The Reluctant Contact

Начало книги

LUMPS OF ICE bobbed from side to side, disturbed by the swell from the boat. Within weeks this would all be ice, and the Billefjorden would be frozen solid for the whole winter. Then there would be no easy way in or out of here, except by helicopter. This was Yuri’s favourite time of year. Others found it claustrophobic living up here, trapped in an icebox. But Yuri enjoyed being cut off from the rest of the world. It was peaceful. The only things that existed were what he could see around him. The chances of unwelcome surprises were slim.

He let the clean, glacial air enter his lungs slowly, savouring it. He felt alive, and renewed, after his trip back to Moscow. That was the city of his birth, but he returned there only when he had no choice.

Around him on the wooden deck were fifty burly miners, mostly Ukrainians and Belarusians. They had landed that morning at Longyearbyen airport on Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Numbering a hundred odd, they had split in two, with half making the journey south to Barentsburg, the other Soviet outpost here.

Читать дальше →