The papers say they are all dead. At 4 a.m. your headphones say six men are alive.
You are the night radio operator at an Arctic weather station in 1928. Nine days after an airship went down, you hear its name and one word: ALIVE. Its radioman talks only to you. The ice he lives on breaks in thirty days.
4 a.m. on Gull Island, nine days after the airship Fulmar went down on the sea ice. The stove is out, and your fingers are stiff on the dial.
Under the hiss in your headphones, a steady hand taps the airship's name, a place on the ice, and one word: ALIVE.
Your chief calls it static and tells you to write nothing heard. At eight his report goes out, and if it says nothing, the search ends.
The radioman, Henrik Berg, has five men with him and thirty days before the ice breaks. Now he asks what the sky looks like over you, and waits.
The night radio operator on Gull Island, a weather station far north of Norway, in 1928. Six winters at the station, and nine nights listening for a lost airship.
Radioman of the downed airship Fulmar. He taps from a tent on the drifting ice, on a set with no battery, only a hand crank.
Chief of Gull Island station and your teacher: broad, stooped, a gray walrus mustache, a thick cardigan, glasses on a string.
Someone in New York already printed that the whole crew is dead. Keep reading.
Someone could fly to the numbers on your pad, if you can give her a reason. Keep reading.
The airship's commander is hurt, out on the drifting ice. Keep reading.
Someone at the station is about to ask what you really heard. Keep reading.
Hot valves, kerosene and the tick of a cooling stove; the hiss in the headphones never stops.
Henrik's set has no battery and runs on a hand crank, about fifteen minutes a night. Every word you ask for is one not spent on their position.
The floe moves west a few miles a day and breaks in thirty days. Every position is hours old by the time a plane flies.
Every message to the mainland goes through the chief's key, and nothing leaves without him. Going around him ends your post.
The army at your gate flies your family's banner. Relief rides in forty days, if your walls and your people hold that long.
Every monster in the kingdom bows to you. Your guild wants to know why. So do you.
He fights with your secret move. He has the statue's face. He wants to know who broke the vow.
The man who won the last wish hasn't aged a day. That wish drowned your street. Now he wants to hire your boat.
