Dark Winter

by William Dietrich

  Lewis took the stone, dense and heavy. Eight, ten pounds. The rock was burnt and glassy on one side. My God. “How many people know about this?” he asked.

  “No one, really. I confided in Sparco because we’ve spent so much time down here together. He persuaded me this might represent a life-changing opportunity. But I couldn’t risk even transmitting a picture of it on the Internet. It was he who suggested finding someone like you to make an initial judgment. I think he’d already met you, at Toolik Lake. Fortuitous, no?”

  “And you found it...”

  “A few months ago, when drilling Hole 18-b. Just happened to strike it. Dumb luck, I admit. About a thousand years down as measured in layers of snowfall.”

  “And thought it might be a meteorite...”

  “Because why else is there a rock in the ice cap? If there’s a stone at the Pole, it has to have come from the sky.”

  Lewis nodded, looking at the tar-like crust. Evidence of heat from a fall through the atmosphere. Which meant...

  He looked at Moss. The astronomer was watching him expectantly.

  “Well?”

  “Superficially, at least, it fits.” Jed set it carefully on some papers on a desk.

  “Then you think it’s from space?”

  “Probably.” He paused, considering what to say. “As you said, the fact that there’s thousands of feet of ice between this and bedrock suggests it fell from the sky. That’s why Antarctica has become a prime hunting ground for meteorites. They stick out like a sore thumb. But all the others have been found on the surface where flowing ice hit a mountain and broke upward to carry meteorites with it. To strike a buried one with your drilling is astonishing luck.”

  “It could have been salted by some joker, I suppose,” Moss conceded. “Dropped down the hole when I wasn’t looking. But why? No one has confessed and it looked like the real thing to me. We use hot water to melt holes in the ice, drilling downward with what amounts to a big showerhead. A camera showed something was sticking into one side of our tube. I gave the crew a break, paused to melt a bulb of water to free it, and then hauled it up.”

  “And kept quiet about your find.”

  “I wanted to be sure.”

  “You understand I’m not an expert?”

  “You’re as close as we could find at short notice to come down here like this.”

  “Yes. And, as Sparco suspected, I don’t think this is your average meteorite. Have you noticed it’s basaltic?”

  “I’ve noticed it’s plain.”

  “Exactly,” said Lewis, now the lecturer. In geology he wasn’t the fingie. “Looks boring to us. Ordinary. That’s because it’s a common kind of rock found on Earth but a rare kind to come from space. Most meteorites have more iron and nickel. They date from the dawn of the solar system. This one came later in history, after the place of its origin had experienced some kind of heating and melting and igneous rock had formed, like the Earth’s crust.”

  Moss was nodding. He was eager for confirmation.

  “That suggests it didn’t come from the usual source like asteroid or comets,” Lewis went on. “It probably came from the moon. Or Mars. Blasted into space eons ago after a bigger meteorite, maybe a mile across, slammed into the red planet. Ejected and captured by Earth’s gravity like the one they found in the Allan Hills, the one they thought might have fossil evidence of Martian microbes”

  Moss allowed himself a hint of eagerness. “Could this one have fossils inside?”

  “There’s been no consensus there’s anything in the other one. But this kind of meteorite is rare and even the remotest possibility makes it extremely valuable. We can’t be sure what this is at all, of course - not with me. I don’t have the instruments and I don’t have the expertise. The way they told up in Houston was by analyzing ancient gas trapped in the meteorite and finding it matched the Martian atmosphere.”

  “It may not be Martian at all,” Moss allowed. He wanted more hope.

  “No. Only sixteen have been found worldwide. But…it looks possible to me,” Lewis gave him. “An achondrite, the kind of meteorite that would come from a planet or the moon. Sparco says you have a spectroscope down here and I brought some stuff to reduce a sample for a gas-spectrum analysis. I can also slice a small cross section and look at its composition under the microscope. I’ll test for oxygen and oxidize iron isotopes. Check its magnetism, which indicates how much ferric iron. If it’s a simple plagioclase-pyroxene basalt, or maybe olivine, it will be promising. Radioactive dating of a young age will persuade even more. We’ll need some photos and a statement to authenticate its place of origin. And then you take it to Houston, or wherever.”

  Moss nodded, watching him. “Yes. Wherever.” He hesitated. “Jim told me I could trust another question to you.”

  Lewis had been waiting for this. “Its commercial value?” This opinion was Sparco’s price for his being allowed to come down here. He was to assess, and then keep his mouth shut. He’d wanted purpose, and this was his ticket.

  “As another measure of its importance.”

  “Of course,” Lewis said. “Private collection of scientific artifacts is booming, as you know. Having a living-room museum has become cool among the ultra-rich. The mere possibility this could be from Mars will be enough for some buyers. The chance it could hold evidence of extraterrestrial life trumps all. That rock could be worth a lot of money in the right markets.”

  “How much money?”

  Lewis had researched this. “Pieces of Mars have sold for twenty-five hundred dollars a gram.”

  “Which makes this rock worth...”

  “Several million dollars.”

  Moss nodded solemnly.

  “Pieces of the Moon are even rarer and have fetched ten times that. The Apollo rocks turned out to be from a concentrated region of unusually high radioactivity, so lunar meteorites tell us more about the moon than what the astronauts brought back. They’ve fetched twenty-five-hundred times the price of gold.”

  “Astonishing,” Moss said. He didn’t seem very astonished.

  “But everything here is the property of the American government, right?”

  “If they know about it,” the scientist said, looking evenly at Lewis.

  “It’s an American base. American taxpayer dollars.” No one was allowed to hunt for souvenirs in Antarctica, Jed knew. They told you that up front.

  “Is it?” Moss asked. “To you, just stepping off the plane, looking at that ragged flag, I suppose it is. But to me...” The scientist pointed to the wall above his desk. It was papered of pictures of himself with a stream of celebrities: visiting congressmen, Presidential science advisors, adventurers, network anchors, movie stars, foreign dignitaries. Mickey Moss as polar landlord. “It’s not American land. Not American ice. It’s nobody’s ice, except the people willing to come down here and pioneer it.”

  “And you pioneered it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But at government expense, right?”

  “At personal sacrifice!” Moss took a breath. “Listen, young man. I was doing science down here when you were sucking at your mother’s tit. I was doing science when we slept in plywood barracks and ate out of tin cans and didn’t get a letter or a radio call for months at a time. I did science until I was frostbitten so bad that when I came back inside it felt like my face was being held to a hot iron.”

  “I understand.”

  “No you don’t. You can’t. No one can who didn’t do it. And I gave the testimony that helped build this building. I dragged the Washington bureaucrats down here kicking and screaming and got them to see that this place - this god-forsaken place - was the best place for certain kinds of science in the entire world. The Pole was the ringside seat when that comet plowed into Jupiter in 1994. It’s going to help us re-map the Universe, decipher our magnetic field, understand our atmosphere. We’ve got telescopes out in the snow that can see in half a dozen ways they human eye is blind to. Because for half the year th
e sun never sets and for the other half we have a constant dark sky. Because I, Mickey Moss, showed them the way.”

  “I think everyone respects that.”

  “Do they?”

  “Sure.”

  “I used to think respect was enough.” He sat down, looking at the rock.

  “They’ll probably name something for you.”

  “When I’m dead.” He picked up the meteorite. “They scoff at me now, you know. Geezer Mouse. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

  “They’re jealous. Academic rivalry.”

  “They don’t understand my project has to have priority. Priority! To justify the Pole. To justify the new South Pole Station.”

  Lewis waited.

  “I’m just saying that I’ve paid my dues.”

  “I’m not arguing, Doctor Moss.”

  The scientist turned the meteorite over in his hands. “I’ve made no decisions,” he said softly. “It’s just that I’m getting old. I had to fudge my medical exam to get down here last time. I don’t have endless time anymore. I haven’t put a lot away. My family...” He glanced up. “Are you surprised to find me human, Lewis?”

  “No.” Jed shifted uncomfortably. He was surprised, actually. It didn’t fit his stereotype of a grand old man of science. “It’s just that Jim Sparco wanted a rough evaluation. He didn’t talk about keeping it.”

  “Nor have I! Nor have I.” He looked at Lewis warily. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t start rumors that aren’t true. I’ve got a reputation, and in the end a reputation is all a scientist has. Thirty years in this place, and that’s all I have. And then at the end a missive from space, a stroke of luck...why?”

  Lewis couldn’t answer.

  “Well. The first step was to get your opinion, correct? Now we’ve got some thinking to do. What’s best? What’s right? What’s fair? That’s always the question, isn’t it?”

  “The unanswerable one, sometimes.”

  “Yet you must choose an answer.” Moss stood and put the rock back in his filing cabinet. “The funny thing is, there’s almost no locks on this base. That’s why you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  “Don’t you want to kick this around with the other scientists?”

  “No.” He looked depressed. “Word would leak, misinterpretations would be made. They’re jealous, like you said. They’d use this against me.”

  “I could be wrong about the meteorite, you know.”

  “I understand that.”

  “It really needs some tests.”

  “Of course. But in the meantime I’m going to hide this where others won’t find it.” He looked intently at the young geologist. “And then decide the right thing to do.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jed Lewis had a theory about life. Life was hard. Complicated. Life was a long, meandering slog up a very steep mountain and if you didn’t have good friends to help point out the way, it was pretty easy to choose the wrong path sometimes. (Lewis didn’t think Mickey Moss had many friends, just admirers. Rivals.) And even after choosing you could go miles, years, before knowing whether your path was wrong or right. Moreover, everybody had their own route and their own schedule. So Jed was slow to judge how people made it up the slope. You didn’t know where they were coming from. Couldn’t know, as Moss had said. Didn’t know where they were going. Lewis had examined the meteorite and would probably test it, but the fate of the rock was really none of his concern. Let the old scientist make his own lonely way up the peak.

  Lewis himself was tired of being alone.

  By the time he got back to the dome he was ravenous again. Geller was right: the polar cold almost snatched food out of your mouth. When Jed yanked open the freezer door and stepped into the galley vestibule, he was salivating.

  The galley was crowded and a table of beakers was almost full. Lewis, curious to sample the station’s social spectrum, decided this time to sit with the some of the support staff who kept the place running. He plopped next to Geller who was there with another mountain of food. Next to him was a smaller, quiet, mouse-like man he’d noticed earlier who kept his head down as he ate.

  “A beaker joins the rabble,” Geller greeted.

  “Just trying to meet everyone.”

  “And your appetite’s improved,” He nodded at Lewis’ tray. Stroganoff, fresh green beans, cobbler, all heaped high. Pulaski and Linda Brown could cook.

  “I was on tour. The cold really burns up your reserves.”

  “That ain’t cold. Sitting out eight hours in the wind trying to fix equipment some moron beaker busted - that’s cold.”

  “Are there always no scientists at this table?” Lewis asked.

  “Mostly. We get along great but they tend to eat with their own, we tend to eat with our own. They bitch about us, we bitch about them. Works better that way.”

  “I thought segregation was against the law.”

  “It ain’t segregation, it’s fucking high school.” It was the growl of a new voice and Lewis looked up. The grump from the shower, Tyson. He sat heavily, spreading his arms and legs to claim a substantial portion of the table. His manner was one of fingie instructor. A heavily muscled forearm boasting a tattooed snake pulled his tray against his torso. A fork was held upright in his other fist like a flagstaff. He’d unconsciously made a tiny fort of his food. “Like the jocks and the nerds, remember? We got more cliques here than Hot Pants High.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating a little, Buck,” Geller objected mildly.

  “The hell I am. You got us, and you got the beakers, and you got the smokers, and you got the singles, and you got the women. The science side is all rank and show-off, with know-it-alls like Mickey Moss lording it over grad students and post-docs. And then even the tweezer twits get snobby when they want something done.”

  “Yeah, but everyone gets along. Better than anyplace I’ve ever been.”

  “We gotta get along, or we fucking die. But that don’t mean people don’t cluster with their own. Look around this room. Planet of the Apes, man. We’re monkeys.” The phrase jogged a memory. Hadn’t Norse said something similar?

  “Buck Tyson, resident sociologist,” Geller introduced.

  “Yeah, me and our new shrink.” He nodded to Lewis.

  “We met at the shower.”

  “Yeah, I remember. That wasn’t about you. That was about Ice Prick.”

  Not exactly an apology, but not hostile, either. Maybe Tyson was okay. “You like to analyze?”

  “I just see things like they really are. My day job is master mechanic. I make our go-karts go. You need a snow Spryte, a D-6 Cat: you come to Buck Tyson. But at night I think about our loony bin. Me thinking for myself makes some of the beakers nervous. You nervous?”

  How to respond to that? “You like Doctor Bob?” he deflected.

  “I like where he’s coming from. I like that he stays in shape. I talked to him already and I think he sees through the bullshit like I do. We’re into the same shit: self-reliance. The importance of Numero Uno and thinking for yourself. He’s got all these ideas from NASA about whether this place suggests what it is you need to make starship troopers. It’s cool, what he’s trying to do. Not the touchy-feely crap of the other shrinks that come down to The Ice.” He turned to Geller. “You know what they did to a shrink at Vanda, over in the Dry Valleys?”

  “No, what?”

  “Ran over his gear with a tractor.” Tyson laughed.

  There was a silence, the others digesting this.

  “I guess Buck is your nickname,” Lewis finally said. “What’s your real name?”

  “James,” Geller quickly interjected.

  “Jimmy, you dumb fuck. You know I hate James. English faggot name.”

  “James Bond ain’t a faggot.”

  “James Bond is the biggest goddamned English pansy there is! He carries a girl’s gun and dresses like a fucking bridegroom! I like big guns, and big guys. I like guys who go it alone and kick butt. Like Clint Ea
stwood. And John Wayne. And Bruce Willis. And Rambo. And Ahhhnold. Except he married the fucking Kennedys.”

  “Everyone calls Tyson Buck because he’s into knives,” Geller explained. “And guns. And commando crap. And every other bit of militia weirdness.”

  “No I’m not. I’m into sufficiency, which is more than a little important way down here.” Tyson pointed his fork at Lewis. “Don’t take this ‘all for one and one for all’ crap too seriously because when it’s dark and blowing and people are freaking out, you gotta know how to take care of yourself. Right? The government likes to jabber about our happy little commune, but in fact it’s just a bunch of fucked up overachievers. They may have a doctorate, but they manage to bring down every goddamn neurosis there is.”

  “Buck doesn’t like people,” Geller summarized.

  “That’s not true. I’m eating with you assholes. I even like some of the beakers like crazy Alexi, our Russian cocktail. He tells it like it is, ‘cause he’s like right out of the gulag, man. Hiro’s kind of funny, like a Jap cartoon. But some of them are humorless know-it-alls, like Harrison Adams. Harrison. Not just Harry. Pompous twit. Or weirdos like Jerry Follett. I watch my backside around that faggot. Or Mickey Mouse out there in the Dark Side. Our head rodent needs his ears pinned.”

  “You’re talking about Saint Michael,” Geller said with humor.

  “Pope Moss can kiss my you-know-what.” Tyson turned to the other man at their table, who’d been eating silently, and clapped him on the shoulder. “The one you want to stay friends with is this guy, who runs the power plant. We try to keep him sober and sane.”

  The small man looked up like a blinking mole. He was balding, with pinched features and a brushy mustache. “Pika,” he mumbled as introduction.

  “What?” Jed hadn’t understood.

  “Pika,” Geller said. “Like the animal.”

  “What’s a pika?”

  “Sort of a rock rabbit,” Tyson explained. “No one can stand to hang around with Pika ‘cause he whistles while he works, like those dwarves. Remember them? Drives us all nuts, like Muzak. His real name is Doug Taylor but we call him Pika, which is sort of like a marmot. Critter that whistles?”