It’s dark, very dark.
The kind of dark that lasts six months at a time, that obliterates all normal thoughts of day and night. At the North Pole it lasts from the September equinox to the March equinox every year. Dark as it is, the sky has more stars than Aesa has ever seen.
Halvorsen peers at the surrounding heavens through the windows of the observation deck of the mobile research station, Svalsat, run by the satellite communications company Konigsberg. Konigsberg is in turn partially owned by the country of Norway and provides ground services to more satellites than any other facility in the world.
Svalsat is positioned on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, well inside the arctic circle. The Svalbard Satellite Station is a ground station operated for the benefit of a bevy of interests, including NASA, NOAA, the European Space Agency, and many others. All of them are subject to the Svalbard Treaty, which bans any kind of military use or communication at the facility. From this latitude, SvalSat can communicate with every satellite circling the planet that has an orbit of at least three hundred miles.
Aesa’s mobile research station is on the ice shelf hundreds of miles from the North Pole. She is further North than Nord station, the Danish military and scientific station on the Northeast coast of Greenland, which is the furthest to the north permanently manned station in the world and which is still nearly six hundred miles away from the Pole.
Like Nord Station, Svalbard Station is reached by air. On the West Coast of Spitsbergen, one of the main islands of the Svalbard archipelago, Svalbard is two miles from the town of Longyearbyen. Longyearbyen is the furthest to the north permanent settlement in the world with about two thousand residents, who are mostly Norwegian. Longyearbyen has existed for over a hundred years, thanks to its abundant coal mines which provide its much needed energy. The town is on the shore of Adventfjorden Bay, which in turn is part of the larger fiord Isfjorden.
The ground station has a farm like antenna array on a plateau called the Plataberget. It stands high on a promontory of land that spears into the fiord and drops on sheer cliffs fifteen hundred feet in every direction. Snow-capped mountains rise to the North and East, visible across vast expanses of steely blue, ice cold sea. The fiords appear mysterious, treacherous and bottomless.
The station’s plateau is flat, which lends itself to a rectangular dispersal pattern of satellite receivers. There are over a dozen nearly one hundred foot tall geodesic radomes and a number of big dish antennas. All of these must be kept at least six hundred feet apart to eliminate possible interference. The location assures the longest line of sight time between the ground and satellites. This enables longer contact with the satellites, better communication and the most time for the downloading of data. Snow cleared roads connect the receiver units and form the recognizable pattern of the facility from the air. Ground lights eerily illuminate the white radome globes and operations buildings, all of which literally glow in the pitch black semi- permanent night.
The main station may have many thousands of square feet of floor space, but the Mobile station has very few. Fortunately, Aesa is used to cramped quarters.
“How you doing out there, Aesa?”
She hears the main station asking her a question over her headcom.
“Good. I see lights to the East.”
Aesa is watching a vaporous trail of green northern lights, the aurora borealis, undulating over the horizon and wonders if they can see the same thing.
“To the East?” asks Kristian.
Kristian is using his headset, leaning back against the counter of the kitchenette in the main station. He walks across the blue plush carpet past the end of a sectional sofa on which several staff are reclined and in conversation, stepping to the reinforced wall sized window. The window rises two deck levels, slanting inward. This gives him a view of the northern lights, but they appear much farther away from his perspective.
“Oh yes, I see it.”
“How are you guys reading?”
Kristian looks over at Daniel, who is watching his pad closely. Daniel just happens to look up. He gives Kristian a thumbs up.
“Daniel says you’re optimal. Seriously, you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine. It’s just a few days.”
Normally, there would be at least two people on the mobile research station at any one time, but the flu has swept through the station and sidelined several of the staff.
“Well, I’m going to keep bugging you.”
“Fine.”
Aesa sees something just beyond the temporary antenna array laid out in a field of snow next to the mobile station. The array is lit by the light spill from her windows. Was that a movement? A bear? Or is it something else trying purposefully to stay out of her view?
“I’ll warm you up when you get back,” Kristian finally says.
“I bet you will,” Aesa laughs.
Chapter 63