My Last Continent: A Novel(54)

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I ask her.

I’m surprised to see tears in her eyes when she faces me. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers.

I nod but say nothing.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about it,” she says. “How to be happy, how to be ready. I just can’t.”

“You will,” I assure her.

“How can you say that?”

An enormous pop fills the air around us, and she looks at me in dismay. “What’s that?”

“The ice,” I say.

“It’s breaking?”

“More like breathing,” I say. “It makes a lot of noise. Doesn’t mean we’re falling in just yet. Still, we need to go.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, though she’s making no move to get up. “I wasn’t trying to—” She sighs. “I just needed a little space to think, that’s all.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

For a moment it almost seems natural to tell her, to have someone to talk to about this. But all I can say is: “Yes. I do.”

She shakes her head. “Everyone thinks when you get married, you have kids. There’s something wrong with you if you don’t want them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

She gives me a wry smile. “You may think that, but, with all due respect, you’re more of a freak of nature than I am. No partner, no kids, living in Antarctica half the year.”

I can’t help but like her a little bit more. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.”

I hear agitated garble from my radio, and I pause to listen. It’s Glenn, calling us back to the ship.

“Ice conditions are deteriorating,” he snaps. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

I’ve hardly noticed that the wind has picked up, that the snow covering this sheet of ice is blowing past us, revealing slick, fickle ice underneath.

I look up and see that, in the distance, the other naturalists are just beyond the boundary flags and spaced evenly apart. I don’t see any of the other passengers; Glenn must have called everyone back to the ship.

I scramble to my feet and hold out a hand to Kate. “Come on, let’s go,” I say, trying to keep my voice even, patient.

As we begin walking forward, toward the flags, I keep my eyes down, looking for fissures, though I know all too well they won’t be visible until it’s too late. We hear a thundering crack—more vibration than noise—and I grab on to Kate’s arm again as I lower myself to my knees, tugging her with me.

A section of rope lands in front of us. I look up and see Nigel and Amy just ahead.

“The ice is no longer stable,” I say to Kate, leaning forward to retrieve the rope. “Just to be safe, we’ll need to spread out our weight until we get to a better spot.”

I tie the rope around Kate’s middle, high, just under her breasts. “We have to lie flat and crawl, but Nigel will be tugging you in a bit, too. Lie as flat as you can.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble.”

“We need to hurry,” I tell her, then lie down flat in the snow, to show her how it’s done. “Propel yourself forward with your elbows and knees. When Nigel says it’s okay, you can stand. I’ll be right behind you. Go on.”

She flattens her own body on the ice and begins to inch forward, slowly and awkwardly, looking up every so often as if using the naturalists as landmarks.

When she reaches Nigel, he backs himself into safe territory, then helps her to her feet. Amy holds her arm as we walk quickly back to the ship, as if Kate might take off running again.

In the mudroom, Glenn is waiting.

He fixes his eyes on Kate, with an expression that reminds me of the way he’d looked at Keller that day last season, after our disastrous onboard lecture.

“The safety of the passengers on this ship is my first priority,” Glenn says.

“I know—” Kate begins.

“I don’t believe you do, Ms. Archer,” Glenn says. “Your actions today have put yourself and our crew in danger. And I don’t need to remind you of the actions of your husband on Deception Island.”

Kate’s looking downward, and Glenn continues. “Five years ago, a woman who reminds me a lot of you decided she wanted a close-up of a seal sleeping on the fast ice. She walked past the flags, and two crew members went after her. One fell through the ice and nearly drowned. Is this something you want on your conscience?”

Kate raises her head to meet his unsparing gaze. She shakes her head.

“You’ve risked the lives not only of the crew but of every passenger on this vessel,” Glenn tells her. “Ice conditions down here can change in minutes, and our captain needs to be ready to respond. He can’t be waiting on rogue passengers who are running around on the ice.”

“I understand.”

“Good,” Glenn says. “Because if you step out of line once more, I’m turning this ship around and taking you back to Argentina. You can be sure your fellow passengers won’t be pleased with the change in itinerary.”

Kate nods and stares down at her feet. Glenn gives her a withering glare before he walks out, his footsteps echoing back from the passageway.