The Pole of Inaccessibility

by Alan Bronston

  Chapter 8

  Beardmore Glacier Camp

  Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range

  From the ledge where Susan Engen was working, she could look down on the camp, the hut at the center, the brightly-colored dome tents adorning the otherwise bleak landscape; the cargo line extending out towards the ski-way. Jake was orienting the grad students, including Connie and Walt, most of whom had never stood on sloping ice before, let alone high up on a mountain. In time, they would be bounding around without ropes as if born to it. For right now, though, they listened intently, as if their lives depended on what he was saying, which they did.

  She had heard nothing from the Green Organization regarding her message to them. That was no surprise; there wasn’t any way in which they would have been able to reply. She wasn’t completely certain that it had found its way to them at all. Hanging her hopes on a “Hail Mary” pass was somewhat less than comforting. She could only hope that the information was being put to good use.

  The booming of the explosions from Lt. Richards’ seismic work down below continued to irritate her. She instinctively looked up whenever they happened, as if the noise and vibration would trigger avalanches. The sudden motion made her shoulder ache worse that it did already, and she subconsciously began to blame the Lieutenant for her discomfort. And that was without the consideration that working in the last great wilderness was supposed to be a peaceful experience.

  Having one good arm made working difficult; she needed to be able to write on her clipboard while using her instruments. Jake offered to help, but trying to explain to him what she needed done was harder than just doing it. Besides, he would have seen the set of not quite duplicate notes that she was keeping. While it was certain that he wouldn’t understand what they meant, it would have been awkward to explain why there were separate reports. Totally stonewalling that inconvenient Lieutenant might not be an option at this point, but a little disinformation could at least buy some time.

  Jake had gotten the grad students secured and returned to where Susan was looking through the viewer on the theodolite, the telescopic viewer mounted upon a tripod that was used for mapping the geology.

  “All set?” she asked him.

  “Doing fine,” he said, before settling onto a rock facing the sun.

  He sat quietly, watching her work, picking up little pieces of shale and tossing them at a target he picked out a few feet away.

  “Is this really going to happen?” he asked her. “Drilling for oil, here?”

  “No,” she answered, making a note on the page.

  “How can you be so sure?” he asked. “They sounded serious enough when they talked about it. And they said it was your theory that gave them the idea.”

  She looked over at him, closing the cover of the notebook. The raillery that normally crowded his deportment was nowhere to be found in his current demeanor. It was replaced with concern that he took no effort to conceal.

  “Because I said so,” she told him, smiling comfortingly. “Especially because they are using my ideas.”

  “I just wish there was something we could do. I feel like I need to do something,” he said, throwing more of the rocks.

  She hesitated before answering, wondering how much to say.

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Act like nothing has changed. There may be a time when there will be something to do, but for now, don’t do anything. Don’t even sound like you are against it.”

  He looked at her with a different expression on his face now. She spoke as if she actually meant it: that there might be action to take, while he had sounded like someone who was merely regretting his helplessness.

  “Why do I begin to suspect that something is afoot here?” he asked her.

  “Because you’re a man,” she told him, opening her notebook again and getting back to work.

  “And all men are suspicious? So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Okay,” he commented, slipping back into character.

  “You know, you barely get to know a girl before you decide she’s up to no good,” Susan said, playing along.

  He laughed, but shook his head with a sideways tilt, indicating he knew that any trust he was to place in her protestations of innocence would leave him disappointed.

  “Somehow, I get the feeling that I would find myself vindicated in that belief in very short order,” he said.

  She chose not to reply, but she didn’t need to. Her confident, though conspiratorial, look said all that was necessary.