Maid for the South Pole

by Demelza Carlton

  Audra turned to fix Jean with her stare. "Promise me you won't hurt me."

  "Once that stuff kicks in, I promise you won't feel a thing," he assured her.

  Not good enough.

  Audra shook her head. "Promise you won't hurt me. Promise you won't touch me."

  Hurt filled his eyes. Because she'd guessed his intentions, or because she'd wounded him by suspecting he'd touch her without her permission?

  "What if you have a bad reaction to the drugs, or you have some sort of infection or...need another dose?" he asked, swallowing.

  "Promise you won't touch me unless there is a genuine medical emergency and I will die if you don't," Audra amended. She could feel the lassitude sweeping through her. She understood how people got addicted to this stuff. It made her feel...fluffy.

  "I swear to you, I won't touch you unless your life depends on it." Jean settled on his bunk. "But I will watch over you until the ship arrives with a medic who can set that arm properly."

  "Thank you."

  The staring competition continued until Audra's eyelids weighed so heavily that they closed of their own accord.

  FORTY-TWO

  Never in his life had Jean had so much trouble keeping still, but he did it. Every second he stared at her, lying on the opposite bunk, he just wanted to take her in his arms and swear to her that everything would be okay. That he'd take care of her.

  But he was a man of his word, and he'd promised not to touch her. So he sat on his own bunk while his brain buzzed with questions, and kept his hands to himself.

  What did she think he'd do to her? He'd carried her for more than half a mile. His arms ached at the effort, but he wasn't complaining. He'd felt worse. He'd done worse, dragging his own body along the same beach.

  That's why he'd done it, he told himself. Because of his own bad experience, he wasn't willing to let someone else endure the same pain. Even if she had tried to seduce him away from his work.

  Jean shook his head. No, she hadn't. Her words just now confirmed it, while her fear-filled eyes demanded his answer. She didn't want him to touch her.

  Was that why she'd jerked away from that kiss the other night? She hadn't been teasing him, playing hard to get, pretending to reject him when he knew damn well she'd wanted that kiss as much as he had. She'd responded with more passion than he'd expected, after all. And then...

  She'd panicked. And told him not to touch her.

  So who had touched her in such a way that made her terrified of men?

  Jean wanted to pound the asshole into a crater. A crevasse. And then bury him so deep he was a corpse by the time anyone dug him out. Because it had to be a man. Some asshole had hurt her, and when he found out who...

  Because it wouldn't be a stranger. Jean knew that much about rapists and cowards who hit women. Most of them knew their victims, which meant whoever he was, Audra knew him, or she thought she had.

  He opened his mouth to ask her, but while he'd been lost in thought, she'd succumbed to the morphine. Good. That meant she wasn't in any pain, at least for a little while.

  She might have told someone. A trusted friend, perhaps. The rock star she talked to online?

  He crossed the hut to the shelf where her laptop sat, open. At a touch, it woke up. She'd been working on it before she went for her walk, and forgotten to switch it off. The internet icon at the bottom blinked from offline to on.

  Internet access? Out here? How on Earth had she managed that? They were miles from the Spit Bay camp. He shot her an admiring glance. For a meteorologist, she sure knew about a lot more than just the weather.

  The laptop chimed, telling him a video call was incoming. He swiped the screen, trying to reject the call before it could wake up Audra, but a picture of the rock star appeared instead. Fuck.

  "Audra? Are you okay? Tell me you're okay!" the Aussie demanded.

  "She's sleeping," Jean said. He took a deep breath and made a decision. "Look, it's just us at the camp and when I tried to do first aid, she wouldn't let me touch her. Has...do you know if someone's hurt her in the past?"

  "Who the fuck are you? And what have you done to her?"

  "I haven't done anything!" Jean protested. "She wouldn't let me! There was the volcano, and the earthquake, and she fell, and then..." The sound of her scream would echo in his next nightmare, he was sure of it.

  "Put her on."

  Jean picked up the laptop and tried to point the camera at Audra's sleeping form. "I can't. She's asleep. Look, she's injured and it's just us on the island until the ship returns. I need to know what happened to her, because she won't let me help her."

  The Aussie's expression grew flinty. "If Audra says not to touch her, then you don't fucking touch her. I'll send help." He ended the call before Jean could respond.

  Send help? Did the man even know where they were? Help was three days away, in the shape of the Investigator. Not some strange Australian, thousands of miles away. Until then, it was up to Jean to keep them both warm, hydrated and fed.

  They had food and gas for the stove enough to last them a week, plus whatever emergency supplies remained in the hut. He had enough fuel to power the generator for that time, too, if he was careful. Water wasn't a problem, as long as it was above freezing outside and they had fuel to melt more if they needed it. There wasn't enough morphine for a week, but they might be able to stretch it out for another day or two if she took a lower dose. If they ran out before the ship arrived, though, the withdrawal would be brutal. He knew that from experience.

  More than ever, he wished he'd never used the other bottle of morphine for himself. Maybe he would've been able to remember the day they met, so now they might have been friends, instead of awkward colleagues, and she'd have told him about her past.

  Jean returned to the hut, which wasn't much warmer than outside. He could do something about that, at least. He switched on the ancient space heater left behind by some earlier expeditioner and set about heating water for dinner.

  He pulled out the package of dehydrated food pouches. His mouth turned dry when he saw that the first one was Audra's favourite, mango chicken. He set that aside. She might want dinner later.

  Jean poured water into a different pouch and ate the lot without tasting a single bite. It's not that the meal was tasteless – the package said it was some sort of curry – but that his thoughts were on anything but food.

  First, he had an injured woman who was his first responsibility. Her even breathing told him she was still asleep and not suffering any ill-effects from the drugs. But a broken arm wasn't life-threatening, and their ship was on the way to pick them up. Plus, it would be light for hours – polar summer sure took some getting used to. He could just pop down the beach to that penguin colony and...

  But what if he found another sinkhole? Or he fell and broke something when the volcano caused another earthquake? There'd be no one to help him, and what if Audra needed him?

  He'd come so far, to be so close, and still not see them. This island had to be cursed.

  Ah, screw it. He'd sleep on it, and make up his mind in the morning, when Audra might be awake.

  Jean checked to make sure the stove and the heating was switched off before he climbed into his own sleeping bag, rolling so that he could see the sleeping woman on the other side of the hut.

  Was it worth it? Missing out on the most important part of his PhD research, just to make sure she was okay?

  Sure, he was disappointed, but it was nothing compared to the devastation he'd feel if something worse happened to her, and it was his fault. If even her broken arm was his fault, which it kind of was, seeing as he'd agreed to come to this end of the island instead of staying in the relative safety of Spit Bay. If he'd known this would happen, he'd have stayed there and not even considered a trip west to Atlas Cove.

  So he had his answer, didn't he?

  Yes. She was worth it.

  FORTY-THREE

  Thumping woke Jean from a dream he couldn't quite rem
ember. He hoped it wasn't a pair of elephant seals again, humping against the side of the hut. They'd nearly knocked one of the huts over last time, and as no one else had seen the seals in action, everyone had just thought he'd done a poor job of assembling the hut. When the truth of the matter was that no hut, no matter how well put together, could withstand the pounding of an elephant seal really getting into the action with his lady friend.

  He should tell Audra that story. Maybe it would make her laugh, or at least smile.

  He stared up at the foam ceiling. The hut didn't feel like it was shaking, so the thumping must be coming from somewhere else.

  Jean pulled on a coat and cracked open the door so he could stick his head through. Funny. Outside the insulation of the hut, it almost sounded like a helicopter.

  He glanced at Audra, but she was still asleep, so he dressed and headed outside to investigate.

  Jean almost didn't believe his eyes. A bright red helicopter sat in the clearing where last year's camp had stood. Eric emerged from the hallucination, carrying a stretcher Jean recognised. He'd woken up in one on the cargo plane to Christchurch.

  "How did you get here so fast?" Jean stammered.

  Eric looked grim. "The Aurora Australis is on its way to Fremantle for repairs. Once we got close enough to fly here and back to the ship on one tank of fuel, they dispatched me to collect her. Where is she?"

  Audra. He'd come to take Audra away. Jean's heart constricted in his chest, but he managed to say, "She's in the emergency hut. She was asleep when I left, though."

  Eric nodded and led the way. Between them, they strapped her sleeping body to the stretcher and carried her to the helicopter, where Eric secured the stretcher further for the flight.

  When Eric looked satisfied, he climbed into the pilot's seat. "Is that your boat?" he asked.

  "My boat?" Bewildered, Jean peered in the direction Eric pointed. The boat which had floated away yesterday while he'd been busy taking care of Audra was now beached on the rocks, between two seals. "Yeah."

  "You should tie it up more securely than that. One good wave will sweep it right out into the cove, and I wouldn't want to swim after it. There were a pack of orcas around Wharf Point, trying to get to the penguins."

  His penguins. Jean sighed. Not his penguins any more. "Sure. I'll get right on it."

  He headed for the boat. The vessel had taken on a bit of water while it had been off sailing on its own, but it had lost pretty much everything else, including the anchor and the ropes he'd tossed inside it yesterday. His notebook was gone, too, but then he hadn't had time to write any notes yesterday before he'd given up on research altogether so he could help Audra.

  Who was now flying away from him, perhaps forever. He raised a hand to wave at the helicopter as Eric took off.

  Not willing to waste time searching for the anchor that was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now, Jean grabbed the side of the boat and dragged it up the beach, beyond the high tide line, and tipped it upside-down. The engine had probably drowned overnight, so he'd best leave it for a bit before trying to start it. He didn't want the engine dying on him in the middle of the cove.

  Besides, he had to radio the Investigator for check-in, and tell them he was still alive, like Audra usually did most mornings, right before she delivered her daily weather forecast. Shit, he was going to miss her.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Audra waited for the helicopter to stop rising before she let the pilot know she was awake, and had been for some time.

  "I wondered," he said. "I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm Eric. You're the girl who does the videos."

  "You've watched them?"

  "Yeah, we all have. It's cool to know what's going on at the bases, and the Antarctic Division's been sharing them on their website." He paused. "When we heard you needed help, the guys and me changed the route a bit so we'd be able to swing by and pick you up. I'm lucky I'm the only pilot this trip, so I got to fly you."

  "Why is there only one pilot? I thought there were usually more."

  "We're working with a skeleton crew this trip, because the ship's damaged and needs repairs."

  "Which ship?" Audra demanded.

  "The Aurora Australis, of course. After she broke her moorings in that storm off Mawson, she hit an iceberg. Didn't go all Titanic, though, so once the shipping company had sent out some seaworthiness assessors, they said we could sail her to the shipyard in Fremantle. All non-essential personnel got sent back to Mawson, and they'll fly everyone out who needs it. So you're our only passenger this trip."

  "I didn't hear anything about it. Wow. That must have been really scary."

  Eric shrugged. "We got off lightly. She's due for retirement anyway, and no one got hurt. It's not as bad as a volcano and a broken arm, like you."

  Audra winced as her arm twinged. "I guess Antarctica's really throwing her worst at us this year. Ah, how long until we reach the ship? Just that the pain drugs I took at Heard are definitely starting to wear off and I'd really like some more."

  "There's a first aid kit beside you. There should be something in that to help."

  Audra checked the box. Paracetamol. Ibuprofen. Codeine. All pills that could probably take the edge off, though nothing as powerful as the morphine she'd taken yesterday. "Got any water to wash these down with?"

  Eric passed a water bottle over his shoulder. It was a stretch, but Audra managed to grab it with her good hand. She swallowed whatever the recommended dose was of all of them, then debated whether she wanted to sit up to see out the windows or if she was better off lying down. If she could undo the straps on the stretcher one-handed, of course. Pain wasn't going to be her only problem. What if they wouldn't let her return to Antarctica because of her broken arm? She'd been looking forward to the long, dark winter. Hell, she'd even bought a new dress in Melbourne for the Midwinter dinner.

  "Do you think they'll get the Aurora Australis fixed in time to finish the winter resupply run?" Audra asked.

  Broken arm or not, if there wasn't any transport, she wouldn't be going back to Antarctica until spring.

  "Doubt it," he replied. "I heard they're talking about getting one of the French or American icebreakers to do it instead. Otherwise, they'll have to fly stuff in to Wilkins. Some of the supplies are still aboard our vessel, though, so they can't make the trip until we've unloaded everything and shipped it over to Hobart."

  So there was a way back to Davis. Audra breathed a sigh of relief. She only needed to convince the doctors that she was fit enough to be on that ship.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Back at McMurdo, Jean was surprised to find how alien all the American accents sounded to him after so many weeks among Aussies.

  "So, how was Heard Island? Did you get to meet the Penguin Weather Girl?" Heidi, one of the astrophysicists he remembered from last year, asked.

  Jean's head hurt. "The what?"

  Heidi laughed. "The Penguin Weather Girl. She's a meteorologist working down here, but her video channel makes Antarctica sound like paradise, instead of hell frozen over. In her last video, she said she was on the same team as a penguin researcher on Heard Island, so I thought of you. Do you know what happened to her?"

  His blood turned to ice. "What happened to her?"

  "Well, that's it, isn't it? None of us know, and she hasn't uploaded a new video. Talk about a cliffhanger! She's got half the world wondering, and the other half are guessing who her mystery man is."

  Audra had been taking videos all over the place, but Jean had thought she was doing it to send home, or to entertain her friend who kept pestering her with video calls. Could she really have a video channel? And what had she said about him?

  "I don't know about any videos," he said. "Can you show me?"

  Heidi shrugged. "Sure." She swiped and tapped her tablet a few times, then handed it to him. "Here. That's the one she released a week ago." She hit play.

  A familiar Aussie voice came from the tablet: "Hi. Welcome back to Heard
Island. If you're watching this – "

  Just the sound of Audra's voice made Jean's heart melt. He watched her show off Heard Island, before she pointed the camera at him. The barely recognisable figure waved at her from the boat, but he couldn't hear his own shouted warning about the volcano.

  What he saw next made his breath catch in his throat.

  Penguins. Dozens of them, milling around just like he remembered, but behind the adults, in a depression hidden among the rocks, she'd found the crèche where they kept the juveniles. Audra was an angel.

  "How many people have seen this?" Jean asked urgently. If the whole world knew about his penguins, then his paper wouldn't be as groundbreaking as he'd hoped.

  Heidi angled the tablet so she could see the screen. "Oh, about eight million or so, which is why everyone's speculating about what happened to her."

  Jean skipped back in the video, so he could watch the baby penguins again. He had to thank her. Personally. Properly. Somehow.

  "So do you know her? And do you know what happened?" Heidi pressed.

  "She broke her arm. A passing ship airlifted her out and took her back to Australia," Jean said.

  Heidi looked crestfallen. "Is that all? So why hasn't she posted another video, then?"

  Realisation dawned. "Because when she broke her arm, she asked me to keep her camera safe. I've still got it." He'd found it in his coat pocket the day she left, so he'd carefully packed it with the rest of her things and they were all sitting in his quarters now, waiting for him to find a way to get it all back to her.

  "Seriously? So you do know her! I'll have to watch the videos again and see if I can spot you in any of them." Heidi looked ready to burst with joy. "Ooh, I fly out tomorrow. I can take the camera with me and put it in the post when I reach New Zealand."

  "No," Jean said immediately. "I...I wouldn't know what address for you to send it to." Plus, he intended to be on tomorrow's flight out, and the next flight to Australia after that. He might not know her address, but he could meet the icebreaker in port, and be there when she disembarked.