My Last Continent (20 page)

There's a phone on a little desk across the room, and I wrap myself in one of the inn's robes as I dial Pam's number, catching her in the office.

“I'm in Rocheport,” I say, “but I'll be on my way soon.”

“Rocheport?” she repeats, and I can picture her expression as she figures it out—her research assistant, the one who insisted she didn't have a boyfriend, missing work because she's at the region's most popular couples' retreat.

“I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Forget about it,” she says. “You're there. Enjoy it.”

“I didn't expect to—”

“Take a day off, Deb,” she says. “I'll see you tomorrow.” And then she hangs up.

I stare at the receiver in my hand for a long moment before putting it down.

Chad has barely stirred. I put on yesterday's clothes and go to the inn's reception desk, thinking I'll take a taxi back to Columbia. But once I'm there, I realize I don't have money for a fifteen-mile cab ride, and even once I get back, I'll have no way to get out to the Ozarks if Pam's already left.

It's barely light outside, and I sit in the empty breakfast room with a cup of coffee. I cling to the mug, letting it warm my hands, staring into my wavy, dark reflection, trying to decipher what Pam said. Her tone was the same as always—brisk, no-nonsense—but somehow I get the feeling I've disappointed her. Pam herself never takes a day off, at least as far as I can tell, and I worry she's thinking what I'm thinking—that I should be out in the field instead of lounging around
in a bed-and-breakfast with a man who still hasn't earned the label of boyfriend.

I'm not sure how long I sit there before someone pulls out the chair next to mine. “I was wondering where you'd gone,” Chad says.

He still looks half-asleep, with his mussed hair and weighted eyelids. When a waitress walks by, he asks for coffee. I hadn't noticed, but now there's another couple sitting across the room, and yellow light is sluicing through the windows.

“I've missed work,” I tell him. “I think my boss is pissed.”

“Why didn't you just call in sick?”

I hadn't even thought of that. “I shouldn't have come here. This was a bad idea.”

His coffee arrives, and he fills the mug with cream. Watching him, I try to make myself savor this moment, our first morning together, but I can't.

“What's on your mind?” he asks.

I push my mug away and straighten my back. “This has been fun,” I say.

“Has been?” he asks, smiling. “Am I past tense now?”

Despite myself, I smile back. “You call yourself a journalist? That's not past tense. It's present perfect.”

“Thank God for editors,” he says with a laugh. “Okay, remind me—what does present perfect mean?”

“It means a past action that remains an ongoing present action.”

“You're saying you'd like us to be ongoing?” he asks.

I'm surprised; I'd been thinking only of preempting the inevitable. “Would you?”

He's still smiling, and as I look at his face, I remember
the night he took me to see the Parsons Dance company, a modern dance troupe with a wildly creative use of light. The dancers had spiraled into darkness, then leapt into a beam of light, fluidly, as if made of water. And then, moments later, the effects of a strobe light held them in place, highlighting them in split-second poses—and as I think of how they moved across the stage, their bodies frozen in midair, it occurs to me that this is Chad and me, inching forward and yet motionless at the same time.

He gets to his feet and says, “Sit tight. I'm going to check us out and then call a cab. Maybe you can salvage at least part of the day.”

“Really?”

Now standing behind me, he leans down. “Sure thing,” he says in my ear. With his lips, he traces my jawline to my mouth, giving me a kiss that asks for forgiveness, a kiss I return.

As I wait for him, I sip my cold coffee and hear Pam's voice in my head, and I wonder whether love and science are incompatible after all. I'd embraced her philosophy because I've mostly had only work. Now, through Pam, I can see who I might one day become, and I want to prove her wrong, to find a way to have both.

The Gullet
(67°10'S, 67°38'W)

F
reshwater freezes at thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, but seawater has to be colder. Depending on the salinity, it freezes between twenty-four and twenty-eight degrees. At these temperatures, of course, the odds of survival for humans come down to a matter of minutes.

Right now, I wish I didn't know what it feels like to be in that water; I wish I couldn't even imagine it. In all my years in Antarctica, I've fallen through the ice exactly once. It happened seven years ago in the Ross Sea; I'd been with a group of geologists from the U.K. who were planning to drill a hole in the ice for their research on fossils. We traveled in a caravan of snowmobiles but also had to do a lot of hiking on foot, across pressure ridges formed by overlapping pack.

I don't remember falling in—it was so sudden, so unbelievably quick—I recall only the sound of the ice breaking, the heart-stopping rumble and crack, and then I was submerged. The water was violently cold, sucking every bit of heat from
my body. When I opened my eyes, gasping for breath, I realized that I was being pulled underneath the ice by the current. I reached up through the opening my body had left and grabbed on to the shelf of ice. Turning my head, I saw one of the geologists holding out a pole for me, standing well back from the edge, lowering his body to the ice so he could crawl toward me. It was dangerous for him to be so close, but he had no other choice. I caught hold, kicking my legs, trying to help him in his efforts as he reached down to haul me out. As he towed me up onto the ice, I saw that behind him another geologist was holding his legs, and yet another was holding hers—a chain of humans flattened out on the ice, desperately moving backward, away from the thin part that had given way.

As soon as we backed onto more solid ice, one of the geologists helped me strip off my clothing, and the one who'd reached in for me was taking off layers of his own, dressing me in his socks, his sweater, his parka, calling out to the others to bring me dry pants, gloves, a hat. My skin was bright red, the blood having rushed to its surface in an attempt to preserve the body within. My limbs felt numb, and my entire body shook convulsively for the next hour—but I was lucky. Many who meet head-on with the waters of the Southern Ocean don't survive long enough to die from acute hypothermia; they suffer cardiac arrest, or they go into what's known as cold shock and drown. Within the first few moments of submersion, the heart rate escalates, the blood pressure increases, and breathing becomes erratic. The muscles cool rapidly, and those closest to the surface of the skin, like the muscles of the hands, quickly become useless. You can't move, can't speak, can't even think. Even at forty degrees Fahrenheit, let alone
twenty-eight, it only takes three minutes for hypothermia to set in. Water rescues are rare; recoveries are not.

I PULL OFF
the mask from over my eyes, which I'd hoped would help me sleep, and turn my head to the side. Amy is lying in bed on her back, a similar mask over her own eyes. I can't tell if she's asleep or, like me, she's been lying awake all night.

Glenn had encouraged us all to get some rest while we could, and Amy and I had lain in our bunks, speculating about the
Australis,
daring to hope the situation might not be as bad as it seemed. She assured me that Keller would be okay, and we told each other that the damage might, in fact, be minimal—that we could end up encountering a scene of calm and order. Finally we fell into silence.

I get up, throw on extra layers and my crew parka, and look at my watch—nearly five in the morning. We must be getting close.

Amy stirs and sits up. “Did you sleep?” she asks, and I shake my head. “Me neither,” she says.

Outside, the water has given way to a dense mix of brash and pack ice. The sea is now a chunky soup of pure white, with a few specks of dark gray where the water peeks through. Amy and I stand together on the foredeck, not speaking, and I strain my eyes while the
Cormorant
creeps along, feeling it shudder as it punches its way forward. There are only a half dozen passengers out here—most are still asleep. When we'd passed through the lounge moments earlier, we'd glimpsed
a few people with books in their hands, their eyes focused on the portholes. And here on the deck, several passengers shoot videos of nothing, maybe hoping to be the first to capture footage of the sinking ship, and a few others take selfies.

I have to look away from them. Not far off, crabeater seals doze on icebergs and floes. Some raise their heads briefly and then return to their naps; those who are closer slump toward the water and slide in between the tide cracks, frightened by the rumble of the engine and the thunk of ice hitting the ship's hull.

We're getting close, but thanks to the murky air, I can't see very far ahead. The fog has coalesced into the ice, wrapping the
Cormorant
in a whitish haze. As we push forward, the muffled drumbeat from the hull intensifies in proportion to the ice in our path. I glance up over my right shoulder toward the bridge, half-wanting to be there and half-needing to be away from all that tension.

“We should check in,” Amy says, catching my gaze.

I don't want to take my eyes off the ghostly fog, as if I might see Keller emerge from the mist. But Amy's right.

I nod, and just as we turn to go, the air is pierced by a scream. I whip my head toward the sound and see a woman backing away from the rail.

Amy and I rush toward her. “Are you all right?” I call out.

The woman can only point toward the water, and when I see the horror in her face, I know what she must've seen. I want to close my eyes, back up, run inside. But I look past her to the water. Floating below, amid the slush, is a bright blue parka, hugged by an orange life jacket. As the ice parts, I see the legs, the arms, the lifeless body within.

It's begun.

They've seen it on the bridge, too, or maybe they're seeing even worse. The engines whine, dragging the ship to a stop. Amy's got her arm around the weeping passenger, attempting to calm her, and I look up at the bridge and see that most of the crew has disappeared, probably down to the Zodiacs. High above, a flare explodes, bathing us all in a pale-red glow. In this burst of sanguine light, I see that this is not the only body; there are dozens of blue jackets bobbing in the water among chunks of ice, bodies floating facedown in the churning slush.

We're too late. As a second flare fires into the sky, I strain my eyes but still can't see the ship, just gloom and icebergs and penguins scattered about on distant floes. And then, as my eyes adjust—and maybe as my mind adjusts—I realize that those figures on the ice aren't penguins at all. They're humans, passengers, dozens and dozens of them—some crouching on patches of breaking ice, others waving their arms for help.

From the stern, cranes whir, preparing to drop the first of our eight Zodiacs into the ice-packed water. Amy is leading the woman toward the staterooms, and I start heading belowdecks. Suddenly I stop, remembering Richard's binoculars. They are far superior to anything we crew members have, and they could make all the difference in helping me locate Keller.

I race up to the lounge, searching frantically for Richard. I don't see him, but Kate is there. We instantly make eye contact, and as I rush across the lounge, she meets me halfway.

“Richard—where is he?”

“I don't know,” she says, looking surprised, as if just real
izing she hasn't seen him for a while. “I've gotten our room ready for passengers, so I don't think he's—”

“Find him,” I tell her. “Tell him we need his binoculars. Give them to a crew member to pass on to me. Okay?”

“Okay.” I see her nod her head before I'm off again.

Down below, at the open loading hatch, I look up at Captain Wylander, standing at the controls just outside the bridge, struggling to find an ice sheet large enough and thick enough to hold hundreds of stranded passengers. We need a pathway—a bridge of ice, or even a river of seawater—that we can follow to the
Australis
and its victims. Yet right now I see only large floes and patches of slush lurking everywhere, conditions that are impossible to traverse easily either by foot or by Zodiac. We'll have to manage it somehow.

I think of our ice landing, only days ago—that one had been challenge enough, but at least we'd been able to choose the field of ice; we'd been in control. And the
Cormorant
is by no means an icebreaker—in unstable waters, at the wrong speed or angle, a large berg could pierce even a reinforced hull, and then we'd be in no better shape than the
Australis
. The stabilizing fins that soften our ride through waters like the Drake are vulnerable to the ice, and the
Cormorant
has no defense in place to safeguard the propellers. Our ship is prepared to rub shoulders with icebergs, but she's in no position to push them around.

And I know that if the ice gets too thick or the winds too extreme, our captain will not risk damage to the ship; we'll have to retreat. With the temperature dropping and the winds shoving ice floes roughly into one another, I need to find Keller as quickly as possible. We might have only one chance.

I'm sure Keller is still on board. He'll put the passengers first, even if it means going down with the ship. And, given the options, on board may well be the safest place—though it's clear that no one ended up in the water, on the ice, by choice. It already looks as though things are a lot worse than we've prepared for.

Wylander is now maneuvering the
Cormorant
into a large expanse of white, stretching unbroken for at least a hundred yards, and as the cracking of ice stops and the ship comes to a halt, I look up to see his signal. It's time.

We lower the gangplank, and I step down to a relatively stable section of ice; as one of the lighter crew members, I'd volunteered to be first, though I'm sure everyone knows I have other reasons. About fifty yards in the distance, a dozen passengers are gathered together on the ice, but the
Australis
herself is still only a dim glow of lights in the fog beyond. Those who are on this patch of ice should be able to make their way over. Some are already hurrying toward us. I hear Glenn's voice on the
PA
system, telling the
Australis
passengers who we are, urging calm, exhorting them to follow our instructions.

But they are exhausted and panicked, and still coming forward—to keep them safe, we need to slow them down, spread them out. As I step forward carefully on the ice—poking it with a sharp trekking pole, hoping the pole won't meet with slush or weak ice, keeping my ears on alert for that dreadful splintering noise—I wonder whether the other naturalists are as calm as they look. Despite our training, and despite the knowledge, in the deepest parts of our minds, that something like this could happen, I don't think we ever really believed it would.

The ice under my feet holds up well, and I signal to the others behind me to follow; at the same time, I hold up a hand to stop the passengers coming toward us. As distressed as they must be, they obey.

I turn around and see Thom heading down the gangway. The plan, hastily assembled once Glenn and Wylander assessed the ice and weather conditions, is for Thom and me to scout out a trail for the passengers to follow to the
Cormorant
, and once we find a safe passage, we'll leave marker flags along the way. Nigel and Amy will then lead the rest of the expedition team along the trail to make sure the passengers remain spaced evenly apart, so they don't create more pressure than the ice can bear. It's obvious, from the bodies floating past, that some have made that fatal mistake already—and our plan is only as good as the weather allows.

I try not to look down, not wanting to see an orange naturalist's jacket floating past, or Keller's signature bandanna.

Focus,
I tell myself. I need to take one moment at a time, one tenuous step at a time. As I begin to make my way across the ice, I realize that we'll have to revise our plan sooner than we expected. The group of passengers ahead is stranded on a forty-foot-wide patch of ice with about thirty feet of slush between them and us. They hadn't stopped in response to Glenn's or my signal; they stopped because they had nowhere else to go.

“Ease up,” I call over my shoulder. As Thom joins me near the edge of the ice floe, the passengers on the other side advance to the edge of theirs.

“Move back!” Thom shouts. “Spread yourselves out!” He splays his arms wide. “Stay near the middle of the ice, as
far apart as you can,” he calls to them. “We'll get you. Just hold on.”

“We'll need a Zodiac,” I say, and Thom nods. We'll have to carry the Zodiac over the ice to this small stretch of water, then use it as a ferry. Despite their rubber construction, these Zodiacs aren't exactly lightweight; they're nineteen feet long, and transporting them over land requires at least two or three strong crew members. Even if the ice holds, once we get the boat in the water, boarding anxious passengers safely from a fragile rim of ice is yet another challenge.

Another flare bursts above, and as it fizzles in the sky, Thom turns to me. “If you want to keep going,” he says, “I'll take care of these folks.”

“You'll need help with the Zodiac,” I say.

“I'll get Nigel. Go on. Be careful.”

I turn toward the flickering light of the flare and begin walking gingerly in its direction, the ice here still sturdy and unbroken for as far as I can see. Yet appearances are often deceiving—the pack ice that surrounds us, formerly attached to the continent, has been blown around the sea all winter by ocean currents and winds, broken apart and thrust together again, and now that it's covered with a layer of snow, it's impossible to tell where weak spots are until you're right on top of them. Worse, the winds are picking up again, which means that, no matter how stable the ice may look, conditions could change in an instant.