Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [92]
Then, could the object in fact be an iceberg? Was it possible to designate it as such in the absence of an ocean? And if not, how should it be designated? She felt her mind move into a frenzied Socratic dialogue, feeding on itself and becoming ever more urgent. She must determine if there was, in fact, no ocean. Empirical evidence. Prove it for certain, one way or another.
She took a step and very nearly collapsed. Something was broken-leg, ankle... something-but it couldn't be allowed to stop her. She would use the pain, turn it to her own ends, create from it a focusing lens that forced her to concentrate on her quest. With each agonizing step, her mind would fixate more intently on the task at hand, narrowing the beam of determination until it was an unstoppable laser point. And so, in that cruel way, she made her way forward. Several truths began to reveal themselves. The first validated her single-minded undertaking: there was a body of water present-probably a vast body of water-that was frozen over. The iceberg (yes, now definitely deserving that definition) jutted from its depths, but she could see surrounding it other holes in the ice sheet, holes and cracks, long, ragged gashes through which the dark liquid below was seeping, as though a giant had plunged a massive pick through the ice, over and over, cracking it open in an orgy of destruction, and the more she looked the more holes she saw, larger holes, huge holes, holes that were smoking as though the water were boiling from below, over some unseen flame.
The second truth was that her mind wasn't working properly. More than her body had been injured; she must have sustained a concussion. What was this mad determination to prove an iceberg was an iceberg? She was losing rationality. She had to begin functioning, to treat her wounds and get shelter; she'd be dead from hypothermia before long if she simply stood and stared at her iceberg.
She tried to reason through this strange conundrum in which she found herself. Something had broken through the ice sheet. That's why the water was turbulent, why the ice was so mutilated. Parts of the ship she'd been on must have rained down on a vulnerable section of the frozen sea and ripped it apart, superheated from flaming entry into the atmosphere, steaming the water into a huge, heaving cauldron. Parts of the ship she'd been on. What ship was it? She looked around her at the scattered debris; only one section, the empennage she'd been sitting on, was intact. She noted a console that still flickered, partially functional, but the rest of the rubble that was strewn about was in pieces smaller than a meter square.
Where was the main cabin?
Who was the pilot?
What was the last thing she remembered before standing alone in this vast, ice-shrouded wilderness in front of a steaming vat of black water? Suddenly she wondered if the lionfish was in that water, parboiled now, flesh flaking off the bone, sightless eyes running like jelly. And then the third truth, like a hideous specter that looms in a nightmare, stood dancing before her, monstrous and obscene.
Her father. Her husband-to-be. They were in the cabin of the ship. They were now entombed beneath that ravaged sheet of ice. Her mind instantly became lucid and crystalline. She knew with awful clarity what she must do next. She lifted her broken leg and began to stamp it on the ground beneath her, gently at first, then harder and harder, be- cause only the excruciating pain that she was inflicting on herself stood any chance of offsetting the third truth. Brutal physical torture could demand her full mind and keep it from acknowledging the third truth; and in that way, she kept the specter dancing in front of her, at a distance, unable to overwhelm her, until the pain obliterated her consciousness. As she sank to the ice, just before blacking out, she realized that her iceberg was