Whiteout

by Sage Walker

He pulled again. With slow, deliberate motions, the squatting man reached for the gun, broke it, loaded it, and scouted the sea.

  The floe was too far away. The water was filled with broken ice chips and lumps of bergy bits, all too small to hide the silhouette of the boat and its two passengers. Jared tried to look like an ice floe, but he didn’t think he was going to be able to fool the rifleman. The man stood and fitted his eye to the flange of the scope.

  Jared shipped the oars. He grabbed the woman beneath her armpits and lifted her to his lap. She was a dead weight, not fighting him. He turned her so that she faced shore. Jared hugged her, nestling his chin against her shoulder and holding her arms tight to her sides. The rifle wavered slightly. The second man scrambled out of the tent and looked toward the sea.

  Even with the scope, the Zodiac was far enough from shore to make missing it possible. But it wasn’t far enough away from the gun that Jared dared let go of the woman and grab for the outboard engine, which was still tilted up on the stern with its prop above the water. The engine was an unfamiliar make. Jared reached for the oars again, gripping the woman’s hips between his thighs. The rifle steadied.

  A swell rose beneath the Zodiac, tilting its port side toward the sky on a wall of water. A smell of rotting fish, foul breath, and musty cellars rose from somewhere deep. Jared fought the balance of the little boat, trying to turn its nose into the wave, fighting with the oars.

  The shore vanished. Jared struggled for a glimpse of it, seeing instead a moving wall of gray-black, mottled flesh, the charcoal bulk of a humpback whale. The giant surfaced inches away from the Zodiac, between it and the shore.

  Jared threw the woman out of his way and lunged for the motor. He wrestled its mounts until something clicked and the prop sank toward the water. A keychain swung from the ignition. He grabbed for the key and twisted it. The motor whined, coughed, and roared to life.

  “Psyche!” someone shouted.

  The gunshot that followed echoed off the glacier, the promontory, the waves. The whale sank as Jared fishtailed the Zodiac toward the lee side of the little floe.

  * * *

  In the narrow lower bunk, in the dim cabin, Signy lifted her head and looked over Alan’s chest to the screen. It showed the Seattle studio:

  —Pilar sat on the floor, cross-legged, a keyboard and flat-screen in front of her. Beside her, lying on his belly, Jimmy spoke to her as he worked. They had the sound off.

  Signy drifted away again, and dreamed of rows of paper-doll Japanese children, tiny ones linked arm to arm. One end of the paper strip was fastened to a staff, and an unseen dancer waved it back and forth, making spirals and swirls in the dark air. The dolls seemed patient and resigned. Signy thought she would try to graph it and show it to Pilar; there was something very important in the pattern, somewhere.

  “Mmph,” Alan muttered, and turned over.

  Signy nestled against Alan’s bony back, secure between his warmth and the bulkhead, and watched the lights from the cabin screen change the colors of the varnished wood above her in the dark.

  TWENTY-TWO

  From Lisbon, Pilar let Janine’s images run unedited and real-time: Janine working at a frenzied pace and seldom saying anything except to give instructions to the techs who surrounded her. The hotel suite Tanaka had rented became a wonderland, a place to influence visitors who might be persuaded to change one vote, or part of an opinion.

  On a normal job, in a normal time, Edges would be hovering over the screens right now, chewing on nuances and fine-tuning the presentations, with Signy worrying, Jared reassuring her and everyone else, and Paul pulling new information out of nanoland and tossing it in at seeming random. Paul tossed, usually, while Janine sorted Paul’s information into neat, usable piles. Not now, not with Jared gone, Signy off in a futile chase, and Paul revising delegate profiles and sending updates to Lisbon as they came in.

  “What are you doing, Pilar?” Jimmy asked.

  “Worrying.”

  “About what?”

  “About this contract. The lineup on votes is so damned close.”

  “I wish I could help,” Jimmy said, “but I don’t do politics.”

  “Everyone does politics,” Pilar said. In fact, Jimmy wouldn’t be much help right now. Signy would be, but she was asleep. Paul always had the eye for this stuff, if Jared was around to keep him from careening off at some oblique angle. Jared would say, “There, there,” and listen, and things would get clear.

  Janine finished a lighting check in the Lisbon hotel, put her hands on her hips, and turned in a circle.

  “How’s it look?” Janine asked.

  The anonymous rented rooms held a fortune in virtual equipment, and a fortune in the presence of a pair of sleek Tanaka security guards, a carefully bland man and a muscular woman, unobtrusive. The guards, and Pilar couldn’t figure out how many there actually were, worked rotating shifts, around the clock.

  Waiting, in stored sequences of light and sound, waiting to go onstage, vistas of clean mosaic ice impeded the progress of a masted ship, ice whose patterns became infinity, ice that covered and obscured the horizons of rooms filled with the scent of clean brine and the tang of sea air. Seals played there, and birds flew, and an offstage sun slanted the light into kaleidoscopes of pristine colors.

  Janine had set the heating on the warm side, after one of the techs, a dark-eyed and rather plump person from Milan, had come on shift wearing a thick sweater.

  Conversation areas with chairs and hassocks upholstered in hot, campfire colors offered shelter from the vast, cold surroundings.

  “Beautiful,” Pilar said. “Sound?”

  “You won’t get all the harmonics. Not on remote,” Janine said. “But here goes.”

  The Lisbon room filled with music, low volume, but pervasive. Pilar had used a few motifs from Williams’ Sinfonia Antarctica, some of the choral sections. She had worked them into Jimmy’s music, deep whispers of melody that underlay the scenes, caressed them, the music Jimmy said he had learned from a woman, or a dream.

  Paul sent an intruder to the Seattle screens, a crab that scuttled back and forth across Pilar’s synthesizer keyboard and sat down firmly on a C chord. The crab wiped drops of sweat from its nonexistent forehead. “The E.C. is going to ask for a fishing ban,” Paul said.

  “Are you sure?” Pilar asked.

  “Yes. I got the word from an open transmission to the Journal of Aquaculture; the British delegate is friends with the editor. Britain wants it leaked before morning, from the timing.” Paul sent his words over text, scrolling past Pilar’s eyes toward a Save function. Pilar bit at her lip as she read. She forwarded the text to Janine.

  In Tanaka’s Lisbon suite, Janine sat curled in an orange armchair. She had her notebook propped on her knees. She accepted a cup of something from an offscreen arm, and muttered, “Thanks.”

  Pilar windowed Janine away and looked at Paul’s text—

  The E.C. planned to introduce a proposal for a ban. Britain had pushed hard for it, for reasons that had much to do with sentiment, and much to do with its subsidies of aquaculture in the Indian Ocean.

  “I hoped the E.C. would do this,” Paul said.

  Most of the krill harvest went to the Third World, anyhow, although significant quantities showed up, disguised and flavorless, in protein supplements. Soy could be used in its place, and purchasing it from water-thrifty countries would be a neutral factor in Euro trade.

  “We’ve got the E.C., it sounds like. The trick is to swing the Mideastern votes,” Paul said.

  “What’s our plan for that?” Pilar asked.

  “We don’t have one,” Paul said.

  No one had ever figured out the Mideast, no one could predict if its countries were in mortal opposition to each other this week, or bosom partners in a new coalition since yesterday. Edges couldn’t figure them, but losing the vote on a new Mideast configuration was a no-fault situation.

  “Plan? The plan is, for better or worse, we go w
ith what we have. This is done.” Janine waved her arm, vaguely, at the Tanaka suite. “We’ve got a little time. All night, anyway, if Britain pulls its little surprise in today’s session. They may wait until Monday, but that’s asking for a miracle, I guess. Paul, Pilar, get lost for a while. I’m going to shower and change for breakfast.” Janine turned them off, firmly.

  “Me, too,” Paul said. “The shower, I mean.”

  They were gone. Pilar sipped cold coffee and looked in on Alan Campbell’s cabin on the Siranui.

  Signy, crowded in a narrow bunk next to Alan, murmured something in her sleep, now, which was last night to her, and Gods knew what here—

  Pilar left that place. The yellowish glare of a night city came through her bare Seattle window. Pilar wished she had time to tweak the sets in the Lisbon room. She wished the contract’s success was built on stronger foundations, that the secret key to making the ban a reality was in her hand. Search, Pilar told herself, go freewheel and find a lever.

  Tanaka, lost ships, sabotage that didn’t make sense, a daughter that figured in here somewhere. San-Li, a daughter with a name that wasn’t Japanese. Pilar searched for a bio on San-Li’s mother, and didn’t find one.

  Why would San-Li Tanaka have a jones for growth hormone? Why would anyone? Jared was the medic; he would know.

  Pilar started to access Jared, and stopped herself with a nervous little laugh. Wrong move of the fingers, but she found herself in Signy’s old files:

  Tucked away under Stuff, a topic that Signy filled with things that didn’t fit anywhere—Pilar found a view of herself, a couple of days ago, staring out the Seattle window.

  Garbage.

  Pilar set a search function for “growth hormone”:

  More or less in reverse order, images scrolled past, younger Pilars and Janines, some views of the Taos house and Jared up to his elbows in mud plaster, and then New Hampshire, bright foliage, a leaf-peeping tour of the lakeside, and Jared’s voice.

  Pilar settled into her headset, and accepted Signy’s experience of the day, the feel of Signy’s angular body, the pleasure Signy had felt, walking between her two lovers through the blatant colors of a New England autumn morning.

  * * *

  “Longevity,” Signy said, years before today, over the crunch of fallen leaves. “Ah, Jared, you know as much about that as I do.”

  “Starvation’s one way,” Jared said.

  “Yeah. Paul’s a candidate.”

  Signy’s imaged hands felt cold and Signy/Pilar stuffed them in her pockets. Shadows dappled Jared’s shoulders; he squinted up at the sun. Paul made a hrummphing noise and kicked at a drift of crimson.

  “Then there’s the little nanomachines to trot around and clean out free radicals,” Jared said.

  “I’m still waiting for those to get built,” Signy said. “Until then, there’s keeping slightly under lean body weight. Get yourself a perfect blood chemistry by fair means or foul…”

  “Signy’s advocating drugs, Paul,” Jared said.

  “Again?” Paul asked.

  “… and some of the anabolic steroids have been tried. Growth hormone, too.”

  “You did some work on that, didn’t you?” Paul asked her.

  Pilar could feel the tension rise in Signy’s shoulders, in the back of her neck, the muscles of her jaw.

  “In Atlanta. Yeah.” Signy walked on for a while, staring down at granite and dying leaves. “We got some good results, too. We built some really fucking geriatric rats.”

  Signy reached down and picked up a rock, and flung it side-armed toward the lake with all the energy of sudden rage. It skipped once and sank.

  * * *

  Pilar, in the quiet hours of a foggy Seattle night, sighed and tried to call up Signy’s old research papers. Either Signy hadn’t bothered to save them, or she had them locked away under some obscure title.

  A knot burned in its familiar place between Pilar’s shoulders. She leaned back, stretched, and whimpered.

  “Is something wrong?” Jimmy asked.

  “I could use a neck rub,” Pilar said.

  Jimmy’s hands lifted from his keyboard. He let them settle back again and ducked his chin. “I—in a little while, okay? I thought you wanted me to look for Jared.”

  The concept of fleshtime touch seemed to threaten him. Pilar considered pushing him and decided against it. “I do want you to find Jared. I want somebody to find Jared. And I want you to find this Tanaka bitch.” Pilar looked at her hands, her thin brown fingers. They reminded her of talons; they were designed to grasp and tear. Jared had seen them that way; he had seen her as a bird of prey and imaged her, once, in plumage and steel.

  Jared’s description had been fair. Pilar was not kind, in her own eyes. Or if she was, she knew her kindness as a measured thing, calculated for response and gain.

  “If she’s on that ship, she hides real well,” Jimmy said.

  “Kazi’s her boss. She’s got to call him sometime or the other. She’s got to call Papa.”

  “The old man is guarded, max. I’ve tried him,” Jimmy said.

  “Good man,” Pilar said, and she let her pleasure ride in her voice. A measured, calculated pleasure. Jimmy grinned. Stimulus: response. Pilar regretted how predictable it was.

  * * *

  And looked at Lisbon, where the sun was up. If there had been roosters, they would be crowing now.

  Janine and Kazi walked toward the Palacio. Janine, scrubbed and shiny clean, seemed bemused by crowds of morning workers, people with thick white skins and dank black hair that marked a population whose faces did not look Spanish. The crowded streets could have been in any city, but for those faces. In late January, the land and the wan light hinted of autumn and the sea. Ancient rococo archways led into mazed streets of decaying stone.

  There was little, in Lisbon, left from the days of sea rovers and gold bullion, the days of the rape of the New World. An earthquake had destroyed it, and started some sort of religious rebellion. So many innocents had died, and the question rose—Where was God?

  Pilar smelled fresh coffee. Jimmy put a cup down beside her.

  “Thanks,” Pilar said.

  Jimmy laid his palms against her neck and kneaded her tight muscles. He was good at it.

  “Really, thanks.” Jimmy’s fingers worked at Pilar’s temples, tilting her headset, and her view of Lisbon. Pilar batted at his hands. “No, no. You’re messing the focus.”

  “Sorry,” Jimmy said. He pulled his hands away.

  * * *

  Lisbon:

  Itano’s face looked closed and grim. The Tanaka delegation, with blond Janine in their midst, climbed the steps into the new Palacio, which had been designed to keep every stone-carver in Europe busy for a decade. It had.

  * * *

  “Jimmy, the meeting starts now,” Pilar said. “I’ll be with Janine. I’m going to stay with her for a while.”

  Pilar dismissed Jimmy from her reality, Jimmy’s fears, his earnest, sincere presence.

  * * *

  A helo chukkered somewhere high above the ship. Signy squinted up through the too-bright light and saw it coming down. She found a spot in the sun outside the hangar doors where she thought she wouldn’t be in the way. Her layers of parka and coveralls should have kept the cold from her, but it seeped in anyhow, a pervasive wet reality breathed into the air from land and water that never warmed. Signy turned her back toward the sun, hoping for some solar gain.

  The helo rocked itself onto the deck like a big-bellied bug. Signy watched the landing through her headset, which gave her a heads-up display from home as well, a small square screen in her peripheral vision.

  Trent, Anna, and Alan were the only humans Signy expected to deal with today. They were familiar with camera gear, and not likely to ask for privacy clauses or recording contracts. Signy wanted the visuals, and access to printscreens if she needed them, so she stood there looking as much like a bug as the helo did, she figured.

  Trent and Ala
n waited near the coffeepot in the hangar.

  Alan a murderer? A saboteur? Anna? The concepts didn’t fit. Staying alive and unmaimed in the thin shell of a helo, or dealing with the growling machinery that ground up the sea harvest, damn it, just working here should provide enough stress to keep life precious, to keep some tone in anyone’s neurotransmitters. Jared’s disappearance could be, in this sane and busy setting, just a glitch. A fixable glitch.

  * * *

  Pilar, riding Janine’s senses, entered a cavernous auditorium, an oval amphitheater. Broad terraces held ranks of padded conference chairs that looked down into a center arena. Polished marble walls and hangings in dark reds and ambers sought to produce a climate for stately deliberation and the enactment of noble deeds. In the great hall in Lisbon, the world’s movers and shakers gathered to discuss the health and well-being of a community of crustaceans, a citizenry whose members were the size of jelly beans.

  The delegates to the Antarctic Treaty Convention sat at a long oval table, whose central holo stage was currently filled with a model of a fine specimen of Euphasia superba. The room was designed like a stadium, and Janine sat in a cheering section, a wedge formation of black suits ranked behind the Japanese delegate. Half of the section wore headsets. Janine looked right at home.

  “What’s doing?” Pilar asked.

  [Janine] Zzz.

  Janine fed the hall’s audio to Seattle. A man with a proper British voice described pigment variations in krill. He reported that he didn’t know what the new pigments meant, just that they had changed. Janine looked at the speaker, who was somewhat colorless in hair, eyes, and voice.

  “What, no pretty costumes?” Pilar asked.

  Janine circled the arena with her eyes. Behind placards that listed name and nation, the delegates wore Western business suits; the women wore tunics in primary colors. Not a single caftan, sari, or fez relieved the monotony.

  [Janine] Conformity is in, this year.

  The krill vanished from the stage. France, a muscular and totally bald gentleman who was the designated chairperson for this meeting of the august Antarctic Treaty Commission, rapped his gavel. En Français, he declared the preliminary reports on the health of the ecosystem fini, with no time for commentaire. Janine ran the translator’s voice in tandem with his. English and French words clashed and combined. Pilar liked the effect. It was time, France said, to discuss changes in the treaty. France hoped there would be none.