The Winter Over(56)
“All right.”
“While you do that, I could work behind the scenes. The Beck Anxiety Inventory is a quick way to take a group’s temperature. And I can pull in a few of the real problem cases, like those claustrophobes, and work with them more intensively—”
“Negative,” Hanratty said. It was his turn to look down at his shoes.
“What?” Keene looked surprised. “Why?”
“You’re the authority, of course. But—no offense, Gerald—it seems to me that, if the base psychologist distributes an anxiety questionnaire, we’ll end up with exactly the effect we don’t want. It would be like asking someone who’s afraid of drowning if they packed a life preserver before getting on a boat. Prudent, but not necessarily the best move.”
“What do you suggest?” Taylor asked.
“I’ll prepare an announcement about the failure, as per Gerald’s suggestion, tell everyone we’re checking those systems and we’ll get to the bottom of it, et cetera, et cetera. In fact, Deb, let’s make a big show of it. Get Jennings to check pipes and lines. Taylor, find Leroy—I don’t care if he’s part of the ice wall down below, let’s get him working and visible so people see him fixing the electrical. Gerald, spread yourself around, ask your questions, but don’t press too hard. Take temperatures, as you called it, but don’t be obvious.”
“You’re asking the base psychologist to casually join conversations without raising anyone’s suspicions?”
“Yes. Just sit and listen if nothing else.” Hanratty turned his attention to Taylor. “Same for you, Taylor. Keep your ear to the ground, report back to me.”
“Do you want me to short-circuit any doomsday talk or anyone bad-mouthing admin?”
“No. I think it would have the same effect as the base shrink telling people not to worry. But if they want to talk themselves into a tizzy, let ’em talk. I’d rather know who’s vulnerable than have them hide their thoughts.”
Taylor looked doubtful, but nodded. Hanratty looked around the room. “Okay, any questions?”
Deb started to speak, then hesitated. Hanratty raised an eyebrow and she plunged into her question. “Jack, we still don’t know why the electrical went down or why it came back online.”
“Correct,” he said, nodding.
“So . . . what are we actually doing ? Reassuring personnel is nice, but we may have a hell of a problem here, with no idea how to fix it or if it’ll happen again.”
“Deb, I know that this episode has shaken all of us, but I trust that the system is stable. We’ll diagnose the problem soon enough. I think the important thing is to keep a strong outward face on things. We don’t want the crew to get spooked any more than they are.”
“It won’t matter how spooked they are if the heat goes out again,” she pressed.
“It’ll be fine, Deb,” Hanratty said, his tone final. “Trust me.”
She stared at him for a moment, as if debating whether to argue, then let it go.
“No more questions? Okay, let’s get to work, then.”
Deb and Taylor shuffled out of the room. Keene appeared to join them, then held back. He made sure the other two had left the outer office, then looked at Hanratty. “Is this the best way to go about things?”
“There’s only one way to know, and that’s to do it. If we coddle them now, how will they act in a true crisis? ‘That which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.’”
Keene’s laughter came out as a high-pitched bark. “The man who said that wound up in an insane asylum.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He had never been so cold.
As a young boy, he’d been through winters on the plains so hard that the cows had frozen and died standing up, but they didn’t compare to the warmest day at the Pole, and it was colder than that. Even when he’d first stepped off the plane at McMurdo, in full gear, when the wind had screamed in his ear and the icy fist of Antarctica had slammed him full in the chest—unprepared and weak—he hadn’t been this cold.
It hurt to make a fist and his joints ached. His cheeks and the flesh of his chin felt sandpapery and strange. A few days ago, he’d wiped his running nose and realized he hadn’t felt the touch of his own hand on his face. But worst of all was the simple, hurtful cold. He couldn’t escape it and he couldn’t remedy it. Short stints with a fabric tent held over the propane stove chased it away, but then the waves of shivering came on twice as bad and his muscles would rattle and flinch until his body acclimated once more.
A voice in his mind—weak and distant—reminded him that he could be warm again. All he had to do was leave the nest he’d made for himself, trek back through the tunnels, and climb the steps to the station above. There were blankets and beds, hot drinks and warm forced air blowing through the halls. All he would have to do was listen to the wind once more.
He cried as he thought about the voice of the wind, talking to him, shrieking at him constantly. The people around him had begun to look at him strangely and fall away, but they didn’t understand the restraint he’d shown, the strength of will it had taken to fight and refuse what he was being commanded to do. When he’d felt himself begin to buckle and weaken, when the wind began to make sense once again, he’d headed for the tunnels, where the wind was a timid thing and—sometimes—blissfully, wonderfully nonexistent.