Hanratty was the first to recover. “Jennings, what are you doing here?”
“I work here,” she said evenly. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to oversee the loading situation,” Taylor said. Hanratty winced.
“From the VMF?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you see more in the warehouse?”
“Of course,” Hanratty said. “We were just on our way there.”
Cass turned. “What about you, Dr. Keene?”
He shrugged, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. Of the three, he was the only one not in a parka. His breath steamed as he spoke. “Just bored, Cass. I don’t get down to the service bays very often. Actually, since you’re here, this is a great chance to ask you about some of the things you do. For example, what in the world is this thing—”
Keene was interrupted by a crash from the back of the shop, where the spare parts for every vehicle on base were stored in a labyrinthine collection of racks and shelves. Frowning, Cass turned and walked toward the noise.
“Jennings!” Hanratty called, but Cass ignored him. The racks were in a darkened alcove of the VMF and she fumbled for a light switch. As she did so, a splash of light lit the muddy gloom as the adjoining door to the carpentry shop was thrown open and a slim form dashed through the opening.
What the . . . “Hey,” Cass yelled and hurried after the form. Behind her, Hanratty and Taylor called to her again, but she ignored them, more than a little pissed. It was one thing to find three of the base’s highest-ranking managers in her garage; it was another if someone was screwing around with her inventory. She stretched her hands out in the darkness to keep from impaling herself on a protruding crankshaft or jack, piloting to the carpentry door by memory, then threw open the door.
The white overhead lights were on full blast in the carpentry shop and she squinted at the sudden glare. The door on the far side was just closing shut, and she raced across the little workshop, zigging and zagging between benches and counters. Moving awkwardly in her outdoor gear, she cut a corner too close and caught the toe of her boot on a definitely immovable object. Her ankle was wrenched the wrong way. The thick walls of her boot kept it from turning further, but she still hissed as pain lanced up her leg.
Pushing through it, she hobbled to the door and flung it open. A blast of freezing cold air hit her in the face—this was the long tunnel connecting the service arches that she’d brought Sikes and her other charges down earlier that day. Shielding her face with her hands, she peered through the gap of her fingers. The figure she’d been chasing was pelting down the tunnel and moving fast. Cass limped after, but in just a few seconds, the form had disappeared into the gloom and shrinking horizon of the tunnel walls.
Cursing, she shambled back through the carpentry shop and into the VMF, full of questions. But when she got back to the garage, Hanratty, Taylor, and Keene were gone, leaving nothing behind but the buzz of the overhead lights and the muffled roar of the Hercules in the distance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I didn’t even want to come to the Pole,” Colin Sutter was saying. “What I really wanted to do was study the Gamburtsevs.”
“Ah, yes. The Gamburtsevs.” Tim Kowalski shot a glance at Carla Bjorkholm. “The Russian circus family? From Moscow? I caught their show in New York once.”
“No,” Colin said, confused. He pushed his glasses up a long nose. “It’s a subglacial mountain range east of here. It’s quite famous.”
“So is the circus,” Carla said, straight-faced.
Anne took up the thread. “Amazing contortionists. Their show is something to see. You should get out more, Colin.”
“The Gamburtsevs? Really?” Colin frowned. “I suppose it might be a common name in Russia . . .”
The three glanced at one another. Tim popped an eyebrow, Carla shrugged, Anne smothered a grin. Colin’s cluelessness bordered on the obtuse, but after having spent the summer season together, they were used to his quirks. Tim, a materials engineer, had suggested that, as a geologist, his friend had taken on the properties of the object he studied and, in fact, they probably all had. When Carla asked how that applied to her as a biologist who studied molds, he backpedaled, although he returned to his theory in a clumsy attempt to compare Anne to the stars. He gave up when Anne told him she dealt mostly in radio astronomy and hadn’t looked through an optical telescope since she was in college.