The Ice Limit

EES Headquarters,

1:00 P.M.

A SHORT ASCENT in an industrial elevator, a mazelike journey through white hallways, and McFarlane found himself ushered into a conference room. Low-ceilinged and austerely furnished, it was as understated as Palmer Lloyd's had been lavish. There were no windows, no prints on the walls — only a circular table made out of an exotic wood, and a darkened screen at the far end of the room.

Two people were seated at the table, staring at him, evaluating him with their eyes. The closest was a black-haired young woman, dressed in Farmer Brown-style bib overalls. She was not exactly pretty, but her brown eyes were quick and had glimmers of gold in their depths. They lingered over him in a sardonic way that McFarlane found unsettling. She was of average size, slender, unremarkable, with a healthy tan browning her cheekbones and nose. She had very long hands with longer fingers, currently busy cracking a peanut into a large ashtray on the table in front of her. She looked like an overgrown tomboy.

The man beyond her was dressed in a white lab coat. He was blade thin, with a badly razor-burned face. One eyelid seemed to droop slightly, giving the eye a jocular look, as if it was about to wink. But there was nothing jocular about the rest of the man: he looked humorless, pinched, as tense as catgut. He fidgeted restlessly with a mechanical pencil, turning it over and over.

Glinn nodded. 'This is Eugene Rochefort, manager of engineering. He specializes in one-of-a-kind engineering designs.'

Rochefort accepted the compliment with a purse of his lips, the pressure briefly turning them white.

'And this is Dr. Rachel Amira. She started out as a physicist with us, but we soon began to exploit her rare gifts as a mathematician. If you have a problem, she will give you an equation. Rachel, Gene, please welcome Dr. Sam McFarlane. Meteorite hunter.'

They nodded in reply. McFarlane felt their eyes on him as he busied himself with opening the portfolio case and distributing folders. He felt the tension return.

Glinn accepted his folder. 'I'd like to go over the general outline of the problem, and then open the floor for discussion.'

'Sure thing,' said McFarlane, settling into a chair.

Glinn glanced around, his gray eyes unreadable. Then he withdrew a sheaf of notes from inside his jacket. 'First, some general information. The target area is a small island, known as Isla Desolacion, off the southern tip of South America in the Cape Horn islands. It lies in Chilean national territory. It is about eight miles long and three miles wide.'

He paused and looked around.

'Our client, Palmer Lloyd, insists upon moving ahead with the utmost possible speed. He is concerned about possible competition from other museums. That means working in the depths of the South American winter. In the Cape Horn islands, temperatures in July range from above freezing to as much as thirty below zero, Fahrenheit. Cape Horn is the southernmost major landmass outside of Antarctica itself, more than a thousand miles closer to the South Pole than Africa's Cape of Good Hope. During the target month, we can expect five hours of daylight.

'Isle Desolacion is not a hospitable place. It is barren, windswept, mostly volcanic with some Tertiary sedimentary basins. The island is bisected by a large snowfield, and there is an old volcanic plug toward the north end. The tides range from thirty to thirty-five vertical feet, and a reversing sixknot current sweeps the island group.'

'Lovely conditions for a picnic,' Garza muttered.

'The closest human settlement is on Navarino Island, in the Beagle Channel, about forty miles north of the Cape Horn islands. It is a Chilean naval base called Puerto Williams, with a small mestizo Indian shantytown attached to it.'

'Puerto Williams?' Garza said. 'I thought this was Chile we were talking about.'

'The entire area was originally mapped by Englishmen.' Glinn placed the notes on the table. 'Dr. McFarlane, I understand you've been in Chile.'

McFarlane nodded.

'What can you tell us about their navy?'

'Charming fellows.'

There was a silence. Rochefort, the engineer, began tapping his pencil on the table in an irritated tattoo. The door opened, and a waiter began serving sandwiches and coffee.

'They belligerently patrol the coastal waters,' McFarlane went on, 'especially in the south, along the border with Argentina. The two countries have a long-running border dispute, as you probably know.'

'Can you add anything to what I've said about the climate?'

'I once spent time in Punta Arenas in late fall. Blizzards, sleet storms, and fog are common. Not to mention williwaws.'

'Williwaws?' Rochefort asked in a tremulous, reed-thin voice.

'Basically a microburst of wind. It lasts only a minute or two, but it can peak at about a hundred and fifty knots.'

'What about decent anchorages?' Garza asked.

'I've been told there are no decent anchorages. In fact, from what I've heard, there's no good holding ground for a ship anywhere in the Cape Horn islands.'

'We like a challenge,' said Garza.

Glinn collected the papers, folded them carefully, and returned them to his jacket pocket. Somehow, McFarlane felt the man had already known the answers to his own questions.

'Clearly,' Glinn said, 'we have a complex problem, even without considering the meteorite. But let's consider it now. Rachel, I believe you have some questions about the data?'

'I have a comment about the data.' Amira's eyes glanced at a folder before her, then hovered on McFarlane with faint amusement. She had a superior attitude that McFarlane found annoying.

'Yes?' said McFarlane.

'I don't believe a word of it.'

'What exactly don't you believe?'

She waved her hand over his portfolio. 'You're the meteorite expert, right? Then you know why no one has ever found a meteorite larger than sixty tons. Any larger, and the force of impact causes the meteorite to shatter. Above two hundred tons, meteorites vaporize from the impact. So how could a monster like this still be intact?'

'I can't —' McFarlane began.

But Amira interrupted. 'The second thing is that iron meteorites rust. It only takes about five thousand years to rust even the biggest one into a pile of scale. So if it somehow did survive the impact, why is it still there? How do you explain this geological report that says it fell thirty million years ago, was buried in sediment, and is only now being exposed through erosion?'

McFarlane settled back in his chair. She waited, raising her eyebrows quizzically.

'Have you ever read Sherlock Holmes?' McFarlane asked with a smile of his own.

Amira rolled her eyes. 'You're not going to quote that old saw about how once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth — are you?'

McFarlane shot a surprised glance at her. 'Well, isn't it true?'

Amira smirked her triumph, while Rochefort shook his head.

'So, Dr. McFarlane,' Amira said brightly, 'is that your source of scientific authority? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?'

McFarlane exhaled slowly. 'Someone else collected the base data. I can't vouch for it. All I can say is, if that data's accurate, there's no other explanation: it's a meteorite.'

There was a silence. 'Someone else's data,' Amira said, cracking another shell and popping the nuts into her mouth. 'Would that be a Dr. Masangkay, by chance?'

'Yes.'

'You knew each other, I believe?'