Aaron Elkins: Icy Clutches

That would explain Tibbett's animosity. The assistant superintendent was not a man to look with favor on the bypassing of regulations.

"Opus? Is he writing a book?” Julie asked.

"Yes. You've probably heard about his being involved in an avalanche here at Glacier Bay years ago?"

Julie nodded. “He was the only survivor."

It had happened almost three decades before, but it was everyday knowledge. Tremaine, who had been heading a botanical research team, had been trapped in a crevasse on Tirku Glacier for a day and a night. Later, he had used this ordeal as the cornerstone of his career. It was a rare episode of “Voyages” that didn't have some reference to it, however oblique. The pitted facial scars from a barrage of two-hundred-mile-an-hour ice spicules and the limp caused by the loss of three toes to frostbite had added to his allure, visible reminders of a life filled with danger and exotic adventure. His eaglelike profile and elegant, nasal baritone hadn't hurt either. He had begun appearing on talk shows in the seventies, had introduced “Voyages” with immediate success in the mid-eighties, and had been America's best-known science popularizer ever since. Somewhere along the way he had left his academic pursuits-some said his academic integrity-behind him, although guests on his show were still instructed by the producer to address him as “professor."

"Well,” Tibbett explained, “now it seems he's writing a tell-all book about it. Tragedy on Ice."

"Sounds like something starring Peggy Fleming,” Julie said under her breath. Tibbett guffawed immoderately, then turned it into a discreet cough.

"Who are the others?” Gideon asked. “Why would he need an entourage?” Anything was better than Heibler clamps and lateral load-bearing stress.

Tibbett peered at them again. “The gray-haired woman is Dr. Anna Henckel. She was Tremaine's assistant on the original survey. And the, ah, portly gentleman next to her is Dr. Walter Judd; he was on it too. The others-well, I don't have their names straight, but I understand they're relatives of the three people who were killed. Tremaine is using them all as resources, I gather."

"M. Audley Tremaine,” Gideon mused after a moment. “I'd sure like to meet him."

Julie stared at him. “Are you serious? The only time I remember you watching ‘Voyages’ was when it covered human evolution. You ranted and fidgeted through the whole thing. You were yelling at the television set. You called him a pompous charlatan, as I recall."

Tibbett blinked and eyed Gideon with transparent respect.

"That's because the man got everything so completely screwed up,” Gideon said. “In one hour he single-handedly managed to set popular understanding of evolution back ten years. Remember how he ‘traveled back in time’ and talked to those ‘Neanderthalers'? Those actors with fur pasted on them, grunting and squatting and hopping- hopping, for God's sake-all over the place, like big, hairy fleas?"

"I remember,” Julie said. “You made your point very clearly at the time. Or at least very loudly. So then why do you want to meet him?"

"Because of the work he did back in the fifties, before my time. Before he was M. Audley Tremaine, for that matter."

"Come again?"

"He used to go by his first name; Milton, or Morton…"

"Melvin,” put in Tibbett. “Melvin A. Tremaine. I suppose it isn't dashing enough for him nowadays."

"Right, Melvin A. Tremaine. He was a pioneer in the study of postglacial plant succession; very important stuff for physical anthropology. Some of the definitive work on late Pleistocene human skeletal dating was based on his research on vertical pollen distribution analysis."

Julie nodded. Tibbett's eyes glazed slightly.

"He and I are colleagues in a way,” Gideon said. “He was at U-Dub twenty or thirty years before I was."

"U-Dub?” Tibbett echoed.

"He's speaking native dialect,” explained Julie. “It means University of Washington."

"I see,” said Tibbett, who obviously didn't.

"U-Dub,” Julie said. “It's short for U.W."

"Oh.” Tibbett searched visibly for something to talk about. He didn't want to go back to Heiblers either. “You know, next year is the thirtieth anniversary of the Tirku project, and the department is going to put up a memorial near the site of the avalanche.” His lips twitched their disapproval. “No possible connection to the publication of his book, of course,” he said tartly. “Well, tomorrow I have to accompany him and his party out to the site-as if I didn't have anything more important to do-where they'll choose the location for the plaque."

He snorted. “Probably an idea dreamed up by his press agent. I know no one consulted me about it. The whole thing's ridiculous. It's not as if anyone ever goes in there, in any case, so who's going to see it? He's simply exploiting the majesty of the United States government to promote his book, that's what he's doing."

Tibbett grumbled on in this vein for a while, not without Gideon's sympathy. Still, Tremaine's contribution to post-glacial plant succession was a real one, and Gideon's respect for the man as a scientist was high.

He drained his coffee. “Do you think he'd mind if I went over and said hello?"

But as Gideon put the cup down, Tremaine and his party began getting up. Tremaine nodded curtly to the others and headed for the exit, his limp quite marked. He was smaller than he appeared to be on television, perhaps five-nine. His path brought him within a few feet, and Gideon stood as he approached.

"Dr. Tremaine? My name is Gideon Oliver. I'm a great admirer of your work-"

He stopped, startled. The dessert menu card he'd absently continued to hold had been snatched from him by Tremaine. “Certainly,” the silver-haired television star said. “Delighted."

Tremaine plucked a pen from the inside of his jacket, scrawled something across the card, thrust it back into Gideon's hand, and went on his way.

Gideon stared at his back for a moment, then looked down at the card.

"Happy voyages,” it said. “Best wishes, M. Audley Tremaine."

As he did most mornings, Gideon awakened just before the alarm clock was due to go off. And as he did most mornings, he found himself nestled against Julie's back. He sighed, nuzzled her neck, and reached out to click off the alarm before it buzzed.

Julie stirred and muttered into the pillow, “It can't be six o'clock already. It can't be."

"I'm afraid it is."

She groaned softly and turned herself into him, snuggling her chin into the hollow of his shoulder. For a while they lay quietly, pressed against each other, dozing and content. For Gideon, this was perhaps the best part of the day. Was he at heart such a pessimist that he should awaken each morning filled with gratitude, with relief, almost with amazement, at having her lying by his side?

"I love you,” he said. He bent his head to kiss her hair.

She murmured something, worked herself closer still, and fell asleep again, her breath warm and sweet against his chest.

At 6:10 he disengaged himself, got shivering into his robe, and turned up the room's thermostat. He put up some coffee in the automatic coffee maker on its own little shelf over the sink and stood waiting for the water to boil, staring numbly at his wild-haired, unshaven reflection in the mirror. Morning coffee was his responsibility; that was one of several mutually agreeable arrangements they had worked out by trial and error. Cooking chores were evenly split, but Julie did the dinner dishes, in exchange for which Gideon hauled himself out of bed to make coffee every morning.

It was a system that seemed eminently equitable in the evenings, but somehow less fair in the mornings, especially in a cold, burnt-rose Alaskan dawn when there had been no dinner dishes to do the evening before. Maybe a little renegotiation was in order. He scratched a sandpapery cheek and smiled at his reflection. What the hell, why not just admit that he enjoyed making coffee for her, carrying it to her, watching her stretch and come awake smiling?