Elevation by Patty Jansen

Author:Patty Jansen [Jansen, Patty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Patty Jansen

Chapter Eight

The navigation program estimated only a twenty-minute ride from the dome to the spot where the artists were supposed to be. They were still close to the base, but the dome had long since disappeared over the horizon.

They now traversed a part where the terrain was slightly less flat. The road zig-zagged a little around smooth hillocks dotted with outcrops of sharp ice spikes. The sun—a distant speck in the grey sky—hung low over the horizon, casting ink-dark shadows over the landscape, and making the ice crystals glitter.

It was beautiful in a hostile, eerie way.

“So this is where Katie Walker came?” Jonathan asked.

“From what I gather, yes. But I don’t know that we’ll get to see any of her ice structures.”

“They’ve probably been destroyed.” Because that was a very military thing to do.

“Yeah.”

“Did they ever find out what this creature was that they were worshiping?”

Gaby shrugged. “I’m guessing it was mostly in her head. I’ve read her medical report and she really was a special case, even before she came to Miranda. But she was also very helpful, a hard worker and very friendly to people, especially those with few friends.”

“So she lured them into a religion that she had made up?”

“Basically, although I’m sure she believed what she said—whoa!”

They’d come over a rise in the landscape. Ahead of them lay a valley in the shadow of the ridge beyond. The deepest point was in ink blackness. But little bursts of light bloomed under the ice, mostly in blue, but the occasional one in pink or green.

Jonathan stopped the truck.

“What the hell is that?”

“No idea. Some kind of fluorescent reaction.”

They watched for a bit while the effect faded, but when the truck advanced again, the number of blooms under the ice increased.

They stopped and the light flashes faded. Then they advanced and they started again.

“It reacts to our movement,” Gaby said.

Jonathan drove the truck slowly through the valley, while flashes of light bloomed around them. The colours changed from blue to green to pink when the truck was closer.

“Do you think this is part of what they believed to be a creature?” Gaby asked.

“I don’t know. This type of thing is usually caused by bacteria. The way the light comes up when we change the pressure on the ice makes me think they react to proximity. This is a known feature in fluorescent bacteria.”

“It’s beautiful.”

The blue glow lit Gaby’s face. She was looking around with eyes wide in wonder. He loved her so much like this. She could be so completely absorbed in the beauty of nature.

The truck emerged from the valley into the wan sunlight on the ridge. Here, the light effect disappeared.

"I can see them," Gaby said.

She was right. A couple of bright yellow dots stood out on the next ridge.

Jonathan consulted the map. “It looks like they're camped on the top of a really big cliff."

Gaby busied herself contacting the camp.

A male voice answered her call, possibly the same who had raised the alarm. She asked his name and he said it was Mohammed.

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