The Silent Sea

ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

THE SKELETON STAFF OF THE WINTER-OVER CREW COULD feel spring coming in their bones. Not that the weather was much improved. Temperatures rarely rose above twenty below, and icy winds were a constant. It was the growing number of + marks on the big calendar in the rec hall marking the advancing days that buoyed their spirits after a long winter in which they hadn't seen the sun since late March.

Only a few research bases remain open year-round on the planet's most desolate continent, and those are usually much larger than the Wilson/George Station, run by a coalition of American universities and a grant from the National Science Foundation. Even at full staff during the summer months starting in September, the clutch of prefabricated domed buildings atop stilts driven into the ice and rock could house no more than forty souls.

Because of money pouring into global-warming research, it was decided to keep the station online all year round. This was the first attempt, and by all accounts it had gone well. The structures had withstood the worst Antarctica could throw at them, and the people had gotten along well for the most part. One of them, Bill Harris, was a NASA astronaut studying the effects of isolation on human relations, for an eventual manned mission to Mars.

WeeGee, as the team called their home for the past six months, was out of some futurist sketchbook. It was located near a deep bay on the shores of the Bellingshausen Sea, midway along the peninsula that thrusts toward South America like a frozen finger. Had there been sunlight, a pair of binoculars on the hills behind the base was all one would need to see the southern ocean.

There were five nodes surrounding a central hub that served as the mess and recreation hall. The nodes were connected by elevated walkways that were designed to sway with the wind. On particularly bad days, people with the weakest stomachs usually crawled. The nodes were designed as laboratory space, storage, and dormitory-like rooms, with people sleeping four to a cell during the busy summer. All the buildings were painted safety red. With opaque panels in the domed ceilings and many walls, the facility looked like a group of checkerboard silos.

A short distance away, along a carefully roped path, sat a Quonset-type building that acted as a garage for their snowmobiles and the snowcats. With the weather so miserable during the winter, there had been little opportunity to use the arctic vehicles. The building used waste heat piped from the main base to keep it at a minimum of ten below so as not to damage the machines.

Most of their meteorological equipment could be remotely monitored, so there was very little for the crew to do during the sunless days. Bill Harris had his NASA study, a couple of them were using the time to finish their doctoral dissertations, and one was working on a novel.

Only Andy Gangle didn't appear to have anything to occupy his time. When he'd first arrived, the twenty-eight-year-old postdoc from Penn State had actively overseen the launching of weather balloons and had taken his study of the weather seriously. But not long after he'd lost interest in local temperatures. He still performed his duties, but he spent a great deal of time out in the garage or, when the weather permitted, trekking solo to the shore to collect specimens, though no one knew of what.

And because of the strict privacy code needed to keep a group of people in isolation from getting on one another's nerves, everyone let him be. The few times his case had been discussed, no one felt he was succumbing to what the shrinks referred to as isolation syndrome but what the team called bug-eyes. In its severest forms, a person could suffer delusions as part of a psychotic break. A few seasons back, a Danish researcher lost his toes and more when he ran naked from his base on the leeward side of the peninsula. Rumor had it he was still in a Copenhagen mental hospital.

No, it was decided that Andy didn't have bug-eyes. He was just a sullen loner who the others were more than happy to avoid.

Morning, Andy Gangle muttered when he entered the rec hall. The smell of frying bacon from the cafeteria-style galley filled the room.

The overhead fluorescent lights made his pallor particularly wan. Like most of the men, he'd long since stopped shaving, and his dark beard contrasted sharply against his white skin.

A pair of women at one of the Formica tables paused from their breakfasts to greet him and then returned to their food. Greg Lamont, the titular head of the station, greeted Andy by name. The met guys tell me this will probably be your last day to head to the coast if you're planning on it.

Why's that? Gangle asked guardedly. He didn't like people telling him his business.

Front coming in, the silver-haired ex-hippie-turned-scientist replied. A bad one. It's going to blanket half of Antarctica.

Real concern etched the corners of Gangle's lipless mouth. It won't affect our leaving, will it?

Too early to say, but it's possible.

Andy nodded, not in understanding but absently, as if he were reorganizing thoughts in his head. He passed through to the kitchen.

How'd you sleep? Gina Alexander asked. The forty-something divorc+!e from Maine had come to the Antarctic to, as she put it, get as far away from that rat and his new Little Miss Perfect Bod as is humanly possible. She wasn't one of the researchers but rather worked for the support company hired to keep WeeGee running smoothly.

Same as the night before, Andy said, filling a mug with coffee from the stainless urn at the end of the cafeteria line.

Glad to hear it. How do you want your eggs?

He looked at her, his expression almost feral. Runny and cold, as usual.

She wasn't quite sure how to take that. Andy usually never said anything more than scrambled, before taking his food and coffee to eat back in his room. She chuckled reproachfully. Boy, aren't you a bundle of sunshine this morning.

He leaned across the dinner-tray track, speaking softly so the others in the rec room couldn't hear him. Gina, we've got one more week before we can get out of here, so just serve me my damned food and keep your comments to yourself. All right?

Not one to back down ask her ex about that sometime Gina leaned over so their faces were inches apart. Then do yourself a favor, love, and watch me while I cook, otherwise I might be tempted to spit in your food.

That would probably improve the waste. Andy straightened, his face scrunched as he thought for a moment. Paste? No, damn it. Touch? Taste. That's it. It would probably improve the taste.

Gina wasn't sure what had gotten into him, but she laughed anyway. Sonny boy, you need to be a little quicker for your insults to be effective.

Rather than wait around feeling foolish, Andy grabbed a handful of protein bars off the counter and skulked from the room, his bony shoulders hunched up like a vultures.' His ears rang with her parting call of Bug-eyed twerp.

Seven days, Andy, he said to himself as he made his way back to his room. Keep it together for seven more days and you can kiss these suckers good-bye forever.

Forty minutes later, bundled under six layers of clothing, Andy inked his name on the whiteboard hanging next to the cold lock and stepped through the heavily insulated door. The difference in temperature between the interior of the station and the small anteroom that lead to the exit was a whopping ninety degrees. Gangle's breath turned into an opaque cloud as dense as any London fog, and each inhalation stabbed deep into his lungs. He waited for a few minutes to adjust his clothing and fit his goggles over his eyes. While the Antarctic Peninsula was relatively warm compared to the interior of the continent, any exposed skin would still get frostbitten in moments.

All the clothing in the world still wasn't enough to defeat the cold, not in the long term. Heat loss was inevitable, and, with the wind, inexorable. It started at the extremities nose, fingertips, and toes then spread inward as the body shut itself down to conserve its core temperature. It wasn't a matter of willpower, facing these extremes in temperature. One couldn't just bull through the pain. Antarctica was as deadly to human life as the hard vacuum of outer space.

With cumbersome overmittens covering his gloves, Andy needed both hands to turn the doorknob. The real cold hit him hard. It would take several seconds for the air trapped in his clothing to warm against such a thermal onslaught. He shivered for a moment, then rounded the corner that protected the exit from the wind. He clutched the handrail as he made his way down the stairs to the rocky ground. There wasn't much wind today ten knots, maybe and for that he was grateful.

He grabbed up a five-foot length of metal conduit pipe as thick around as a fifty-cent piece and headed out.

The sun was a pale promise that circled the horizon but wouldn't emerge above it for another week, but it gave enough light for Andy to see without using his headlamp. His moon boots were inflexible and made walking difficult, and the terrain didn't help much. This part of the Antarctic Peninsula was volcanic, and not enough time had passed since the last eruption for the elements to have eroded the rock to a glassy smoothness like he'd seen pictures of during orientation training.

Another thing he'd learned during his orientation was to never sweat outside. Ironically, that was the ticket to fast-onset hypothermia because the body shed heat so much faster when exertion opened the skin's pores. Therefore, it took Andy twenty minutes to reach his search area. If Greg Lamont was right and this was his last day to be outside until extraction, Gangle felt this might be the best spot. It was closer to the beach from where he'd made his discovery but in line with a low range of hills that afforded protection. For the next two hours, he walked back and forth, his goggled eyes sweeping the ground. Whenever anything promising appeared, he would use the steel pipe to probe the ice and snow or lever rocks out of the way. It was mindless work, for which he was particularly well suited, and the time seemed to slip away. His only distraction came when he felt the need to run in a circle for a few minutes. He managed to stop himself before he worked up a sweat, but his breath had frozen to the three scarves he had wrapped around his nose and mouth. He pulled them off to retie them so the icy snot was around the back of his head.

He figured this was a good enough time to call it a day. He studied the distant ocean for a moment, wondering what secrets it harbored below its iceberg-laden surface, then turned back to Wilson/George, the conduit slung over his shoulder like a hobo's pole.

Andy Gangle had made the discovery of a lifetime. He was content with that. If there were others out here, then someone else could find them while he spent the rest of his life basking in luxuries he'd never dreamt would be his.