She flushed again. Her lips had been moving, mouthing the words of that report, and Keene had been watching her. She needed to pull herself together or he’d stamp “NUTS” on her personnel file and she’d be thrown onto the last plane along with Sikes and his circus.
“I’ve read the literature, Dr. Keene,” she said, trying to reassert some control over the conversation. In her lap and out of Keene’s sight, Cass squeezed her hands together, feeling the fingers bend under the pressure. “The crew of some of the most successful Antarctic missions exhibited exactly my kind of characteristics . . . they often excelled because of traits usually thought of as antisocial, in fact. You can’t boil a person down to a five-point test or know how they’re going to behave under stress from a set of questions.”
“That’s technically correct,” Keene said slowly. “But those batteries are the best tools we have to predict emotional and mental behavior.”
“People find a way to cross hurdles, regardless of their personal handicaps.”
He shook his head. “Each year’s crew faces isolation, confinement, and an extreme physical environment. We’d all like to think that they made it through those nine months of winter regardless of the mental or emotional makeup of their staff, but that is a deeply dangerous presumption. We can’t let familiarity breed contempt. A winter-over at Shackleton is an almost unique human living situation and the margins for error are razor thin. What were manageable events for other crews might become a life-and-death crisis for this year’s staff. If I see behavior or even an attitude that threatens that, it’s my responsibility to call it out.”
“What are you suggesting, Dr. Keene? That I’m too mentally unstable to work on snowmobile engines? That I’m unfit to do my job as a janitor ?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and she realized she’d been baited. Would that go on her record? Quick to take offense, dissatisfied with her role on base . “Of course not, Cass. Nor do I think that your function as a . . . sanitation engineer should be looked down upon. I know all about the staffers versus the eggheads. If you think about it, I’m a staffer. I might have a PhD, but my work isn’t tied to deep space astrophysics or neutrino analysis. And I’ve got the stigma of being on staff and the base shrink. Nobody wants to sit at my lunch table, I can tell you.”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m saying that I understand my role here and I’m comfortable with it.”
She shook her head to clear it. “Dr. Keene, why am I here? I get it. I have a spotty psych profile. But I cleared every hurdle the recruitment team at TransAnt could throw at me and passed. I was asked by the station manager to help bring in a poor woman who’d died in the cold, yet I haven’t broken down into a puddle or locked myself in my berth. What’s the problem?”
Keene held up a placating hand. “It’s precautionary, Cass. Nothing more. Your behavior at the station has been completely normal and, you’re right, you’ve handled the situation with Sheryl in stride. As well, or better, in fact, as almost anyone on base. My only goal in talking to you today is to see if your . . . history and Sheryl’s death, taken together, formed a third, synergistic, problem.”
“Would her death be a trigger for me, you mean?”
“In short, yes.”
“And?”
He closed her folder and tossed it back on the stack in the corner. “I don’t see that it has been or will be. I’ll be frank; your personal history and FFI profile concerned me before you even landed at Shackleton. But I simply see a skilled and dedicated woman doing her job in an exceptional environment under stressful conditions. Even your occasional verbal barbs are what would be considered a normal level of aggravation and aggression at being subjected to a psychological interrogation. As far as I’m concerned, you’re fine.”
Her hands relaxed, gently unfolding on her lap. She managed to keep from sighing with relief.
“However,” he continued and the knot in her chest clenched again, “these are early days. We aren’t even technically in the winter-over period. As you say”—he smiled—“you’ve read the literature. You know that the stressors that form the staple of the winter-over experience don’t even begin to occur until later in the season, perhaps not even until midwinter.”
“There’s still plenty of time to go crazy, in other words.”
“Something like that. So, I want you to come to me if you exhibit any kind of somatic issues. Things like sleep disturbance, poor appetite, constipation, fatigue, that kind of thing. They may seem like minor medical issues—and more in Dr. Ayres’s bailiwick—but they can also be the precursors of profound psychological disturbance. Unfortunately, they’re so incremental that they often go unaddressed until it’s too late.”
She nodded, but Keene waited her out until she said, “I’ll do that.”