Ice and fire

13:30 GMT.
Aboard the ecological tourist ship Global Commitment at the edge of the Antarctic ice fields…

‘And that ladies and gentlemen is the Phillips Ice shelf. In time gone by we would have met the edge of the shelf two days ago. You can see how much of the ice has melted in recent times. This, amongst other frightening discoveries has given rise to very real fears of global warming becoming a danger to mankind hundreds of years faster than was thought.’
Paul Simmons stood half listening to the PA guided tour; his thoughts were lost in the majesty of the rearing wall of ice that towered over their ship. The brilliant white ice glittered in the sunlight in marked contrast to the dark sea that gently lapped at the bottom of the ice mountain. Movement below his arm took his attention away from the spectacle; Naomi was snuggling in closer as if the mass of ice was somehow frightening her. He knew that wasn’t true, Naomi wasn’t scared of anything. He smiled at the thought and squeezed her a little tighter. He looked around the rest of the tourists who were all chatting in small groups, taking in the wonder of the glacier. There were about fifteen of them in total, all anonymous in their fur coats, hats and goggles. Each was in awe of the majesty in front of them. The ice was a flawless white, an angled shelf overhanging the ship where the sea had eaten into the base.
Looking up, the ice blocked out the brilliant blue sky. Shadows danced as they reflected from the water. It was something none of them had ever experienced before. It made them all keep their voices quiet as if fearing to disturb the ice gods
‘The ice shelf is at its tallest point here with the coastline only a few hundred yards back from where we are now. We are able to get so close because there is a fault line directly beneath us, where millions of years ago, a huge portion of the cliff fell into the sea. There is just under a mile of water below us here. It is the deepest coastline in the world.’
The murmur of conversation grew a little louder as the listeners took in the enormity of the natural phenomena before them. None could fail to be overawed by this wonder of Mother Nature.
‘We will shortly be leaving and moving along the shelf until we arrive at Marlin point where we will be able to make landfall. Lunch will ……

13:45 GMT.
British Geological survey office, Dunedin, New Zealand….

‘Mike, get your feet off the desk, you’re making the place look untidy.’
‘Sorry Celina, it won’t happen again,’ he made no move to shift his feet however.
Celina shook her head and stalked off to her office. Mike’s eyes followed her, the sway of her hips was certainly worth her ire, and the movement seemed to be more pronounced when she was angry.
The day seemed to be dragging, nothing much was going on and the relaxed atmosphere in the office was even more laid back than normal. The warming sun shone through the large windows, making the screens difficult to see, not that he was taking much notice of them anyway. Celina’s bottom was much more interesting.
He glanced at the screen in passing and just caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and did a double take to make sure he had seen it. The red warning light in the corner of one of his screens had started flashing that got his feet off the desk in a hurry. ‘Celina,’ he called, ‘there could be a problem.’
‘What, your coffee got cold again.’
‘No, have a look at this. I’ve got a warning light on the Phillips Shelf monitor.’
Celina crossed the room and leaned over his shoulder. So intent was he on the screen now that he didn’t even notice her body pressed against his shoulder.
Details flashed up, figures and ratios, many flashing red as they moved out of the normal range.
‘What the hell is happening?’
‘Not sure, give me a minute. Let me get a camera up, maybe we can see something from that. His hands played over the keyboard and soon a view of the Antarctic wilderness appeared on the screen next to the one where figures still danced and flashed warnings.
‘Is there some malfunction, I can’t see anything untoward?’
‘What’s that, there in the bottom corner?’
‘Don’t know, I can’t see, someone shut the curtains. I need to see this.’
‘There, I see it, wait; I will try to pan round a little.’
‘Oh, my god, look at that. It can’t be.’
Everyone in the room crowded around the monitor now, each staring at the crack in the ice that was rapidly widening and lengthening into the distance.
‘Pan round the other way.’
The same, it must be a foot wide now.
‘Is this the landfall station? How far is it from the edge of the shelf?’
‘Around half a mile.’
‘You don’t think….. No it couldn’t be.’
‘I think it could. Look at the line of the crack, it’s following the coastline.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Ok say that it is the shelf, what is the best estimate of what will happen should that much ice fall into the sea.’
‘We have several models for that; scenario’s that we have run as test programmes. A lot depends on how the ice hits the water.’ Mark was busy pulling up new screens as he spoke, his laid back attitude of before was history, he was all business now.
‘If the ice just slides into the water then it would cause a wave like the bow wave of a ship, only much larger of course.’ A projection was running on the monitor as he spoke. A computer generated model of the ice wall slid majestically into the sea, a massive mound of water smoothly running away from the mass of ice. It seemed to gain momentum as it rushed away into the open sea.
‘How far will it go, how far will it rise, I mean will it make landfall anywhere or will it run out of energy before that?’
‘We can’t know for sure but best estimates say that it would run out of energy before reaching any inhabited. The relief was audible but premature.
‘What about the second scenario, the one where the overhang comes down flat instead of sliding.’
More keyboard tapping soon had the second theory working its way through. This one was more frightening by far, the wave sent out by the wall of ice crashing into the sea was immense and seemed to grow more and more as it raced away across the ocean. This was a proper wave, white foam leading the way as the ever rising water flew through itself. Silence fell as they all took in the enormity of what could well be happening.
‘Shit, have we got anyone on the ground anywhere near? I think we need proper visual conformation of this before we can go public.’
‘No, no-one within a thousand miles.’
‘Yes there is,’ said a voice from another monitor. ‘The Global Commitment is sitting underneath the shelf right now.’
‘Oh my God, if it collapses they won’t stand a chance.’

15:00 GMT.
The bridge of The Global Commitment.

‘Sir, I have just received a message from The British Geological Survey. I don’t know quite what to make of it.’
Captain Delany took the piece of paper and quickly scanned it over the top of his glasses. He read it a second time, his hand stroking his greying beard, a nervous reaction that he always heard when he heard disturbing news.
‘Right listen up.’ He said to the bridge at large and started to read from the sheet of paper. ‘From the British geological survey. We have noted disturbing readings on our survey equipment half a mile inland from your current location. Please advise of any changes or anything unusual at your location. At this time we recommend you make for Seal Head and make landfall there and await further advice.’
‘What’s that all about, something must be happening?’ asked Spencer, the tall Second Officer.
‘I don’t know but I think we had better follow their advice. Full ahead to Seal Point Mr Davis. I will get our guests inside, I can’t see anything to worry about but better safe eh.’

16:10 GMT.
Survey monitoring site Phillips Shelf.

The cracking noises from the tortured ice would have been loud had there been anyone to hear them. The crack was swiftly spreading out from its point of origin both left and right, zigzagging its way along the edge of the cliff far below the ice.
The remote camera panned around with a whirr of its small motor. It was the only witness as the crack slowly widened. It continued to do its duty, filming even as it toppled into the widening crevasse, eventually ceasing as it smashed to pieces on jagged ice at the bottom.
There was no-one now to witness the ice rapidly parting from itself, no one to hear the deep rumble far beneath the surface or see the sudden plume of steam that shot out of the ever widening fault.

© David Povah March 2008

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This is an idea I had for a longer work and I am wondering if it is worth pursuing. Any views appreciated.