In Cold Pursuit (18 page)

They were approaching Crary Lab, and they stopped to talk in the middle of the road in front of it. “Because they either don’t believe it’s going to make a difference or because they don’t care, I guess,” Peter offered.

“I can think of a third possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“Because they don’t know. And that’s my job. To come up with the facts and take them to the people, so they’ll all make wiser, better-informed decisions.” Impulsively, she reached out and tapped the front of his parka. “And people like you, whose job it is to make us all more efficient in the way we heat and cool buildings, can not only figure out how to use less fossil fuels but also make decisions about other ways to heat buildings so we can quit using fuels that throw CO2 into the atmosphere.”

Peter considered this. “You keep talking about CO2. How about the methane?”

Valena rolled her eyes. “Well, first, C
O2
is the bigger problem, simply by volume, and second, it’s darned hard to persuade people to give up dairy products or to put methane scrubbers on cows. That’s the major source of methane emissions that humans can influence. Landfills would be second.”

Peter leaned toward her, incredulous. “Cows?”

Valena grinned. “Bossy and Bessie, you bet. Factory dairy farms are a big deal. The factory farms are also a problem because of their impact on groundwater. And once they foul up one area, they move them to another and foul that up, too.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“I spent a lot of time on a farm when I was a kid. And I did an internship with an environmental firm in California during college, just to make sure which way I wanted to go for graduate school. My undergraduate degree was in geology.”

“And you decided to go into climatology.”

“Glaciology. For climatology you have to put together oceanography, atmospheric science, geology—”

“Geology?”

“Yeah, so you know how the continents move, which strongly influences—”

“The continents move?”

Valena opened her mouth to say yes, but then saw the twinkle in Peter’s eyes and instead swatted him across one shoulder with a mitten. “What are you, a flat-earther?”

“I am the center of the universe. Didn’t I mention that?”

“Come on inside Crary, and I’ll show you dinosaur and fern fossils found underneath all this ice that prove that the continents move, Bishop Ussher.”

“Who’s Bishop Ussher?”

“A sixteenth-century monk who calculated the age of the earth from Biblical scripture. He came up with October 23, 4004 BCE. And then we can discuss the way particulate pollutants have dimmed the earth.”

Peter’s eyes were twinkling again. “You’re into lots of thinky stuff, aren’t you, Valena?”

“Yes, I am.”

One of the heavy steel doors on the front of Crary Lab opened and a woman came out. “Hey, Peter!”

Peter turned around. “Oh, Doris! I saw the helicopter come in. It looked like they took Steve to the hospital. And I heard they found his tractor not far from the runway, so I mean, wow, how’d he get clear out there?”

Doris shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until he regains consciousness. It doesn’t look good.”

A
N E-MAIL FROM
T
AHA
H
ESAN WAS WAITING FOR
Valena when she checked the computer at Crary Lab.

“Bummer,” Valena whispered under her breath. She glanced at her other messages. The reply from Em Hansen was still there, as were the cheery greetings from her friends back in Colorado. Somehow, these last seemed as insubstantial as frost on the window, far away and separate. She exited the mail program and rose to head down the hallway toward the galley.

She was swept up into a hubbub of men who were slapping one another on the back. “Yo! My man! Way to go! Hey man, how’d you find him out there?” they were hollering.

The hero among them was grinning a down-home kind of grin, all aw-shucks and glittering with unconscious pride. He was a hardy-looking man with dark, shining eyes and brilliant white teeth, and as he walked, he rolled his broad chest and muscular shoulders with strength and ease of carriage. When his gaze briefly connected with hers, he blushed, his mahogany tan turning ruddier and the spaces around his eyes that had been protected from tanning by his glacier goggles turning pink.

Valena looked away. Had he found her features odd or disturbing? So many people stared. It made her feel ugly and increased her sense that she fit exactly nowhere. In this place, where she had somehow hoped to find a break from all that, the strange looks hurt bitterly.

The crowd swept the man along with them toward the galley. “No shit, Dave,” one of them caroled, “it’s like you’re clairvoyant or something. He’s out there in how many thousand square miles of ice and you drive right to him! He wasn’t even wearing a big red! Shit, man, he was in Carhartts!”

“Oh, stick it up your butt, Wilbur,” the man said. “Out there, anything that’s not white sticks out like a sore thumb, and he wasn’t all that far from the flag route.”

The crowd turned the corner. Valena heard additional cheers emanating from the galley. She followed along more slowly and dawdled over washing her hands. When she at last picked up a tray and took her place in the cafeteria line, the ruckus had moved on into the main part of the dining hall. She stood for a while, watching well-wishers journey up to the man named Dave, patting him on his shoulders, scruffing up his hair. He good-naturedly swatted them away.

“Bunch of sexist wackos,” said someone behind her.

Valena turned to see who had spoken. It was Cupcake. “Oh, hi,” said Valena. “Guess they found the missing man.”

“We
found the missing man,” said Cupcake. “I was with
him in the Challenger. Yeah, he spotted him first, but only because I was scanning the
other
hundred-eighty degrees of the landscape.”

“Sorry to hear,” said Valena. “I mean, I don’t like discrimination wherever you find it.”

Cupcake took a long, candid look at Valena’s face. “I’ll bet you don’t,” she said. “Just what are you, anyway? Quarter black, quarter Asian, quarter Cherokee, and quarter WASP?”

Valena’s head jerked at the epithet that finished the list. “I haven’t heard that term in a while.”

“And never attached to you, I’ll bet,” said Cupcake.

“Excuse me,” said Valena. “Like I said, I despise discrimination.” She set her tray down and left the galley through the door she had entered.

I
T TOOK HALF AN HOUR LYING ON HER BACK ON HER
bunk staring at the ceiling for Valena to pull herself together enough to return to the galley. She was extremely hungry, having eaten nothing that day but instant oatmeal, a chocolate bar, cocoa, and half of a stale sandwich, washed down with a six-ounce box of juice that she’d had to whack against her palm to break the frozen parts up into slush so she could suck it through the tiny straw that came with it. After twenty-four hours of exposure to cold at Happy Camp and the hike up Ob Hill, her body screamed for calories, and she reckoned that she was dehydrated.

Stuffing her feelings behind her best attempt at a game face, she hopped down off her bunk, ran her fingers through her hair, and headed back out to the galley. Once there, she picked up another tray and loaded it with broiled fish and a medley of vegetables that had obviously spent a lot of time in a very large can. She ladled a large wad of mashed potatoes on top of them, doused the whole mess with gravy, and headed for the drinks bar. There she mixed orange with cranberry juice, and in a separate glass, drew a volume of water. She guzzled the first glassful on the spot and then filled it again. Turning, she grabbed a fork, knife, and spoon out of the central island and then turned toward the dining hall.

The celebration involving the man named Dave had expanded, and now Cupcake was right in the middle of it. In fact, she had perched herself jauntily on the edge of the table and was giving one of the men a Dutch rub. People were offering her high fives, and one man came along and hoisted her right off the table to give her a squeeze.

Valena stared out across the room, trying to figure out which way to dodge the party. Suddenly, a man stood up from the first table to her right and waved to her.

“Hey, Valena!” he hollered. “Over here!”

It was the mustached guy from the Airlift Wing. He was sitting with the same sleepy-eyed woman firefighter. Valena lowered herself strategically into an open seat that allowed her to keep her back to the party. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t remember your names.”

“You’ve probably met two hundred people in the few days you’ve been on the ice,” he said. “I’m Hugh, and you’ve met Betty.”

Betty said, “Here, have some wine. I’m celebrating not being out there searching for that man.” She produced a bottle of New Zealand merlot and a glass and poured three fingers for Valena.

“Thanks.” Valena settled in and ate several forkfuls of fish and potatoes before risking a sip of the wine. Even under the best of circumstances she was a cheap drunk, and going at it on an empty stomach while dehydrated seemed a bad bet, especially considering her mood. “So he’s going to be okay?”

Betty said, “He’s out cold, and I do mean cold. The docs have decided to warm him up a bit before they have the marvelous Major Hugh here medevac him to Cheech.”

Hugh said, “I don’t know what their problem is. I told them we could carry him up on the flight deck to make certain he stays warm, but they got all wiggy about how drafty our dear Hercs are.”

“Why’s he unconscious?” Valena asked. Each bite of food was having an almost magical effect on her. Her mood was lifting rapidly.

Hugh looked at her a moment with an expression that
said,
You’re smart
, before answering, “Wouldn’t we all like to know that. Hypothermia alone doesn’t put a man into a coma except on the way to the great beyond. If he went out from the cold alone, he’d probably be awake by now, or he’d be just plain dead.” He shrugged his shoulders. “What do you think, Betty? You’ve got all that fancy medic training.”

The firefighter mirrored his shrug, her face impassive. “Ask those Cat skinners over there. They found him.”

Valena risked a glance over her shoulder at Cupcake. Feeling Valena’s eyes on her, the heavy equipment operator extricated herself from an arm-wrestling match and sauntered over to their table with her hands in her jeans pockets. She bumped a hip against Valena’s arm. “See you found yourself some vino. Mind if I have some? I’m dry.”

Betty pushed the bottle toward Cupcake. “I hear you’re the woman of the hour. So what’s the story?”

Cupcake picked up the bottle and drank out of the neck. Smacking her lips, she said, “Looked like he’d been hit.”

Betty’s laconic eyebrows rose a millimeter.

Hugh said, “You mean like a bruise?”

“Hard to say,” said Cupcake. “Rumor has it ol’ Steve had a glass jaw.”

“The McMurdo rumor mill,” said Betty. “The source of all wisdom.”

Cupcake said, “Could have taken a fall climbing off his Challenger, hit his chin, gotten stupid. Or at least, that’s the official story. Well, thanks for the vino. Gotta get back to whooping it up.” She wandered off, hoisting the bottle for another good toot.

Valena noticed that Hugh’s eyes had narrowed ever so slightly, like he was concentrating hard on what had been said. She said, “Funny how people are getting hurt around here.”

Hugh’s eyes shot her way, the very quickest of glances, then he looked away again, staring into space. Finally, putting his party-boy smile on, he said, “Well, we can’t solve that mystery just now, so let’s make plans instead. Valena, you’re still on for Tractor Club tonight, right?”

“Sure,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good. It’s at the Coffee House.”

“Coffee House?”

“It’s a wine bar,” said Betty.

Hugh grinned. “They got three bars here in greater metropolitan Mac Town: the Coffee House, Gallagher’s, and Southern Exposure. The Coffee House is that Quonset out there by Derelict Junction,” he said, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder. “They show movies sometimes, and you can do keen things like play Candy Land or Scrabble. A regular playground for intellectuals. Gallagher’s is mixed drinks, hamburgers, and pool, more the singles scene, but if you hit the schedule just right and you can stand it, they have line dancing. Southern Exposure serves a rather different clientele.”

Betty said, “You want to learn some new words for ‘hey, baby’?”

Hugh pursed his lips. “Betty, my love, so scathing thou art. I’ve learned some of my best jokes from the boys who frequent that dive.” To Valena, he added, “But I’ll warn you, you even walk past the exhaust fan on that joint and you’re up ten thousand feet in density altitude.”

Betty said, “That’s flyboy-ese for ‘They smoke like chimneys.’ As a firefighter, I am trained to consider rapid oxidation of flammable materials a negative thing, even if they’re sold twenty to a pack.”

Hugh said, “Drinking and smoking are only two of the addictions common to McMurdo Station. Consider our own dear Frosty Boy,” he said, pointing at the soft-serve ice cream vending machine. “You’ll notice the sign on it that informs the ice-cream-craving populace that the Boy is out of juice until tomorrow. That’s because more than a few McMurdans are known to have a Frosty habit. If they were to keep that machine loaded up all the time, it would probably blow the food budget, so they stoke the Boy only once each week, and that’s all she wrote. The DA who loads it cusses a blue streak. Evidently the Boy takes his toll on even those who do not partake.”