Polar Vortex

Chapter 3

It was a woman. That was about all he could tell, under the face-mask she wore. Her jacket was green, not the regulation Zodiac-issue red. Her eyes were wide with fright.

‘Who are you?’

She pulled down the face mask, though that still didn’t show much. She looked tired, and older than most of the field assistants and students.

‘Lou … Louisa. I just arrived here. I’m working at Zodiac Station.’

He studied her face. Even from the little he could see, there was something that held his gaze. Not beauty in any obvious sense, but a strength that was definitely attractive.

‘You came on the plane? Yesterday?’

She nodded.

‘Who are you working with?’

‘Martin Hagger.’

‘How did you end up here?’

‘My skidoo ran away.’

He raised a frosty eyebrow. ‘Ran away?’

‘Stupid, I know.’ She stared at the snow, not meeting his eye. ‘My thumb got so cold, pressing the accelerator paddle so long, I tied it down with a piece of rope. Then I hit a bump — never saw it, in this fog — and bounced off. The skidoo kept going. It’s probably at the North Pole by now.’

She glanced up shyly, ashamed of her incompetence. Mac gave her an abstract smile. He’d heard about people rigging their snowmobiles that way — cruise control, they called it. Greta, who maintained the Zodiac machines like a drill sergeant, would have caned anyone she caught doing it.

Except …

‘Let’s start again,’ said Mac. ‘How did you get here?’

‘I told you —’

‘No offence, but you didn’t come on the plane yesterday. No one did. It was cancelled.’

She stared at him.

‘And we don’t call them skidoos at Zodiac Station. They’re snowmobiles. Don’t try and tell me you’re a snowman come to life either.’ He smiled, to show he didn’t want to be mean. The look in her eyes was pure terror. ‘But people don’t just turn up out of nowhere on Utgard.’

She bit the rim of her face mask, sucking off the crusted ice. She looked around — anywhere but him. But there was nothing else.

‘Prirazlomnaya,’ she said at last. Stumbling over the word. ‘You know what that is?’

He shook his head.

‘It’s an oil platform in the Barents Sea. Yesterday, two Greenpeace activists —’

‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘I heard about it on the radio last night. Greenpeace tried to get aboard it to protest Arctic drilling.’

‘Exactly. They used a ship, the Arctic Sunrise. Before it went there, it came here.’

‘I never heard … ’

‘We turned off the transponder beacons when we left port so the Russians couldn’t trace us. They dropped me off here ten days ago. I’ve been making my way across Utgard ever since.

Mac looked at the cloud wall around them. Even two feet away, there was something insubstantial about Louisa, as if she might melt back into the fog she’d come from.

‘You survived that long? Here, alone?’

She looked away. ‘It’s worth it.’

‘Why …?’

She took so long to answer, he thought his question had got lost in the fog.

‘You promise you won’t tell?’

‘OK.’

‘Your work — you’re not funded by the oil industry? Or chemical companies?’

‘The oil industry hate what I do. Trust me,’ he added.

She looked reassured.

‘You know about Echo Bay?’

‘On the west coast. An oil company’s drilling a test well there. Very controversial.’ Of course. ‘You—?’

‘I was supposed to carry out an action there. Nothing flashy. Raise a banner on the drill tower, take a photo, then let the Internet do the rest. We need to tell the world. In the last thirty years, we’ve lost almost three quarters of the world’s floating sea ice. Now it’s in a death spiral — each winter the ice is less thick, so each summer it melts faster. In a matter of years, the North Pole’s going to be ice free for the first time since humanity came out of the trees.’

He waved his hand to shush her. ‘You’re preaching to the converted.’

Her eyes widened with hope. ‘Then you’ll let me go?’

‘Go where?’ He gestured at the fog. ‘You’ve lost your snowmobile, remember? Come back to camp with me, we’ll sort something out.’

She looked frightened again. Fear was never far away, he noticed. Perhaps that was inevitable, after ten days alone on Utgard. If she’d kept a proper bear watch, she’d hardly have slept. He wondered if he could have done the same.

‘The protest … ’

Sleep deprivation must be getting to her. ‘Where’s your banner?’ he reminded her. ‘Have you got it stuffed under your coat?’

‘It was on the snowmobile.’

‘So that’s out. Come back with me.’

‘I can’t let them find me.’

‘How many ways do I have to find to tell you you’ll die out here. You’re lucky —’

The radio squawked inside his jacket. He took it out and pressed the button. ‘Go ahead.’

‘I thought you said you found me,’ Spoons complained.

Mac’s thumb hovered over the button. He glanced at Louisa. She looked back like a deer caught in the sights, shaking her head.

‘Please,’ she mouthed.

He pressed the button.

‘Sorry — shadows in the fog. I made a mistake.’

‘I think it’s getting worse. I’m going to set up the emergency shelter.’

Mac glanced at Louisa again. ‘I’ll do the same. Wait ‘til it clears.’

‘We’ll probably find we’re ten metres away from each other.’

‘Probably,’ he agreed. ‘Over and out.’

He put the radio away.

‘Thank you,’ Louisa said. She was shivering. Mac wondered if he could hug her.

‘So what am I going to do with you? There aren’t many ways to sneak off Utgard.’

‘I don’t … ’

‘What was the plan? For afterwards? How were you supposed to get out?’

She put her hand to her forehead and pinched her temples. ‘The Arctic Sunrise is coming back for me,’ she said at last. ‘She should be here tonight.’

‘Where’s the rendezvous?’

She hesitated — then saw the look he was giving her. ‘Nadezhda. You know where it is?’

‘Heard of it.’ A derelict port, left over from when the Russians had kept coal mines on Utgard. A ghost town, now. ‘Never been.’

‘I’ve got a boat there. I can use it to get out to the Arctic Sunrise.

She got out a small satellite phone and dialled a number. Someone answered quickly. Mac listened to her side of the conversation.

‘It’s me. Yes, fine. No, I got interrupted — lost my snowmobile, and ran into someone from Zodiac Station. I’m going to Nadezhda now. I’ll explain when I see you.’

She put the phone away. ‘They’ll meet me there.’

‘Then let’s go.’