Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

Hyde , thought Valena. Hiding… is Ted more than he lets on?

She passed yards laid out with fuel drums stacked on pallets and wondered if this was where the Airlift Wing had come to get a barrel to add weight to the bundle they had dropped on Emmett’s camp. She passed shipping containers and neat piles of scrap. At last, she came to the place above town where Ted the master blaster was working to straighten the road.

“Hello, Valena,” he said, rubbing his face as if it hurt.

“Hey, Ted. I had a couple more questions, if you have time.”

Ted sighed heavily. “Can it wait?”

“I want to know about the Gamow bag.”

“They never found it, like I said.”

“No, I mean the other one. The one which Emmett took along when you first went to the high camp.”

Ted was distracted by a large front-end loader that was coming toward them at high speed. He grabbed Valena by the arm and towed her out of range of the three-cubic-yard bucket that preceded it along its trajectory.

Valena said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get in the way.”

“You weren’t in the way. He’s a lousy shot.” He shook his head and began to mutter, talking to himself more than to Valena. “They’re supposed to know how to handle this equipment before they’re sent down here or they don’t get the job, but not this one. Just look at the way he slams that bucket into the muck pile. Wham! No finesse. You’re supposed to move into it, not ram it, and you lift the bucket as you go.” He held both hands out, indicating the motion that should have occurred. “This one slams into the pill, spills half his load… rough on equipment…”

Valena stepped further back as the operator backed out of the spoils pile, swung the vehicle around, and charged off toward where he was dumping it. “I was asking about the first Gamow bag,” she said.

“What first Gamow bag?” said Ted. “What are you talking about? Golly Moses, this crazy son of a bitch!”

The front-end loader once again slammed into the rubble, this time at an angle. For the first time, she could see the driver’s face. It was Wee Willy. “Tell me about him,” she said, pointing a glove his way.

“William? He’s got military written all over him. Does nothing unless told to directly. A regular sloth.”

“Which branch of service?”

“I only suppose he was in the military. In fact, I know nothing about him,” said Ted. “And I don’t want to know anything about him, either. He’s a trog. He keeps to himself. We’re all the more fortunate for it.”

“A trog? As in, he hides out a lot?”

“Everybody around here is hiding something.”

The great machine spun its wheels. It was stuck.

“I’m not going to help him this time,” Ted hissed. “I’m just not going to help him. Absolutely no feeling for the machinery. None.”

Willy slammed the loader back and forth between forward and reverse, eventually working his way free. He swung the load. Stopped, staring at Valena.

She waved.

He waved back.

“Shit,” said Ted. “Don’t distract him. You never know what he might do if he loses what concentration he has.”

Valena made a sweep with one hand, guiding Willy’s attention toward the direction he should be moving. Willy nodded, gunned the engine, slipped it back into gear with a horrendous scream of tortured metal, and lumbered away.

“You’d better get out of here before he returns,” said Ted.

“With pleasure,” said Valena. “But first, two questions.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s your full name?”

Ted tore his eyes off the waddling front-end loader long enough to glare at her. “Theodore Xavier O’Hare. Who wants to know?”

“I do. And if I want to find out who hid the Gamow bag that originally went up to the high camp with Emmett inside a duffel so that it would ‘accidentally’ be returned to McMurdo, who would I ask?”

“You’re looking for an accident, ask this guy,” Ted growled, pointing at the front-end loader. “You want some other explanation, why not ask your new boyfriend?”

Valena did not even say good-bye as she stormed away down the hill.

GEORGE BELLAMY READ THE NOTE A SECOND TIME, AND A third. It still said the same thing. He crumpled it, squeezing it this time into a tiny knot. What was he going to do?

He leaned forward onto his desk. Put his head down on it. Raked his fingers through his graying hair. The National Science Foundation did not pay him well enough to deal with problems like this. I’m going to wind up like that other fellow they had to medevac out to Cheech with a heart attack, he told himself. And right now, that thought has its appeal!

He uncrumpled and smoothed out the note and read it one more time. It had been typed to keep it anonymous, untraceable, just like all the infernal rumors that sluiced around McMurdo like oily water in a ship’s bilges:

Mr. Bellamy—

You need to know that certain scientists currently in McMurdo are conspiring to investigate the death of journalist Morris Sweeny. These people will stop at nothing to gather evidence. They are threatening to go to the press themselves. You know what that means. Once the negative publicity bottle is opened, the genie is out. The left will bring up the question of why we’re spending so much money to be here instead of spending it on schools and will ask why we are using huge volumes of carbon-based fuels instead of solar and wind power. The right wing will agree with them if only to stop the investigation of rapid climate change which Sweeny was here to attack.

Stop them while you have the chance.

Bellamy crumpled the note a second time. Considered eating it. Knew that ingesting it would solve nothing. Fifty years we search for the best, the brightest, the most talented scientists in the world , he grieved. We build the finest infrastructure the funds can provide. We build them a laboratory, supply them with air support and field equipment, food, assistance of every type. We defend their findings and the importance of doing the work. We beg Congress for every penny. We have built a world-class reputation for doing groundbreaking research, and now this. Why don’t they listen to me? Why don’t they just do their work and leave their political fights back home in America?

What can I do? Call Black Island and tell them to shut down telecommunications for the foreseeable future? No. I can’t do that. I am mandated to keep this station running at full capacity, and that means making it possible for each and every scientist to have access to the Internet. Besides , he realized, that wouldn’t work, because even if I shut down the dish at Black Island, some of them have iridium phones. And even if I took away the ones we have supplied, some of them brought their own damned phones, and they all have shortwave radios!

Scientists! You can’t control them!

With a feeling of impending doom, Bellamy lifted the receiver from his telephone and dialed the extension for his assistant. “I want you to schedule a meeting for eleven a.m. in the Crary Library with all of the scientists who are in McMurdo at this time. It is urgent. I require full attendance. Here are the names…”

VALENA PRESENTED HERSELF AT THE DOOR TO KATHY Juneau’s office at five minutes to ten and snapped a brisk salute.

Kathy smiled a hello. “We’re loading into the Pisten Bully that’s sitting right off the loading dock. Our drivers will be here in just a few minutes. You can go ahead and put your gear in the rear compartment if you like. I need to load this equipment.” She gestured toward a rude assemblage of pipe fittings. “That’s a coring rig for taking small samples out of the Pony Lake.”