Read Online Blood and Ice by Robert Masello - Free Book Online Page B

lived its whole life in the air, borrowing the power of the changeable winds and using it, through some prodigious feat of navigation, to circle the entire globe, again and again.
     
No wonder sailors had always revered them and, as Captain Purcell later explained over dinner one night, �regarded them as a symbol of good luck. Those birds have a better global navigational system in their heads than we've got in the wheelhouse.�
     
�I had a few of them keeping me company today,� Michael said, �while I was up on the flying bridge.�
     
Purcell nodded as he reached for the bottle of sparkling cider. �They can adjust their dip and their speed to the velocity of the ship they're following.�
     
He refilled Dr. Barnes's glass with the cider. As Michael had learned on his first night aboard, when he'd innocently asked for a beer, no alcohol was allowed on U.S. Navy or Coast Guard ships.
     
�A friend of mine, a Tulane ornithologist,� said Hirsch, �radio-tagged an albatross in the Indian Ocean and tracked it by satellite for one month. It had traveled over fifteen thousand kilometers on a single foraging expedition. Apparently, the bird can see, from hundreds of meters up, the bioluminescent schools of squid. When the squid come up to the surface to feed, the bird goes down.�
     
Charlotte, taking one of the serving bowls from its rubber pad, paused and said, �This isn't calamari, is it?� and everyone laughed. �I mean, I'd hate to deprive some hungry albatross.�
     
�No, that's one of our cook's specialties�fried zucchini strips.�
     
Charlotte helped herself, then passed it to the Operations officer�Ops, for short�Lieutenant Kathleen Healey
     
�We serve lots of fresh vegetables and fruit on the way out,� Captain Purcell observed, �and lots of canned and frozen on the long way back.�
     
The ship suddenly swerved, as if taking a step sideways, then swerved back again. Michael put one hand on the rubber strip that went all the way around the rim of the table and the other on his cider glass. He still hadn't gotten used to the ship's constant rolling.
     
�The ship is shaped sort of like a football,� Kathleen said, looking utterly unperturbed by the turbulence. �In fact, she's not really designed for calm seas; she hasn't even got a keel. She's designed to move smoothly through brash ice and bergs, and that's when you'll be glad you're on her.�
     
�We've been lucky so far,� the captain said. �We've had a high-pressure area over us�meaning low seas and good visibility�and we've been able to make good progress toward Point Ad�lie.�
     
But Michael could hear the hesitation in his voice, and so could the others. Charlotte was holding a zucchini strip on the end of her fork.
     
�But?� she asked.
     
�But it looks like it's dissipating,� he said. �On the cape, the weather can change very quickly.�
     
�We're gradually moving across what's called the Antarctic Convergence,� Lieutenant Healey put in. �That's where the cold bottom water from the pole sinks beneath the warmer water coming up from the Indian and Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We're traveling into much more unpredictable seas, and less temperate weather.�
     
�Today was temperate?� Charlotte said, before snapping the zucchini strip off her fork. �My braids froze so hard, they felt like jerky.� She said it with a laugh, but everyone knew that it wasn't really a joke.
     
�Today will feel like a heat wave before we're done,� the captain said as he held out the big bowl of pasta primavera. �Anyone for seconds?�
     
Darryl, who'd passed on the appetizer�shrimp cocktails� immediately reached out. Despite his size, they had discovered that he could eat them all under the table.
     
�I'm only trying to prepare you,� the captain went on, �for what's coming.�
His warning came true even sooner than he might have expected. The winds had been picking up steadily, and the