Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
5 April, 1937
Monday April 5th, 1937 Definitely a wearing day – but we had only ourselves to blame for stowing away down here. At least our “stowaway” status is rather better than Molly’s experience, but then we discover we were pretty much expected here and more or less the way we arrived. Though Herr G did note last night that some furs here had placed bets on us skiing all then way, the mountain pass is formidable and the betting pool was running at hundred to one odds that route. Apparently it has been done by “tractors” though they had to be specially modified to run in the cold and high altitude of the pass – which we now hear is over four kilometres high. The actual height of the peaks is hard to believe. They had to develop special oils and fuels to keep tracked vehicles running down here – and who knows, if they ever choose to reach out to Franz Joseph Land or similar, the technology might be useful there. A restful night’s sleep was followed by a hearty breakfast (at least I thought so, though black bread and pickled fish is more to my taste than Molly’s or Maria’s) and Herr G appeared with the Director, Sir Leopold. Actually Maria says the Reich has not officially kept the rank of knight, but Sir Leopold explained it was a hereditary title and would be forever so even were his family exiled to the steaming jungles of Venus or the dusty canal-side ruins of Mars. There have been French Counts still passing on their hereditary titles despite anything Paris has to say about it, ever since their first Revolution. Actually Madeleine X has grumbled that there are two rival sets of French nobility, depending on whether one counts Napoleon as a proper Monarch qualified to hand out titles. Our reputation certainly has preceded us. It appears that we arrived more or less on schedule – folk seem very happy to have “qualified volunteers” as apparently there is rather a staff turnover here with the various natural and ab-natural hazards. I explained that Molly and Maria’s job is to watch over us while we are mentally occupied; true enough with the concentration most of the rituals demand, we could hardly spot physically anything much less than a forest fire. It also gives our hosts a good reason to keep us together. Herr G seems to have taken us under his wing, so to speak – he has a sheaf of notes showing their progress so far – which he happily admitted he could show us since nobody in the world outside would believe it. Certainly not their main enemy Ioseph Starling, who is officially as “Godless” as it gets, and is at least unprejudiced in his dislike of all religions except his own Orthodoxy (having hunted out and exiled heretics such as Lev Trotsky, much to Liberty Morgenstern’s disgust). By his notes, we are just on the upper level of a great underground city heading down into the darkness; some of the passages have been physically explored and some “perceived by other means” as he puts it. In the films one half expects to see some high-technology automata sent trundling down the passage with a film camera whirring, as the skills Helen and I have learned are hardly photogenic. There are film cameras in use by the researchers, though by all accounts they do not capture much of what appears here, not even using the special film that our Archbishop Crowley has required for recording some of his Church festivals. It seems that Herr G is somewhat worried that he is not finding the right kind of revelations for his sponsors in Berlin. He was sent out to look for Thule in the cold waste, as confidently predicted in the legends – and although he has definitely found a lot, it refuses to fit the picture. If the carvings and pictographs had depicted primitive ice-bears and other polar fauna from times so ancient they made the Pyramids look like an Art Deco airport lounge, well and good – but they do not. Exactly what sort of furs built these triangular section tunnels is an interesting question – there are certain proportions in the architecture that look decidedly odd. I rather doubt there are any ancient forges lying handy with the tools and convenient manuals to build twentieth century versions of the Artefacts they are so keen to collect from ancient days. Eva Schiller may or may not want to grab the famous Horn of Heimdal from its reputed current address near Spontoon more than she wants to pass Songmark, but it is a close thing with her. Getting the user manual to make such things would surely be the ultimate prize. Actually, Herr G seems to have a rather unenviable job – other explorers just get asked to look at an area and report what is actually there – it seems this “Ahnenerbe” get told what to discover, regardless of whether it actually exists. Eva’s Uncle had the same trouble being asked to not only find King Solomon’s Mines, but prove they were entirely Germanic in origin (like everything else worthwhile in history, apparently. It was a surprise to me to hear wandering Germanic tribes built Atlantis, the Pyramids and all the Greek temples – it is a wonder they stopped short of building the Aztec ones). And considering the hazards of this Antarctic project merely start with the regular dangers of polar exploration and get worse the more he investigates – I am amazed they get any volunteers. It is just as well that Beryl is not here; to tease Eva she came up with the idea last term that King Solomon’s Mines were “obviously” in the Solomon Islands, and it seems some folk in the Reich take literal interpretations rather too far. When one pushes common-sense too far it breaks. After breakfast we struggled into our outdoor wear and followed Herr G and half a dozen researchers out along what had definitely been a lake shore; although we hear that most of the intact carvings are deep underground one gets a hint at there once having been great buildings here as big as anything in London with the worn-off stubs of what look like structures based on ground plans of cones and three-sided pyramids. There was one that had been reduced to its lowest course of masonry, great interlocked basalt blocks yards across weighing many tonnes rather reminiscent of Inca ruins but somehow stranger. Just what forces and how much sheer time must have been involved to wear away the rest, is something that makes one’s head spin. Apparently there have been “sightings” of things here; exactly what the sightings were is hard to say, as many researchers were left physically or mentally in no fit state to describe their experiences. This seems like a good area to avoid for a fur wishing to keep her health and sanity. Maria whispered that we might just as well be sent to clear landmines of alien design – which was rather painfully close to the truth. Still, play up and play the game! We are the guests here, and if we disappoint our hosts it might be rather worse than not being invited to call again. Unlike most folk we have some suitable skills and tools for the job, although they are not the kind of tools one finds in a Songmark workshop. The ruin was large, easily sixty paces across, and although the walls looked rather solid I could see that it had held chambers and passages at some time. Oddly I was reminded of those indestructible Maginot Line forts one sees in the newsreels; perhaps in untold time they will look like this, turrets and casemates defeated ultimately by Nature despite enduring everything warfare can possibly throw at them and with the underground galleries half choked by the debris of some new deluge or ice age. The Germans here have cleared glacial deposits away, exposing three, six and nine-sided chambers that have been mercifully eroded free of the carvings. I noticed that the black-furred greyhound was in our party and looking at everything very keenly – evidently he is what Maria translates as a “Standard Leader”, an odd sort of rank to have. One hears jokes about surplus officers having jobs invented to keep them on the payroll such as Officer In Charge of Flagpoles; this might be something of the kind and a reason furs would get sent down here if there is a glut of flag-wavers between parades. Certainly, there is much talked about their Chancellor wanting to expand his living-room, though I would doubt Antarctica is really suitable. If he had wanted to expand his kitchen with a walk-in deep freeze, that would be different. The greyhound is Standard-leader Schmidt, a surprisingly non-aristocratic name one might think – except that in theory we hear the Reich is as egalitarian as New Haven, being technically Socialist as well as more obviously National. Then, we hear all sorts of things down here. Officer Schmidt has a trio of young hares introduced as researchers of about our age with him who were introduced as Mindel, Riss and Wurm – somehow they had a familiar “feel” to them as Helen and I opened up our senses. I remembered the three highly efficient wolves Professor Schiller had with him on Cranium Island – they were not litter-mates physically, but in odd ways it felt as if we were talking to the same person when we talked to any of them. Professor Schiller did describe them as “a prototype” and it seems that whatever G-U-U may be, we have found another bunch. Helen and I sat down on to concentrate, insulated on bundles of rayon-fur spread over the ice; the more familiar sponge rubber matting snaps like dry toast at this temperature. We emptied our thoughts and started the rituals Saimmi had taught us – Herr G could probably spot us doing so but we scarcely worry as he already knows more or less what we do. It is no use to him; we are not qualified to teach if we wanted to and I rather doubt the Spontoonie Priestesses will be accepting Eva as a candidate - although on the snout of it the equally political Tatiana Bryzov looked as unlikely when we first met her and she has learned some skills they do not teach her in Moscow training schools. As we started to spread our senses out we definitely spotted that Mindel, Riss and Wurm are very odd-looking indeed when viewed that way. But they were the least of it – we very soon noticed that we were drawing some rather unwelcome attention from the neighbourhood. Molly was keeping a sharp lookout as ever, and she says that the first things she noticed were shadows. Small things, like the shadows of drifting pieces of rags tumbling in the breeze – but there were no rags there, only the shadows. They first appeared far out on the ice, looking a little like the dappled shade cast by branches tossing in the wind – but there are no trees growing here, and have not been since the first ice filled these tunnels. The fluttering things circled, surrounding us at about eighty yards out. Then they began to close in. When we looked at them using other ways than our eyes, my tail bristled out with shock and Helen’s was quick to copy it. Exactly what the shadows were I can scarcely describe – except they were nothing like what we faced beneath Krupmark (our skills had not let us see what was on Cranium Island, probably just as well for our ability to sleep at nights). They were absolutely nothing to do with any sort of Thule that Herr G and Professor Schiller were looking for – without exactly knowing how I knew that these were not products of any beings at all like us in any ancestral form. The triangular section tunnels and odd proportions of the buildings suddenly made sense all too clearly, and in that instant I knew that we were in deadly danger – as much as on either of our trips to retrieve the Fragments, and this time there was no skilled Priestess to lead us. Helen is a fraction sharper than me at such things, and was a word or two ahead in a protective chant that I joined in – for a few seconds it looked as if we might as well have relied on one of those dusty old electric pentacles that was reputedly so unsuccessful covering the dark shaft in the tunnel complex beneath us. The shadows began to change form, and circled nearer – we realised that trying to run for it would not be a useful option. What the old books used to call the “tensions” were getting extreme – running across a high-voltage line would have been more survivable. As soon as the shadows had appeared, the Germans closed ranks around us, grimly observing as if they were in a trench seeing a tank rolling towards them with nowhere to run and just hoping the defences hold up. Helen and I were in the centre with Molly and Maria at our sides facing out – the Germans were in a circle round us except for the three snow-hares who moved to the outside points, wordlessly stepping into position. Nobody panicked, which was just as well. It was extremely strange. I could see just what energies were being thrown into this – everyone’s exposed fur was standing on end and crackling with static sparks, and that was only the tiniest side-effect. I sensed that Riss, Mindel and Wurm were doing something, but it was as if it was on a differently tuned radio channel, with just side-bands and harmonics leaking through to our senses. They were focussing in a strange way – it was as if they were scooping energy like snow out of the air and crushing it tighter and tighter into a snowball, pulling Will together into a form as hard and cold as glacier ice. There was a sensation as if something was standing behind them – or more as if something was flowing into them, in a shape like lightning-edged spread black wings on their backs. Whatever they were doing, it was none too soon – the shadows were getting almost close enough to touch – a whirling wall of shadow which looked insubstantial as the blur of a running propeller but just as lethal to step into. Helen and I stepped up to a chant Priestess Oharu taught us before our Krupmark raid – and for perhaps ten minutes we held up, though I was tiring fast and was feeling like we usually do after three laps of Main Island with packs full of wet sand. The consequences of falling today were more than the usual loss of points. It was as if the hares were rocks jutting into a stream, with a torrent deflected around them; our protections had barely kept us safe from being overwhelmed but they were pushing it back. Very suddenly it was over – the black wall vanished like mist in the sun, and four of us collapsed very like wet rags – the hares and me. It had been an awfully close-run thing. I had been worked very hard when Saimmi tested us before we went after the Krupmark fragment, but nothing like this. Helen was down to her knees gasping in exhaustion but I was out flat, Maria rolling me off the ice and back onto the rayon silk mats. It felt much colder, but that might have been my own exhaustion. In ten minutes I could sit up again; fortunately nothing else appeared to worry us as everyone was drained and could hardly stand let alone fight anything off. Maria whispered that this was getting entirely too Adventurous – and I could quite agree with her. We came within a whisker’s worth of destruction there, without a doubt. Helen announced that everything seemed quiet for the moment, so we all took the chance to leave and head back to the relative safety of the empty chambers the expedition is living in. I must say, Herr G was very eager to help us out – there was about a pint of hot beef tea awaiting us, which went down with thanks. Mindel, Wurm and Riss were still out cold, and had needed stretchers to bring them back in. While we warmed our paws, Helen and I tried to put our thoughts in order about what we had seen, both with the “Native” forces and the Germans. Very definitely we have seen their like before, though Professor Schiller’s trio had not shown their “special” abilities in front of us. Maria could not see exactly what they did, but listened avidly to our description and mused that they talk a lot about “The Will” but evidently they mean something more tangible around here than ordinary determination. One thing they have not got out here is much in the way of bathing facilities, not surprisingly. I could have used a deep soak after the mornings’ experiences; doing this kind of thing in Antarctica one really understands the meaning of cold sweat. The rooms were chilly but draught-free so it was tolerable to at least strip down to the fur for a thorough grooming. Dry fur is the best insulation, and despite our fairly efficient Polar costumes we need all the help we can get. I had just dressed again when there came a knock on the door – to our surprise it was the middle-aged hare we had seen evidently arguing against us being here, and with him a younger terrier girl. It turned out the terrier was the interpreter – she is a young researcher originally from one of the Berlin museums, who caught the attention of her superiors for her skill with ancient scripts. It seems her life got rather more interesting shortly after that – as our pal Li Han says, the original Chinese curse says in full “May you live in Interesting Times, get everything you wished for and attract the attention of those in power.” I doubt many furs ever wished for a job beyond the edge of the map surrounded by forces like these – but it is certainly on the cutting edge of research, albeit a sharp cutting edge with no safety guards. Though the hare seemed very ill-at-ease, we made introductions – his protégé is Greta Muller, and he is Hans Klammer – both of them from Berlin, though Mr. Klammer rose to his current rank fighting Reds in the backstreets ten years ago rather than cataloguing antiquities. When this part of the world was claimed by Germany and expeditions started going out in 1934 he was appointed as security here, mostly because the Government seem distrustful of possibly apolitical or suspect scientists heading out doing their own thing and possibly finding powerful items. In fact he sounds rather like one of Ioseph Starling’s Commissars sent out to the furthest reaches to keep an eye on what the troops and workers are really doing. Mr. Klammer may be in the same party as Standard-Leader Schmidt, but apparently it is rather like the two rival Secret Police organisations on Vostok, except that Mr. Klammer’s organisation came off the worst recently in a rather bloody palace coup (not that any palaces were involved). Now it seems he is kept on for his local knowledge and abilities, but the Ahnenerbe has taken over what was a fairly standard expedition run by the museums’ teams. This, though he told them there was no possibility of the ruins being anything connected with ancestral Germans. He would have liked to find that himself, he admits, but he believes what his “eggheads” tell him. What everyone really wanted was some vestige of a former world of primal barbarians in now ice-submerged lands like those pulp comics which illustrate the dashing tales of Mr. Howard’s Conan – not eldritch vaults burrowed by things like a far larger and more intelligent version of the builders of coral reefs. Miss Muller seems quite bright and cheerful considering her situation; Molly asked her what life was like down here, and she seems to have the impression it is rather a modern Valhalla of heroes. If by heroic one means going into impossible dangers for causes that will never personally benefit you, that may be. She says the expedition is “tough as Krupp Steel” due to its carefully chosen members free of all taint. However she defines that. Maria muttered in Spontoonie that she probably means everyone is purely pedigree to ludicrous generations, and none of them are Reds, freemasons or other proscribed groups. Considering Krupp Steel gets its strength from careful alloys of exotic elements, they could have chosen a better comparison – pure metals are generally weak. In our Spontoon metalworking classes we have handled pieces of almost totally pure iron which is used for transformer cores and other electrical applications, and they can bend as easily as copper. Anyway, Mr. Klammer seems happier on deciding that we are not secret agents from New South Zion after all (not that we would tell him if we were) and seem to think via Maria that we are at least neutrals if not allies. I am not going to mention we will report to Mr. Sapohatan as well as well as Saimmi and if there is anything of interest Major Hawkins will have to know. Maria reports to her Uncle, but everyone expects that. Interestingly we hear that Herr G is not a “simple researcher” after all, but the head of this bodyguard unit down here and Officer Schmidt’s superior despite not wearing uniform, black or any other. One hardly expects mice to be in such exalted positions, at least traditionally in Europe. Then, one sees on the newsreels the Reich has a very mixed bag of leadership who are a long way off the physical ideals they put on the propaganda posters – there is not a polar bear or snow wolf among them, and one is a decidedly undersized rooster who is no heroic-looking vulpine warrior but originally a none too prosperous chicken farmer. We had an hour with Miss Muller and her boss, quizzing each other. She was very eager to hear about Songmark, but I think we quite shocked her with our descriptions of the rather mixed bunch all studying and living together. Definitely we kept quiet about Prudence’s dorm, and indeed Red Dorm – I get the impression around here furs believe in guilt by association, and this is not the place to mention the Reds and Anarchists we know. Still, Eva Schiller seems to be the local version of highly respectable and she chose to apply to Songmark, and more surprisingly our Tutors let her in. Before she arrived I had been sure Songmark had given up on recruiting from the more politically aligned countries after Maria joined – but Songmark and thus Spontoon learns a lot from the girls, more than they probably expect they are letting slip. At least it can enliven a dull afternoon, putting someone like Liberty Morgenstern in with Eva Schiller, and possibly throwing in Rosa the anarchist into the mix. There are three furs who are never a loss as to what to say to each other. (Later) An excellent and large meal of noodles and “Curry-wurst” * in the main chambers was made livelier by a shouting match between the rival groups here. It seems our arrival has rather brought things to a head, more so in that we are not just observers but did quite well today. Suddenly everyone has vital areas of study they want our help with – it is nice to be in demand! * (Editor’s note: German “Curry-wurst” is a strange dish involving bratwurst style sausages in a sauce apparently made from tomato ketchup with yellowish curry powder stirred in. A fine enough snack, but not a curry that anyone on the Indian subcontinent would recognise…) next |