Blood and Ice by Robert Masello Read Free Book Online Page A

trained them uphill, toward the Centro Comercial�not much more than a few crafts shops, a general store, and a post office�looking for anyone who might look like a photojournalist or a marine biologist. The few people he could see were elderly tourists, carefully framing pictures of each other with the towering granite needles, known as the Teeth of Navarino, in the distance behind them. But then, if you were going to take the trouble to travel to one of the most remote spots on the planet, you probably did want to have incontrovertible proof of that fact when you got back home.
     
�How's the doc settling in?� Purcell asked Ensign Gallo.
     
�Fine, sir. No complaints.�
     
�Where'd you put her?�
     
�Petty Officer Klauber volunteered, sir, to give up her cabin to Dr. Barnes.�
     
That was a lucky break, Purcell thought. Berths were hard to come by. The doc�one of the three NSF passengers he was to transport to Point Ad�lie�was an African-American woman of considerable bulk (good padding, he thought, for the Antarctic) and strong demeanor. When she arrived the day before and shook his hand, he could feel his fingers crunch in her grip. She'd do well out there. It was no country for weaklings.
     
Purcell swept the town again, and this time, finally, saw two men looking down at the docks, and one of them�a little guy with red hair�asking a Chilean fisherman something. The fisherman nodded, then swung one arm, still holding a chum bucket, down toward the Constellation. The other guy was tall, with black hair that was whipping around his head (this was hat country, as he would soon learn) and carried a massively overstuffed duffel bag. He alsohad on a blue nylon backpack that betrayed the outlines of a laptop computer case.
     
As the two men came down toward the harbor, Purcell saw that the little guy had also hired a local teenager to push a wheelbarrow loaded with his own gear.
     
�There they are,� Purcell said. �Give �em a kick in the ass.� The ensign obliged with a couple of short blasts on the ship's whistle.
     
�Single up all lines,� the captain continued, �and prepare to get under way.�
As Michael dragged his bag down the metal-and-concrete pier, he saw a crewman in navy whites descending the gangway. The boat was bigger than he'd expected�he'd have guessed maybe four hundred feet long�with what looked like a helicopter secured under an enormous tarp on the aft deck. The sides of the ship were painted red, except for a wide white diagonal stripe across the bow. At the stern, there were gigantic propeller-like screws. Break the ice with the hull, Michael figured, then chop it up with the screws. The boat, in short, was like a huge, floating ice-cube maker.
     
�Dr. Hirsch?� the sailor called out, �Mr. Wilde?�
     
�Yo,� Darryl replied, and Michael lifted his chin in acknowledgment.
     
�Petty Officer Kazinski. Welcome aboard the Constellation. �
     
Kazinski grabbed the bags out of the wheelbarrow and, while Hirsch dug out a few bills for the teenage porter, turned around on his heel and marched briskly up the ramp. �The CO�Commanding Officer,� he said over his shoulder, �is Captain Purcell. He has requested your company at dinner tonight, in the Officers� Mess. Seven o'clock. Please dress appropriately.�
     
What, Michael wondered, did that mean? He'd forgotten to pack a tux. (Not that he owned one, anyway.)
     
Once up on deck, Michael looked around. The bridge, rising at least fifty feet above him, struck him as unusually high and wide, running virtually the entire width of the ship, and perched above that was a kind of crow's nest, mounted on what looked like a chimney stack. That must be some view. He should try to get some wide-angle shots from up there on the voyage to Point Ad�lie.
     
�You'll be sharing a cabin aft,� Kazinski said. �Follow me, and I'll show you to your quarters.�
     
As they headed for a narrow stairway