Colony by Benjamin Cross (best way to read books .TXT) 📕

at all to do with making money then,” came Peterson’s next instalment. This time Doctor Lee said nothing, but turned her head and shot him a warning glance.

Volkov: “Drilling and wellhead installation will get underway within the next few months and are anticipated to be complete by June 2024. This will hopefully coincide with the completion of the environmental impact assessment and any other scientific studies, though I appreciate that the timescales involved will rely on the results of your on-going investigations. As a representative of the G&S Corporation, I would like to thank you all for your expert participation. Thank you.”

After a few more words of introduction from Volkov, the assembly was invited to reconvene up on the bridge for the start of the guided tour. The bridge itself was a narrow building, the many windows providing a complete arc of vision for the ship’s navigators. It was perched on top of the deckhouse, curving slightly across the beam. Behind the bridge, rising up out of sight, stood the main telecommunications mast, with receiver dishes and aerials running up along its length. The centre of the ship’s deck was taken up with a series of superstructures, several stories high and forming an extension to the main deckhouse. From their centre rose the wide, rectangular funnel, beyond which the main mast rose to an even greater height, a beacon flashing on its pinnacle and a series of cables trailing from the cross arm. At the very rear of the ship Callum could just make out the raised helipad and the tail of a dormant helicopter.

Callum nudged Doctor Lee, who was standing next to him, and whispered, “Could you imagine trying to reverse park this thing?”

She said nothing. All the colour had drained from her face and her fingers were clamped around the underside of the console.

“Doctor Lee?”

“It’s okay,” she whispered back, forcing a brief, unconvincing smile. “Not great with heights, that’s all.”

After touching on the Albanov’s research history, Volkov conducted the tour down through the deckhouse, eventually drawing to a stop beside the ground-floor entrance. He rapped the back of his knuckles against one of the doors. “Beyond these doors, you may of course walk the decks and I would invite you to please do so. But all other buildings are restricted. As our guests, we are trusting you to move around unescorted as necessary. I am trusting you. Please respect this arrangement and be careful not to enter restricted areas unless you desire an encounter with security forces,” he pointed across at the plain, austere frontage of the security headquarters, “which, believe me, you do not.”

After lunch the group reconvened in the lecture room. It was roughly the size of one of the University of Aberdeen’s smaller auditoria, and Callum guessed there was capacity for around three hundred people at a squeeze. The assembly filed noisily into the first few rows, as Volkov took to the stage and his entourage of officials positioned themselves to either side.

“Thank you for relocating yourselves and your full bellies, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our humble lecture room.”

He signalled for the lights to be dimmed, and the enormous screen on the wall behind him lit up. “Harmsworth is one of the smaller of the 191 uninhabited islands that make up Franz Josef Land, the world’s most remote Arctic archipelago.”

He produced a red dot pointer. Then, with a swift about-turn, he aimed the pointer at the image of the Arctic Circle, which flashed up on cue behind him. He circled the little cluster of specks below the ‘Barents Sea’ label.

“Only two other land masses on earth are as far north as you are now – Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland’s extreme north.” The image flipped to a close-up of those areas, and Volkov indicated each in turn. He then slid the pointer back into his pocket and turned to face his audience once more. “Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen. This is the edge of the known world. If you believe in Santa Claus, then this is your chance to meet him.”

There were a few titters of laughter, notably from Peterson. Then Volkov continued, “When you step outside of these walls, the most important thing to remember is that nature does not want you here. The peoples of northern Siberia call it ‘the Land of White Death’. And for good reason. It has survived undiscovered by science for longer than any other landmass on the globe, and it will work hard to defend that isolation. The temperature can reach as low as minus fifty degrees. Last year’s average was…” He looked to Lungkaju, who replied, “Minus fifteen, Mr Volkov.”

“Minus fifteen. If you stay here long enough, you will get frostbite. If you venture out without the correct clothing and equipment, you will get hypothermia and die. If you feel the urge to lick metal, your tongue will get stuck, and I and everybody else on board will laugh at you.”

There was another rumble of laughter. This time the officials joined in as if fondly recalling the times when this had actually happened.

“But it is not all doom and gloom. You lucky people are with us to enjoy the summer, which means that you can expect only minus one or two degrees on most days, perhaps even plus one if you are very lucky. But if you are anticipating any romantic sunsets to photograph and post on Twitter then you can think again. You will experience no such thing. What you will experience is the midnight sun. The cold light of day, twenty-four hours a day for the rest of the summer. After this, if any of you are fortunate enough to remain here with us, you will experience polar night conditions, continual darkness and the Arctic winter.

“I’m sold! Where do we sign up?” Peterson called out.

Volkov eyed him cautiously. “If, like Mr Peterson here, none of this is bad enough for you to want to leave us directly, then I must warn you