The Winter Over(30)

“Don’t count on it,” Carla warned. “Your biology is a slave to your environment. In nine months, another crew is going to land and wonder what happened to all those bitchy lunatics in the corner.”

They debated the point until the PA suddenly crackled again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is station manager Jack Hanratty. ” The voice came across the system as gruff and flat as it did in person. “As you no doubt heard, in just a few minutes the final flight of the season is about to leave for McMurdo. I urge you to head outside to watch it take off. It will be the last plane you will see until November. ”

“Guy really knows how to improve morale,” Tim said. Carla shushed him.

“Now that our guests have left, I wanted to ask you to take a moment to remember our friend and colleague, Sheryl Larkin. As many of you already know, she was found yesterday unresponsive, alone, and without a radio several hundred meters from the station. We don’t know why Sheryl wandered so far from base, but she appeared to have sustained an injury in her attempt to return and, unable to walk, had unfortunately succumbed to exposure. ”

The quasi-permanent grin that Tim normally wore melted away. Anne leaned forward, bowing her head so that her long hair hung down, covering her face. Carla stared at the coffee table in front of them and Colin absently rubbed the tips of his fingers together, as if to make sure they were all there.

“I know Sheryl’s death has been a terrible shock to you all, as it has to me. She will be remembered as one of our team and, more importantly, one of the Shackleton family. I can’t claim to know why she died, but I do know she wouldn’t—not for a second—want us to compromise the work we do here. Please think of Sheryl as we enter this winter season and know she stands behind us every step of the way. ”

Hanratty cleared his throat, a strange sound that came across as a flat bark over the PA system.

“If any of you would like to talk over this situation, counseling is available. Please see myself, deputy station manager Deb Connors, or station morale officer Gerald Keene. Thank you for your attention. ”

The speaker snapped off once more, leaving the lounge in silence again. Anne looked around. This time, however, none of them had anything to say, and eventually they left the room, one by one.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Cass composed herself, trying to keep her face blank, but the man’s fingers and thumbs were pressing deep into the flesh of her ankle and the back of her calf like he was trying to separate the layers of muscle and tissue into their individual strands. The skin from her lower leg to the top of her foot was already a multi-shaded purple-green around the joint and, while there wasn’t any single spot that hurt more than another, the whole thing was throbbing to a beat that made her suspended foot swing rhythmically in place.

“I’m glad I caught you when I did,” Dr. Ayres said mildly, kneeling at her feet like a suitor. Only a small hint of reproach colored his voice as he continued to roll and probe her bare ankle like it was a piece of meat. “If I hadn’t seen you limping down the stairs over by the greenhouse, you might’ve gone on to do some real damage here.”

Cass grimaced. After losing the mystery figure in the tunnel and finding the VMF empty, she’d gone back to work rescuing the stranded Alpine. The pain in her twisted ankle had grown, however, until she’d been forced to hobble up the Beer Can steps in search of the stash of Advil she kept in her berth. But one unlucky encounter in the hall later and she was in triage, getting her ankle wrapped and praying Ayres wouldn’t think her injury bad enough to find her a seat on the last flight of the season.

More lightly than she felt, Cass joked, “I figured I’d wait so you’d have more of a challenge.”

He gave her a small smile. “You’re the one with the challenge. I see some impressive runner’s calluses here. I bet you haven’t skipped a day in years. Except for that plantar fasciitis, I think I see here. What did you do then?”

“I switched to century rides. You can bike when you can’t run,” she said, then hissed as the doctor’s thumbs hit a spot that she didn’t think she’d had. Pain lanced from the sole of her foot to her heel. He held on gently as she pulled away.

“Take it easy. I’m all done. With the inspection, at least.”

He stood and rummaged around in a side cabinet. Ayres was a slender man in his fifties, sandy hair cropped close, but prematurely bald. Some people called him the Bartender because his mild manner and sympathetic ear had Shackleton staff coming to him as much for advice as twisted ankles. But Cass had also heard that Ayres had gotten his medical training in the Marines, and earned his stethoscope on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, and a half-dozen other hot spots around the world.

“What got you into running in the first place?” With his head buried in the cabinet, Ayres’s voice was muffled.

Escape? Distraction? Survival? “Just a fitness nut, I guess. I ran in high school and college.”

“Competitively?”

“In high school, yes. In college, no. Club. I wasn’t even close to making the team.”

“Sounds like my love life.”

Cass smiled. “Am I going to live, Doc?”

“I think so. You have a mid-level sprain. A Grade One that was probably eight degrees’ torque away from a Grade Two. Nice work, actually. It should take you, oh, a month to get your normal mobility back. A bit more than that before you can train for the Ironman, so take it easy in the gym.”