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The Albatross

THE ALBATROSS And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen; Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken The ice was all between. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Rime of the Ancient Mariner PART I: THE WAIT Lying prone on an unforgiving bed of powdered ice, kneading his bad hip with one gloved hand as he squinted through a shifting curtain of CO2 sleet, Lawson reflectednot for the first timethat the environmental extremes werent the hardest part to deal with. Not the crushing pressure, nor the bone-deep ache of the relentless gravity, nor the stinging lash of the dry ice particles that was diminished