or an airlift flight.

He realized, with cold certainty, that he was a limping dead man.

He was surrounded by an infinite expanse of space. He stood on two legs, dressed in a skin suit without substance or fabric, fitted like a second skin. He was warm and comfortable but outside anything familiar to his sense of place. He stood suspended. He sensed that he could reach out to hold within his hand any glowing object within sight. And there were many of them, endless numbers of varying brilliance, form, and color. Some were near but most were far.He could see them, feel their warmth, discern their unique light and color and gravity; he could sort them by their individual selves.

home!

home? yours?

all home, ours—yours—theirs, all home

How does one express in words what is not in words but in images and feelings that have no need of words? How does one relate what an entity explains, an entity who has no need of words?

Can one describe a feeling, an image, the unique essence of the reality, using verbal symbols, words? If you burn your finger on a glowing stove coil, does the word "burn" really communicate the truth of the feeling, the result? If one could share the feeling—the lingering pain, the seared flesh, the slow healing—with someone so they felt it, experienced it, suffered it, would the verbal utterance "burn" substitute for that? No.

Michael knew he was experiencing a new ability within himself. He wondered why it was granted? He was aware of his companion, the entity who displayed a shimmering hint of a form, the silent witness who sat in the gallery as an observer of his self-judgment, the companion of his healing.

Verbal translation was needed or he could never keep his journal. For some reason he couldn't fathom, he sensed that his journal would be precious to him and his posterity. He must find the words; somehow he would translate the ethereal into the mundane. Words, sentences, passages, all pale and incomplete shadows of what he could see but could not speak.

We 'humans' call this our 'universe' ... it surrounds our world, our solar system.

Yes. Universe. We explore. We explore all this, for all time past, we travel.

The scene shifted, galaxies and stars moved, swiftly. Michael felt themselves carried along as space-farers on the deck of an invisible ship. He could breathe, he felt atmosphere on his face, on his hands. He felt warm and secure, anchored with gravity. He felt graceful and strong on his feet. He sensed no disorientation. His companion stood beside him, a head shorter than himself, slender, there with him but not quite there, she remained a form less of body and more of energy. She was energy shaped and formed, with life force, intelligence, presence, and an aura that expanded to include himself within itself.