The icy breath of death, like countless invisible steel needles, stabbed deep into this man-made metal island beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. The iron-gray sky hung so low it seemed ready to crush the horizon. Endless polar gales swept up knife-sharp snow and howled as they tore at the exploration station’s thick alloy shell, their shrill cries grating on the nerves without pause. Leaden light struggled through the swirling snow and fell sparingly on the dome and exoskeletal supports of the Breaker Seven exploration station, reflecting in cold, hard glints. Outside, the mercury in the thermometer had long since frozen at minus eighty-seven degrees Celsius, like congealed blood. Time itself seemed frozen by the cold, leaving only the eternal howl of wind and snow.
