Ice Hunt

The boy’s leg kicked, spasming up.

Viktor stepped closer. Could he still be alive? He remembered the missing journals. That was the quest here. To retrieve his father’s notes. To see if the last report made by his father was true. He had read this final report himself, hearing his father’s voice in his head, as if he were speaking directly to his son.

He remembered the final line: On this day, we’ve defeated death.

He watched the boy. Could it be true? If so, the stolen notebooks wouldn’t matter. Here was proof of his father’s success. Viktor glanced to the soldiers. He had witnesses to verify it. Though the exact mechanism and procedure were locked in his father’s coded notes, the boy would be living and breathing proof.

“Is there a way to open the tank?” Viktor asked.

Ensign Lausevic pointed to a large lever on one side of the tank. It was locked at the upper end marked CLOSED in Russian. The lower end of the levered slot was lettered in Cyrillic: OPEN.

Viktor nodded to the ensign.

He stepped forward, gripped the heavy handle with both hands, and tugged. It resisted the ensign’s efforts for a moment. Then, with a loud crack, the lever snapped out. Lausevic used his shoulders to pull the lever and slam it down into the “open” slot.

Immediately a rush of water sounded, not unlike a toilet flushing. From his position, Viktor saw the grated bottom of the tank open. Water flowed down a drain.

Caught in the swirling force of the draining water, the boy’s body spun, arms flailed out. His body seemed boneless, limp. He bumped against the glass, the back mesh. Then, as the water drained fully away, he settled in a loose pile on the bottom of the tank, as lifeless as some deep-sea denizen washed up on a beach.

Then with a soft, damp pop, the seal on the glass released. The entire front of the tank swung open like a door, blowing out compressed air from within. There was a faint hint of ammonia that came with it.

Lausevic pulled the door aside for the admiral.

Viktor found himself stepping forward, dropping to his knees beside the naked boy. He reached to the boy’s arm, draped half out the door.

It was warm, heated by the bubbling bath.

But there appeared to be no life.

His hand slipped from wrist to the small fingers. He tried to will the boy back to life. What stories could he tell? Had he known his father? Did he know what had happened here? Why the base had gone dead quiet so suddenly?

It had been the last years of World War II. The Germans were marching into Russia, laying siege to city after city. Then a remote research station in the Arctic went quiet, late reporting in…first one month, then another. But with the war heating up at home, no one had time to investigate. With communication being what it was and travel through the polar region so difficult, there were no resources for a full investigation.

Another full year passed. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed. Nuclear weaponry became the grand technology, hunted and sought by all. Ice Station Grendel and its research project were now antiquated, not worth the cost or manpower to discover its fate. The currents could have taken the station anywhere. The ice island that berthed it might even have broken apart and sunk, something not uncommon with such floating giants.

So more years passed.

The last report of his father, with its wild claims of breaching the barrier between life and death, was dismissed as exaggerated rants and shelved. The only bit of proof was supposedly locked in his journals, lost with the base and its head researcher.

The secret of life and death.

Viktor stared down at the slack face of the boy, so peaceful in slumber. Lips a faint blue, face gray and wet. Viktor wiped the face dry with one hand.

Then small fingers clamped onto his other palm, harder and stronger than Viktor could have imagined.

He gasped in surprise as the boy’s body suddenly convulsed inside the tank, legs kicking, head thrown back, spine arched up, contorted.

Water poured from his open mouth, draining down the tank’s grating.

“Help me get him out!” Viktor yelled, drawing the boy to him.

Ensign Lausevic squeezed in and grabbed the thrashing legs, getting a good kick to his temple in the process.

Between the two of them, they hauled the boy out to the hall. His body jerked and thrashed. Viktor cradled his head, keeping him from cracking his skull on the hard floor. The boy’s eyes twitched behind their lids.

“He’s alive!” one of the other soldiers said, backing a step away.

Not alive, Viktor silently corrected, but not dead either. Somewhere in between.

As the convulsions continued, the boy’s skin grew hot to the touch; perspiration pebbled his skin. Viktor knew that one of the main dangers of epileptic patients during violent or prolonged seizures was hyperthermia, a raising of body temperature from muscle contractions that led to brain damage. Was the boy dying, or was his body fighting to warm life back into it, heating away the last dregs of its frozen state?

Slowly the convulsions faded to vigorous shivering. Viktor continued to hold the boy. Then the boy’s chest heaved up, expanding as if something were going to burst out the rib cage. It held that swelled state, back arched from the floor. Blue lips had warmed to pink, skin flushed from the violence of the seizures.

Then the boy’s form collapsed in on itself, seeming to cave in, accompanied by a strangled choke. Then he lay still again, back to tired slumber, dead on the floor.

A pang of regret, mixed inexplicably with grief, ran through Viktor.

Perhaps this is the best his father had ever achieved, significant but ultimately not successful.

He studied the boy’s face, peaceful in true death.

Then the boy’s eyes opened, staring up at him, dazed. His small chest rose and fell. A hand lifted from the floor, then settled back weakly.

Alive…

Lips moved. A word was mouthed, groggy, breathless still. “Otyets.”

It was Russian.

Viktor stared up at the others, but when he gazed back down at the boy, the child’s eyes were still on him.

Lips moved again, repeating his earlier word. “Otyets…Papa.”

Before Viktor could respond, the pounding of many boots suddenly echoed to them. A group of soldiers appeared, armed. “Admiral!” the lieutenant in the lead called out as he approached.

Viktor remained kneeling. “What is it?”

The man’s eyes flicked to the naked child on the floor, then back to the admiral. “Sir, the Americans…power’s out on the top level. We think they’re trying to escape the station.”

Viktor’s eyes narrowed. He stayed at the boy’s side. “Nonsense.”