Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire by Christa Faust, Gabriel Hunt Page A

the flashlight around. “His last transmission, it must have been from here…”
    “Then where’s his radio?” Gabriel said. He didn’t add, And where’s his body?
    Velda aimed the light toward the passageway at the far end. “Nowhere else he could’ve gone.”
    “By an amazing coincidence, there’s also nowhere else we can,” Rue said. “Who’s up for a walk? It’s too damn cold just standing around.”
    Millie used the severed rope to rig a strap for his bundle and slung it over his shoulder. Hunched over to pass under the low roof of ice, he made his way to Rue’s side. Velda stood silent for a moment, holding the goggles and looking away down the dark tunnel. She put the goggles into her pack, then shouldered it.
    “Let’s do it,” she said.
    Gabriel nodded and took his place by her side. Nils brought up the rear, not too badly slowed by his limpor his need to walk bent over almost double due to his height.
    The natural corridor narrowed and widened as they went, twisting first to the left and then back to the right. They came to a section where the ceiling got so low that even Rue had to bend over to keep walking, and then it became lower still. They were forced to creep forward first on their hands and knees and then on their bellies, pushing the packs ahead of them. As they inched forward, Gabriel noticed that the ice beneath them was becoming a downward slope, gradual at first, then increasingly steep. Gabriel could feel himself starting to slide. He had to arch his back and wedge himself against the ceiling as he went, to prevent himself from slipping.
    “Can you see anything?” Gabriel asked Velda, who was in the lead with the flashlight.
    Before she could answer there was a grunt and a cry and both Millie and Rue came sliding down behind them, slamming into Gabriel and sending him headfirst into Velda’s boots. The four of them slipped and slid and bounced off one another until they hit the bottom of the slope, wind knocked soundly from their aching lungs.
    Standing unsteadily, Gabriel picked up the flashlight from where it lay. The light was flickering, and he had to slap it twice before it returned to a full, steady beam.
    He shone the light around the room. It was an enormous cavern, the walls composed entirely of the curious red ice they’d seen on the surface. The roof was perhaps seventy-five feet overhead and angled sharply. Thousands of glittering crimson stalactites hung from it, somefinger-sized, some well over forty feet long. They were not smooth and rounded like traditional stalactites, but sharp-edged and faceted, like giant crystals. Equally varied and equally sharp stalagmites reached upward from the floor of the cavern. The resulting impression was that of standing inside a cathedral-sized geode.
    “It’s…amazing,” Velda said. The surfaces of the strange, mineral-laden red ice seemed to pick up the tone of her voice and resonate until the resulting cacophony was almost unbearable. As the sound swelled and echoed, a few smaller stalactites came loose from the ceiling and rained down around them like crystal daggers. One caught Millie on the arm, slicing easily through his parka sleeve. He pulled his arm back with a sudden intake of breath. He bit down on a hiss of pain but the short, truncated sound was picked up and relayed all across the cavern and back again, as if whispered by gossiping old ladies.
    Nils appeared then, crawling through the narrow tunnel the rest of them had exited in an uncontrolled, headlong rush. He began to say something but Gabriel held his finger to his lips and shook his head. Nils nodded and remained silent. Even the faint sound of their breathing was amplified, every facet of every crystal humming with each exhalation. Scanning across the room silently, Gabriel could make out a tall, narrow opening in the opposite wall. It was the only way out he could see. They were going to have to make their way across to that opening—and they’d have to