An overwhelming stench of body odor hit Cooper full on. “Oh shit,” she choked.
“Welcome to the Beaker Box. I should’ve warned you. Scientists smell worse. No one knows why.”
Cooper looked down the narrow hallway at the solid doors, the absence of enormous heaters, and the comparatively luxurious quarters of the Beakers and senior Nailheads. “Why do you guys get the nice rooms?”
“Because we’re important,” Sal replied.
As they walked down the hall, men in various states of undress sat hunched over tiny desks, studying papers or working on their laptops. “Skirt alert,” Sal called. A few doors slammed shut; others flew open, and were followed by shaggy-haired heads.
Sal’s room was much bigger than Cooper’s, with a large desk and an Ethernet connection. Their beds were the same size, though, she noted with satisfaction. Against the back wall, a small window looked out onto the runway and, beyond that, the Dark Sector. Sal crouched down and began flipping through books stashed in a bookcase fashioned from an apple crate. Finally, he pulled a hand-bound book from the shelf and handed to her. It was plain, White Album–style, and the length of a novella. The cover was torn and the pages had been stapled together. It was titled The Crud: Or How to Deal with All the South Pole Bullshit.
“I have to say, I’m already intimately familiar with the Crud,” Cooper said as she flipped through the book.
“This is about the existential Crud. It’s full of stuff not found in the South Pole Station Handbook. Think of it as a secret resource for coping when things get hard. And they will get harder, trust me. There’s a sequel waiting for you when you finish.”
“Why are you giving this to me?”
Sal reached for his anorak. “Because I’m invested in your mental health, as it relates to the tot-art you’re working on for me,” he said. “But be careful with it. VIDS would give up two antiballistic missiles to get a hold of this book. This is the last remaining copy on the ice. The rest of them are in Al Gore’s lockbox.”
“Right next to my ability to produce decent art,” Cooper said, tucking the book under her arm.
“Art’s easy,” Sal said. He pulled on the anorak. “Just present a subject and make a statement about it.” He grinned at her. “Don’t get mad. I’m kidding.” He picked up a stack of papers from his desk and waved them at her. “By the way, everyone completed the survey, except you, Tucker, and Pavano.”
“For someone with such big cosmic questions to deal with, you seem really worried about weirdly inconsequential things.”
“Inconsequential? I don’t like politics in my science. Do you?”
“I don’t have politics or science.”
“Well, that’s your problem, then. All art is politics.” He pointed at The Crud. “Do not let this fall into the wrong hands.”
“That may have already happened,” she said.
“No,” Sal said, tapping the book gently, and brushing Cooper’s fingers as he did so. “It’s definitely in the hands of the person who needs it.”
*
When she finally arrived at her room in Summer Camp, Cooper found a piece of paper attached to the door, flapping in the draft. To the (wo)man who spilled his/her piss on my boots and then fled (piss-and-run): Identify yourself. Otherwise I’ll be forced to spend the rest of the summer looking for you. Signed, Super Angry but Willing to Forgive at the Right Price Electrician in D3.
She tore the note off the door, grateful once again for the anonymity provided by polarwear, and opened the door. After removing her ECW gear, she got under the covers with The Crud. The table of contents included chapters like “The VIDS Clusterfuck,” “How to Score a Shower Curtain and Keep HR from Confiscating It Because for Some Reason They’re Illegal,” “Surviving DVs: Distinguished Visitors and Other Annoying VIPs,” and “Why McMurdo Sucks.” The book indicated, for example, that McMurdo-ites were mostly unfit for true polar service. Apparently, the fact that Discovery Hut was within walking distance of McMurdo, and that this historic site was a preferred location for clandestine blow jobs, caused the polar philatelists no end of grief. (It was also why Cooper had not felt moved to visit Discovery Hut during her layover at McMurdo—that, and the fact that it had been mobbed by cruise ship passengers, all of whom were still wearing life jackets.) McMurdo-ites also sucked because of their obsession with penguins; they were not above slithering across the ice on their bellies to get photos of indifferent Adélies.
Cooper’s reading was interrupted by a commotion in the hallway—the canvas-duck walls rippled with the constant opening and closing of the Jamesway door. By the time she’d scrambled out of bed and opened her door, a squirming mass of bodies had filled the hall. Everyone was getting into ECW gear. Suddenly All-Call—the station’s public address system—crackled on, and a robotic Speak & Spell voice began chanting: “A fire alarm has been reported. Please stand by for further instructions.” Before Cooper could fully process these words, Kit grabbed her arm.
“You’re on the fire team, right?” he said. Cooper thought for a moment—yes, back in Denver she had been assigned to the fire team. She scrambled back into her ECW gear and was almost out the door before she thought to grab the vial. She was stuffing it into the deepest part of her parka when Kit yanked open her door and pulled her down the hallway.
Outside, a flock of snowmobiles awaited them, piloted by the heavy machine operators who’d been on shift at the time of the fire call. Kit helped Cooper onto one, then climbed on in front of her, and they zoomed off toward the Dome.
“Do you see anything?” Kit called over his shoulder. Cooper pulled her face out of Kit’s parka to look. Nope—just the half-sunk diamond dome and the orange Skylab tower behind it. No plumes of smoke, no sign of fire, besides the insect-like agitation of the Polies Cooper could now see mustering at the station entrance. The snowmobile they were on zipped past the Pole marker and entered the tunnel.