Hours seemed to pass as the vehicle rolled, slowly but staunchly, up small hillocks and forded freshets of water and melting snow running toward the river.
The track-cat was open to the air, too, so it was a good thing the day was exceptionally warm or they all might have frozen. Diego’s dad lay inert against Steve, who clung tightly to his clothes to keep him from bouncing out of the vehicle.
The slushy, icy terrain was tough going even for the track-cat. Diego nursed it up a hill and down over the other side, only to lodge with one edge of the track in a ditch.
“Try rocking it,” Steve hollered. “Forward, reverse, forward, reverse! Let it dig its own way out.”
But the tracks could not bite or budge. Diego put it in neutral and climbed down to see exactly what the problem was. That was when he heard the noise from the other side of the trees and realized they weren’t the only ones in trouble.
He pointed to show Steve where he was going and, leaving the vehicle running, trudged through the slush until he was clear of the trees.
The snowy road that the snocles had been so blithely using had become separated from the bank by a foot of open, steaming water. A soldier waved his parka to keep oncoming traffic from adding to the twenty or thirty vehicles already slewed crazily over what remained of the iced river. Beneath snocles and the feet of the drivers, huge steaming cracks yawned and pieces of ice broke off and floated in the blue-black water.
As Diego watched, the ice broke and a snocle shifted, unbalancing its ice raft so that it and one of the men both slid slowly into the river.
Groaning at this new emergency, Diego raced back to the track-cat just as Steve slid out from under Francisco and fastened the safety harness around the flaccid body.
“What the devil’s going on over there?” Steve demanded as he sprinted toward Diego.
“The ice is breaking, and there’s people stranded on it,” Diego told him, panting and pointing urgently toward the river. “They need a lot of help and fast. We’ve got to let the village know right now.”
But Steve had to see for himself and swept past Diego to crash through the brush and look at the river. Diego followed uncertainly, torn between the crisis on the river and his father’s helpless body left alone in the snocle.
On the fracturing ice, maybe a half-dozen people now lay on their bellies, hands and feet linked, forming a human chain to fish for the man who had fallen into the river. He still had a perilous hold on the ice floe, which bobbed about, having tipped free of the snocle.
Steve stood poised on the bank for just a moment before he took a grip on Diego’s shoulder. “Get your father to the village on the double, Diego, and send back help. I’ll lend a hand here.”
“But, the track-cat’s stuck,” Diego reminded him.
“Deal with it,” Steve commanded in the same kind of gruff tone Diego had heard him use to talk to shipboard staff. Diego glared at him, resentfully. Steve, seeing his face, added, “That’s our expedition team down there. See? The big fellow with the red bandanna? That’s Sandoz Rowdybush. And I think the guy on the ice is Chas Collar. Your dad and I have worked with them for ten years. I’m not about to desert them.”
“No, but you’ll desert Dad.”
Steve took a deep breath. “He’s got you, too. Go back to the cat. If you can’t get it moving, stick with your father till I can come for you. If you make it to the village, tell them this river is having a serious meltdown problem and we’ll need all the help they can muster.”
Not quite mollified but having no other option, Diego sloshed back to the track-cat. Sure the guys on the ice needed help, but what if help from SpaceBase came and found Diego’s stuck track-cat? Then Dad would never get the help Diego was now convinced was his only hope. There were plenty of other guys out on the ice already-why did Steve think they needed him more than Dad did? Angrily, Diego kicked at the brush surrounding the track-cat-which gave him an idea on how to free the vehicle. He tore into the vehicle’s locker, strewing a number of items on the floor until he found a hatchet, which he used to lob off enough branches to cushion the treads and give them some traction. Then he cleaned the mud out of the tracks as well as he could, all the while muttering to himself, as much to keep his own spirits up as to vent his frustration and anger.