“Well, if it does, I sure hope it deposits us somewhere where the weather is warm and the drinks taste better cold,” he replied, sipping at his coffee. Eyeing Bue’s empty cup, he reached over and grabbed the handle, then stood up.

“Here, let me get you a refill.”

Benson walked across the mess to a large silver urn and refilled the cup. He started back toward Bue, then suddenly froze with a quizzical look on his face. Above the din of the buffeting wind, he detected a low-pitched mechanical churn. That wasn’t what bothered him, though. It was the sharp crackling sound accompanying it that struck a nerve deep in his gut.

Bue glanced up at Benson, then picked up on the sound as well. The noise was drawing upon them rapidly, and Bue thought he heard a shout somewhere off in the compound before his whole world collapsed around him.

With a crunching jar, the back wall of the mess hall completely disintegrated, replaced by a massive gray wedge. The towering object quickly surged through the room, leaving behind a thirty-foot swath of destruction. Torn free from its supports, the hut’s roof flew off in a gust, while a blast of cold air flooded the interior. Bue looked on in horror as the gray mass devoured Benson in a spray of ice and froth. For one moment, the chef was standing there holding a mug of coffee. In the next instant, he was gone.

The floor buckled up beneath Bue, throwing him and the table toward the entry door. Struggling to his feet, he stood and stared at the gray behemoth that materialized before him. It was a ship, his jumbled mind finally fathomed, storming through the center of the camp and the thin ice beneath it.

The swirling, snowy winds gave the vessel a ghostly appearance, but he was able to make out a large number 54 painted in white on the bow. As the bow burst past with a deep rumble, Bue caught a glimpse of a large American flag rippling from the ship’s masthead before the vessel disappeared into a cloud of white. He instinctively staggered back toward it, calling out for Benson, until nearly stepping into a black river of water that now trailed the ship.

Dazedly shaking off his state of shock, Bue pulled on his parka, which lay crumpled on the ground, and stepped past the remains of the entryway. Fighting his way against the winds, he tried to assess the condition of the camp while noting that the ground beneath his feet seemed to sway in an odd manner. Circling a few dozen feet to his right, he stopped at a ledge where the ice dropped away to open water. Just beyond him was where all three bunkhouses had stood. Now they were all gone, replaced by scattered chunks of ice floating in the dark water.