Ice Reich (8 page)

Drexler's behavior persuaded Hart that he should keep a careful distance from Greta. If he was going to rehabilitate his reputation the last thing he needed was a rivalry with the expedition's political liaison— or to get his mind wrapped around another woman. Yet curiosity nagged at him.

One evening he took Drexler's intended seat next to hers in order to see what would happen. She looked at him curiously, but not without welcome. "Hello."

Hart smiled. "It looks like you've gotten your sea legs." He nodded toward her full plate.

"And you appear to be finding your way as well." She studied him.

His throat suddenly felt dry, but he managed: "Well, it isn't that big a ship."

"Yes. And yet, I haven't seen that much of you."

"Everyone is busy and I'm trying not to interfere. You seem... occupied."

She looked up at the dark circle of a porthole, the lift of her chin showing the white curve of her neck. "Not all the time," she said, trying to keep her tone light.

They let that hang for a moment.

"So, have you gotten things— the expedition, I mean— in proper order?" she finally asked.

"Actually my contribution has been pretty minimal. I've done my best, but the clichés about German thoroughness appear to be true."

"Really?" She smiled at that. "How does it feel to be surrounded by meticulous Germans?"

"Depends on the German."

"Of course." She sipped some water, studying him over the rim of the glass. "Well, I suspect we benefit from the perspective of an outsider. There's talk about you on the ship, you know. Your past. Why you're here. I have my own theory."

"Which is?"

"I think you're a deliberate adventurer. Undaunted by the prospect of death but afraid of life. Fond of going to remote, lonely places." She waited for his reaction.

"Hmmm. That might describe anyone on this ship. Including you."

She laughed. "That's the problem with Professor Freud's psychoanalysis. It's like a boomerang, coming back at the analyst."

"Yes, but still, it's fun to form conjectures. I must admit, I've been mostly stymied in your case."

She smiled. "How so?"

"Well— " Hart paused, afraid he was venturing onto unsafe ground. "Your presence on this ship is... puzzling. A lone woman among so many men, willing to risk everything for some scientific data. One wonders— "

"What?"

"I only meant that you're female. That's good, admirable, but I can't help wondering how you came to be here."

"I was invited, like you."

"I know that, yes, of course..."

"For my
expertise,
Owen. Like you." She sounded annoyed.

"I didn't mean..."

Drexler came in then, his cheeks flushed from some mission outside in the cold. He moved to the table where Greta was and then stopped, clearly a bit nonplussed at Hart's presence. Greta looked up at him with exasperation, as if he'd undercut her point by appearing. Then she studied her salad, poking it with her fork. "I am unclear what you
did
mean," she said quietly to Hart.

Quickly masking his own discomfort, Drexler moved to a smaller table and took a seat next to Schmidt, pretending a hearty companionship. Greta glanced over at the blond German, who was studiously ignoring her.

Damn.

"You'd better eat that salad," Hart told her, his voice a bit rougher than he intended. "We'll be out of greens in another week."

"Yes, of course." She trimmed a small leaf with her knife and lifted it to her lips, slipping it in. Then she suddenly turned to him. "You must forgive me. I'm still finding my way aboard and am a bit awkward at it, I'm afraid." She abruptly stood up, gathering her dishes. "This motion destroys my appetite."

Hart started to stand too, anxious that he'd spoiled her supper, but as soon as he did so he knocked over his water glass, sending a small flood toward the pilot Kauffman. He lunged. "I'm sorry, Reinhard!" He groped for his napkin, glancing around in time to see Greta leave the galley. Drexler looked after her as she disappeared but didn't move.

Well, thought Hart. Next time I'll sit elsewhere.

After dinner Drexler paused at Hart's table. "No luck? Or no skill?"

* * *

Each of the expedition leaders was developing roles in the ship's new social order. Heiden was friendly but professionally distant: appropriately so, Hart judged. The success of the expedition was ultimately the captain's responsibility and so he was trying to cultivate an air of shared competence, not camaraderie. He had a Prussian briskness.

Drexler's manner was one of energetic dedication, an officious drive he probably thought reasonably masked his interest in Greta. Hart had heard little of this
Schutzstaffel,
or SS, but it clearly was an elite that drew deference from Germans. Jürgen enjoyed Göring's influence and Heiden's ear. Hart was impressed by his mind— Drexler seemed to retain any statistic about the Dorniers that was thrown at him— and his ability to put their voyage in grand historical context. "This is a first step toward making Germany a true global power!" he would exclaim with almost boyish enthusiasm. He conferred for long hours with Heiden, the two men bent over old Antarctic charts.

Alfred Feder, the geographer, was conversational, exhibiting a genuine curiosity about Antarctica. What had been the weather pattern? How cold in summer and winter? Which food, if any, could be hunted or fished for? What did the climate do to storage of supplies? Was fire a serious danger because of dry air? Yes, and of course the lack of unfrozen water! How did the British or Americans melt enough to sustain a base? Hart answered as straightforwardly as he could, not pretending knowledge when he didn't have it.

Schmidt, the ship's doctor, was more of a mystery. He had a sour closeness about him, seeming to tolerate people more than enjoy them. He smoked like a chimney and only dabbed at his food. His sallow skin reminded Hart of oiled paper. The physician held a clinic for the sailors two hours each day, receiving the usual litany of complaints ranging from seasickness to the inevitable venereal disease resulting from Hamburg shore leave. He quickly earned a reputation for being gruff and ungentle. "He's got the bedside manner of a veterinarian," the sailors reported.

Hart continued to run into Greta but she passed by with a distracted air, which satisfied him. In truth, he was a bit intimidated by her. Once he caught her looking at him, her expression opaque, and could think of nothing intelligent to say.

Then she approached again.

The pilot was sitting on a hatch cover, enjoying a watery sun in a hazy sky. To occupy himself he'd found some line and was splicing two rope ends together.

"You do that as if from long experience," came a female voice. He looked up, startled. She was carrying binoculars and a book about seabirds, the wind pressing one side of her coat against her figure and snapping the other end free like a flag. She pointed to his splices. "Were you a seaman as well as a pilot?"

She'd caught him by surprise, and he hesitated a moment before replying. "No, Fritz taught me." Her skin was rosy from the unaccustomed midwinter sun and wind, he noticed. "I'm a
landlubber."
 

"A what?"

"It's an American word for someone who's never been to sea. I grew up in Montana, a mountain state. I'd never been on the ocean until my first trip south."

"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 Jürgen?"

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."

"Jürgen'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 Jürgen, 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.