The Winter Over(33)

The fourth person had been with them, they must’ve, but how was she supposed to pin down the station boss, his security chief, and the base psychologist about just what the hell had been going on? All three had the authority to be in the VMF any time they wanted, so she’d have to accuse them of something really out of bounds if she wanted more than excuses or blank stares . . . and, even then, they were under no compunction to answer her. Demand answers from Keene about the mad dasher she’d chased and he’d simply shrug and say, who?

Which was a very good question. Cass’s movements slowed, then stopped. She leaned against the Alpine’s frame and closed her eyes, calling forth the image of a silhouette framed against the white ice, fading into darkness. The form had been slender, insofar as anyone in cold weather gear could be called “slender.” Which meant Cass had thought of the form as slenderer— was that a word? —than other parka-clad people around the station. Had it been a woman? She compared her mental picture to the height of the tunnel, relative to the pipes and cabling that ran along near the top of the wall. The runner’s head hadn’t come close to the lowest pipe. Short, then, or at least shorter than she was. Only a few men on base met that mark, but more than half the women did.

Something else nagged at her, plucking at the edges. Something about the way the woman moved or how she’d run . . . her mind snatched at the image, tried to pin it down, but it curled away and evaporated. Cass shook her head, frustrated. She’d watched the figure for, what, three seconds? Not many clues you can pick up in the space of a few heartbeats.

The garage phone rang, its electronic chime jarring her out of her thoughts and surprising her, as well. No one ever bothered to call down from the station since the little beeping noise always lost to the VMF’s routine combination of heavy machinery, protective headphones, and loud music. Cass limped over to the phone.

A familiar lilting voice responded on the other end. “Love, did you really think you could hide down in that cave and I wouldn’t find you? You only go there and your room, you know.”

“Oh, shit, Biddi. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to blow you off. That snowmobile was in lousy shape and I started in on it and totally forgot about you guys topside. And you wouldn’t believe what was going on down here when I opened the door—”

“You can tell me later,” Biddi interrupted. “Drop what you’re doing and get up here. You’re in luck. Sikes’s flight was delayed for a good hour or more, but it’s almost ready to leave now. That cute man Dave promised to lead the group in singing a special good-bye song to the senator and his bloody brownnosers.”

“Biddi . . .”

“And Peter hinted the kitchen made a cake for everyone to share later while we watch the trifecta.” Biddi paused. “I don’t even know what trifecta he’s talking about, but I know I like cake.”

“It’s a tradition,” Cass said. “The winter-over crew is supposed to watch a bunch of bad horror movies to celebrate the start of the winter season.”

“As long as there’s cake. Now, no excuses. Get up here. Or I won’t speak to you all winter. And that’s a very long time, chickie.” Click .

Cass hung the receiver on its cradle and limped back to the tray, where she wiped her hands, shrugged on her parka, and headed for the door to the tunnel. Twenty painful minutes later, with a fat ankle that pushed against the sides of her boot in a way that couldn’t be normal, she walked down the corridor to the ob deck and threw open the door.

She was just in time. Fifteen or twenty parka-clad bodies—half the winter crew—were crowded onto the small platform, all of them facing the Hercules as it barreled down the skiway. Biddi’s short form turned as Cass came onto the deck, shaking her fist at her, but at least she couldn’t hear her friend bitch at her: Dave Boychuck was belting out the verses to “So Long, Farewell.” The entire group pitched in at the end, their voices rising in muffled falsetto and their arms waving in exaggerated sweeps as the Hercules lifted off and lumbered into the sky.

A tattered cheer went up as the plane, rather than just taking off into the distance, banked and came back for a farewell waggle of the wings before swinging over the station again and setting a course for McMurdo. Voices around her died off as they strained to catch the fading roar of the plane’s engine over the swishing of their parkas and the sigh of a light wind. After there was nothing left to hear, the little group still watched as the Hercules became a block, then a line, then a tiny dot in the sky. When it finally disappeared, Cass sighed. The last flight of the year had departed.

Summer was gone.

“I wish Sheryl could’ve seen this,” Biddi said clearly into the silence. A flush ran through Cass, followed by a wash of nausea. Someone gasped; someone else made a noise between a sigh and a cough. They stood in an uncomfortable semicircle.

“I do, too, Biddi. Why don’t we take a moment of silence for her right now,” Dave said in his big, booming voice and the group, as one, bowed their heads. The only sound was the soughing of the soft breeze on the plain.

After a moment, Dave raised his head and turned to the crowd. “Thanks, everyone. I think she would’ve liked that.” He shook himself like a bear. “All right, no moping. Off to the galley for cake and then we’ll do something fun, like watch someone get eaten by a monster from outer space.”