Chapter 4 #2
Dinner our first full day at the station proved a busy affair as many gathered for the evening repast, unlike lunch, which some skipped or carried away with them.
Raucous laughter. Ribald jokes—to be expected in a male dominated space—and interesting anecdotes as word had spread of my presence, leading everyone with a story to seek me out.
Vernon and Joslyn kept busy recording these impromptu conversations, many of which started with, I’d only had a few drinks or I’d just woken up when it happened.
Over the next few days, I kept conducting my interviews, Latimer being one of them.
While not coming outright and saying he believed in aliens, he’d hinted at it strongly.
I found the most interesting stories came at night when many gathered in the common areas, especially from those who stayed during the dark months.
I began noticing a common theme amongst them.
Almost all mentioned dreams of an ice cave and a conviction that something lived in it, even as none mentioned an actual creature—or an opening eye.
Many claimed to have heard a voice, and all described it as deep and reverberating, filling their heads with the words, Free me.
All admitted to only experiencing the voice and visions when they slept or stepped outside and heard it carried on the wind.
This indicated the possibility of a group psychosis likely exacerbated by their stressful situation.
I couldn’t imagine living days, let alone months, without seeing the sun.
Their conviction proved contagious, though, because my own dream from the first night repeated, over and over, until it became so familiar I no longer fell off the icy slope when the eye opened. Rather, I stared right back. But of the voice? Never repeated again.
Another thing that happened even more frequently than the dream? The tremors.
Overhearing some muttering in Building 155 had me questioning the captain as we headed for a concrete pad holding a rather large helicopter with its rotors already slowly spinning.
“Is it true the number of quakes have increased since my arrival?”
He glanced at me briefly before muttering, “They have.”
“Any reason for it?”
“Melting ice, shifting ice—”
I interrupted. “I know what causes the quakes, but I’ve been told the weather is normal for this time of year, so it seems to me there could be another factor at play. Is it Erebus?”
“I’m sure if there was something going on with the volcano the seismologist would let us know.”
“Would Dr. Greenfield tell, though?” The surly man had thus far evaded my attempts to interview or even visit his domain, always citing some kind of work or clashing appointment. Probably busy with his cargo, since the plane had landed yesterday with a load of goods.
“Why would he hide trouble?” the captain countered. “If the quakes are a prelude to something bigger, then the more warning we have, the better equipped we’ll be to protect everyone, including him.”
“You’re assuming he’s not a sociopath who enjoys death and destruction.” I almost slapped a hand over my mouth as the words escaped. What could I say? The man left an unfavorable impression.
“I’ll agree he’s not the friendliest fellow, but that doesn’t mean he’s keen on seeing the station, and in turn, himself, wiped out.”
A nagging feeling I couldn’t shake, didn’t seem so sure.
The captain hauled himself aboard the helicopter and took the pilot’s seat, widening my eyes.
“You’re piloting?”
“Yes, but if you’re not comfortable with it, feel free take the controls,” he offered, yelling to make himself heard.
“No!” A reply more vehement than necessary.
“Strap in and put on the headset,” he ordered as he and the other soldier sitting alongside began going through their preflight check.
I greeted the people coming along with us to run the equipment before I seated myself behind the cockpit with Joslyn and Vernon, the latter warning the noise of the rotors would make anything he recorded garbled.
Still, I liked having him along to catch any epic things I might say.
When first confronted with something, you never knew what I might blurt out that I might want to repeat in a sound studio later.
We lifted off and I peeked out the window to watch the shrinking station, a mere speck of civilization surrounded by a frozen wasteland.
The captain started us out by flying over the ice shelf, an impressive expanse and the likely culprit for the tremors.
He then diverted us towards Ellsworth Mountain, which contained one of the supposed pyramids being contended on the internet.
As promised, he’d loaded us with radar and other equipment as well as the personnel who knew how to use them.
Joslyn zoomed in on the peaked mountain, and I had binoculars to get a better view.
“I don’t see any signs of seams or stonework,” I stated, speaking aloud my impressions.
“While the mountain definitely appears conelike, that doesn’t mean anything.
After all, mountain peaks often end up with the same kind of shape.
Just look at the Matterhorn in the Alps.
The Pyramid Mountain in Alberta, Canada. This isn’t a unique phenomenon.”
As planned, the captain landed on the mountain, and I froze my ass off to crouch down to scrape at the rock, looking for joints and finding none. The international treaties wouldn’t allow me to chip at the stone, but we hopefully captured enough up-close footage to satisfy my audience.
Of course, my observation on the ground would only be part of the evidence.
Joslyn’s footage from above and on the ground, along with the readings from the radar and infrared would be sent off for independent analysis.
I’d learned to not trust the local experts because sometimes they fudged the truth either for attention or tourist dollars.
Sending the gathered data to some people I knew, without giving an origin of readings, provided an unbiased summary that I could use to catch anyone in a lie.
As we prepared to leave the mountain, the captain murmured, “The claim this is a man-made pyramid is probably one of the most ridiculous rumors floating around, seeing as how they would have had to build it more than thirty million years ago, well before any of our oldest standing structures.”
“But it could have happened,” I countered for shits and giggles. “After all, who knows what humanity managed to achieve before the ice age.”
“You really think the people of that time had the knowledge to build something that would last eons?”
“Ice has a way of preserving, is my understanding. Plus, there are some who claim humanity has been reset. That we’ve achieved technological brilliance in the past, only to have a catastrophe wipe out our progress, forcing us to claw our way back again.
” I’d yet to do a show on it because, quite honestly, it would be hard to prove, especially considering some wonders had yet to be properly explained.
The Easter Island statues, Stonehenge, and the Yonaguni Monument in Japan were only a few of the wonders that defied explanation.
How had humanity managed to build such impressive and intricate things without power tools or machinery?
The precise measurements some of them required defied explanation and, some claimed, couldn’t be replicated today, despite all our advances.
The captain predictably snorted. “And here I thought your purpose was to debunk the ridiculous and not espouse it.”
“I like to keep an open mind.”
“Do you honestly think this is anything other than a mountain?”
“No, but looking around,”—I swept an arm—“I can see why the stories started. Who knows what’s buried beneath the ice and snow.”
“I blame Encino Man for starting this,” he grumbled.
The reference to the old 1990’s movie with Brendan Fraser had me grinning. “What, you don’t think there could be cavemen immortalized by a sudden freeze, waiting for us to thaw them back to life?”
He snorted. “I am not dignifying that with an answer.” But I did spot an amused curve of his lips.
As we flew back to the station, I found myself staring at the Transantarctic Mountain, a staggering two-thousand-mile expanse that formed a jagged line separating the continent.
It had nothing that made it stand out, other than its length, and yet I couldn’t help but scan it for I had a nagging sense it featured in my recurring dream.
As I studied, I also chastised myself for wondering if a mighty beast did indeed slumber inside.