The Last Outpost

by Hannah Ross

  Ki Tahan stood next to him, observing the star charts as well. "This is drawing of stars the way we see them when it's dark," she said, pointing at one map. "But the other maps show stars arranged in other way. Was it this way many years ago, you think?"

  "No," Scott shook his head. "This is how the stars look in lands across the sea. As you go north, you see the sky from a different angle." He was about to venture into explaining that the earth is a sphere, but thought that if he did, they might still be in this cave when the party from the bay returns.

  Ki Tahan was listening with rapt attention. "Ri Omrek said something like this, said those were words of Anders. I did not believe. But looking at the drawings now, I understand."

  "There's a lot more to study here," Scott said, "but I'm afraid I'm getting too tired," he stifled a yawn.

  "Yes. Is late," Ki Tahan admitted. "Me tired, too. Scott," she paused, "you learn Anai letters fast. Your tongue has letters as well? To write stories?"

  "Yes, we have an alphabet, and many fascinating books. Would you like me to teach you to read our letters?"

  "I would like. And speak like you, too. I want speak well."

  "You speak very well."

  "Not like you," she insisted. "I want speak better."

  "You'll learn much faster than I'm learning the language of the Anai," Scott assured her. "And..." he hesitated, struck by a sudden idea. "Ki Tahan, I want to ask you something."

  "Tahan is enough," she said with a smile. "Ki is name of my... my kin, my part of Anai people. In truth, kin of Daygan. I was Ri Tahan before I am Daygan's woman, same as Ri Omrek."

  "I see," Scott nodded. "I want to ask you something... Tahan, had Anders ever brought a man with him to the valley? A little shorter than I, with dark hair?"

  "Anders bring men with him from time to time. And some men come without him. They not stay long, not come often. But there is one... you mean thin man? Does not smile much? Has these... strange black shapes over eyes?"

  "Eyeglasses. Yes. His name is Victor."

  "Victor," Tahan repeated. "Yes, I know this man. Not good man," she added, and her face was uncharacteristically somber.

  "Yes?" Scott prompted. "What makes you say that?"

  "He... not good to Anai. He not like Anders. Not kind. He think, he can take things without asking."

  "Did he steal from the village?" Scott asked in distaste.

  Tahan shook her head. "No, just take... not hide. Not think to ask if he can. And he... not res... respect? Yes, respect. He not respect Anai women. Think he can touch them, when they not want."

  Scott felt a glow of anger mount up his neck and pound in his temples. "He what? He tried to force himself upon the Anai women?"

  She nodded. "Yes. Our men, they are angry. Very angry. No one forces Anai woman, not her husband, not ever. They want kill that man, Victor," she shuddered. "But Anders, he ask them let him go. He say, he promise Victor never come to Anai Valley again. And he speak true. We never see that man since."

  Scott felt the anger harden into a solid knot in his stomach, as the face of Victor Nash appeared in his mind's eye, cold and arrogant. This conversation with Ki Tahan made him understand more than all the poking and probing around McMurdo, and all the reading between lines of official reports he had surreptitiously done over the past few weeks.

  They left the cave and made their way back to the village. The warmth and coziness of the stone house were a welcome change after the gusts of wind in the valley, and the air with interlaying cold and warm currents. Tahan settled down under the furs and curled up next to her son, who murmured something in his sleep, while Scott proceeded behind the partition where Omrek slept. As promised, a bed of sealskins and furs was made for him on the floor. It was like a thick, cozy sleeping bag made of natural materials, and as soon as Scott crawled in, he felt his limbs relax and his whole body grow pleasantly warm, but he couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about Victor Nash.

  What he marveled at was not that Nash lost his clearance to visit the Anai valley, but that he was allowed to stay on at McMurdo at all. How did they let him keep his position? Sexual offenders were punished quickly and ruthlessly under the regulations of the Antarctic Program. If Nash were found guilty of sexual harassment at the McMurdo research station, he would have been sent packing in about five minutes flat, with references to keep him cringing in shame for the rest of his professional life. But here, it appeared, an attempted rape had been smoothed over. Because he assaulted women who do not officially exist, Scott thought with a fresh surge of anger. The government determination to hush up the existence of the Anai led to one injustice after another. This is wrong. It has to be wrong, and it cannot go on. But how do I change this? 'We cannot exceed our authority, Buck,' he seemed to hear Lindholm's voice in his ear.

  "It's they who exceed their authority," he said quietly, but none of the sleeping people in the house could hear or understand him.

  Chapter 11

  The column of exhausted but triumphant men, bearing a cargo of whale meat and blubber, arrived just as the village began to stir for the morning chores. The carriers then proceeded to sleep, while the rest huddled around the great heap of whale meat, and Ki Tahan was called on to decide what family gets which part. To Scott's surprise, several men loudly voted that he, too, is entitled to his share of the mulluvik.

  "But I didn't do anything," he protested. "I only went out in the boat with you."

  "You helped me with oars while I uncoiled my harpoon," Ri Omrek said, "and besides, you went on hunt with us, you carried burden with us. You deserve a share."

  "There really is, er, no need to," Scott assured him. He briefly amused himself by imagining the looks he would get at McMurdo, had he showed up with a package of bloody whale meat. "It is enough for me to participate in your celebration. If I’m supposed to have a share, your sister can take it."

  Someone briefly quipped something in Anai, and there was a ripple of good-natured laughter.

  "He say, Ki Tahan now has two men bringing her hunt," Ri Omrek translated, and Scott blushed and muttered something unintelligible.

  The preparations for the hunting feast were now in full swing. The large empty space in the middle of the village was cleared, and cooking fires set up for outdoor roasts. Inside the houses, women were coming up with delicacies for the feast, made mainly from grain and edible plants. Others were testing the sound of their musical instruments, primarily drums and flutes.

  "Scott, you change clothes," Tahan told him during breakfast. "Not hunting things - something nice." She rummaged in her clothes basket once more, and came up with a soft sealskin costume of a handsome tunic and pair of breeches. Unlike the hunting attire, which was quite plain, these garments were decorated with embroidery. Looking closer, Scott realized that the embroidery fibers were, in fact, thin, long leather filaments dyed red and yellow. The clothes were very comfortable, and he put them on with pleasure. Ki Tahan, too, put on a gown of embroidered sealskin. It was a longer tunic, one that reached her knees, with a handsome play of grey and black shades, and a silky gloss.

  "These are very handsome clothes," Scott complimented, and she smiled.

  "Wait until winter celebration. It is biggest feast of year, and we all wear our best."

  "You celebrate the coming of winter?" he didn't understand.

  "Yes," Ri Omrek said. "When sun sets and world goes dark for many months, we must tell the sun we miss her, and wait for her come back. Also, we celebrate the long light that was, our hunt, and our harvest."

  The feast of the mulluvik hunt consisted, of course, primarily of whale meat. Roasted and cut into steaks, it was hungrily fallen upon. Seal meat was also in abundance, and the excess of both whale and seal meat would be carried to the frozen storage holes, as well as salted, dried, and kept for the winter. The fat was rendered for household uses and fuel, and other women, like Ki Tahan, have begun the process of curing the sealskins to make clothes.

  Scott felt a pang of guilt
when he received a clay bowl with his portion of meat. Fish, or even penguins, where one thing, but species like whale and seal were holy cows for every environmental scientist. Scott had participated in his share of anti-sealing protests when he was younger, and had a clash at an environmental science conference a few years ago with a Canadian representative who claimed that sealing is a carried on in a sustainable way by the indigenous people of North Canada. Scott had flared up back then, and said that 'in the twenty-first century, being indigenous is no excuse for squandering natural resources'. He knew that the Anai used theirs sparingly, however – otherwise, they could not have survived and thrived in the valley for so many generations.

  So he ate, and both whale and seal meat, while unusual to his palate, tasted good – rich, fatty, and satisfying. There was also a stew with chunks of meat, grain, and starchy roots, and bowls of grass-berries carried round among the guests, and skins of the grassy fermented brew favored by the Anai, poured into cups to be savored and enjoyed along with the meal.

  Ri Omrek took his drum, which was a simple construction of sealskin stretched over a frame of bone, with sticks of bone to beat upon it. He began a rhythmic beat, and a few moments later, someone took out a flute, whittled out of bone as well, and joined him in a high, harmonious sound. A bone whistle produced an intermittent tune, akin to the twittering of a bird. More instruments followed, joining one another in a melody almost as old as the world itself.

  Several of the young men began to caper about, evidently having had too much of the fermented brew. Ri Omrek's friends called upon him to join them, and he looked longingly at the dancers, until Scott said, "go ahead, I'll hold your drum for you."

  "Will you?" Omrek brightened. "Is easy. You hold like this - yes - and beat like this."

  Scott didn't actually mean to take part in the music – his latest experience with playing an instrument were his xylophone lessons from fourth grade, and he did not have very fond memories of those – but he made a tentative move with hitting the stick of bone against taut leather, and the sounds he made joined the instruments of others, not in perfect rhythm, but in varying harmony. Tahan looked at him, and laughed approvingly. She was dancing among the string of women, who took their place a little apart from the men. While over half the men were content to be onlookers, most women, especially the young ones, joined the dancing, occasionally almost touching the circle of men. Omrek's eyes, Scott noticed, were always on the pretty girl whom he had seen at the riverbank while she was gathering clay.

  Egan sidled up to Scott and, using gestures, explained that he wanted to try beating the drum. Scott bent and held it in a convenient position for the little boy, whose music, for the time being, did not get more sophisticated than beating with the sticks as fast and hard as he could. Egan beamed with delight, however, and clapped when the dance brought his mother near him. Then she drew him among the circle of women, and the merriment grew higher.

  A couple of hours later, as the revelry began to wane, Scott slipped away to the house of Ki Tahan, and changed into his orange working-suit and synthetic terrain boots once more. Checking his watch, he guiltily concluded that he ought to have gone up to Camp AN-85 a long time ago. He went out of the house, and began heading in the direction of the village center to say goodbye, but met Tahan and her son about halfway. She was carrying dishes of leftover food to her house, and Egan had his little bone flute in his hand.

  "You going, Scott?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said reluctantly. "It is time. Thank you, Tahan, for everything."

  "You try to come back again soon? Will be here for winter celebration?"

  "I will try," he promised. "I'd like that very much."

  "Wait," she said, "Egan and me walk with you a little." She proceeded to the house and left the covered pots there, then rejoined him outside, and they began their way to the edge of the village and the trail leading up to AN-85.

  "Where is your brother?" Scott asked as they walked. "Is he still dancing?"

  "Yes," Tahan's eyes had a mischievous spark. "There is one girl – while she dance, Omrek dance as well. You never dance?"

  "Not if I can help it," Scott shook his head in horror, and she laughed.

  "Winter feast, you have to dance. Special dance. I show you how."

  "I wouldn't mind dancing so much if people weren't looking," he admitted.

  "Not worry. Winter feast is almost dark. Nobody see very well," she reassured him.

  When it was time to say goodbye, Scott picked Egan up and mussed his hair, and said the word of farewell in Anai, as Tahan had taught him. The little boy laughed with delight at his pronunciation, and Tahan nodded and grasped his arm.

  "When you come back," she said, "You tell me more about your land, and about stars. I will keep learn drawings of stars. Want to understand."

  It was with a slight pang of something almost akin to homesickness that Scott made his solitary way up the trail leading to camp. He was met by a very sour expression on part of Sue Ellis, who clicked her tongue impatiently.

  "You do realize all this is highly irregular, don't you, Mr. Buckley? We were about to call you."

  "You should have. I lost track of time."

  "It is part of the policy to minimize Anai awareness to modern technology, and this includes portable radio signals," Sue Ellis said with the air of one explaining that two plus two equals four. Scott bit his tongue to keep from uttering a sharp retort.

  "Well, Ms. Ellis, here I am. When do we set out?"

  "Almost at once. We have nearly done wrapping up the camp."

  ***

  Scott found lots of business awaiting him at the office, and routine kept him occupied until late in the evening when, checking the time, he realized it would be too late to make an Internet call to Brianna. He had a quick dinner of the leftover tortillas the galley had saved for people who didn't make it to the regular meal, and then went up to his quarters and called it an early night.

  The next day, phone and internet connection were unusually disrupted. Using the local network, he called Zoe in irritation.

  "Zoe, what's going on? I can barely get my emails to go through."

  "You're not the only one," she said, sounding exasperated. "With all the mess going on around the world right now, the net is under strain. People are calling their families non-stop, and though I've sent a message asking them to cut down the live chats and stick to emails for now, does anyone listen? Of course not. If things keep going this way, we'll have to instill a limit on internet usage, and temporarily disconnect anyone who exceeds a certain number of megabytes."

  "Well, it so happens that I have to make an internet call a little later," Scott confessed, a little embarrassedly. An email could work just as well, technically, but he really needed to speak to his wife face to face.

  The long days gave an illusion of a never-ending season of light, but once darkness began to settle over the Ross Island area, the flip from summer to winter would come rapidly and, checking the calendar, Scott realized that tourist travel packages to Antarctica would soon be hard to obtain. Soon, he and Brianna would miss their last chance to get together before the winter. He had to make her aware of that.

  "You can try to make your call," said Zoe, "but don't blame me if it fails."

  In the afternoon, Scott took a break from order forms and station reports, and went up to his quarters, where he plugged in his laptop and connected to the internet. The signal went on for some time, and Scott just about gave it up, deciding that Brianna probably can't take a call right now, when the connection was made.

  "Hi."

  Brianna was wearing a lustrous green turtleneck sweater that brought out the color of her eyes, and her highlighted hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. She also wore some lip-gloss, which, Scott remembered, smelled like cherries. He longed for that smell and the taste of that lip-gloss.

  "Hi, honey. How are you?"

  "Oh, fine..." she trailed off, as if meaning to say something els
e, but changed her mind. "I'm fine," she said again.

  "I've been thinking..." Scott said. "You know, we have very few tourist ships and flights due to arrive by the end of the season. Soon, the tourists and summer workers will start getting ready to leave, and the station will start lowering gear as we prepare for winter."

  "Yeah, I would expect that," she nodded.

  "So... if there's any chance at all you might want to join me here for the winter, honey, or even just to visit before the dark season, the possibility to do that might be over soon. I know what you said to me before," He went on, cutting off whatever she was trying to say, "but won't you reconsider, Brianna? I miss you so much."

  "Won't you come home, then?" she asked softly.

  "I can't leave the station in the lurch," he said. "Even if I decide to break the contract, in good conscience I can't do it until the end of winter."

  She nodded. "It's more than that," she said. "You are happy there, I know."

  "It's one of the most fascinating places in the world," Scott said earnestly. "I know you wouldn't regret coming down here, Brianna. It could be our great adventure."