14 Arctic Adventure by Willard Price

Author:Willard Price [Price, Willard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Living under Ice

They walked the streets of Thule — Hal, Roger and Olrik.

‘Quite a town,’ said Hal.

‘Sixteen streets,’ said Olrik, ‘and a radar tower fifty feet higher than the Empire State Building.’

‘All I see is shops, shops, shops,’ said Hal. ‘Where are the people who live here?’

‘The big bosses live in these houses. The working men live under the ice.’

Hal stopped and stared at Olrik. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Of course I do. Haven’t you been down under?’

‘No. I’ve had all I can handle on top.’

‘Come with me,’ said Olrik. ‘I’ll show you the under-ice city.’

Outside Thule they reached a hole in the ground. A stairway took them down to the strangest town they had ever seen.

It consisted of immense metal tubes twenty-six feet in diameter. These tubes were the streets of the town. The floor was made of planks. Along the side of the tube were cabins where the working men lived.

‘But why don’t they build the cabins up on top?’ said Hal.

‘Because they would soon be buried in snow. Once they were up above, and the snow completely covered them. So they went below where the snow can’t get at them.’

There was not a glimpse of daylight but there were plenty of electric lights. ‘It’s like being in a submarine,’ Roger said.

But this was much larger than any submarine ever built. There were several dining-rooms. There was a library. There was a game room with table tennis. There was a radio room. There was a gymnasium, and a theatre where, Olrik said, you could see the latest American films even before they were shown in America.

‘How far down are we?’ Hal asked.

‘Thirty-six feet below the surface,’ said Olrik, ‘and getting deeper every time we have a snowstorm.’

‘Doesn’t the snow on top keep it very cold down here?’

‘On the contrary, snow keeps it warm. It’s a very good insulator.’

Men who happened to be off duty were having a good time —looking at films, playing games, reading, singing, talking politics, protected from any bad weather that might happen to be outside.

The boys came out into a snowstorm. A chill wind was blowing. They had to admit it was much better under the ice.

A few days later Olrik took them to another under-ice city. It was called Camp Century and It was even larger and better than the first. Main Street was a quarter of a mile long. It was covered by iron sheets above which was snow many feet deep. When rain came the snow turned to ice.

‘Those iron sheets will be removed after a time,’ said Olrik.

‘Doesn’t the snow fall in?’ said Hal.

‘No,’ said Olrik. ‘After the snow becomes hard it is able to support itself.’

Main Street was very busy. It was so high and wide that tractors and trucks that Olrik called weasels were able to pass through without difficulty. There were fourteen cross streets. They were lined with cabins made of plastic.

‘We think plastic will be used a lot in the ice-sheet stations of the future,’ Olrik said.

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