“It’s a shitshow, Bozer. It’s politics. It’s messy.”
I don’t need him to spell it out. I’ve been through budget cuts before, but there have always been ways around them. There’s nothing a congressmen can throw at a Nailhead like me that I can’t turn into a solid plan of action. I tell Martin this, but he shakes his head. Tells me this time they’re going after the agency as a whole. They want to shut the whole place down in the middle of the research season, want to kill the experiments, kill the construction, put the station into caretaker mode until the Beakers and their bosses at the NSF cry uncle.
“You stop construction now, the entire thing’s gonna be under snow in a month,” I tell him. “They’ll have to put up twice as many dimes to rebuild this bitch when they finally get their heads out of their asses.”
“I know,” Martin says. He looks like he wants to cry. “I’m calling a meeting tonight. Please be there.”
Floyd pulls up and Martin climbs on the snowmobile. He waves as they pull away and head toward the station. It’s lunchtime. I look around and see I’m the only one at B3 now. I take a long look at the site. Martin’s right. This is a shitshow. But it’s my shitshow.
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
4201 WILSON BOULEVARD
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA 22230
Dear Ms. Gosling:
Please review and sign the attached addendum to your Release of Liability and Indemnity Agreement and Covenant Not to Sue contract, and return both to your Station Manager at your earliest convenience. Countersigned copies will be placed in your personnel file. I wish you the best for the upcoming winter.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Scaletta
Agency Director, National Science Foundation
a known issue
2004 January 31
09:11
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: MIA
C.,
Saw on the news there was some accident in Antarctica at a place whose name I’ve already forgotten but which isn’t Pole. I trust this is far from your strip mall at the bottom of the earth.
B.
*
2004 February 1
16:10
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: MIA Redux
So … now they’re saying that the accident involved a South Pole scientist and an NSF grantee, which leaves me wondering. I keep remembering you saying that if you died down there, we wouldn’t know. Dad has been calling NSF on the hour every hour and is getting nowhere. Something about HIPAA and privacy. Mom has resorted to burning sage in the bathroom at work. Be a pal and write back, or at least have NSF send us your death certificate so we can collect your death benefits.
*
2004 February 3
21:02
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: MIA Redux
B.,
Sorry. I’m alive. NSF said they contacted you guys. Right hand, index finger, down to the proximal phalanx, which basically means I lost the whole thing. I don’t remember much, but I’m told that I was palming the ice in order to get a better look at Pavano’s core-hole, and god that looks bad when typed. Pavano lost control of this massive ice-corer and apparently my finger was in the way. At first they were going to send me home, but because of some political algorithm, it’s better for everyone, self included, to keep me at Pole. I’m glad I’m staying. No offense. I like it down here. Anyway, it looks like this thing has set into motion some political crisis where Pavano is being framed as the exiled “minority-views” scientist using inferior tools because of the “culture wars,” and now we are prepping for a visit from some Washington dignitaries, who will land at Pole in a week.
C.
p.s. It took me forty minutes to write this e-mail. Tell Dad I’m okay. Tell Mom the polar bears say hey.
In the Smoke Bar, the vets were telling old station tales about the ones who went crazy: The guy who’d crammed a backpack full of graham crackers and beer and tried to walk to Zhongstan Station for hot-and-sour soup. The lady doing ice-core analysis last season who went on a vodka binge and tried to shave her underarms with a butter knife. The biophysicist who had torn the stuffing out of his pillow, because it “made too much noise in the night.”
“You’re all gonna be looney-tunes before this shit plays itself out,” Bozer boomed from his seat at the bar, and it was Bozer who noticed Cooper first. “Welcome back, cupcake,” he said. All eyes turned to her.
It had been two days since her trip outside, since Bozer had found her, fixed up her hand, and showed her a corpse. Seven pairs of eyes blinked at her, and Cooper couldn’t summon any words. Finally, Doc Carla hauled herself out of her chair, walked over to Cooper, and led her to a table.
“Bozer told me nothing,” she whispered. “But from here on out, you only get Advil.”
Cooper smiled gratefully and sat down. Pearl brought her a beer, but no one spoke.
“So,” Cooper said, taking a sip and looking around the room. “What happened while I was gone?”
Dwight and Sri glanced at each other, and then sped-walked to Cooper’s table, each with a fistful of faxes. Based on communications Dwight had received from his counterparts at McMurdo and WAIS, as well as eavesdropping he’d done on the admin lines, he’d learned that Pavano had been triaged for shock at the Divide, and then put on the same flight as Cooper, which was supposed to continue on to McMurdo after a refuel. But once the plane landed at Pole, the trauma team—led by Pearl—decided to bring Cooper in to Hard Truth instead. Pavano had wandered out of the C-17 while Cooper was transported to the clinic, and commenced a “drunkvincible” walk toward the Dark Sector. Sal and Floyd had had to chase him down.
Cooper’s ripped and bloodied mitten was currently in a Ziploc at McMurdo, along with the illegally procured corer. The tech who’d helped Pavano forge the sign-out had already been DQ’ed and put back on a plane to Missoula. That was the extent of the information they had about Pavano’s whereabouts and his future plans.
Dwight shoved one of the faxes he’d been holding at Cooper. “The campaign has already started.”
“Campaign?”
“Oh, you’re famous, Cooper,” Dwight said.
“As Jane Doe,” Sri added. He shrugged. “HIPAA rules.”