Jack and the Geniuses

by Bill Nye

  “Not again, Ava.”

  “Seriously, though. How does Min know so much about Hank? Why does he even listen to her? They’re totally dating.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” I asked, pointing out the window. Ava turned, and I pressed the emergency call button on her armrest. As Jen hustled from the galley to see what was wrong, I collected my books and my drink and found a new seat in the spacious plane. Ava tried to blame me for the hostess’s alarm, but the victory was mine.

  Now, back to that coffee. The drink was essential, because I couldn’t afford to sleep. I was determined to finish A Field Guide to the Frozen Frontier and skim a few of the books about Antarctica’s early explorers before we arrived. When my boots stepped down onto that ice, I wanted to be an expert on the place. Or at least know more about it than Matt and Ava did. And I certainly had time. The trip was going to take four flights and nearly three days.

  First, though, I opened my laptop and skimmed through the e-mails from Hank’s scientist friend Anna Donatelli. Besides the unusual emojis, which included cartoon versions of a dancing elephant seal and a penguin playing a harmonica, what stood out was the intensity of her messages. She was all but begging Hank to get down there, and she wasn’t afraid to use exclamation points. “You have to see what I’ve found! Fly down immediately! No, sooner. Please!! This is bigger than science!!!!!” Once Hank informed her that he was on his way, Anna Donatelli’s reply contained no words at all. She sent back an e-mail packed with twenty-four exclamation points—I counted—and seven dancing seals. For all her excitement, though, she didn’t offer any real clues to what she’d actually discovered, and before long I closed my laptop and switched to the books Min had given me.

  When that first flight was over, they pretty much had to peel me out of my seat on Clutterbuck’s jet. Our hostess actually gave me a small bag of the civet coffee beans to take with me, and for some reason she was wearing that devious smile again. The next plane was hardly so luxurious, and our rides became less comfortable each time we switched. In New Zealand, as we left the tiny terminal to head toward the runway for our last flight, a man with a ruddy face and droopy eyes stopped us just past the exit. Behind him was a huge cart stuffed with red, fur-lined jackets. He grimaced when he saw us—Hank had warned us that some people weren’t thrilled that he was bringing kids to the South Pole—then pulled two coats from the very bottom of the bin and handed them to Ava and me. “Go ahead,” he said, “try ’em on.”

  The breeze was warm, and the sun was hot on the back of my neck, so it felt strange to be testing a coat designed for extreme cold. But in a few hours we were going to land in one of the most frigid places on the planet. So I zipped up. The jacket wasn’t just warm; it felt like I was snuggling with a family of friendly bears. The smallest size was still a little too large, but it would work for me and Ava.

  “That’s your ‘Big Red’—your expedition parka,” the man said. “She’ll be your best friend down there on the ice—and up there in your plane. She keeps everything out. And everything in,” he added, winking at me.

  There is a secret language between males of the human species that I speak quite well. So with great care I let one out. Then I waited. I knew from the heat, and the several bags of chocolate cookies I’d gobbled down on the last flight, that I’d released something strong. Yet no scent arose to my nostrils. Not even a whiff. “Nice,” I said.

  “Isn’t it?” the man agreed.

  Matt’s jacket fit perfectly, but Hank mumbled something about wishing his could be taken in at the shoulders. Wrapped in our Big Reds, the four of us followed the two dozen or so other passengers onto the runway and up the rollaway stairs. Our actual destination in Antarctica was McMurdo Station, a United States government research center. So for this last portion of the trip we’d be riding in a massive US Air Force cargo plane. I wasn’t expecting private-jet-style comfort and service, but this mechanical bird was built to carry tanks, not people. Picture an enormous metal tube with two huge wings and four giant propellers. All the passengers had to cram into metal seats with straight backs; our Big Reds were the only cushions. Most people pulled their hoods over their faces and prepared to sleep.

  “This should be fun,” Ava said, rolling her eyes.

  “Loads of it,” Matt added.

  The plane shook like a washing machine on spin cycle and sounded like the world’s largest blow-dryer, and we hadn’t even started moving yet. A woman sitting across the aisle from us was staring at Hank. “Are you—”

  “He is,” Ava answered. “Would you like his autograph?”

  “No,” she said, as if this were the most ridiculous question she’d ever been asked.

  Hank had already begun to reach into his jacket for a pen, but he moved his hand to his shoulder instead, pretending to massage a sore spot. “Are you a scientist?” Hank asked the woman.

  “I’m a firefighter,” she answered.

  “Why are firefighters needed on an ice world?” Ava asked.

  I nearly jumped out of my seat; I’d just read all about this in the book. “I know!” I said. “On the base there’s always a risk of a fire, and you also need firefighters for rescue missions, emergencies, people getting lost out on the ice or caught in a storm. There’s a whole population of people down there who have nothing to do with science. Cooks and engineers and truck drivers and even shopkeepers. They keep the base running.”

  “Not bad,” the woman said.

  “I’m Jack,” I said, holding my hand out to her across the aisle.

  The woman shoved her hand into her fur-lined pocket instead. “And I’m going to sleep,” she said. “See you on Ross.”

  “That’s short for Ross Island, home of McMurdo Station,” I explained to Ava.

  “I know that, and I’m going to sleep, too.”

  There were a thousand other things I wanted to tell Ava and Matt about Antarctica. First of all, it’s as large as the United States, not counting Alaska, and 98 percent of it is ice. If the whole thing were a pizza, and you cut the pie into a hundred slices, all but two would be frozen. In the summer, the sun never sets. It just kind of circles around the horizon, rising higher, then dipping lower, never quite disappearing. And in the winter it’s all darkness, all the time. I have an irrational but serious fear of vampires, so I was glad we were going in early summer. The way I see it, if vampires really do exist, those dark Antarctic winters would be ideal for their vacations.

  Even though it’s brighter than the winter, summer in Antarctica isn’t exactly pleasant. They have a different idea of good weather down there. If you don’t have to cover your face to protect it from instant frostbite, that’s a lovely day. Fifteen degrees Fahrenheit is toasty, even though it’s below freezing. A bad storm is when the temperature is under a hundred degrees below zero, the wind is blowing at fifty-five knots, and you can’t see anything in front of you because of all the snow whipping around. They call that kind of storm a “Herbie.” You don’t want to get caught outside in a Herbie.

  Our destination, McMurdo Station, sounded kind of cool. About a thousand people lived and worked there in the summer, a few hundred in the winter. In addition to the various science labs and sleeping dorms, the research center boasts a bowling alley, a basketball court, a movie theater, and a rock-climbing wall. All indoors, of course. It even has a coffee shop.

  What else? I’ll run through the highlights. They call the common cold down there “the crud.” There’s a huge volcano, Mount Erebus, which shoots out lava that freezes instantly, turning into crystals.

  Then there were the early Antarctic explorers. Those dudes were completely brutal. One group of them actually ate penguins to survive. Honestly. They turned cute little penguins into steaks. Seal soup was also a popular item on their menus.

  During another famous expedition, the team began their journey to the South Pole with forty-eight dogs and returned with only a dozen.

  On purpose.

  Get it?

  Exac
tly.

  Even though it’s frigid all the time in Antarctica, you can get sunburned and dehydrated. The cold can suck all the moisture out of your skin. The snow can blind you. And everybody is supposed to stick to a set of crazy rules designed to make sure that humans don’t mess the place up. So when you go on a field trip to explore, you have to carry little bottles and plastic bags with you to take care of your business. If you’re lucky, you get to use a bucket with a Styrofoam seat. But sometimes you just have to ask your tent-mates to turn the other way.

  And the ice itself? Well, the ice is so thick and solid in some places that you can land a cargo plane right down on the surface of it. Which is exactly what we were about to do in our giant metal bird. The tin-can plane dipped. Ava woke up, and through a window to our right we saw the white expanse of Antarctica. The whole world was reduced to two colors, blue and white. In the distance, Mount Erebus was like a cloud factory spewing vapor into the air.

  “Planes might not be able to do this for much longer,” Hank said.

  “Do what?” Ava asked.

  “Land on the ice.”

  “Why not?” Ava pressed.

  “Global warming!” Hank said. “Climate change could melt this place.”

  The rattling, winged tube struck the icy runway, bumping along for a few seconds before settling into a glide. I was as rigid as a board. For a moment I pictured us slipping across the ice, out onto the edge, and plunging into the blue water, but we were miles from open ocean. I closed my eyes and did not open them again until the plane stopped, the huge cargo door opened, and a blast of icy wind practically punched me in the face.

  “Whoa!” Hank said. “That’ll wake you up! Look at those bluebird skies. And the ice . . . notice its bluish tinge? In the height of the summer this entire ice shelf will be completely melted. Imagine that!”

  Outside, everything was white and blue and impossibly bright. My eyes burned from the light reflecting off the snow and ice. Squinting barely helped, and the air was like a giant frozen hand wrapping around my chest. We climbed out of the plane, and at the bottom of the metal stairs, Matt tripped. He landed in the snow and slid forward.

  And it was awesome.

  Once Matt was on his feet again, with the snow brushed off his scarlet parka but the red in his face still glowing, we crossed the ice and headed for McMurdo’s version of a taxi, a beastly red vehicle named Ivan the Terra Bus. Only Ivan wasn’t like any kind of taxi or bus I’d ever seen. A big red metal box sitting atop giant wheels, it looked like a cross between a garbage truck and a broken-down space freighter from a science-fiction movie. I half expected a crowd of small hooded aliens to scurry out of the back and try to start selling us scrap electronics. Instead, a half-dozen humans emerged and began welcoming and waving us inside.

  A woman wearing a green woolen hat hurried up to Hank. “Dr. Witherspoon! Such a pleasure. Really. I’m Britney Kirshner, one of the geoscientists here. Beautiful out, isn’t it? The first time I arrived here, I felt like I’d just stepped onto the moon.”

  “Yes, it’s spectacular, and call me Hank, please.”

  “Certainly,” she said. Her eyes were bright blue, her cheeks bright red. A few strands of reddish-brown hair hung down over her eyes. “I hope you’ll do the same.”

  “You want him to call you Hank?” Ava asked.

  “What? No. I want him to call me Britney. I . . . Oh, you were joking.”

  “She’s quite the comedian,” I said.

  “Where’s Anna?” Hank asked. “I’ll admit, I expected her to meet us.”

  “No one told you?” Britney asked.

  “No one told me what?”

  “Anna has disappeared.”

  5

  DINING WITH THE ENEMY

  I wanted answers immediately. What had happened? When did she disappear? Why? But Hank didn’t appear concerned at all. He said Anna always liked to do things her own way. Years ago, they were in an African desert, hoping to find fossils in fallen meteorites, when Anna decided to walk back to their camp from the field site. Seventy miles. Through the desert. Without telling anyone. So he was certain this whole disappearing act was just Anna being Anna. When I pressed him with questions, he said we’d have plenty of time later to discuss everything. But we couldn’t talk on the ride to McMurdo Station, because the rattling, rumbling truck was too loud. And we couldn’t talk when we finally got to the base, because we were too busy filling out forms and meeting contestants for the Clutterbuck Prize and touring the buildings and getting lectured on rule after rule after rule. I didn’t get my chance to ask any questions until we sat down at our table in the cafeteria.

  Inside, there were several dozen long tables, the air smelled of cleaning fluids, and the food was nearly colorless. The green beans looked closer to brown. The carrots were more yellow than orange. I went with the plain beige buttered noodles and sat down across from Britney.

  “Normally we don’t dress up for dinner here,” she said, eyeing my shirt and tie. “Are those . . . rockets on your bowtie?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  Matt set his tray next to mine and nudged me aside a little. Britney laughed when she saw his plate piled high. “You should save room for Mr. Frosty,” she said.

  “Who’s that?” Ava asked.

  Britney pointed across the room to an antique soft-serve ice cream machine—a big square beauty with gleaming silver handles and white nozzles dripping with chocolate and vanilla. I had a strong feeling that Mr. Frosty and I were going to be very good friends. “Also, if you don’t like what they’re serving for dinner here, you can always order pizza. They deliver twenty-four hours a day.”

  This was very good news. Normally I would’ve asked about the quality of the pepperoni, but we had more important things to discuss. As everyone quietly dug into their meals, I set my fork down on my blue plastic tray. “Can we talk about Anna Donatelli now?” I asked Hank.

  He shrugged. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “What if something happened to her? What if she’s in trouble?”

  “Ignore him,” Ava said to Britney.

  “No, really,” I continued. “Think about it. There’s a mandatory buddy system here, right, Britney?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “No one ever goes out alone.”

  “Exactly! So she wouldn’t have been allowed to. It’s against the rules.”

  “It’s a lab, not a prison,” Hank said. “And Anna’s never had much regard for rules.”

  “Which is not the way for anyone to operate down here,” Britney said, pausing between her words for emphasis. She stared briefly at Ava and Matt, then fixed her eyes on me for a few beats longer. “The rules of McMurdo are in place for a reason. You understand that?”

  Her tone and expression were graveyard serious.

  “Yes. Totally. We understand,” I insisted. “But getting back to Anna . . . doesn’t it seem odd,” I asked Hank, “that she’d take off right before our arrival? She was all excited for you to come down here.” I pictured the reply with twenty-four exclamation points. “Then she just disappears? That’s like throwing a party for yourself and then leaving before it starts.”

  “I’ve done that,” Hank said with a laugh. “My fortieth birthday, if I recall correctly. Right before the party started, I was struck by the notion that my age was irrelevant, and . . .” Hank squirmed as he noticed Matt chewing with his mouth open. As a favor to us, he tried not to scold us in front of others when our table manners failed. There was a code word for each of us; Matt’s referred to one of the moons of Mars. “Phobos, Matthew. Please.”

  My brother blushed, closed his mouth, and resumed chewing.

  There was a commotion at the table next to us; a tall man spat out his coffee in disgust, declaring that it tasted like dishwater.

  Britney leaned forward and whispered, “He’s right. The coffee here is revolting.”

  That news hurt. I felt like I hadn’t slept in weeks, and I’d b
een hoping for a decent cup. But this was no time to worry about the quality of McMurdo’s coffee beans. “Back to Anna,” I said. “Do you know her, Britney?”

  “I do,” she said. “We’ve become good friends, in fact. The first day we met, I was sitting right where you are now, Ava, and I saw this woman rearranging the pile of cafeteria trays at the counter. She sat down across from me after she got her food. I asked what she’d been doing, and she said the trays hadn’t been stacked correctly. She said disorder bothered her.”

  Hank nodded. “Anna is painfully neat,” he admitted. “Very, very organized.”

  “I wouldn’t want her to see my workbench,” Ava said.

  I nodded at Britney. “What else?”

  Staring at the ceiling, Hank answered instead. “I seem to recall that she doesn’t like peas. Of course, there is also her research, which is phenomenal. Right, Matthew?” My brother was clearly desperate to spit out what he’d learned, but his mouth was too full, so Hank continued talking. “Do you work with Anna?”

  Britney held up a finger, then finished chewing. “No,” she said after a breath. “I study sea-ice interactions.”

  Thankfully, Ava said what I was thinking. “What?”

  Our new friend held one hand flat above the table, then pushed her fist up against the outstretched fingers. “Let’s say my right fist is a freshwater iceberg, and my left hand is the ocean surface. I study the places where they collide.”

  I yawned. “Sorry,” I said.

  Matt backhanded me on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Britney said. “I get that it’s not quite as exciting as Anna’s research. Or not to you, at least. So, what do you think happened to her, Jack?” she asked with a smirk. “You think she was kidnapped or something?”

  Her expression was annoying; she was looking at me like I was a second grader. “No, but I can’t help wondering if disappearing wasn’t her choice. What if someone forced her to flee the base? Did she owe anybody money or anything?”