William Dietrich - Ice Reich

"I like the mountains too. Have you been to the Alps?"

"Afraid not. Not even in Leni's movies."

She smiled at the reference and, without asking, sat down, opening the book on her lap. The pages fluttered in the wind. Hart was a bit surprised at this overture; he thought he'd muddled things sufficiently at supper. Now here she was, pretending as if nothing had happened.

"Is it a good place, Montana?"

"A wonderful place to grow up for a boy. Riding, fishing, climbing, caving."

"Caving?"

"Spelunking. There were caverns not far from our place. Beautiful limestone ones. We were warned not to go in them but we'd sneak off anyway with candles and lanterns, crawling around and getting stuck. Lucky we didn't get lost. We'd come home pretending we'd gone someplace else but our mothers had to know. We stank of them."

"You had a lot of freedom then."

"They let us run wild. And you?"

She laughed. "Convent school. My father far away. Nuns. Sin. Guilt."

"My God."

"Oh, not so bad. But this is my chance to run to freedom."

"It's the only thing worth running to," he said.

For a moment she didn't say anything, then: "How did you become a pilot?"

"Took a dollar ride at a county fair and was hooked. I saved up during a summer of riding and roping and bought myself flying lessons. I became a barnstormer. A wild one, actually. At eighteen you think you're immortal. I had more guts than sense until I cracked up a couple times. Then I ran cargo, chartered, and did a lot of cold weather flying. I met Elliott Farnsworth at an air show, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"And no woman in this history?"

"That's a forward kind of inquiry."

"It's the only inquiry any woman cares to know. Surely you've learned that by now."

He grinned. "You're not very coy, are you?"

"I am when I want to be."

"Well. The girls I knew would tell you I've learned nothing about your gender. Yes, there were women- even a woman- but it didn't last. A pilot is about as stable as a hummingbird. And Antarctica is not a place conducive to romance."

She laughed at that, and Hart sensed she was laughing at herself. "Too bad!"

"Too cold. And if we're being so inquisitive, let me ask you about men in your history."

"Ah. Well. That's a complicated story." She looked across the waves. "I'm not married, if that's what you mean. I… I hope to do a lot of thinking down here."

"About Jurgen?"

She looked away. "No. About me."

Her tone made him cautious. "All right. Fair enough."

They were quiet for a bit. He sensed her approval at the quiet; it felt companionable to watch the swells hiss by. Finally she turned to him again. "Would you like to see my laboratory?"

It was on the main deck, just above the waterline. A single porthole offered natural illumination. A microscope was bolted to a wooden table, shelves held scientific books and journals in German, and cabinets stored beakers and tubes. Small translucent shrimplike creatures floated in jars of formaldehyde, all less than an inch long. "Krill," she explained, holding them to the light, regarding the specimens with a professionally flat rationality. "There are billions, trillions of them in the Southern Ocean. Combined, they outweigh any animal on earth: humans, elephants, whales. A hundred million tons, some have guessed. They're the key to the biological wealth of Antarctica."

"They look like ghosts," Hart said. "So pale."

"As clear as the cold waters. We have some nets aboard to try to produce an estimate of their abundance. That we scarcely recognized their importance until a few years ago is humbling, no? How little we still know of our own world."

"Yes." He took the jar and examined the creatures closely. They seemed gossamer in their translucence, naked somehow. "Yet we don't seem to be humbled. We're anxious enough to run the world anyway."

"You mean by whaling in Antarctica."

"By going there, by staying there, by establishing new orders. Look at Hitler. He wants to change everything."

"He's exciting," Greta said. "He started from nothing and now he's the most important man in the world. He has what most people lack: vision, and will."

"You sound like Drexler."

"Jurgen's not incorrect. He recognizes the path to the future, even if he can be a bit single-minded about it at times. It's exciting to feel a part of that. For an American, perhaps, it's different."

"Ah, you mean I'm not a patriot," Hart said wryly. "A hired gun."

"Just that you go for your own reasons. I, and Jurgen, and Captain Heiden, and everyone else aboard go for Germany. At least in part."

Hart thought back to Fritz's more cynical interpretation. "And I go for myself?"

"My guess is you're looking for yourself there."

"Oh. Freud again."

She shrugged guiltily, smiling.

"But there's more than that," he said. "I go for Antarctica."

"Yes." She put the jar back on the shelf. "And that's interesting. It must be quite a place, to draw you back."

The weather warmed as the tender sailed south. Mindful of the need to take advantage of the short Antarctic summer, Heiden bypassed the chance to get fresh produce in the Canaries- the Spanish oranges were already gone- and steamed on for the equator. Hart busied himself getting to know the two flying boats and their pilots, Kauffman and Lambert. The aviators seemed simple and straightforward men, in love with flying and excited at the prospect of being the first humans to see unexplored territory. In the calmer seas off Africa it was decided to give the airplanes a test flight and the Schwabenland turned to point the Heinkel K7 catapults directly into the hot breeze. The sea here was rolling but placid, like a cerulean desert.

"Would you like to go flying, Hart?" Kauffman asked him.

"Of course. I've never been on a catapult plane."

"Then you're in for a ride. We'll achieve a speed of one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour in a second and a half. Takes your breath away."

Kauffman took the pilot's seat, Hart the co-pilot's. In the compartment behind, Lambert served as navigator and Heinrich Stern, the expedition's communications officer, was radioman. Sailors scrambled to ready the catapult and the Dornier engine roared to life, the plane trembling like an excited puppy. Kauffman checked the gauges, Hart following his gaze. All were familiar. Planes are planes, he thought. Then the German pilot brought the engine to full power and gave a thumbs-up. There was a bang and a hiss and the propeller craft hurled forward, shoving Hart back into his seat. As they left the catapult's end there was a brief, alarming drop toward the sea- a moment's hesitation as if the engine was gathering effort- and then they were away and soaring upward, banking to rotate over the ship. Hart whooped and Kauffman grinned. Toy figures on the deck below waved a cheer and the Schwabenland suddenly seemed very tiny in the immensity of the ocean.

The men took a bearing toward Africa and flew off in that direction, the blue bowl they navigated through featureless and hazy. Hart felt the sheer exhilaration of being in the air, cut free from the earth and sea.

"Do you want to fly her?" Kauffman inquired.

Hart nodded happily and took the controls. The seaplane was not nimble but steady, a high-powered workhorse that should perform well in the cold Antarctic air. He began flying in a broad loop back toward the ship. The vessel was lost for a while in the dazzle of the sun and then became visible again, drawing a dark line on a platter of silver. It looked so slow and stately from this height! Then, toward the horizon, there was a puff of mist. Kauffman pointed excitedly. "Whales!"

Hart brought the plane down to three hundred feet and roared over the leviathans, awed by the spectacle. The beasts were huge, barnacled and battered like jetty rocks. They broke the surface, exhaled with a powerful sigh, and then slid underwater to become racing blue shadows. When he flew over again at only fifty feet the whales sounded, tails flashing in the sunlight as they headed for the abyss. Hart realized he'd been holding his breath. "Magnificent!"