Ice Hunt

Francisco Giants in an upcoming game, losing ten dollars in the bargain. Overall it had been a great evening.

Perry cleared his throat and made sure Amanda was looking at him. “So what do you think of Cyclops?” he asked, speaking crisply so she could read his lips. She had lost her hearing at the age of thirteen as a result of a car accident.

Amanda Reynolds glanced overhead, turning slightly forward. “It’s everything my father dreamed it would be.”

She stood under the arch, surrounded on all sides by the Arctic Ocean. She appeared to be floating in the sea itself. Presently she leaned on one hip, half turned. Her sweep of ebony hair was snugged into an efficient ponytail. She wore one of the Navy’s blue underway uniforms, crisply pressed.

Perry joined her, stepping out under the open ocean. Being a career submariner, he understood his crew’s discomfort with this room. Although fire was the main fear on any submarine, no one completely trusted the foot- thick plastic shell as an alternative for a double hull of titanium and carbon plate — especially with so much ice around.

He had to resist the urge to hunch away from the plastic canopy. The weight of the entire Arctic Ocean seemed to hang overhead.

“Why did you call me up here?” he asked, touching her arm to draw her eyes.

“For this…something amazing.” Amanda’s voice tremored with excitement. She waved an arm forward. Beyond Cyclops, the sub’s lamps illuminated the wall of ice slowly passing by the front of the vessel. Standing here, it felt as if they were motionless, and it was the ice island instead that was turning, revolving like a giant’s toy top in front of them. This close, the entire cliff face glowed under the illumination of the sub’s xenon spotlights. The ice seemed to stretch infinitely up and down.

Without a doubt, it was both a humbling and starkly chilling sight, but Perry still did not understand why his presence had been requested.

“We’ve been testing the new DeepEye sonar system,” Amanda began to explain.

Perry nodded. He was familiar with her research project. The Polar Sentinel was the first submarine to be equipped with her experimental ice-surveying system, a penetrating sonar, a type of X ray for ice. The device had been based on Dr. Reynolds’s own design. Her background was in geosciences engineering, specializing in the polar regions.

She continued, “We were hoping to test it on the island here and see if we could discern any boulders or terrestrial matter inside.”

“And did you find something?” He still could not take his eyes off the slowly turning cliff of ice.

Amanda stepped to the side, toward a pair of men hunched over equipment. “Our first couple passes failed to reveal anything, but it’s like peeling an onion. We had to be careful. The sonar waves of the DeepEye cause minute vibrations in the ice. They actually heat it up slightly. So we had to proceed one layer at a time as we scanned the island. Slow, meticulous work. Then we discovered—”

Perry still stood under the eye of Cyclops. He was the first to see the danger as the sub edged around a thick ridge of ice. Ahead, boulder-sized chunks of ice floated and bounced up the cliff face, an avalanche in reverse. But ahead, a large dark crack skittered across the face of the ice. A monstrous section of cliff face suddenly leaned toward the slow-moving ship, toppling out toward them. They were going to collide with it.

With a gasp, he dove for the intercom. “Captain to the bridge!” he yelled.

“On it, Captain,” Commander Bratt answered, tense. “Flooding negative.”

Instantly Perry felt the familiar tug on the sub as thousands of pounds of water drowned the emergency tanks.

The sub dropped, diving at a steep angle.

Perry stared out of Cyclops, unblinking, unsure if they would avoid a collision as the wall of ice dropped from the cliff like a blue ax. It was now a race between the buoyancy of the falling ice and the weight of their own emergency ballast. The submarine canted nose first. Hand-holds were grabbed. A notebook slid down the slanted floor.

Small cries echoed, but Perry ignored them. He watched, powerless. A collision here would be disastrous. There was nowhere to surface for miles around. Though the Polar Sentinel had been built to handle the rigors of the Arctic, there were limits.

The toppling wall of ice filled the world ahead of them. The sub continued to dive. Seams popped and groaned from the sudden increase in pressure as the sub plunged into the frigid depths.

Then open water appeared ahead, just under the slowly falling slab of ice. The submarine dove toward it.

The section of cliff face slid past overhead — no more than inches. Perry craned his neck, following it past the arch of Lexan above his head. He could read the pictographic lines of algae across the ice’s surface. He held his breath, ready for the screech of metal, ready to hear the emergency klaxons blare. But the continual low hiss of the oxygen generators persisted.

After a long half minute, Perry let out a deep breath and turned to the intercom. “Captain to the bridge,” he said. “Good job up there, men.”

Commander Bratt answered, relief and pride in his voice, “Shutting the flood. Venting negative.” The sub began to level. After a moment, Bratt added, “Let’s not do that again.”

“Aye to that,” Perry agreed. “But let’s do a slow circle back around and inspect the area — from a safe distance. I wager that breakaway may have been triggered by the DeepEye sonar.” He glanced to Amanda, remembering her concern about the new sonar’s vibration signature and heating effect. “We should get some pictures since we’re testing the darned thing.”

Commander Bratt acknowledged and ordered his bridge crew, “Helmsman, left full rudder. Ahead slow. Take us around.”

The submarine eased away from the ice mountain in a slow circle. Perry crossed to the bank of video monitors. “Can we get a close-up of the fracture zone?”

One of the technicians nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Amanda spoke, her words slightly slurred, her enunciation slipping with her anxiety. “We should’ve anticipated such a fracturing.”

He patted her hand. “That’s why we call this a shakedown cruise. If you’re not shook up a time or two, then you’re not doing your job.”

Despite his poor attempt at humor, her face remained tight.

Then again, his own heart still pounded from the close call. He bent closer to the screen as the technician manipulated a toggle to bring the exterior cameras into focus on the fractured area. The shattered chunk of cliff shimmered into clarity.

“What’s that?” Amanda asked. She pointed to a dark blemish on the screen. It was in the center of the fracture zone. “Can you zoom in?”

The technician nodded and twisted a dial. The section of cliff swelled. The blemish grew in detail and depth. It was not ice or rock, but something unusual. As the sub turned, the Polar Sentinel’s spotlights illuminated it. It was black, angular. Man-made.

As they swung closer, Perry knew what he was seeing: the stern end of another sub, frozen like a stick in a Popsicle. He crossed over to the canopy of Lexan glass and stared out. He could just make out the sub poking from the ice. It was old, ancient.

The Polar Sentinel glided past at a safe distance.

“Is that what I think it is?” Dr. Willig asked, his voice weak.

“A sub,” Perry answered with a nod. He could recognize any submarine from just a casual glance. “I’d say a World War Two — era sub. Russian I series.”

Amanda, her face less pale now, spoke from where she now stood with two researchers. “This supports our earlier discovery. The reason I called you down here.”

Perry turned to her. “What are you talking about?”

She pointed to a different monitor. “We mapped and taped this earlier from the DeepEye.” The screen displayed a three-dimensional image of the ice island. The resolution was amazing, but Perry didn’t see anything significant.

“Show him,” Amanda continued, placing a hand on one of the technician’s shoulders.