South Pole Station

“It just means that there will be a flag on your file, and if you violate any more policies, they may revisit your grant status.” He stared at Cooper for a long minute, and she realized he wanted her to plead with him not to do this, that the only reason he’d brought up the memo was so he could hear her beg him not to send it. She’d given up begging after David died, so she summoned her inner Bartleby and remained silent as the wind picked up around them. Finally, Simon shrugged his shoulders and walked up the entrance tunnel.

Cooper waited until he had disappeared, and then walked across the ice in the opposite direction. She passed the ceremonial South Pole marker—a line of international flags snapping in the breeze, representing the twelve signatories to the Antarctic Treaty, and a mirrored gazing ball set atop a barber’s pole. This tourist stop wasn’t her destination, though. No, she wanted ninety degrees south—the geographical South Pole, the Pole of her imagination, of David’s.

She could see it in the near distance, a polished copper star set atop a stake rooted to an ice sheet. From orientation, Cooper knew that on New Year’s Day, this marker would be ceremoniously repositioned to account for its annual drift, as the entire station population looked on. The copper star installed the year before would be replaced by another symbolic work of art wrought by one of the Polies. This year, Cooper had learned via the Antarctic Sun, the honor would go to Sal.

But Cooper didn’t care about polar tchotchkes. Back in Denver, Tucker had told Cooper that here she could find some of Robert Falcon Scott’s words printed on a sign speared into the ice. She gazed at the large square sign now. On the left were Roald Amundsen’s bland platitudes, the kind of banalities uttered by those who won races. On the right was a quote from Scott, the words of a man who had given everything, including his life, in his attempt to reach the Pole, only to come in second place to Amundsen: The Pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected.



Son,

I hope your decision to send me the book was not an attempt to gain my acceptance for your lifestyle choice. You won’t get it. We’ve shared some good times in the past—you always did know how to make me laugh. But that’s all behind us now. You’ve made your choice and now I’ve made mine. Our conversation tonight was our last. There will be no more of them. No communications at all. I will not come to visit, and I don’t want you in my house. Have a good Christmas and a good life.



Goodbye.

Leon (Dad)





borderline-borderline

When the contract psychologist told Tucker there was a “borderline” applicant waiting in the office, he took her literally. After all, the job site was almost custom-made to attract people with personality disorders: narcissists, anti-socials, avoidants, dependents. Borderlines. The well-adapted chose McMurdo, the Hampton Inn of Antarctica. The slightly less normal picked Palmer Station. Only the margin-dwellers looked farther inland, toward Amundsen-Scott. It was the most remote research station on the planet, a place you went to become unreachable. This, of course, diminished the pool of applicants, so only those with a documented history of psychiatric disorders were rejected out of hand.

There were three widely accepted behavioral predictors that distinguished a successful polar applicant: emotional stability, industriousness, and sociability. But these traits had to be finely balanced against the necessary component of “crazy” required of a person who would choose to spend months upon months in Antarctica. Furthermore, that person had to be interesting enough for others to want to spend large amounts of time with, but not too “interesting.” Over the years, Tucker had learned that some social skills were more highly valued at Pole than others: intimate familiarity with Settlers of Catan, detailed knowledge of nonconformist zombie-apocalypse scenarios, and the willingness to grow facial hair competitively, to name a few.

As he looked through the applicant files each season, Tucker would wonder how he had slipped by. Not only slipped by, but climbed the ranks quickly, going from site manager to area director in a single season without the relevant experience typically required for a promotion. He knew nothing about carpentry. Less about logistics. Zero about the allocation of limited resources. The Pole veterans assigned to positions under him knew far more than he did about how the station was run, but they had showed no bitterness at his appointment. This worried Tucker, until he realized that he hadn’t been hired for his technical skills. When Karl Martin had offered him a job five years earlier, he’d mentioned Tucker’s “cool gaze” and his powers of observation—both key attributes, apparently, for a successful South Pole station manager. It struck Tucker as bizarre that he had not had to submit to a psychological exam himself.

“Not borderline-borderline,” the psychologist said to Tucker now. “Borderline, as in she’s right on the cut-off.”

“Reason?”

“Fairly recent death in the family.”

“Cancer?”

“Suicide.”

“That’s an automatic DQ.”

The psychologist wrinkled her nose and grimaced. “Yeah, but she’s one of the Artist and Writers Fellows. You know the parameters are a little wider on those applicants. Also, she wouldn’t look at the results. Technically a red flag.”

“That’s a red flag?”

“I know, I actually had to look that up in the manual. No one’s ever not wanted to look before.”

“What did the manual say?”

“That it suggests avoidance.”

Tucker pinched the bridge of his nose. “Naturally. I’ll go see her.”

“Room two twenty-one.”

Tucker walked down a hallway in the Systems and Solutions wing, which was lined with framed photographs of VIDS’s various work sites—the U.S. military’s “enduring bases,” like Kosovo’s Camp Bondsteel, Bosnia’s Eagle Base, and Bagram Airfield outside of Kabul. South Pole Station was considered by VIDS to be part of its “Hostile and Developing Regions” branch, but Tucker was far removed from the military ops. Still, it was not uncommon to see military types—mostly black-ops CIA agents—going into the VIDS offices with the contract psychologists for their own exams. Tucker admired the agents’ taut bodies, their set jaws, their bristle-brush hair.

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