Since the sharp outlines of Spitsbergen appeared at the horizon, I’ve kept myself ready for ambush. The pistol strapped to my leg is sealed with a new membrane. My rifle is wrapped in strips of white linen, waterproofed with a new membrane, and never leaves the grip of my right hand. Any part of me that’s not covered in white fur, is cloaked with shreds of white cloth. The sled is white, the remaining four dogs are white, light grey, and cream-coloured. We’re hard to spot.
The transition from sea ice to the snow-covered beach of Edgeøya is almost unnoticeable. We come to a halt and I signal to Katvar to stay low while I scan the island. My scope shows me nothing but virgin white wherever I look. I take my time, but can’t find footprints of anything larger than a fox.
We transverse Edgeøya with ears pricked and eyes sharp. Katvar does a good job keeping the dogs quiet, he huffs and clicks, and the animals seem to sense his urgency. He shot an arctic fox earlier this morning and barely had time to wipe the blood off the arrow before the starving dogs demanded their share. The small animal was eaten all too quickly.
We cross Storfjorden and cover another forty kilometres inland before stopping for the night. We dig a snow cave, the dogs curl up in their snow holes, and soon we’ve all disappeared from the face of Svalbard.
Katvar has been waiting for me to speak since we prepared dinner. But I’m silent. I don’t know how to tell him that I’ll go alone from now on, that I’m not the heroine he thinks I am, that I’m not even brave enough to watch him die at the hands of Erik or one of his men.
So I sneak under his furs and into his embrace, quietly making love to him until we both tire and he falls asleep. When his breathing grows slow and regular, I start counting to one hundred. At one hundred and one, I dress and leave.
Green and purple streak across the night sky and dimly reflect off the snow. I could sit here and watch the spectacle for hours, waiting for Katvar to wake from his slumber so I can see the northern lights shine in his dark eyes once more.
It’s hard to take the first step. The second is a little lighter. Sneaking past the dogs isn’t hard at all — they are wary of me and try to be invisible when they spot me. I’m the one who pulls the knife through their throats. Not anymore. I’m glad these four are still around. I don’t want Katvar to die alone.
Maybe he can even make it back. There’s time to chop a lot of ice holes and catch a lot of fish when you don’t have to hurry to the BSA’s satellite control centre. With only four dogs and one man to feed, it might just be possible for him to survive.
Twenty paces from our camp, I strap on my skis, pull my shawl over my face and set off.
The ascent is gentle, a mere two hundred metres in ten kilometres; my legs barely notice it. The disadvantageous view puts me on edge. I’m much more visible down here than anyone hiding at Longyearbyen observatory.
The more than sixty antennas point at the sky — some of them white spheres looking as if someone has pulled a prank and rolled humongous snowballs onto an plain, others straight and black like dry willow twigs. What once was Norway’s control centre for the European Defence and Aerospace Agency, is now the BSA’s only means to download and upload data to Earth’s satellite network. No one but Erik, Jeremiah, Silas, and I know about its existence and half of these people are now dead.
There’s just one problem: getting in is impossible. Or would be impossible if it weren’t for the secret tunnel that stretches between the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the control centre’s main server room.
The entrance is a dark concrete block tucked safely against the hillside. Red graffiti sprawls over its smooth walls, telling survivors of the World Wars that all food is already gone, that they don’t need to bother trying to get in.
When my fingers touch the concrete, memories begin to flood my vision. I push them aside and inspect the high-security entrance and the small duct that leads to the ventilation unit.
The vault was designed to withstand all kinds of disasters, including floods caused by climate disruption, fires, explosions and even nuclear holocausts. But the architects and engineers hadn’t considered the inventiveness of desperately starved people. To them, the Global Seed Vault was just another root cellar. It didn’t take them long to get inside the vault and gobble down the most diverse and expensive porridge in human history.
Now, everything looks precisely as it did when I last saw it. I’m still surprised Erik let me out of this place alive. When he took over the island, he got the Vault’s security entrance reinstalled, and shot the men who built it the moment they’d finished the job. I call that some serious trust issues. And yet, he made me his student, he let me out alive and brought me to his headquarters. I never learned why; now this bugs me more than ever. When I think about him, his aloof, cajoling, and restrained character, the dishonesty and maliciousness overlaid with extreme attentiveness — I never really knew who was sitting across from me. I never knew what he wanted from me or what his goals were. And I still don’t.
When I walk up to the heavy steel door, uncap the scanner, and place my right eye over it, I realise that I might be stepping right into Erik’s trap.
A pinprick of blue light runs over my retina. A green light blinks. There’s a bleep, a hiss, and the door cracks open. Did Jeremiah do a good job or did Erik allow me in? Are both options possible?
I exhale and take my first step into the dark corridor. Terror creeps in. My senses snap wide open. It’s as if I’ve been thrown into the Vault and back in time. Two years. So much has happened.