An action-packed “ecothriller” set against the backdrop of the Antarctic and warning against indiscriminate exploitation of the only continent in the world that has escaped the hand of man … so far!
The southern-hemisphere summer of 2013. Four Chinese scientists are found with their throats cut near the German base of Neumayer, in the Antarctic. Their murderers have left no clue regarding the motives for their crime. But that is only the beginning.
Shortly afterwards, well into the southern autumn of that same year, some fifty scientists embark on the world’s largest ice-breaking oceanography vessel, the FS Polarstern, heading for the Weddell Sea, in the Antarctic.
Among their number is doctor Tomás Martí, on a pioneering mission to observe the Antarctic ocean-bed organisms at a time of the year when they remain completely covered by the ice.
The scientists are joined at the last minute by a group about which nobody knows anything, headed by a man called doctor Hutty. The latecomers insist on getting to Austasen, the area called the “Cemetery of Icebergs”, where a large number of these immense masses of ice are retained by circular currents, at a time of the year when the ice shelf is fast solidifying and becoming dangerous.
After several confrontations and the sudden death of a researcher, the captain of the Polarstern decides to chart a course towards the much-feared Cemetery of Icebergs. When they reach the heart of Austasen the ship suffers a fault in its engines, and those on board are left isolated in a place with the most severe winters on the face of the earth.
While the scientists struggle for survival, the questions are piling up. Had the vessel had a breakdown or had it been sabotaged? What was the purpose of the strange apparatus that Hutty’s men have brought along? What strategic material lies concealed at the bottom of Austasen?
The intervention of Tomás and his group will prove vital in discovering the truth and saving the white continent from man’s greed.