Rachel Sullivan plunged the sampling pole deep into the icy waters of Emerald Lagoon, nestled at the foot of Mt. Erebus, Antarctica’s only active volcano. The lagoon was actually a steaming river that began at the base of Erebus, meandered through the ice shelf, and finally joined with the frigid waters of the Ross Sea. This area of Antarctica had been explored extensively, and its fascinating topography had spawned several encampments in and around McMurdo Sound.

Rachel’s hands, stiff and tired from the cold, could barely grip the rod. She checked her watch; four hours had passed without a break. Morning was over.

Morning was a dubious term in Antarctica this time of year. The landscape was bathed in an eerie blue twilight for more than twenty hours a day. Without solar cues, it was easy to lose track of time. She wiggled the ten-foot pole gently. The sampling bottle at the pole’s end snagged on overhanging ice and she worked patiently to dislodge it, concentrating all the while on her footing. The surface at the edge of the freeze zone was slippery and unstable. One false move could spell disaster.

Autumn had taken hold and the entire bay was freezing rapidly, icy fingers spreading out into the surrounding waters at a rate of five feet per day. Before long, the continent would double in size as winter tightened its grasp. During this time of rapid change, the thickness of the ice sheet under foot was always in question. Especially near the lagoon.

The strange combination of warm and cold waters created unpredictable pockets of weak ice. It was dangerous working alone on the floes. A sudden shift of wind or current could break off a section of ice and carry her out to sea. Despite the dangers, Rachel had ignored the warning of her cohorts, and worked alone with nothing but a portable radio.

She found the solitude lovely, the desolation, invigorating. Antarctica was a desert of ice. It amazed Rachel that even in such a stark and wretched landscape, life still managed to establish a foothold and flourish. The heat from Mt. Erebus helped things along.

She retracted the telescoping pole, removed the three-inch diameter sample bottle from the end, and screwed the cap tightly in place. She slid it inside the knapsack, insulated to protect the contents from the freezing temperatures. It was the last sample. Her work done, she strapped the pole to the knapsack, wrapped the strap of her ice ax around her wrist, and began the cautious trudge back to more solid ground.

Rachel mulled over the confusing results of her previous samples. Hopefully, this last set would help explain the strange fluctuations. This was the last in a series of five yearly trips by the Sea Berth expedition to test the effects of ultraviolet light on plankton populations. Every spring for the past decade, a hole had formed in the ozone layer above Antarctica. Each year it expanded. This year had been the worst, the hole lingering far into the winter season, which allowed lethal ultraviolet radiation to bathe the fragile ecosystem.

Unlike the sparse land creatures, the marine life at the South Pole was surprisingly productive, a result of the upwelling of vast amounts of Atlantic and Pacific nutrients into the shallow photic zone. Red algae grew in labyrinthine channels that formed in the ice, providing sustenance for krill and other plankton in the water below. The krill, in turn, fed the whales, seals, and penguins. The area surrounding Mt. Erebus was one of the most productive, its waters warmed by the volcano’s heat.

For five years she had tracked the algae population. For five years the fragile algae had been devastated by the increased UV transmissions. But not this year. For some inexplicable reason, the ecosystem had rebounded. The western coast of Antarctica was in the midst of a phytoplankton bloom. Somehow, the algae had adapted, maybe by growing an extra cellular layer or by moving into deeper water; how, she wasn’t sure. She hoped her data would show that marine organisms could, and did, rapidly adapt to changes in the environment. Her colleagues had ridiculed her theory on adaptive evolution, but this could be the proof she needed.

A gust of wind slipped under the fur-lined collar of her expedition hood, cutting through tender flesh like a knife. Already, the merciless winter winds had migrated inland, plunging the temperature from a balmy thirty degrees Fahrenheit to a body-numbing ten below zero. Exposed skin would freeze in less than a minute. She pulled the hood cinch tight and turned left, away from the lagoon and toward an escarpment of icy boulders.

This would be the long way back to the ship, but she wanted to make one final visit to the colony of Emperor penguins. The Sea Berth would have to leave soon, or risk entrapment in the ice. She wanted to watch the large birds as they began their mating rituals. Emperor penguins were one of the few species that mated and reared their young in the dead of winter. A large colony had found the ultimate mating grounds among the warm springs at the base of Erebus. To them, this area must have seemed like an exclusive vacation spa, with its smoky pools of tepid water.

Rachel hiked carefully through the floes and finally reached solid ground. She knew it was solid by the scattering of rocks. They were the remnants of lava bombs—blobs of molten rock burped from the belly of Erebus by hot gases escaping from the lava. They could travel for miles and littered the foothills around the volcano. Lava bombs hitting the ice shelf would disappear instantly into the ocean below. But here, the lava rocks sat like sentinels, naked against the winds that scoured the loose snow from around them. Directly beyond the lava field loomed the ghostly towers of Sherwood Forest. They were hollow ice columns, large as lighthouses, with blue-white billows of condensed steam pouring from their mouths like smoke from a great furnace. She had her own name for them—Devil’s Smokestacks.

The Emperors had established a breeding colony to the west of the towers on a frozen lake bed. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, then cut a diagonal path through the edge of the "forest." The colony was small, with six hundred birds. The females were settled in. The males were still arriving, having completed a two hundred mile journey across the ice. Despite their exhaustion, the males were already crooning. Emperors had a strange and beautiful mating dance and Rachel wanted to see it up close this time, so she moved in boldly. As she expected, the males were distracted by the bevy of eligible females and completely ignored her. She fixated on one particularly amorous couple in the middle of the colony and crept slowly and steadily toward them, taking care to avoid any sudden movements.

The male lifted his beak high in the air, presenting his brilliant yellow neck-band to the female. He crooned a soulful warble and then dropped his head to his belly, his beak almost touching the ground. The female clapped her wings together and chirped excitedly. The empress definitely had the hots for this particular male, Rachel decided, and with good reason. He was the largest and most elegant of the bunch. Their antics seemed to excite the other males, and soon, the entire field was alive with lustful preening. Once two penguins bonded, they stayed together for life. That gave them a definite edge over most humans, she decided.

Rachel eased forward until she was surrounded by penguins in heat. She knelt carefully and rested her arm on her ice ax. The larger males were over four feet tall and Rachel wondered if they would attack a human that had infiltrated so deeply into their domain. Her concern seemed legitimate when suddenly, the milling and socializing ceased. The males became agitated, waddling nervously in circles. Maybe she looked like a lion seal as she knelt on the ice. She stood up cautiously. The agitation increased. This was bizarre, she thought; she had visited the colony twice before and the penguins never seemed nervous in her presence. But she had never moved in so close either. She decided to work her way back toward the edge of the colony, but several of the large adults cut off her escape, scurrying back and forth, flapping their stubby wings.

Suddenly, the entire colony scattered outward in a stampede of black and yellow, waddling faster than Rachel thought possible. They were falling all over each other in a mad rush. Two frantic birds collided with her head on, knocking her to the ice. She rolled into a ball for protection. Several more birds fell into the pile, forming a mass of flailing bird and human. She remained motionless until the pile thinned out.

When she finally sat up, the penguins were gone. The colony had formed a loose circle at the edge of the lakebed with her in the center. They waddled back and forth nervously, squawking and chirping.

What the hell is their problem? Rachel could see nothing out of the ordinary, except for piles of penguin guano, which she now realized had coated her expedition suit from head to foot. A sudden silence swept over the birds.

Then she heard it.

A faint whistling sound.

It triggered a memory from her childhood, from the old war movies her dad loved to watch.

She stared upward in horror as the screaming projectile plummeted into the ice just yards away. The collision sent a blast of scalding spray toward her. Before she could react, a rolling wave of water and ice lifted her high into the air, then down.

She hit hard and gasped spasmodically, as the unbearable cold punctured her flesh like a thousand needles. The initial wave reached the edge of the frozen pond and headed back. She barely caught a breath before being submerged again.

She struggled to the surface, snatching and clawing at the broken ice in numbed shock. The impact of the lava bomb had shattered the ice in a circle, leaving solid ice a hundred feet away. Something heavy was pulling her under and she realized it was the ice ax, still hanging from the strap on her arm. She pulled it to the surface and threw it forward, on top of the sludge, as she struggled toward the hole’s edge. A sudden heaviness made every thrust seem like a swim through molasses.

Paddling furiously, Rachel managed to pull herself to within three feet of the edge. She slung the ax with desperate energy and felt the tip drive into solid ice. She struggled to pull herself out of the hole, but the waterlogged expedition suit was like an iron weight, and her legs were virtually useless. The ice along the edge continued to disintegrate as she struggled to pull herself up. With one last frenzied effort, pulling hand over hand, she slid onto the surface and rolled several times to put distance between herself and the edge.

Time was of the essence.

The Sea Berth was over a mile away. She would literally have to run for her life. Propping against the ax, Rachel staggered to her feet and tried to run. All sensation had ceased below the knees. She felt as if she were running on stilts. Water from inside the expedition suit drained into her boots, and in less than a minute, the waterlogged fur of the mukluks had frozen solid. The outside of her suit began to freeze, which made running almost impossible. She struggled ahead anyway. The insulation inside the suit, even wet, would provide a few precious moments of warmth, but she would have to keep moving or die.

The dry air tore at the sensitive mucus linings of her lungs with every breath. She pulled the fur collar tight around her head, leaving only a small opening to see through. Her own breath would act as a pre-warmer for the frigid air. She thought about the morning runs she took almost every day to stay in shape. Her best time in the mile was eight minutes. Eight minutes! And that was without carrying twenty pounds of ice layered on a suit of armor. She knew she had to stay focused on the goal—reaching the Sea Berth—that was the only thing that mattered now.

Then she remembered the radio in the side pocket of the knapsack. She prayed that it still worked. The nylon cover was soaked, but expedition radios were designed for water resistance.

"Sea Berth, this is Rachel. Mayday. Do you copy?"

Nothing.

She shook it and tried again. "This is Rachel, mayday, mayday. Do you copy?"

Finally, the voice of French Culver, the ship’s engineer, crackled over the radio. "French here, what’s up Rachel?"

She found it difficult to speak and screeched hoarsely. "Had an accident, Frenchie. Took a swim. Run me a lukewarm bath in the captain’s quarters."

"You what? Are you serious?"

"Roger that."

"Where are you?"

"Half a mile away. Hurry." She stumbled and almost dropped the radio.

"Damnit, Sullivan! I told you not to go out alone."

"Just run the damn bath and save the sermon."

Her only chance for survival lay in the body heat she was generating on the run. She was so tired. She wanted to stop and rest; but that was not an option. Where was the damn ship? Had she headed in the right direction? With no sun, the ice was a blank canvas. Rachel pulled the radio to her lips and started to ask French for guidance, when she caught a reflection. The image danced around, but she didn’t dare stop, so she ran toward it, picking up the pace with her last stores of energy.

The profile of the ship’s antenna materialized on the horizon and a speck of black grew larger. French met her two hundred yards from the ship, running in his long johns and down jacket. Without stopping, she handed him the knapsack.

"Get these samples into the incubator before everything dies."

French stared at her ice-covered body and choked. "Good God! You weren’t kidding! Screw the samples."

"Hell no! Just do it and shut up."

As she reached the Sea Berth’s ramp, several of the crew clambered down to meet her. Staring in horror, they picked her up, passed her up the steps, and carried her to the captain’s head, the only room on the boat with a bathtub.

Justin, the ship’s doctor, quickly checked the temperature in the tub. Then they lowered her in, without bothering to remove her clothes, and waited for the lukewarm water to penetrate and melt the frozen garments.

Mary Koch, Rachel’s graduate assistant, stayed to help pull off the mukluks and the wet clothes. The others stepped outside and waited.

Soon Rachel was naked. At first, there was no feeling at all. She gritted her teeth and tried to relax, for she knew what was coming. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, a tingling fire swept through her legs. As the tepid water thawed frozen skin and tender nerves, she howled with pain. It felt like she was sitting in a pool of molten lava.

"Omigod!" Mary paced around the tub and pulled on her fingers. "Omigod, are you gonna be okay?"

Rachel’s limbs were beginning to turn the color of cooked lobster. She lifted one leg from the water to examine it. Blood blisters had already started to form at the freeze points between flesh and cloth.

"Damn," she said, but her frown quickly evaporated. "You wouldn’t have believed it, Mary. It was incredible. A rock the size of a truck. The volcano spit it out like a watermelon seed. It landed right in front of me. You know, the penguins sensed it somehow."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Mary said, trembling. "You could have died out there!"

Rachel examined her other leg, spotted with the same blisters. She used to have such beautiful legs, she thought, one of her best assets. Now both were swollen and red. But it was a deep, crimson, healthy, beautiful red. She slumped back in the tub and relaxed for the first time, grateful that she could feel pain at all. "Life’s not a job, it’s an adventure."

Mary was not amused. "Rachel, you’re the craziest person I ever met! One of these days you’re going to stretch your luck too far."

Justin heard the conversation and returned, insisting on examining her injuries. After a few minutes his expression relaxed. "You lucked out, dear girl. Your legs weren’t frozen long enough to sustain any permanent damage. The blood blisters will turn black, but they’ll heal in about a week."

After she got out and dried off, Justin applied small round bandages over each wound and prescribed a strong antibiotic. Rachel slipped into some sweats and hobbled down to the ship’s laboratory. Her feet had swollen too much to fit in shoes, so she wore down booties.

A small entourage had gathered in the lab and they let out a spontaneous cheer when she entered.

"My God, she’s back from the dead," French bellowed. "Leave it to Sullivan to give us our war stories. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Rachel said. "Just running a little hot and cold today, is all."

French pointed to a set of incubation tanks. "Your samples are fine. We went ahead and ran a population count. Same as the other samples. Hope you’re satisfied."

Rachel waved two fingers in victory. "Thanks, Frenchie. I knew I could count on you." She leaned over the tank to examine her latest sample. The water shimmered with a subtle green color, comprised of millions of aquatic phytoplankton and dinoflagellates.

French stared wide-eyed. "I can’t believe you. You really are a strange bird. You’re lucky to be alive. Not too many people survive almost being hit by a boulder and running around wet in sub-zero temperatures."

"Hey, what could I do? No use sitting around and worrying about where lightning will strike next." Rachel was already flipping through the population counts from the last week.

"Rachel, can I speak with you for a moment?" Mary Koch had appeared in the doorway between the lab and the radio room. She motioned Rachel toward her.

Mary led her inside and closed the door behind them, tears streaming down her face. "There’s a fax for you."

"What now? Can’t it wait?"

"No, you better look for yourself." She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Rachel walked over to the fax machine and stared numbly as the image inched out. Trembling, she realized that the true horror of the day had just begun.