The Winter Over(5)

Cass thought about it. She didn’t feel good about the stigma of being a staffer, but it especially stung to think that Hanratty might be banking on the double standard of some kind of class hierarchy to keep her quiet about Sheryl’s death.

Artificial class divisions had never made sense to her. Even when there was a full crew of two hundred over the summer season from November to February, staffers were expected to wear several hats, which meant most of the crew were competent, educated, and resourceful—and no one came to Antarctica if they didn’t already have guts and drive on top of that. The breakfast cook could also be a core member of the fire response team; the carpenter might be a backup IT specialist. But over the nine months of the austral winter, when Shackleton’s crew was cut down to forty-four, each person on staff really was a walking jack-of-all-trades, capable of backstopping four or five jobs.

Cass herself was Shackleton’s winter-over mechanic, plumber, and carpenter and was expected to be able to stand in for the physical-plant engineer and run the fuel, HVAC, and waste systems without batting an eye if she had to. Biddi was on the base’s emergency medical team, lent the cooks a hand with dinners, and had recently learned enough electrical engineering to help out in the e-systems lab. With those kinds of skills, not to mention the ambition it took just to land a job in Antarctica, you’d think you’d garner some respect. But, at times, what most people recognized Biddi and Cass for was being, well, bloody fucking janitors and not much else.

“What do you think happened to the girl, anyway?” Biddi said, switching gears. “You never said.”

“I shouldn’t have even told you that much.”

“Oh, look who’s caving to authority now. You’ll walk in here and announce that you just strapped the body of a friend of mine to the back of a snowmobile, but you won’t tell me what you think happened?”

“You were not friends with Sheryl.”

“Not in the traditional sense, no,” Biddi said. “She always was a bitch to me. I’m not so sorry to see her go, to tell the truth.”

“Biddi!”

She waved the dust cloth dismissively. “I’m just pulling the piss. It’s sad, no doubt about it. Even if she did tell me she found dust in her room after each time I cleaned it.”

“She did that once.”

“Once was enough. Anyway, what happened to her?”

“She’d twisted her ankle. Definitely broken, not just sprained.”

“Poor thing went hypothermic and tried crawling the whole way, did she?”

“Well, she was heading back toward Shackleton when we found her,” Cass said, then frowned at the memory. Victims of hypothermia were almost always discovered in the fetal position, or at least that’s what all the training manuals had said. Why had they found Sheryl flat on her back?

“A terrible way to go.” Biddi shuddered. “Was it like going to sleep, do you think?”

“I suppose . . .” Cass’s voice trailed off, the image of Sheryl’s arms and legs rocking stiffly back and forth as she was loaded onto the sled so much like the time before. Other arms, other legs, other people.

“Cass, hon, are you all right?” Biddi was suddenly next to her, a hand under her elbow for support. “Don’t go passing out on me.”

“I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“Bollocks,” she said, pushing her down onto the couch. “I’m sorry I made a joke out of the poor dear’s death. It’s the only way I know how to handle tragedy. But it’s not everyone’s approach, I know.”

“It’s just not what I signed on for, that’s all.” Cass smoothed her hair back with both hands. “I knew that coming here could be dangerous, but for Christ’s sake, when’s the last time anyone died at the South Pole?”

Biddi clucked sympathetically. “It’s a shock, no doubt. We’re supposed to have every technological advantage, every modern device, yet people can still freeze to death. The unfairness is enough to drive you mad. But I suppose what’s important is how we handle it, don’t you think?”

“I guess so.” Cass pushed herself off the couch and took up her station at the vacuum. “Could we talk about something else?”

“Of course,” Biddi said, her voice suddenly brisk. “Let’s rank, by attractiveness, the men who are staying behind for the winter.”

“Biddi.”

“‘The goods are odd, but the odds are good.’”

“I’ve heard that in every oil rig and lumber camp I ever worked in.”

“Maybe so, but the phrase was invented down here. Besides, was it ever not true?”

“No,” Cass admitted. “But you’d have to be pretty desperate to play the odds down here.”

“You say that now, but nine months is a long time to go without a bit of bandicooting. And that’s assuming you managed to snag yourself a piece over the summer.” Biddi looked sideways at her. “Which I don’t think you did, did you? Although, I swear, how you held them off with that red hair and those lips, I’ll never know.”

Cass felt herself blush up to the roots. “So what if I didn’t?”

“It’s not healthy.”

“Says who?”

“My grandma. In her immortal words, ‘’Tis better to get a frig than give one . . . to yourself.’”