The green waters of the Bosporus �
So long as she could immerse herself in the green, she was content. She could remember the scent of the fields where she grew up � the damp grass, as it lay flat in the summer breeze, the cows standing white and black against it � the rolling green hills at dusk, the sun gleaming like her fathers gold pocket watch �
She could feel the texture of the leaves, smooth and even and waxy, as she passed through the city park on her midday break from the hospital. It was only for half an hour, but in that time�and if the wind was blowing back toward the Thames�she could take a breath of fresh air, air that had no trace of blood
or morphine or ether in it. Sometimes she would tuck leaves and sweet-smelling flowers in the pockets of her uniform before going back into the wards �
The green of the sea � she had never been at sea until leaving for Turkey. She had always imagined it to be blue, or perhaps gray�it had appeared so in every picture she had ever seen�but staring down from the deck, into the churning wake, she had been surprised by its greenish cast, like the dull patina on the statues at the Royal Museum (Sinclair had taken her there, shortly before his regiment departed) �
But there the reverie ended � as they all did, eventually � and a cold hand settled upon her heart. She had to struggle, once again, to fold herself into the green, to wrap herself in a bower of her own imagining � to warm the icy hand that had stolen beneath her clothes and frozen the very marrow in her bones. A thousand times she had come this way, and a thousand times more, she feared, she would have to come again, before she could awaken � before she could be released from whatever strange dream this was that still ensnared her �
���
CHAPTER FOUR
November 24, 10:25 a.m.
MICHAEL HAD SPOTTED
the little red-haired guy getting off the plane at Santiago and knew he was a scientist right off the bat. There was something about scientists that gave them away, though he'd have been hard put to say exactly what. It wasn't something easy, like the smell of formaldehyde or protractors sticking out of their pockets. No, it was more a matter of their mien; with scientists�and Michael had been around plenty of them while photographing and writing about the natural world�there was something both detached and highly observant. They could be part of a group, and not part of a group, at the same time. And hard as some of them might try to fit in, they never really did. It was like that massive school of sunfish that Michael had photographed underwater in the Bahamas; all of the fish, for safety's sake alone, tried to move toward the center of the swarm, but some of them, for whatever reason, were kept to the margins and never made it.
And of course they were the easiest for predators to pick off.
During the layover before he could catch the prop plane to Puerto Williams, Michael dragged his duffel bag into the crowded caf� area of the airport. The red-haired guy was sitting alone at a table in the corner, his head lowered toward his laptop. Michael got close enough to see that he was studying a complex chart littered with numbers and arrows and intersecting lines. To Michael, it looked vaguely topographic. He stood for only a second or two before the guy in the chair whipped around; he had a small, narrow face, and pale red eyebrows, too. The guy sized Michael up, then said, �This can't possibly be interesting to you.�
�You'd be surprised,� Michael said, approaching him. �I didn't mean to disturb you. I'm just waiting for my connection to Puerto Williams.�
He was waiting to see if that worked, and it did. �Me, too,� the guy said.
�Mind if I sit down?� Michael said, taking the empty chair at the table�the last empty chair in the whole place.
Dumping the duffel on the floor, with one foot through the strap (a habit he'd gotten into on lots of late-night travels in foreign locales), Michael extended his hand and introduced himself. �Michael Wilde.�
�Darryl Hirsch.�
�Puerto Williams, huh? Is that your last stop?�
Hirsch clicked the keyboard a few times, then folded up the laptop. He looked at Michael as if unsure what to make of him yet.
�You're not some kind of government intelligence agent or anything, are you? Because if you are, you're doing a terrible job.�
Michael laughed. �Why would you think that?�
�Because I'm a scientist, and we live in an age of idiots. For all I know, you're tracking me to make sure that I don't prove the earth is getting warmer�even though it plainly
is.
The ice caps
are
melting, the polar bears
are
disappearing, and Intelligent Design is perfectly designed for dolts. So go ahead�you can arrest me now.�
�Relax. You're sounding a little paranoid, if you don't mind my saying so.�
�Just because you're paranoid,� Darryl observed, �doesn't mean you're not being followed.�
�True enough,� Michael replied. �But I like to think I'm one of the good guys. I work for
Eco-Travel Magazine,
doing photos and text. I'm going down to the Antarctic to do a story on life at a research station there.�
�Which research station? A dozen countries have planted stations there, just to stake their claim.�
�Point Ad�lie. About as close to the Pole as you can get.�
�Oh,� Hirsch said, digesting the news. �Me, too. Huh.� He sounded like he still hadn't given up on his conspiracy theory. �That's really something.� His fingers tapped on the closed lid of his laptop. �So, you're a journalist.�
Michael detected that first glimmer he had seen before, a million times. When people found out he was a writer, there was that first mild surprise, then acceptance, and then�a nanosecond later�the dawning realization that he could make them famous. Or at least write about them. It was like watching little lights go on in their heads.
�That's great,� Hirsch said. �What a coincidence.� With studied nonchalance, he opened his laptop again and started tapping at the keyboard. �Let me just show you something.� He turned the screen so that Michael could see it. The same elaborate chart appeared. �This is the seafloor of the continental shelf, under the ice around Point Ad�lie. You can see here where the shelf extends, and here��he put a nail-bitten finger to the screen��where it drops off precipitously, into what we call the abyssal range. I'm planning to go down maybe a couple of hundred meters on this trip. I'm a marine biologist, by the way. Woods Hole Oceanographic. I'm particularly interested in the
notothenioidei
�Antarctic icefish�as well as sea snails, eel pouts, rat tails. You know what those are, right?�
Michael said yes, though, privately, he'd have to concede his knowledge was extremely sketchy.
��and how their metabolisms function in this incredibly hostile environment. A lot of what I do, now that I think about it, would offer some great photo opportunities. These creatures are fantastically adapted to their ecological niches, and to me at least, they're phenomenally beautiful, though some people, I gather, have trouble seeing it. But that, I think, is just because they seem so foreign at first ��
There was no stopping him. He didn't even need to take a
breath. Michael glanced at the espresso cup next to the computer and wondered just how many of those his new travel pal had imbibed.
� � and many of these animals, no matter how small or simple, carry a veritable world of parasites, in everything from their anal glands to their eye ducts.�
He said it as if he was describing the array of wonderful rides at an amusement park.
�And as I'm sure you know, the parasite's best bet, in order to ensure its own survival, is to make sure that the host it's devouring is in turn devoured by something else.�
Michael wondered if this was the guy's usual small talk.
�Did you know, for instance, that the larval
acanthocephalan
deliberately drives its amphipod host crazy?�
�No,� Michael admitted. �Why would it do that?�
�So that the host will leave its hiding place, usually under a rock, and wildly gyrate through open water where it will surely be eaten by a fish.�
�You don't say.�
�Don't worry, I'll show you a lot of this when we get there,� Darryl said, consolingly. �It's thrilling to see.�
Michael could see that he was just about to launch into another paean on the glories waiting to be discovered on the ocean floor when a tinny loudspeaker announced�first in Spanish, then in English�that those passengers going on to Puerto Williams could board their plane.
Hirsch kept up his chatter all the way across the cold, windblown tarmac, and up the short flight of steps into the prop plane. He didn't even have to duck to enter, while Michael had to bend far forward to keep from getting bonked. The plane had just ten seats, five on each side, and with everyone wearing heavy coats and parkas, boots and gloves and hats, it was a very tight squeeze. All the others seemed to be rattling away in Spanish or Portuguese. Darryl Hirsch took the seat right across from Michael, but once the plane taxied down the windy runway, its props whirring and its engines growling, all attempts at conversation came to a halt. They'd have had to shout at the top of their lungs just to be heard across the narrow aisle.
Michael buckled in and stared out the small round window.
The plane had some trouble lifting off, buffeted by strong headwinds, but once it did, it quickly veered away from the land, soared over a ridge of jagged cliffs, and turned south along the Pacific coastline. It was a minute or two before Michael's stomach caught up with the rest of him. Far below, he could see the white-topped waves rolling and cresting, chopped by fierce and incessant winds. He was heading, he knew, for the windiest�in addition to the driest, coldest, and most barren�place on Earth. It was early afternoon, but the light would last around the clock. It was the austral summer, and the sun would never go down. It appeared on the northern horizon like a sliver of dull coin, bathing everything in a muted luminescence, punctuated by passages of either glaring brightness, or storm-covered shadow. Over the coming weeks and months, the sun would travel slowly across the sky, reaching its zenith on the solstice of December 21, before departing altogether in late March. Then, the moon would rule just as unequivocally as the sun did now.
Although Michael wanted to stay awake, to remember every moment of the journey, it became harder and harder to do so. He had been traveling for what felt like days, from Tacoma to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles to Santiago, and now from Santiago to Puerto Williams, the southernmost town in the world. He lowered the plastic shade on the window and closed his eyes. The plane was warm, too warm really, and his feet were sweltering in their hiking boots. But he was too tired even to reach down and try to unlace them. He settled back in his uncomfortable seat�he could feel the knees of the guy behind him prodding through the thin fabric cushion and into the small of his back�but dropped off into sleep anyway. The constant thrumming of the engines, the closeness of the cabin, the never-changing light �
He started out dreaming, as he usually did, of Kristin�of some occasion when they were happy together, when they were kayaking in Oregon, or parasailing off the Yucat�n�but the deeper he went, the darker and more troubling the dreams became. Too often, he found himself in this same weird state�asleep, but simultaneously, it seemed, aware of that fact�trying hard to marshal his thoughts and move them in another direction, but stuck all the same. Before he knew it, he was back on the barren ledge in the Cascades, huddling against the cold, with Kristin cradled in his
arms. He was holding her so tight his arms ached, and pressing his feet against the rocky wall so hard that he lost all feeling below the ankles. He was talking to her, telling her how mad her dad would be, how her sister would claim she was being such a drama queen. But when he awoke, with the flight attendant shaking him to say he had to sit up for landing, he found that he was clutching his own backpack, and his long legs were entangled in the metal runners of the seat in front of him.
Darryl was wide awake�that's what a few espressos will do for you�and grinning. �Look out your window!� he shouted over the engines. �It's on your side!�
Michael sat up, rubbing the rough whiskers on his chin, and lifted the shade. Again, he was struck by that eerie light that made him want to close his eyes or look away. But far ahead and far below, he could see the very tip of the South American continent, tapering like the sharp tip of a shoe, winnowing itself down to almost nothing where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans merged. And on the very tip of the shoe, he saw a tiny, black smudge.