Chapter 65
Keep going, one more minute!” Kasey shouted.
“Two,” Sharpe countered.
It was turning into a competition: Who could endure the most misery? Kasey tried to think of it as a positive thing. They were pushing one another, each demanding more of themselves, while at the same time making headway.
Her thighs burned and her hands ached. The strain on her back was unrelenting.
There was enough rope that she could wrap it once around her waist, but she still had to hold the end firmly with both hands.
Sharpe was now carrying Sky Fire, but Kasey had kept the rifle and backpack on her own shoulders.
Combined with the dead weight of Chen on the sled behind them, it was a backbreaking load. But none of it could be left behind.
She and Sharpe pulled for all they were worth, storm be damned.
Kasey looked back guardedly at Chen. His eyes were open but seemed unfocused.
It was as if the cold had him in a coma, stunned and immobilized.
He had at least taken some water the last time they’d stopped, but she’d had to hold the container to his chapped lips.
She suspected his hands were suffering from frostbite, and probably his feet as well.
But now wasn’t the time for field medicine. It was the time to find shelter or die.
Aside from the cold, their biggest problem was visibility. The dark squall she’d been watching for hours had crept closer and closer. Then, twenty minutes ago, the world around them had disappeared in a wall of gray. She couldn’t see more than ten feet in any direction.
This introduced a number of problems. She and Sharpe had encountered three leads since Chen had fallen in the water, but all had been either narrow enough to step across or simple to circumnavigate.
If they came across a larger one now, it would be dangerous to negotiate since they couldn’t see left and right.
The dense precipitation, a mix of snow and sleet, had also made the footing more difficult.
Kasey kept losing traction. She had scavenged a quality pair of athletic shoes from a suitcase, and while they seemed almost impervious to moisture, they were a size too large and caused her to skid under the weight of her load.
Sharpe was also having trouble with his footing.
If all those genuine troubles weren’t enough, the prospect that the polar bear might be lurking behind them kept drumming in Kasey’s mind.
It was a danger, she knew, that was mostly in her head, but it was hard to shake a vision of snarling teeth, bloody white fur, and massive claws charging out of the gloom.
The biggest problem, however, was one Kasey hadn’t anticipated.
The last time they’d referenced Sky Fire, twenty minutes ago, it had shown them to be nearing the weather station, no more than a quarter of a mile away.
She’d originally figured they would only need to get within a mile of the outpost to spot it, but now they were stumbling around in near white-out conditions.
She and Sharpe had kept a steady pace for the first hour they’d been hauling Chen, but their progress was slower now as they slipped and staggered through this frozen world.
Every step was a challenge, every pause a risk.
They had pushed to their limits time and again, and although Kasey hated to admit it, their bodies were shutting down.
The storm also cut the dim natural light to near darkness.
Distance was hard to estimate, direction nearly impossible.
For all she knew, they could be walking in wide circles and going nowhere.
They could be within a stone’s throw of the station and never see it.
The only alternative, she knew, was to fine-tune their position using Sky Fire.
But every power-up would drain its waning battery.
“Shouldn’t we be there by now?” Sharpe asked.
They drew to a stop.
“Seems like it,” she said. Kasey was heaving for air, her voice brittle in the cold, her throat raw.
“We could just about be within spitting distance and not see it.”
“It’s possible we overshot, but it couldn’t be by much. Let’s give it five more minutes. If we don’t see it by then, we’ll spin up Sky Fire.”
“You can try, but that might be a challenge. This storm is getting worse, and precipitation, particularly the frozen kind, degrades satellite reception.”
Kasey knew he was right. If they couldn’t find the station and lost their only means of navigation… they were doomed. Yet she also knew that some satellite connections were more susceptible than others, and Sky Fire was a state-of-the-art device. The only way to find out was to try to connect.
“Five more minutes,” she reiterated.
Sharpe concurred with the plan, and they started out again, willing their bodies into motion.
The cold was like a great slab, weighing down arms and legs, every part of their bodies.
Inches felt like yards. Sharpe was close beside her, and Kasey could feel his exhaustion almost as much as she could feel her own.
All synchronization in her stride was gone, only jerky twitches as muscles contracted and tendons strained.
Kasey tried to come up with positive thoughts. When that failed, she just got pissed. She simmered at what the Chinese had done to them. The mortal agony inflicted on Walter, so many innocent passengers, and the Russian sailors on the Aurora.
Her thoughts began to drift, and Kasey tried to recall when she’d last slept.
Other than a couple of short naps, she’d been going full throttle for days.
Her mind blanked, confusion setting in. One of Walter’s ridiculous maxims floated into her head: If I feel like I’m getting tired on a long drive, I just drive faster.
Kasey picked up her pace.
It actually seemed to work. Perhaps it was the increased blood flow, the jolt of adrenaline, but she felt stronger and more focused. Then she tripped over something and face-planted hard in the snow.
She cursed and scrambled up to her knees.
“You okay?” Sharpe asked, stopping beside her and lowering his side of the stretcher.
“I’m fine.” Kasey looked back, searching for the offending chunk of ice. But that wasn’t what she saw. Just behind the stretcher was something unexpected. Something that didn’t exist in nature.
A small ridge of snow that formed a perfectly straight line.