Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

Valena stopped the Delta and joined her. Edith had not had to explain that this was the only place for miles around that they could drop their drawers and pee without being seen by the men.

“Your first dose of Antarctic girl bonding?” asked Edith as they squatted.

Valena smiled. “Yeah. Men sure have the advantage in such circumstances. We expose the full moon. All they got to show is the isthmus of Panama.”

They shared a laugh, then zipped up again and headed back to their rigs.

With all four engines shut down, only the sound of the wind met their ears. They commenced their midday meal. Edith and Dave stood to eat, their paper sacks resting on the running board of the Delta. Valena and Hilario took seats on the two snow machines. Wee Willy sat inside the Delta, eating by himself.

Edith spoke to Valena as she smeared mayonnaise and mustard onto her cheese and bologna sandwich from little plastic packets. “I don’t think you’ve met Dave,” she said.

“Hi,” said Valena, without looking up. She tried to cover her discomfort by putting a glove to her lips and clearing her throat.

“Hi, yourself,” said Dave.

Valena could not read his face with the dark glasses and chewing, but he sounded friendly enough. People stared at her all the time, why had Dave’s stare in the hallway of Building 155 bothered her so much? She turned to Edith. “So how many calories do you think are in one of these flight lunches?” she asked, inventing something to talk about.

Edith laughed. “I calculated that once. Just under two thousand.” She pulled her sack down off the running board and dug through it. “Two big sandwiches, a couple granola bars, juice box, chips, mega-brownie—there’s a weight-loss food—and don’t forget the chocolate bar.”

“You don’t want to get cold,” said Hilario.

Dave said nothing.

“Does NSF have some kind of a deal with Cadbury’s?” asked Valena.

Hilario said, “You mean Raytheon; they do all the ordering. Yeah, must be. Cadbury’s got a factory in New Zealand. Now, I like chocolate fine, “but this peppermint flavor just isn’t my thing.”

“Swap you for a fruits and nuts,” said Edith. “Stick in my teeth.”

Hilario looked at Dave. “What you got, amigo?”

Dave smiled, curling his mustache. “I ain’t swapping. I got the mousse bar.”

Hilario and Edith groaned with envy. “You luck!” said Hilario, heaving himself off the snow machine to make the swap with Edith.

Dave chuckled. “Too bad for you they don’t make jalapeño flavor.”

“You’re a deep thinker,” Hilario said.

“So this is what people do with their time in Antarctica,” said Valena. “You argue over chocolate bars.”

Hilario and Edith both stopped and stared at her. “Like there’s anything more important in life?” said Edith. “I love to eat, and this place is food central.” She shrugged. “Except for the freshies, which are few and far between. You’ll notice there is no lettuce in your sandwich.”

“I was wondering, but now you mention it, that makes sense. And it’s a bit dry.”

“Load on the mayo,” said Edith. “Chowing on flight lunches is an art form.”

Valena noticed that Edith’s sack had become so light that it was beginning to blow along the running board “You’ve emptied that bag already? Woman after my heart.”

Edith grabbed the sack and laughed. “You aren’t doing so bad yourself, honey. That’s what I love about this place. Eat, eat, eat, and you never gain an ounce.”

“Amen on that.”

Edith turned to Wee Willy, who had climbed down out of the cab. “So, how you like traversing?”

Wee Willy shrugged his massive shoulders. “Are we getting overtime for this?”

Dave said, “Ain’t you liking this?”

Wee Willy shrugged again. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Well, let’s hit it,” said Edith. “We got miles to go before we sleep.”

Valena watched Wee Willy shamble away toward his snow machine, wondering who in his right mind would come to Antarctica for anything but love.

FROM THE KOA, THE ROUTE MADE A GRADUAL TURN toward the west around the south side of Black Island, rising higher onto the ice shelf. Valena knew that the ice was not standing still. It was flowing like putty, but on such an immense scale and so slowly that it took precise measurement with satellite-mounted radar and GPS to read its progress. This ice had been born a thousand miles away or more, perhaps even up on the Antarctic Plateau. It had crept here at speeds of no more than a few hundred meters per year. From space, NASA’s satellites could read flow lines created as it streamed off the continent and onto the Southern Ocean, but from here, all she could see was unbroken whiteness.

As they convoyed along, the world opened up and out, their presence continuing to shrink as the immensity of the Ross Ice Shelf engulfed them. The world shifted to palest blue, and Valena’s heart began to lift.

Twice, she felt the track beneath her wheels grow soft. She sensed this through her skin and muscles even before she heard the engine slow, and she quickly downshifted, easing the spin of the wheels over the soft patch, regaining her traction. The second time this happened, she glanced into the rearview mirror at the tires behind the cab. The surface of the snow immediately in front of them had begun to wrinkle, like a bow wake thrown up by a ponderous black ocean vessel.

Edith’s voice crackled out of the speaker above her head. “Mac Ops, Mac Ops, this is Challenger 286.”

“Go ahead, Challenger.”

“We’re at the edge of the dead zone. Reporting in. Over.”

“Copy that, Edith. What’s your ETA Black Island?”

“Eighteen hundred.”

Valena slid up her sleeve and looked at her watch. It was 12:30. That meant five and a half hours without radio contact.

Mac Ops replied, “I want to hear from you eighteen hundred sharp, or earlier if you can pick up a signal.”

“Roger that. We’ll monitor radio and check in if we hear you. Challenger out.”

“Happy flagging. Mac Ops clear.”

Valena had been watching the flags that marked their route. Many were missing, leaving only the bamboo stake sticking out of the snow. Along one two-or three-mile stretch near the KOA, the flags had been replaced so many times that a veritable forest of bamboo stakes lined the route. Many were splintered or broken off near the surface of the ice. Now the convey had reached a stretch where only one or two feet of flagstaff showed above the snow. Here on the south side of Black Island, the wind blew relentlessly, sweeping the scant accumulation of Antarctic snow into a giant drift.

The Challenger pulled to a halt and the crew chief climbed out, waving the two outriders in from their wanderings.

Valena stopped also. “You awake, Hilario?”

“Yes. Gimme a minute; I got to find out where we are.”

She turned and saw that he had switched on a global positioning system unit and was reading out their position. Pulling a paper copy of an air photograph of the area out of a folder, he marked their position. Valena could see the entire route marked between GPS readings a few miles apart. “Is that so we can keep going in the dark?” she joked.

“We could keep going in a whiteout with this gizmo,” he said. “I done that when I worked up in Greenland one summer. We rode for miles on snowmobiles going only by the GPS and arrived right at the drill site no problem. Then I got off the machine and walked smack into the side of the building.”

“You’re kidding! Wasn’t it dangerous to travel blind like that?”

“These satellite things are really accurate, you know? If the route’s been mapped tight enough, you can do that. I wouldn’t try it where you have crevasses or anything like that, but going over a groomed route like this? Sure.” He completed his documentation, then said, “You’re a good driver, Valena. You downshifted just right in those soft patches.”