Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

With that, Michael had to agree. He'd covered a few of those guys-a primatologist in Brazil, a herpetologist in the Southwest- and they lived, totally absorbed, in their own weird little worlds. At Point Adelie, there'd be a prize collection of them.

When Darryl had finished his packing, they dragged their bags up to the aft deck, where Michael could see that the pilots had already boarded the chopper and were going through some routine instrument checks. Petty Officer Kazinski showed up, carrying Dr. Barnes's bags; she was right behind him, in her long green down coat, pulling her braided hair into one big knot.

Captain Purcell approached them before boarding, but he seemed to be addressing everyone but Michael. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard, I'd like to wish you well on the remainder of your journey to Point Adelie. We're glad to have been of service, and look forward to helping out again whenever we're needed.”

Charlotte and Darryl thanked him profusely, they shook hands, and finally the captain looked directly at Michael. “Try not to get into any trouble between now and then, Mr. Wilde.”

“I hope Lieutenant Healey is okay. Could you keep me posted on her progress?”

“I'll do that,” the captain said, in a tone that made it clear he would not.

A couple of seamen came up, gathered their bags, and started to load them into the cargo hold.

The captain glanced off to the west, then added, “Better get going. We've got more weather on the way.” Then, he gave a short wave toward the helicopter pilots, turned, and headed back to the bridge.

Michael followed Charlotte and Darryl into the side door of the chopper, ducking his head and flopping into a seat on the far side, next to a big, square window. The choppers were designed to afford maximum visibility, and it would give him a great view the whole way. Darryl, perhaps purposely, sat on the inside, next to Charlotte. The cabin was warm, and after Michael had quickly shed his coat and gloves, he strapped himself into the over-the-shoulder seat harness. Then, just as the pilots switched on the rotor, and the whole craft began to vibrate and hum, he put on the noise-deadening headphones, with intercom mike attached. A seaman slapped and latched the side door shut. There was a short aisle between the passenger compartment and the cockpit, and through it Michael could see the pilots-Diaz and Jarvis, as he'd learned from the sailors who'd removed the tarp-flicking overhead switches, checking dials and computer screens. It looked like a compressed version of the bridge on the ship.

The helicopter teetered on the platform, like a teenager in high heels, before suddenly gaining confidence-and power-and lifting straight up into the air, pointing toward the stern. Then, as the ship moved away beneath it, it banked to the southwest and swerved away. The last thing Michael saw, peering out, was the demolished window of the aloft con. The dead albatross had been removed, and a makeshift cover of wood, crisscrossed with aluminum bands and duct tape, had been used to seal the hole.

Below him was the Weddell Sea-named after the Scottish sealer, James Weddell, who was among the first to explore it in the 1820s-and the water was thick with floating ice and immense, seemingly stationary glaciers. From above, Michael could see straight down into the glaciers’ jagged crevasses; when the light was right, and a ray of sun just happened to hit at the proper angle, the inner ice glowed a bright neon blue. And when the light had passed, it was as if the electricity had just been turned off, and the crevasse became again a frightening scar, a black suture on a dead white face.

There was a crackling sound in the headphones, then Ensign Diaz came on to introduce himself and advise everyone that their flying time would be roughly one hour. “We hope it's a smooth ride,” he said, “but by now you know the score down here.”

Michael couldn't help glancing at Darryl, who'd already had enough turbulence to last him a lifetime, but his headphones were off, and he was blissfully asleep, his mouth open, his head listing toward Charlotte's ample shoulder. Charlotte had on her big round shades, and was looking down at the sea with a pensive expression.

Michael could guess at some of what she was thinking. When you were flying over the vast, barren waste of the Antarctic wilderness, it was hard not to dwell on some things-the insignificance of your own tiny life, the possibility, at any time, of one minor mishap leading to a series of events resulting in death or disaster. Despite the explorers and whalers and sealers who had plied these dangerous waters for centuries, the Antarctic continent was still the most untouched by humankind. Its very inhospitability was all that had saved it. When the economic cost of killing the remaining whales for oil and baleen had become too great, the industry had finally ground to a halt. When the fur seals had been so decimated by ruthless predation-hundreds and hundreds of thousands wantonly slaughtered on the ice, the mothers dead, the pups left to starve- that grim business, too, had gradually ceased to flourish. Wherever humans had set foot, the carnage had been so brutal, so extraordinary, and so quick that the very thing making the killers rich was nearly eradicated in a hundred years’ time.

The goose that laid the golden egg had been killed, over and over and over again.

But the icy fastness of the South Pole had, ultimately, worn out all its would-be invaders and made itself impervious to all but the most tentative intrusions. There were scientific bases and research stations, like Point Adelie, scattered around the shores of the Southern Ocean, but they were like little black pebbles on a vast white beach. Tiny dark specks in a world of blue sea and crystalline peaks. And most of them, as Michael had learned at his dinners in the Officers’ Mess, were less about the quest for knowledge than they were about making a claim on the land-and the limitless mineral resources that might lie beneath it.

“The Antarctic is the only continent on earth with no nations on it,” the Ops had pointed out over dinner one night, “and to keep it that way, the Antarctic Treaty was drawn up in ‘59. The treaty declares the Antarctic-which means any ocean or land south of sixty degrees-to be an international zone. Nuclear-free. Forty-four nations have signed on.”

“But that hasn't stopped the squatters,” Darryl had said, piling the potatoes au gratin onto his plate. “Come one, come all.”

Lieutenant Healey had smiled ruefully at that. “You're right. Many nations, including some unlikely newcomers like China and Peru, have set up so-called research stations. It's their way of asserting their rights to participate in any discussions about the Antarctic-or any exploitation of its resources that might later occur.”

“In other words, they're just getting in line, like us,” Darryl said, “for whenever the free-for-all really gets under way.” He shoveled another mouthful of potatoes into his mouth, and before quite swallowing it, added, “And it will.”

Michael had no doubt he was right, although looking out the window at the frozen panorama below and the sun, squatting like a fat bronze ball on the horizon, it was hard to envision that coming cataclysm. The endless ice, and the rolling sea, looked as impervious as they did eternal.

To the west, he could see the first signs of the storm front the captain had hinted at. Wispy gray clouds were filling the sky and starting to fly in their direction, like strips of a shroud being torn by invisible fingers. The ocean, too, was starting to stir, the gentle swells growing higher, the waves frothing white. Flocks of seabirds were driven before the rising wind.

Darryl had come awake, and was sitting up straight; apparently, the seasickness was at long last behind him, and his skin, though pallid as any redhead's, was at least no longer green. He grinned at Michael and gave him a thumbs-up. Charlotte was studying a folded map in her lap.