Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

“And you know it wasn’t one of the New Zealanders.”

“What self-respecting Kiwi would do that? These men are archaeologists, not egg-stealing morons!”

“I understand that. I’m just checking all the angles. Being systematic. We are scientists,” she said, trying to calm him down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Yelling at you won’t help.”

“I understand,” she said. “Or I think I do. You’re working to understand these birds, and—”

“This ecosystem,” he said. “The Ross Sea is the last unbroken marine ecosystem in the world, or at least it is until the Japanese ‘harvest’ all the beluga whales. I come here to study these birds because they are part of that ecosystem. I treasure them. It’s simple rape to mess with this colony of birds.”

“Okay, let’s start from another angle. When did you notice that the eggs were missing?”

“Wednesday. Two days ago.”

“So they were there Tuesday?”

“I wasn’t here Tuesday, so I don’t know. I had been in town for a couple of days.”

“That’s right, I spoke with you in the galley that evening.”

“Yes. I had meant to return here Monday but was delayed by the storm. I came out Wednesday and they were gone. And this footprint was there.”

“It certainly doesn’t have any fresh snow in it, so that suggests that the print was made after the snow stopped on Tuesday.”

“Good point.”

“And the eggs were on the nests before you left for town. When was that?”

“Jeannie and I went to town Saturday with the New Zealanders. And the answer is yes, they were on the nests. Each bird lays two eggs. They might lose one to skuas, and maybe both, but seldom at the same time, and not in inner nests all in a group. The skuas attack from the edges. For three nests in a tight cluster to lose both eggs… well, I’ve never seen it before. And there is the matter that the shells are not here.”

“The skuas don’t carry them away?”

“No. They have trouble lifting a whole egg, so they knock it away and then peck it open and eat it right there, and very quickly.” He swung both of his hands with fingers bunched together to look like beaks pecking at a rolling egg.

“And the archaeologists said they have something missing, too.”

“Yes, some old bottles. Artifacts.”

“Where were they located?”

“They were under tarps in boxes in their layout yard, over by where they park their Haaglund.”

“Do the errant footprints lead there?”

“No. But you can cross to there without walking through any snowdrifts.”

Valena thought for a moment. “And were there any Kiwis here Tuesday?”

“They came back Tuesday night. They had gone to Scott Base for the skirt party Saturday night and to take Sunday off. The weather looked bad enough Monday morning that they stayed put. They were just down at Cape Evans today to see if anything was missing from Scott’s hut.”

“Skirt party?”

“The men dress in drag and drink and dance about. It’s a time-honored custom that dates to before the tender sex joined us on this God-forsaken rock.”

“I see. They have dresses? Really?”

“Togas made of old sheets and packing materials and mops for wigs. You’re getting off the subject.”

“Indeed I am. Packing materials?”

“Think bubble wrap.”

“Bubble wrap?”

“Yes! Okay, so the situation is that someone was here between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday evening, otherwise the archaeologists would have seen or heard him.”

“Ah. And that footprint says after the storm abated, so Tuesday morning at the earliest.”

“Yes.”

“Then it must have been the guy the dive tender saw zooming by on the snow machine.”

“Which divers? Where?”

“The dive shack by Cape Evans.” She explained.

Nathaniel Lanthrope’s mouth sagged open. He pulled it shut. Thought. Said, “What a damned crazy thing to do! He could have been killed! Is anyone missing up there? I mean, aside from that… oh, no.”

Valena nodded. “You’re thinking like I’m thinking,” she said. “Steve was found right next to the Cape Evans flag route, a few miles north of Hut Point. The man who drove me out here found him.”

Nat turned and stared out across the ice, arms folded. “Those eggs would be worth a lot of money to some monster somewhere who wants to raise his own little colony on his swank estate. That is, if you could get them back to McMurdo fast enough and somehow smuggle them north without their freezing, but that’s not the only reason a man would bludgeon anyone who spotted him returning from stealing. The Antarctic Treaty protects the huts and those eggs. Anyone caught even crossing into the colony is subject to prosecution, but actually absconding with the wildlife? We’re talking huge fines, and years in prison.”

ALONE IN HER TENT, WRAPPED IN THE LUXURIOUSLY thick embrace of her Arctic Storm sleeping bag, with the constant winds buffeting the tent, Valena slept long and hard. She slept to digest the wonderful tuna, cheese, carrot, and mashed potato casserole that the Kiwi archaeologists had fed her for dinner. She slept to metabolize the wine that Nathaniel Lanthrope had contributed to the feast, and the berry and granola cobbler Jeannie Powers had invented. She slept to make up for all the nights in the past ten days that she had not slept enough. She slept to let all the jumbled facts that she had amassed begin to knit together in her head. And she slept because her soul was finally, deep in this wilderness, away from the longings and madness of humanity, at peace.

She did not awake until almost 9:00 a.m., and even then, she did not look at her watch and did not hasten to rise from her tent. She instead lay on her back with her hands folded under her neck, watching the wind ruffle the fabric of the tent, soaking up the joy of simply existing on this remote point of land in the last unbroken marine ecosystem on Earth.

Finally, her full bladder drove her to wriggle out of her sleeping bag and pee into the quart bottle. After carefully screwing the bottle cap on tightly, she pulled up her various layers of long underwear and wind pants, shrugged her way into her parka, opened the front flap of the tent, put on her boots, slid her hands into her gloves, picked up the still-warm bottle of urine, and wandered over toward the latrine to empty the bottle into the drum. Once finished, she put the bottle into the secret pocket of her parka and stumbled up onto the front porch of Nat’s hard-framed tent.

“Nat?” she called. “Is it time for breakfast?”

He opened the wooden door to the tent. “I’ve been up for three hours. Come on in. I’ve got some hot water on the stove.”

“You’re a prince.” She began to knock the grit from the path off her boots so that she would not track it inside the tent.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Nat.

Valena stared at the wooden floor of Nat’s tent. “But these boots pick up so much of this disintegrating lava.”

“I just sweep it all down through the gaps between the floorboards.”

A thought occurred to Valena. She lifted a foot and examined the sole of her boot. “Nat, look.” She pointed at the fragments of mineral crystals that were stuck between the treads.

“What’s so amazing about that?”

“It’s stuck,” she said, picking at one of the crystals with an index finger. “Really, really stuck.”

“I fail to see the significance of this phenomenon,” said Nat.

“You don’t? Well then, you’ve forgotten your one bit of evidence that will tell you who stole those eggs.”

“The footprint?”

“Exactly. That man—or large woman—wore FDX boots, just like these. Glorified couch cushions with Vibram soles, but if you’re interested in riding a snow machine around in a blizzard over the sea ice, you’d want to stay warm, right?”