Dream Thing

“You can run a shrimp boat, like in Forrest Gump,” Gerhny added, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Yeah. Let’s all pool our cash and buy a shrimp boat,” Leek said. “In Louisiana. Where it never freezes. You’re invited, too. Doc Polo. We’ll get you a work visa.”

“What worries me is not the losing of my legs but the other parts,” the Argentine said. “Do they have prosthetics for those? I do not know.”

“You mean the little shrimp? Now, that could be really serious,” Gerhny added, so gravely that the others chuckled. “Hey, legs you can do without. But if that freezes off, then what?”

Leek was sniggering and shaking from cold, almost uncontrollably. Yurman grasped the man by the arm. If Leek fell—if any of them fell and got wet above the crotch—their body heat would be sucked out of them long before the rescue chopper showed up.

The wet slush was getting shallow, he noted. They had waded almost two miles from the base camp, and the current of warm steam was reduced and the slush went only to their ankles.

They just might make it, Yurman thought. In another hour and fifteen, they’d be on the rescue aircraft getting warmed up.

The ground shook.

Gerhny toppled. He was big and sturdy, and it was like watching a beer-barrel tip. The man landed on his chest in the slush and his suit soaked up the water. Their high-tech outerwear was made for extreme cold, but not for water. In the Antarctic, landlocked a thousand miles in, exposure to standing water was not a factor, so the suits weren’t designed for it.

Gerhny got up sputtering on his hands and knees, and Karl Yurman knew he was looking at a dead man.

Gerhny was looking at something else, and his mouth hung open.

Yurman turned to see.

The valley was bulging. A magnificent upheaval occurred and the ground shook more as a slab of ice rose ten, fifteen, twenty feet high before it stopped, and furious plumes of steam hissed from the mile-long seam.

Five miles farther, the ice burst open like a popped pimple, sending a new steam column soaring into the air.

“It’s erupting,” Gerhny shouted. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the fact that he was soaked with freezing water, and plodded off as fast as he could move. The others ran after him.

The ground shook repeatedly, and Yurman glanced back to witness the eruption of more steam geysers, some of them miles away. How was this happening? Where did all this heat come from?

There was a tremor that started and would not stop. Gerhny fell down again, and Polo lost his footing. Leek slipped. Yurman tried to hold on to Leek, but the man slipped through his fingers and splashed into the slush.

A thought skipped through Yurman’s head. Slush is getting deeper again.

“It must be close!” he shouted, but then he saw he was wrong. The newest eruption was a hundred miles away, beyond the horizon of soggy snow and buckling ice. It burst out of the Antarctic valley like a submarine-fired missile erupting out of the sea, and it went up and up into the clear blue sky.

And it was white. It was water. It was steam.

“Impossible,” Gerhny said through stiff jaws.

The tremor died and the smaller steam vents began to droop, losing strength, and Yurman hopelessly helped the others to their feet. He didn’t know what to make of all this and he didn’t really care anymore.

“We’re gonna freeze,” Leek moaned. “I don’t wanna freeze!”

“Let’s keep moving!” Yurman ordered. “That’s the only way to stay warm.”

“Why are you so special?” Leek cried. “Why ain’t you all wet?”

“Come on, Leek, let’s march,” Yurman commanded.

“Don’t give me that. I’m dying. We’re all freezing to death except for you. It ain’t fair!”

“You can make it for another hour,” Yurman said. “Just keep going for one hour and the rescue will be here.”

“One hour! I’m freezing to death, Yur. I ain’t gonna live twenty more minutes! And you know what—I’m taking you with me!”

Leek charged. His feet were already lifeless and his entire body was becoming stiff, but he managed to lumber through the splashing slush and raise his arms to tackle Karl Yurman.

Let him, Yurman thought. Leek was right. He didn’t deserve to escape this any more than the others did, and he sure didn’t want to have to live with the guilt of being the only survivor. So let Leek push him into the water, so that he could freeze to death alongside his comrades.

Something else was coming toward Yurman. It was Polo, the little Argentine doctor, who tackled Leek hard. Polo and Leek sprawled in the slush.

“It’s not fair,” Leek whined. “It’s not fair that he gets to live and we don’t.” He picked himself up, soaking wet and dripping. Polo struggled to his feet.

Gerhny and Linfrey moved alongside Polo to keep him from doing anything else stupid. They all knew they had just minutes of life left in them, and yet they had silently allied to save Yurman. They prodded Leek to walk ahead of them, with Yurman following.