Tom Grace: Polar Quest

‘Why didn’t you two just elope?’

Kilkenny smiled grimly. ‘That’s what I suggested. Not a Vegas quickie at the Elvis chapel, but a small private ceremony. No dice.’

‘Most women have pretty strong feelings about their wedding day.’

‘So I discovered. I also learned that, according to the etiquette books, a wedding is the bride’s party and the groom is just one of the invited guests. Long story short, I misread all the signs and started a fight in which I said some truly boneheaded things to her. During the few days when she wasn’t speaking to me, she gave some serious thought to our situation and decided it would be best for both of us if we postponed our engagement until after she returned from space. After all, seventeen months is a long time to be apart.’

‘Define postponed.’

‘My current status is single and unattached. Kelsey and I parted with no conditions and no promises regarding the future.’

‘Que sera sera.’

‘Yep. Doris Day is singing the sound track to my love life.’

‘I hear you, Nolan, and if I can offer you one bit of advice, as a man whose last romantic bridge is so badly burned that there’s nothing left but ash and some tiny bits of charcoal, it’s this: Get off your ass and do something about it. Wishing won’t fix nothing between you and Kelsey, and neither will hiding from it. I wished and hid my way right out of a marriage.’

‘Any suggestions?’

Eames took a draw on his beer. ‘She’s following a dream right now, that’s good. Make damn sure she knows you support her all the way and that you’ll be waiting for her when she returns from the heavens.’

After dinner, Eames returned to his office at UGene and spent the next several hours reviewing experimental data. His radio was tuned to a campus station that was playing a Natalie Merchant retrospective in connection with the concert. Eames recalled taking Faye to see the sultry vocalist back when she fronted for 10,000 Maniacs.

Eames left his office well after midnight. As he drove toward his home, he gave into an impulse and changed direction. He entered a modest neighborhood of well-kept homes and turned onto a street called Pineview. On their first visit to Ann Arbor, Faye had fallen in love with a cute ranch house that they eventually moved into.

Passing his former home, Eames saw that it was dark and Lloyd Sutton’s car was parked in the driveway.

Nedra pulled the disk from her computer, labeled it, and placed it in a plastic jewel case. She had burned through a stack of CD-RWs this afternoon, downloading the final record of what she and her husband had accomplished during their time at LV Research Station. She switched off her workstation and set the box of disks into a small storage crate for the journey back to the U.S.

Years of planning, design, and testing had led them to this place, and now their work was done. She and her husband had proved it was possible to explore a world hidden beneath miles of ice, and they were now one step closer to hunting for life on Europa.

‘Are you finished yet?’ Collins called out from the galley.

Nedra closed the latch on the crate. ‘We are now officially packed and ready to go home.’

‘Great, now I can open this.’

Nedra heard a loud pop.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘Depends. Do you think it’s champagne?’

‘Didn’t we already drink the one bottle you smuggled in back in December?’

Collins appeared in the doorway of the research wing with two coffee mugs filled with Great Western. ‘Yes, but then I found this while I was rummaging around in the wine cellar. Of course, we can’t just let it go to waste.’

Nedra and Collins tapped mugs and sipped the effervescent liquid.

‘Mmmm,’ Nedra purred.

‘And for our final meal here at LV, I’ve prepared some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.’

Nedra forced a smile. ‘Sounds delicious.’

‘I know,’ Collins said with a sigh, ‘but when we get to New Zealand, I’m taking you out for a great meal at the finest restaurant in Christchurch.’

‘I’d settle for a long hot bath, room service, and a week of passion in a five-star suite.’

‘I’ll see what I can – ’ Collins paused. ‘Do you hear that?’

A low distant rumble started to resonate through the station: the mechanical throb of engines.

‘Yeah,’ Nedra replied. ‘It sounds like the plane.’

‘They’re early. Something must’ve changed the schedule.’

‘The last weather report I saw looked fine, but I won’t complain if they get us home sooner.’

‘Your sandwich is in the kitchen. I’m going to go out and meet our ride.’

Collins climbed down to the lower level, donned his gear, and stepped through the air lock. Outside, the wind blew down steadily from the glacial highlands, and the drone of the plane’s engines thundered all around the station.

A cloud of powdery snow and ice crystals flared from the broad skis beneath the LC-130, billowing behind the plane like the dust trail behind a car on a dirt road. The plane grew larger as it approached, sliding down the icy runway, and finally came to a stop just short of the station. The pilot taxied the aircraft closer, then turned so that the tail ramp faced the station door.

The plane’s engines slowed, but kept running – it was too cold to risk shutting them off. As Collins walked over to the plane, the side door dropped to become a stair and a man dressed in a white hooded snowsuit quickly descended from the plane.

‘Kilkenny?’ Collins asked expectantly, but he was unable to discern the man’s identity.

Duroc reached out, grasped Collins’s offered hand, and yanked him forward with a violent jerk. Collins stumbled, tripping as he tried to regain his balance. Duroc pivoted at the waist and struck him in the temple with the palm of his hand, dislodging the goggles from the engineer’s face. Collins dropped to his knees as Duroc twisted his arm behind his back.

‘Cooperate, and you and your wife will live,’ Duroc said, pressing the barrel of a Glock 9mm pistol against Collins’s cheek. ‘Do you understand, Mr Collins?’

Collins nodded groggily, still dizzy from the blow. As he lifted his head, Collins saw five more men emerge from the plane, each dressed in white camouflage suits and cradling submachine guns.

‘Secure the station,’ Duroc ordered.

The soldiers approached cautiously, even though they didn’t expect any resistance. Their intelligence reports indicated that only Collins and his wife occupied LV Station and that neither was armed.

‘Nedra!’ Collins shouted as the soldiers swept into the air lock.

Duroc struck Collins on the side of the head with his pistol and the engineer collapsed to the ice, unconscious.

Four soldiers thundered up the spiral stair to the main level, then broke into two-man teams to check the hall-ways while the fifth man covered the stairs from the air lock.

‘Philip?’ Nedra called out from the kitchen.

She had just refilled her mug with champagne when a soldier swung around the edge of the doorway, his machine gun held shoulder high, the barrel and the man’s eyes locked on her face.

‘Hands on your head! Now!’ the soldier shouted.

Nedra slowly set the bottle on the counter and placed her hands behind her head.

‘I have the woman,’ the soldier called out, the thin wire of a lip mike curled around his cheek to the corner of his mouth.

Duroc glanced down at Collins’s prone body as he listened through his earpiece to the reports of his men inside the station. He checked his watch; less than thirty seconds had passed since he’d stepped out of the plane and the station was his.