Hannah Ross - The Last Outpost - An Antarctic Dystopia

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll get to some number-crunching right now.”

Nash nodded. “I’m glad to see you so absorbed in work,” he remarked. “The research team has made another trip to AN-85, and I rather thought you would choose to join them.”

“I’ve been too busy at the office,” Scott said curtly.

“Right. It’s always busy here this time of the year. Not that I wouldn’t understand the, ah, attractions of the Geyser Valley.”

There was an unpleasant smirk on Victor’s face, and Scott wished he would leave. It seemed that Nash enjoyed taunting him, and he was in no mood to put up with this right now. Anger flared up within him again, hot and hard. Slowly, he got up from his chair.

“Oh yes, Nash,” he said quietly, “I know all about how you appreciated the attractions of that valley. So much so that you lost your clearance to go near it again.”

Nash stood with his back to the door and faced him with an ugly scowl. “What do you know about that?” he demanded. “Did Lindholm fail to keep his mouth shut? Don’t be a prude, Buckley. You have seen those women, pretty wild things that they are. They would have been none the worse for a little attention.”

A muscle twitched in Scott’s jaw, and almost without perceiving it, he advanced toward Nash. “You are a molester and a dirty scumbag, Nash,” he said. “That’s why Lindholm kept you from getting his position and made sure you had no clearance to go to AN-85. I say he was too soft with you. If I were him, I would act to get you sent away from McMurdo no matter what it took. I’m ashamed to know that a walking disgrace like you still has a place at the station. Now get out of my office before I punch you in the face.”

One of Victor’s hands edged behind his back and gripped the door handle, but he didn’t move. “A disgrace, am I?” he repeated mockingly. “You hypocrite, Buckley. We’ll see how you get on a year from now, with your wife away and no decent-looking woman in sight. You have no idea how to run the station, you clueless upstart. You wouldn’t have lasted a week without me.”

“Oh yeah?” Scott’s voce was dangerously low. “Well, Nash, you might as well put this to test. The summer workers are going to leave soon, and you are welcome to join them.”

Nash strode out, banging the door, and Scott returned to his desk. He massaged his temples and closed his eyes. Satisfying as it was to tell Nash exactly what he thought of him, he had no idea how they could keep working together with tolerable civility now.

Before Scott had the chance to worry too long about his work relationship with Nash, there was a series of beeps and, upon checking, he saw that it’s an Internet call from the Antarctic Program headquarters. He wondered what the reason could possibly be — he only got a direct call from headquarters once since starting his work at McMurdo — but, naturally, pressed ‘receive’ at once, and found himself face to face with Trevor Lang, his supervisor.

“Scott, you’re alone, that’s good,” Trevor said, sounding harried. He was a lean, bony man in his fifties, with a square face and a haircut so brutally short it put one in mind of convicts. “I did want a few minutes — you’ll see the latest broadcasts soon enough, I presume, but first I’m going to brief you.”

“News?” Scott repeated. “Is it about the war with North Korea?”

“Not just that. North Korea, India, China, Europe… the world is going up in flames, and Australia and New Zealand are wisely trying to keep out of it, but I don’t know how long they can hold on. There was a bombing in Washington — the details are still confidential, but it’s far worse than September 11th. It’s war, Scott, global war, and I’m afraid that not even a place as remote as McMurdo is going to evade the consequences.”

Scott gripped the edge of his desk. “What do you mean?”

“The summer employees were supposed to leave soon, but under present conditions, I seriously doubt we will be able to provide transportation for them all. Both flights and ships are going to become scarce from now on, and not to be taken for granted… in the current situation, some countries can no longer be relied on to respect the Antarctic Treaty, you see, and if regions of sea and land turn disputed, sailing can be unsafe. A plane is going to arrive soon to carry off the tourists, and whatever summer workers can fit it, and evacuate them to New Zealand, but it’s almost certain there won’t be a place for everyone. Some of the workers will have to overwinter at McMurdo rather than go home… and, it pains me to say so, but they might be safer in Antarctica than in the States.”

“But,” Scott cut in with a feeling of mounting panic, “if we have more people than we counted on at McMurdo over winter, we must have more supplies. I made some extra orders, but if you can just give me a total number…”

“I can’t guarantee any extra shipments,” Lang said impassively. “In fact, you must get to grips with the fact that no one can guarantee anything right now. The communication lines may turn patchy, especially as darkness falls. You will have to make do with what you have, Mr. Buckley. I trust in your capabilities during this difficult time.”

Scott was about to say something else, ask more questions, but Lang’s voice became scratchy, unintelligible — they were losing the connection. It closed a few seconds later, and Scott was unable to renew it. Deeply perturbed, he walked out of his office, turning on Google Chrome on his phone at the same time, and pressing a shortcut to a news website. He barely caught a glimpse of the headline, Emergency Report: Bombings in Washington, World in Utter Chaos, when he collided with Jerry, who was practically running down the corridor, pale and out of breath.

“Have you heard, Scott? Washington, D.C. — the bastards dared to touch it!”

“Calm down, Jerry. I know it all… or at least enough to realize we must have an emergency meeting. There are some important communications to make, and I want you on board, too. Zoe as well, and all the team leaders, doctors, head researchers, and the people who are in charge of the recycling and water purification plants. The conference room isn’t big enough, so I’ll have the meeting at the bigger club in an hour.”

“You’ll want Nash to alert the people, I suppose,” Jerry said, sounding slightly less frantic.

Involuntarily, Scott wrinkled his nose. “No,” he said, “I’ll send the message through Zoe myself.”

Zoe sounded positively on the verge of fainting when he called her at the communications center. “I have family in Washington,” she said. “I can’t get through to them…”

“I understand, Zoe, but we must get this under control, OK? I need everybody at the meeting in an hour, and I must prepare.”

In the hour that remained before the meeting, Scott did some thinking and some number crunching. Luckily, most of the tourists have already left McMurdo, prompted by the world turbulence and the approaching winter. There remained about fifty, who would all be considered top priority for evacuation. A brief email received from headquarters in the meantime informed Scott that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the plane, having the capacity of 150 passenger seats, would arrive in two days. Subtracting fifty seats for the tourists, this left a hundred for the summer workers. Scott’s first priority was to avoid hysterical competition and elbowing among the summer employees to get these seats. They would have to go through the files of seven hundred summer workers and create a priority list based on people’s health condition, family situation, and capabilities.

There were other considerations, too. Of around a thousand people at McMurdo, about eight hundred and fifty would be left after this one guaranteed evacuation flight, as opposed to the usual two hundred and fifty year-round workers. This left an extra six hundred people to feed, house and keep warm over winter, and Scott had no idea whether the station’s resources would hold on. We might have to implement rationing … he shook his head, praying for extra flights, or ships that would brave the Sub Antarctic waters and carry people away to relative safety.