Free Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone by Daniel Ganninger Page A

path.”
    “Let’s do it, while it’s still warm,” Galveston said.  Saying it was warm was an ironic statement, however.
    Sally pulled her pack on her back, and without hesitation, began to walk toward the steep side of the mountain of ice and snow.
    We hiked for another two hours, and it was brutal.  The cold and difficult terrain were beginning to wear my muscles down, but I was determined to try to keep up with Sally.
    She negotiated the inclines and crevasses like an expert, finding paths up the mountainside we would have never been able to find on our own.  When we finally reached a point between two peaks, I was ready to pass out.  I sat down to catch my breath and had no inclination to see the view below.
    Galveston, who was proving to have better endurance than I thought, looked down from our new vantage point upon reaching the top.
    “Roger, you have to see this,” he yelled down to me.
    I moved onto my knees and pushed myself to a standing position.  I slowly and painfully walked toward him.  When I got to the top, I looked into the area that had been obscured from our previous point of view.  The new sight was amazing.  Below us, along the line where the mountain began to rise from the earth, was a string of white buildings.  They looked like trailers lined end-to-end, and a various assortment of heavy machines sat nearby.  Everything was painted white.
    “Wow,” was all I could say.
    “I think we’ve stumbled on a mining operation—a covert mining operation.”  Galveston brought the binoculars to his eyes.  “They even have white camouflage covering what looks like storage containers.  There is no way anyone could see this from the air.”
    He handed the binoculars to me so I could see for myself.  The entire camp hugged the base of the mountain, right along the inclines.  A road seemed to lead from the camp, but there was no road leading to it from the opposite direction.  How did they get so much equipment and machinery into such an area?  It had been difficult enough traversing the terrain in our small snowmobiles. 
    Then I realized how they did it.  Underneath the white netting Galveston spoke of earlier, I spotted three large vehicles.  Each had huge, oversized tires; the type perfect for managing this landscape.  On airplanes they were called tundra tires and enabled pilots to land on uneven terrain.  The difference was these were gigantic, and each vehicle had six tires with a large cab above.  They were further disguised by a tall wall of ice and snow that hid the black color of the tires.  Someone was taking extraordinary measures to keep things hidden.
    “Joe has to see this.  Maybe he can shed some light on what they may be doing,” I announced.
    “It will have to wait until tomorrow.  I don’t like the looks of the clouds rolling in.  The weather can change here in an instant, and we aren’t prepared for an overnight,” Sally informed us.
    We didn’t question her and gathered our things.  The temperature was already beginning to drop, and as we reached the base of the small mountain we had just climbed, a light snow began to fall mixed with freezing bits of rain.
    We drudged back to our base camp and made it inside the cabin just as the wind began to pick up.  My hands and feet were frozen, and my parka was soaked.  Galveston, nor I, had packed the proper rain gear for the hike, and now we were paying the price.  We needed to swallow our pride and rely on Sally and Joe for their expertise.  It was humbling to realize that Galveston and I didn’t know everything.
    We all huddled by the heater, and I felt the circulation returning to my hands.  Joe informed me, much to my chagrin, that this was nothing.  The temperatures and weather changes were often much worse and changed much more quickly.  In an instant, one could find themselves in whiteout conditions after standing in perfectly clear skies only moments before. 
    They were words I took