Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

"There is no reason to think so." He hesitated. "No reason to think not, either."

There was a pause.

"What I mean is, will it pose a hazard to my ship or my crew?"

McFarlane chewed his lip, wondering how to answer. "A hazard? It's heavy as hell. It'll be tricky to maneuver. But once it's safely secured in its cradle, I have to believe it'll be less dangerous than a hold full of inflammable oil." He looked at her. "And Glinn seems to be a man who never takes chances."

For a moment, Britton thought about this. Then she nodded. "That was my take on him, too: cautious to a fault." She pressed the button for the elevator. "That's the kind of person I like on board. Because the next time I end up on a reef, I'm going down with the ship."

Rolvaag,

July 3, 2:15 P.M.

AS THE good ship Rolvaag crossed the equator, with the coast of Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon far to the west, a time-honored ritual began on the ship's bow, as it had on oceangoing vessels for hundreds of years.

Thirty feet below deck and almost nine hundred feet aft, Dr. Patrick Brambell was unpacking his last box of books. For almost every year of his working life he had crossed the line at least once, and he found the concomitant ceremonies — the "Neptune's tea" made from boiled socks, the gauntlet of fish-wielding deckhands, the vulgar laughter of the shellbacks — distasteful in the extreme.

He had been unpacking and arranging his extensive library ever since the Rolvaag left port. It was a task he enjoyed almost as much as reading the books themselves, and he never allowed himself to hurry. Now he ran a scalpel along the final seam of packing tape, pulled back the cardboard flaps, and looked inside. With loving fingers, he removed the topmost book, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and caressed its fine half-leather cover before placing it on the last free shelf in his cabin. Orlando Furioso came next, then Huysmans's À rebours , Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson's Rambler essays, Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua . None of the books was about medicine; in fact, of the thousand-odd eclectic books in Brambell's traveling library, only a dozen or so could be considered professional references — and those he segregated in his medical suite, to remove the vocational stain from his cherished library. For Dr. Brambell was first a reader, and second a doctor.

The box empty at last, Brambell sighed in mingled satisfaction and regret and stepped back to survey the ranks of books standing in neat rows on every surface and shelf. As he did so, there was the clatter of a distant door, followed by the measured cadence of footsteps. Brambell waited motionless, listening, hoping it was not for him but knowing it was. The footsteps stopped, and a brief double rap came from the direction of the waiting room.

Brambell sighed again; a very different sigh from the first. He glanced around the cabin quickly. Then, spying a surgical mask, he picked it up and slipped it over his mouth. He found it very useful in hurrying patients along. He gave the books a last loving glance, then slipped out of the cabin, closing the door behind him.

He walked down the long hallway, past the rooms of empty hospital beds, past the surgical bays and the pathology lab, to the waiting room. There was Eli Glinn, an expandable file beneath one arm.

Glinn's eyes fastened on the surgical mask. "I didn't realize you were with someone."

"I'm not," Brambell said through the mask. "You're the first to arrive."

Glinn glanced at the mask a moment more. Then he nodded. "Very well. May we speak?"

"Certainly." Brambell led the way to his consultation room. He found Glinn to be one of the most unusual creatures he had ever met: a man with culture who took no delight in it; a man with conversation who never employed it; a man with hooded gray eyes who made it his business to know everyone's weaknesses, save his own.

Brambell closed the door to his consultation room. "Please sit down, Mr. Glinn." He waved a hand at Glinn's folder. "I assume those are the medical histories? They are late. Fortunately, I've had no need to call on them yet."

Glinn slipped into the chair. "I've set aside some of the folders that might require your attention. Most are routine. There are a few exceptions."

"I see."

"We'll start with the crew. Victor Howell has testicular cryptorchidism."

"Odd that he hasn't had it corrected."

Glinn looked up. "He probably doesn't like the idea of a knife down there."

Brambell nodded.

Glinn leafed through several more folders. There were the usual complaints and conditions to be found in any random sampling of the population: a few diabetics, a chronic slipped disk, a case of Addison's disease.

"Fairly healthy crew, there," said Brambell, hoping faintly that the session was over. But no — Glinn was taking out another set of folders.

"And here are the psychological profiles," Glinn said. Brambell glanced over at the names. "What about the EES people?"

"We have a slightly different system," said Glinn. "EES files are available on a need-to-know basis only."

Brambell didn't respond to that one. No use arguing with a man like Glinn.

Glinn took two additional folders out of his briefcase and placed them on Brambell's desk, then casually leaned back in the chair. "There's really only one person here I'm concerned about."

"And who might that be?"

"McFarlane."

Brambell tugged the mask down around his chin. "The dashing meteorite hunter?" he asked in surprise. The man did carry around a faint air of trouble, it was true.

Glinn tapped the top folder. "I will be giving you regular reports on him."

Brambell raised his eyebrows.

"McFarlane is the one key figure here not of my choosing. He's had a dubious career, to say the least. That is why I would like you to evaluate this report, and the ones to follow."

Brambell looked at the file with distaste. "Who's your mole?" he asked. He expected Glinn to be offended, but he was not.

"I would rather keep that confidential."

Brambell nodded. He pulled the file toward him, leafing through it. "'Diffident about expedition and its chances for success,"' he read aloud. "'Motivations unclear. Distrustful of the scientific community. Extremely uncomfortable with managerial role. Tends to be a loner.'" He dropped the folder. "I don't see anything unusual."

Glinn nodded at the second, much larger folder. "Here's a background file on McFarlane. Among other things, it contains a report here about an unpleasant incident in Greenland some years ago."

Brambell sighed. He was a most incurious man, and this was, he suspected, a major reason why Glinn had hired him. "I'll look at it later."

"Let's look at it now."

"Perhaps you could summarize it for me."

"Very well."

Brambell sat back, folded his hands, and resigned himself to listening.

"Years ago, McFarlane had a partner named Masangkay. They first teamed up to smuggle the Atacama tektites out of Chile, which made them infamous in that country. After that, they successfully located several other small but important meteorites. The two worked well together. McFarlane had gotten in trouble at his last museum job and went freelance. He had an instinctive knack for finding meteorites, but rock hunting isn't a full-time job unless you can get backers. Masangkay, unlike McFarlane, was smooth at museum politics and lined up several excellent assignments. They grew very close. McFarlane married Masangkay's sister, Malou, making them brothers-in-law. However, over the years, their relationship began to fray. Perhaps McFarlane envied Masangkay's successful museum career. Or Masangkay envied the fact that McFarlane was by nature the better field scientist. But most of all it had to do with McFarlane's pet theory."