The comandante returned to his shaving. He never liked anchoring in Punta Arenas; it was a poor place for a ship, especially in a westerly wind. He was surrounded, as usual, by fishing boats taking advantage of the destroyer's lee. It was typical South American anarchy; no discipline, no sense of the dignity due a military vessel.
There was a rap on the door. "Comandante," came the voice of Timmer, the signal officer.
"Enter," the comandante said without turning. In the mirror, he could see the door open and Timmer enter with another man in tow: a civilian, well-fed, prosperous, satisfied with himself.
Vallenar ran the blade a few times along his chin. Then he rinsed the blade in the metal basin and turned. "Thank you, Mr. Timmer," he said with a smile. "You may go. If you would be so kind as to post a man outside."
After Timmer left, Vallenar took a moment to examine the man before him. He stood before the desk, a slight smile on his face, no trace of apprehension. And why should he be afraid? Vallenar thought, without malice. Vallenar was a commander in name only. He had the oldest warship in the fleet, with the worst posting. So who could blame the man who stood here before him now for sticking out his chest ever so slightly, for feeling like a big man who could stare down the powerless comandante of a rusting vessel?
Vallenar took one last, deep drag on the puro, then flicked it out the open porthole. He laid down the razor and pulled a cigar box from a desk drawer with his good hand, offering the box to the stranger. The man glanced at the cigars with disdain and shook his head. Vallenar took one for himself.
"I apologize for the cigars," the comandante said, replacing the box. "They are of very poor quality. Here in the navy, you must take what you are given."
The man smiled condescendingly, staring at his withered right arm. Vallenar eyed the heavy sheen of pomade in the man's hair and the clear polish on his fingernails. "Sit down, my friend," he said, placing the cigar in his mouth. "Forgive me if I continue shaving while we talk."
The man took a seat in front of the desk, daintily propping one leg over the other.
"I understand you are a dealer in used electronic equipment—watches, computers, photocopiers, that sort of thing." Vallenar paused while drawing the razor across his upper lip. "Yes?"
"New and used equipment," the man said.
"I stand corrected," Vallenar said. "About four or five months ago—it would have been in March, I believe—you purchased a certain piece of equipment, a tomographic sounder. It is a tool used by prospectors, a set of long metal rods with a keyboard at its center. Did you not?"
"Mi Comandante, I have a large business. I cannot remember every piece of junk that crosses my door."
Vallenar turned. "I did not say it was junk. You said you sell new and used equipment, did you not?"
The merchant shrugged, raised his hands, and smiled. It was a smile that the comandante had seen countless times before from petty bureaucrats, officials, businessmen. It was a smile that said, I won't know anything, and I won't help you, until I get la mordida, the bribe. It was the same smile he had seen on the faces of the customs officials in Puerto Williams, a week before. And yet today, instead of rage, he felt only a great pity for this man. A man like this wasn't born polluted. He had been corrupted by degrees. It was a symptom of a greater sickness; a sickness that manifested itself all around him.
Sighing deeply, Vallenar came around the desk and perched on the edge closest to the merchant. He smiled at the man, feeling the shaving cream drying on his skin. The merchant nodded his head with a conspiratorial wink. As he did so, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in the universal gesture, laying the other manicured palm on the table.
As quick as a striking snake, the comandante's hand shot forward. With a sharp, digging movement, he sank the twin blades of the razor into the moon end of the merchant's middle fingernail. The man drew in his breath sharply. Terrified eyes stared up at the comandante, who met his gaze with perfect impassivity. Then the comandante gave a brutal tug and the man shrieked as the fingernail was torn away.
Vallenar shook the razor, flicking the bloody nail out the porthole. Then he turned to the mirror and resumed shaving. For a moment, the only sounds in the small cabin were the scrape of the blades against skin and the loud moaning of the merchant. Vallenar noticed, with faint interest, that the razor was leaving an unshaven stripe on his face; a piece of matter must have remained stuck between the blades.
He rinsed the blade again and finished shaving. Then, patting and drying his face, he turned to the merchant. The man had risen to his feet and was standing before the desk, swaying and moaning, and clutching his dripping finger.
Vallenar leaned over the desk, tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket, and gently wrapped it around the man's wounded finger. "Please, sit down," he said.
The merchant sat, whimpering softly, his jowls quivering with fright.
"You will do us both a service if you answer my questions quickly and precisely. Now, did you purchase a device such as I described?"
"Yes, I did," the man said instantly. "I did have an instrument like that, Comandante."
"And who bought it from you?"
"An American artist." He cradled his wounded finger.
"An artist?"
"A sculptor. He wanted to make a modern sculpture out of it to show in New York. It was rusted, useless for anything else."
Vallenar smiled. "An American sculptor. What was his name?"
"He did not give me his name."
Vallenar nodded, still smiling. The man was now so very eager to tell the truth. "Of course not. And now tell me, señor—but I realize I have not asked your name. How inconsiderate of me."
"Tornero, mi Comandante. Rafael Tornero Perea."
"Señor Tornero, tell me, from whom did you purchase the instrument?"
"A mestizo."
Vallenar paused. "A mestizo? What was his name?"
"I am sorry... I do not know."
Vallenar frowned. "You don't know his name? There are very few mestizos left, and fewer still come to Punta Arenas."
"I can't remember, Comandante, truly I can't." The man's eyes grew frantic as he searched his memory in desperation. Sweat trickled from the pomaded brow. "He was not from Punta Arenas, he was from the south. It was a strange name."
Suddenly, a flash came over Vallenar. "Was it Puppup? Juan Puppup?"
"Yes! Thank you, thank you, Comandante, for refreshing my memory. Puppup. That was the name."
"Did he say where he found it?"
"Yes. He said he found it on las Islas de Hornos. I didn't believe him. Why would anything of value be found down there?" The man was babbling urgently now, speaking as if he could not get the words out fast enough. "I thought he was trying to get a better price." His face brightened. "And now, I remember, there was a pick, and a strange-looking hammer, too."
"A strange-looking hammer?"
"Yes. One end was long and curved. And there was a leather bag of rocks. The American bought all those things, too."
Vallenar leaned eagerly across the desk. "Rocks? Did you look at them?"
"Yes, sir, I certainly did. I looked at them."
"Were they gold?"
"Oh, no. They had no value."
"Ah. And you must be a geologist, of course, to know that they had no value?"
Though Vallenar's tone was mild, the man cringed in the chair. "Comandante, I showed them to Señor Alonso Torres, who owns the rock shop on Calle Colinas. I thought they might be valuable ores. But he said they were worthless. He said I should throw them away."
"And how would he know?"
"He knows, Comandante. He is an expert in rocks and minerals."
Vallenar walked toward the single porthole, limed and rusted from years of salt water. "Did he say what they were?"
"He said they were nothing."
Vallenar turned back to the merchant. "What did they look like?"
"They were just rocks. Ugly rocks."
V
allenar closed his eyes, trying hard to stem the anger rising within him. It would be unseemly to lose his temper, here in front of a guest on his own ship.
"I may have one more in my shop, Comandante."
Vallenar opened his eyes again. "You may?"
"Señor Torres kept one to do further tests. I got it back after the American bought the instrument. For a time, I used it as a paperweight. I, too, hoped it might be valuable, despite what Señor Torres said. Perhaps I can still locate it."
Comandante Vallenar suddenly smiled. He removed the unlit cigar from his mouth, examined the tip, and lit it from a box of wooden matches on his desk. "I should like to purchase this rock you mention."
"You are interested in this rock? It would be my privilege to give it to you. Let us not talk of purchase, Comandante."
Vallenar bowed slightly. "Then I would be pleased to accompany you, señor, to your place of business, to accept this kind gift." Then he took a deep drag on the cigar and, with the greatest of courtesy, ushered the merchant out of the cabin and into the foul central corridor of the Almirante Ramirez.
29: Rolvaag
9:35 A.M.
THE DRILL bit was laid out on an examination table, its scorched head resting on a bed of white plastic. A bank of overhead lights bathed the hulk in blue. Sampling instruments were lined up beside it, individually sealed in plastic. McFarlane, dressed in scrubs, fitted a surgical mask into position over his head. The channel was unusually calm. In the windowless lab, it was hard to believe they were on board a ship.
"Scalpel, doctor?" Amira asked, her voice muffled by her mask.
McFarlane shook his head. "Nurse, I think we lost the patient."
Amira clucked in sympathy. Behind her, Eli Glinn watched, arms folded.
McFarlane moved to an electronic stereozoom microscope and swiveled it into position over the table. A highly magnified picture of the drill head flickered into view on a nearby workstation screen: a landscape of Armageddon, fused canyons and melted ridges. "Let's burn one," he said.
"Sure thing, doc," Amira said, sliding a writeable CD into the drive bay of the machine.
McFarlane pulled a swivel chair toward the table, sat down at the microscope, and snugged the twin eyepieces to his head. Slowly, he moved the eyepieces, scanning the crevasses, hoping the drill bit might have removed something, no matter how small, from the surface of the meteorite. But no telltale particles of red gleamed in the lunar landscape, even when he switched to UV light. As he searched, he was aware that Glinn had come forward and was staring at the video screen.
After several fruitless minutes, McFarlane sighed. "Go to 120x."
Amira adjusted the machine. The landscape leapt forward, looking even more grotesque. Again McFarlane scanned it, sector by sector.
"I can't believe it," said Amira, staring at the screen. "It should have picked up something."
McFarlane sat back with a sigh. "If it did, it's beyond the power of this microscope to see it."
"That suggests the meteorite must be one tenacious crystal lattice."
"It sure as hell isn't a normal metal." McFarlane slapped the two eyepieces together and folded them back into the machine.
"What now?" said Glinn, his voice low.
McFarlane swiveled in his chair. He pulled down the mask and thought for a moment. "There's always the electron microprobe."
"And that is...?"
"The planetary geologist's favorite tool. We've got one here. You put a sample of material in a vacuum chamber, shoot a high-speed beam of electrons at it. Normally, you analyze the X rays it produces, but you can heat up the electron beam to the point where it'll vaporize a tiny amount of the material, which will condense as a thin film on a gold plate. Voilà, your sample. Small, but viable."
"How do you know the electron beam will be able to vaporize a bit of the rock?" Glinn asked.
"The electrons are ejected from a filament at extremely high speed. You can ramp it up almost to the speed of light and focus it down to a micrometer. Believe me, it'll knock off at least a few atoms."
Glinn was silent, clearly weighing in his mind the possible danger against the need for more information. "Very well," he said. "Proceed. But remember, no one is to touch the meteorite directly."
McFarlane frowned. "The tricky part is how to do it. Normally, you bring the sample to the microprobe. This time we'll have to bring the microprobe to the sample. But the thing isn't portable—it weighs about six hundred pounds. And we'll have to jury-rig some sort of vacuum chamber over its surface."
Glinn removed a radio from his belt. "Garza? I want eight men up on the maindeck immediately. We'll need to get a sling and vehicle big enough to move a six-hundred-pound instrument on the first morning transport."
"Tell him we need a major power source, too," McFarlane added.
"And have a cable with a ground-fault interrupt able to carry up to twenty thousand watts."
McFarlane gave a low whistle. "That'll do it."
"You have one hour to get your samples. We have no more time." These words were spoken very slowly, and very clearly. "Garza will be here shortly. Be ready."
Glinn rose abruptly and left the lab, the door sucking in a gust of frigid air as it shut behind him.
McFarlane looked at Amira. "He's getting touchy."
"He hates not knowing," said Amira. "Uncertainty drives him around the bend."
"It must be hard to live life like that."
A distant look of pain crossed her face. "You haven't any idea."
McFarlane looked at her curiously, but Amira merely pulled down her mask and removed her gloves. "Let's break down the microprobe for transport," she said.
30: Isla Desolación
1:45 P.M.
BY EARLY afternoon, the staging area had been prepped for the test. Inside the little shack, the light was brilliant, the air suffocatingly warm. McFarlane stood over the hole, looking down on the rich, deep red surface. Even in the harsh light it had a soft luster. The microprobe, a long cylinder of stainless steel, lay on a padded cradle. Amira was arranging the other equipment McFarlane had ordered: an inch-thick bell jar containing a filament and plug, a set of gold disks sealed in plastic, and an electromagnet for focusing the electron beam.
"I need one square foot of the meteorite cleaned to absolute perfection," McFarlane said to Glinn, who was standing nearby. "Otherwise we'll get contaminants."
"We'll make it happen," said Glinn. "Once we get the samples, what's your plan?"
"We'll run a series of tests on them. With any luck, we'll be able to determine its basic electrical, chemical, and physical properties."
"How long will that take?"
"Forty-eight hours. More, if we eat and sleep."
Glinn's lips compressed together. "We can't afford more than twelve hours. Confine yourself to the most essential tests." He checked his massive gold pocket watch. Another hour, and all was in readiness. The bell jar had been tightly sealed to the surface of the meteorite—an excruciatingly cautious operation. Inside the bell jar, ten tiny sample disks lay on pieces of glass, arrayed in a circle. A ring of electromagnets surrounded the jar. The electron microprobe lay nearby, partially open, its complex guts exposed. Multicolored wires and tubes streamed from it.
"Rachel, please turn on the vacuum pump," McFarlane said.
There was a whir as air was sucked from the bell jar. McFarlane monitored a screen on the microprobe. "What do you know. The seal's holding. Vacuum's down to five microbars."
Glinn moved closer, watching the small screen intently.
"Turn on the electromagnets," McFarlane said.
"You've got it," said Amira.
"Douse the lights."
The room went dark. The only light came from cracks in the walls of the ill-made shack and from the LEDs arranged along the microprobe's controls.
"I'm turning the beam on at low power," McFarlane whispered.
A faint bluish beam appeared in the bell jar. It flickered and ro
tated, casting a spectral light across the meteorite's surface, turning the crimson surface almost black. The walls of the shack danced and wavered.
McFarlane carefully turned two sets of dials, altering the magnetic fields around the jar. The beam stopped rotating and began to narrow, becoming brighter. Soon it looked like a blue pencil, its point resting on the meteorite's surface.
"We're there," he said. "Now I'm going to bring it to full power for five seconds."
He held his breath. If Glinn's concerns were justified—if the meteorite was somehow dangerous—this was when they might find out.
He pressed the timer. There was a sudden, much brighter, beam inside the jar. Where it touched the meteorite's surface, there was an intense violet pinpoint of light. Five seconds ticked off, and then everything went dark again. McFarlane felt himself relax involuntarily. "Lights."
As the lights came on, McFarlane knelt above the meteorite's surface, staring eagerly at the gold disks. He caught his breath. Each disk was now marked with the faintest blush of red. Not only that, but at the spot where the electron beam had touched the meteorite, he saw—or thought he saw—the tiniest pit, a gleaming speck on the smooth surface.
He straightened up.
"Well?" asked Glinn. "What happened?"
McFarlane grinned. "This baby isn't so tough, after all."
31: Isla Desolación
July 18, 9:00 A.M.
MCFARLANE CRUNCHED across the staging area, Amira at his side. The site looked the same—the same rows of containers and Quonset huts; the same raw, frosted earth. Only he was different. He felt bone tired yet exhilarated. As they walked in silence, the crisp air seemed to magnify everything: the sound of his boots creaking in the fresh snow, the clatter of distant machinery, the rasp of his own breath. It helped clear his head of all the strange speculations that the night's experiments had aroused.
The Ice Limit Page 19