It was a small piece in the Associated Press daily digest, with the headline: “Injury reported at ice-coring camp in Antarctica.” The reporter quoted a source as saying that Pavano had been denied use of the industrial corer to which all other climate scientists at WAIS had access. That same anonymous source indicated that Pavano’s time at the ice-coring camp and at South Pole Station itself had been marked by open hostility, ostracism, and obstruction. In other words, climate scientists had made research impossible for him, so, out of desperation, he’d worked around them.
“And then these just came in tonight,” Sri said, bouncing on the tops of his toes. He handed her additional news digests, the same ones that arrived every night, but Sri had highlighted the headlines, which included “Climate skeptic ‘frozen’ out at climate change camp,” “Could Antarctica accident have been avoided?” and “Republican congressmen who pushed for climate skeptic say ‘hostile working environment’ to blame in Antarctic amputation.”
“‘Antarctic amputation’ sounds like a Lovecraft novel,” Cooper said, but only Birdie laughed.
“It’s not funny, Cooper,” Sri said. “This is serious. They’re coming to Pole.”
“Who’s coming?”
“The politicians, the suits, the directors, the congressional aides, the media.”
“I think it was all a setup from day one,” Dwight barked. “This shit was orchestrated.”
“Dwight,” Pearl said warningly.
Dwight looked over at Cooper guiltily. “I mean, I don’t know if the finger thing was part of it, or…”
Cooper wondered if Dwight was right. What if it was all a setup? She recalled Pavano’s preternatural calm in the line that first day at the Divide, when the “freeze-out” had begun. The way he’d come prepared with an envelope full of cash and the technical know-how to erect a twenty-foot-high ice-core drill. It wasn’t just that he expected the roadblocks; it was almost as if he’d welcomed them.
“So what exactly happened?” Sri asked as he paced under the dart board. “I mean, I know you’re not really allowed to talk about it … but…”
“They didn’t give him a tech. They didn’t give him access to any drills, or give him any means of extracting a core. I wasn’t approved either, as his research tech, even though Pavano forwarded me an e-mail the day before we left that said I was.”
Sri scratched his head compulsively and muttered, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”
“But he didn’t seem too upset about it,” Cooper replied.
“That’s because he’s incapable of showing emotion,” Sri snapped.
“No, I just mean that he didn’t seem surprised. He seemed—I don’t know—prepared for it.” Sri stopped pacing and stared at her for a minute. Then he slammed his beer on a nearby table and raced out of the bar. The beer was quickly claimed.
As the conversations picked up again, Cooper leaned over to Pearl, who had resumed her knitting under Birdie’s adoring gaze. “Have you seen Sal?”
Pearl shook her head. “I haven’t seen him for days. I think he’s sleeping in his lab. Alek comes and gets the team’s meals. Must be important stuff happening.”
*
The dystopian hum of the power plant rattled in Cooper’s chest as she passed two arguing maintenance techs on her way to Hard Truth.
“What time is it?” one said.
“What is time?” the other replied.
“Shut up and tell me what time it is.”
“But time is irrelevant here.”
“I’m just asking if we’re still on New Zealand time now or if we switched to Denver time yet.”
“Where did the extra day go?”
“Smoke my meat, asshole.”
As Cooper headed toward the entrance tunnel, she heard someone calling her name. It was Sal. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to run to him or run away, but as he got closer to her, she felt her body grow lighter, as if she might float away. His gait bore no trace of that swagger that made him so easy to identify out on the ice, when everyone looked the same in their parkas and hoods. He walked as if he’d walk right through her, but when he reached her, he gathered in his arms and pulled her up against his body. She felt him take three deep, deliberate breaths.
“You didn’t wait,” he said. “You were supposed to wait. You were supposed to let me come get you before leaving your room. Fuck you for not waiting.”
“I’m sorry, Sal,” Cooper said, and meant it.
“Bozer told me what happened,” he said into the top of her head. “Outside.” His warm breath on her hair felt good. “He saved your life.”
“I know.”
“You should be on a flight home.”
“I know,” Cooper said. “Did Bozer tell everyone about what happened outside?”
“No, only me and Doc Carla.”
“Why you?”
Sal pulled away and looked at her. “Because even he knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Are you going to make me say it?” Sal said. She winced as Sal pulled her close again and her hand was caught under his arm.
“Christ, I’m sorry,” he said. He glanced down at her bandaged hand. “How is it?”
“Doc Carla keeps telling me that it will start looking better, but right now it looks like bad sci-fi makeup.”
“You shouldn’t have been on the Divide—”
“Sal—”
“No, let me finish. You shouldn’t have been there—but more important, like vastly, vastly more important, Pavano should never have been there.” He let her go and ran his hand down his beard as he paced. “I don’t know what to do. I mean, it’s one thing for oil executives to pressure Congress to defund working groups on the human impacts of climate change, but to send someone like Pavano to the Divide, and then to dangle him on stage like a puppet.” He stopped and looked at Cooper. “And then your hand—your fucking hand, Cooper!”
As Cooper watched him pace, she found she was becoming annoyed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This. This ‘I’m outraged’ act. The last time I saw you I was a mistake you’d made. You were confused. You were sorry. Is this you being angry at Pavano for hurting me or you being angry that some politicians are fucking with your sacred science shit?”
Sal looked at Cooper for a long minute. “I deserve that. All of it.”
Cooper hated him for saying this. It left her nowhere else to take her anger.
Sal reached out a hand to her. “I have something to show you in the machine shed,” he said. “Will you come?” Cooper looked at his mismatched mittens. One was black, a Gore-Tex, while the other—the one he was holding out to her now—was a fur-backed gauntlet with a large rip along the top. Cooper knew at once that the Gore-Tex mitten she’d found in skua, the one with the barbecue-encrusted tips—the one she’d painted months ago—was Sal’s. For some reason, her anger dissipated.
She put her hand in his and allowed him to take her to the machinery arch.