South Pole Station

by Ashley Shelby

  * * *

  Sal and the lead of Stanford’s Kavli Institute experiment, the elusive Lisa Wu, had been persuaded to lecture on their teams’ respective effort to determine the origins of the universe. Cooper had only seen Lisa on one other occasion—at Pavano’s lecture a month earlier, watching silently with her research techs. She was a tall, plain-looking woman with completely horizontal dark eyebrows. Her wan bearing was relieved only by the aquamarine rhinestone stud she wore in her left nostril.

  Once the crowd settled down, and someone had found Lisa a can of mineral water, she began outlining the basic tenets of the inflationary theory: that the universe grew at unimaginably fast rates during the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang, that the expansion has slowed down, but not stopped, and that the theory, as endorsed by Linde, Guth, and Hawking, along with most mainstream physicists, had achieved five of the six “milestones” that would settle the question once and for all. Cooper had zoned out during the exquisitely detailed explanation of these milestones, but she perked up when she heard Lisa acknowledge that the rate of expansion initially exceeded the speed of light.

  At this, a meteorologist raised his hand. “I thought the whole point of the speed of light was that nothing can exceed it.”

  Cooper noticed Lisa glance at Sal, who was sitting in the front row awaiting his turn. She replied that the meteorologist was correct—technically—but that “in physics, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected.”

  “That sounds like a slogan for a beer,” Pearl whispered to Cooper.

  As she started to wrap up, Lisa glanced over at Sal once again. “Before I turn the stage over to Sal, I feel compelled to say something else: Sal’s father, Professor John Brennan, is the reason I’m standing here. He’s the reason my whole team is here, really. He believed in each and every one of us, and we consider it the biggest privilege of our lives to be part of this experiment that he designed more than twenty-five years ago. It was only recently that the technology advanced to a point where his theory could be tested.” Her eyes darted back toward Sal. “Some thought, perhaps continue to think, that this theory was impossible to test and therefore not scientific. Professor Brennan showed that it is, in fact, testable. And it was Professor Brennan who first understood that the matter and heat in our universe are regularly distributed, that this is not chance, but a cosmological principle.”

  Sal shifted in his seat. “But that might not mean a lot to those of you who don’t live and breathe the Cosmic Microwave Background. Inflation created a uniform and stable cosmos; it can happen again,” Lisa continued. “Perhaps it already has. This theory offers a view of the universe in which we are not alone, suggests that there are other universes in pockets of space and time. That’s the inflationary theory in a nutshell, and though it’s a hard nut to crack, I’m confident that by the end of the research season, we’ll have the answer to our most pressing cosmological question.”

  Everyone applauded, and as Lisa walked past Sal to her seat, Cooper saw him whisper something to her. She remembered what it had felt like as Sal held her foot in his hand. She pushed the thought away.

  Sal wrenched around in his chair. “Do you guys mind if Alek tells a joke first?” No one objected, so Alek stepped forward. “This joke happens near Munich. Heisenberg goes for drive and police stop him. Police says, ‘Sir, do you know how fast you go?’ Heisenberg say: ‘No, but I know where I am.’”

  Approximately one-sixth of the audience burst into peals of laughter, while the other five-sixths remained silent. Once Alek had returned to his seat, Sal approached the podium. “The Beakers are laughing because they got the joke, not because it’s funny—trust me. Anyway, I’m not going to get into a rigorous defense of the cyclic theory of the universe or an attack on the Kavli team’s work, but I will indulge myself in delivering one brief roundhouse kick.

  “Professor Wu said something that I have to correct, and that is the idea that some of you may have about what she means when she says ‘regular distribution.’ This makes the universe seem like a calm and orderly place. It is not. If the inflationary theory were true, then the majority of space is an uncontrolled, chaotic place undergoing brutally violent inflation, powered by the kind of energy that tells Einstein to fuck off. But they’d also have you believe that hidden in the folds of this cosmic Technicolor Dreamcoat are those ‘pocket universes’ that Lisa mentioned, where ponies run free, the wind whipping through their manes—or, the flip side, an alternate world where you are living the life that would have unfolded had you decided to run that red light in 1998 and killed your family in a car wreck. To make matters worse, the inflationary theory is the Intelligent Design of cosmology—”

  “Sal, that’s not fair,” Lisa said.

  “Let me finish first, and then see if it’s not fair. The inflationary theory is the Intelligent Design of cosmology because it is heavily reliant on the anthropic principle, which is the idea that the physical laws that govern the universe must be compatible with the fact that life exists.”

  Next to Cooper, Pearl raised her hand. “What’s wrong with that? That seems logical.”

  “Yes, it does, but in cosmology, and in Intelligent Design, it is being used to explain features of the observable universe that people like Professor Wu, and like my father, cannot explain. This is the sign of a deeply flawed theory.”

  “I don’t get it,” Pearl replied.

  “Simply put: instead of physical laws explaining the complexity and diversity of life, they are using the very fact of life to explain the complexity of physical laws. That’s not how science works.”

  The Kavli team began moving about in their chairs, and one of them seemed about to speak when Pavano rose from his chair in the very back of the room. “Your own mentor has said that just because a prediction is consistent with the evidence does not mean the theory is right,” he said.

  “Yes, and he also said that a scientist must show that the theory has correctly identified the root cause of the phenomenon. And the inflationists haven’t.” He hesitated and, for a moment, his eyes met Cooper’s. “As I told someone just the other day, it’s a question every kindergartener asks: What happened before the Big Bang? The greatest minds in inflationary theory cannot answer that.”

  “And you can?” Pavano replied.

  “Not yet. But I believe my team and I will.”

  “Then let me quote Susskind,” Lisa said, standing up now. “‘The field of physics is littered with the corpses of stubborn old men who didn’t know when to give up.’”

  “You’re right, Lisa—I don’t give up easily.”

  “Then enlighten us, Sal. Tell them about your own personal Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.”

  “It’s simple, and there’s not a single fine-tune in it: the Big Bang was not the beginning, but was instead the seismic instant marking the separation between our current period of expansion and the cooling from a previous one. What we know as the universe is actually a membrane, or what we call a brane. We theorize that our planet exists in a universe that contains at least eight unobservable dimensions. Our brane is separated from another brane by one of these dimensions, and when these two branes collide, it creates what inflationists consider a one-off event—the Big Bang. However, we believe this event actually happens every trillion years. Like a child’s sand castle on a beach, it is built and torn down with the regularity of an ocean wave.”

  The Kavli team snickered.

  Cooper raised her hand. “What would that look like?” Without turning around in her seat, Pearl offered Cooper a thumbs-up. Sal walked to the whiteboard and drew an image that looked like two pancakes being used as cymbals. “Like this,” he said.

  “No. I mean, what would it look like if I were standing right here when it happened. I want an image, not a diagram.”

  Sal dropped the marker on the table. “You’re asking what it would look like if you were there, in the middle of it?” Cooper nodded. “It would be the stuff of daydreams
. The most beautiful thing imaginable. First, the approach: You wouldn’t feel it, but something enormous would be moving along a dimension you couldn’t see. Then, when you collided with it, space would be infused with a nuclear brightness, an ungodly burst of radiation, and it would become hotter than a billion suns. Everything else in the universe—the galaxies, the planets, the stars—everything would be evaporated in an instant. The quarks and gluons that made up everything in the previous cycle would join the flood of new quarks and gluons created at the moment of the collision.” He met Cooper’s eyes. “The cycle would be renewed.”

  “So if I’m made up of quarks and gluons,” Dwight said, “and, of course, I am, you’re telling me I will live again.”

  “What I’m saying is that in our model, the universe is not lost in a sea of multiverses, not one of countless and random possibilities. Instead, it’s a single, cycling entity.”

  Pearl set her knitting aside. “So we just bang and crunch over and over again?”

  “I’m saying that every trillion or so years, the universe remakes itself as an echo of its previous form. Controlled evolution. Every corner of space makes galaxies, stars, planets, and presumably life, over and over again. Instead of being a product of chaos and unexplainable beginnings, the cyclic model—our model—has an explanation for ‘what happened before the Big Bang.’ It’s fucking elegant as hell that evolution works just as well for the structures of galaxies as it does for opposable thumbs.” He looked over at Lisa and the Kavli team. “Now, all that being said, if we find measurable b-mode polarization this season, none of what I just proposed is true.”

  “And that would be bad,” Pearl said.

  “No,” Sal replied, “that would be science.”

  Suddenly, the galley door burst open, and an empty Heineken went sailing through the air before shattering against the back wall. Bonnie stood in the doorway, unsteady. Cooper noticed pink blooms on Bonnie’s cheeks and a milk-white beauty about her skin that she’d never seen before.

  Bonnie brushed her lank hair out of her eyes. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m going on record right now that I’m glad this shit is over.” As she propelled herself into the galley, knocking over a pair of empty chairs, Dwight sprung to his feet to stop her, but tripped over the hem of his cloak. “Get out of my way, you stupid-ass skill monkey,” Bonnie growled. Cooper looked over at Pearl. She had drawn her pink bandanna over her eyes and was slumped in her chair as if trying to dissolve. Next to her Birdie stroked her knee soothingly.

  “Bonnie, stop,” Dwight pleaded. But Alek stood up and pounded the top of one of the dining tables. “You stand up here,” he said. “Let everyone hear.” He assisted Bonnie onto the table.

  Once Bonnie was steady on her feet, she looked down at everyone. “I just wanna say that I’m outta here tomorrow. Tucker and the powers-that-be have decided to demote me but I refuse to spend an entire winter at South Pole chopping other people’s onions.” Pearl’s face remained obscured behind her bandanna. “So this crazy adventure’s over for me, but guess what? I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad it’s over, and here’s why: it means the end of the bullshit I’ve been dealing with since October.” She looked down at Dwight. “You don’t come to South Pole to ‘strengthen your relationship,’ Dwight. You don’t come here to push boundaries so you can exchange sex e-mails with a fucking mini-doughnut vendor you met in a cosplay chat room!”

  Dwight sank down in his chair.

  “Come on, Bonnie,” Sal said, laughing. “Stay. We love your hoosh.”

  “Nah, Sal. My time has passed. It’s time for you guys to eat another woman’s hoosh.” She soft-shoed her way off the table and walked out of the galley.

  Birdie turned around in his chair to look at everyone. “What’s hoosh?”

  The lectures over, everyone filed out of the galley and into their respective bars and lounges, Cooper hung back and waited for Pavano. “Someone slipped the flight manifest under my door last night,” she said.

  “Yes, everything’s been arranged. They’re expecting us.” He scuffed the floor with one of his boots. “I take it you are still interested in coming?”

  Cooper watched as Sal stalked out the door. “More than ever.”

  * * *

  The West Antarctic Divide was one of the most remote locations on the planet, but it was also, Cooper was certain, one of the loudest. The metallic roar of industrial generators made the screams of the 319’s engines sound like a kitten’s purr. The site was strewn with communication flags of all colors, from lemon-yellow to Achtung-orange; these were attached to one another by lengths of rope, designed to guide anyone caught in a whiteout. A plywood admin building stood sentry at the entrance, with a communications shack attached. Beyond those stood what looked like a dollhouse version of the fuel arches at Pole: these were, Cooper gathered from the hand-drawn map Pavano had made for her during the flight from South Pole, the drilling arch and the core-handling arch. So it was here that the fate of the world, or the global warming hoax, would be decided. This was sacred scientific ground, but to Cooper it looked like any other stretch of Antarctic ice occupied by humans.

  Cooper and Pavano stood at the end of a long line leading into the admin shack, manned by an effusive NSF field rep, whose guffaw seemed to echo throughout the entire camp. Cooper and Pavano hadn’t exchanged words since leaving Pole; the flight had been uneventful and characteristically deafening. Conversation was out of the question, and Pavano had spent most of the ride staring at the cargo rack just above Cooper’s head.

  “Pavano, Frank—and research tech,” Pavano recited when they reached the front of the line. The rep looked down at his clipboard for a moment too long. Cooper could tell he wasn’t reading anything.

  “Would you excuse me for a moment,” he said, before disappearing into an adjoining room. Cooper could hear whispers and the sound of shuffling papers. The rep returned, looking sheepish. “Your, uh, research tech is not approved,” he said, his eyes not quite meeting Pavano’s. “She has not undergone basic safety training.”

  “I was told this requirement had been waived since she is an NSF grantee and underwent safety training in Denver,” Pavano replied.

  “I’m just telling you what I know,” the man said. “You can talk to the site manager if you want, but for now, she can’t touch any equipment. You’re in Sector 4B.” He pointed to a shelf stocked with bright neoprene bundles. “Tents and camp stoves over there.”

  “What are my access hours to the ice-core archive?” Pavano asked.

  The rep looked embarrassed. He consulted the clipboard. “Says here that you will have access to the core-handling room at 0300 hours; you may access the archive freezer at that time.” Three a.m., Cooper thought. Jesus.

  “And the coordinates for my coring site?” Pavano continued, unperturbed.

  “Well, yes, there’s a bit of a problem with that, too, I see.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “That request has been denied—it says here that there are some safety concerns.” Behind them, the people in line sighed. Denied requests led to long delays and grumpy core techs, who were in the ice archives waiting to be spelled. But to Cooper’s surprise, Pavano didn’t argue. He thanked the rep, then gathered his bag and stepped over to the shelf where the tents were wrapped in neat, ornament-like balls. Astonished, the NSF rep watched as Pavano scooped two tents from the shelf.

  “Sector 4B is this way,” Pavano said as he led Cooper out the door.

  “Wait, don’t you want to—”

  “Argue? I knew exactly what would happen when I arrived. People are reassuringly predictable. Which makes my job easier.”

  “It’s your job to get railroaded?”

  “In a sense.”

  Cooper laughed. “You are so weird.”

  “I find I am just weird enough.”

  The walk from the central site to sector 4B was comparable to the walk from the station to Summer Camp at Pole, but Cooper wanted to
crawl the last twenty yards—the air was so thin it felt as though she were sipping air through a straw. Her whole body hurt. Sector 4B turned out to be a ghost town. Vacant tents dotted the landscape, their nylon flaps dancing in the wind. Pavano dropped the gear. “I’d say they put us all the way out in Antarctica, but we’re already here, so I’ll say they put us in Siberia instead.” He gestured toward the perimeter of camp. “Take a walk,” he said. “I’ll put up the tents.”

  Cooper was bent over her knees, huffing. She cocked her head up at Pavano and squinted in the sun. “How are you breathing and talking at the same time?”

  “I did some high-altitude cross-training in preparation before the season began.”

  “Well, goody for you,” Cooper gasped. Pavano almost smiled. “I’ll help with the tents. I’m pretty good at setting them up. Lots of practice.”

  Pavano shook his head. “No, go walk. Look around. Maybe you’ll get inspired.”

  “Maybe I’ll die of hypoxia.”

  “Either way, a different perspective.”

  As Cooper began trudging away, she heard Pavano call after her, “Follow the flags.”

  “I’m sick of following flags,” Cooper muttered.

  The sun was merciless—bright with burning hydrogen and helium but offering no heat. That the continent on which she walked was wrapped around the bottom of the planet—that rock and ice could adhere to a curve—suddenly seemed a ridiculous notion. Cooper squinted, trying to conjure an image of Cherry, or even Mawson—the redoubtable Aussie survivor of a different adventure, with his skin peeling off in thick sheets, his tongue swollen, and his gums black as ink. Several of the Program’s past artist Fellows had painted images of these men haunting the ice, sometimes literally as ghosts. But when Cooper thought of them, they faded quickly, replaced by other, more familiar ghosts.