Zodiac Station

Thirty-three

It was weird, stepping out of his office. Like waking up after a bad dream. I could hear Danny in the galley cooking lunch; students laughing and joking in the mess. Through the end windows, I could see a bunch of people playing soccer in the snow. They looked like they were having a good time.

I had nothing in common with them.

I went into the bathroom, leaned on the sink and took some deep breaths. I stared at myself in the mirror. You don’t do that too often at Zodiac; I barely recognised myself. My beard had grown full, and my eyes seemed to have shrunk into my head. It reminded me of those old photos you see, guys who got stranded on the ice and had to survive a winter eating their boots. You wonder how they managed when they finally got back to civilisation. One of them shot himself in a hotel room, I seem to remember.

Was Zodiac changing me? For sure. First Greta, then Quam: something was coming out of me that hadn’t been there before. In a place like Utgard, you freeze hard without even knowing it. Maybe I should have popped one of Kennedy’s chill pills.

‘Gotta stay sharp,’ I told the man in the mirror.

Gotta stay sharp, he mouthed back at me.

What to do now? The showdown with Quam should have locked everything in place. Instead, I felt less certain than ever.

He admitted going up to see Hagger on the Helbreen.

He admitted burning the notebooks.

He admitted taking money from Luxor.

So why wasn’t I more sure that he’d killed Hagger and sold us out to the Russians? Was it his sob-story act? Was I that gullible?

And how were we supposed to rub along, now that I’d effectively accused him of espionage and murder? Did we just show up to dinner together and act like it never happened? Or should I go all Mutiny on the Bounty and try and relieve him of his command?

If I did that, who’d be with me?

I picked up a satphone and rang a number in Washington DC. It was against protocol, but only a little. It was also 5 a.m. on the Eastern seaboard, but those guys are open all hours.

‘I need to find out about a company called Luxor Life Sciences,’ I told them. ‘Our Internet went down, so call me back on this satphone.’

I didn’t tell them why I wanted it. You never know who’s listening — especially if down the road they happen to have an antenna as big as a small town. Plus, the guys I was speaking to get paid to figure out that stuff.

You know what’s crazy? After all that, I spent the afternoon catching up on work. It had to get done some time — and I was way behind. Human beings are weird that way: we go through the wildest experiences, then you drop us back in the cage and we go right back on to the hamster wheel.

You remember that tsunami that hit Japan a few years back, the one that knocked out the nuclear reactor? I saw a TV documentary about it, just before I left the States. There was a guy in it: lost his home, his job, his mom, everything. And you know what pissed him off the most? He’d spent the whole afternoon before it hit washing his goddam car. That’s what he couldn’t get over.

I laughed at him, then, but now I know how he felt. If we could see what was coming, we’d all do things differently.

About five of eight, I went along to the mess for Thing Night. No sign of Quam, or Anderson. Or Greta or Fridge. In fact, the whole thing felt kind of flat. Usually, Thing Night happens in July, when Zodiac’s crawling with people. I guess Quam moved it forward to improve morale. Instead, it probably made everyone more depressed over how lame it was.

But people made an effort. Jensen had stuck some badges on his flight overalls so he looked like an air force pilot; Ash had put on a Frankenstein mask and taped drinking straws on to his fingers for claws. He kept complaining he couldn’t hold his drink properly. Danny had tied his hair in a samurai-style topknot, like the cook in the movie who never gets a line; he kept bringing out trays of cookies shaped like UFOs, and miniature green jello shots that smelled of gin.

I sat down next to Kennedy. He’d trimmed his beard into a mad-scientist goatee and powdered it white, and put on a jacket and tie. Which, if you’re in 1949, is apparently what you wear at the North Pole.

‘Where’s Quam gone?’ I whispered to him.

‘I haven’t seen him all day.’

The old RKO logo came on screen, the radio mast blaring out from the top of the world. Kind of appropriate, under the circumstances. Everyone got quiet and gripped their drinks.

I should explain that watching the movie isn’t the point; the point is to drink. The two main characters are Dr Carrington and Captain Hendry. The rules of the game are that every time someone says ‘Doctor’, anyone with a PhD drinks. When they say ‘Captain’, the others drink. And when there’s a reference to ‘science’, or some bogus piece of pseudo-science, everyone drinks.

Every time someone came back from the bathroom, I looked over my shoulder to see if it was Quam.

A phone rang. After just long enough to make me look like an ass, I realised it was my Iridium. I pushed out through the crowd and took it in the hall.

‘We checked up on Luxor Life Sciences,’ said a voice. Those guys don’t do introductions. ‘Nothing funny, no connection to any known Russian organisations. Only flag that came up is the founder died in mysterious circumstances. Plane crash, body never found. British biologist called Richie Pharaoh.’

I remembered Malick had said the guy’s name was Richie. But Pharaoh sounded familiar, too; I couldn’t think where from.

‘There is one link to Zodiac,’ the voice went on. ‘Pharaoh used to be a professor in the UK, at Cambridge University. One of his PhD students was a guy called Tom Anderson.’

I went so quiet they heard it in Washington. ‘You still there?’

‘I got it,’ I said. ‘Get me some background on Anderson, any links to the Russians, anything suspicious.’

I hung up.

Anderson wasn’t watching the movie. I checked his room and his lab: nada. But there was the paper I’d seen that morning: Anderson, Sieber and Pharaoh. I could have kicked myself for not checking on Luxor Sciences earlier.

Maybe he was still in Star Command. I checked the boot room. His coat and boots were gone. So were Greta’s. I opened the door and stuck my head out.

The temperature had dropped after the storm. Cold air pinched my nostrils and made my ears burn. Up on the Lucia glacier, against the black sky, I saw a flashing orange light. I caught it just in time to see the old Tucker Sno-Cat bounce over the ridge and disappear.

Fuck. On the off chance, I checked the field log to see if he’d signed out. Amazingly, he had: I guess protocol dies hard.

If I’d had any last doubts, they vanished when I saw what they’d written. Anderson, Nystrom. Out: 8:30 p.m. Destination: Helbreen glacier.

I ran back to the mess and found Kennedy. In the movie, they’d just reached the bit where Captain Hendry and Dr Carrington fight over whether they should kill the alien or try to talk to it.

‘There are no enemies in science, only phenomena to be studied,’ said the doctor on screen.

‘To science,’ everyone cheered. Luckily, Kennedy was on Coke. Probably the only sober man in the room.

‘Come with me,’ I told him.

The time it takes to get dressed at Zodiac, I thought I’d burst with impatience. Kennedy was even slower. I stood in his room, watching him pull on his two pairs of long johns and his pants, buttoning his shirt, finding the right sweaters.

‘You don’t need all that,’ I said.

Kennedy ignored me. And you know what? He was right. You take shortcuts up there, you die. Anyhow, a snowmobile can outrun the Sno-Cat, easy. We’d catch them up.

It must have been twenty minutes before we’d got ready. In the mess, I could hear everyone shouting along with the movie’s last line. ‘Watch the skies! Watch the skies!’

We grabbed a couple of rifles and ran down the steps to the snowmobile park. Predictably, just when I needed to go fast everything went to shit. I flipped the choke, pulled the starter cord but nothing happened.

I patted my pockets. ‘Goddam it,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘I forgot my satphone.’

‘You’d better get it,’ said Kennedy.

And then the Platform exploded.