The Winter Over(37)

Unfortunately, the only way to discover whether the problem was a split line or a busted conduit or a malfunctioning pump was to descend the Beer Can, take a right past the intersection at the service arches, walk the length of the main utilities tunnel past the shrines and stub-up ladders, and maybe even haul your butt down to the old ice tunnels, the ones that went to the original parts of the base, using nothing but your eyes and nose to find the problem.

Dwight, the departing engineer who had trained her, had warned Cass that, with jobs like this, you had to make a choice right off the bat: drag a banana sled full of tools with you, prepared for anything, or walk to the problem empty-handed to perform a diagnosis, then return with only the tools you needed. If the leak was right around the corner, the first choice paid off. If not, you were in for a serious workout.

Cass, prudent and hardworking, would’ve normally gone for the first option and humped half the tools in the VMF with her, but Doc Ayres had been right: although it had been a month since her sprain, her ankle was still tender. The last thing she wanted to do was reinjure it or prolong the healing process, so dragging a sled for a mile-long round-trip wasn’t a possibility. Making two round-trips? Not a savory option, either, but she didn’t have a choice. Unless she wanted to supplant Keene as the most unpopular person at Shackleton, she had to find the problem before the toilets stopped working.

As she passed it, she glanced down the alcove at the access ladder that led to her hidden radio spot and felt a twinge of guilt. Busy with countless tasks around Shackleton, she hadn’t gotten in touch with Vox lately. She imagined him waiting by his own shortwave—hidden who knows where—listening to the hiss of empty airwaves. She promised herself she’d make it up to him.

She continued down the tunnel, each segment looking exactly like the last. Bright overhead lights lit the way, although as an energy-saving measure they were spaced farther apart than in the main tunnels. The radius of each light died out just as the next one picked up the slack, forming modest pools of illumination interspersed with wedges of darkness. Since she’d want her hands free in order to inspect the pipes thoroughly, Cass pulled out her trusty headlamp and secured it in place as needles of cold sprang along her forehead and scalp. She switched the red light on and pulled the hood back over her head, giving the lamp just enough room to shine through.

The work was slow going. To do the job right, she had to look over each section of pipe, running her light along and behind the sections where the overhead illumination didn’t reach. After the first hundred meters, however, there was no sign of a leak and she felt a small surge of vindication—if she’d taken a chance and pulled a sled full of tools with a bum ankle, she’d already be regretting it.

But the air seemed colder here, if that were possible, and she shivered as she thought about losing her way at the far end of the frozen tunnel. Wandering and alone, unable to find the path back to the surface as the heat slowly left her body . . .

“Jesus. Get a grip,” she said out loud, regretting it instantly as the sound died in the still air. She calmed herself and kept moving, continuing on to the Section D branch, different from the others in that—eventually, after many twists and turns—it connected with the ancient tunnels from the original base. At least, that’s what her schematic said. Before he’d left her in charge, Dwight had told her it was worth a look at the old rat warren and abandoned vaults just to see the wood beam and rivet construction the first Polies had used to shore up their tunnels.

She stopped in front of the plywood door to Section D, then shook off a mitten so she could pull out her copy of the tunnel map. At a guess, it was a half mile back to the Beer Can. Tucking the map into her parka, she tugged open the door and tried the sniff test, regretting it immediately as the inside of her nose turned into an ice cube.

Not surprisingly, there was no smell, but she hesitated and looked back the way she’d come. For one of the planet’s foremost research facilities, there was a sometimes surprising lack of rhyme or reason to where utilities had been placed, with sewer bulbs plumbed and dropped in different areas over the decades. Abandoned bulbs sat next to some currently in use, while still others had been drilled a decade ago but were waiting to be filled.

Coming to a decision, she passed through to Section D, closing the plywood door behind her. The lights here were even fewer and farther between than in the main ice tunnel, spaced maybe twenty meters apart. The puddles of darkness were now three or four times larger than the spread of light, making the lamps less a source of illumination and more like beacons guiding her onward.

She kept her eyes fixed on the pipes running near the top right corner. After another hundred meters, she paused to work the kinks out of her neck, then pulled the schematic out once again. According to the plan, she wasn’t far from the switchback to the 1950s base. She grimaced under her mask. If she didn’t find the leak in the next thirty meters of ice tunnel, there was a good chance it was in the original construction. It would be a major undertaking just to reach it, never mind fix it.

The thirty meters came and went. No leak. At least none that she could see. The downslope switchback to the original base peeled away to her left and she dutifully followed the pipes down the narrow tunnel. The lights were even more infrequent here, the exception instead of the rule—each lamp was barely within sight of the next.

The light from her headlamp swung back and forth as she walked. Smooth, sculpted walls gave way to hand-chiseled passages so tight that she could almost reach up and touch the ceiling. After a minute, those began to seem spacious as the walls and ceiling closed in until Cass’s shoulders brushed the ice and she had to duck her head to keep from banging it on the suddenly low-hanging pipes. The walls were now supported with the wooden shoring and steel rivets Dwight had described to her.