The Last Outpost

by Hannah Ross

  An almost accidental look at his watch startled him as he noticed how much time had passed. The research team at AN-85 must be livid, and he expected his portable radio to beep any moment. "I must go now, I'm afraid," he said with obvious reluctance. "Time to go back."

  Ki Tahan nodded. "But come back soon, yes? Egan love to play with you." The boy, shyly and surreptitiously, sidled up to Scott and put a freshwater shell in his hand, and Scott thanked him and pocketed the shell with an expression of tenderness.

  As before, Ri Omrek volunteered to walk with him to the edge of the valley. His sister stayed home, to put the fish that did not go into the stew up to dry. Dried fish was an important article of the Anai diet in the cold, dark, long winter, and winter preparations, including putting up food and curing sealskins for clothes, began as early as spring.

  "Next time you come," Ri Omrek said as they were walking, "if you want to, you might go with us to sea. We hunt... you would like to, yes?"

  Ri Omrek sounded so sure of the answer that Scott could hardly have said no. Like most modern Americans, he did not hold hunting in much esteem, but he realized its necessity to the lives of the Anai, and was flattered by the invitation. "If I can, I'd love to go with you."

  They passed a great, tall hulk of a man at the edge of the settlement. He was taller, bigger and wider than Ri Omrek, and though he nodded to the latter, Scott felt that the man's light blue eyes pierced him with distrustful scrutiny. He had platinum-blonde hair pulled into a braid at the back of his head and, though the Anai usually had very little growth on their faces, a dense, close-cropped beard and mustache. Scott could feel the man's eyes upon his back as they kept going.

  "Who is that?" he asked, unsettled.

  "That is Ne Tarveg," his companion said. "He is some years older than I, but lives here alone on the side of village."

  "He doesn't look very happy. Why does he stare at me like that?"

  Ri Omrek sighed. "He is not happy. From when he was younger... a boy, he wanted Tahan for his woman. He ask, but she say no. Later Daygan come, Tahan happy, but Ne Tarveg stay alone. Sometimes, look at Tahan... when Daygan not notice. Then," a cloud passed over Ri Omrek's face, "Daygan go to land of darkness. Some time pass, and Ne Tarveg hope that now, Tahan agree to be his woman. He ask, but she say no again. So he not happy. He not like to see any man around Tahan. Even Anders," he concluded with a chuckle.

  Scott was a little discomposed, though he tried to conceal it. The cold hardness in the bearded man's stare reminded him of something uncomfortable, though he could not quite pinpoint what. It was getting late. He thanked Ri Omrek and continued his solitary trek up the path leading out to the valley.

  Sue clicked her tongue impatiently and checked her watch upon seeing him. "I have no idea what you could possibly have been doing there that long," she said. "Come, now, we should get ready to go back. We've packed up our stuff some time ago, and there's no good reason to stay overnight."

  Though it was rather late, the long day and fine, clear weather allowed the team to make it back to McMurdo without any difficulties. Sue checked her watch and sighed exasperatedly. "We've missed dinner," she said, "but maybe there are some wraps and sandwiches left for us."

  Chapter 8

  They felt something was off the moment they set foot at McMurdo station and walked into building 155. Evening and night shift were supposed to be marked by lower-gear activity, but many people were milling about, in the corridors, near the galley, talking to each other in hushed, harried voices. Frowning, Scott stepped ahead, looking for Jerry Gordon or someone else who could possibly tell him what was going on. Before he proceeded five steps, he nearly collided with Zoe, who was immersed in an internet page on her phone. Though phones did not work for normal calls, they were handy for speedy access to the internet, and many people chose to carry them around.

  "Buck! Sorry, I think I stepped on your foot. Do you know...? But maybe you don't, you've only just got back, right?"

  "Know what?" Scott frowned. They drew aside to a quiet corner, and Zoe showed him her phone screen.

  "The United States have declared war on North Korea. Soldiers are being deployed as we speak."

  Paling at once, Scott took the phone from her and held it with shaking fingers. The letters he read on the screen danced before his eyes, an urgent statement from President Logan and his military attaches. 'Unexpected bombing of United States marine base... North Korea threat to civilization and peace... American citizens will be protected... General mobilization is taking place at these hours...'

  "It looks like we're in deep shit, Buck," Zoe commented. "General mobilization? I've never heard of such a thing in my lifetime. And I don't think it was necessary. Logan is an idiot. Instead of taking care of a threat, he sets out to annihilate a whole country out of spite."

  Scott glanced at the time and date of the article. It had been published no more than two hours ago. Then he looked at his watch. It was the middle of the night in both Wisconsin and Dakota. Brianna, as well as his sister and her family, might be sound asleep and perfectly oblivious to the world turmoil going on. But he couldn't help thinking about Laura's husband, who was an ex-marine. General mobilization meant that men like him would be the first to be deployed. He had to call, even if he risked waking people.

  "Here you go," he said, giving back Zoe's phone. "And, Zoe... if I were you, I'd make sure the communications center is well attended right now. People will want to be getting in touch with their families."

  "It's not my shift right now," Zoe said with a weak smile. "I'm quite at leisure to walk around and worry to my heart's content."

  Despite the unusual hour, Laura answered his Skype call at once, and didn't sound remotely sleepy. "Hi there, Scott. Yes, we know. We know it all. Harry got a message before the official statement was released to the press. He is going away on Monday." Though she was trying to control herself, her voice caught, and Scott ached to put his arms around her and reassure her, though reassurance was hardly possible at the moment.

  "Laura..."

  "It's alright. Really, I don't want to overreact. It's not like he is going to be sent overseas in the first line. They are going to some camp... well, it doesn't matter. Everything is running smoothly here on the farm, and I should be fine here by myself for a while. And there's no definite time limit on his deployment – he might be home next month for all we know."

  Both of them fell silent for a second, not wishing to voice, or even to think of the terrible possibility that Harry might never make it home at all.

  "I wish I were there right now."

  "No, Buck, you don't. You want to be right where you are, on the edge of the world. Right now, I kind of wish we were all there." Knowing his sister, he realized she was suppressing a burst of tears, to which she would probably give way as soon as the conversation was over.

  "I wondered if I should call Brianna, but didn't want to risk waking her."

  "I wouldn't bother. Brianna is probably asleep, and will know nothing about the whole thing until tomorrow. And she has nobody to really worry about. She has no brothers, and her husband is safe in Antarctica."

  "Laura, you hang in there. Give Harry and the kids my love."

  "Thanks, bro," she said, pulling herself together. "Well, I'd better go and help Harry pack up his things."

  Scott wasn't feeling very hungry, but following the evening routine, and to calm his nerves, he got himself a sandwich from the vending machine in the hall, and made a cup of cocoa in the kitchen. He ate and drank mechanically, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and stretched out on the bed. The blinds were drawn and the night lamp was on, but outside it was still almost as bright as day. This must have wreaked havoc with his melatonin, because he wasn't feeling remotely tired. His head was buzzing with dark and ominous suggestions. Strangely, he was shaken, but at the same time unsurprised. He rather expected something like this for a while.

  He got a few hours of restless sleep that night, and was among
the first to breakfast at the galley at 5:30 in the morning. Having mechanically consumed his portion of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade, he went straight to his office. He started on some routine work, answering emails about shipment times and supply orders, but it felt fake, surreal. He longed to take some time off to have a call or a chat with Brianna, but decided that, in good conscience, he couldn't permit himself such a distraction until after lunch.

  Victor Nash knocked about 7:30, looking rested and refreshed. His thick dark hair was, as always, combed to one side, and unlike Scott, he was clean-shaven.

  "Well," he said with obvious reluctance, after a feeble 'good morning', "it sure looks like you were on to something. Not quite doomsday yet," he gave an affected little chuckle, "but it's an emergency situation in the States, no doubt about that. Not that I would break the station's supply budget ordering a mega-shipment of canned beans, but still."

  Scott rubbed his tired eyes, feeling the lack of sleep more now than he did when he first woke. "I agree with you here, Nash. No mega-shipments... but we need to make sure all our supplies are in good order. Do you have the latest report ready?"

  To his surprise, Nash didn't give a quick, efficient reply, as was his custom. Instead, he sat unmoving in the chair opposite him, looking in a cool and inscrutable way through the lenses of his glasses. "You had gone to see the Anai again yesterday, didn't you?"

  Scott did not like his tone. He also recalled a curious detail - though Nash had access to all the information about the Anai, he had no clearance to visit Camp AN-85. When he had tried to probe Lindholm for reasons, he got no reply beyond, "safety considerations, Buck - just plain bureaucracy. Put this out of your mind."

  "What if I did?" Scott replied.

  "Oh, I know you did. You joined that research team to AN-85. Not being a geologist or anything of the sort, you had no real reason to."

  "I'm an environmental scientist."

  "Not here. Here you manage shipments, orders and the logistics of the largest research station in Antarctica."

  Scott frowned. "Look, Nash, I don't see how this is any of your business."

  "Well, as your assistant, I naturally have to pick up the slack when you are gone."

  "I flatter myself that I left everything in good order before going away. And it was only for a few hours. I'm not a slave, you know. Neither are you. You can take some time off if you need it. And, just so you know, it is stipulated in my contract that I am to have some time for independent research." A defensive note crept into Scott's voice, and he hated himself for it.

  Nash smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, or a friendly one. "Oh, I don't blame you for wanting to go there again. It's a nice place. Warmer than anywhere else on this goddamn frozen slab of a continent. And those wild people, they are fascinating."

  "I wouldn't call them wild," Scott said, his irritation mounting.

  "Whatever you say. They've got a curious thing going on, anyhow. But they sure look well. The men are all over six feet tall. And the women are beautiful," he added in an off-hand way, but Scott was not fooled. Alarm bells began ringing in his mind at once.

  Nash had visited the Anai Valley, but he no longer has clearance to go there. Who arranged that? Probably Lindholm. And he was the one who didn't want Nash to succeed to his place. Why? Could it be that Nash did something to overstep the boundaries? But what, exactly? Beautiful women. Why does it sound so unpleasant, coming from him?

  "I'm more interested in specimens of the local fauna," he said coolly.

  "Well, and aren't people specimens of fauna? The most interesting of all, I'd say," Nash got up to leave, and had his hand on the door handle, when Scott called after him.

  "Nash."

  The man turned around. "What is it?"

  "If I go to AN-85 again, would you like to come too?"

  Nash was no fool. He knew this was a test. "I don't have the clearance. Don't you know that?"

  "Why, though?"

  "Old Lindholm didn't consider visits to AN-85 as part of my duties," Victor Nash said, coldly and succinctly. "The supervisors of the U.S. Antarctic Program appeared to share this opinion. I will email you the report in a little while," Nash concluded, and got out of the office.

  Days passed, and the workers of McMurdo went on about their business as usual, disregarding the disturbing news from the rest of the world. The turbulence was growing. The U.S. army had dispatched troops to North Korea, India and the Middle East, and the deep and, many said, hasty American involvement in the worldwide conflict created mutiny. Whenever Scott called home, he finished the conversation with an incomplete feeling of relief. His parents, being older and wiser and having seen a great deal, were cautiously optimistic. "Things will calm down," his father said time and time again, "though I do wish we didn't have this idiot sitting in the White House right now."

  Harry, Laura's husband, was deployed to North Korea, but was able to get in touch with his family on a pretty regular basis, and Laura, it appeared, had things under control. As for Brianna, she was fine, as usual, not too worried, but ‘she did wish her husband were home’. Given that the window for booking a trip to Antarctica was narrowing, and the non-emergency routes would be closed throughout the winter, Scott kept hinting at the possibility of Brianna joining him at McMurdo soon. His wife dodged these hints, however, until he resigned himself to the possibility that they might have to remain asunder throughout the winter, after which he would reevaluate his position and the continuation of his contract.

  Anders Lindholm did not neglect to keep in touch. "Dear Buck," he wrote in an email that reached Scott about three weeks after Lindholm's going away, "I'm now settled in my little beach house in California, and never want to leave it again as long as I live. The dead of winter here is like paradise to a Swede toughened by thirty years in Antarctica, and I swim every day. My children and grandchildren have come to visit, and left the house in shambles, which I immensely enjoyed. Every fine afternoon, and most afternoons are fine here, I enjoy a good cigar on my porch, and have a drink of Aquavit without any twinges of guilt. I watch the sunset coloring the sea in a thousand splendid hues, and there's not a bit of ice to be seen anywhere. I don't see how heaven can get any better than this.

  "I'm glad to hear such a good account of you at McMurdo. I won't go into details, but it appears that people who matter are happy with the way you are running things. I called old Jim McLaughlin and thanked him for recommending you for the position. I don't need to have any strings attached, that much is clear... if it weren't for our common friends. You know whom I mean. Do let me know how they are doing, but be careful with what you say."

  Scott understood. All the information about the Anai was highly classified, and though he couldn't imagine a situation in which his email might be hacked, it was better to be safe than sorry. So he wrote about the Geyser Valley, Ki Tahan, Ri Omrek, and their other Anai friends, in expressions as ambiguous as he could find.

  Being busy with his new duties, for some days Scott failed to notice the black cloud that hovered over Jerry Gordon. Jerry's meals at the galley were short and silent, and his conversation conducted mostly in grunts and shrugs these days, giving the impression that one was trying to talk to an ill-tempered troll. Finally, Scott decided to stop by the greenhouse.

  It was afternoon, and Jerry was busy staking some climbing tomato plants. Upon seeing Scott, he straightened, shook some sterile potting medium from his hands, walked to his little fridge and took out two beers.

  "Nice of you to drop by, big boss," he said.

  "You know I don't like to be called that," Scott said, wrinkling his nose, and uncapped one of the beers. It was low-alcohol, which assuaged his pang of guilt - not that he was anywhere close to Lindholm and his Aquavit habit.

  "Whatever. I know you're busy. Things at McMurdo run in such a way that you begin preparing for next winter as soon as the sun rises for the first time that year."

  That much was true. Though there was still a co
mparatively long stretch of the summer season left, Scott didn't delude himself, and knew that winter preparations cannot and should not slack off for even one day. The machine had to keep running. Just that morning, he spent an hour at the water purification facility, an admirable complex supplying all of McMurdo's drinking, cooking and bathroom water, figuring out with the local team how much fuel they would need until the station closes its gates for winter, how much during the winter season, and whether any more energy-efficient way might be worked out.

  "What's up, Jerry? It's like there's something hanging over you these past few days."

  Jerry sighed, uncapped his beer and took a long and grateful sip. "It's my younger brother, Matt. He was enlisted and will be deployed soon. He never served in the army, but you know how it goes - they're enlisting all men under thirty. And Matt is in pretty good shape, too. Could give the old one-two to most of the guys around here."

  Scott nodded in understanding. "I hope your brother doesn't end up anywhere dangerous," he offered, but he knew such good wishes had little basis in reality.

  "I feel goddamn guilty," Jerry said, setting down his beer bottle.

  "Guilty? You? Why is that?"

  "Didn't I tell you? I did serve in the army, so I would be enlisted before Matt. And they don't grab two men of the same family... at least for now. If I were home, I would be deployed instead of Matt. Being part of the Antarctic Program, though, keeps me safely holed up here at McMurdo." Somehow, the slurred tone of Jerry's words hinted that he had enjoyed another beer or two earlier that day, and perhaps something stronger.

  "Don't be an idiot, Gordon. This isn't your fault."

  "That's what my old Mom said. I know she's taking it tough, though. She has a weak heart." Jerry picked a fresh juicy tomato, wiped it on his sleeve and bit into it. "Seriously good haul this time," he said. "You want me to mix us a nice fresh Bloody Mary? I could juice a couple of tomatoes in a minute, and don't tell anyone, but I have a bottle of Finlandia stashed at the back of the fridge."