He was holding an ice cube between two gloved fingers, his pinkie delicately extended. Gently touching the ice to the surface of the slide, he said, “Keep your eye on the magic monitor.”
On the screen, even the tiniest corner of the ice cube was like a glacier, instantly blotting out half the field. Darryl promptly removed it, but the damage had been done. Like a wind blowing across a pond, a million tiny fissures rippled across the surface of the slide, touching each skin cell and radiating outward in all directions until, finally, all activity had stopped. What had been moving and circulating only seconds before was completely still. Frozen. Dead.
“As you can see, once you let ice come into direct contact with tissue, all bets are off.”
“I thought the AFGP-5 would prevent that.”
“It can prevent ice crystals from propagating in the bloodstream, but not from binding to the skin cells,” Darryl said. “That’s why antifreeze fish stay well below the ice cap.”
“Eleanor should have no problem with that,” Charlotte said.
“But can she make sure—absolutely sure—that she never touches ice in any form? That she never takes a cold drink and lets an ice cube graze her lips? That she never slips on a sidewalk and puts her bare hand down on an icy patch of ground? That she never reaches into a freezer, absentmindedly, to remove a bag of frozen vegetables?”
“And if she did?”
“She’d freeze so hard, she’d shatter like glass.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
December 25, 1:15 p.m.
MICHAEL HAD BUNDLED ELEANOR up in so many layers, even her own mother would not have known her. She was just a bundle of clothes, moving slowly across the frozen concourse. Michael kept a lookout in all directions, but there was no one around. That was the thing about going for a walk in Antarctica—you weren’t likely to bump into many other pedestrians, even on Christmas Day. As they passed the old meat locker, he hurried her along, then, when they got near Betty and Tina’s glaciology lab, he did so again; in the core yard, he could hear a buzz saw going. Eleanor gave him a curious glance, but he shook his head and pulled her along. At the kennel, a couple of the dogs stood up, their tails wagging, hoping to be taken for a run, but fortunately they didn’t bark. The lights were on in the marine biology lab, which was a good sign. Michael hoped that Darryl was hard at work, perfecting some solution to Eleanor and Sinclair’s problem.
Off in the distance, apart from most of the other modules, he saw his destination, and guided Eleanor toward it. They passed under the wooden trellis, then up the ramp. Even under all the clothes she was shivering.
Michael opened the door, parted the plastic curtains just inside, and ushered her into the botany lab proper. Hot, humid air suddenly engulfed them, and Eleanor gasped in surprise. He drew her farther inside and helped her to unzip her coat and pull off her hat and gloves. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, but there was a welcome spot of color in her cheeks. And her green eyes shone.
Shrugging off his own outer gear, he said, “They study all kinds of plants in here—the local variety, to the extent that there are any, and foreign. Antarctica’s still the cleanest environment on earth for lab work.” He brushed away the long hair that was plastered to his forehead. “But the way things are going, it may not be for long.”
Eleanor had already wandered away, drawn by the fragrant aroma of fat strawberries, ripening on the vines that hung from the hydroponic pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling. Their green leaves, with the serrated edges, were studded with white flowers and yellow buds, and the berries, wet from the misting tubes, glistened in the artificial light. Ackerley had rigged up the whole lab himself, so it was a mixture of high-tech equipment and jerry-built contraptions, aluminum tubes and rubber hoses, plastic buckets and high-intensity discharge lamps. At the moment, the lamps were on low, but as Eleanor, with her eyes closed, buried her face in the flowering vines, Michael flicked the lamps to high.
Instantly, the whole area was flooded with light, magnified by rows of reflectors that Ackerley had fashioned from coat hangers and tinfoil. The strawberries glowed like rubies, the white petals gleamed, the droplets of water clinging to the green leaves sparkled like diamonds. Eleanor’s eyes sprang open, then she shielded them with her hand, laughing.
Michael hadn’t heard her so happy since he’d introduced her to the miracle of Beethoven on the stereo.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he said.
And she bobbed her head, still smiling, and said, “You did, sir, you did—though I still don’t understand how it’s been done.” She quickly surveyed the glowing lamps and the silver reflectors, before once again protecting her eyes.
“Try a strawberry,” Michael suggested. “The cook here uses them to make strawberry shortcake.”
“Truly?” she said. “It’s all right?”