Surviving Antarctica Page 8

  “What are the traces?” Andrew asked.

  “They’re the straps that tie the dogs to the sled.” Grace handed Andrew the leashes.

  A communications computer sounded, and Jacob left to retrieve the message.

  Chad and Steve huddled next to the screens, watching the kids’ third day on the ship. The kids hadn’t gone to bed yet. So, as Steve preferred, they were watching in real time.

  “The ratings have slipped again,” Jacob remarked as he handed Chad the blue slip.

  “Hmm,” Chad said. “Today’s episode went down to seventy percent.”

  “I’d be surprised if Hot Sauce didn’t cause some mischief tonight on the ship,” Jacob said.

  “Me, too,” Chad said.

  I hope not, Steve prayed.

  Grace faced the straps of leather hanging on a peg. She pulled the tangled mess off the wall. In trying to straighten the traces out, she stuck her head through a loop. She looked as if she were in harness herself.

  “Good boy.” Andrew patted T-Rex’s head. “You’re going to carry us a long way.”

  With a vicious growl one of the other dogs attacked T-Rex.

  Andrew started and dropped the leashes.

  T-Rex jumped on the other dog’s back, and the dogs quickly became a snarling circle of bristling fur. Andrew stared at the dogfight.

  Grace started to rush toward the dogs, but her feet got tangled in the traces. She tripped and fell flat on her face.

  To avoid the fighting dogs, Andrew had backed up against the wall.

  Steve couldn’t bear to watch the scene any longer. These kids were so unprepared. He turned to Robert’s screen.

  “Billy,” Robert said. “Get a box of dog food from Grace so I can weigh it.”

  Even though they would have to unload the four sleds to carry them from the ship, Robert had partially loaded them. He wanted to know how much gear they could carry.

  “Okay,” Billy said. This was his third day of being ordered around by Robert, and he was getting sick of him. But he obediently turned toward the hold where the animals were housed. Steve turned his attention back to Grace’s screen.

  An image of a dog lunging at another dog filled it. The dog’s teeth were bared, and spittle dripped from its mouth.

  A door opened, and Billy stepped in. “Grace, Robert wants to know—” Suddenly the dog veered toward Billy.

  Steve closed his eyes.

  Billy screamed.

  When Steve opened his eyes, he saw only fur and skin. He heard only screams and snarls.

  “Looks like Hot Sauce just got lucky,” Jacob said.

  Grace, her neck still in the traces, yanked the dog off Billy. Her camera focused on his hand. Blood oozed from between his fingers.

  “Darn dog!” Billy shouted.

  Grace shook the dog by the scruff of the neck. “Bad Brontosaurus!”

  “This episode will be a blockbuster,” Jacob said.

  Steve hoped that the Secretary had arranged for a first-aid kit. Billy was going to need one.

  “The dog is vicious,” Billy said. His hurt hand lay on the mess-hall table. The dog had rushed at Billy as if he had wanted to kill him. “We should shoot him,” Billy added.

  “Hush, Billy,” Polly said.

  Grace cleaned his wound. It wasn’t deep, but there was a danger of infection.

  Billy’s hand stung. He’d probably get gangrene and die, all because of the dogs. It was actually Grace’s fault. “Why didn’t you warn me to stay out of the room?” he shouted.

  Grace covered his cut with a cotton pad. What a ridiculous question! She hadn’t known that Billy was coming into the room in the first place.

  “You wanted me to get hurt. You just want to be MVP.”

  Polly tried to soothe him. “Grace wants no such thing.”

  Grace taped over the cotton pad, picked up her coat, and started out the door.

  “Grace, where are you going?” Polly asked.

  “Out on deck,” Grace said. “It’s a small cut. Your hand should be fine, Billy.”

  Billy scowled at her. “Besides, she gave the dumb dog the wrong name,” he mumbled.

  “What are you talking about?” Polly asked him after Grace had left the room.

  “Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are the same dinosaur. No one uses the name Brontosaurus anymore. She’s so dumb that she doesn’t know it.”

  “What does it matter, Billy?” Polly said.

  “You of all people should say that? You, Miss Encyclopedia!”

  “Grace knows a lot.” Polly realized that she had never understood this before. People who didn’t read books could know a lot.

  Grace hadn’t expected Billy to thank her, but she didn’t expect him to blame her, either. She walked up the narrow steps and pushed open the door. The biting wind hit her face. As she did every day, she checked the thermometer. It was actually sixty degrees Fahrenheit, but with the wind, it felt much colder.

  She leaned against a railing.

  Billy Kanalski was an idiot. That dog wasn’t vicious. It was attacking another dog, and Billy got in the way. And what did she care about being MVP? What did she care about television? The only good part about growing up on the reservation was that the Hopi tribal elders forbade the kids to watch EduTV. Grace and her cousins had gone to tribal school, taught by an aged Hopi in a two-room schoolhouse. She had learned to read and write the old-fashioned way. Her teacher had also taught her Hopi rituals, rain dances, and legends.

  But how could she make anyone understand that while she had danced rain dances in Pueblo Village, she had felt as out of place as a seal? People weren’t supposed to live their whole lives feeling they should be somewhere else, were they? Alaska had provided her tribe’s clothing, food, and song. But when her family moved from that land of ice and snow to desert, they had lost a part of themselves, a part that they needed to get back.

  Why else did her mother still mark the month that the great ice melted each year?

  Her grandfather used to tell her, “Ah, Grace, soon the ice will freeze over again, and if our tribe were still there, we would all quit our jobs at the oil companies and be hunting above the Arctic Circle.”

  If Antarctica had gotten warmer, if there was game there, if she could survive … then why not? Why not move her tribe to Antarctica? Her family could give back to the U.S. government their few acres of reservation land and their broken tractor. They could return to a land of ice and snow.

  For all these years her grandfather, mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins had saved their animal-skin clothes. Her mother treasured their family’s sled. Her grandfather had kept his hunting knife sharp. It was clear to Grace that they were all waiting to return.

  Congress had made her home a nuclear waste dump, but no government had touched Antarctica because conditions were too tough for any country—it was too cold, too forbidding. But not for Grace’s tribe. Not for the people of the North. They could be Antarctic pioneers.

  But she couldn’t ever explain even one tenth of this to Billy Kanalski or any of the other kids, who had all grown up with a television for a teacher, whose dreams were of money and sad honors like being MVP.

  Grace dreamed of a new life beyond time in a land of ice and snow, light and dark.

  Billy’s hand throbbed. He stomped out of the mess hall and almost bumped into Robert.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Robert said.

  “I have a bad cut. Thanks to Grace and those animals.”

  “Calm down, man.”

  “They’re vicious.”

  “Why don’t you take it easy tonight?” Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “I can finish up in the storeroom.”

  Billy felt his eyes fill with tears. They were landing in two days and Robert wanted Billy Kanalski to go sit in his cabin, while Robert Johnson worked diligently and scored more points to become MVP.

  “What’s wrong?” Robert said.

  “What’s this story you told about eating snakes?” Billy could
n’t stop himself from lashing out.

  “What are you talking about?” Robert asked.

  “Those lies you told the Secretary,” Billy said.

  “Those weren’t lies.” Robert glared at him. “I did. It wasn’t fun. But I did eat snakes.”

  “Sure,” Billy said.

  “You know about the Houston floods?” Robert said.

  “Your downtown is like Venice, with those skyscrapers half filled with water.”

  “Right. Well, our home got flooded in the middle of the night. My family and I climbed onto the roof. When the water got real high, we caught a log and floated on the bayou. Later we climbed onto the branch of an old oak tree. We ate what we could.” Robert shrugged.

  So Robert had been telling the truth. This just made Billy madder.

  “Listen, I need you,” Robert said gently. “I know nothing about ice and snow.”

  “I’m in charge of the maps now,” Billy said gruffly. He wished the kids would forget about his supposed ice experience.

  “Sure. That’s fine. I’m glad you’re going to do that, too.” Robert looked Billy in the eyes.

  Did Robert guess that he was a fraud? Billy worried.

  Suddenly Billy didn’t want to talk anymore. He pressed past Robert. When he got to his cabin, he slammed the door to make sure that no one would bother him. He stuck his head under his bunk and pulled out his backpack. On second thought, in case there were cameras, he crawled underneath the bunk and gripped his backpack tightly to his chest. He was the only kid on the ship to have a treasure trove, and he felt rich, not poor.

  Someday Billy would be rich. He was sure of it. With a smart game strategy, he could win the one hundred thousand dollars.

  Andrew wasn’t a contender; he was too clumsy and dumb.

  Polly wasn’t one, either; too geeky.

  The kids to beat were Grace and Robert. All Grace had going for her were those horrible dogs. He’d wait and watch for an opportunity to get rid of the animals. With Robert, his strategy was simpler. He’d let Robert boss him around until they were about midway to the Pole. When Robert was worn down and exhausted from the responsibility, Billy would quietly take over.

  Every night around ten o’clock, most of the night-shift crew went to the screening room to view the episode of Antarctic Historical Survivor that had aired on EduTV that day. Tonight, while the rest of the crew went to see the latest episode, Chad had allowed Steve to stay and keep watch over the screens.

  After the dog bite, the kids had scattered.

  Grace had gone off to the deck by herself.

  Polly had read in the mess hall.

  Andrew had busied himself with the ponies, their sleds and gear.

  Robert had finished the inventory.

  Billy had fidgeted alone in this cabin.

  Even though it was a slow night, Steve hated to leave his post. But he needed to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was in the hallway, just outside the production room.

  On his way back, Steve heard voices coming from the production room.

  “I’m telling you, Chad, he’s so attached to these kids that you better give him the Voice.” Steve guessed it was Jacob talking.

  “He’s a good kid. I just need to think through my responsibility to his father.”

  “If he’s careful, he won’t get caught, and you’ll be doing him and all of us a favor.”

  “You’re probably right,” Steve heard Chad answer.

  Steve opened the door and almost bumped into Chad and Jacob. It was too dark to see the expressions on their faces, but Steve sensed that he had startled them. They had been talking about him, he was sure of it. What’s the Voice? he wondered.

  “Where have you been?” Chad asked.

  “Just took a quick break,” Steve explained. “Is the screening over?”

  “The others are watching a few replays,” Jacob said.

  “They’ll be along soon,” Chad added. He turned to Jacob. “Why don’t you take care of the summary?”

  “You got it,” Jacob said.

  Chad opened the door. In the glow from the screens Steve saw the two men exchange glances before Jacob walked off.

  Chad stood beside Steve in front of the screens. “There’s a matter I’d like to talk to you about, Steve.”

  “Sure,” Steve said slowly. He took a deep breath.

  John Matthews and Raymond Chiles, two of the night-shift employees, walked into the room. John and Raymond, like all the night-shift employees, were older men with graying hair and slight paunches.

  Steve looked at Chad expectantly.

  John and Raymond walked over to the screens. “What’s our assignment?” John asked.

  “John, you edit the first quarter. You do the second, Raymond.” Chad said. He turned to Steve and shrugged his wide shoulders. “Let’s talk tomorrow,” he said in a low voice.

  Steve exhaled. How could he wait?

  13

  “YOU’RE A BUMBLER!” Robert shouted at Andrew on the evening of day four. “There’s no margin for error in Antarctic travel. None! Do you understand?”

  Andrew just stood there. He had been supposed to separate water bottles into five separate piles, but he had started listening to music and had gotten the water bottles and the fuel bottles mixed up. The two types of bottle looked a lot alike.

  “Oh, go to bed,” Robert said.

  Robert was right. There was no margin for error in Antarctic travel. And Andrew had made a mistake. In fact, he made lots of mistakes. Yet he was soon going to be in Antarctica, where there was no margin for error.

  In Antarctica the bumblers probably died first.

  Andrew walked up to the deck. He stood there and watched the waves roll toward the horizon.

  Billy had told them that they would arrive in Antarctica sometime tomorrow night. It was as though maps talked to Billy. Andrew saw just a jumble of colors and lines, where Billy understood patterns and distances. Billy was amazing.

  Polly knew so much. Grace was good with the animals.

  Robert could organize anything, and he was usually kinder than Andrew’s neighbors, the Cross boys, who jeered when Andrew struck out at baseball.

  Except for tonight’s outburst, Robert had always been patient.

  Andrew sighed.

  Andrew’s sigh sounded sad. Steve looked over his shoulder to check on Chad’s whereabouts. Chad was in the far corner of the room, keyboarding.

  “It’s okay,” Steve whispered to Andrew’s screen. “The two bottles looked a lot alike.”

  Robert was still sorting gear.

  “He’s trying as hard as he can, man,” Steve said softly to Robert’s screen.

  Steve heard footsteps and looked up to see Chad join him. Steve had lain awake today wondering about the conversation between Chad and Jacob that he had overhead. There was something about the dim lights and strange hours of the night shift that made him feel as if he could have imagined the whole thing.

  Chad turned up the volume.

  On the screen, Steve heard a slap as a wave crashed against the bow of the compucraft. The wind gusted, but not loudly enough to drown out the sound of a human sigh. He and Chad had become part of Andrew’s private world.

  “He’s the one,” Chad said.

  “What are you talking about?” Steve said.

  “The outcast,” Chad said. “There’s always one.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Steve said, thinking about the sad Egyptian in the pyramid show and the trigger-happy Texan in the Alamo show.

  “If we decide to do an intervention,” Chad said carefully, “it’s safest to talk to the outcast.”

  Steve was puzzled. “An intervention?”

  “You thought the time was past, didn’t you?” Chad said.

  “What time?” Steve asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “The time when one person can make a difference.”

  Steve didn’t answer. He had spent his life hoping that it wasn’t.

  �
��Remember that I told you we played games here?” Chad smiled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, sometimes we play a game called intervention.”

  “You actually talk to the contestants?” Steve said, hardly able to believe his ears.

  “Yes, but we have to be very careful.”

  Steve squirmed uncomfortably. Why was Chad using the word we?

  “First we choose the contestant carefully. He needs to be someone who would never tell anybody else about the Voice that he hears. Or he needs to be someone who wouldn’t be believed if he did.”

  Chad sounded as though he had thought this through, but Steve had a basic question. “How can the contestants hear the production room through the digicamera implants in their eyes?”

  “The implants are complete cameras, with audio and video recording capabilities and are audio receivers as well. With these new satellite long-range mikes, we can talk to the contestants thousands of miles away as if they were in the room with us.”

  But the long-range mikes didn’t make sense, Steve thought. “Why would the Secretary build digicameras that some rogue DOE employee could use to talk to the contestants?”

  “Soon the Secretary plans to use the long-range mikes to dramatically change Survivor. She’ll put contestants in desperate situations—say, facing a wild animal in gladiatorial combat—and let them talk to their loved ones in the studio. She thinks the long-range mikes haven’t been activated. But”—Chad chuckled—“Raymond Chiles is as good an engineer as he is a card player.”

  Steve tried to imagine how the long-range mikes worked. “It’s got to feel weird to hear a voice coming from your eye.”

  “As I understand it, if the long-range mike is used, the auditory receiver in the implant sends electronic signals to the brain. Otherwise the auditory receiver just functions as a recorder that transmits sound to the production studio. You probably saw the Alamo MVP on television after the series ended. When the reporters asked him how he escaped the Mexican bullets, he said, ‘I heard a voice.’” Chad shrugged. “But everyone dismissed it as a religious experience.”

  “So you guys talked to the survivor on the Alamo series?” Steve was shocked.