“I’ve got one,” she panted when she reached him. She told him it was a quote. History, Tucker thought. No good, and he told her so. But she insisted, and so he acted as if he was going to write it down.
“‘If you are a brave man, you will do nothing; if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery.’ Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Of the Scott party.” There was no imploring gaze, no clasped hands, no more fear in her eyes—just her frank, open face. “I’m a coward. Let me prove I’m brave.”
For some reason, Tucker thought of Doc Carla asking him if he knew how to drive, all those years ago. She seemed to be saying then, as Cooper seemed to be saying now, that if you were a coward and knew you were a coward, you would do fine in this life. Maybe that, along with regular chemical peels, was why Tucker had made it this far.
*
Doc Carla was sitting on one of the metal steps leading to the clinic, smoking a cigarette through her filthy balaclava. Only her tired face was visible. Tucker kicked some snow over a frozen mound of vomit, and took the seat next to her. Doc Carla glanced down at the puke and took a long drag off her cigarette. “Poor guy almost made it to the can.”
Tucker watched a grader grind down the entrance tunnel on its way to the work site and noticed Cooper walking across the long expanse under the Dome, alone, hood off but goggles on. She didn’t see him, and he restrained the impulse to call to her, to check on her. She had made herself scarce since getting lost a few days ago in the Utilidors—the underground utility tunnels through which Floyd had been leading Fingys on a tour. Her humiliation touched something deep in his being.
“The Crud’s rampant, Tucker,” Doc Carla said. “Got four of ’em beating down my door this morning.” She took one last drag off the cigarette, then dropped it in the snow. “But the Crud I can handle.” Tucker looked over at the doctor; they were not even to Halloween yet and she already seemed preoccupied. Tucker wanted Doc Carla to remain content, but he still wasn’t sure if diagnosing hematomas and treating cracked hands with Super Glue was going to keep her happy.
Doc Carla coughed. “So, you think she must’ve come here knocked up.”
“Maybe. But if she was, she didn’t know. She wouldn’t have come if she’d known.”
“That one would come if her legs and arms were chopped off. And you know it.”
Tucker thought back to the incident at the comestibles berms two days earlier that had kicked off this whole drama. He had come into the galley after Pearl had radioed him for help—she and Bonnie were making lamb ragout for dinner later in the week, and they needed two lamb carcasses from the berms, which were located a quarter mile from the station. When he’d arrived in the kitchen, Marcy and Cooper were slouched over the metal prep table, having also been summoned. Cooper had been on house-mouse duty all week, a rotating job each Polie undertook at least twice a season that had him or her at the beck and call of the galley.
“About time,” Marcy snapped, peevish.
“‘He who forces time is pushed back by time; he who yields to time finds time on his side,’” Tucker replied. “Talmud.”
“I don’t care what he said, I just don’t like sitting here with my thumb up my ass when I could be out helping Bozer on A3.” Marcy was Bozer’s right-hand woman, a skilled heavy machine operator with four winters under her belt, more than any woman in polar history. She wore stained Carhartts, her dishwater-blond hair tucked into a rainbow-colored knit cap, and she could replace the suspension system on a thirty-year-old tractor with her eyes closed.
“You’re in a sweetheart of a mood, Marce,” Tucker said.
“I just want to get this show on the road,” she growled.
Ten minutes later, Tucker was straddling a snowmobile, his arms around Marcy’s waist, with Cooper seated behind him. The engine roared as they sped out to the comestibles berms, rounded mounds of snow that stretched like dikes along the plowed paths. There were berms for many things: wooden spools, obsolete scientific equipment, construction debris. Tucker remembered seeing the berms from the air on his first plane ride in, laid out like Morse code in the snow.
Marcy suddenly gunned the engines and pulled the snowmobile sharply into a doughnut, sending up a sheet of ice crystals. Tucker felt Cooper tugging desperately on his parka in an effort to stay on. When Marcy pulled up to the berm, she braked hard, and Cooper was thrown off the snowmobile before it had come to a stop. To Tucker’s great relief, she got to her feet, brushed the snow from her parka, and headed to the berms without even glancing back, barely limping.
Tucker looked at Marcy. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Just wanted to give the Fingy a thrill,” Marcy replied.
“Or a compound fracture.”
Suddenly, Marcy’s shoulders convulsed, and a great wave seemed to roll up her back. She listed to the right and vomited onto the ice. Tucker saw Cooper turn at the sound of Marcy’s retching. Veterans seemed immune to the Crud, and Tucker had never known Marcy to be sick. He had a bad feeling about this, but knew it was better to wait on Marcy than to press her. He waved Cooper back toward the berms. A few minutes later, he joined her, and together they chopped away at the snow and ice surrounding the lamb carcasses. “She okay?” Cooper asked. Tucker nodded, but said nothing.
After a few minutes, Marcy finally got herself upright and motored over to the berm. Tucker and Cooper dragged the two lamb carcasses to the cargo hauler attached to Marcy’s snowmobile. Without a word, Marcy revved the engine, and as Tucker and Cooper climbed onto the back, she casually vomited again.
By the time they were all walking through the galley, though, Marcy had regained some strength, and even joked with some of the Nailheads on her way to the bathroom. Both Tucker and Cooper followed Marcy into the restroom, however.
“Get this parka off me,” she said. Tucker clawed at the Escher landscape of zippers on the heavy coat and yanked it off, just in time for Marcy to launch herself toward the toilet. He backed up against the wall until he was almost a part of it, but Cooper headed straight for the stall and gently pulled Marcy’s hair out of her face. This was good, Tucker thought. First, she’d done a tuck-and-roll after being thrown from the snowmobile and hadn’t blinked. Now she was helping Marcy puke with dignity. She could be useful. It was good to be useful, especially for a Fingy. Especially for an artist Fellow. Good, good, good! As his thoughts devolved into one-word declaratives, a bigger thought wormed its way through the cracks: Marcy didn’t have the Crud. Marcy was knocked up.