Today...
"Didn't you tell me that the weather was milder in summer?"
The youngest member of the team, Jürgen Biserten, briskly rubbed his hands together. Even though he was wearing waterproof gloves, his hands were freezing cold and he was doing everything he could to warm them up.
"Oh, don't complain, at least there's light. During the winter, the snow covers everything and the sun only comes out occasionally," replied professor Olaf Fitsier, the expedition leader. "It's virtually the same now, but different."
"What do you mean, different?"
"Yes, don't you see you can make out the ground between the patches of snow?"
"That's all?"
"That's it," the professor declared.
Jürgen never stopped wondering why his professor had asked him to accompany him. He wasn't a brilliant student by any means and only wanted the degree to secure a job as a history professor in some small school so he wouldn't have to lead a complicated life.
Maybe he brought me out here to motivate me, or punish me, he thought to himself.
One objective of this expedition made up of four scientists, six soldiers and captain Frederick Johansen of the Royal Norwegian Navy was to study the limited flora and fauna on the island. The other was to investigate the remains of an ancient settlement, supposedly Viking in origin, that one of the meteorologists who worked at the weather station on the southern part of the island had discovered by accident. The weather station was the expedition's departure point.
"How is that a meteorologist knows so much about Vikings?" asked Erika Oriksen.
The brilliant young archaeologist, who loved glazed donuts and Swiss chocolates, couldn't believe professor Olaf would have assembled an expedition in such a rush and based on such limited evidence. She would follow him to the ends of the earth, although it struck her as very strange that such a meticulous scholar so widely respected among his peers in the worldwide scientific community would risk his reputation by wasting his time on investigating the crazy ideas of some amateur. The photographs he received by e-mail were hardly conclusive and didn't show any signs that it might be a Viking settlement. They looked more like the remains of an impromptu whaling port, abandoned over 150 years ago.
"Sometimes we have to follow our instincts and take a chance," the professor answered.
"But that isn't what you taught us. You told us that absolute certainty is what leads to success and builds a reputation," Erica replied.
The professor looked at her out of the corner of his eye, smiling.
"It could be that I'm getting old, you know."
The soldiers had unloaded all their equipment by now and the two sailors on board the boat that had brought them ashore waved goodbye. The cruiser Salt Marsh had orders to leave the expedition on land and give them support from sea. But when a destroyer suffered an accident in the waters off Greenland, the ship had to rush away in a hurry, without being sure exactly when it would come back.
Better that way. If they're not lurking around here, they won't get mixed up in my affairs, the professor thought.
The fourth member of the team, Hans Yuvin, a professional adventurer and sometimes bon vivant, was in charge of security for the members of the scientific team. An expert in survival in areas with extreme weather, he turned out to be the perfect candidate for the job, both for his physical attributes and his inclination not to ask too many questions.
The most suspicious thing about the whole affair was when the captain and his men joined them. The meteorologists running the weather station had suddenly stopped transmitting their reports. The Norwegian government initially sent planes on a reconnaissance mission to determine what had happened. But the visibility was terrible so they didn't know if it was a breakdown in the broadcast antenna, some kind of radio failure, or something else entirely. It was as if the island was empty.