Esteban frowned, obviously not understanding a word.
Benjy, who had been trotting up and down beside our group, herding us like a sheepdog, came over. “Communication problem?”
I nodded. “Esteban was our guide at the Vespugian pyramids, so I just wanted to ask him what he’s doing here, and about this postcard he gave me.”
Benjy spoke to Esteban in Spanish, stumbling over the words but getting them out. He listened to Esteban’s reply, then said to me, “They’re here only for a few days, on what he said is a sort of camping trip. But”—he shrugged—“like I said, the Vespugians want to be a presence in Antarctica, and my bet is that’s why they’re here. I can’t see any signs of science.”
He didn’t say anything about the postcard with what I took to be a warning, and I didn’t push it, though it gave me a definitely chilly feeling.
I needed Cook. If anything else happened, I’d have to get Benjy alone. I had to talk to someone.
Siri came up to us then, shook hands with Esteban, then made motions with her fingers, like playing an oboe.
Esteban smiled at us, and his eyes were the color of the blue in the icebergs, not cold, but radiant. He spoke to Benjy, rather apologetically.
Benjy translated. “He says he can’t bring his oboe here because—something about heat and cold. It doesn’t make much sense.”
Siri said quickly, “It makes a lot of sense. When he plays the oboe, the warmth of his breath heats it, while the cold outside air chills it, and the opposition of heat and cold would probably crack it. That’s tough. He needs to practice regularly.”
We had reached the hut we had come to see, and that’s all it was, a hut built of smallish stones, barely still standing. It was interesting if you knew the history behind it, but not in itself.
Angelique said, “We’re on a comfortable boat. It’s summer. What do you think this hut would have been like in the Antarctic winter?”
Sam said, “As an explorer, I’ve sometimes wondered which is preferable, freezing to death or broiling.”
Dick leaned on his cane, smiling rather grimly. “Surgery in the jungle when your hands are so slippery with sweat you can hardly hold the instruments isn’t much fun.”
Angelique put her mittened hand on her husband’s arm. “Not to mention bombs and machine guns.”
Dick jerked in reflex as we heard engines above us, and three helicopters began circling. They flew over our heads, and we could see down the slope of land to the water, and the helicopters dipped low over the Argosy.
“Vespugian helicopters.” Sam pointed his camera skyward.
Dick relaxed. “Just checking out all these redcoats in their little black boats zooming in from their little red ship.”
Siri asked, “Why’re they so nervous? Do they really think we’re an invading troop?”
Leilia smiled at her. “Vespugia’s been invaded quite a few times. I don’t blame them for checking us out.”
“Maybe,” Angelique said, “they’re nervous because they aren’t supposed to be here.”
Esteban, who of course hadn’t understood a word we were saying, indicated that it was time for us to go, and we followed him back toward the Vespugian tents. The helicopters circled a few times and then disappeared over the horizon.
Benjy came up to us, explaining, “Jorge thinks the captain here is probably upset by our presence because he realizes he’s violated the Antarctic Treaty by being here with weapons. The treaty prohibits ‘any measure of a military nature, such as the establishment of military bases and fortifications. ’ Jorge says the poor man is so worried by our unexpected arrival that he’s not thinking clearly, and he’s forgotten that the treaty goes on to say that it does not prevent the use of military personnel or equipment for scientific research.”
“Hm,” Dick said.
“Hm, indeed,” Benjy agreed. “But that’s why he radioed his base, and why we were checked over by their helicopters. Never a dull moment.”
Most of our group had taken pictures of the hut, and still had their cameras out, and Leilia asked Quimby if it was all right to take pictures of the Vespugians and their camp. It ended up with our red parkaed gang taking pictures of the Vespugian soldiers, and the Vespugians taking pictures of us, and finally everybody relaxed.
Quim called us to come to the Zodiacs; it was time to go back to the Argosy. As I climbed in one of the Zodiacs, with Sam right behind me, I noticed Jorge going into a tent and coming out with all his camera stuff.
At lunch, Otto sat with us on the nonsmokers’ side. We had to tell Otto all about the morning’s adventures, and he laughed as though the whole thing were totally funny, and I suppose it was.
“So Jorge calmed everybody down?” he asked.
“With great diplomacy,” Sam said.
Leilia lavishly buttered her roll. “If Jorge is such a bigwig, I wonder what he’s doing on a funny little ship like the Argosy?”
“Fun,” Dick said. “People in his position need to get away and have a rest periodically. That’s why I’m here—love of travel and a need for stress release from working with little bones.”
“Have you forgotten you’re ship’s doc?” Sam asked. “What about big bones?”
“I’ve set a couple on previous vacations,” Dick acknowledged, “but it’s very different from the constant pressure of my everyday life.”
Angelique laughed. “So take good care of yourself, Sam. Dick would be very cross with you if you fell.”
“Never fear,” Sam said. “I’m a cautious bloke. That’s how I’ve survived for so long. As for Jorge, I agree with Dick. And he obviously loves the Antarctic.”
Leilia leaned back in her chair. “As Benjy says, this place is contagious. A lot of my friends think I’m nuts, leaving Fairbanks for the Antarctic. Mostly we Alaskans try to get away to someplace warm, like Hawaii. But it’s so beautiful here I keep coming back, so I can understand that it’s equally addictive for Jorge.”
“And, thank God,” Angelique added, “the big cruise ships haven’t taken over. At least not yet.”
“Maybe,” Sam suggested, “Jorge is here to keep an eye on things for Guedder.”
“Why not?” Greta asked sharply. “Aren’t you being a little suspicious, Sam?”
Sam raised his bushy brows. “Suspicious? I thought I was making a reasonable suggestion. If Jorge is working for his country, bravo for him.”
I thought of Otto and our conversation over the mint tea. This was a world I knew nothing about. I love my country, but I guess I’ve always taken it for granted. My roots are deep in New England and a democratic government. But I’ve never had to fight for it, or do anything that demanded courage or sacrifice. Our parents told us that two of our downstairs walls are double thick, with about a foot of space between, and they were made that way long after the house was built, in order to make a hiding space for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad. I was glad our house had been part of that, but it was a long time ago, and I’d never really thought about the people who lived there then putting themselves in danger for their principles and for other human beings.
Now, having been in Vespugia, having been in the Falklands, having talked with Otto, I was opening my eyes to a new way of seeing. Esteban cared enough about Vespugia to risk his life for it, I thought. And now I was in the strange world of the Antarctic, where Benjy and Quim were as passionate about protecting this amazing land as Otto was about making Zlatovica into a viable principality. Or wasn’t it the same?
After lunch we dropped anchor near Seymour Island and got back into Zodiacs. When we landed, there were more penguins than could be counted, some going in and out of the ocean from the crescent of the beach, landing with whopping belly-flops and skidding on their thick padding of feathers as swiftly as though they were flying. Otto was walking with me, and we giggled at a dozen or so who were waddling laboriously uphill, chittering as they climbed the barren mountainside, which really did look like a moonscape. When we reac
hed the top, there were hundreds of fluffy silver-grey chicks, perfect little moon creatures. They were roly-poly from being fed by their parents, but they could waddle after an adult penguin with amazing speed. Otto doubled over with laughter, pointing out a little one as it fell flat on its belly, picked itself up, and ran after a grown penguin.
“Which might not even be its parent,” Otto said, “in which case it won’t get fed. Adult penguins feed only their own chicks.”
Siri, coming up beside us, asked, “How on earth do they tell them apart?”
“By their voices, Benjy says.”
Siri cocked her head, listening. “I’ve a pretty good ear, but it’s obvious I’m not a penguin. They all sound alike to me.”
Otto and I continued climbing. When we paused to rest, he looked down at his booted toe, making a mark on the icy shale, and asked, “You have a boyfriend?”
I shook my head. “I do not.” I sounded too vehement.
“You’ve quarreled?” Otto asked.
“I guess. Sort of. It doesn’t matter. I’m too young, anyhow, to be really serious about anyone.”
“Truly?” Otto asked.
I started climbing again. Carefully and deliberately, I turned my mind away from Adam. Asked Otto, “How’s your Spanish?”
He stopped, breathing quickly from the exercise. “I have a little. Not much.” He shrugged. “French and Italian help, but I cannot, for instance, read Cervantes.”
“But for conversation?”
“What is this, Vicky?” He turned to me, smiling. “Is this sudden interest in Spanish something to do with that young oboist Jorge has told me about?”
Good. Let him think I’d fallen for Esteban. “It would be fun to be able to talk with him.”
Otto said, “I should not have stayed in my bunk the other morning. I would like to have met this young man who I am told is very taken with you, and who would obviously like to be able to talk to you.” He looked me directly in the eyes. “I’m just as happy that he can’t. I want no other young man making eyes at my beautiful Vicky.” Then he added, quickly, “I’m sorry. I know you’re not ‘my’ beautiful Vicky, or anybody else’s. You are your own. But oh, my dear Vicky, you do delight me.”
I was glad my parka hood was up so that my blush was at least partly covered.
“So I have made my inquiries about this Esteban and I have learned that he is related to Generalissimo Guedder. Be careful, Vicky. This Esteban will try to influence your thinking.”
“Hey, Esteban doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. He can’t do much influencing.”
Otto pushed my hood back so that he could see me more easily. “Vicky, this Esteban may be young and attractive, but he is not for you. He is nobody.”
“So’m I.”
“Vicky, you are young and bright and lovely, but you are naïve politically.”
“I know. I can learn.”
“Yes, you will learn, but it is not pleasant to learn that there is corruption in high places. On this trip, please, let’s just enjoy the penguins and the seals. Forget that there are people on the Argosy with conflicting views.” He took a few steps up the mountain, taking us beyond the rest of the group. “It is a heaviness on my heart.” I looked at him questioningly. He continued, “There are those who do not want Zlatovica to continue as an independent principality. We are an old and ancient land. I love my country, and I will do whatever needs to be done. Enough. I’m sorry. It is just that you are good to talk to.”
I said, softly, “I’m glad.”
“Vicky, I would not have any harm come to you. I know we have known each other only a short time, and to make true friends takes time. But already—I want you to know that if ever you need me, I’m here for you. At any time.” He leaned toward me, taking my hands. His eyes were warm and golden.
He looked around to make sure we were alone, that nobody had followed us up the mountain except a few penguins. Then he kissed me.
It was a lovely kiss. I liked it.
I had liked Adam’s kisses. They were not my first kisses, I was not “sweet sixteen and never been kissed.” But both Adam and Otto were more experienced than I was.
“We’d better go down,” Otto said. “Look.” The small group of penguins was leaving us, waddling downhill. Otto took my hand and we hurried to join a cluster of red-parkaed people with Jason, our geologist, in their midst. We looked as he held out his hand. “Petrified wood,” he said.
Wood, here in this barren place where there was no vegetation except for a little lichen, a little dried-up moss! Once upon a time there had been trees here.
Jason put one of the pieces of wood no longer wood but stone into my hand. “See, Vicky, those little white things? They’re fossils of extinct species of clams.”
More people gathered round, exclaiming. Jason, slipping into his lecturer’s voice, said, “Even though the petrified wood tells us that there were once trees here, millennia ago, there are no indications of any indigenous humanoids ever having lived on the Antarctic continent.” He held out another fossil to Angelique, who took it, looking at it with awe.
Dick reached out with one finger and touched the fossil that lay in Angelique’s palm. “You can’t escape the great chain of life in this place. Perhaps it’s just as well there have never been any human beings around here to muck it up with our bloody history.”
Angelique handed the fossil to Jason, put her arm around Dick’s bulky parka. “Not always bloody, my darling. Not always.”
I was writing in my journal and was nearly ready to go to the lounge for Wrap-Up, when Benjy knocked on my door, came in, and plunked himself down on the second bunk.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure.”
“You look a little preoccupied.”
I looked down at my journal. “I’m just being a broody adolescent.”
“Nothing on your mind?”
“Oh, Benjy, that’ll be the day! There’s lots on my mind.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I looked at my watch. Benjy would have to join everybody in the lounge in a few minutes. What I wanted to talk about would take real time. “Not yet. Soon.”
“Otto appears to be taking good care of you.”
“Um.”
“You know, Vicky, Otto may not be twenty yet, but there’s pressure on him in Zlatovica to marry, and there aren’t that many princesses around.”
“Hunh?” I was so startled I was inarticulate.
“Are you old enough to have heard of Princess Grace?”
“Vaguely. I know she was supposed to be as beautiful as a fairy-tale princess.”
“And a commoner.” Benjy grinned.
“Benjy, what are you implying?”
“Otto is very interested in you. Perhaps I’m letting my imagination run away with me, but remember, Vicky, all that glitters is not gold.”
I said, rather stiffly, “Otto glitters, I know that, but—” I stopped. Caught my breath. I’d started to say, “But he’s not coming on to me.” But wasn’t he? I stood up. “Hey, Benjy, I’m only an ordinary adolescent American girl, planning to go to college and do all that stuff. Okay?”
“Sure,” Benjy said. “Okay, time for Wrap-Up.”
We went into the lounge together, and he headed for the table where Siri was and sat down beside her, giving her a look of love that almost brought tears to my eyes. Because I wanted that. I know not everybody in the world gets it, but I wanted it. Angelique and Dick had it. I think maybe my parents have it, but it probably gets diffused when there are four kids vying for attention.
Otto was sitting at the table next to us, and reached over to grab my hand for a quick squeeze.
Do royals ever have it? Or do they get so mixed up in politics and diplomacy and all that other stuff that the real thing gets lost?
And I am not, definitely not, princess material.
That night I went to sleep right away and then woke up suddenly. I looked at my watch.
Just after two. I didn’t know what had roused me, probably ice bumping against the hull of the Argosy. I was wide awake. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. I rolled from one side to another. My mind jiggled like a broken kaleidoscope. Vespugia. Antarctica. Adam’s letter, cold as ice. Zlatovica and Princess Grace.
If I’d been at home, I’d have gone to the kitchen and made cocoa. I very seldom have trouble sleeping, but it does hit occasionally, usually when I have too much on my mind, and there’s no point trying to get back to sleep until I can stop my thoughts from swimming around like fish in a bowl. I remembered that there’s always hot water up in the bar area of the lounge, and powdered cocoa as well as tea or coffee, so I got out of my bunk, put on my warm bathrobe and slippers, and opened the door. All up and down the corridor, cabin doors were closed. I thought I heard a snore from the cabin next to mine, which, now that Cook was no longer on the Argosy, was Sam’s alone.
I went up the stairs to the main deck. Only the dim nightlights were on. The exit light over the fo’c’sle door was lit, but it would be much too cold out on deck. The lounge was full of the dark shadows of round tables and chairs. I put some powdered cocoa into a mug, filled it with hot water and stirred it smooth, then sat on the padded seat at one of the corner tables. I wished someone else were awake, so we could talk.
Suddenly I heard a sharp sound. A bang. Louder and closer than ice hitting the ship.
I ducked down on the seat. There was no reason I shouldn’t be in the lounge, but it was a reflex. My face was down on the cushion of the seat and I peered under the table. I could see Otto coming out of his big cabin carrying one of his wooden packing cases. He looked around, as though to make sure he was alone, then went to the fo’c’sle door, pushed it open, and went out.
Why didn’t I just say, “Hey, Otto, I’m here”? I didn’t. I stayed hidden. I didn’t dare try to make a run for my cabin, all the way across the lounge and down the wide stairs to my deck. I didn’t know who else might come, or when Otto would return. If someone saw me, I’d be terribly embarrassed. I felt like an idiot, hiding in the corner.
Troubling a Star Page 19
