“Oh no,” Jimmy Bolden said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that, Dr. Kenner. It’s too dangerous.”

“Why is it dangerous?” Kenner said. “You take these two back to the station, and I’ll follow Brewster’s snowtracks until I meet up with him.”

“No, sir, we all stay together, sir.”

“Jimmy,” Kenner said firmly, “we’re not going to do that.”

“With all due respect, sir, you don’t know your way around this part of the world…”

“You forget, I am an IADG inspector,” Kenner said. “I was resident in Vostok Station for six months in the winter of ’99. And I was resident in Morval for three months in ’91. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Gee, I don’t know…”

“Call back to Weddell. The station chief will confirm it.”

“Well, sir, if you put it that way…”

“I do,” Kenner said firmly. “Now get these two people back to base. Time is wasting.”

“Okay, if you’ll be all right…” Bolden turned to Evans and Sarah. “Then I guess we go. Mount up, folks, and we’ll head out.”

Within minutes, Evans and Sarah were jouncing along on the ice, following behind Bolden’s snowtrack. Behind them, Kenner was driving parallel to the line of flags, heading east. Evans looked back just in time to see Kenner stop, get out, check one of the flags briefly, then get back in again and drive on.

Bolden saw it, too. “What is he doing?” he said in an anxious tone.

“Just looking at the unit, I guess.”

“He shouldn’t be getting out of his vehicle,” Bolden said. “And he shouldn’t be alone on the shelf. It’s against regulations.”

Sarah had the feeling Bolden was about to turn back. She said, “I can tell you something about Dr. Kenner, Jimmy.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t want to make him mad.”

“Really?”

“No, Jimmy. You don’t.”

“Well…okay then.”

They drove on, climbing a long rise, descending on the other side. Brewster’s camp was gone, and so was Kenner’s snowtrack. Ahead lay the vast white field of the Ross Ice Shelf, stretching away to the gray horizon.

“Two hours, folks,” Bolden said. “And then a hot shower.”

The first hour passed uneventfully. Evans started to fall asleep, only to be jolted awake by the sharp movements of the vehicle. Then he would drift off again, his head nodding until the next shock.

Sarah was driving. He said to her, “Aren’t you tired?”

“No, not at all,” she said.

The sun was now low on the horizon, and obscured by fog. The landscape was shades of pale gray, with almost no separation between land and sky. Evans yawned. “Want me to take over?”

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

“I’m a good driver.”

“I know you are.”

He was thinking she had a definite bossy side, despite her charm and her beauty. She was the kind of woman who would want to control the remote.

“I bet you want the remote,” he said.

“You think so?” She smiled.

It was irritating in a certain way, he thought, that she did not take him seriously as a man. At least, not as a man she could be interested in. In truth, she was a little too cool for his taste. A little too ice blond. A little too controlled, beneath that beautiful exterior.

The radio clicked. Bolden said, “I don’t like this weather coming in. We better take a shortcut.”

“What shortcut?”

“It’s only half a mile, but it’ll save twenty minutes on our time. Follow me.” He turned his snowtrack left, leaving the packed snow road, and heading off onto the ice fields.

“Okay,” Sarah said. “Right behind you.”

“Good work,” Bolden said. “We’re still an hour from Weddell. I know this route, it’s a piece of cake. Just stay directly behind me. Not to the left or right, but directly behind, you understand?”

“Got it,” Sarah said.

“Good.”

In a matter of minutes, they had moved several hundred yards from the road. The ice there was bare and hard, the treads of the snowtracks scratching and squeaking as they crossed it.

“You’re on ice now,” Bolden said.

“I noticed.”

“Won’t be long now.”

Evans was looking out the window. He could no longer see the road. In fact, he wasn’t sure anymore in which direction it lay. Everything now looked the same. He felt anxious suddenly. “We’re really in the middle of nowhere.”

The snowtrack slid laterally a little, across the ice. He grabbed for the dashboard. Sarah immediately brought the vehicle back under control.

“Jeez,” Evans said, clinging to the dashboard.

“Are you a nervous passenger?” she said.

“Maybe a little.”

“Too bad we can’t get some music. Is there any way to get music?” she asked Bolden.

“You should,” Bolden said. “Weddell broadcasts twenty-four hours. Just a minute.” He stopped his snowtrack, and walked back to their stopped vehicle. He climbed up on the tread and opened the door, in a blast of freezing air. “Sometimes you get interference from this,” he said, and unclipped the transponder from the dash. “Okay. Try your radio now.”

Sarah fiddled with the receiver, twisting the knob. Bolden walked back to his red cab, carrying the transponder. His diesel engine spit a cloud of black exhaust as he put the snowtrack in gear.

“You think they’d be a little more ecologically minded,” Evans said, looking at the exhaust as Bolden’s snowtrack chugged forward.

“I’m not getting any music,” Sarah said.

“Never mind,” Evans said. “I don’t care that much.”

They drove another hundred yards. Then Bolden stopped again.

“Now what?” Evans said.

Bolden climbed out of his vehicle, walked to the back of it, and looked at his own treads.

Sarah was still fiddling with the radio. Punching the buttons for the different transmission frequencies, she got bursts of static for each.

“I’m not sure this is an improvement,” Evans said. “Just let it go. Why have we stopped, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “He seems to be checking something.”

Now Bolden turned and looked back at them. He didn’t move. He just stood there and stared.

“Should we get out?” Evans said.

The radio crackled and they heard “—is Weddell CM to—401. Are you there, Dr. Kenner? Weddell CM to—Kenner. Can you hear—?”

“Hey,” Sarah said, smiling. “I think we finally got something.”

The radio hissed and sputtered.

“—just found Jimmy Bolden unconscious in—maintenance room. We don’t know who is—out there with—but it’s not—”

“Oh shit,” Evans said, staring at the man in front of them. “That guy’s not Bolden? Who is he?”

“I don’t know, but he’s blocking the way,” Sarah said. “And he’s waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

There was a loud crack! from beneath them. Inside the cab, the sound echoed like a gunshot. Their vehicle shifted slightly.

“Screw this,” Sarah said. “We’re getting out of here, even if I have to ram the bastard.” She put the snowtrack in gear, and started to back away from the vehicle in front of them. She shifted, starting the snowtrack forward again.

Another crack!

“Let’s go!” Evans said. “Let’s go!”

Crack! Crack! Their vehicle lurched beneath them, tilted sideways at an angle. Evans looked out at the guy pretending to be Bolden.

“It’s the ice,” Sarah said. “He’s waiting for our weight to break through.”

“Ram him!” Evans said, pointing ahead. The bastard was making some hand gesture to them. It took him a moment for Evans to understand what it meant. Then he got it.

The man was waving goodbye.

Sarah stomped on the accelerator and the engine rumbled forward, but in the next moment the ground gave way completely beneath them, and their vehicle nosed down. Evans saw the blue-ice wall of a crevasse. Then the vehicle began to tumble forward, and they were encased for an instant in a world of eerie blue before they plunged onward into the blackness below.