[Macfarlane has descended into a moulin, an extremely deep shaft in the ice, and has managed to perch on a ledge to allow time to study the space]

[T]here is no choice but to stay a while on that blade of ice in this otherworld, and then reluctantly, gratefully, to give the sign to Matt: Get me the fuck out of here!

He changes over the rig, and they haul me up and out, Helen, Helen M, Bill and Matt all running my weight on a Z-pulley prusik system, and I emerge from the moulin like a gopher from a burrow, head surfacing into the upper world which is full of laughter and how-was-its and open mouths, and Helen is reaching forwards with a hand to pull me to safety, and the sun is streaming its gold on the silver of the ice, and I am blue to my bones for days afterwards from that deep time dive.

Later we send Bill down too, and from a depth of thirty feet he sings an aria from Tosca.  The notes pour up through that great blue pipe-organ and fly joyfully out into the still air.