The Ice Limit

into the sea, each with a faint hiss. Darkness returned.

Glinn raised his radio.

'Op accomplished,' he said quietly. 'Prepare to receive the launch.'

Rolvaag,

5:40 P.M.

PALMER LLOYD found himself momentarily unable to speak. He had been so certain of impending death that to stand here on the bridge, drawing breath, seemed a miracle. When he finally found his voice, he turned to Glinn. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'The chance of success was too slim. I myself did not believe it would succeed.' His lips twitched briefly in an ironic smile. 'It required luck.'

In a sudden physical display of emotion Lloyd leapt forward, wrapping Glinn in a bear hug. 'Christ,' he said, 'I feel like a condemned man getting a reprieve. Eli, is there anything you can't do?' He found himself crying. He didn't care.

'It's not over yet.'

Lloyd simply grinned at the man's false modesty.

Britton turned to Howell. 'Are we taking in water?'

'Nothing that the bilge pumps can't handle, Captain. As long as we have auxiliary power.'

'And how long is that?'

'By shutting down all but essential systems, with the emergency diesel, more than twenty-five hours.'

'Splendid!' Lloyd said. 'We're in fine shape. We'll repair the engines and be on our way.' He beamed at Glinn and then Britton, and then faltered a little. He wondered why they looked so grim. 'Is there a problem?'

'We're DIW, Mr. Lloyd,' said Britton. 'The current's moving us back into the storm.'

'DIW?'

'Dead in the water.'

'We've weathered it so far. It can't get any worse than this. Can it?'

No one answered his question.

Britton spoke to Howell. 'Give me status on our communications.'

'All long-range and satellite communications down.'

'Issue an SOS. Raise South Georgia on the emergency channel sixteen.'

Lloyd felt a sudden chill. 'What's this about an SOS?'

Again no one answered. Britton said, 'Mr. Howell, what is the status on engine damage?'

After a moment Howell reported back. 'Both turbines beyond repair, ma'am.'

'Prepare for possible evacuation of the ship.'

Lloyd could hardly believe what he was hearing. 'Just what the hell are you talking about? Is the ship sinking?'

Britton turned a pair of cool green eyes on him. 'That's my meteorite down there. I'm not leaving this ship.'

'Nobody's leaving the ship, Mr. Lloyd. We'll only abandon ship as a last resort. Putting lifeboats out into this storm would probably be suicide anyway.'

'For God's sake, then, let's not overreact. We can weather the storm and get a tow to the Falklands. Things aren't that bad.'

'We have no steerage, no headway. Once we drift back into that storm, we'll have eighty-knot winds, a hundred-foot sea, and a six-knot current all pushing us in one direction, toward the Bransfield Strait. That's Antarctica, Mr. Lloyd. Things are that bad.'

Lloyd felt stunned. Already, he could feel a swell rolling the ship. A gust of air came into the bridge.

'Listen to me,' he said in a low voice. 'I don't care what you have to do, or how you do it, but don't you lose my meteorite. Is that understood?'

Britton gave him a steady, hostile look. 'Mr. Lloyd, right now I couldn't give a shit about your meteorite. My sole concern is my ship and crew. Is that understood?'

Lloyd turned to Glinn, looking for support. But Glinn had remained perfectly silent and still, his face its usual mask.

'When can we get a tow?'

'Most of our electronics are down, but we're trying to raise South Georgia. It all depends on the storm.'

Lloyd broke away impatiently and turned to Glinn. 'What's happening in the holding tank?'

'Garza is reinforcing the web with fresh welds.'

'And how long will that take?'

Glinn did not answer. He did not need to; because now Lloyd could feel it, too. The motion of the ship was growing worse — ghastly, slow rolls that took forever to complete. And at the top of each roll, the Rolvaag cried in pain: a deep groaning that was half sound and half vibration. It was the dead hand of the meteorite.

Rolvaag,

5:45 P.M.

HOWELL EMERGED from the radio room and spoke to Britton. 'We've got South Georgia, ma'am,' he said.

'Very good. Put them on voice, please.'

The bridge intercom came to life. 'South Georgia to tanker Rolvaag, acknowledged.' The voice was tinny and faint, and Britton could recognize a Home Counties accent barely recognizable through the static.

She picked up a transmitter and opened the channel. 'South Georgia, this is an emergency. We are severely damaged, without propulsion, repeat, without propulsion. We're drifting south-southeastward at a rate of nine knots.'

'Acknowledged, Rolvaag. State your position.'

'Our position is 61°15'12' South, 60°5'33' West.'

'Advise as to your cargo. In ballast or oil?'

Glinn glanced up at her, a sharp look. Britton closed the channel.

'From this point on,' Glinn said, 'we begin telling the truth. Our truth.'

Britton turned back to the transmitter. 'South Georgia, we're converted to an ore carrier. We're fully loaded with, ah, a meteorite, mined on the Cape Horn islands.'

There was another silence.

'Did not copy, Rolvaag. Did you say meteorite?'

'Affirmative. Our cargo is a twenty-five-thousand-ton meteorite.'

'A meteorite of twenty-five thousand tons,' the voice repeated impassively. 'Rolvaag, please advise as to your intended destination.'

Britton knew this was a subtle way of asking, What the hell are you doing down here?

'We're headed for Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.'

There was another silence. Britton waited, wincing inwardly. Any knowledgeable mariner would know there was something very wrong with this story. Here they were, two hundred miles off the Bransfield Straits, well into a major storm. And yet this was their first distress call.

'Er, Rolvaag, may I ask if you have the latest weather report?'

'Yes, we do.' But she knew he would give it to her anyway.

'Winds increasing to a hundred knots by midnight, seas topping forty meters, all of Drake Passage under a Force 15 storm warning.'

'It's almost Force 13 now,' she replied.

'Understood. Please describe the nature of your damage.'