Everyone at the meeting held their breath. This was supposed to be a planning meeting. But without warning, the scientific basis for the entire trip was being called into question. Sensing the tension in the room, Valery listened carefully as Marina translated Glenn’s provocative remarks and stood to address the group.
“Let me be firm about this,” he said, with Marina translating. “It is true that the sample described in Razin’s paper and displayed in photographs from the St. Petersburg Mining Museum matches my memory perfectly. It is just like the shiny grain I found in the blue-green clay of the Listvenitovyi. Before I came here, I, too, was puzzled by the difference between the St. Petersburg and Florence samples.”
Valery paused as he turned to look at Glenn. “But I disagree with your conclusion. Earlier today, I learned about the history of the sample. Paul and Luca traced it back to the mineral collector in Amsterdam, then to the smuggler in Romania who obtained it from the lab that was working with my former boss, Leonid Razin. Suddenly, I realized the solution to the puzzle.
“The fact is that I did not find just one sample,” Valery explained. “I found several different samples at the Listvenitovyi and gave them all to Razin. I never mentioned the others to anyone before now because I never paid them much attention. They were not as shiny because the metal was covered in part by other minerals.”
What? More than one sample? My mind raced ahead, knowing where Valery’s argument would lead.
“Now think about it,” Valery continued. “It cannot be a coincidence that the Florence sample has been traced to the same lab, and the same person in that lab, who was also working with the St. Petersburg holotype. The two samples must be related, which can only mean that the Florence sample, just like the St. Petersburg holotype, came from the Listvenitovyi Stream.
“If that is the case,” Valery continued, “we now know there were at least two different rocks collected from the same clay that both have khatyrkite and cupalite. And if there are two, there are probably more to be found.”
Valery smiled. “So, the answer to Glenn’s question—‘Is there any justification for going to Kamchatka?’—is definitely Yes! Absolutely! There is now more reason than ever to go.”
Even our resident skeptic, Glenn MacPherson, had to agree, and the expedition was back on course. At the time, it seemed like a moment of triumph.
Months later, standing alone on a hill in Kamchatka fearing for the safety of my son and the rest of the team, it occurred to me that I might not be in my present predicament if Valery had not so eloquently won that debate.
* * *
Foolhardy. Are you crazy? Whom are you trying to kid? was the general reaction from well-meaning family and friends.
They knew I had never laced up a pair of hiking boots, never built a campfire, and never had any reason whatsoever to crawl into a sleeping bag. In other words, they all knew that I had never been camping before in my life and were flabbergasted that I was about to do so. In Kamchatka, of all places.
At first, I was able to laugh off their concerns because I had no intention of going into the field or working at the dig site. I thought I could stay in Princeton and monitor the trip over the Internet. My plan was to persuade expert geologists to travel to Kamchatka without me.
Lincoln Hollister, who was helping me organize the trip, firmly nixed that idea. I was the team leader, he reminded me. I had to travel with the rest of the team.
Trying to appease Lincoln, I came up with an alternate plan that was nearly as good as staying home and that would still keep me out of the field. We could set up a communications station in Anadyr, the capital of the Chukotka Okrug and the only town in northern Kamchatka near an airport. Luca and I, along with our translator Sasha, would stay in town while the rest of the team was ferried out to the Listvenitovyi Stream by helicopter. Because of the limited space, seats would be reserved for team members with essential technical skills. There would not be any room on the helicopter for a theoretical physicist like me even if I wanted to go, which I most fervently did not.
It was Valery who would ultimately spoil that plan.
* * *
Inaccessible. Soon after he arrived in Anadyr on a scouting mission to reserve food and equipment, Valery sent a message to me through Marina: “Helicopters are no good.” We would have to take a different approach.
Helicopters would only be allowed to fly if the weather was ideal, which was impossible to predict in that region. The weather was so changeable that no schedule could ever be relied upon. In fact, helicopter use in that part of the world was deemed so unpredictable that no insurance policy would cover the cost of cancellation or injury.
Furthermore, Valery said, there were very few of them available for rent. Russian oil and mining companies drilling in Kamchatka were paying exorbitant fees to keep all the helicopters on standby so they were always available for last-minute needs.
But all was not lost, Valery assured me. He had reserved two large “trucks.” And the good news, he announced, was that the trucks would be large enough to carry everyone, including Luca, Sasha, and me. No one would have to stay behind in a nearby town, after all. The new plan appealed to Valery, who had been trying to encourage me to join the rest of the team in the field.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait . . . a . . . minute! I thought, as I read the email. Hadn’t Valery gotten the hint that I have been trying to find a way to avoid taking part in this expedition? Doesn’t he realize that I have never spent a single night in the wilderness?
I hurriedly examined all my maps and satellite photos of the area to try to figure out which route Valery’s trucks would be taking. Lincoln and I had never found any roads on the maps before, and they did not magically appear now. When I asked Valery about the lack of roads, though, he told me not to worry. There are roads, he assured me, or at least that was the way his cryptic message was translated.
So to the dismay of family and friends, and even more so, to me, Valery had found a way to rope me into the expedition, after all. There was simply no graceful way to get out of it.
* * *
Initially, at least, everything went like clockwork. Our travel through Moscow and out to Kamchatka and the town of Anadyr went smoothly. Valery (shown in the color insert, image 12) was already there waiting for us. He welcomed us to the region with a great Russian feast that included reindeer meat and a delicious, salmonlike fish called Taranets char, which is native to the region and the cold Arctic waters.
The next morning, Valery took us to meet the local guides who would be taking care of us during the expedition—our driver, Viktor Komelkov and his wife, Olya Komelkova, who would serve as camp cook; and our second driver, Bogdan Makovskii. The two drivers seemed to come from opposite ends of the gene pool. Viktor was short, grizzled, and wiry and Bogdan was a head taller, clean-shaven, and built like a linebacker. None of them spoke English, but, through translation, I learned that all three were friendly, highly experienced, and committed to making the expedition a success.
The drivers took us to a large shed where the two massive vehicles were waiting. I stood frozen in shock when they swung open the doors. Valery’s so-called trucks were actually colossal behemoths. One was blue and white, the other Princeton orange. The passenger section of the blue and white vehicle looked like the top of a large van while the bottom half looked like a massive army tank with a gigantic set of treads. The orange one seemed newer and more sleekly designed. They both looked bizarre, intimidating, and indestructible.
Marina translated as Viktor told us that each cabin could carry a driver plus six or seven other people. At top speed, he explained, they could reach up to fifteen kilometers, or nine miles, per hour. It is going to take us forever to get to the dig site at that rate, I thought.
The next morning, when our international team of seven Russians, one Italian, and five Americans gathered together to start the expedition, we discovered there was going to be a last-minute addition. Viktor and Ol
ya introduced us to their beautiful cat, a Russian Blue named Bucks (see color insert, image 10). His job, they joked, would be to stand guard over the campsite. We instantly adopted Bucks as our mascot and he joined us for a photo in front of the strange-looking vehicles that were about to take us into the tundra (color image 8).
As soon as the photo was taken, we set off on the journey that was, for me, nearly thirty years in the making. Half of the team, including me, would be riding with Viktor in the blue behemoth and the other half, including my son Will, would be riding with Bogdan in the orange. Before we set off, Viktor tested his walkie-talkie to make sure he could reach Bogdan. Once two-way communication was established, everyone boarded the vehicles and we headed off for our adventure like a couple of slow-moving elephants.
When we first set off, Olya and her cat Bucks sat inside the cabin behind Viktor and me. But before too long, Viktor stopped to let them out. Olya put on some outer gear, placed Bucks in his cage, and, although she was shorter than all of us, adroitly climbed her way up to the top of the blue behemoth with Bucks in tow. From that point on, they rode outside together on a special seat designed specifically for that purpose. I was told that the two of them, both independent spirits, preferred to ride in the open air whenever Viktor drove across the tundra.
A short time later, both drivers suddenly came to a stop without warning. Is something wrong? I wondered, as Viktor ordered everyone out of both vehicles. I walked over to Will to see if he knew what was going on. He shook his head and shrugged. We watched as Olya and Bucks climbed down from their perch. Then Olya quickly got to work setting up a table and filling it with food.
You’re kidding, I thought. Is it already time for lunch? We barely got started. Marina came over to explain. When embarking on a trip across the tundra, she said, it was a Russian tradition to stop and celebrate after crossing the first stream.
With a big smile, Olya then motioned everyone to the table where she had set out plates loaded with cold Russian pancakes, called blini, packed with meat and cheese. Along with vodka. There was to be a lot of vodka on the trip. During the celebration, we were instructed to pour out a little bit of vodka as an offering for the gods to ensure good luck. The rest of it was to be consumed. Since I drink only sparingly and figured that some of the others may not have been generous enough in their offerings, I made up for any possible shortcomings by discreetly contributing all of my share to the gods.
I soon learned that the tundra consisted entirely of mushy growth, heather, peat, and bog covering rigid tufts. It was surprisingly difficult to traverse. Trying to walk just a few feet could be challenging. Boots got stuck and one could easily twist an ankle stepping on a hidden tuft.
I stared out the window as we drove along and realized that what looked like barren tundra was actually teeming with life. I could see an abundance of a white lichen growth called yagi, also called reindeer moss, which is a main source of food for reindeer. The animals have an enzyme in their stomach, I was told, that turns the mossy substance into glucose. There were relatively few birds, mostly quails and a few gulls. We also spotted some fast-running hares and a small polar fox wearing its summer coat of gray fur.
There were frequent streams and ponds along with deep, mud-filled tracks made by other vehicles, which looked like crisscrossing scars on the permafrost. Our trucks had to try to move around the earlier tracks for fear of getting stuck in one of the muddy ruts.
I was surprised to see that there were a lot of flowers, the most common of which was a delicate snow-white flower called Arctic bell-heather. Their silky white petals formed a bell-like shape that sat atop thin stems that gave way gently to the wind. It was like gazing at a beautiful sea of white oscillating back and forth. I nicknamed them the “laughing flowers of the tundra” because their swinging and swaying movements made it seem as if they were giggling uncontrollably at the silly humans attempting to venture through their terrain.
Kilometer after kilometer, Viktor and Bogdan battled up and down the tundra’s uneven tufts at about four miles an hour. After a few hours, the orange vehicle’s engine started sputtering and stalling. Viktor had to repeatedly stop our blue truck as we waited for Bogdan to catch up. The two of them decided that a previous driver must have filled up the orange truck with the wrong grade of diesel fuel. They tried to compensate by syphoning in fresh oil from another drum, but nothing seemed to work. The frustrating stop-and-go sequence went on and on until nearly midnight, and by that time Bogdan had fallen so far behind that we could no longer see him. Even worse, the walkie-talkies had inexplicably stopped working. So we had managed to lose all sight and sound of half our team.
We had been on the road since 6 a.m., and it was now approaching midnight. So Viktor finally decided to call it a day. He drove the truck down a steep incline and stopped near the edge of a small river. It was then that I jumped off the truck, only to be enveloped in a suffocating cloud of mosquitoes.
Bone-tired, futilely fighting off my tiny attackers and gasping for breath, I was out of my element and losing my grip. In a searing moment of utter panic, it suddenly occurred to me that my son and the rest of the team that I was supposed to be responsible for was still missing.
Frustration, exhaustion, and panic, laced with a sense of absolute dread. An avalanche of emotions swept over me, unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
And where was my son?
EIGHTEEN
* * *
FOUND
Increasingly frantic, I swung my arms wildly in all directions to swat away the mosquitoes that were relentlessly attacking me. I stood on the muddy hillside, craning my neck for any sign of the orange behemoth. The wind howled like a monster in my ears.
“Paul.”
It sounded like someone was calling my name, but I brushed it aside. Panic and fear were making me imagine things.
“Paul. Paul.” No, that voice was real. It sounded vaguely like someone with a Russian accent, but it was hard to tell because of the wind. NOT NOW, I thought. GO AWAY. I did not want anyone to see me in this nearly hysterical state. I had completely lost control of my emotions.
But the Russian voice became more insistent.
“PAUL!” Now he was right behind me, demanding my attention.
Exasperated, I spun around and was startled to see Valery Kryachko standing within arm’s reach. He did not speak any English and knew that I did not speak Russian. So without saying a word, he stepped forward and plopped a camouflage hat on my head.
I must have looked confused. Valery studied me for a moment, and seemed to realize that I did not understand what was going on. So he reached up and began fiddling with the brim of the hat. I stood there silently, having no idea what I was supposed to do, until I finally noticed that Valery was pulling black netting from the top of the hat down over my face. He tightened the cord along the bottom of the netting until it closed around the bottom of my neck, which instantly created a barrier between me and my attackers. He took a step back to look at me and nodded approvingly. Then, without saying another word, Valery turned and started making his way back down the hill.
For the first time since getting out of the blue behemoth, I could finally breathe normally. I could stop waving my arms all around like some kind of crazed human windmill.
And then, things got much, much better. I suddenly heard the low growl of a diesel engine approaching from the distance. I swung around to face the hillside and watched as the orange behemoth suddenly flew over the top of the hill, careened past me and shot down to the riverbank to join its blue partner. My anxiety was replaced by euphoria the moment I saw it go by. My son was safe, my team was safe. And thanks to Valery, I had not been asphyxiated.
I followed the orange truck down the muddy hillside as quickly as I could. Will, being an experienced field geologist, emerged fully outfitted in his mosquito gear. When I asked about the whereabouts of my own gear, which I had mistakenly left with him when we had set out that morning from Anadyr
, he cheerfully informed me that he had put it to very good use cushioning his computer and camera equipment.
A few moments earlier, when I had been suffocating in a cloud of mosquitoes and terrified about what had happened to him, I might have had trouble fully appreciating the joke. But now that he was safe and the mosquitoes had lost their hold over me, we were both able to laugh at the absurd situation. Valery’s hat was to become a regular fixture on my head, and would keep me sane and calm for the rest of the journey.
Dinner the first night out was a hot soup of ramen noodles and warm reindeer ribs served along with more meat wrapped in blini. Everyone ate rapidly. After having spent the first sixteen hours of the expedition bouncing along the tundra at a sluggish four miles an hour, everyone was eager to get some sleep.
Except for me. Once our sleeping bags were laid out in the back of the blue truck, I spent part of the night lying flat on my back, shoulder to shoulder between Will and Vadim. I managed to last about three hours in that position, but could never really get to sleep because the vehicle was tipped at such an angle that blood was rushing to my head. Would every night be this bad? I wondered.
I finally concluded sleep was hopeless. Taking Valery’s mosquito hat with me, I quietly slipped out the back of the truck and climbed up to the perch where Olya and Bucks had spent most of the first day. I stared across the strange, moonlit terrain and pulled out my logbook to record my thoughts about our first day on the tundra:
The snow-cats, or at least I am calling them that, seemed impressive when we first saw them yesterday, but today, against the huge expanse of tundra, they seemed completely insignificant. The ride was one giant amusement park ride lasting all day . . .
The Second Kind of Impossible Page 21