Under the Ice

Expecting the feather to next fly upward as a result of a seal’s exhalation, he readied himself to plunge the tip of the harpoon downward. More bubbles reached the surface, and when a seal still failed to show itself, Ootah’s voice muttered to the wind.

“Come on, brother seal don’t be afraid to show yourself.”

When another series of even larger bubbles broke on top of the pool, the Inuit spoke out excitedly.

“Perhaps what we have down below is not a seal after all. Could it be that your cousin the whale will soon be making an appearance?”

Stirred by such a thought, Ootah prepared himself to greet this unexpected visitor. A whale would definitely be more difficult to fatally wound, yet its abundant flesh would feed his family for weeks on end.

Turning to his right, he bent down and reached out for the coil of sinew rope that lay beside him. With one end of this line already firmly attached to an inflated walrus-bladder float, Ootah tied its free end to his harpoon’s hilt. If the whale wasn’t too large, this crude but effective system would hopefully keep the beast from sinking to the depths once it was speared.

Returning to the pool, Ootah once again cocked the harpoon above his right ear. The bubbles were breaking the surface with a furious regularity now, and peering intently downward to find their source, the Inuit imagined that he could just view a massive,

black object ascending with a vengeance.

Though he was well prepared to strike out at the creature regardless of its size, Ootah never had the chance. For before he could make good his attack, the thick pack ice beneath him shattered with an earsplitting concussion that sent him reeling to the icy ground. He struck the ice with such force that for an agonizing moment he had the breath knocked out of him. Struggling merely to breathe, he impotently looked on as the pack ice beneath him violently shook to yet another rumbling, bone-shattering blow.

Well aware that no earthly animal was responsible for such an intense disturbance, Ootah dared to think of the true nature of the one responsible. He had heard the tales of the elders, in which Tornarsuk, the devil, took the form of a frightening sea monster that swallowed both men and kayaks whole. Surely the evil one had taken on such an incarnation. And since it was only a matter of time before the great beast was able to crack the pack ice and get to him, Ootah valiantly struggled to regain his breath and stand.

His lungs were burning with pain as he scrambled to his knees. Unable to fully stand erect because of his trembling limbs, he turned from the ever-widening pool and crawled off on all fours like a terrified infant who had yet to learn to walk. Daring not to look back, he managed to reach his dogsled; he had left it behind a nearby hummock.

Though his dogs were also weak with hunger, they seemed just as anxious to leave this cursed place as the Inuit. Without even having to put a whip to them, the pack broke for the distant horizon, their excited howls all but swallowed by the maddening beat of Ootah’s pulse and the gusting cry of the rising wind.

Thirty-five feet below that same Arctic ice pack, the hull of the Sturgeon-class attack submarine, USS Defiance, was still reverberating after its unsuccessful attempt to break through to the surface. In the vessel’s control center, Captain Mathew Colter cried out firmly, his voice deep with concern.

“Take her down, emergency!”

Still shaken by their all-too-recent, unexpected collision with the ice, the sub’s diving officer, Lieutenant Don Marshall, reached forward with trembling hands to address his console. Seconds later, the vent to the negative tank opened with a pop of compressed air, and as tons of seawater flooded into the Defiance, the sub shuddered and began to descend.

Practically screaming to be heard over the deafening roar of venting air, Marshall addressed the crewcut, veteran sailor seated to his right.

“Blow that negative to the mark. Chief!”

With one eye on the depth gauge, that was mounted on the forward bulkhead. Matt Colter added.

“Shut the flood, vent negative.”

As these orders were carried out, another roaring blast of compressed air filled the control room. His gaze still riveted on the depth gauge, the captain allowed himself a brief sigh of relief only when the counter hit the three-hundred-and-sixty-foot level and remained constant.

Colter’s hand went to his pant’s pocket, to remove a white handkerchief. He mopped dry his sweat-stained forehead, re pocketed the handkerchief, and quickly scanned the hushed compartment. It was as his intense glance locked on a tall, thin, mustached officer who was standing beside the chart table, that the captain exploded in rage.

“Damn it, All I thought you said we had open water up there? The way we smacked into that pack ice, it’s a miracle we didn’t split open our sail or damage the rudder.”

Not used to having to make excuses, Lieutenant Commander AI Layman, the sub’s executive officer, nervously cleared his throat.