When he had been working here, they had kept it minus eighty and lower, Todd remembered. With insu-suits, minus one hundred was nothing. In this old-fashioned gear, a ten-degree drop felt like fifty.
He watched closely as the guide opened the heat lock. Had the staffers made any modifications? No. Still a simple tog trigger. Secondary insul wall operated by sensor plate. No print lock.
They went through one at a time. Occasionally the heat sensor tripped, and the guides made the next in line wait until the systems compensated for the additional load on their circuits. Eventually, all ten Committee members and the three guides were on the far side. A faint throbbing sound underfoot suggested buried machinery, hectares of it. Indeed, there was that much machinery maintaining the cryogenic chambers.
They were in a refrigerated room lined with monitor screens. “We are in monitor room twelve A,” the lead guide announced. The screens blinked and showed them what lay past the outer wall. Row upon row of cryogenic cubicles reached seemingly to infinity. The immensity of the preservement facility was difficult to grasp. The glacier had been scooped out for a kilometer or more, all around the Core. It formed a deep, vast natural storehouse. Pillars of ice, reinforced by plastimetal tempered against the extreme cold, had been left to buttress the ceiling and distribute the incredible weight above. The screens’ views showed catwalks extending from the balcony beyond the monitor room and running out over the sunken main floor. “This way, please. We have auxiliary monitor screens placed for your convenience along the maintenance bridges . . .”
The outer heat lock opened. The rapidly condensing body heat from the group billowed out and up toward the shimmering roof. “We have very efficient temp and humidity control, especially in here,” the guide told them. “We have to, for the protection of our confinees. I must caution you—do not attempt to go down to the main floor! Your body heat could kill the confinees.”
“They say we’ll melt the bodies if we do that . . .”
Todd squirmed, wanting to challenge the lie. This group
might
strain the cryogenics systems if it descended to the main floor
en masse.
But even in this ridiculous gear, they could go down in groups of two or three without harming the preserved people in any way. With insu-suits, they could stay down there for hours, comfortably, and not raise the temperature one degree. He gritted his teeth on his anger, trudging with the others out onto the catwalk.
As they progressed along the narrow bridge, the awesome proportions of Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave silenced all complaints about the cold. Even Todd was stunned. The facility had been much smaller the last time he had seen it. As the bodies continued to arrive, the glacier millers had reamed out more and more space, reaching deep into the ice. Todd squinted, trying to decide if the feeling of distance was an illusion. It could be created by holo-mode. He couldn’t be sure. The preservement area
appeared
to extend indefinitely, though that couldn’t be true. The floor below was filled with preservement cubicles, surrounding the Core, going out beyond the limits of his vision. Neat rows of meter-wide cubicles, each three meters from the next one in line. The cubicles perched on thick stems—umbilicals feeding from the ice-encased cryo systems underneath, going up into the sealed boxes on the frames above.
The guides halted at an auxiliary monitor screen. Numb, gulping frosty air, the Committee members huddled around them. The guides showed little effect from the cold. The lead guide’s voice was steady, not shaken by chattering teeth. “One of our first admissions to the Enclave, ladies and gentlemen: Dr. Jacob Elias, cubicle one zero jay ee.” The monitor zoomed on extreme close-up of one of the myriad boxes below. Smoothly, the guide explained. “We are equipped to accept confinees even during the Antarctic winter, if the shuttle ships can deliver them to us. We are here to serve Earth and its future generations. Dr. Jacob Elias was admitted July 12, 2030.”
Dr. Elias’s torso was discreetly masked to honor his privacy, but his face was in plain view. The kindly countenance was unquestionably that on modern history tapes. The face was real. Even via a holo-made monitor screen, the man was alive, waiting in frozen sleep.
“Dr. Elias is dying of type B neo-anthrax mutation, as you know. His people wanted to save his artistry and his beloved person for their children and their grand. children’s time. When he slipped into coma, he was delivered to the Enclave. We have preserved him with all care, until the day when medicine can cure him . . .” The hope was that future doctors, yet unborn, could save that incredible mind and those gifted, musical fingers, putting his ravaged body back in working order.
They had been able to preserve Elias. July 2030. Just months too late for Ward Saunder, even if they had been able to recover his body from the ocean. The sperm and ova and DNA banks went operational in March 2030. By July, the preservement chambers were in business, too. They could take this gentle man whose music had brought solace to a stricken world and spoken across language and culture, across battle lines. When he fell ill, while only in his fifties, the imminent loss had been unbearable. The world clamored, demanding something be done to save him. And Saunder Enterprises Antarctic Enclave was ready. Dr. Elias had been one of its prime claims to altruism ever since.
The guides handed out ultra-scan binocs to those on the tour and pointed out the cubicle. Todd peered down at the floor. He couldn’t see much more than he could on the auxiliary monitor. It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t eyeball. He
had
to get a close look at some of those cubicles, and at the circuitry supporting them. There were ways to bypass the relay monitors and security systems, if one knew how.
A few sections away from Elias lay Natalya Petrovna, the conscience of Asia, the rescuer of thousands of suffering children, during the last years of the Chaos. She hadn’t succumbed to the plague or fallen in war. Age had crept upon her. She had gone to the Enclave willingly, speaking prayers to the Spirit of Humanity and believing wholeheartedly in the hope of life the polar installation offered. Her example had encouraged many others to take the same course. It had even comforted condemned criminals and political dissidents sentenced to the Enclave against their will.
There were other famous, much-loved names in this section below the catwalk. !Kanagai. Gupta. Solana. Loos. Huang. Hirota. Zelinski. Su’biyya. Spirit of Humanity embraced them all, whether Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Havurah Judaic, pagan—whatever religion or thought of the future they might have possessed. This icy fortress was now their mausoleum, and their hope of resurrection.
The guides showed them a number of confinees, then led them farther along the catwalk. They stopped at another monitor station twenty-five meters away. This time the displays on the screen weren’t so heroic. Here were some dissidents, artistic rebels, political malcontents. Almost none of these had volunteered for this living death. But the monitors showed them waiting just as peacefully and safely as Dr. Elias and Natalya and the rest of mankind’s revered elite. Todd wondered where they kept their crop of billionaires, such as Ippolito. Probably safe in the honored sections. But presumably the Human Rights Committee wasn’t interested in them. The rich customers could pay for their own upkeep and watch-dogging. They weren’t sponsored by Protectors of Earth. Technically, the Committee shouldn’t have been overly concerned about heroes like Elias, either. Again, there was plenty of funding from such people’s own governments, and they would come here willingly. It was the true confinee who should be the object of the inspection. Yet only now that they had come this far into the preservement area had they begun to reach some of those people—and the genuine criminals, the capital punishment confinees, lay still farther out.
By now, some Committee members were shivering so badly they could barely see the monitor screens. Chattering teeth sounded through the mufflers and breath masks. Todd estimated they had come much less than a quarter of a kilometer. But already, the agonized tour members must be thinking that inevitably they would have to walk
back
that far to the monitor chamber and then take a further cold ride until they reached the warmth of the Core.
Cold, terrible, overwhelming cold seeped into Todd’s marrow. Racked by shivers, he stared along the catwalk. Did he imagine he saw the icy ceiling curving gently, forming an arc? The perspective gave the impression of the Earth’s shape, a shape he shouldn’t be able to see from this vantage. The preservement area seemed endless, horizonless.
No! It
did
have a horizon, and an end. Vast as this place was, it was finite. He
knew
that. But he could no longer think clearly, too seized by the cold.
Todd was hypnotized by the beauty of the ice, by the symmetry of the countless rows of cryogenic cubicles. Awkwardly, his movements hampered by the heavy clothing, he looked right and left. Somewhere port and starboard around the huge circle, there were other catwalks, other tour groups, other shivering Committee members, other smirking Enclave staffers.
“W-we’d better . . . better go b-back,” the ranking Committee member of their group said. “We’ve s-seen enough.”
“Spirit of Humanity, oh, yes!” someone else whimpered.
The guides were sadists. They stopped, but they didn’t immediately begin retracing their steps. “If you’re sure, sir. We will be happy to give you a complete inspection swing. Our facilities are totally available to your Committee. We wish you to be satisfied . . .”
“Sat . . . satisfied,” the man chattered. He was quaking under his mound of furs. “Au . . . author . . . authorization . . .”
“Hurry,” a colleague pleaded.
“Right here, sir.” The guide held an authorization-form plate out for the senior Committee member. “You needn’t remove your glove. In fact, we advise against it. The sensor will pick up your handprint through the fabric, sir.” The guide had to steady the man’s quivering hand until the record was made. “That’ll do fine. We can complete the data when we get back to the Core. This way, please, ladies and gentlemen.”
He didn’t have to invite them more than once. They wanted to run, but they couldn’t. They shambled along, the guides aiding them. A couple of people nearly fell. The guides supported them as they all lurched for the comfort of the monitor chamber. It seemed a very long way off. Todd wasn’t ashamed of his shuddering, as grateful as the others when they slipped into the anteroom and then through the second heat lock. Still needing help, they crawled into the trav-carts, huddling there.
“Have you home in a jiffy,” the guide driver cheerily assured them. If Todd had had the strength, he would have knocked the man out of the cart and pounded his head on the icy floor. Instead, be crouched in the seat, wishing the condensing moisture would form a bubble around him and keep out the cold.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ooooooooo
TODD was no good for anything for more than an hour after they reached the Core. With those from the other returned tour groups, they sat in the lounge sipping hot krill soup and caffa. Gradually, it occurred to him that some of the newer Committee V.I.P.s were trying to live up to their oaths. They had retreated to the Core with everyone else, and they were just as cold. But when they recovered a bit, they started demanding further surveys of the confinees, insisting on seeing numerous political dissidents and criminals.
The Enclave staffers, as usual, were scornfully cooperative, though they hid their contempt very well. “Certainly. This first view, madam, is from preservement circle fourteen, file twelve.” The guides cued a you-are-here map on the monitor screen insert to pinpoint the location. Half a kilometer out into the glacier beyond the preservement heat lock, farther than any of the Committee had been able to go. remembering the cold, many of those watching shivered violently and gulped their hot liquids. “Subject two on the list you presented, madam—the rebel Chandrur, circle fifteen, file eight.” The holomode showed the criminals and dissidents, one by one, just as it had showed the heroes. But here they could watch in considerably more comfort. “Former Presidente Ramirez, circle thirteen, file two. Opposition Coordinator Takao, in circle fourteen, file . . .”
Around the Enclave map, scattered selections, all of them far beyond the catwalk positions where the Commitee had stopped. Guides ticked off the requests methodically. One of the members broke in, saying, “It’d take hours to see them all.” Some of the die-hard idealists who were taking the job seriously groaned as they realized the truth of that. “But—but we have a duty to Earth, to the people . . .”
“We can extend the length of your tour, of course,” the chief guide suggested, “so that you may perform your checks from here or on site. A week?” She was warmly courteous. But Todd didn’t miss the malicious glitter in her eyes. She was enjoying the idealists’ shock.
“A—a week? Isn’t there some quicker way?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. A week is hardly adequate, actually. If you will consult your orientation materials, you will see that we have over one hundred thousand available cubicles and more being set up every day by our staff. If you will give us your lists, we’d better get started. If you wish, we can suit up again and return to the preservement chambers for eyeball inspection as soon as you’re ready.”
There was a lengthy pause. Todd could feel the mental wheels spinning, the ideals shattering. Hearing the stats, making resolutions to see each and every confinee on the Committee’s current inspection list, was one thing. Trying to carry out those resolutions while coping with death by freezing was quite another.
“You see the impossibility of your demands, Tovar?” the V.I.P. Committee leader said with annoyance. His young colleague grimaced, but he knew he was defeated. His support was gone. More tolerantly, his ranking superior told him, “Don’t feel bad. We run into this on every tour. You couldn’t be expected to realize the immensity of the task. It’s all right. We’ve worked out a method to fulfill the Committee’s obligations without killing ourselves in the process.”
“Full rapid scan, sir?” the chief guide asked. “As usual?”
“Yes, yes, get on with it, please. You have the lists . . .” Todd sat back, sipping soup, saying nothing. Collusion? That, or a Committee member who liked his comforts and took the easy way out. Some of the younger members had brought up the matter of insu-suits. They had been sloughed off with pat explanations of insufficient equipment and late tests that questioned the integrity of the suits’ heat retention. Doubtful, overruled by their seniors, the youngsters had quit fighting, especially after being stunned senseless by the cold. They were dedicated, but they had learned to live with the global political system—good, cooperative, peaceable citizens, or they wouldn’t have been selected for the Committee in the first place. Todd wondered if their consciences bothered them, or if they would end up being paid off in perks and favors if they continued to raise a fuss.
Or were there nastier methods of removing them as a problem?
The guide raced through the lists of dissidents and criminals the Committee had been assigned to investigate. The holo-modes provided good imagery. The staff hadn’t let the systems slip since ComLink’s techs had installed them ten years ago. No, eleven, Todd corrected himself. This was February 2041. The last gasp of summer for the South Pole.
Below the lifelike images, readouts checked the states of preservation on the confinees. Everything in order. The dissidents and criminals didn’t die in prison, before firing squads, by electrocution, or in a noose. They weren’t dead here, either, according to the data. Until political affairs settled or time found a cure for criminal insanity, they would remain here.
One holo-mode winked out, and another replaced it. Locators marked the widely scattered cubicles around the outer circle of the Enclave. The onlookers were starting to thaw, resigned to accepting this easier method of inspection. They commented on how serene some notorious warlords looked, or how ready to wake up and speak once more various fallen rulers now seemed. The list was a sampling from all P.O.E.’s member nations and quasi-nations—murderers, political mavericks, defeated generals, rebel writers and artists—the scum of humanity and the politically unpopular and the just plain unlucky.
“How many more, sir?” the chief guide asked. “This
is
a bit of a strain on the equipment.”
As the Committee leader sped up the requests, Todd eyed the woman guide sharply. She didn’t seem aware of his scrutiny. A strain on the equipment? Gobbledygook! Ward’s patented cryo modification holo-system could handle a thousand times this load. It was so efficient, maintenance was virtually nil. And it was energy-thrifty. No heat problems at all, if it was properly installed—and this equipment was. Yet no one reacted to her statement. The data wasn’t in the familiarization material, and even a tech would have to dig a bit to locate it. Weren’t there any techs on the Committee with that sort of training or knowledge of where to look? Todd surreptitiously studied the faces around him. They accepted her statement. They honestly didn’t know. Who had set up the Committee to eliminate such expertise? More collusion?
Ed Lutz wasn’t supposed to be an expert in these systems, either. That meant that Todd would have to pass himself off as very lucky and bumblingly stupid, a fortunate hit on the right combination—if he got caught.
The requests finished after more than an hour. The systems were still working without visible problems, as Todd had known they would be. There was an audible sigh of relief when the Committee leader finally called a halt. Energies were running down. Most members just wanted to sit around the lounge and continue to recuperate. When a guide offered an inspection tour of the labs, there were fewer takers than anticipated. Enough, though, that Todd saw his chance to lose himself in a crowd. He went along while others returned to their sleeping quarters or chatted with Enclave staffers, fascinated by the life style in this miniature nation at the bottom of the world. Fourteen Committee members, Todd with them, followed a lab supervisor in a leisurely stroll through the tissue-storage file rooms.
This part of the Enclave had been a natural outcome of the Death Years, the Chaos, and the plagues. Gene pools dwindled or died out completely in many areas of Earth. Family lines which had existed for generations ended. Some previously established tissue banks had been destroyed in the wars or contaminated, the genetic materials lost. When Ward Saunder first proposed the Enclave, it had seemed the ideal solution: neutral territory, honored by every combatant, a land where even valuable minerals were too costly to extract. There was nothing the Antarctic had that the warlords wanted. But science, and Earth’s heritage for tomorrow, did want it, and the Saunders had made it available for their use.
The collection process was by no means complete; would never, in theory, be complete. But so far more than a billion samples had been gathered and stored here. More and more nations were taking advantage of the proffered service every year. Todd’s own tissue samples were on store here.
“. . . a form of insurance, a guarantee against future disaster,” the supervisor was saying.
“If that terrible alien invasion kills most of us, we’ll still be able to reproduce and fight back.”
Pat’s propaganda, following him even here. The original intent of the Enclave’s tissue banks was being lost in the new wave of anti-alien paranoia.
“If necessary, perhaps we will perfect cloning and produce perfect warriors to fight the aliens in space.” The Committee member didn’t use his translator, but his strong Rift Country accent still identified his origins. The comment brought protests from a United Theocracies country member. “Cloning is against nature. It must not be done.”
The lab techs hastened to explain that human cloning was decades in the future. The Enclave had only recently received P.O.E. permission to begin the simplest experimentation that might, eventually, lead to genuine human cloning many years ahead. The near-fanatic United Theocracies adherent didn’t believe them. He kept questioning, trying to catch the techs in a lie.
“Cloning feeds my people,” an Indian representative said. “The earlier cloning of plants and fish and fowl . . .”
“We are not talking of plants and fish and fowl,” the religious hothead retorted. “We are here to guarantee the sanctity of human life!”
The techs tried to calm him. “What this gentleman says is true. Cloning
has
fed millions, and clothed them as well. The technique produces quick-maturity fowl and fish and a variety of grains, edible crops, and fibers, as listed in your briefing tapes. Nowhere here will you find human embryos
in vitro
, as your propagandists claim . . .” A few others, like Todd, were staying out of the argument, moving up and down the aisles, peering curiously at the labels and readouts on the storage chambers. It wasn’t that cold in the labs, so the impulse to stick together for warmth was gone. None of the guides was paying close attention to them. Instead, they were preoccupied with the noisy United Theocracies Committee member.
Todd glanced around warily. No Enclave personnel or other members were in sight, and he was near an auxiliary door to the maintenance corridors. The hyperendors he had consumed put his memory at top power. A map of the Enclave shaped in his mind. That way, and then to the right, and down a narrow passageway. Maintenance Suitup. There ought to be some insu-suits there!
It was almost too easy. Gib Owens and the Goddard allies who had “disappeared” might have thought their jobs were equally easy. Reminded of that, Todd kept his guard up as he made the run down the empty corridors. Finding the suits was no problem. The adaptafabric outfits weren’t name-tagged, and there were plenty of them. That lessened the chances that someone would take a spot inventory and notice one was missing. Once he was suited up, his face was partially hidden. That, too, would be a help. Even so, he waited until a duty watch of lab techs went by the outer door before he slipped out into the hall.
The big question—had there been some secret updating in security? That was a gamble, had been from the beginning, one he had to take. No scans. None in sight. No ident print locks, either. Those hadn’t been developed when the Enclave was constructed. None had been installed since. Theft and break-in weren’t high-priority problems here. There was little need to demand print identification from the regular Enclave staffers, most of whom lived here for six months or more on a duty tour.
Todd avoided the trav-carts. Those
were
likely to be inventoried and tied in to the main computer logs. He had neither the time nor the patience to tinker with one’s guts and block out the tracking system. Clad in an insu-suit, he would be warm enough, especially while exercising. He had made good time getting around the Enclave years ago. He still could, if he had to, and he did.
He ducked under the monitor screens lining the corridors, running in a crouch until he could straighten and lope along. So much to do! So damned little time! When he reached the heat lock, he was breathing hard. Warmed and filtered air sucked into the helmet, whistling in his nostrils. He rushed past the monitor screens and past the second heat lock, out into the preservement chambers.
Slowing, Todd moved onto the balcony near the catwalk, gazing out over hundreds of hectares of gleaming coffins for the living. The eerie sensations of a couple of hours earlier returned, intensified. Then, he had been with other persons. Alone, the immensity of the Enclave struck him even more powerfully and roused atavistic fear.
He had been very much alone before, in a spacesuit, hanging outside a shuttle in orbit, the only living being within thousands of kilometers. This emotion was stronger. No high vacuum, though minus eighty degrees centigrade was sufficient to kill him fairly quickly. Gravity, and plenty of air for the insu-suit to warm and filter through to him. He was alone, and yet he was not. He was the only breathing, mobile human being here, surrounded by thousands of helpless, frozen men and women. He was alive, and they were utterly at his mercy. Sophisticated equipment linked them with revival and a future existence. But Todd Saunder—and many other people at the Enclave—had the technical knowledge to disconnect those links and destroy these, sleeping prisoners.
I could kill them. All of them, or some of them. At my whim.
The sense of omnipotence shook Todd as few concepts had save the discovery of the alien mesienger. To his horror, he knew a momentary thrill, an almost perverse, gloating feeling of power he hadn’t realized was in his nature. Aghast, he slammed a lid on that monster in his being and hurried to the edge of the catwalk and the maintenance ladders leading to the lower floor.
The instant of temptation and ugly self-knowledge was gone. Todd was back in business, scrambling down the ladder. He hesitated, searching his memory and looking around. Then he climbed over the low reminder shock barrier, set to keep maintenance crews from accidentally carrying certain equipment out into the cubicle aisles. He started running down those aisles, scanning the section monitor readouts, hunting for particular, pre-chosen chambers.
Sounds were mildly distorted by the insu-suit. The steady hum of the buried cryo machinery was like a million heartbeats throbbing in unison. Now and then, far away, there were cracking noises, shiftings in the ages-old ice man had invaded. Nothing to cause alarm, the engineers had promised. But those natural complaints from the glacier would stay with the Enclave. If humanity wanted to use the Antarctic, that was part of the worrisome price.
Individual shock barriers surrounded each cubicle. Todd ran carefully down the middle of the aisles and cross-aisles, not ready to cross those invisible fences yet. The secondary barriers were the last reminders Maintenance would get, and they were guaranteed to prevent accidents. They could bite, and hard.
From the corners of his eyes, he saw the frozen faces as he ran. Men and women, dark and fair, red and yellow and black and brown, every nationality and genetic strain and ethnic type. Monitors tabbed their names and conditions. Row upon row of living ghosts—waiting, waiting . . .
Limbo. The opponents of Ward’s Enclave concept had flung rougher expressions than that at the Saunder quasi-nation when Protectors of Earth was considering franchising the facility. Ward had turned the rebuttals over to Jael, and she had done a thorough job of crushing the opposition, as usual. Not limbo but hope, she had said—and was not hope preferable to certain death?
Not everyone could afford the privilege. Not everyone was fortunate enough to have a sentence commuted to open-ended imprisonment in the Enclave. Executions still happened, in some countries. But far fewer now than then, thanks to the Enclave and to the militant Spirit of Humanity religious movement.
Yet death was not vanquished. Ward Saunder had never said it would be. He offered a scientific tool to hold it at bay, no more.
An item from a historical tape flashed in Todd’s thoughts. Alfred Nobel. Another genius inventor. He, too, thought his invention would free mankind from its own violent nature.
Todd’s steps slowed. He was beyond the privileged sections, into the far vaster ones holding unwilling confinees. The first cubicle to his right contained a woman. She was young, not pretty, African. Strong features, rigid with defiance. Elizabeth Gola, author of the Right of Independency Manifesto. She wasn’t one of the eighteen on Goddard’s list. But her face and form attracted Todd. He had to look up at the cubicle. The body was suspended a few centimeters above his head, resting on the life-giving support stem channeling down to the cryo machines and temp regulators.
Her defiant face intrigued him, won his sympathy. Without intending to, Todd reached out, then caught himself before he touched the shock barrier. “Sorry,” he said, feeling foolish for talking to someone who couldn’t hear. “I don’t have the time. I’m not far enough. Need another eight frames . . .”
He covered the distance at a jog. The exertion of touring earlier, without an insu-suit, was costing him. No problems with chill factor, but gravity bothered him. Todd smiled ruefully. Age and acclimation taking over. He was becoming too fond of spacing. Each time he went planetside it took longer to readjust. This time he had rushed it. Long enough, though, to pull this off.
He stared up at the cubicles on either side of the aisle. Beyond, the containers reached to the sub-surface glacial horizon. He had a better viewpoint than he had had on the catwalk, and he had come deeper into the preservement chambers than he had up there when he tried to assess distance vision. Not real. Some of it was, but not all of it. The area wasn’t as immense as it had seemed. Part of that awesome distance range was holo-mode, damned good, too.
Would the V.I.P.s on the Committee believe him if Ed Lutz said the endless horizon of cryo cubicles was exaggerated? Probably not. Even if he told them as Todd Saunder, there would be doubts.
I’m not exactly Earth’s most popular person right now, thanks to the last wonderful news I brought them
. . .