My Last Continent: A Novel(77)

Kate smiles, then turns to the little coffee bar all the staterooms are equipped with. “Peppermint tea,” she says over her shoulder. “I’ve been drinking it like water. It helps a lot.”

After handing me the mug of tea, Kate sits down on the bed across from mine and asks me how far along I am. I repeat what Susan had told me, with a little difficulty, my stomach beginning to churn again. I take a few sips of tea but can’t handle more and put the mug on the top of the storage compartment between the beds.

Kate takes a blanket from the closet and lays it over me. The gesture is so kind that I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m already too warm. Sitting cross-legged on the other bed, she tells me she’s planning to tell Richard about her own pregnancy as soon as they’re off the boat, maybe over a nice dinner in Ushuaia or Santiago, when they’re back on land and everything is feeling more normal.

Maybe it’s the sound of her voice that soothes me, or the exhaustion catching up with me, or the fact that the nausea is finally abating—I let my eyes shut, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up with a shudder.

Kate is gone, but when I raise my head I see Susan across the room. She’s got her back to me, rummaging in her medical bag.

“How long have I been asleep?” I ask. “Where’s Kate?”

She doesn’t answer but comes over with a glass of water. “How’re you feeling?” she asks.

“Not bad. A little sick earlier. Better now.” Yet when I sit up, my head spins, and I feel a bolt of pain shoot through my temple.

Disoriented, I lie back down and try to look out the porthole, but all I can glimpse is a faint glow of light. The ship’s not moving, but I don’t otherwise have a sense of where or when. There’s no clock down here, and my diver’s watch is gone. “What time is it?”

“About four.”

“In the afternoon?” It feels as though I’d slept for more than a couple of hours.

“No, morning,” she says. “You slept through the night. You really needed it.”

“All night?” I’d slept for more than twelve hours. The Australis would be underwater by now, her fuel leaking. Finding any more survivors would be more than we could hope for.

I struggle again to sit up. “How’s the rescue going?”

Susan looks as though she hasn’t slept at all, her eyes puffy and barely open, her mouth taut with tension.

“We’re still at Detaille,” she says. “There’s a flotilla of ships out there now.”

“So why aren’t we heading north?”

She pauses. “They’re still looking for two people.”

This could only mean one thing. “You mean two of our people.”

She nods.

“Who?”

But she doesn’t say anything.

“Who, Susan?”

“One is Richard Archer.”

I’m not surprised by this, but I feel a pang of sympathy for Kate. I wait for Susan to speak again, and when she doesn’t, I ask, “Who’s the other one?”

“Why don’t you rest a bit more?” she says.

“Susan, just tell me.” When she doesn’t, I answer my own question. “It’s Keller, isn’t it?”

She nods.

I feel something inside me sink and drown.

“They’re looking for him now, Deb. Everyone is, crew from all the ships.” She pauses. “They’ll find him.”

I reach out and clutch her hand. “You’ve got to get me out there. Wrap up this leg and shoot me full of whatever you have to. I need to be out there looking.”

“Deb,” she says. “You can barely walk.”

“He saved me,” I say. “You can’t just let me sit here and do nothing.”

Susan’s eyes begin to water.

I try to breathe, try to stay calm. But I know the odds.

I turn away from Susan and shut my eyes. I hear the rumble of Zodiacs outside, the occasional petrel cry. Then I feel the ship tremble, hear the engines come alive. This means they’re preparing to leave, with or without Keller, with or without Richard. I can tell by the vibrations that they haven’t fixed that damaged propeller. The ship feels shaky, unwhole.



A PHYSICAL PAIN envelops me so fully I can hardly tell where it’s coming from. Susan offers me acetaminophen, but I shake her off. Even something stronger wouldn’t help—even if I had no body at all, I’d feel the shock and tremble of all that we’ve lost. At least without medication, I can focus on something: every ache, every twinge, every throb.

Kate makes us tea, and we wait together, taking turns looking helplessly out the porthole. The Cormorant’s engines are running, but we’re still at anchor. Rescuers have already pulled hundreds of bodies from the water, and the decks of the British and Russian icebreakers that have arrived to help are lined with corpses. And when Glenn and Nigel appear at the cabin door, their expressions grave and focused on Kate, I know instantly that Richard is now among them.

I watch Kate’s face lose its color. Though it’s hard for me to walk, I insist on accompanying her as she follows Glenn and Nigel to a Zodiac. She takes my arm, as if to help me, but I can feel her shaking. Glenn tells us that a Russian team found a Zodiac grounded on a sheet of ice, with two frightened Australis passengers inside. Not far away, the Russian crew discovered a body, buoyed by his life preserver.