Finally an announcement came over All-Call. The Russians were ten minutes out. Sal, Marcy, and Bozer hopped on snowmobiles and headed out to ignite the smudge pots. Cooper glanced over at the temperature gauge. Sixty-three below zero. This was, as Floyd had mentioned many times, the kind of cold that could turn hydraulic fluid into pudding if the plane landed for more than two minutes.
Then came the call that the bird was two minutes out, and everyone rushed into the darkness, the team leaders gripping sets of night-vision goggles. Cooper could feel the rumble of the plane’s engines in her chest as its underwing lights appeared like bright stars on the horizon. Its roar grew louder and louder, until it seemed that Cooper’s eardrums were going to burst, and that’s when the parcels began drifting down from the inky sky. They floated softly on miniature parachutes illuminated by the teams’ searchlights; Cooper thought they looked like jellyfish. The plane made a graceful turn on the far west side of the station, and passed back over them, waggling its wings.
In the distance, Cooper could see two Polies—probably Sal and Pearl—silhouetted by Marcy’s headlights as she followed along behind them, waiting for cargo with her forklift. Cooper retreated deeper into the entrance tunnel, and her walkie-talkie started to crackle. Sal’s voice broke through the static. “Are the doors open?”
“Yes!” Cooper shouted.
“The machines are loaded,” Sal said. “We’re on our way.”
Floyd arrived on a snowmobile, pulling a pallet, with Pearl sitting behind him.
“They gave us oranges!” Pearl exclaimed, waving a bag of what looked like frozen suns. “Oranges! Can you believe it? Fresh fruit! Oh, I wish Birdie were here to see this.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, the teams arrived with the rest of the cargo, which included a box of medical supplies for Doc Carla, DVDs of Russian soap operas, thirteen cases of vodka, and more oranges, which had been a gift from the flight crew. As everyone arrived, Cooper tried raising Sal on the radio again, but got nothing except static. She began asking the others if they’d seen him. Denise claimed he was loading cargo, but when Cooper tried to radio Sal again, she got no response. She mentally checked off every Polie who’d walked by her. Everyone was in, except for Sal.
“Give me a body count,” Bozer said, suddenly standing next to her.
“Sal’s missing,” Cooper told him. The words made it real.
Bozer brought the radio to his mouth and called for Sal. Nothing. He tried again. Cooper was now gripped by panic. She’d been here before. She’d stood in one place, dumb and mute, and waited for someone who hadn’t returned. She refused to wait this time. Cooper made a dash for the entrance tunnel, but Bozer caught up to her easily and roughly yanked her back inside. He pushed her away and jabbed a finger in her parka. “Calm down.”
“Go get him, Bozer,” Cooper cried. “Go get him.”
Bozer pulled his mittens back on slowly. “Where is he on the grid?”
“He’s supposed to be on the northwest quadrant.” Bozer gestured to Marcy, who pulled her hood back over her head and walked toward the nearest snowmobile. Cooper started pacing.
Then a figure appeared down at the entrance end of the tunnel, red in the lights, hauling a pallet. Sal. It took a moment for Cooper to notice the two men skiing up the tunnel behind him. They were wearing ECW gear and carrying astoundingly large packs. Each was sporting a headlamp. It took her a minute, but Cooper realized with astonishment that they were the Swedes—the two men she had fed all those months ago. Halfway up the tunnel, they stopped, expertly plucked off their skis, and laid them against their shoulders before continuing.
Cooper watched as Sal and the Swedes reached the top of the tunnel. Sal’s triumphant smile disappeared when he saw Cooper’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I just—I thought you were lost,” she replied, trying to sound calm, trying not to throw herself on him. “You didn’t answer your radio. We called for you over and over. I was worried.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said. “I lost my radio somewhere between the north and northwest quads. Then I found these guys. When I saw them coming in, I thought I was hallucinating.”
By this time, a knot of people had gathered around to get a better look at the skiers as they loaded their gear onto Bozer’s snowmobile. One of them had pulled out the familiar Swedish flag that Cooper had last seen draped atop a ski. She and Sal continued toward the galley, where the supplies were being carried for inspection. “Why are they here?” Cooper asked, though she hardly cared.
“They were camping at the Japanese base when they heard about the shutdown,” Sal replied. “They felt it was their duty as international citizens to show support—they say they’re loaded with goodies from Dome Fuji. I hope they brought mochi.”
But Cooper barely heard what Sal was saying. She couldn’t stop looking at him. It was as if he had been raised from the dead, as if she had spotted a lone figure waving at her from across the Beardsmore.
Inside the galley, chaos reigned. The Polies ripped open the crates with crowbars and the handles of metal soup ladles. There were thirty-pound bags of yellow onions, tins of instant coffee, canned cheese, and an entire pallet of gold foil–covered military rations, each containing a half-pound of beef, dried biscuits, and dehydrated potatoes. Doc Carla picked through the medical supplies, while Dwight sifted through the various DVDs and produced an old cassette tape of the Red Army Choir’s greatest hits.
Nothing had been packed especially well, and a box of powdered tomato soup in cups had exploded, covering its crate with a fine red dust. But in the last box, lovingly packed within three layers of bubble wrap and placed in a bed of straw, Alek discovered sixteen bottles of ice-cold Russian vodka—Green Mark. His joy was equaled only by his teary-eyed nostalgia at hearing the strains of the Red Army Choir’s “Song of the Volga Boatmen” trudging out of the speakers.
*
It took twelve hours for news of the Russian airdrop, and the unexpected Swedish delegation, to hit the news cycle. The Kremlin was quick to trumpet its act of philanthropy, while the Swedish station on Dronning Maud Land sent out a press release praising its countrymen for their hardiness. Soon, offers of help were coming in from the Kiwis at Scott Base, the Uruguayans on King George Island, the Indian scientists at Bharati Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the French Polies working through the winter at Dumont d’Urville. The Brits at Halley Research Station were more circumspect, seeing that they were literally floating on an ice shelf in the Weddell Sea.
The Polies gathered in Comms, save for Sal and Alek, who remained bunkered in the Dark Sector, as Dwight read the statement from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had come in over the wire.