Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

“And you decided to go into climatology.”

“Glaciology. For climatology you have to put together oceanography, atmospheric science, geology—”

“Geology?”

“Yeah, so you know how the continents move, which strongly influences—”

“The continents move?”

Valena opened her mouth to say yes, but then saw the twinkle in Peter’s eyes and instead swatted him across one shoulder with a mitten. “What are you, a flat-earther?”

“I am the center of the universe. Didn’t I mention that?”

“Come on inside Crary, and I’ll show you dinosaur and fern fossils found underneath all this ice that prove that the continents move, Bishop Ussher.”

“Who’s Bishop Ussher?”

“A sixteenth-century monk who calculated the age of the earth from Biblical scripture. He came up with October 23, 4004 BCE. And then we can discuss the way particulate pollutants have dimmed the earth.”

Peter’s eyes were twinkling again. “You’re into lots of thinky stuff, aren’t you, Valena?”

“Yes, I am.”

One of the heavy steel doors on the front of Crary Lab opened and a woman came out. “Hey, Peter!”

Peter turned around. “Oh, Doris! I saw the helicopter come in. It looked like they took Steve to the hospital. And I heard they found his tractor not far from the runway, so I mean, wow, how’d he get clear out there?”

Doris shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until he regains consciousness. It doesn’t look good.”

AN E-MAIL FROM TAHA HESAN WAS WAITING FOR Valena when she checked the computer at Crary Lab.

Hello Valena,

I know nothing that you do not. I was told only that there was a delay and that I should wait. This is very bad. I have spoken to the president of DRI and he says that everything possible is being done in Emmett’s defense. Emmett has not written to me but I imagine he is very busy with lawyers. They have him in Hawaii. At least that is a long way from New York City, where his accusers have their camp. We must wait and pray. I will write to you if I learn anything more. Meanwhile please work hard in McMurdo to make certain that everything is ready for our field encampment should matters improve.

“Bummer,” Valena whispered under her breath. She glanced at her other messages. The reply from Em Hansen was still there, as were the cheery greetings from her friends back in Colorado. Somehow, these last seemed as insubstantial as frost on the window, far away and separate. She exited the mail program and rose to head down the hallway toward the galley.

She was swept up into a hubbub of men who were slapping one another on the back. “Yo! My man! Way to go! Hey man, how’d you find him out there?” they were hollering.

The hero among them was grinning a down-home kind of grin, all aw-shucks and glittering with unconscious pride. He was a hardy-looking man with dark, shining eyes and brilliant white teeth, and as he walked, he rolled his broad chest and muscular shoulders with strength and ease of carriage. When his gaze briefly connected with hers, he blushed, his mahogany tan turning ruddier and the spaces around his eyes that had been protected from tanning by his glacier goggles turning pink.

Valena looked away. Had he found her features odd or disturbing? So many people stared. It made her feel ugly and increased her sense that she fit exactly nowhere. In this place, where she had somehow hoped to find a break from all that, the strange looks hurt bitterly.

The crowd swept the man along with them toward the galley. “No shit, Dave,” one of them caroled, “it’s like you’re clairvoyant or something. He’s out there in how many thousand square miles of ice and you drive right to him! He wasn’t even wearing a big red! Shit, man, he was in Carhartts!”

“Oh, stick it up your butt, Wilbur,” the man said. “Out there, anything that’s not white sticks out like a sore thumb, and he wasn’t all that far from the flag route.”

The crowd turned the corner. Valena heard additional cheers emanating from the galley. She followed along more slowly and dawdled over washing her hands. When she at last picked up a tray and took her place in the cafeteria line, the ruckus had moved on into the main part of the dining hall. She stood for a while, watching well-wishers journey up to the man named Dave, patting him on his shoulders, scruffing up his hair. He good-naturedly swatted them away.

“Bunch of sexist wackos,” said someone behind her.

Valena turned to see who had spoken. It was Cupcake. “Oh, hi,” said Valena. “Guess they found the missing man.”

“We found the missing man,” said Cupcake. “I was with him in the Challenger. Yeah, he spotted him first, but only because I was scanning the other hundred-eighty degrees of the landscape.”

“Sorry to hear,” said Valena. “I mean, I don’t like discrimination wherever you find it.”

Cupcake took a long, candid look at Valena’s face. “I’ll bet you don’t,” she said. “Just what are you, anyway? Quarter black, quarter Asian, quarter Cherokee, and quarter WASP?”

Valena’s head jerked at the epithet that finished the list. “I haven’t heard that term in a while.”

“And never attached to you, I’ll bet,” said Cupcake.

“Excuse me,” said Valena. “Like I said, I despise discrimination.” She set her tray down and left the galley through the door she had entered.

IT TOOK HALF AN HOUR LYING ON HER BACK ON HER bunk staring at the ceiling for Valena to pull herself together enough to return to the galley. She was extremely hungry, having eaten nothing that day but instant oatmeal, a chocolate bar, cocoa, and half of a stale sandwich, washed down with a six-ounce box of juice that she’d had to whack against her palm to break the frozen parts up into slush so she could suck it through the tiny straw that came with it. After twenty-four hours of exposure to cold at Happy Camp and the hike up Ob Hill, her body screamed for calories, and she reckoned that she was dehydrated.

Stuffing her feelings behind her best attempt at a game face, she hopped down off her bunk, ran her fingers through her hair, and headed back out to the galley. Once there, she picked up another tray and loaded it with broiled fish and a medley of vegetables that had obviously spent a lot of time in a very large can. She ladled a large wad of mashed potatoes on top of them, doused the whole mess with gravy, and headed for the drinks bar. There she mixed orange with cranberry juice, and in a separate glass, drew a volume of water. She guzzled the first glassful on the spot and then filled it again. Turning, she grabbed a fork, knife, and spoon out of the central island and then turned toward the dining hall.

The celebration involving the man named Dave had expanded, and now Cupcake was right in the middle of it. In fact, she had perched herself jauntily on the edge of the table and was giving one of the men a Dutch rub. People were offering her high fives, and one man came along and hoisted her right off the table to give her a squeeze.

Valena stared out across the room, trying to figure out which way to dodge the party. Suddenly, a man stood up from the first table to her right and waved to her.

“Hey, Valena!” he hollered. “Over here!”

It was the mustached guy from the Airlift Wing. He was sitting with the same sleepy-eyed woman firefighter. Valena lowered herself strategically into an open seat that allowed her to keep her back to the party. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t remember your names.”

“You’ve probably met two hundred people in the few days you’ve been on the ice,” he said. “I’m Hugh, and you’ve met Betty.”