“And speaking of communication, where are we on that?”
“Pritchard and Dolan are still on it. They’ve set up an automatic search-out/reach-out system to try to connect with anyone, scanning extant satellite systems, low orbit and high orbit. They’re working around the clock on this. Am I right?”
Pritchard and Dolan nod solemnly. They know there’s some doubt and irritation with them over the communications failure—rational or not. It is so sudden, so disconcerting, so unprecedented and complete. They’re the only two experts. No one can contribute anything to their arena. And no one can fully judge the adequacy of their efforts. Heller feels bad for them. That’s a level of annoyance you don’t want against you as T3 tempers and attitudes settle in.
“We can obviously amend the rules about pregnancy and procreation. We can establish a neonatal unit. We can begin construction of an unmanned exploratory watercraft, to remotely inspect the New Zealand and Argentinian harbors. We can design and deploy air-quality sensors, to detect radioactive fallout and airborne pathogens.” Hobbes doesn’t say any of that. Not just yet. Way too soon. Way too much. But he’s thinking it. They’re all thinking it. He would say it only to be reassuring, and its effect right now would not be reassuring.
“For the winter, we’re on our own. But we’re always on our own in winter. Nothing has changed in that regard, except our ability to know anything about the rest of the world. In that way, we’re temporarily like our predecessor explorers here in Antarctica, right? And look, it’s scientifically reasonable to assume there is still a rest of the world. Science tells us to await the facts. Not to jump to conclusions. Not to speculate uselessly.”
Heller knows Hobbes is trying to establish an assuring, sturdy, natural authority. He knows other people know it too. An implied chain of command that is like any other winter’s. Because if people think that no longer exists, that it is called into question, then who knows what would happen? They have to pretend things are largely the same, except for communications. If it’s a group delusion, it’s a useful and adaptive one. For now.
“Look, we really don’t know what’s happened. Our communications are down. Remember—we just don’t know,” Hobbes says, once again. Like a campaign theme, to be drummed into the heads of the voters. Of the undecided.
No, we don’t know, thinks Heller.
But the problem is, we can imagine.
29.
“There would still be pockets,” says Hobbes, at dinner with Heller, both of them hunched over their trays, “in mountains, preoccupied with battling disease, being smart about it, taking it on. Climbing parties up there for days, those living above fifteen thousand feet—Lima, Peru . . . Quito, Ecuador. Maybe. The thin air—the microbe may have had trouble. People in those kinds of areas maybe have a fighting chance. If no one carries it into their midst. If they closed their gates. Responded immediately to the emergency.” Hobbes stares blankly. “There’s no way to know. Pure speculation. Pure hope.” And in those last two words, uttered more quietly—pure hope—Heller hears, for the first time, true feelings Hobbes has been hiding from everyone else. Pure hope. That mere hope may be at this point the appropriate response.
So then what? Scavenger societies? Dystopias, postapocalyptic primitive communities?
Earth would regenerate, thinks Heller, no problem; some species would adapt, but not in the needed amount of time. Not in a human lifetime. That was the problem. The fragility of human life—not the welcoming, adaptable Earth itself. Time itself was the problem.
And this nationless 157 of them—scientists and support personnel, who happened to be here. They couldn’t leave. They would never leave.
Pure speculation. Pure imagination. But speculation and imagination now bleeding into assumption.
Back in his room, Heller looks down at his spreadsheet. At his list. Originally it was a list of all the people who had wintered over—all of them possible suspects.
Heller’s list is now, strangely, potentially, a list of all people alive.
In his hands. As if he is playing God.
He would no longer be just a murder investigator. He would be, quite possibly, the planet’s peace officer. Its unappointed, unofficial arbiter of justice. If life here headed in certain quite conceivable directions, he could be all that stands between civilization and barbarism.
No longer just a homicide investigator?
The lone law officer on Earth?
The puzzle has been simple. Who did it, and how. Simple enough to state, though complex enough to solve, because he has gotten nowhere.
Now it would be a new puzzle. The puzzle of survival.
He hasn’t solved the first puzzle. And has trouble even grasping this new one.
People are weeping already. Pounding the walls of their dorm rooms. Stunned into silence. He—Joe Heller—would be dealing with that. And the moments—inevitable, increasingly frequent moments—when it boils over.
He will be responsible. Responsibility itself will take on a new meaning.
Hobbes remains outwardly calm, but he sees the panic in Hobbes’s eyes. A sense that this is too much for their logic, for their education, for their brains. A sense of numb incomprehension already pervades everything, everyone. They don’t know anything yet. They know they don’t. But it doesn’t stop them from “knowing”—imagining, articulating, envisioning the possible scenarios quietly with one another, silently to themselves.
Is he in any way up to the task?
He knows he is not. He knows his limits, and he knows they are severe.
He is forced to think again about Paul. A line of thinking, of brooding, of haunting that some part of him hoped to escape by taking this assignment, by coming to Antarctica. But the prospect of unfathomable responsibility suddenly thrust upon him reignites, amplifies these never-dead issues, makes them echo in the late and endless night . . .
How could he not know what his partner was doing?
Working side by side with him. Filling out reports. Interviewing witnesses. Covering cases. On all-night stakeouts together. How could he not know? How could he have no clue to his partner’s other life?
How could he have been so blind for twenty years?
A detective? How could he call himself a detective? How could you trust yourself to observe human nature?
It was what he had asked himself then, over and over.
And it was no mere private question.
It was what they had asked him, what Paul’s union representatives and defense lawyer had asked, with their puzzled, befuddled looks, in the hearings. Asking for the sake of their client, a way to make a point about calling all of Heller’s testimony into question. How can we even begin to believe a guy who never noticed anything for all those years? But also, it seemed to Heller, asking genuinely as well.
How could you not know?
What does it say about you?
What kind of a partner could you be? Not much of a partner at all. That was the clear implication.
Paul had been slippery. Paul had been adept, it was true. But Heller had thought there was a connection between them. Camaraderie.
It indicated such naïveté, despite the profession. The exact wrong choice of profession, where alertness, suspicion, powers of observation were essential currency. Heller’s departmental record indicated that he had plenty of those abilities. But his blindness to Paul told him he had none.
And Ann ambushing him, announcing her long dissatisfaction in the marriage, grabbing Amy and loading her into the car and heading to her sister’s in Michigan. His other partner of years—equally misconstrued, misunderstood by him.
These questions, this history, never really buried, stirred up again by his partnership with Trish. Is he incompetent, blind, unseeing in some fundamental way in this new partnership too? Is there already something going on that he is missing? He doesn’t want to screw this one up. There’s so much so quickly that’s so meaningful to him, to both of them, he doesn’t want to m
ess up this partnership too. And now, the old questions, his old history are stirred up even more by what’s happened, or seems to be happening, on the planet north of them. By the stunning, haunting prospect that his eyes, and his instincts, may be the only cop eyes and cop instincts.
And—beating at the back of his brain, a kind of summation and bottom line of all this brooding speculation, focusing it all down to one point, like all the stars of the universe converging in the eye of a beholder behind a telescope—
What will this do to the murder rate?
To the serial killer who Heller knows, just knows, is here?
This is not what he signed on for.
30.
Pritchard shows up breathless.
“He got somebody.”
“What?”
“Dolan. He got it working!”
“What are you saying?”
“His ham radio. He rigged a ham radio and finally got it to work, and we were broadcasting, systematically adjusting frequency, and finally we got a hit.” Pritchard is smiling. Breathing heavily with elation. Chest puffed out in victory. “A farmer in Australia. Guy in the outback. Heavy Aussie accent. But we were talking to him! Before we lost the connection.”
“Can we get him back?”
“Hope so. Dolan thinks so.”
“What’s he saying? Did he tell us anything?”
Pritchard smiles, giddy. “You can hear for yourself, Manny. Dolan was smart enough to record it.”
Hobbes, Simmons, Bramlett, and Heller huddle around the radio in the Comm Cave, along with Pritchard and Dolan. Heller’s been invited in order to listen to the voice, to help hear its stresses, to help assess its psychological state.
The ham radio that Dolan and Pritchard have cobbled together certainly doesn’t resemble any image of a ham radio from the past. No wooden case. No big dials. An assembly, instead, of colored wires, diodes, potentiometers from inside clock radios and audio equipment and computers, or the guts of a computer exploded, turned inside out. And, of course, a remote computer speaker that they all lean toward.
Wordlessly, Dolan hits a computer key. The recording begins to play. Dolan’s voice. And, opposite it, another voice. The farmer’s voice—sounding heavily filtered, the filter of a thousand miles or more, but no matter. Yes, a farmer, but no mere outback rube, as it turns out: a sophisticated agriculturalist, it becomes quickly apparent. The man is clearly, acutely alert and recognizes very quickly the situation at McMurdo station. Miraculously responding to Pritchard and Dolan’s blind call into the darkness.
“Hey, blokes, this is Aussie 2094, broadcasting from the Brindabella Range. Anyone out there? Anyone know what’s happened? Our grid is down. We’ve been operating on generator plus batteries and flashlights here since Monday . . .”
“Aussie 2094, this is Patrick Dolan, McMurdo Station Antarctica, please come back.”
“Back at you, McMurdo. This is Andrew Donovan, ham license 2094.”
“Donovan. You can hear us?”
“Clear enough. And you?”
“Yes, you’re coming in okay.”
“McMurdo. Wow. Wouldn’t have taken anyone there for having a ham license.”
“We just built it, actually. All other communication has been cut off. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“Me too.”
“Tell us whatever you can.”
“Here’s what I know, blokes. We’ve had no communication. No cell service, no satellite radio, none of the systems we count on out here. We normally get daily deliveries of supplies from a hundred miles away. Feed, grain. This is a huge operation. But no delivery trucks since Monday. No calls. I’ve got staff of about fifteen people that commute out here daily. No one since Monday. No cars. No word. It’s just me and me mum and me daughter, Maggie. Was about to head into town and see what’s going on, but I’m a mite frightened to. More than a mite.”
“Do not head into town” they hear Dolan say to the farmer on the recording. “Repeat, do not. There may have been a massive pandemic or other event. Please wait till you know more.” Dolan looks up now at Hobbes and Simmons, seeking their approval for the instructions he gave the farmer. They nod agreement.
“Please stay in touch, Aussie 2094” they hear Dolan say. “Let’s check in, in twelve hours, same frequency, code 90954ST. Is that good for you?”
“Righto. Talk then.”
“And then what happened? Let’s hear the next recording,” says Hobbes.
Dolan hits a computer button, turns to Hobbes behind him. “There is no more, Manny. He didn’t make the twelve-hour rendezvous. That was the last communication.”
Hobbes stands silent, looking at the little speaker. They all do.
It goes without saying that Pritchard and Dolan will stay on it. Will keep trying to raise Andrew Donovan, the farmer, and keep searching for anyone else. Search what seems to be—is increasingly feeling like—a gravely attenuated universe of possibilities to the north of them. Individual beacons of survival.
“Keep looking.” Hobbes says it anyway. With no feeling behind it, Heller notices. Blank-eyed. Empty-hearted. “Keep looking.”
31.
It doesn’t take long.
Just a week.
A week of anxious isolation, of eerie quiet, of routine. The very concept of days evaporating, disappearing, as the night extends, as its strength and depth grow.
Heller and Trish continuing their interviews, dutiful, systematic. A routine to follow. A steadying connection, a link of the before with the after.
When it happens, it is exactly as Heller predicted.
Exactly as he knew.
And more so.
As if whoever it is, is mocking him for his foreknowledge.
For knowing that whoever it is would strike again.
Mocking him for not yet knowing who the killer is, of course.
But mocking him too for not knowing, not foreseeing who the next victim might be.
And with that next victim, proving they know Heller.
Proving they know more about him than he knows about them.
Making the point with particularly cruel emphasis.
There are still—despite the latest anxieties, the latest sense of uneasiness and fragility at McMurdo—certain strict rules that everyone respects. No one violates them. They still apply.
Certain environmental rules, for instance. An agreement not to interrupt nature, to let it follow its own course. Respecting the indigenous environment. That’s why there is the no-pet regulation. Even a little domesticated dog or cat threatens the ecosystem with different microbes, a danger to indigenous species. And it’s why recycling is so strict. Zero tolerance on waste. (And it goes both ways—protecting the habitat from mankind’s germs, but protecting mankind from the habitat as well. You can’t touch or move seal or penguin droppings—no one knew what unique microbes it might contain that could jump accidentally into the McMurdo population. So it’s left alone.)
It’s why food scraps are sealed off from the terns. And why a thirty-meter perimeter for photos of the various penguin species is respected and enforced.
And it’s why when a seal carcass washes up on shore or when a sick or deranged seal wanders close to McMurdo, they don’t touch it. They leave it. They can’t remove it.
The carcasses of seals—either mortally sick or rejected by the pack, who have struggled in from the beach to the edge of McMurdo—are always sad and disconcerting to see, but not all that uncommon.
And that’s why on that dark morning—not actual “morning” at all, morning merely by the clock—no one is at all surprised to see the shadow of a seal carcass, curled in on itself, a hundred yards off. Far enough away to be left alone, as if, in its dying breaths, it knew.
And no one has any reason to venture near it for several hours, in the dark and brutal temperatures, which is why no one sees, for much of the morning, that it is not a dark seal carcass, but—when someone finally passes a flashlight be
am over the carcass from a distance—it actually shines back in a reflective red, because it is the red parka of Trish Wong.
Trish curled dead at the side of the road.
Bright-eyed, innocent Trish.
Mocking me, Heller knows.
Amid his pain, his heartsickness, his dizzying rage and fury and distress, he knows:
Mocking me.
And he knows it has begun.
32.
Hobbes, Simmons, Heller, Sorenson, and the doctor, Calloway, are gathered in the infirmary around the body of Trish Wong.
She is naked on the table.
“We can try to autopsy her here, but it’s going to be limited,” says Calloway.
“Whoever did this probably knows that,” says Simmons, “and if it’s the same person, we’re not gonna find anything this time either, are we?” He is exasperated, desperate. It’s a rhetorical question. No one answers. Everyone knows the answer.
“We’ve got to decide in about two minutes or so,” says Calloway. “Do I cut and we take the chance of my discovering something? Or do we freeze her for the season, for a full and more conclusive autopsy later?”
Left unsaid, but hanging in the little infirmary room:
There may not be a place left on the globe to do a full autopsy.
There may not be any transportation left to get the body there.
There may not be a later.
“Freeze the body,” says Hobbes.
A temporary, sidelong, implied vote of hope for the future.
It doesn’t require a full autopsy, of course, to check the base of her neck for a tiny red puncture mark.
Calloway and Sorenson bend down to look. Shining the exam light closely at the base of her neck.
There is the red mark. The tiny needle prick. Identical to Sandy Lazo-Wasum’s.
Calloway and Sorenson look up at Heller, at Hobbes. All eyes meet silently.
Unsaid. Unnecessary to say Here is the mark. The mark that told us nothing. The poison we couldn’t detect. The mark that mocks us with our lack of understanding. That tells us that an autopsy might reveal nothing anyway.
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