Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

“Not really.”

“That bit of meringue is the Royal Society Range, just one small section of the Transantarctic Mountains. Scott named it in honor of the sponsors of his 1902 expedition. You’ll find lots of stuff like that around here, things named for people who never set foot on the ice. The Transantarctics run for three thousand kilometers, and here and there, glaciers flowing from the Polar Plateau flow down valleys onto the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Ross Ice Shelf. To get to the Pole, you have to climb up one glacier or another and then continue on across the Polar Plateau. He had to drag his supplies up over the mountains somewhere, but where? You want to go inland as far as possible across the ice shelf before you start to climb, because the higher you get, the colder it gets, and the pole is 9,200 feet above sea level.”

He pointed southward, to the left of the range, toward a group of lower summits that stood somewhat closer. “He headed out past those islands. That’s White Island to the east, then Minna Bluff—keep an eye on Minna; if it disappears, a storm’s coming and you have about two hours to take cover—then Black Island, Mount Discovery, and the Brown Peninsula. Black Island is the closest, at about twenty-five miles hence.

“They came in by sea, not like us lazybones who fly down; they were at sea in the wildest weather for weeks. They sailed in during the height of summer when the ice was broken out, all the way to this point, and dropped anchor, spent the winter, and started out south the following spring. That was the way of it. They couldn’t get close enough to make the pole in one season, because the ice freezes out hundreds of miles to sea, and it doesn’t break out until December or January, and some years not at all. So they had to wait for their access, then unload their supplies and begin to set up depots, then hunker down and wait out the long winter night. When the sun rose again, they went out around White Island and continued south across the Ross Ice Shelf. The ice is riddled with crevasses where it flows around those islands, so that must have been a joy. That’s my job, you see. I blow up things that are in peoples’ way around here.”

Valena nodded, letting him know that she understood, though she wasn’t certain that she did.

Ted said, “So he took his best shot, picked a glacier, and made his climb. Then he was not only fighting the cold, but also the altitude. He crested 10,200 feet. That first attempt was unsuccessful, you’ll recall—only got to eighty-two south.” He threw up his hands. “ Only eighty-two south? For Christ’s sake, can you imagine the effort that took? They did it on foot, dragging a sledge—just a few miles a day, the conditions were so bad—and with no idea what lay beyond, because no one had been there before. They had to turn back at eighty-two or die. Why? Because they’d dragged their asses up that glacier. It burns up a lot of energy when you keep falling into crevasses, and let me tell you, you can’t always see them before the snow that’s bridging them falls out from underneath you.”

“They were lucky to be alive,” said Cupcake.

Valena listened intently. She could never have imagined the dimensions of Scott’s undertaking without standing here at the edge of the ice—the barrier, they called it—with the wind buffeting her, her cocoon of down and polypropylene all that stood between her and certain frostbite. And this is a balmy spring day , she reminded herself.

Ted said, “Well, that’s how it goes around here. You drum up the money to make a try at a goal—the geographic pole, or some key bit of scientific understanding—and then off you go into all that ice and you do your best. Thing is, you’ll never do it perfectly. You’ll never learn everything you set out to know. You’ll never be perfectly satisfied with yourself, or your accomplishments. But you go, and go again, until you make it or you die trying.”

Cupcake said, “You’re stalling, Ted.”

Valena turned to look at the man. She had to turn her whole body, because the hood of her parka was in the way. She waited.

Ted dropped his gaze. “Your Dr. Vanderzee is a smart man, a driven man. He had questions he wanted answered. He drove really hard to get to them. And now he’s been turned back, short of his goal.”

The use of the past tense was not lost on Valena. Had questions. Wanted answered. Drove hard. As evenly as she could, she said, “I’m here to continue his work.”

Ted nodded. “Good. Good.”

Cupcake said, “Tell her what it was like up there. She needs to know, Ted.”

“Yeah, I’m stalling. That damned newspaper’s been hounding me since last year—nice way to spend my off time, dodging weasels with microphones—and now here we are with federal marshals hauling scientists off the ice. It’s just not good. The next thing we’ll have is some kind of fundamentalist preachers down here telling us the earth is flat.”

Cupcake said, “I missed something in your reasoning, Ted. How’d you get from the Financial News to Bible thumpers?”

Ted set his jaw. “It’s all one ball of wax.” He stared at his boots, kicked at a shard of ice. “And I don’t mean honest, God-fearing people, I mean the jerks who take advantage of them. It’s all a game of opportunism.” He sighed. “Okay, what do you need to know, young lady?”

Valena said, “Who was in the camp when it happened? And why’s the newspaper been hounding you? I mean, there was a certain amount of ruckus on the grapevine at the University, but, well, I suppose Dr. Vanderzee did his best to keep it out of sight.”

Ted nodded. “He’s a gentleman, your Emmett, when nobody’s poking him with sharp sticks. Well, okay, kid, let’s head for somewhere warmer so I can calm myself with a nice, cold beer.”

Cupcake said, “Gotcha covered, Ted. Got a six of Monteith’s Black in the fridge.”

“Lead on, m’lady.”

They walked in silence back up the trail to McMurdo, cut along the top of the bluff toward a row of dormitories, and ducked inside the last one. Cupcake’s room was at the far end of the corridor on the ground floor. Valena surmised that Cupcake must have greater rank than she did, because the room was shared by only two people.

Again, it was like college: all furniture except for the beds had been arranged in a line down the middle of the tiny room to form a barricade, dividing it into two. Cupcake had the far section and had arranged India-print bedspreads to give it the ambiance of a tent. Her mattress was on the floor. Half-burned incense lay about in little stone trays. The effect evoked a Far Eastern bordello.

Cupcake opened a midget refrigerator and pulled out a can of suds for each and settled into a cuddly heap on the mattress with Ted.

Valena grabbed the only chair. More and more, she felt like she had passed through a looking-glass into an obscure form of hell. It’s like going to college with your mom and dad and everything you never wanted to know about them , she decided.

Ted popped the opener on his can and drained half of it in one gulp, sighed, and gave Cupcake a wet kiss on the cheek. “You’re okay, Dorothy.”

“Dorothy?” asked Valena.

Cupcake swatted Ted across the chops. “Damn you! It’s bad enough being called Cupcake without you trot out that old horror. Dickhead!”

Ted kissed her again, going for her lips this time.

Cupcake growled, letting it slide into a purr.

“Should I come back later?” Valena asked.

Ted patted Cupcake on the knee. “She’s got a low kindling point, eh? But go ahead and ask your questions.”

“Who was in Emmett’s camp last year?”

Ted sighed. He used his beer can to count off fingers on the opposite hand. “Vanderzee. Bob Schwartz and Dan Lindemann, the two grad students—the only other grantees—and yeah, they’re down here again this year. Bob’s with a crew from the University of Maine, and Dan… well, I forget, but I’ve seen him.”