Weather Woman

by Cai Emmons

  “Shall I?” he says.

  She nods, dousing another pang of guilt about bringing him here, making him her accomplice, not to mention exposing him to a serious flu.

  Thom’s footsteps mark the length of the hall again, and he enters an office across from them.

  All the computers are on now, beeping and burping and whirring as they boot up. Diane takes a seat in front of one of them and Matt sits beside her. Would Joe approve of what she’s doing? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly she could be censured professionally for this. Worse, she could be incarcerated, right here in Russia.

  For now, she mustn’t think of these things. She has come this far. The data has real merit and it’s critical the world sees it. She may be being grandiose about its importance, but she doesn’t think so. It shouldn’t take too long for publication, and once the study results are published it will put the nail in the coffin of the lame, unsubstantiated arguments of the climate change deniers. And after that, there is Bronwyn.

  The computers, done booting, are quiet now. She stares at a screen of Russian icons. She speaks Russian passably, but reading it is another matter entirely. This could be a long session of trial and error.

  At the front of the building the phone rings, filling the empty hallways and offices with its lonely, loon-like sound. Svetlana answers in Russian and transfers the call to Thom, who picks up across the hall. Russian quickly cedes to English. What a jumbled composite communication is practiced here, humans making the best of things, using whatever words are within closest reach.

  “The American woman?” Thom says. “. . . You don’t . . . She isn’t . . .”

  Matt and Diane both freeze. Thom falls silent, but he hasn’t hung up.

  “Certainly . . . Certainly . . .”

  Retivov has read her mind.

  “No, I haven’t seen her today . . . Yes, of course I’ll let you know . . . Alrighty. I hope you feel better soon.”

  The receiver thunks back to its cradle and before Matt and Diane have even begun to move, Tim Thom is standing in the doorway, sentry-like, assessing them with a ghostly smile.

  62

  The clerk asks Bronwyn if she would like to go out with the hunters. It would be faster that way, she explains. Bronwyn wouldn’t have to wait for the helicopter to return. Yes, Bronwyn agrees, that would be fine.

  She and the hunters are ushered outside, and they stand in the helicopter’s windy fracas. It is an ancient aircraft, not worrisome exactly, but not confidence-inspiring either. The men urge Bronwyn to take the front seat beside the pilot, and they load into the back with their gear.

  “English?” Bronwyn asks the pilot.

  “Oh yes! I am Pavel.” He is ursine, with massive shoulders and massive enthusiasm and intense blue eyes that seem to suggest sharp vision.

  “Bronwyn.”

  “I do not hear that name.”

  They rise quickly into the troposphere, Pavel shouting amiably over the helicopter’s shuddering. “Hunter?” he asks her, laughing a little. “No, you are not hunter.”

  “Scientist,” she says, surprising herself.

  “You have cabin?”

  “No, no cabin.”

  “You take tests?”

  She nods. Tests of a sort, she supposes. He must wonder why she carries no equipment.

  Pavel jerks his finger back at the hunters who are out of earshot. “The men, they want caribou,” he says. “They think they find caribou. Caribou, ha.” He finds this uproarious.

  “There aren’t many caribou?”

  “You find caribou, I pay you. Ha, caribou.”

  Bronwyn stares down at the stretch of earth passing below them. Some areas are uniformly white with snow, others are mottled, peat and grass poking through. Not a single building or road, not a single human being. The sight fills her with yesteryear doubt, the doubt she thought she’d unloaded long ago.

  After ten minutes the helicopter makes a rapid, nearly vertical descent and lands on a flat snowy area in front of a concrete cabin. The men leap out with their duffels and hurry away, waving and yelling, apparently thrilled to be where they are. Pavel and Bronwyn rise again and loneliness devours her. She shouldn’t have come here alone, without Matt.

  “You, where?” Pavel asks.

  She peers down and sports a patch of peat without snow just ahead of them. “There,” she says, the assertion bringing on a surge of bravery. Pavel again makes his move quickly, coming down on the grassy area with surprising finesse and reaching across her lap to unlatch the door.

  “Two hours, right?” she says to Pavel. “How will you find me again?”

  He rummages under his seat and comes up with a flashlight. “You hear me, you shine light. I navigate. GPS, I know.”

  She turns it on. The beam is assaultive. “Two hours,” she insists. “No more than two hours.”

  “Two hours,” Pavel says. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” She stows the light in the deep pocket of her coat.

  “You no freeze.” Pavel removes his glove and holds out his hand. It is thick-knuckled and red and missing an entire pinkie finger just like Lubov’s. “I freeze hand. I lose finger.”

  Pride prods her forth. She jumps out onto the spongy ice-crusted peat. The helicopter’s madly spinning blades whap up a cyclone of tiny crystals and organic debris. The air is hibernal. With each breath it feels as if a razor blade is being lodged in her windpipe. Pavel waves, rises, and evaporates into the distance like an apparition.

  The departing helicopter has stolen all sound. Even the light wind doesn’t whisper, nor does the porous peat on which she stands. For a moment she has the sensation she has gone deaf. She takes a few steps and is relieved to hear sound kick in again, the rustling of the grass, the suck of moisture, a conversation beginning. She traverses the talik, an unfrozen section of the surface. Beneath there could be freezing to a depth of a thousand feet.

  She shouldn’t walk so far that Pavel can’t locate her, but she has to move to stay warm, and walking is the best way to learn the land. Alone here, she is uncommonly aware of being alive. The sound of her footsteps, the rustle of her coat. To be alive is to be powerful like every other human and every animal, despite what Diane sometimes makes her feel. Living creatures wield energy and will. Under the shelter of her sable coat her blood courses quickly, a river with multiple currents, many rivers, undiscovered capabilities. Her spirits soar. The sun, prevailing over the clouds, is angled now, but there is still plenty of daylight.

  A hundred feet in one direction, a hundred feet back. She traces the same path again and again. This bog, formed in the last ice age, is a large carbon sink storing billions of tons of methane. It needs more clathrates to retain a firmer grip on itself.

  She closes her eyes, walking blind for several yards to augment her hearing, hoping for a stronger message from this earth. What is the language of a peat bog? Does it heave and sigh, clatter and crack? Does it emit some sound she cannot imagine, like the singing sands of certain deserts? Does it have a will of its own as fire does, as thunder and lightning do? The conversation she thought had begun has shut down. She hears only her own movement, no voices rising from the earth. She notes her impatience and tries to keep it in check.

  She stops and opens her eyes. A small rodent is disappearing behind a grassy hillock. A vole perhaps. It’s a surprise, but it shouldn’t be. There is plenty of wildlife here, camouflaged though it is. She thinks of Pavel, Caribou, ha.

  Twenty minutes have passed since she was dropped off. There is no pressure, she tells herself. No one but Pavel knows she is here. She wishes she had her backpack with food, water, space blankets; it was short-sighted to leave it back in the room, but she couldn’t risk running into Matt and Diane.

  The wind of low-swooping wings. A gruff call. A snowy owl has come in for a landing on a slight rise fifty feet away. It continues to call out, a throaty sound like the bark of a dog. It isn’t mating season, but her presence is probably a good reason for distress. Does
this owl know or care that the permafrost is melting? Has it adjusted to new norms? Would it be harmed by her abrupt intervention? They stare each other down. The owl hoots again. It isn’t at all soothing, not like the long comforting call of her Great Horned Owl at home on the Squamscott River. This owl stands its ground and she stands hers. She is stilled by the owl’s imperious gaze, that of a predator who will take what he wants without shame. The bird’s eyes are yellow, almost amber, such an unusual color that she wonders if he has special gifts beyond the exceptional sight of his species. Can he see her terror? Could he be mistaking her for prey?

  “Hello?” she calls, indulging a sudden need to hear her own voice. Her cheeks and tongue are numb so the word slurs and thuds dully into the air, repeating in her mind—hello, hello, hello—pathetically helpless.

  Moments later, the owl takes off, flying low to the ground like a drone, his wing-span shockingly wide. She is no threat to him and he has voles to seek. As soon as he is out of sight she breathes more easily, but she misses him too. She misses the vole. She misses the heartbeat of another living creature.

  63

  “You’re a bold woman taking on Dmitry Retivov.” Tim Thom steps across the jamb and perches his narrow bottom against the edge of the desk. He puzzles over Diane. She says nothing.

  “You overheard?” he says.

  She nods. Beside her Matt’s head is bowed, an expression of guilt she wishes he would resist.

  “How did you expect to get into the files? They’re all encrypted, you know.”

  Of course they would be encrypted. How did she fail to think of that? Her rage blocked her from thinking that far ahead. She shrugs and in the silence her body gives in to a terrible wilting. Could this be the first sign of the flu? No, it’s worse. The wilting is a symptom of defeat. She isn’t good at breaking rules. She never has been. But that doesn’t make her any nobler than John Fiorini of UCLA who, slave to ambition, was a despicable liar and rule breaker and bluff artist, and had no qualms about deceiving colleagues and peers.

  Thom moves to the door and closes it, then sits on the desk, legs dangling, pants riding up to reveal his spindly, yellow-socked ankles. “I’m in charge here, you know. While Retivov is out of commission.”

  “I understand. I’ll go.” Diane stands, determined to depart as quickly and proudly as she can, keep the damage to a minimum. She has never felt so depraved. It’s nauseating to think of herself this way, as a dissembler, an impossible way to live in the long run. Could she ask Tim Thom to keep this between them? He has no real power over her, not really, despite being nominally in charge. Matt is already in the hallway, but she remains fixed in place, selecting judicious words.

  “I hope you don’t feel compelled to share this—incident,” she says.

  “Share it? Please sit.” She doesn’t sit; how can she sit? Thom continues. “I think you’ve misunderstood me. There is no love lost between me and Dr. Retivov. He’s a difficult man, to say the least. I’ve only been put in charge because I’m the only one standing.”

  “Yes.”

  “I told him I haven’t seen you. I thought you heard me.”

  “Yes, I heard. But I didn’t presume—”

  “Dr. Fenwick, I’m assuming you want the same thing I want—the unhindered practice of scientific research. Accuracy, efficiency, transparency?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, how can I help you?”

  Matt watches from the hallway. She wishes he’d come back in here and help her figure out if this is some kind of elaborate trap. Are Thom and Retivov in bed in ways she can’t begin to imagine? Is this a test of her professional behavior, her moral fiber? But there’s nothing immoral in wanting access to one’s data, data that belongs not only to her, but to all the members of the Arctic Cloud Project, and to the larger scientific community, and ultimately to the entire world.

  “What brings you here? What does your research involve?” she asks Thom, stalling, yes, but also truly wanting to know. What are his allegiances? Is he really just another scientist like her, doing his best to learn how the world works? Or is he working here for covert and dubious reasons?

  He hesitates, and she recognizes the hesitation. When someone asks about her work she always questions how truly interested they are. So often the person is asking only to be polite. A moment passes. Then he begins to speak.

  “I’m with the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University. We’ve been taking our inspiration from the remarkable work of Jason Box and his Dark Snow Project. We’re looking at the composition of dark snow here in Siberia, taking surface samples monthly from various locations, analyzing them to see what kinds of algae are growing, what kinds of industrial pollutants are present, how much soot we see from wildfires, etcetera.”

  Her body centers itself a little, the nausea recedes. Tim Thom is a real scientist, he does care about the work. Matt has come to the doorway and also listens intently.

  “Like Box we’ve used a portable spectrometer to determine how the snow’s reflectivity has been affected. And we’ve been coordinating our results with what NASA is bringing back from its CALIPSO satellite. The results have been similar to Box’s. Not surprising, of course. But very appalling.”

  Diane nods. “It is appalling. The last surface methane measurements we got from here showed a sudden dramatic spike. Very worrisome. Especially when you think about all those new bulgunyakh that have been discovered. It’s only a matter of time before they’ll explode.”

  They shake their heads with the disbelief of mourners. “Well—” Thom pauses.

  “Shall we have a look?”

  She barely nods. Of course she’d like to look, that’s why she’s here. And just because it’s Tim Thom who is standing over the computer typing in passwords and opening files, just because she has not made the request outright, just because she is so overcome with the trepidation and doubt that she finally has to look away, does not make her any less culpable.

  “I think you can probably take it from here,” he says.

  She looks at the screen, seeing at last files she recognizes in the form they’ve always been transmitted, labels in English. “Oh my god, I can’t thank you enough.”

  He smiles down at her, clearly proud of himself. “You would do the same.”

  “Of course,” she says, hoping she would.

  “But work quickly. Retivov is unpredictable. He could get it in his head to show up.”

  “All these consoles connect to the same server?”

  He nods.

  “Would you mind opening the same files on this computer next to me so my assistant can help me? And is there a printer we could use?”

  “I wouldn’t risk printing. To do that we would have to get Svetlana involved. I don’t think that’s wise.” He digs into his pocket and pulls out several USB flash drives. “I thought you might be able to use these.”

  She shakes her head in relief and disbelief—he’s thought of everything. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  He unlocks the files on the adjacent computer. “I’ll be across the hall,” he says. “Give me a shout if you need me.”

  She watches him leave with such a tidal swelling of gratitude it might almost be mistaken for love.

  Matt sits beside her. “What are we looking for here?”

  It doesn’t matter that he isn’t a scientist. He can help her download the most critical files to the flash drives. They work in silence in the windowless room, clicking and writing, Svetlana answering phones down the hallway, Thom puttering in his office across the hallway, the fluorescents whirring overhead reminding them of the passing time, the importance of speed. She tries not to think of Retivov, propelled by professional animosity, rising from his sick bed, feverish and irrational. Only once in a while does she feel an existential twitch at the fact that just beyond these walls the unknowable world is ready to swallow them.

  Meanwhile, the tundra continues to melt.

  64

 
; Her eyes water with the cold. Her nose runs. The moisture of her breath freezes on her scarf. At some point she might have to pee, but she can’t think of that now. This cold has teeth, sharp as incisors. The tundra’s face has come into full focus now. A silent, passive, withholding force that seems to come from the refrigerator of deep space, a force easily as powerful as fire. But her task here is a new one. In LA she sought to eliminate the fires entirely, just as she had earlier vanquished tornadoes and storms, but now she wants to assist the tundra, help it thrive, restore it to the way it’s been for millennia. The question is how, as it seems to resist her.

  What a fool she was to come out here unprepared. Her coat no longer feels like adequate armor, and beneath her leather boots and smart wool socks her feet have begun to ache. She tries not to think of Pavel and Lubov’s lost pinkies.

  She paces more quickly to goose her dwindling metabolism and in her quickened footsteps she hears Earl pounding out his hymns. What was it about Earl she loved so much? His open mind? His selflessness? She could have learned so much from him. She thinks of her mother, Maggie, who died before Bronwyn could really see who she was beyond a mother. She never expressed the fullness of her love for Maggie. She should have been more expressive. Is anyone ever expressive enough? She regrets that she left Diane and Matt without explaining herself. What if she were to die out here—Diane and Matt would never know the depth of her feelings for them.

  The water from her eyes has morphed into tears which freeze on her cheeks, despite their salt. She cannot locate the place she generates heat internally. It feels as if some connection has been severed. How can she possibly bring a deeper freeze to the landscape when she is so near to freezing herself. She thinks of fire, lusts for it, imagines invoking it here, the seductive flames bringing light and heat to this fading day. She imagines the reviving power of fire, sees herself sitting in front of it, coaxing hands and feet back to full function. She should not be thinking of fire.