Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  December 22, 7:30 p.m.

  AS DARRYL TRANSPORTED THE FISH to the aquarium tank, it wriggled so hard in his hands that he nearly lost it.

  “Hang on,” he muttered, “hang on,” then he plopped it back into the section of the tank carefully reserved for his previous specimens of Cryothenia hirschii. It swam a bit, nosing around, then settled slowly toward the bottom of the tank, to lie there-virtually motionless and all but transparent-like its companions. If the fish did prove to be an undiscovered species-and Darryl was all but sure that they would-it wouldn't be the most exciting find to a civilian observer. They weren't much to look at. But in the scientific community-where it counted-the discovery would make his name.

  Quite apart from their general morphology, their blood alone would launch a thousand lab tests. The antifreeze glycoproteins the blood carried, slightly different from those in the other Antarctic fish he had studied, could one day be used for myriad purposes already under consideration, from deicing airplane wings to insulating deep-sea probes… and who knew what else.

  But Darryl's present experiments had an even more bizarre focus. The moment Charlotte Barnes had mentioned that a plasma bag had gone missing from the infirmary, neither of them had doubted for an instant what happened to it. Eleanor Ames had gotten to it. But if she were ever to leave the shelter of Point Adelie to take up residence again in the outside world, she would first have to overcome her dreadful addiction. Darryl was no fool-he knew the kind of media storm she would be the center of, and there would be no way to satisfy, much less keep secret, such an insatiable need.

  He had taken additional samples of Eleanor's blood and immediately begun to run assays, screens, and other tests, working on a hunch that was as outlandish as the problem. Her blood, like Ack-erley's, had a phagocytic index that was virtually off the charts, but instead of eliminating only the bacteria, foreign particles, and cell debris in the bloodstream, her phagocytes devoured the red blood cells, too-first their own, then whatever they could ingest from outside sources. But what if, Darryl thought, he was able to find a way to leave the normally toxic index level alone-clearly, it helped to sustain life under the most adverse conditions-while introducing an element that might obviate the need for foreign erythrocytes? What if, in short, Eleanor was able to borrow a trick or two from the cold-blooded, hemoglobin-free fish that filled Darryl's aquarium and holding tanks?

  He'd made up a dozen different blood combinations, all of which were kept in carefully marked test tubes, under a steady temperature in the same minifridge where he kept his soft drinks, and he regularly checked them to see what had developed. He was just about to do so again when there was a loud banging on the lab door.

  When he opened it, Michael clomped in, his wet boots squelching on the rubber mat.

  “Want a cold drink?”

  “Very funny,” Michael replied, throwing his snowy hood back.

  “I wasn't joking.” Darryl went to the minifridge, popped the top of a root beer, and perched on top of his lab stool. “Where have you been?”

  “Stromviken.”

  Darryl knew there was only one reason to have gone there. “Did you find him?”

  Michael hesitated, but that was enough to tell Darryl what he needed to know.

  “Was he alive?”

  Michael balked again, as he unzipped his parka and plopped down on a neighboring stool.

  “Forget whatever Murphy told you,” Darryl said. “You know I'm going to have to be told eventually, anyway. Who else knows how to do a blood assay around here?”

  “Yes,” Michael finally replied. “But he didn't come easy. He got hurt, and Charlotte's taking care of him right now.”

  “How badly did he get hurt?”

  “Charlotte thinks it's just a mild concussion and a scalp wound.”

  “So he's in the infirmary?” Darryl said, ready to race over and collect some fresh blood samples.

  “No, the meat locker.”

  “That again?”

  “Murphy doesn't want to put the whole base at risk.”

  However reluctantly, Darryl had to concede the chief's point. After all, he had seen Ackerley in action-and who could tell what might come of reuniting Eleanor with this other lost soul, presumably afflicted in the same way she was. It could create an unholy alliance.

  “So,” Michael said, a little too casually, “how's it coming?”

  “How's what coming?”

  “The cure. You find any way to help Eleanor out?”

  “If you're asking me whether or not I've managed to solve one of the most puzzling hematological puzzles in history in the space of, oh, say a few days, the answer is no. Pasteur took his time, too.”

  “Sorry,” Michael said, and Darryl regretted being short with him.

  “But I am making some progress,” he said. “I have some ideas.”

  “That's good,” Michael said, visibly perking up. “That's great. I have faith in you. I think I will have that soda.”

  “Help yourself.”

  Michael went to the fridge, opened a bottle, then stood sipping it by the aquarium tank with the Cryothenia hirschii in it.

  “Because I had this wacky idea of my own,” he finally said, without turning around to face Darryl.

  “I'm open to all suggestions,” Darryl replied, capping another vial and labeling it, “though I was not aware that this was your field.”

  “It's not,” Michael said. “My idea was, Eleanor should go back on the supply plane with me.”

  “What?”

  “If you could find a cure, or at least a way to stabilize her condition,” Michael said, turning around now, “I could shepherd her back to civilization.”

  “She doesn't belong on an airplane,” Darryl said, “she belongs in quarantine. Or at the CDC. She's still got a blood disease with- what should we call them to be kind? — serious side effects?” But there was a look in Michael's eye that he didn't like. “This woman is off-limits, in a big way. You do get that, right?”

  “Jesus, of course I do,” Michael said, as if taking offense at the very suggestion.

  “And now, in case you've already forgotten, we've got a second patient with the same problem. Were you planning to take him back with you, too?”

  “If we had a solution,” Michael said, though with a touch less enthusiasm, “yes, I would.” He took a long drink from the soda bottle. “I would have to.”

  “That's insane,” Darryl said. “The plane is due in what, nine days? I sincerely doubt that anyone but you will be going back on it.”

  Michael looked deflated, but accepting, as if he knew he'd been floating a very leaky trial balloon.

  “What you can do,” Darryl said, to buck him up, “is ask Charlotte to get me some blood samples from-what was his name again?”

  “Sinclair Copley.”

  “From Mr. Copley, as soon as possible. And now, instead of distracting me with any more of your lame ideas, you should go back to the dorm and crash. Maybe you'll wake up tomorrow with some more great ideas.”

  “Thanks. I just might.”

  “Can't wait,” Darryl said, already returning to his work.

  But Michael had one more stop to make before sleeping; he'd been avoiding it for days, and Joe Gillespie had left three increasingly urgent messages for him. For a host of reasons, he'd been postponing the conversation. What was he going to tell him? That the bodies discovered in the ice had been successfully thawed out-and they'd then absconded? That they were now alive, in fact, and under lock-down? Oh yeah, that would be an easy sell. Or should he go into what had happened to Danzig, and then Ackerley-tell him how dead men had come back to life, insane with some unknown disease that turned them into a polar version of the living dead? How far would he get with any of that, he wondered, before Gillespie started to speculate on just how crazy his reporter had become? And what would Gillespie do then? Would he notify the NSF headquarters in Washington that an immediate evacuati
on of his hallucinating staffer was required? Or, would he simply try to contact the base commander himself, none other than Murphy O'Connor? The same Murphy O'Connor whose last pronouncement on this subject had been, “What happens at Point Adelie, stays at Point Adelie.”

  Michael called Gillespie at home, on the SAT phone, hoping he'd get a machine, but Gillespie picked up on the first ring.

  “Hope I'm not waking you,” Michael said, over the low crackle of static.

  “Michael?” Gillespie nearly shouted. “You're a very hard man to reach!”

  “Yeah, well, it's kind of a topsy-turvy place down here.”

  “Wait a second-let me turn the stereo down.”

  Michael stared down at a notepad on the counter; somebody had been doodling a sleigh with Santa on top and it really wasn't bad. Michael flashed on Christmas the year before-Kristin had given him a pup tent, and he'd given her an acoustic guitar… that she'd never had time to learn how to play.

  “So tell me,” Gillespie said, back on the line, “where are we on this story? I want to get the art department started on the cover and the layout as soon as possible, and anytime you have a rough draft of the text-and I don't care how rough it is-I want to see it.” His words were coming so fast they were tumbling over themselves. “So what's the latest with the bodies in the ice? Have you thawed ‘em out? Or figured out anything about who they were?”

  What, Michael wondered, could he say? That he not only knew who they were, but knew their actual names? Because they had told him?

  “The girl's the one I'm particularly interested in,” Gillespie confessed. “What's she look like? Is she completely decayed, or would she be something we could feature in a full-page shot without scaring our younger readers?”

  Michael was at a total loss. He didn't want to start laying down a bunch of lies, but he was definitely not about to divulge the truth. The thought of describing Eleanor to him, of pitching her, as the subject of some photo opportunity…

  “I hope she's going to be well enough preserved to go on display somewhere,” Gillespie rattled on. “The NSF, I'm sure, is going to want to show her off, and I wouldn't be surprised if they set up some kind of show around her at the Smithsonian.”

  Michael's heart sank even lower in his chest. He regretted the haste with which he had informed Gillespie of the find in the first place, and he wished, more than anything, that he could simply roll back time and start all over. That he could take it all back. Maybe now, it dawned on him, he could start. “You know,” he said, “it looks like I was a bit quick on the draw there.”

  “Quick on the draw,” Gillespie repeated, slowly for a change. “What do you mean?”

  What did he mean? He could picture the fuzz on Gillespie's head getting fuzzier by the second. “The bodies, well, they didn't turn out to be what I thought they were.”

  “What the hell are you getting at? They're either bodies, or they're not. Don't do this to me, Michael. Are you saying that-”

  While he talked, Michael shook the phone, and when he went back on a few seconds later, he said, “Sorry, you were breaking up. Could you repeat that last bit, Joe?”

  “I was saying, is this story for real or not? Because if you were just jerking my chain, I'm not amused in the slightest.”

  “I was not jerking you around,” Michael replied, holding the phone at arm's length for maximum effect. “I guess I was fooled myself. It looks like, well, it looks like maybe it wasn't an actual woman at all. Just a carved wooden figurehead.”

  “A… carved… wooden… figurehead?”

  “Attached to a bowsprit.” Michael was momentarily impressed at his own ingenuity. “Quite old, and very beautiful, but not a woman. Or a man, either-he just turned out to be some more wood-though nicely painted-in the ice behind her. They must have been part of some shipwreck.” He could embellish it further, but he didn't want Gillespie to get too excited about shots of the figurehead, because then he'd have to find a way to manufacture some. “I just can't tell you, Joe, how embarrassed I am.”

  “Embarrassed?” Michael heard, faintly. “That's all? You're embarrassed? I was planning to make you the poster boy for Eco-Travel Magazine. I was planning to shell out real money to hire a PR firm, just to plaster your face all over the media.”

  Michael knew that with every syllable he'd just uttered, his chances of making news-winning awards, getting famous, maybe even getting rich-had withered, and vanished into the thinnest of air. “But I've got some other great stuff-an abandoned whaling station, the last dogsled team in the Antarctic, a big storm rounding the Horn. Tons of material.”

  “That's great, Michael, just great. We'll talk more as soon as you get back here, after the first of the year. You can show me what you've got then.”

  “You bet,” Michael said, still silently assessing what he had done to his career. He had taken what could have been a career-making moment, and torched it.

  “And you're feeling okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Michael replied.

  “And the situation with Kristin? Has that changed at all?”

  He could see what was going through Gillespie's mind-he thought that Michael had begun to come a little unhinged over the lingering tragedy. And, much as he hated to exploit something like that, Michael did see an opportunity.

  “Kristin passed away,” he said.

  “Oh jeez. You should have said something sooner.”

  “So between that, and the weird conditions down here, maybe yeah, I have been a little out of whack.” He made sure his tone implied that that was definitely the case.

  “Listen, I'm really sorry about Kristin.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But at least her ordeal is over. And yours, too.”

  “I guess.”

  “Just take it easy-don't overextend yourself-and we'll talk again, maybe in a day or two.”

  “Sure.”

  “And Michael-in the meantime, why don't you check in with the doctor on the base? Have him make sure-”

  “Her. It's a woman.”

  “Okay-have her look you over. Can't hurt.”

  “Will do.” Michael waved the phone in the air, then rubbed his sleeve against it to create some more static. Whatever bromides Gillespie was offering next, he didn't hear. Michael mumbled a good-bye into the receiver, hung up, then sat with his hands hanging down between his knees. He still wasn't sure, but he suspected that he'd just done the dumbest thing in his life. He'd always operated on instinct-picking which route to take up a cliff face, which fork in the rapids to run, which cave to explore-and just now he'd gone with his instincts again. And he wasn't even sure why. All he did know was that something inside him had rebelled-recoiled, even-at the thought of delivering Eleanor. To Joe Gillespie. To the world. Sure, what he'd done was a lie, but anything else would have felt like a betrayal.

  Michael, he said to himself, you have well and truly fucked yourself.

  He trudged alone to the commons, where he grabbed a sandwich and a couple of beers. Sam Adams Lagers, which only served to remind him of the flyers that Ackerley had written his last notes on. Uncle Barney had laid out a tray of Christmas cookies-gingerbread men decorated with pink icing-and Michael had a couple of those, too. But the Christmas spirit, which ought to have been easy to come by in a snowy landscape like the Pole, wasn't anywhere around. Yeah, they'd all sung Danzig's favorite songs at his memorial service, but he hadn't heard a lot of singing since. A kind of pall still hung over everything and everyone at the Point.

  He thought about stopping off at the infirmary on the way back to his dorm, but kept on going instead; he had no heart to face Eleanor just then, much less to lie to her about Sinclair, as he had been enjoined to do. He had some serious soul-searching to do-especially since he had derailed things with Gillespie. He just needed to be alone with his thoughts.

  That was getting to be a constant refrain for him.

  What had started as a fleeting question, in the back of his mind, was
becoming something more than that, something that his mind kept returning to. What was going to happen to Eleanor? She couldn't stay at Point Adelie forever, that was for certain. But how, and under what circumstances, could she leave? Did Murphy have some secret plan of his own? As far as Michael could see, she was going to require a friend, no matter what-someone she knew and trusted, to usher her into the modern-day world. And he also realized that, without any conscious deliberation, he had cast himself in that role.

  In the communal bathroom, he took a long look at his own weary face in the mirror, and decided to shave. Why not shave before bed? At the South Pole, everything else was upside down.

  But it wasn't just Eleanor-there was Sinclair to consider. The two of them would want to be together. And what role would he serve then? He'd wind up as a kind of chaperone, shepherding the two lovers back into a brave, new, and bewildering world.

  His beard was so rough the razor kept snagging, and drops of blood appeared on his cheek and chin.

  If he was honest with himself, what other scenario had he been imagining? Brewing inside him, he knew, were feelings that did not bear close scrutiny. He was a photojournalist, for Christ's sake, there on an assignment-that was it, and that was what he needed to focus on. The rest was just noise in his head.

  He wiped some steam away from the mirror. His gaze was wide but dull-was he skirting the edge of the Big Eye? — and he needed a barber, too. His black hair was thick and unruly and curling over his ears. A couple of guys were yakking in the sauna behind him- from their voices he thought it might be Lawson and Franklin. He splashed some cold water on the spots where he'd cut himself, then took a quick shower and went back to his room.

  Once there, he pulled the blinds down tight-he never thought he could hate the sun, but he did at that moment-and got into a fresh T-shirt and boxer shorts. He hoisted himself into his bunk and tried to straighten out the bedclothes; Darryl, he had noted, made his bed every day, but Michael saw no reason to do something at Point Adelie that he never bothered to do at home. He tugged the sheet up to keep the scratchy blanket off his legs, then yanked the bed curtains closed on all sides. Lying back in the narrow confines of the bunk, with the foam-rubber pillow wedged under his head, he stared up into the blackness.