The Iceman's Lament

There was a temporary reprieve.

“She sends her regrets, Tom,” Jared told him “She’s got a show to get in the can today. Asked if we can grab you for the next run?”

Tom shrugged. They were standing on the dock, next to F-351. Gail was with them, walking around with some kind of instrument, measuring light and calculating angles. Anger swelled up in his chest, thinking of Meng, the raw fear that Gail had now instilled in them both. He clamped his jaw, grinding his much-abused molars like ice bouncing in the trailers of his rig.

Gail barely glanced at him,

“Er…you all right then?” Jared asked.

Tom looked Jared over. He had a bruise on his face. Somehow it looked good on him, like it belonged there. Then he remembered the fight at the Scurvy Dog. It seemed like a long time ago.

“Hey,” he began. “Er…y’know…at The Dog, those JG’s…kinda felt wrong leaving you there.”

“Oh…that!” Jared beamed. “T’weren’t nothing. More like a little dance, Tom. Keep me on my toes.”

Tom scrubbed at his face. There would be trouble about this, down the road. He felt like telling Jared that he really didn’t need help in fighting his battles, although three JG’s would undoubtedly have put the hurt on him. But now he owed the Minder.

“Hey look…” he began. But then Gail called out, pointing at the entrance hatch to the rig.

“You’re gonna wanna go ahead now and open it up,” she called.

“So glad she gives me permission,” Tom muttered. “It’s open,” he called back to her. “You’re gonna wanna go ahead in there now.”

Jared laughed. “She just wants to figure out how to set things up when we do make the run with you. “He patted one of the tires, taller than even him. “Bloody hell this thing is big…”

Tom was still staring after Gail, resenting her intrusion into his workspace.

“Who actually runs things with you people then?” he asked the Minder “Her?”

“She runs the whole show, mate. Really. Lucy’s the brains, finds the stories, but Gail’s the one that makes them actually come together. Good researcher, too, the best in fact…”

“Wish she’d research something other than me,” Tom muttered.

But Jared was looking wistfully up at the rig.

“Tom,” he asked. “How’d you land a gig like this anyway? Drivin’ this thing?”

“You just gotta piss off the right people,” Tom grinned. “Why, you wanna be a hauler?”

“Ain’t going back down the Well,” Jared grunted. “Been up too long now.”

“Go see Flanagan. He’ll hook you up.”

“That bloke, yeah...”

“You’ve met him then?”

“Met a thousand wankers like him in my line o ’work mate. All the same - feathering their nests.”

“Yep…” Tom began to gather up his gear and make ready to move out. He wasn’t going to discuss Flanagan’s extortion rackets with strangers, as good a chap as Jared appeared to be.

“Lucy has a sweet spot,” Jared mused, almost to himself. “Tales of official corruption and graft. You’ve never seen her show?”

“Nah…” Tom filed the info away for future reference.

“You oughta check out some of the back catalogue…”

“Don’t have much appetite for ambush journalism” Tom said briskly.

And Jared began to explain something but Tom could not hear him. Another hauler was tipping ice into the converter; superheated steam billowed like an untethered hot air balloon around them.

Gail stepped back down from the cab.

“Little tight in there for four of us,” she said.

“Little bit, yeah.” He didn’t feel like explaining about the screens, how the cramped little cabin would seem like something out of a starship once underway. “But, hey, we’ll all be much better friends by the time we get back.”

She looked at him skeptically.

They left him. He watched them trudge back up the docks, gesticulating to each other. And then he saw Annie, waving at him, carrying a bunch of gear, yelling at him to hold up.

“Bleddy hell, ’tis like an operating theater in here,” Annie grumbled as she stowed her gear in the cab of F-351. A hauler had been injured up at the Pole and she’d been sent to retrieve their rig. Tom would bring her up on his run.

“Yeah, I’ve seen your rig, Annie,” he laughed. “Empty bags of chips, bottles, chicken bones everywhere…”

She punched him good-naturedly, stowed her gear and settled in to the passenger seat.

He looked at her suit, hanging up next to his in the rear.

“Is that an UNSA-issue suit then Annie?”

“Tis,” she sniffed. “I’ve had it since the time I was workin’ that dragline out there for Rio Tinto.”

“Interesting,” he murmured.

“Those Dexter suits they gave us aren’t worth a shite…”

“I know, right?”

“Use me own feckin’ suit when I need it.”

“Yeah me too…”

“I see Miss Saigon gave you the slip.”

“Yeah,” Tom scrubbed his scalp as he fired up the engines and made ready to move down the long airlock out of the docks and out onto the surface. “About that…”

“Why don’t ye do it, Tom?”

“I don’t need that kind of attention,” he grumbled.

“’tis a chance to define your own narrative, Tom” Annie said. “Embrace it.”

“I’ll embrace something else,” he told her, smiling, leaning across to kiss her.

“Stop that, “she slapped at him. “We’re workin’…”

“Not the whole way, I hope.”

“Maybe we’ll have a picnic,” she breathed into his ear.

“Maybe something better,” he said. “I have an idea.”

“I knew you were up to something,” Annie said quietly as he helped her into her suit.

He put his hands on her shoulder. He felt better now, having unburdened himself of his encounters with the Lights. And he could see the excitement in her eyes.

“Listen,” he said seriously. “We don’t have to do this. You can wait here. But nobody can know about it. Nobody, understand?”

She shrugged his hands off.

“If you’ve found evidence of something out there, Tom…evidence of…”

“Life?” he asked. “Sentient life?”

“They’ll kill you Tom. You know that. The mines are too important. UNSA would shut this place down; declare it off-limits while they study it. All of this…” she waved around the interior of the hauler. “Done. All of us. Done.”

“I don’t care, Annie. Not anymore.”

“And what about the rest of us?”

She was right. He had not thought it through. She glared at him.

“Arsehole,” she said, as he zipped her into the suit.

“Wait until you see it for yourself,” he said, kissing her faceplate.

She giggled like a schoolgirl out there on the ledge as the swarm descended and he was embarrassed by it, having enjoyed his previous solo sessions in quiet ecstasy.

“Oh my God, Tom…” she whispered through her helmet comm.

“I know, right?” He reached over and took her heavily-glove hand. “But shhhh…”

“Can they hear us?”

“I don’t know…But I can hear them. They talk to me. Wait…”

The Lights descended, enveloping them in bliss.

She writhed on the ground, making snow angels in the rough scree, her face within the helmet aglow with joy.

“Oh my God,” she whispered again. And turned on her helmet cam.

“No…!” he yelled.

But now Annie was filming. And the Lights became angry. The warm benevolence became like screeching birds. Angry carrion circling their prey.

“What are they doing? Tom?” Annie was on her feet. Tom leaped up.

“Turn off the camera. Turn it off!”

“What? Jesus…” Annie fumbled with the tiny buttons on the back of her glove that controlled the heads-up display in her helmet, fear making it difficult, the Lights meanwhile soaring up and bearing down upon her like a blade. She screamed. The Lights went right through her. She fell to the ground, writhing.

“Annie!” Tom yelled, taking her up in his arms. “Annie!”

He slaved her suit controls to his. It seemed to take forever. Through her faceplate he could see she had lost consciousness, although he was relieved to see the little fog of breath was still there. Her vitals popped up on his display. She was stable, although her blood pressure was through the roof.

He looked up. The Lights were high in the sky, swirling around. And then, with almost an ‘hmmpf’ motion, they streamed back to the rocks and were gone.

He lifted her up and slung her across his back.

“Let’s get you out of here, baby…”

Back in the hauler, propped up in the passenger seat, Annie came back to life. Somewhat. Her eyes opened. She looked blankly at him as if she had never seen him before.

Shock, he thought, checking her pulse, wrapping her in a blanket.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he said again.

They drove for several hours in complete silence. Tom’s face was locked in a grimace: the muscles along his jaw clamped so tight he could feel his molars compacting and every time he stole a glance at Annie she had the same angelic, beautified face, a pilgrim who has reached the shrine, dumbstruck in the glow of their particular deity.

“Hey!” he snapped eventually, unable to stand it anymore. She looked drunk or high or simply vacant, her expression never wavering. Perhaps she had found serenity, he thought, or perhaps the lights had simply lobotomized her. “Hey Annie!” he snapped again. She did not respond.

The Pole came into view and he hailed the docking station.

“Hold your position,” he was told. Getting a two-hundred meter long hauler into position was like bringing a ship into port: he cut power and let the rig drift until it came almost to a halt. Radio chatter filled the cabin.

She snapped up in her seat.

“Who the hell are you?” she yelled at him.

’I’m Tom, Annie” he grinned over at her. “Remember me?”

Her eyes popped, her head swiveled around. She swallowed and stood, brushing imaginary crumbs from her overalls.

“What the feck just happened?” she asked.

“We went for a walk, remember?”

There was something terrible in her expression, as if she had witnessed some awful event. He stood too, letting the rig idle, moving forward at less than walking speed.

“Let’s have a cup of tea,” he said brightly, moving rearwards to put the kettle on.

She stared at him like some cornered animal. She swallowed dryly, tongue moving over parched lips.

“Is it always like this…?”

“What do you mean?”

She laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

“First the taste of honey,” she said. “Then the knife.”

They were the last words she ever spoke to him.

He still could not drink. He stood miserably at the Pole station bar with Greg, watching him drain endless tankards of Phoedran lager.

“What’s up with your Annie?” Greg asked.

“I don’t know, Greg,” Tom glanced over at her. She sat motionless, her lager untouched. Since that last cryptic remark she had said nothing to him nor anyone else.

“This is what happens when you bring the ladies for a ride, ain’t it?” Greg hooted, swaying as if some Coriolis Effect was gripping him. He had a vast appetite for beer, the great furnace of his body absorbing everything he could throw at it and still he would rise in the morning as chipper as a country mailman making his rounds.

Tom looked around.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in here sober,” he muttered

Greg smacked him on the shoulder. “You need to take better care of your woman.”

Tom tried again. She looked past him, through him.

“Annie. Come on…Annie…” he tried to coax some kind of response from her. “Annie…”

She looked right through him. He existed no more.