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Concavenator:
The hours of night went by. When the clock announced the beginning of the new day, both travellers stirred from the torpor with greater ease than ever, and rushed to break open the shell of packed snow that had sheltered them. The air outside was still cold and bitter, and the snowfields still bathed in a dim blue, but its taste had shifted somewhat. The spring solar cycles were well underway, now; it would not take long for sunlight to take possession of land, as it already had on the wind-scoured coast. Going by Giya's estimates, it was quite possible to reach the edge of the ice that very day; if not, the next one. It was a thrilling thought.
pinkgothic:
The moods of the seasons were part of 'ikra nature, but there was an absolute brutality to the stubborn darkness of winter that even adaption did not let Kukri shake. The dirty band of blue the vaguely suggested sunlight felt ever-present, the tick of the clock arbitrary and artificial. The hope was real, though, even though the visible weather currently still scoffed at the idea that today might be different than the ones before.
Kukri could feel hunger gnawing at her innards, but it was far from all-consuming. It was a reminder that she was doing more physical work on this trek than she was accustomed to, burning more fuel than she might strictly like. She knew to indulge her body once the sensation became stronger, but for the moment, it was more valuable for them to continue.
They were getting increasingly good at packing their belongings for the trek, and in a few minutes they were back to their walk, trekking across the landscape as surely as though someone had built a road for them to follow, or otherwise marked their way.
Concavenator:
The rocky ground was uneven and tilted every way, but at least the snow wasn't very deep, and indeed the wind had swept many places clear. They came across more scattered boulders and vast piles of gravel that must have slid from the upper ground over the centuries. Massive things, blotting out the stars when one walked beneath the boulders, or shifting treacherously underfoot when one crossed the gravel fields, tossed around like children toys.
When the sun appeared, red and fuming, in the haze of the north, the travelers allowed themselves a brief rest. They sat on a flat limestone slab and tore strips of dried meat; the best ones they kept for the meal at the glacier, of course. The last part of the trek, while not worse than wading through the snow, would still take plenty of exertion; the meat finished, Kukri discreetely swallowed a couple of gizzard stones from her own portable box, to help with digestion. She offered the box to Giya, who most likely had always had to make good with random pebbles.
The apprehension before the printed mountains, the frightful yachakri fight, they were vanishing along with the winter night. They could do it. It was going well.
pinkgothic:
Kukri could feel the promise of a full-body ache resting in her joints. It wasn't the first time she was out in the field, but it had been the most gruelling trek her body had seen as of yet. It might become a problem on the way back, but it was - had to be - a bridge to cross once they got there. The knowledge that they would be heading back would hopefully buoy her when push came to shove.
But for now, a promise was all it was, and they could continue.
Kukri imagined that her own weariness was quite visible and, in turn, thought that she could see little of it in Giya. For a woman as undernourished as that, Giya was remarkably resilient. Kukri might have been envious, had she not been aware of the price it had come at.
They could have easily made vapid conversation. She could have asked how Giya was faring. She could have made observations of the path ahead of them that both of them could see with their own eyes. No, a grateful gesture to her companion would do for now, as they rose for the last stretch of their journey into the heart of the ice.
Concavenator:
The last few hours went by quickly and silently, the sun creeping around the horizon, the travellers rushing over the rocky foothills. Here the wind grew louder and more biting, laden with powdered ice that glistened red in the low light, making sheets of gravel flow like water down the slopes.
At last a blinding bar of light rose over the southern horizon, like a dawn opposite to the sunset. The edge of the glaciers, the membrane of the vast frozen amoeba that spread its white pseudopods over the crests and plateaux of the Mountains of Thunder; on one side, declining into the Throat of the Sea to cast out the icebergs that every spring joined the garrison around Tagra; on the other, spreading its mantle over the flat and shadowy Polar Fields, the heart of the world.
Ice swelled and bulged out in tongues and udders that spread over the stones, stained red and black with windblown dust, studded with rocky debris of unimaginable antiquity, and of all sizes from the finest sand to fortress-sized boulders. Pure white at the top, in the freshest layers, changing below to a deep blue that even the sunset could not erase, where the formidable weight had squeezed out every air pocket. The catabatic wind had cut deep vertical gouges, from which poured rivers of fog that dissolved upon as soon as touched by the sun.
“This is the place, no?” Giya asked, with a tone that seemed to ask whether seeing that monster of ice was really worth all their hardships.“I take the tools from the bag now?”
pinkgothic:
“This is the place,” Kukri confirmed, a satisfied exhaustion in her voice. “Yes.” Kukri set down her baggage, allowing herself a few breaths of standing at the end of her journey, in- and exhaling relief, as though deep inside she held fast to the belief that the way back would be any less gruelling. She knew the opposite would be true. They would be hungry and thirsty when they got back to civilisation. But she still relished this moment, feeling so much like an achievement.
Of course, anyone suitably stubborn and stupid could walk to the glaciers. But it took a scientist to make anything of them. And, in light of that Giya was, perhaps, at some point, to be precisely that, Kukri smiled upon her and worked to teach her how to use the tools, how to record the results, and what she was doing the individual readings for.
Concavenator:
The rocks in this site had been carefully recorded and drawn from many point of views, providing clear reference points. Here the Broken Tusk, there the Penguin Head, the Four Nestlings just above, the Grasshoppers sprawling below. All the distances and angles between them, too, had been mapped in great detail. It was a simple affair, if a long one, to set the theodolite at the four different points and measure the extension of the tongues of ice, write down the measurements, and run them through the trigonometric tables.
Giya seemed somewhat lost at first, when Kukri was fiddling with the screws fixing the theodolite's orientation in place, or unfolding a scroll tightly covered in digits over a flat stone. Her ability to read and count was modest, to say the least. But with only eight symbols to keep track of, she learned quickly enough to read the graduated scales and call the angles for Kukri to write. Work with the tables would come later, and for that matter it could be done just as well in the safety of home.
They recorded the shape and extension of the great prow of ice that seemed the furthest extent of the glacier, suspended at some fifty paces above the ground; the fluted wedge that held it up; the jumble of shards that had tipped over and fallen sometime during the winter; and many other landmarks, twinkling in the last light. Just before darkness was complete, the volume and size of the glacier's edge were transferred into the paper of Kukri's notebook at the light of the alcohol stove. To that, Giya said: “So this is what you did want to do? You say I will learn to do it too?”