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are trying to help, but if you want my personal opinion, no one with any sense thinks an evacuation is possible. We are simply going to have to stop the bloody thing from detonating." |
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At that point, the Canadian's voice grew thin. Morgan understood only too well. Each mile the Hercules covered through the ice and winds of the storm brought all aboard closer to a different storma mortal storm of fire and dirty radiation. What did Robert Frost have in mind when he wrote those lines about promises to keep and miles to go before he slept, Morgan wondered. Nothing like this, certainly. And yet, poets sometimes had the gift of "the long sight." Morgan's grandmother had believed that with all her Welsh soul. |
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What else did Frost say? Something apropos of the world ending in fire or in ice. Well, there was fire enough to set the world alight under the ice of Hudson Bay. |
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"You're looking very sad, Morgan." Anna regarded him sleepily from her nest of blankets. |
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Before he could answer, Avery Peters emerged from the flight deck and leaned over Anna to speak into Morgan's ear. "We're almost there. We just passed over Eskimo Point." |
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Morgan glanced at Anna. How would she react? Her husband and her former lover lay somewhere below, on the black, muddy bottom of a northern inland sea. |
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Anna threw off her blankets and looked past Morgan, trying to pierce the darkness outside the window. The air turbulence increased as the C- 130 descended through layers of cloud and broke into clear air over Hudson Bay. This December, she'd been told, was much colder than last winter had been. The great bay and its surroundings would be in the hard grip of an early winter, with fewer polynyas and a great deal more ice. They must already be north of latitude 61. The Arctic Circle was nearer to their destination than the United States border. |
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She knew this land, one of cruel beauty. This was the region of permafrost. Here the hostile earth grudgingly accepted the |
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