Midnight
by Clinton Lawrence1. Sunset
The sun disappeared at noon, right on schedule. The six travelers watched the southern sky from the top of the tower in the middle car of their little train.
"A fine sunset," said Nicholas Sands. "I've never seen a better one. Let's drink to the darkness!"
"Yes, let's drink to the dream," Jocelyn Friez said, and Nicholas opened a bottle of cheap champagne. The real celebration was at the end of the journey.
His five companions still looked at the red southern glow. But that was now just a nostalgia, a distraction. The dream was ahead. He crossed to the other side of the tower and looked out the north window.
2. The Dream
On the night of the northern summer solstice, the six friends each dreamed of the Arctic. They dreamed of ice and mountains, and an unknown land under starlight. They dreamed maps of this place, but none of them dreamed of the whole. Nicholas visited the center, a plain ringed by mountains and a deep frozen lake. Elvin Norris walked and climbed down part of this ring. And Jocelyn Friez never saw the plain, but she did remember where the mountains rose out of the ocean. Krystal Sands, Serena Norris, and Eric Friez all remembered only the mountains themselves, and brilliant stars above.
Eric and Jocelyn, both geographers, constructed the maps they had dreamed, found the seams, stitched them, and created the whole: an island, unknown, at the center of the Arctic. A new land to discover. The dreams merged, evolved, into one collective aspiration.
3. The Route
Eric sat in the tower car's control room, looking at a thin line on the computer's atlas. The green portion traced the path already taken through Northern Canada to the Boothia Peninsula; the red, the intended route ahead. He made a small adjustment to avoid a village. After capturing the twelve caribou, they certainly didn't want to risk any contact with government officials. Nicholas and Krystal joined him.
"Still on course, I presume," Krystal said.
"This is the easy part," Eric said. "We are still within conventionality. There's no need to leave it until we're nearing the destination."
Nicholas looked at the map. "So you decided to take a mostly land route."
"Mountains are more interesting than the flat frozen sea, don't you think? We'll see enough of that."
"True," said Krystal. "But we could be more easily seen."
"In the dark, the clandestine have the advantage," Nicholas said. "The mountains should be beautiful through the night glasses. Only twenty-four hours to go."
"After Cape Columbia, I'll turn over the navigation to Jocelyn. She's more familiar with the necessary theories than I am. I could handle it, but I'm still more comfortable with classical geography."
"So is the world, for which we should rejoice."
4. Northwest Passage
Serena checked the monitors. The velocity remained steady, the construction of rail ahead synchronized perfectly with the train's movement and the removal of the track behind. The ice provided enough fuel for the fusion reactors, a situation that would only get better as they moved north. No problems with the electrical or heating systems. She relaxed and listened as the train rolled quietly. Barrow Strait, the west end of Lancaster Sound, was just ahead.
Nicholas came into the room, and then Krystal and Jocelyn, and finally Elvin.
"Almost there," Serena said.
"I'd like to make a little navigation test," Jocelyn said. "You don't mind, do you, Eric? Or anyone else?"
No one said anything.
"It will take about three times the power of a simple sea crossing. Is that all right?"
Serena looked at the monitors. "We should be able to do it, but I would have picked up more fuel if you had warned me."
"Don't worry, it's worth it," Jocelyn said.
They approached the rocky shore. Jocelyn worked quickly at the computer console. "It will look better from the tower room."
"I'll stay," said Serena.
The others climbed the stairs, and Serena watched the monitors. Jocelyn finished just a quarter mile from the coast. Serena looked up from the monitors and saw against the starry background the great arc of a bridge ahead, a bridge from Somerset to Devon Island, across the Northwest Passage, and a lighthouse across the strait, on Devon Island. They started to climb, but the train was slowing. It would be close. On the bridge, there was no ice to scoop.
"We're going to make it, aren't we?" Nicholas called down from above.
Serena made a quick calculation. She would have to cut power near the top and coast down the other side. She entered the instructions.
The train responded. At the top of the arc, the train seemed to stop for a moment, then fell like a roller coaster. When they reached Devon Island, Jocelyn typed a few more commands, and the bridge disappeared.
"This is good," Jocelyn said. "The theories are correct."
Serena checked the monitors again. The train was already replenishing its reserves, and she could feel it accelerating, but she wished the geographers had the sense to warn her when they wanted to experiment.
5. Starlight
Krystal fed the caribou. They were calm now, responding to her voice, wanting her to touch them. Still, they seemed afraid of everyone else. She tried to get Nicholas to work with them, but he said he didn't have time, that it wouldn't do any good anyway until they reached the island and their new home.
She returned to the tower room. The train was moving almost silently through the mountains that formed the spine of Ellesmere Island. The others were already there, eating dinner and viewing the mountains through night glasses.
"My part of the dream land has a place like this," Krystal said.
"I think a lot of the dream land has to be like this," Nicholas said. "But this isn't it yet. We're still too far south. People live on this island already."
"It's so clear," Serena said. "Such a cold, dark, peaceful place."
"But not yet dark enough," Krystal said. "Not dark enough for the dream."
"How true," Eric said. "How many dreams have died just from illumination?"
Jocelyn turned to Elvin. "Thank you for not putting lights in this room. That was genius. Of all the things you thought of when you built this train, that was the smartest."
"And the stars?" Elvin said. "The dream land has stars."
"Are you having doubts?" Nicholas raised his voice a little, but Krystal touched his lips with her fingers.
"Of course the dream has stars," Krystal said. "How could a dream not have stars?"
6. Darkness
They were all awake when they reached Cape Columbia. The north end of Ellesmere, of North America. Jocelyn took over the navigation. The control room became a crowded place. Frozen ocean stretched before them to the northern horizon. They already missed the mountains.
"We need to name the dream land," Jocelyn said. "Right now, it's just a place on our map."
"In 1380, Niccolo Zeno discovered an island he called Friesland he placed between Greenland and Iceland," Eric said. "Then it was lost. Maybe it moved. Maybe it's our dream land."
"It's too close to your own name," Nicholas said.
"Let's not name it Arctica," Serena said.
"North Poland?" Elvin said.
No one liked that name.
"I have a suggestion," Jocelyn said. "Obscuridad?"
"That's perfect," Krystal said. "Put it on the map."
"What better name for an island so hidden it's where the ocean is supposed to be 13,000 feet deep?" Nicholas said.
"Don't be too hard on them," Eric said. "They've done the best they can with conventional thinking."
They felt the train climb, and rushed to the tower room. There were mountains ahead, taller than the mountains of Ellesmere, taller than any the train had ever climbed.
"I know this place," Jocelyn said. "I dreamed this."
7. The Longest Night on Earth
"I believe that our destination lies on the shore of a very deep salt lake," Nicholas said as the train reached the summit. "It was like that in my dream."
The descent into Obscuridad's central basin was steep, steeper than even Elvin expected, although he had traversed it in the dream. It was steep enough that he worried several times about the path Jocelyn chose down the mountains. She was certainly not as acrophobic as he was. His stress dissipated as the train reached the bottom, and the ground flattened. They were close to sea level again. Nicholas ordered the train stopped. Elvin looked at his watch. "Midnight," Nicholas said. "Midnight of the longest night on Earth."
"Perfect timing," Jocelyn said. "The North Pole exactly."
They climbed out of the train and walked on the ice. Elvin liked the cold bite of the air.
"Am I right about the lake?" Nicholas asked.
"We have equipment on the train," Elvin said. "I'll check."
In the control room, the computer confirmed the land underneath, and the 13,000-foot deep lake. He picked up the expensive champagne on his way out.
"We'll build the factory here, and over there, the houses, and maybe the stables for the caribou next the houses," Nicholas said as he poured. "To the darkness! To Obscuridad!"
©Clinton Lawrence
Clinton Lawrence is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Galaxy, The Color Computer Magazine, E-scape, Continuum Science Fiction Online, Walking Bones, 2 AM, Dark Regions, and Night Slivers, and will have stories in the near future in Realms of Fantasy and The Fortean Bureau. For several years, he was a staff writer for Science Fiction Weekly. He lives in Davis, California.