The Winter Over(55)
The room was silent as the two men stared at each other. Neither seemed prepared to give an inch until Hanratty stood, walked in front of Taylor, and said quietly, “Stand down.”
Taylor gave Hanratty a venomous look that abruptly turned into a smile. “Sure thing, boss.”
Hanratty watched him for a moment more, then turned to Ayres. “We were talking about the situation at hand. Do you have anything to add?”
“No, not add, but I’ll repeat my original question,” Ayres said. “How were you trying to get the power back online without the base electrician?”
Hanratty paused. “We thought it was a problem with the fuel supply at first, so we were working with Boychuck and his boys. By the time we thought of it as an electrical problem, it was too dark to go try finding Leroy. And from what you’re saying, it looks like we wouldn’t have had any luck anyway. Anyone have any ideas where he went?”
“I asked around when Ron first mentioned it,” Deb said, “and Dave told me he’s down in the tunnels all the time.”
“I would hope so. That’s where half the electrical is.”
“Not near the arches. In the old, old tunnels. Like past the shrines. He was going down there and nosing around after his shift, apparently.”
Taylor frowned. “I don’t like that.”
“No rule against it,” Deb pointed out. “People like to explore down there just for something to do. If you seal it up, you’re going to have some pissed-off crew.”
“Christ. Like we need one more thing,” Hanratty said, displaying dissatisfaction for the first time. “He’s got to be on the job and we have to be able to find him. If we have another outage, we’re screwed. I don’t even know if we have another licensed electrician on base.”
“I’d be more worried he hasn’t taken his medicine. He’s on some strong psychotropic drugs,” Ayres said. “Maybe our psychologist could speak to that?”
Keene shrugged. “I’ve had a session or two with Leroy. The man had a rough childhood and mentioned a physically abusive older sister. If Taylor can find him and we can get him back on track with his medication, he’ll be fine. I’d say we have bigger fish to fry, however.”
Hanratty scrubbed his face with his hands. “Agreed. Let’s get back to Leroy in a minute. I assume Carla will be laid up for a while?”
Ayres nodded. “The best thing for a concussion is bed rest, which she can do in her berth. I’ll call on her as much as I can, but it wouldn’t hurt if we made sure someone checked up on her once or twice a day.”
“What about her work?” Deb asked, then flushed as she saw frowns around the room. “I’m not criticizing her. Carla’s famous for working until she drops. She’s going to want to get back to the lab as soon as she can stand.”
“She can try, but she’ll have headaches, nausea, and dizziness if she pushes herself beyond a light walk.” Ayres shrugged. “I’d recommend she do very little except sleep for the next few weeks. But if she doesn’t listen to me, her own body will take her out of the equation.”
Hanratty wrote a few more lines on his paper, then raised his head. “Ron, thanks for your help. We all appreciate how quickly you got on this.”
The doctor ignored the pat on the back. “Bumps and bruises. Nothing compared to the mental damage the event seemed to cause. I have to say I was totally thrown by the reaction in the galley. I mean, the lights went off and it got cold. I thought our people were made of sterner stuff than that.”
Ayres’s remark was aimed at the back of Keene’s head, but the psychologist continued to keep his eyes on his footwear. An awkward silence filled the room.
Hanratty cleared his throat. “Thanks again, Ron. We’ll get you somebody to check on Carla. Give me a shout if you need anything else, okay?”
Ayres had spent enough time in the Marines to know when he was being dismissed, but that didn’t mean he liked it. He walked out of the room stiff-backed and shut the door behind him with a bang.
The room was silent for a moment, then Hanratty spun in his chair to face Keene. “Gerald, give us a read on the situation.”
Keene shifted his weight. “Twenty-six people were involved with the episode in the galley. The rest of the crew was aware of the failures, of course. Two of the staff have a history of severe claustrophobia. Both required the help of others to recover, even after power was restored. Only a handful of people—most of whom are in this room—would have felt any measure of control as the situation deteriorated.”
“What does that mean, in a nutshell?” Deb asked.
“A nutshell.” Keene snorted. “In a nutshell , Deb, everyone on base is freaked out. If we have another significant power failure, people are going to be stealing snowcats out of the VMF so they can take the road back to McMurdo.”
“Is there anything we can do to help restore confidence, get morale back up?” Hanratty asked. As Keene’s face twisted in anticipation of delivering a sarcastic comeback, he added, “Constructive suggestions.”
The psychologist got his face and his retort under control. “The most obvious step is that the station manager should make a general announcement about what happened and why, to calm nerves by reasserting control of the situation.”