Going Back Cold Page 4

  “No, we’re into the second month now,” Bonnie corrected. “You’re too naïve. Edwards obviously doesn’t have any real pressure to produce yet, but it will come. Someone above him will stop signing checks unless they see something concrete.”

  “Noted,” Jane said. “If you have a specific proposal for what you’d like me to consider changing, I will happily hear it. Like, maybe if there’s a specific part of the team you feel isn’t keeping up?”

  “What does that mean?” Bonnie replied, putting her hand on her hip.

  “Well,” Jane said, “if we had to pick an element that wasn’t as ready as the rest to move onto the next step, wouldn’t that be the other Dr. Chapman? Rich's team has hit some engineering delays. Perhaps rather than pointing a finger at me, you could help the team where it's most needed.”

  Before Bonnie could respond, Jane dropped her shoulders and changed her tone. “Listen, Bonnie, I know you’re stressed because Rich has run into a wall, but he’s an excellent scientist. Don’t get punchy. No one’s getting fired or losing their grants.”

  Bonnie acted indignant, but since she left the console room without continuing the argument, Jane knew she’d addressed the real issue.

  Shaking her head, Jane thought, Successfully contained Bonnie's first blow-up of the season.

  Chapter 6

  Lucas and Jane had been waiting all week for a day with a clear weather forecast to slip away for a few hours and take Sebastian on an Antarctic walk. The pilots Hal and Simeon were planning to work on the generator anyway.

  They were all fashioned with a locator beacon (secretly, Jane had put three on Seb) and attired in personalized snow suits. Jane was elated that hers felt tight across the midsection. This early, Jane couldn’t feel movement in her womb, but she knew even without access to an ultrasound that her baby’s heartbeat would have been detectable at 8 weeks. The NASA doctor estimated that she was almost 12 weeks along now, so she imagined hearing the little whooshing lub-dub sound as she laced up her boots.

  “Lucas,” she gestured. He smiled widely and helped her gingerly pull the zippers and buckles at her waist, kissing her cheek as he stood up.

  “Kissy me too, Daddy!” Seb said. He giggled when Lucas instead gave him a loud raspberry on his cheek.

  Their skin was still reacting to the desert-like low humidity of Antarctica, so Jane smeared a thick layer of lotion on her cheeks and hands, then on Seb and Lucas as well. After applying as much Chapstick as the squirmy child would allow, she nodded that they were ready.

  Lucas radioed Hal. “You out there, bud?”

  “Sure, we’re just about to apply some more tanning oil,” Hal replied. “Come on out.”

  “On our way.”

  “You bringing your little man?” Hal asked. “I want to take him out to where I saw those penguins.”

  “Sebbie wouldn’t miss it!” Lucas replied.

  Even with the special suits and hardly a speck of exposed skin, the cold, bright shock as the doors opened made Jane gasp. She helped Seb adjust his goggles, then snapped a picture so he could see how silly he looked.

  Holding hands, the Whyses stepped out onto the Antarctic ice. Seb was chattering but unintelligible. Lucas and Jane each made an attempt to understand him through all the layers, then gave up. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Hal waved the Whyses over.

  “We’re surveyed clear out to those flags,” he said to Jane when they reached him, pointing south a few hundred yards. “At the top of that hill’s where I saw some critters.”

  They started walking at an easy pace. Lucas was once again astonished at the stark beauty around him. The sun was blinding as it reflected off the white surfaces, but he still did his best to absorb the view. God, what a Creator you are, he thought.

  Antarctica's face in this region was heavily textured. The white snow and ice were grooved, bored out by the winds. Over time, hard surface snow piled in rows similar to sand dunes in the more traditional deserts. The landscape was a complex arrangement of angular peaks and velvety rolls. It seemed to Lucas somehow both aggressive and tranquil.

  The Whyses took a circuitous path to explore as much terrain as possible within the safe zone. At the top of the hill, their efforts were rewarded— animals! Sebastian pointed and shouted at penguins in the distance, and they all agreed they had (probably) seen a sea bird flying high above.

  Hal walked over and stood near Lucas, their breath leaving puffs of white that blended immediately into the pristine environment.

  “Pretty special, huh?” Hal mused. “It never gets old to me.”

  “I don’t imagine it could,” Lucas replied. “It isn’t what I expected though.”

  “You never sat in a freezer for a day, did you?” Hal said.

  Lucas chuckled and shook his head. “It isn’t the cold. Really, I mean, other than our arrival, I’ve hardly spent but an hour outside the base. Or outside the lab, lately.”

  “You sure are working hard in there, building your robots or whatever.”

  “The robots came with us, and actually they’re the ones doing the building,” Lucas said with a chuckle. “I just meant it’s beautiful, but the solitude is intense. Even surrounded by my family, it’s lonely down here. We're so... small.”

  “Largest desert on the planet. No life in the Antarctic, son.”

  Lucas smiled to himself, looking at Jane and feeling eager.

  “So how many times you been down here, Hal?”

  “Half a dozen. Cheyenne keeps me around. I do what she asks and don’t question her authority just because she’s a woman. Not a bad habit to have on this team, either,” he added, gesturing with his chin toward the female Dr. Whyse.

  “Good point.”

  “How do you two manage it, with her being in charge?” Hal asked.

  “It never really comes up,” Lucas said, squatting down to flex his knees in the stiff suit. He looked up at Hal. “Honestly, the only reason this entire theory was even conceptualized is because Jane and I are from two very different fields where study rarely overlaps. If I had married a teacher or if she’d married an insurance salesman, neither of us ever would have imagined it alone.”

  “Guess you’re a good team, then,” Hal said. “Physics plus your crystals.”

  “Yes, it’s a partnership that we know only God could have designed,” Lucas agreed.

  Hal nodded, and Lucas was worried that he sounded preachy.

  “Jane’s leadership mostly involves making sure everyone stays on time,” he continued. “Each genius manages their own field. The only person who ever really butts heads with her—”

  “Oh, I know,” Hal interrupted with a chuckle. “That Bonnie Chapman is a piece of work.”

  Lucas laughed out loud and said, “No, I was going to say Sebastian! He’s just like his momma. But, yes, Bonnie’s an interesting character. Personality aside, though, the Chapmans are a pretty good fit for this team. Split Horizon is lucky to have three families down here to keep this tiny team from descending into every man for himself.”

  “What’s funny?” Jane asked, catching up with them. She was practically dragging their son behind her.

  “Jane!” Lucas said, surprised. “I don’t think you should be, you know— like, be careful on the ice. What's wrong?”

  “Well, he's been asking to do this for an entire week and now he's being a grump,” Jane said, trying to sound in control.

  Sebbie's words weren't clear, but his whining tone was obvious.

  Lucas knelt down and said, “Buddy, come on, Mommy and Daddy are trying to do something special with you.”

  After they had walked halfway around the base’s perimeter, alternating between chasing Sebbie when he ran away or dragging him when he declared he was tired, Jane announced, “Yes, ok, enough. I’m ready to head back.”

  “Well, you're not exactly trying to make this fun for him anymore,” Lucas said, turning towards the base. “At this point, Sebbie’s probably closing in on lunch.”


  “Well, you can feed him then, and I'm getting back to work,” Jane snipped. “And he's taking a long nap.”

  Hal looked away uncomfortably. “I need to get back to work anyway.”

  “Sorry, Hal,” Lucas said. “But thanks for the tour. We newbies appreciate it. I'm sure he'll do better next time.”

  Chapter 7

  Three weeks later, they were halfway into Split Horizon’s four-month season. Propulsions engineer Trevor Fox stared at his computer and sighed. The monotony down here threatened to swallow him whole. Back home in Massachusetts, he had often taken his work outside, staring at his laptop underneath a tree or on a bench. Even in the winter, he could sit in the MIT library and look out the windows. But there were only a few small windows in The Dome, and certainly none with anything to look at.

  Maybe if there was a window into Candace's room, he thought to himself with a curl of his lip.

  The laptop beeped, bringing his attention back to the deceleration model he was composing. MILO's calculations had finished and, predictably, ended in catastrophic failure.

  Dr. Rich Chapman had chosen Trevor for this team out of several dozen applicants. Trevor had never dreamed of being picking for such a high-profile mission, but after his selection, he'd placed a call to each of his brothers to announce his news.

  All four Marines were impressed, exactly as he’d hoped. This, his first trip to Antarctica, had been inspired by their tales of world travel and heroics. Most of their stories involved lands of hot sand, but his would involve a different kind of desert: one of ice and snow.

  The cursor blinked on his screen, awaiting instructions. I’m out of ideas, he thought glumly. He rubbed his curly blonde head and beat his heels against the carpet.

  Am I the weak link on this team? he thought. It was unimaginable. Not again. He’d always been the weak link at home. The oldest, but the shortest. The smartest, but the least popular. Why was the small guy at the front always overlooked for the hulking men behind him? he moped.

  His brain almost descended into a pity party when an idea stepped forward. Trevor closed his eyes and tried to focus the thought.

  A small one at the front. Yes. Yes! That could work!

  “Rich!” he said aloud, but his voice was squeaky and dry from three hours of staring at the computer wordlessly.

  He cleared this throat and drank the last cold sip of coffee from a nearby mug. “Rich?” he said, louder this time and with more confidence.

  Dr. Chapman made no response, so Trevor wandered into the hallway. Candace Hartwell was walking by with the two children, and his eyes traversed her figure before they found her face.

  “Hello, Mr. Fox,” said the daughter of the physics assistant.

  “Hey,” he replied awkwardly, giving her a thumbs-up so he didn't continue staring at the daughter of the legendary Alexander Hartwell.

  It’s so tight in those leggings… he thought.

  The little Whyse boy was licking his fingers and did not make eye contact.

  “I was just, uh, looking for Dr. Chapman.” Trevor said to Candace, more to keep her in the hallway than to actually determine his boss’s whereabouts.

  “Yep, just saw her leaving the console room.”

  “Oh, yeah, no,” he stumbled, “I meant the other Dr. Chapman. Rich.”

  Before she replied, Rich emerged from the other direction. “Mr. Fox, don’t you know how to use the comm panels? You could’ve paged me.”

  “Sorry, Rich,” Trevor mumbled as the school field trip continued its march down the hallway.

  “What did you need?”

  The excitement from moments ago had faded, and Trevor realized that he should invest a couple hours exploring his new concept before getting anyone’s hopes up.

  “Nothing,” Trevor said. “I was just wondering how you were doing. How goes the experimentation with the snap cooling techniques?”

  “Why?” Dr. Chapman asked, looking over the rim of his glasses. His white hair was cut short and combed straight back.

  “Nothing, I just hoped that thinking about something else for a while might spark an idea for me. You know, ‘collaboration’ and ‘buzz words’ and all that.”

  Dr. Chapman raised his eyebrows. “You’ve already had an idea, haven’t you?”

  Trevor nodded but didn’t explain.

  “Good. You won’t forget it?”

  Trevor shook his head confidently.

  “Then maybe clean up your office while it ruminates,” Rich suggested without the hint of humor that would have made his suggestion pleasant banter.

  Just then, Candace returned to the hallway.

  “Trevor?”

  “Speaking of distractions,” Dr. Chapman muttered aloud.

  Candace rolled her eyes. “Ok, never mind,” she said.

  When she disappeared, Trevor’s countenance deflated.

  “There’s thirteen people on this base. Talk about a fish bowl; broaden your horizons,” Rich said.

  Trevor flushed and fumbled, “We’re supposed to be a team. Maybe she needed a hand.”

  “I was on a team once,” Rich said with a snort of regret. “Won two awards from SAE. Married a teammate and ended up with an overly competitive life shadow following me everywhere I go.”

  “Bitches,” Trevor deadpanned, shrugging his shoulders.

  Rich adjusted his glasses, then seemed apologetic for his comment. “Nah, I guess I followed her down here to Antarctica. I’d do anything to help colonize Mars, though. Just Split Horizon is her thing, not mine.”

  “And I just have to make the thing stop without blowing it up,” Trevor said. “Nothing to it.”

  “Well, go work on your idea then, Fox.”

  “Want some coffee?” Trevor asked as he left the lab.

  Kid didn’t even wait for an answer, Rich thought to himself as he walked back to his desk. Of course, the kitchen’s to the right and he went left anyway. Probably wandering down to the nursery school to chase that skinny little tail.

  Chapter 8

  Candace willed herself to close the door gently when she arrived at the school room.

  So much for things being different here, she thought. I'll never do enough for people like Dr. Dick.

  She was plenty used to being treated as undeserving. It didn’t matter that she’d never been given special treatment. In fact, her dad had pushed her harder growing up than his NASA astronauts. After her mother's death, her father had grown more and more distant. Now that she was an adult, they barely had a relationship and rarely spoke, and yet his presence dominated her career path.

  “Candith, I needa go peepee,” Sebastian announced.

  “Sure, buddy. Remember, hit the hole. Holler if you need help with your zipper.”

  “How come dis potty’s got no water?”

  “Remember, it takes a lot of work to get water in the base, so everything we put in the potty gets put into compost.”

  “Yeah, but at home, da pee goes into da pipes unda da woad.”

  Dámaris was unable to contain herself and burst into giggles. Candace smiled despite herself.

  A moment later, there was a soft knock at the door.

  “Hi,” Trevor said as he cracked the door and leaned awkwardly in the gap. “Did you need something?”

  “I just wondered if you had a minute to look at my tablet,” Candace replied. “I was going to ask Cheyenne, but she looked so busy.”

  Trevor nodded and walked over as she added, “Not that you aren't busy, I just—I was walking by.”

  “Sure, what's the matter with it?”

  “The touch screen isn't registering at the right place,” she said. “I have to type everything underneath the place I see it.”

  She turned it on, and the tablet showed the unlock screen. Trevor leaned the screen for Candace to enter her pin. It took her several frustrating attempts.

  “See?” she said. “I tried to restart it, but I think when I push the power button it just goes to sleep. I
don't know how to restart it. I didn't see a place to take the battery out.”

  “Right,” he said. “Let's try a hard reboot.” He held down two of the buttons at the same time and after a few seconds, the screen flashed gray, then black.

  He waited a few moments, then pressed the power button once. It chimed and restarted. This time, when she entered her pin, the tablet responded as expected.

  “Oh great! Thanks,” she said with a smile. “That was easy. Sorry for interrupting.”

  “No problem,” Trevor said. “Anything else?”

  “Can't think of anything. How’s your project coming?”

  “Great, actually, better than when we leave the physics bitches in charge,” he said with a swagger.

  Candace looked displeased and glanced over her shoulder to see if the kids were listening.

  “I was just kidding,” he said in annoyance, but tried to recover. “So, yeah, I was thinking about—something else, and it sort of came to mind.”

  “Well, good luck. See you at dinner,” Candace said. “Thanks for fixing my tablet.”

  “Yeah, great,” he replied as he left.

  Sebastian emerged from the bathroom, and Candace instructed him to go back, flush, and wash his hands.

  “I did,” he argued half-heartedly, but he was already headed back to the restroom.

  Candace shook her head at Sebbie’s antics, shut the hallway door, and turned back to face Dámaris.

  “I think Mr. Fox likes you,” the girl said with a knowing look.

  “Oh, boy, here we go,” Candace said, rolling her eyes.

  “Is he going to ask you out?”

  “Oh my goodness, Dámaris,” Candace said. “We’re at the bottom of the world. Where exactly would ‘out’ be? Now, finish your reading. I’m going to go stop whatever mischief Sebbie is currently cooking up in the bathroom.”

  “You could go out when we visit McMurdo Station next month.”

  “If we visit McMurdo,” Candace noted. “Don’t get your hopes up. And, no, sweetie, I’m not going out with Mr. Fox. I’m not pursuing any relationships right now, except to help the two greatest kids in the world become better acquainted with learning. Now, nose in the book, Dámaris.”