Grueberfest 07 - Infinite Horizon (761 hits)
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Submitted by Fungah (View user info) at 2007-10-08 13:55:49 EDT
It had been over a month since I'd left her there in that field to die. Her screams stayed with me at bedside as I slept. I didn't know if she'd ever went to find her husband, crossed those frigid, Icelandic fjords and plains. It was at this time, after the thirtieth restless night filled with strange dreams of green lights, and strange tripodal beings that I decided to set out on my own to finish her mission.
I am forced into speech on this topic because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my my reasons for this contemplated invasion of the Icelandic - with its vast fossil hunt and wholesale melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am more reluctant because I fear my warnings may be in vain. He woke something up out there, beneath the glacial ice. Something old, very, very old...
In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weigh my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and over-ambitious program in the region of those fjords of madness.
I will state here that though I am an educated woman, my area of expertise falls far outside the circle of this endeavor. To go as deep into this frigid wilderness as I had wanted was something few had ever done before. I assembled a professional team of those as foolhardy as myselves, all holders of doctorates from prestigious universities, with degrees ranging from paleontology to biochemistry.
We brought with us seven dog-sled teams, and four large Dornier airplanes, designed especially for the for the tremendous altitude flying necessary on the antarctic plateau and with added fuelwarming and quick-starting devices.
We planned to cover as great an area as one Icelandic season - or longer, if absolutely necessary - would permit, operating mostly in the mountain ranges and on the plateau south of North Atlantic Ocean; regions explored in varying degree by Ingólfur Arnarson.
We left by steamer in the early hours of the morning of July 10th, hoping to arrive in the frigid updraft of the cruel Icelandic summer. Our trip from St. John's Newfoundland was uneventful, but a thin, misty dread seemed to hang over the crew. I could hear Shackleford - his cabin located next to mine, screaming nightly, his cries growing louder as we approached the Reykjavikian plateau, with its craggy line of mountains tearing upwards and out into the east.
On the 7th of August, sight of the westward range having been temporarily lost, we passed Franklin Island; and the next day descried the cones of Mts. Erebus and Terror on Grimsey Island ahead, with the long line of the Svefn Mountains beyond. There now stretched off to the east the low, white line of the great ice barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, and marking the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered Skaftafell Sound and stood off the coast in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus. The scoriac peak towered up some twelve thousand, seven hundred feet against the eastern sky, like a Japanese print of the sacred Fujiyama, while beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude, and now extinct as a volcano.
Puffs of smoke from Erebus came intermittently, and one of the graduate assistants - a brilliant young fellow named Danforth - pointed out what looked like lava on the snowy slope, remarking that this mountain, discovered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the source of Poe's image when he wrote seven years later:
- the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the Icelandic pole.
We brought the steamer round, and made camp at the base of this towering mountain range. Our base camp was a clustering of goretex tents made to withstand the biting chill of bitter, Icelandic night winds. Work began immediately, as me, Danforth and Daneskjold, our native Icelandic guide, began clearing a runway for the planes we would need for our exploration to land. The brunt of our provisions were kept aboard the S.S. Ghola, a determined, steely steamer that floated just within eye-sight of the plateau we had chosen to build our temporary home upon.
The task of fully preparing this camp was an arduous one that lasted the better part of two weeks. The only sounds that percolated through the desolate and bitter night air while we slept were the howl of the winds and the scarcely audible undercurrent of a hum, like a woofer drawing too much energy from a generator. This hum seemed to peak, and fade back into the white noise of the usual cacophony of winds, before picking up power and cresting again.
At length, after settling into our camp, we resolved to carry out our original plan of flying five hundred miles eastward with all four exploring planes and establishing a fresh sub-base at a point which would probably be on the smaller continental division, as we mistakenly conceived it.
Lake left the following day, with Preston and McWilliger aboard, as did the rest of the team save me and Daneskjold, who stayed behind to monitor the radio reports. I had asked to stay behind, faced with a heart-palpitating fear of flying and a love for the ground.
Later that night Lake broke the radio silence.
"You can't imagine anything like this. Highest peaks must go over thirtyfive
thousand feet. Everest out of the running. Atwood to work out height with theodolite while Carroll and I go up. Probably wrong about cones, for formations look stratified. Possibly pre-Cambrian slate with other strata mixed in. Queer skyline effects - regular sections of cubes clinging to highest peaks. Whole thing marvelous in red-gold light of low sun. Like land of mystery in a dream or gateway to forbidden world of untrodden wonder. Wish you were here to see. Long train of snow indentations wind up the peak. What looks like base camps dotted at random intervals up to the precipice.
Odd formations on slopes of highest mountains. Great low square blocks with exactly vertical sides, and rectangular lines of low, vertical ramparts, like the old Asian castles clinging to steep mountains in Roerich's paintings. Impressive from distance. Flew close to some, and Carroll thought they were formed of smaller separate pieces, but that is probably weathering. Most edges crumbled and rounded off as if exposed to storms
and climate changes for millions of years.
Jane, I don't know what your friend found out here, but I've never seen anything like this. Parts, especially upper parts, seem to be of lighter-colored rock than any visible strata on slopes proper, hence of evidently crystalline origin. Close flying shows many cave mouths, some unusually regular in outline, square or semicircular. You must come and investigate. Think I saw rampart squarely on top of one peak. Height seems about thirty thousand to thirtyfive thousand feet. Am up twenty-one thousand, five hundred myself, in devilish, gnawing cold. Wind whistles and pipes through passes and in and
out of caves, but no flying danger so far. There's signs of habitation everywhere. There's red stains with every base camp, whole clusters of tents and the thick furs of yetis. I don't know what he's found here, or what he's doing."
From then on for another half hour Lake kept up a running fire of comment, and
expressed his intention of climbing some of the peaks on foot. I replied that I would join
him as soon as he could send a plane, and that Daneskjold and I would work out the best
gasoline plan - just where and how to concentrate our supply in view of the expedition's
altered character.
The camp was in a frenzy as Lake and the others returned, and preparations were made to move further inland, down the mountain ranges to scale this new peak. There was excited talk of what this find would mean to the team of scientists we were camping with, but the only thought that ran through my head was the thought of finding the man that had caused his wife to ramble incoherently in a field she had set ablaze, and to sit there, motionless, as the flames closed in around her.
Indeed, her face so serene and motionless was the only thing that flitted through my mind as I sat staring out the plane window, Lake at the wheel and Daneskjold on my side. It was only the sweeping rise of Lake's mountain that swept me from my daydreaming fugue, that towering and cyclopean behemoth.
I will write now that when faced with that kind daunting horror one should do the sensible thing and turn the other way, go back to whence one came. It sprang forth from the earth like an infinite horizon to slowly block out the view of anything beyond, and throw all sunlight around itself like a cloak to be covered in shadow.
Lake's description had been accurate to the point of being eery. Much of the mountain seemed man-made, hacked from the primordial granite in great blocks and parapets. We were able to find a section of stone to land upon, some twenty thousand feet above sea level.
The block, at once perfectly flat and monstrous was at least three miles long by one thick, and seemed to jut out at an angle from the mountain, suspended in the air by, seemingly, the thing connection at its base to the mountain itself.
Our makeshift runway ran flat towards an open cave mouth that seemed squarely etched into the mountain. There was an irrefutable sense of trespass as soon as we landed, and though none of us put it into words we all seemed to know we were walking on something not built by the hands of men.
Lake radioed the other men, and within an hour three of our planes had set down, the last waiting at the base of the mountain to set up our alternative base-camp, and ready to fly at the slightest word of emergency.
After much debate it was decided that Lake, Daneskjold and myself would be the first to enter into the cave-mouth at the end of the runway. The rest would set up camp near the planes and be in constant radio contact with us. We waited the night out and as dawn began creeping over the precipice and spilling onto the runway I was awoken by my own screams and the flaming image of my once room-mate spilling into my thoughts like that sunlight over the edge.
Steeling ourselves for what we would find, me, Daneskjold and Lake walked over the snow-covered and circular etchings that we assured ourselves were simply scarred by the winds at this obscene altitude, and entered into the cave.
End of Part 2.
User Reviews
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-12 09:54:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-10-11 16:20:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
very nice. I liked the conversational quality.
Submitted by pshuu (user info) at 2007-10-09 10:59:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like this part of the story. Very well-written.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-10-09 10:41:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-10-09 10:28:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for writing something with an ultra cliche'd title.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-09 08:26:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2007-10-09 06:09:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2007-10-08 20:44:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:31:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I would like, be happy to like, ya know, feed you the feedback whenever you need, ya know, like, the feedback, brother-dude.
***********&&&&&&&&&&
Take note!!! The above is the intellectual rating of a recent competitor in local contests.
His edjukation and Eye-cue be showin', an'shit. . .,
<fucking dipshit>
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-10-08 19:22:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
auto +2 for too much high end vocabulary
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-08 18:37:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 because that title ROCKS!
:)
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 18:12:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Joseph Conrad, heart of darkness
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-08 17:02:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Auto fjords +2.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:41:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
hahahahaha
Who was the first one?
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:27:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm really not trying to be that discrete about ripping people off in this contest.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:25:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Nah. Not at all.
But few people would know a photo of him. I recognized the text far faster than the photo.
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:24:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:23:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Fungah, this is too much of a rip-off of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness"
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Shit, I guess his picture staring out of the post was a dead giveaway wasn't it?
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:23:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Fungah, this is too much of a rip-off of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness"
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-10-08 16:02:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Lake's description had been accurate to the point of being eery.
*eerie
yeah, I am the asshole who points out dumb shit, even though it takes away nothing from the story.
Trippy story by the way
*high five*
*to the side*
*to the other side*
*down low*
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:31:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I would like, be happy to like, ya know, feed you the feedback whenever you need, ya know, like, the feedback, brother-dude.
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:25:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Oh, and I wasn't going to comment on what I'm doing here, and I'm going to continue being a little mysterious about it, but read between the lines and both of these fragments will make a fuck of a lot more sense.
This may require wikipedia.
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:22:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:11:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Can't rate this higher than 0.
Too many uses of high end vocabulary, and too little draw to keep me interested. I support using higher vocabulary in everyday speech and writing, but this was just overkill.
In short, I didn't like it, but maybe others will.
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Dude, like, I wrote this an hour or two ago, but man, since then I just got back from this wicked sesh, so like, man, maybe I should like, re-write it with my new vocabulary man. I appreciate the feedback dude, it's like, we're all just brothers, man, like, we're all part of the same organism man, ya dig?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:16:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:11:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"...high end vocabulary... ...higher vocabulary..."
--
*bursts out in hooting laughter like an aroused New World monkey, falls onto floor in tears*
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-08 15:11:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Can't rate this higher than 0.
Too many uses of high end vocabulary, and too little draw to keep me interested. I support using higher vocabulary in everyday speech and writing, but this was just overkill.
In short, I didn't like it, but maybe others will.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-08 14:29:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2007-10-08 14:08:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Part 1:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/112200