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John Carpenter's
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The Early Winter - Chapter 5
The glare of the morning sun had given way to the lengthening
shadows of twilight in what seemed like only moments in the course of
the day… A day that had brought glimmering heights and shattering
lows, and concluded with more questions than answers.
In the cabin of the tractor, as it rumbled back towards the Norwegian
base camp, Krieger had finally come to, and was almost immediately
weeping upon recollection of what he'd seen in the ice. He had
destroyed what he believed was likely to be the most significant
discovery in human history, and he was in hysterics as a result. The
metal wreck in the ice had been irreparably charred by the thermite
charges that he himself had placed. Dr. Hoiland had administered a
sedative to knock him out until they reached camp, for his own good as
much as theirs… the other scientists weren't sure he was ready to hear
the rest just yet.
A large volume of equipment had been left behind at the blast site in
favor of new cargo. The flatbed hitched to the back of the tractor
bore the weight of an ice block weighing several tons, extracted from
the ice near the blast site, and containing something truly unique. It
was now the center of both considerable celebration and controversy.
"Hey, uh, where are we going to put this thing?" asked Forsell
timidly, breaking into the stream of chatter that filled the cabin.
The men looked from one to the other. Nobody had really considered
that.
"Well, we clearly need a great deal of space to accommodate both the
ice block and facilitate examination of the contents," offered
Lundestad.
Bergstrom sat up. "The contents? Am I to understand that you want to
thaw it out?" he asked with an edge in his voice.
"It is the only sensible thing to do. It is our responsibility to
investigate this situation fully, don't you agree?" the older man
asked.
"No, I most certainly do not agree," stated Bergstrom flatly. "I think
we have more than met any 'scientific obligations' we may have been
under. This is where I draw the line. It stays in the ice block until
it can be shipped out to the mainland and handled properly. This is
most definitely an international situation, and we have to treat it
that way. God knows we've bent the rules about as far as we can
already."
"That still doesn't answer the question of where we're going to store
it in the meantime," Lundestad offered softly.
"Why not just store it outside? It's certainly not going to thaw out
there. I think if it's been in the ice for as long as you say, another
few months isn't going to hurt it any," replied Bergstrom.
"I think that if you aren't going to let us thaw it, you can at least
let us run some tests on the ice. There is a lot we might learn from
that alone. To do that, we need to be inside with access to the
equipment to do so. That's not too much to ask, is it?" Lundestad
gently pressed.
Bergstrom barked out a grim laugh, shaking his head. "Fine, that's
fine. We can store it in the garage."
Enger's voice called back from the driver's seat. "Then where are we
going to park the tractor and do maintenance?"
"We'll worry about that later. Let's discuss it when we get back to
camp," Bergstrom sighed.
Night was descending like a black silken veil over the white
landscape. Ten men stood around the frozen monolith, laying long and
horizontal on the floor, lit up by overhead flourescent bulbs.
Lundestad, hunched forward and aiming a flashlight into the ice, shook
his head slightly.
"Can you see anything?" asked Erling.
"Not much," the old biologist admitted, still peering intently where
the light refracted off the ice. "No discernible, identifiable shape,
that is,"
"I doubt that whatever is in there is going to be 'identifiable' by
human standards, Lundestad," added Egeland curtly. "I think its
arrogance to assume that something from another planet is going to be
anthropomorphic in form," he added with disdain.
"True enough," replied Lundestad, who seemed to not even notice the
physicist's tone. Slowly standing up straight and clicking off the
flashlight, he added, "but one could always hope that we'd see some
kind of feature regardless, such as a head or distinct limbs. Can't
make out anything like that, though… at least not with this
flashlight."
"I can rig up some of the shop lights, if you like," offered Bolen. "I
use them to see into the engine compartment when I'm working on the
tractor and such, so they might help,"
"That would be excellent," Lundestad smiled.
Bergstrom turned to leave. "Do what you need to do, but that thing
stays in the ice," he said as he walked up the short steps and left
the garage.
Enger called after him. "Wait a minute, we still have to go get all
the gear we left behind in order to haul this thing in here,"
Bergstrom spoke as he ascended the short staircase out of the garage.
"It will have to wait until tomorrow. You and Bolen can go and get
it."
"There's one more thing," Egeland cut in. "There is still an
incredible find down there in the crater that we haven't paid much
mind to. I want to investigate the spacecraft further," he demanded.
Bergstrom paused at the top of the stairs. "That's fine. You can go
poking around with the flying saucer if you want," he stated
sardonically. "Take someone with you, and you can travel with Enger
and Bolen tomorrow."
Chapter 6 COMING SOON
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