Exit Alpha (32 page)

They switched to Tilley lamps, Primus stoves and spent much of their waking hours cooking. The cabins stank of pemmican, salami, kerosene, human waste and fuel. By now they were filthy, ravenous, half-delirious and personal modesty was impossible.

Cain left the grim-faced militia in the front cab and went back to Eve, Nina and the pope. They were trying to beat layers of frost from between their inner and outer sleeping bags but the stuffing had frozen, too.

Despite the hardships, the pope still had his sense of humour. When Eve asked if he’d seen the All Blacks he replied that he hadn’t studied secular religions.

After they gulped down food, they crawled into the stiff, chilly bags and the trapped ice melted with their body heat. They slept in damp, woke with aching backs — only to be showered from the tilted roof with their own frosted breath.

Eve moaned, ‘I feel like death. I stink, can’t breathe. And no one told me I’d have to defecate in front of a pope.’

John said, ‘I haven’t been looking.’

‘But you can smell. Oh God, this is awful.’

‘When you’re this close to death,’ the pope smiled, ‘what’s another smell?’

‘Ignore her,’ Nina spat. ‘She’s a user.’

‘She’s a person,’ the pope said. ‘And the only mother you’ll get.’

‘She doesn’t give a stuff about me.’

‘And you don’t give her much chance. You may not live another day. Isn’t it time to stop being cruel?’

Eve started crying. Nina lapsed into sullen silence.

‘Here.’ John handed the girl some wire. ‘Can you fix the end of this to the roof near the door? It’s hottest up there. We’ve got to dry our clothes.’

Nina glared at him and the pope scowled back the same way, then his mouth widened to a smile. The girl would have seen herself but didn’t have the lightness to admit it. She grudgingly took the wire and secured it. The pope tied off the other end, then handed her clothes to drape over the wire. He knew his way around the teenage mind. Next, he showed her how to check the spot detector for the CO level and how to monitor the inadequate vents. The girl remained sullen, but the priest’s powerful atmosphere had to be affecting her as a magnet might rearrange iron filings.

The pope napped when he could. The shortest sleep refreshed him. His breathing, though laboured, was not as bad as before. He also helped with the cooking. ‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’

Cain knew the passage, Ecclesiastes, and completed it. ‘For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.’

Eve said, ‘You’re so damn depressing. I don’t know what I saw in you.’

‘One thing about the ice. It brings out the worst or best in everyone.’

‘Are you criticising me?’

‘Just a comment.’ He’d thought her sexy, talented, amusing. But trapped in this rancid space, stripped of comforts and facing death, her narrowness and bitterness had surfaced.

‘Just a comment?’ she persisted. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Cain said nothing and checked the Primus flame. A yellow tinge was dangerous, meant incomplete combustion. They’d soon need more ventilation and opening the door wasn’t fun.

Nina turned to the pope. ‘See? He’s starting to see her for what she is.’

The pope, stirring the pot, had a coughing fit and let the fork go. Nina took it and continued stirring. The pope recovered. ‘Thank you.’

She reached for the zipper tag of the priest’s padded waistcoat, jerked it higher. The roughness of the act was revealing.

Cain glanced at Eve.

She said, ‘Don’t look at me. If it takes a pope to get through to her, what hope have I got?’

After they’d eaten and the others had retreated to their bags, Cain asked John if he’d brought his manuscript.

‘Of course. Would you like to read some more?’

‘Very much.’

The old priest rummaged in his bag and produced it.

Cain started, this time, from the beginning. It was titled ‘The Resurrection of the Body’. He was surprised to encounter complex Catholic metaphysics. Being. Change. Act. Potency. Prime matter. Causality. The uncaused cause.
Ipsum Esse Subsistens.
God’s permission of moral evil as a good. The intrinsic analogy of being. From this traditional basis the insight was expanded, developed. After a time he asked, ‘So you’re an advocate of Aquinas?’

‘How could one not be? He’s neglected now, of course. It’s like ignoring the break of day. And there are many things he said that the Church never aired because it threatened its position — such as his view on individual conscience.’

Cain read more, trying to understand the precise meanings placed on the terms. ‘I’m getting the impression the guy knew more than he’s admitting. He seems to have adapted eastern insights to Catholic terminology.’

The pope’s delighted laughter. ‘Well done.’

During the second morning the wind died almost to a breeze. Through the upside windows they saw snow level with the sills. Cain heard voices outside, saw a flash of yellow parka. The front cab inhabitants were out. A scuffling at the side door — someone with a shovel, digging it clear. The door was opened by the masked Hunt who peered in like Batman, framed by pale sky. ‘We’ve got company.’

‘You’re putting me on.’

He got into his parka and overmitts and joined her on the snow. It seemed a little less cold. The Hagglunds looked bizarre — half-buried, its sloping roofs and upper sides two triangles in the drift, the snow mound of Zia, the smashed radar antenna . . .

Bell stood beside Raul, peering through binoculars while the snap-frozen Mullins staggered about swinging his arms.

Cain rubbed the towelling on the back of his mitt across his goggles, squinted at the horizon but saw nothing but vast blue-grey expanse.

Hunt’s eyes were younger. ‘Something’s definitely there.’ She pointed.

It was a long way off and seemed to float above the plateau like a mirage. Distance had robbed it of colour but not shape.

Cain said, ‘It could be a temperature inversion — a reflection of something yonks away.’

‘Looks like a lot of boxes.’ Bell handed the glasses to Raul. All their actions now were slow — sapped by the constant fatigue.

Raul looked and handed the glasses triumphantly to Cain. ‘Definitely a sign of human folly. So were we right to set out or not?’

Cain adjusted the right eyepiece. He could make out something orange but distortion obscured detail. ‘Too big for a dump or a field base. Could be a parked traverse. You might’ve got lucky.’

‘With Gustave it isn’t luck,’ Bell said, eyes shining. ‘You should be thankful he’s with us.’

‘Don’t make me puke.’

‘I have enormous luck,’ Raul proclaimed. ‘But is it luck? Or something one attracts?’

‘What you’ve got is delusions of adequacy. You’re a showman, Raul. Just remember, your nonsense doesn’t work here.’

Raul sneered. ‘Such a need to defend your point of view!’

Mullins was excited about being saved. ‘We got flares? Smoke bombs?’

‘Haven’t seen any.’ Bell adjusted his neck gaiter and pulled up the outsized toggle on his parka to the limit of the zip. His face was blistered with deep ultraviolet burns. He’d tried sun-block — not knowing it was useless. In Patagonia, Cain had been told, the ozone hole was sending sheep blind.

Raul’s face was angry-red as well. He asked Hunt, ‘Can we get them on the radio without alerting EXIT?’

‘With local-use low power. Could try raising them on 16 — the marine emergency channel.’

‘Do it.’

‘But if they see EXIT stripes, they won’t come near us.’

‘So we cover the thing with the tents as if we’re trying to attract attention.’

‘Exactly. Exactly.’ Bell looked at him with adoration.

‘Admit all possibilities.’ Raul would have beamed had his lips been less cracked. He ordered Mullins to break out the tents and cover the vehicle.

Hunt clumped back to the front cab. Raul motioned Bell to follow her.

Cain went after them, back aching with the cold.

He called to her, ‘What will you tell them?’

‘Lies.’

The Hagg was fitted with VHF. She switched on, fiddled with the squelch, selected the channel, INTL, selected one watt, held the mike close to her mouth and pressed the switch. ‘Calling trav. We’re in a Hagglunds south of you and slotted. Have you in sight. Need assistance. Over.’

Crackle.

She transmitted again, repeated.

Nothing.

‘Perhaps they’re switched off.’

She repeated it again. Raul’s frost-rimmed face now stared into the listing cabin from the roof hatch. ‘Calling Hagglunds. Message received. Where are you? And how did you get here? Numbers, condition? Over.’

‘We hear you, trav. Eight alive, fair condition. Over.’

‘Where are you from? Please confirm. Over?’ The voice sounded Irish.

She glanced at Cain, knowing anything she said would sound improbable. A lone Hagg 800 kilometres from anywhere. It made sense to play it straight. ‘We were in a Hercules that crashed on the plateau. This vehicle was cargo. We’re about eleven o’clock from you. Long way. You’re only just in sight. Over.’

‘Received. Please confirm your base, over.’

She looked at Cain.

‘Say Scott Base. That’ll square with the Herc.’

‘We’re from Scott Base. Over.’

The reply wasn’t instant. ‘Affirmative on base. We don’t have you visually. Over.’

‘We’ll try to fix that. Over.’

‘Received. We stay here for today. Too much drift obscuring the slots. Got a quad on board but we’d slot if we tried to visit. Forecast tomorrow is fine. We think we’ve got you on the radar and we’ll try to get to you tomorrow. Sked tomorrow, 900 hours on channel 8? Confirm please. Over.’

‘Thanks, trav. Very welcome. Looking forward to tomorrow. Nine hundred on eight confirmed. Out.’ She looked at Cain. ‘Could they be from Amundsen Scott?’ It was the American South Pole base.

‘Unlikely.’

‘McMurdo?’

‘Too far off.’

‘And how come they don’t ask difficult questions?’

‘May not be locals.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Raul crowed, ‘You see? A step into the unknown. That’s the way to live at every moment of your existence. Admit all possibilities.’

Hunt’s jaundiced look. ‘Gustave, you’re alive because of us — not you.’

The next morning was fine. Clear skies with hard-packed snow and, further off, fields of low sastrugi. And the searing brilliance of the hazardous sun. Raul called a council of war. They conned Eve into handling the second radio exchange — hoping her accent would make it convincing.

‘If you talk about the Hagg,’ Cain told her, ‘call it a haggis. Kiwis call them that.’

The sked went well but the response was now even more cautious. When Eve asked who they were they said a private expedition.

Hunt looked sceptical. ‘They’re playing it close to the chest.’

Bell and Cain took turns to monitor the far-off speck, standing back to the wind but turning every so often to check, stamping to try and keep warm. But the traverse didn’t move.

During his downtime, Cain checked on the pope. The old man had survived so well because he’d stayed sheltered. He made sure John was as comfortable as one could be in a tilted plastic box on a white hell, then read more of the manuscript while John watched his frowns. The difficult second chapter was titled ‘Effort versus Entropy’. The terms were unfamiliar and it was heavy going.

‘You seem to be attempting a realignment of your Church.’

‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do . . .’ John stared at the glare through the slanting window. ‘I never wanted this job, but I haven’t ceased to do it. The Church has abandoned its metaphysics for a sloppy feel-good approach that has no tone. I’m pointing that out.’

‘At the moment you sound as much a hardliner as Wojtyla.’

‘Far from it. Don’t miss my point. I’m not preaching control and suppression. God knows we’ve had enough of that. Discipline and doctrine are no substitute for life.’

‘I’m also starting to see that I’ve never understood your religion.’

The pope looked at him soberly. ‘Good. Try to remember the means is not the end. But still, you change the means at your peril. An odd statement from someone they considered a dangerous eccentric, wouldn’t you say?’

Cain nodded slowly. Every time he spoke to this man, new depths of understanding were offered. ‘You make me feel a pygmy.’

The pope chuckled. ‘You’re not that. But there’s always more to see. You have some idea of what I’ve come to but forget the tradition that produced me.’

‘I misunderstood you?’

‘No. But if you stumble on the last act of a play, don’t be surprised that there was a first.’

Bell’s shout from outside. Finally the traverse had moved. Cain got out and crunched toward him through the energy-sapping snow. They stood on the glaring expanse under the glaring sky, watching the specks crawl. The austerity of the scene, the quality of the light, the sense of space, stillness, loneliness, was astonishing.