The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,

weeks. We take the remainder, and we leave tomorrow." "Why not today?" "Because the tractor is at present unfit for winter travel, especially travel with ten passengers. It's still got the canvas hood on it that it had when we hauled stuff up from the coast. We have the prefabricated wooden sides and top that we need to arcticise it, plus the bunks and portable stove, but it will take several hours." "We start on that now?" "Soon. But first your luggage. We'll go out to the plane now, and bring that back." "Thank goodness for that," Mrs Dansby-Gregg said stiffly. "I was beginning to think I'd never see my stuff again." "Oh, you will," I said. "Briefly." "Just what do you mean by that?" she asked suspiciously. "I mean that you'll all put on as many clothes as you're able to stagger about in," I said. "Then you have a small attache-case for your valuables, if you have any. The rest of the stuff we'll have to abandon. This is no Cook's tour. We'll have no room on the tractor." "Butbut I have, clothes worth hundreds of pounds," she protested angrily. "Hundreds?Thousands would be nearer it. I have a Balenciaga alone that cost over five hundred pounds, not to mention" "How much do you reckon your own life is worth?" Zagero said shortly. He grinned. "Or maybe we should abandon you and save the Balenciaga. Better still, wear it on top of everythingyou know, how the well-dressed woman leaves the ice-cap." "Excruciatingly funny." She stared at him icily. "Frequently fracture myself," Zagero agreed. "Can I give you a hand with the stuff, Doc?" "You stay here, Johnny Zagero!" Solly Levin jumped up in agitation. "One little slip on that ice" "Calm yourself, calm yourself." Zagero patted his shoulder. "Merely goin' in a supervisory capacity, Solly. How about it, Doc?" "Thanks. You want to come, Mr Corazzini?" I could see he was already struggling into a parka. "I'd be glad to. Can't sit here all day." "These cuts on your head and hands aren't sealed yet. They'll sting like the devil when you get out into this cold." "Got to get used to it, haven't I? Lead the way." The airliner, crouching in the snow like some great polaroid digital camera filter wounded bird, was faintly visible in the twilight now, seven or eight hundred yards away to the north-east, port wing-tip facing us, lying at exactly right angles to our line of sight. There was no saying how often we might have to go out there, the quasi daylight would be gone in another hour or so, and it seemed pointless to follow in darkness the zigzag route we had been compelled to make the previous night, so with help from Zagero and Corazzini I staked out a route, with bamboo markers about five yards apart, straight out to the plane. Some of the bamboos I fetched from the tunnel, but most of them were transplanted from the positions where they had been stuck the previous night. Inside the plane itself it was as cold as the tomb and as dark as the tomb. One side of the plane was already thickly sheeted in drift ice, and all the windows were completely blanked off, made opaque, by rime frost. In the light of a couple of torches we ourselves moved around like spectres, our heads enveloped in the clouds of our frozen breath, clouds that remained hanging almost stationary above our heads. In the silence we could faintly hear the crackling of our breath in the super-chilled air, followed by the curious wheezing noise that men make in very low temperatures when they were trying not to breathe too deeply. "God, this is a ghastly place," Zagero said. He shivered, whether or not from cold it was impossible to say, and flashed his torch at the dead man sitting in the back seat. "Are weare we going to leave them there, Doc?" "Leave them?" I dumped a couple of attache-cases on to the pile we were making in the front seat. "What on earth do you mean?" I don't know, I thoughtwell, we buried the second officer this morning, and"Bury them? The ice-cap will bury them soon enough. In six months' time this plane will have drifted over and be vanished for ever. But I agreelet's get out of here. Give anyone the creeps." As I made my way to the front I saw Corazzini, a doleful look on his face, shaking an ebonite and metal portable radio and listening to the rattling that came from inside. "Another casualty?" I inquired. "Afraid so." He twiddled some dials, without result. "Battery and mains model. A goner, Doc. Valves, I expect. Still, I'll tote it alongcost me two hundred dollars two days ago." Two hundred?" I whistled. "You should have bought two. Maybe Joss can give you some