Read Online In Cold Pursuit by Sarah Andrews - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah Andrews
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a small rise at the very end of the point, and just below it, Valena could see a gently sloping roof made of wood and built in the shape of a shallow pyramid. It was supported by posts. Valena assumed that this must be a protective canopy erected to preserve the original structure, which must exist as ruins underneath; after all, she reckoned, more than one hundred years of fierce Antarctic weather had thrashed it since Scott’s men had built it.
One hundred years
, thought Valena.
Not much more than the average human lifetime.
In all the lifetimes of the human species, great civilizations had arisen and fallen and been built again on all six other continents, but here in Antarctica, the touch of humanity was this new, a tiny foothold on an unimaginably large expanse of ice. This had been the last continent to be located, the hardest to reach, and by far the most difficult on which to maintain even this fragile encampment. Less than two hundred years ago, there was no southern continent on world maps. In the 1770s, Cook sailed around a southern sea choked with ice but could only hypothesize that land lay beyond it. So obscuring was its veil of ice that land wasn’t sighted until 1820, tantalizing yet unapproachable through a ship captain’s spyglass.
Valena moved closer to the cliff to look off toward the Transantarctic Mountains, drawn simultaneously by emptiness and fulfillment and the fear that she would not make it to the continent itself but instead be sent home in an agony of frustration.
“Don’t wander too close to the edge,” said Cupcake. “That cross there? It’s for this guy Vince somebody, who was the first man to die in McMurdo Sound. He fell off this cliff in the middle of a blizzard. They never found his body.”
“I shall proceed with respect, then.”
Cupcake pointed at the hut. “When you’re done ogling the scenery, join me in there.”
The sun was high in the northern sky, throwing shadows to the south, the reverse of what she had grown to consider normal back home in North America. She shook her head. Her world was turned upside down and inside out or, more accurately, outside in. As a particularly strong gust of frozen wind bowled in off the ice, Valena turned and followed Cupcake to the low, square structure.
Two women stood underneath the overhanging roof by a door that led into the hut. “Please brush all the snow off your boots,” one instructed, as she welcomed them in out of the wind.
Valena scraped her enormous blue boots. “Where does the original hut begin?” she inquired.
“This
is
the hut.”
“But the wood looks almost new!”
“Things don’t rot out here.”
The windows were small, sparse, and recessed under the veranda, so the interior was dim, its darkness exaggerated by a thick accumulation of soot on the walls and ceiling. Two pairs of antique outer pants hung on a clothesline. Heaps of strange substances were stacked near one wall.
Catching her inquiring gaze, a man who was standing there wrestling the legs of a camera tripod said, “Hundred-year-old seal blubber. Want to try some? It’s good with garlic.”
Valena gave him a smile. He was a moderate-sized man of husky build and was endowed with pendulous mustaches that bristled with gray. He wore a blue watch cap, and instead of the blaze-red Valena wore, the shell of his parka was made of light brown canvas. A pair of faux tortoiseshell half-glasses gave him an oddly professorial air, and he gazed through them now at the leg-extension catches on his unruly tripod. With a final tweak, the last of the legs slid down into place. He jiggled it around, getting it into position, and then, apparently satisfied, he opened the top of his parka and produced an old Nikon F2 camera, which he clipped onto the top of the tripod.
Cupcake appeared at his elbow. “Oh, good, you’ve found each other. Ted, this is Valena. She’s a student of Emmett Vanderzee’s.”
Ted closed his eyes for several moments. When he
One hundred years
, thought Valena.
Not much more than the average human lifetime.
In all the lifetimes of the human species, great civilizations had arisen and fallen and been built again on all six other continents, but here in Antarctica, the touch of humanity was this new, a tiny foothold on an unimaginably large expanse of ice. This had been the last continent to be located, the hardest to reach, and by far the most difficult on which to maintain even this fragile encampment. Less than two hundred years ago, there was no southern continent on world maps. In the 1770s, Cook sailed around a southern sea choked with ice but could only hypothesize that land lay beyond it. So obscuring was its veil of ice that land wasn’t sighted until 1820, tantalizing yet unapproachable through a ship captain’s spyglass.
Valena moved closer to the cliff to look off toward the Transantarctic Mountains, drawn simultaneously by emptiness and fulfillment and the fear that she would not make it to the continent itself but instead be sent home in an agony of frustration.
“Don’t wander too close to the edge,” said Cupcake. “That cross there? It’s for this guy Vince somebody, who was the first man to die in McMurdo Sound. He fell off this cliff in the middle of a blizzard. They never found his body.”
“I shall proceed with respect, then.”
Cupcake pointed at the hut. “When you’re done ogling the scenery, join me in there.”
The sun was high in the northern sky, throwing shadows to the south, the reverse of what she had grown to consider normal back home in North America. She shook her head. Her world was turned upside down and inside out or, more accurately, outside in. As a particularly strong gust of frozen wind bowled in off the ice, Valena turned and followed Cupcake to the low, square structure.
Two women stood underneath the overhanging roof by a door that led into the hut. “Please brush all the snow off your boots,” one instructed, as she welcomed them in out of the wind.
Valena scraped her enormous blue boots. “Where does the original hut begin?” she inquired.
“This
is
the hut.”
“But the wood looks almost new!”
“Things don’t rot out here.”
The windows were small, sparse, and recessed under the veranda, so the interior was dim, its darkness exaggerated by a thick accumulation of soot on the walls and ceiling. Two pairs of antique outer pants hung on a clothesline. Heaps of strange substances were stacked near one wall.
Catching her inquiring gaze, a man who was standing there wrestling the legs of a camera tripod said, “Hundred-year-old seal blubber. Want to try some? It’s good with garlic.”
Valena gave him a smile. He was a moderate-sized man of husky build and was endowed with pendulous mustaches that bristled with gray. He wore a blue watch cap, and instead of the blaze-red Valena wore, the shell of his parka was made of light brown canvas. A pair of faux tortoiseshell half-glasses gave him an oddly professorial air, and he gazed through them now at the leg-extension catches on his unruly tripod. With a final tweak, the last of the legs slid down into place. He jiggled it around, getting it into position, and then, apparently satisfied, he opened the top of his parka and produced an old Nikon F2 camera, which he clipped onto the top of the tripod.
Cupcake appeared at his elbow. “Oh, good, you’ve found each other. Ted, this is Valena. She’s a student of Emmett Vanderzee’s.”
Ted closed his eyes for several moments. When he
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