“Jesus Christ.” Her voice crackled, the fear turning her angry. She put a hand to her throat, feeling as though her heart had stuck there. “Who the hell are you?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He gestured at the wall behind the door. “Can I take a look at the panel over here?”
“What?”
“I’m the electrician,” he said, enunciating the words in a flat Midwestern accent. “I got to do a first inspection for the winter season.”
“God, you startled me,” she said. Now that her heart rate was returning to normal, she saw he was holding a workbag and had trailed a cart full of tools behind him. It was a wonder she hadn’t heard him coming down the hall. “Go ahead.”
He placed his bag on the floor with a light metallic clatter, then pulled the cart into the room and shoved it against a wall. She watched him for a minute, uncertain if she should leave and let him do his thing, or if she should continue working, or if she should hover and act like she was interested in his work. Then it occurred to her that maybe she should hang around and make sure he didn’t do anything to the actual equipment, the stuff a wire jockey shouldn’t touch.
If he’s doing the first inspection of the season, then he’s a winter-over, just like you , Anne reminded herself. And you don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with one of the people you’re going to be stuck with for most of a year.
Putting on her best smile, she walked toward him, sticking her hand out as she went. “I’m sorry. Let’s start over. I’m Anne. I’m one of the astrophysicists wintering over. And please don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel so old.”
The man glanced up from sifting through the items on the cart, then back down. He slowly extended his hand. “Leroy Buskins.”
I wonder if he’s ever shaken hands with a woman outside of a church before . “You’re staying on for the winter, Leroy?”
He nodded. “Just got in.”
“They don’t give you much time to rest, do they?” she asked, putting some sympathy in her voice. “A day to get your wits about you and then you’re on your first shift.”
“Yeah.” His eyes flicked to her hair and she pushed a stray lock behind one ear self-consciously. “You were already here? From the summer, I mean?”
“That’s right. I was one of the lucky few who got to stay on through two seasons. A full year. You can get a lot more work done that way.”
He nodded, then turned back to his tray with a trace of a smile. “You don’t have to worry about your instruments, ma’am. I know better than to touch anything except the wires behind the panel over there.”
“Thank you, Leroy,” she said, ashamed. She’d taken him for a country bumpkin, something she’d vowed never to do at the Pole. Nobody down here was an idiot, even if they looked like a hayseed and wore overalls. “How about I leave you to your work, then? I’d probably just be in your way.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Leroy pulled out a screwdriver and went to work removing the panel. “I’ll be about half an hour.”
“Then that’s when I’ll come back.” Anne went over to her desk to grab some papers and her coffee mug, then headed for the door, her long hair swinging with each step. It was going to be a busy couple of days and she needed to meet with the other astrophysicists—or at least learn their names—and now was a good time to do it.
Just before she reached the door, she thought she heard Leroy say something and she glanced over with an expectant smile, but his attention was focused on the mess of wires that sprouted from the wall, frowning in concentration and whispering to himself as he worked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cass hurried down the hall to the A4 wing and along the narrow corridor to her berth, a five-by-ten-foot box that resembled a small dorm room at a state school where the funding had dried up.
A single bed was built into the left-hand wall. Next to it was the only horizontal surface in the room aside from the bed: a tiny nightstand that acted as both desk and bookshelf. Resting on it was a well-thumbed copy of The Worst Journey in the World , a mug with three-day-old coffee in it, a portable alarm clock, a reading light, and a handset phone. A large, single piece of cardboard had been cut to fit into the room’s only window so as to block out the light that spilled through it twenty-four hours a day during the summer. It had been there when she’d arrived back in November and she’d never removed it. Judging by the packing label that said “FEB 2008,” she was just the latest in a long line of people who hadn’t bothered to take it down.