Dark Winter

by William Dietrich

  Right now she appeared to be taking a minute for herself, not easy to do in an environment where the expectation from higher-ups was tireless work because all the beakers were desperate to get as much information as possible in their allotted research time. Polar science was done at a dead run. But tonight her slim hand moved a mouse casually. She was playing solitaire on the computer.

  He hesitated a moment in the doorway, watching her. The flicker of light played across the fine features of her face and made it float in the surrounding darkness as if disembodied, a ghostliness that seemed doubly foreboding after Moss’s funeral. Suddenly everyone seemed vulnerable down here. Certainly Abby looked as lonely as Lewis felt. He needed a confidant and they’d proven harder to find than he’d hoped. Summoning up the courage to endure rejection, he walked in and sat next to her.

  “Gearloose,” he said gently.

  For a minute he thought she wasn’t going to reply. Then, “I’ve thought of a nickname for you.” She didn’t look up from the cards on her screen. She was going to win, he could tell.

  “Higher than krill, I hope.”

  “Enzyme. The agent that makes things change.”

  He winced. “A metabolic chemical? I’m not sure that’s an improvement.”

  “It’s true, though. Things are different since you came here.”

  He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. She won her round and the deck of cards began handsprings of laudatory joy.

  “How so?”

  “More complicated.”

  “I didn’t send that message, Abby.”

  “You should have told him his rock was useless.”

  “Lied, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed. Secretly, he agreed with her and it was costing him sleep. “I didn’t know Mickey Moss was going to die. All I wanted was a job and a chance.”

  “A chance for what?”

  “A chance to be at the Pole. To mean something. To fit in.”

  “You didn’t fit in before?” She said it lightly but she doubted him now, his machine the source of that e-mail to Mickey, and she wanted to erase that doubt. She wanted to know that the newcomer she had trusted indeed deserved her trust.

  How much of this would get back to Norse? He wanted to tell her anyway. Maybe even tell the psychologist. “Not very well. I didn’t tell you everything that happened in Alaska, you know. It was more complicated.”

  “You’re not just an environmental zealot?”

  “I was a field geologist, but not exactly one of the boys. You get hard if you stay in the oil business and I was never comfortable with that hardness. I thought , I joked, I objected. I looked to them for family but they’re not a family, they’re a machine.”

  “You quit because Big Oil wasn’t warm and fuzzy?”

  “I quit because I didn’t have enough in common with the people I worked with. It bothered me, what we were doing. I left some documents at Prudhoe where a tour group from the Wilderness Society might find them. Sooner or later it was going to come out. I was just waiting for the ax to fall. I didn’t like my boss. I wasn’t really doing my work.”

  “So you came down here. To escape.”

  “I came down here to find some meaning in it. Is that so crazy?”

  She bent her head. “No. Understandable. Admirable, even.”

  “It seems noble, all this research. But that damn rock...”

  “Is it really so valuable?”

  “Not that it’s worth a life.”

  She dealt herself a new hand. “You’re not unique, you know.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We all came down for things.”

  “Money, I think Geller said.”

  “Yes. As well as fame, love, promotion, tenure, wisdom, self-understanding, and companionship.” It was a recital.

  “Belonging. Contributing.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you, Abby?”

  She thought before answering. “I didn’t fit in, either. The thing that’s spooky about us is that we’re too alike. I got my first master’s in marine biology and discovered I didn’t like ships. They’re male, cold, and force and intimacy with people you might otherwise not pick as friends. I don’t make good friends easily. So I went over to computers. They’re like pets. Much more controllable. Predictable.”

  “Not the ones I buy,” he joked. “So here you are, a marine biologist, eight hundred miles from the sea. From ship to spaceship.”

  “Doesn’t make sense, does it? Except…I wanted time by myself to know myself.” She looked directly at him. “I...know another guy, a beaker, who I met at McMurdo and who’s now on the coast at Palmer Station. I didn’t know if it was real or an Ice infatuation. The winter gives me some time to sort it out.”

  No wonder she was Ice Cream. Already booked. “What’s he think about the separation?”

  “That it will give him time to finish his dissertation.”

  “And have you sorted it out?” It was like asking her to hold up her left ring finger.

  She swung away from the game to face him. “Not with a dead man having his picture in my pocket!” She meant Moss.

  “You know about that then.”

  “The whole base knew about it within twenty minutes after you guys got back. Same with tracing the e-mail to Clean Air. Everyone always knows everything about everything.”

  “Except why Mickey died.”

  “What if that’s somehow my fault?”

  He laughed, bitterly. “I thought everyone was blaming me.”

  “Doctor Bob isn’t.”

  “You sure like talking to Doctor Bob.”

  “He’s a professional.”

  “Barely. He’s a sociological researcher.”

  “He knows people and he thinks it’s possible Mickey killed himself.”

  “Over you?”

  “Over fear, somehow. Because the only thing a man like Moss accumulates is reputation and self-respect. Maybe the meteorite and...the picture...threatened that. That’s Doctor Bob’s theory, anyway.”

  “Where did the picture come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why would Mickey have it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you know Mickey somehow?”

  “No.” She sighed. “I don’t like these questions.”

  “Did he know you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now.”

  “Okay.” Lewis leaned back, cautious lest he drive her away. “I’m just trying to be a friend.”

  “So is Bob, so is everyone.” She said it impatiently, rubbing her eyes as if the whole idea of solicitous concern was immensely wearying. They sat for awhile, listening to the fan of the computer.

  She laid a hand on his forearm finally, giving it a slight squeeze. “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

  He tried not to betray the jolt that ran through his body at her touch. You want more than a friend, he mentally admitted to himself. “It doesn’t, Abby.”

  “I thought things down here wouldn’t be complicated.”

  “It’s full of humans.”

  “One less, now.”

  They were quiet.

  “You know, an enzyme isn’t really a bad thing,” Abby finally said.

  “Can’t we find a name that implies handsome and strong?” It was another attempt at a joke.

  She didn’t even smile. “Maybe you were sent to change us all.”

  “I don’t want to change anyone. I just want to join in and do my job. I just want to get to know someone.”

  She looked at him wistfully and stood. “I have to go now. It’s late.”

  “Please. I want you to stay.”

  She leaned over him. “That’s why I have to go.” Her lips brushed his cheek, unexpectedly. “Goodnight, Enzyme. Maybe you’ll change me.”

  **************

  Lewis sought out Norse the next day. Somehow he had to repair his social position
at the station or go nuts. He’d become a snoop, a pariah, and a trouble-maker. Getting involved hadn’t helped him, it had made things worse.

  Lewis was told the psychologist was out on the Dark Side, boxing Moss’s things, so he hiked out to the astronomy building. He found Norse at the astrophysicist’s workstation, Mickey’s desk drawers half-yanked open like an act of exposure. It seemed unnecessarily intrusive so soon after the funeral.

  “Pillaging the dead?” He’d meant it like a joke, but it came out sounding sour.

  The psychologist looked up from a box he was filling with Norse’s files. He looked patient instead of defensive. The man’s calm might be his strongest asset, but it could also be infuriating. “I’m shipping things back to the States. Cameron appointed me as the best person to bundle up the astronomer’s personal effects and papers, suggesting the family and NSF would like them boxed before they’re lost.”

  “The best because you’re a psychologist.”

  “Probably the best because I’m new, like you. A little apart from the others. And used to keeping confidences.”

  “Right.” Lewis hesitated. Maybe Norse was really as isolated as he was. Maybe they did have something in common, the fellow fingies. And because of that maybe he’d understand. “I came out because I’m done playing detective, Doc. Case closed.”

  Norse slipped one cardboard flap under another, sealing the box. “Say again?”

  “The meteorite. Looking for it now will cause more trouble than it’s worth. With Mickey gone, there’s no point. And I’m toast if I keep grilling everybody.”

  The psychologist nodded slowly. “Ah.” He considered this and then pointed to the astronomer’s old desk chair. “Sit down, Jed.” It was the tone of a parent about to lecture, not unkindly.

  Reluctantly, Lewis sat.

  “You think Mickey’s death has ended things.”

  “For me it has.”

  “I’m afraid just the opposite is true.”

  “How so?”

  Norse took a breath. “Rod and I have been in communication with NSF and Mickey’s home institution. Nancy doesn’t have the training to do an autopsy now, but there’s going to be an investigation into Moss’s demise. Some of that is standard, and some is unusual because of the peculiar circumstances of his death. There might be people down here in the spring asking questions.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m not sure you do.” The psychologist pulled over another box and began dropping in files. “The most likely scenario is that Dr. Moss suffered an unfortunate accident while trying to retrieve his meteorite. It’s possible an autopsy would reveal a heart attack or another contributing factor. Another possibility, however, is suicide.”

  “Abby’s picture.”

  “Yes. I’m not at liberty to fully discuss that, but suffice to say there’s some evidence that Moss had an unusual interest in younger women.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  Norse glanced at the boxes around them, as if they held compelling evidence. “Nobody is asking you to.”

  “Mickey Moss is not the kind of guy who kills himself.”

  “I’m talking about possibilities.” The psychologist looked at him speculatively. “Look, you know what’s appealing about the hard sciences? Their rationality. A handful of Greeks more than two thousand years ago said stop, we’re not going to explain the world with supernatural miracles anymore, we’re going to look for natural causes. It was almost a superhuman thing to do, embracing the scientific method, and for many scientists this rationality is their religion. Yet it’s my contention that we’re not wired to be rational, that superstition survives in all of us because that’s the way people naturally think. Doctor Moss was a supremely rational man. But he was also a man, with all the freight of impulse and emotion and fear that any man carries with them. He might have been spooked. He might have been depressed. Who knows? It’s completely unfair at this point to suggest anything untoward, but Abby and I have been discussing the situation. Please don’t press her on it, because that could cause some real trauma in what in the best of circumstances is an emotional pressure cooker down here. Still, we all have to admit the possibility of the irrational.”

  “One more reason to put it all to rest, I think.”

  “Yes. We’re really talking about the functioning of this group. Except there’s a third possibility besides accident and suicide, you see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Murder.”

  “Come on...”

  “It’s possible that whoever took the meteorite and lured Mickey Moss into the old base pushed him down that pit.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t it? An esteemed scientist finds a meteorite? A thief takes it? As a search closes in, our culprit becomes desperate and decides to eliminate the one man he thinks might figure out who did it?”

  “You’re suggesting the meteorite could lead to that?”

  “I’m suggesting that with five million dollars at stake, any rational person would consider it as a possibility. And if there’s anything we can say about the scientists and engineers who run our little kingdom back in Washington, they are supremely rational. Positively anal about it.”

  “I’m even more certain I’m not looking for a murderer.”

  “Ah, but I think you have to.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Based on what authorities know so far, only one clear suspect has emerged.” Norse looked at him with unusual intensity. “Which means, in your own defense, that you can’t stop looking.”

  “Now wait a minute...”

  “Because that suspect is obviously you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lewis watched the first big storm of the winter season approach on his instruments, the barometer falling and the temperature actually rising slightly as the monster swelled up from beneath the horizon. Faxed satellite photos made it look like a pinwheel galaxy. Nothing happened at first, the air at the Pole seeming to hold its breath. He paced from his weather monitors to the windows, and from the windows to the monitors, curious and watchful, anticipating the storm but seeing nothing but gray blandness. He looked out at the other buildings on station and everything seemed still.

  He waited with the solitude of a lighthouse keeper. Lewis made people nervous now, since the discovery of Mickey’s body, and people avoided him like they avoided Buck Tyson. No one had accused him of anything. No one had asked any questions. But when he was out at Clean Air no one telephoned, either. No one e-mailed. When he was out with his instruments, Jed Lewis was the last man on earth.

  A murder suspect! Absurd. No one but Norse had said a thing and yet in every eye he now read suspicion, and in every gesture a distancing. That e-mail! Galley chatter subsided at his approach as if he turned down a dial, and when he sat away it regained its volume. Not so much a snub as formal politeness. “Hey, Lewis.” And that was it. No questions about anything. His isolation was exactly the opposite of what he’d expected at the Pole. His daily walk to Clean Air was a kind of voluntary exile, his trudge home one of dread at the caution he would encounter.

  Every five minutes, Lewis cursed Mickey Moss.

  He was reluctant to notify Cameron of his readings. It was difficult to talk to the man. The station manager had become remote since Moss’s death, as if Lewis represented potential contamination. Cameron never visited Clean Air. In fact, he rarely left his office, where he was struggling with a report to Washington. His depression was dangerous. It affected the entire station. When Lewis suggested in a rare phone call to the station manager that Cameron stick his nose out of the dome once in a while, the response had been curt.

  “I’m a little occupied, Lewis. We’re still trying to hash this out.”

  “Hash what out?”

  “Mickey.”

  Were they convicting him behind his back? “I’m tired of Mickey. I didn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “I understan
d what you’re saying. I’m sorry. I’m busy.”

  But as the approaching tempest swelled with power, Lewis was its first witness, and while he resented that all communication had to be initiated by himself, his duty was to warn the others. The storm would howl over the corpse of Mickey Moss, entombing him, and trap any human who hadn’t scurried for shelter. In fact, the storm would do its best to snuff out the entire station, trying to push people back home where they belonged. Except at the end they’d still be here, burrowing out, and with them would reemerge his own problems, his own mystery. What was the astronomer doing in that pit?

  He telephoned Cameron.

  “Rod here.” The tone was tired.

  “This is Lewis. We’ve got a Herbie.” The name was slang for storm and Lewis had picked up on it immediately, adopting the language of Antarctica.

  “What?” Cameron came to life. “Where? When?”

  “Greenwich quadrant. It will hit soon.”

  “How soon is soon?”

  Lewis looked at the storm boiling up on his screens. “Within the hour. Maybe sooner. I don’t know. I’ve never seen one before.”

  “An hour! Didn’t you see the storm?”

  “I saw it.”

  “I’m supposed to get a heads up!”

  “I’m giving you one.”

  “Earlier! Why the hell didn’t you call earlier?”

  “The sucker brewed up out of nowhere. You know how fast the weather changes.”

  “I need more of a heads up.”

  The scolding irritated Lewis. “Rod, I haven’t noticed a whole lot of interest lately in what I have to say.”

  There was silence for a moment. “Anybody else out with you?”

  “No.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “Okay, listen. I want you to stay there. I want you to clock the storm.”

  “The instruments will do that automatically.”

  “I know. I just don’t want you wandering around until this blows through.”

  “That might take a while.”

  “Just sit tight. I’ve got to get everyone battened down. This is dangerous, Lewis. We need an early heads up. We need to get some warning.”