“Now who has the T3?” says Hobbes, with a sad smile. “Come on, Joe. Whatever it is or isn’t, we know it’s not that.”
He presses on. “I’ve had these meetings, these organizational talks to give people a feeling, a sense that we have a plan, we have organization, but I . . . have no actual authority for this. You and I know that. And people here know that. Sure, I’m an appointed Special Deputy of the US Marshal’s Office. But what’s the status of that office now? I’m just worried that we may be in more of a primitive tribal situation than we realize. We’re a bunch of scientists and technicians, so the tribal is disguised, but it may not stay disguised.
“Things are extremely fragile. This is uncharted territory. Antarctica has always been that. But now in a way no one could have predicted.”
And then he adds—with a sudden glimmer of determination in his eyes—“Still Earth’s best hope. Now maybe Earth’s only hope.”
The old argument, the meeting room discussion of his first days here, comes back to Heller. The two friendly, teasing, but collegial camps. The utopians who saw it as a place of hope. The authoritopians who saw it as a place of lurking anarchy. Now the two schools will be tested. No longer theoretical or academic.
“Besides my special deputy status, you’re the closest thing we have to law authority. So I’m going to need you to take on that role, assume it, grow into it organically, without any formal announcement, which we can’t risk. So obviously, yes, your investigation now takes a back seat to the issues of survival. We’re going to have policing needs. I can feel it. You’re going to have to be McMurdo’s cop.”
The planet’s cop, Heller thinks again. A subcontractor at that. The last human barrier between civilization and end-times anarchy. He sees it, can picture it, both vaguely and sharply.
Hobbes looks at him. “I’ll need you to quietly be part of our team. In on and part of all our decisions. You’re our law enforcement. I know how absurd that sounds, Joe. But this little proto-nation, this little survival cell—you’re the face of law and order. You’re the physical and visual representation of rules. You’re all we’ve got. Like it or not.”
Hobbes pauses. “Can I count on you, Heller?”
Heller nods.
A noncommittal half response, they both notice.
39.
So the murder investigation takes a back seat to far more pressing concerns. To the business of survival.
The tight little McMurdo community puts aside two murders among its inhabitants.
Heller can remember several times in his career going into similarly tiny communities where there was an unsolved murder. It had consumed the community. It was all the residents could talk about. Theories, suspicions, flew around wildly. Discussions among neighbors took place at all hours of the day and night. It was all the local paper could focus on. And even when it was solved, it was rehashed, reexamined, relived repeatedly. It remained part of the community’s identity and personality for years to come. Monroeville—isn’t that where that guy . . . ? Sanders Point—isn’t that where that little girl . . . ?
And here is a similarly small and tight-knit community, and they are putting it aside.
Reasonably.
Of necessity.
You could argue.
But letting it beat at the back of all their brains. Letting it simmer on the back burner, while the matter of the meal—the food for survival—is on all front burners.
It couldn’t simply simmer forever. You couldn’t just walk away from that back burner. That wasn’t safe. That wasn’t smart.
40.
The leadership team meets. Hobbes, Simmons, Bramlett, Stanford. It’s an emergency session, but they don’t call it that; events are too fluid, too opaque, and too big for that old, outmoded designation “emergency.” That referred to a world where some things were an emergency, and some things weren’t. Here, now, everything is.
“While this has been a scientific community, a research venture of the National Science Foundation, we’ve been nominally in charge,” says Simmons. “But now, if it’s not going to be primarily a scientific community anymore . . .”
“But we have to stay a scientific community in order to survive,” says Stanford, chief of science. “We’re going to need our scientific focus more than ever.”
“That’s true . . .”
“The point is somebody has to be in charge, and there has to be some validity behind their authority. Some agreed upon validity.”
“So what? We hold elections? Under what system? Like a constitution? I think that kind of fundamental starting from scratch is going to make everyone even more anxious . . .” Simmons shifts his lanky frame uncomfortably, shakes his head.
“Yeah. Like everything is up for grabs. So I better grab mine before someone else does . . .”
“Then look, let’s tell people that this is a temporary committee, a temporary arrangement, and that we will figure out a system to reflect the will of the community as soon as we can. What about that?”
“I think people will accept that, for now. They’re too stunned—we’re all too stunned to do anything else right now.”
“This is bizarre,” says Simmons. “We’re talking about our system of government? Like we’re, what, founding fathers or something? This is absurd.”
“I think we’re going to have to get used to the absurd, Wick.”
“So okay, what’s the most pressing thing?”
“To me, it’s the Russian station. Are they there? Are they in the same situation as us? We’ve got to somehow find that out.”
“Pritchard and Dolan are trying to reach them too. They’ve gotten nothing yet. The thought is that maybe the Russians, if they’re in the same situation, might also be trying an alternative comm system to reach out to us.”
“Should we be trying to supplement Pritchard and Dolan with others? I mean, so much depends on communication efforts.”
“Nobody else on this base has any similar communications or electronics expertise.”
“So should we have them training more people? Assign a couple of smart tech-savvy types to try to help them?”
“That would require Pritchard and Dolan to teach them,” says Simmons. “I’m afraid of wasting their time. We need them both focused on this every minute. Not stopping to teach others. Plus, the equipment they’ve rigged is so eccentric only they can work it.”
“And here’s the thing,” says Hobbes, grimly. “All these efforts at communication? Having more people help? That may not be worth anything. It may not get us anywhere. A waste of resources.” Hobbes looks down. Doesn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes as he says it. “What’s the point of finding a few surviving, uninfected—temporarily uninfected?—sheep farmers or ranchers who can’t help us? Who can’t fuel and man ships and planes to come rescue us. And conversely, we can’t fuel up ships or planes to come help them. And if some such hero could be found? To take us back to an infected, contagious, lethal planet?”
There is silence for a long moment, all contemplating it. The narrowing of options, the narrowing of fantasies. Before returning to the practical:
“We’ll have to just keep an eye on the weather.” They don’t know the weather anymore—there’s no weather broadcast. The most essential, daily, taken-for-granted thing. They are lost, unmoored without it. “We’ll just have to use our judgment for when it’s safe to go any distance outside.”
“Or safe enough. We’re going to have to accept some risk.”
“Well, I’d say we want to not accept risk. I think we need to be risk averse, as a philosophy, in order to survive.”
Silence. All contemplating risk acceptance versus risk aversion.
All of them seeing, already, the problems of not having a system of authority.
They all know they can’t make a physical journey right now, in the wind and extreme winter cold and dark, to the Russian station or anywhere else. It would be literally a suicide mission. But at a certain point, in a mont
h or two, they could. The question will be when, exactly, to attempt it. When, exactly, is that moment?
“Here’s the other thing,” says Stanford. “What if we don’t want to be in contact with the Russian station? What does it gain us for survival? What if we need to share our limited food supply with them?”
“What if they have an abundance of food?” says Bramlett. “What if they can help us, in the short run, or even in the long run?”
The long run. No one jumps on her for that phrase. Nobody jumps on its questionable, fragile meaning. Though plenty around the conference table certainly hear it. Its strange new resonances.
“What if they’ve been infected? What if the winds have carried this virus or microbe or whatever it is to them and not to us?” Stanford says.
“Maybe we should be letting them reach out to us . . . and if they reach us, then we’ll assess. We’ll make a judgment,” says Hobbes.
“But what if they need us? Our colleagues!” says Bramlett. “What if we have the resources and the capacity to save them? Don’t we need to?”
“But if it’s going to endanger us, it may be endangering humanity,” says Stanford. “Humanity’s existence. In which case, we have a responsibility not to reach out. To not take the risk. A responsibility to keep them away from us. A responsibility that goes far beyond ourselves. See, it may not be just a matter of our survival. It may be a matter of survival, period. Human survival. And that’s a much bigger thing than the Russian station or McMurdo.”
“It’s true. We don’t know why everyone else seems to be gone. But just as important, we don’t know why we’re still here.”
None of them can quite believe that this is the discussion. The room is quiet. The talk feels somehow holy, religious. Heller feels himself shaking.
“Luckily, it’s theoretical for the moment,” says Hobbes finally. “Luckily for us, it stays theoretical, until the weather gets good enough to try to reach them or until communication is restored.”
“Yeah, we have enough to think about,” Stanford adds glumly, shaking his head slowly, so his long white hair moves behind him, like a closing curtain.
41.
His name is Eric Anderson.
He is the first to lose it. To officially and fully freak out, come apart. To have the apparent facts, the situation overwhelm him.
He is holding two steak knives out, sweeping them in wide threatening arcs in the center of the cafeteria, eyes wild, turning in a wary circle, not letting anyone in to disarm him.
It’s difficult to tell whether he is threatening to kill himself or whoever comes close, if anyone tries to move toward him to calm him, to dissuade him, to save him.
“Don’t you understand? Any of you? The world is ending! We’re all going to die! All of us!” He circles, waves his arms and the knives wildly.
The problem being, of course, that what he is saying is not crazy at all. It might be perfectly accurate. Perfectly prophetic.
It seems to Heller—standing toward the back of the cafeteria, out of harm’s way, along with two dozen others—that this is just a sudden, overwhelming need in Eric Anderson to take some summary action.
Or bring attention to the problem. Maybe he thinks they’re all deluding themselves. Not sufficiently recognizing what’s happened.
“Don’t you see? We’re all going to die!”
Many of them, of course, have been weeping behind closed doors, distraught, shaken, as they go about the long night, talking softly, refusing to talk, each reacting in his or her own private or natural way, but this is a more public display of what they have all been feeling.
“We’re all going to die! To die!”
“But slashing someone here? Slashing yourself? How’s that going to help?” a tall kitchen assistant named Perry asks, approaching Anderson cautiously, but not getting too close.
“Help? It’s not going to help! Nothing will help! If I die first, or last, it doesn’t matter, don’t you see? We’re all finished, either way! We’re all that’s left, and we’re stuck on this ice, stuck in this night, and Earth is contaminated and uninhabitable, don’t you see that yet? Can’t you tell that yet?”
He swipes the knives with new resolve. Perry takes a step back.
“If this knife goes into me, or you, into your heart, my heart, it doesn’t matter, don’t you see? It doesn’t matter! What you or I think, what you or I say, it doesn’t matter. It’s ended.”
It’s an existential crisis, Heller sees. Not theoretical. Based on evidence. Scant evidence, at this point, but evidence. Eric Anderson is having a crisis, firmly based on genuine doubts about existence. By that argument, Earth’s first truly existential crisis. Heller is certain it won’t be Earth’s last.
Eric Anderson. Heller knows him from the interview lists. Lab assistant. Grew up on a farm in the Midwest. Ten siblings. Heller makes a little note at the back of his brain, stores a little truth there: those connected the most to life may react the worst to all this.
“Don’t you all see? We’re doomed! And you’re all proceeding like we’re not. You’re all in a delusion. Well, maybe stabbing you—stabbing myself—will break the delusion for you. For all of you! You’ll finally know what we’re dealing with!”
Does he need to feel alive as he feels the end approach?
Does he need to express himself? Unleash emotion?
Heller is watching, hoping to help, knowing he is expected to help, but trying at the same time, in the moment, to process, to understand. Because he knows that Eric Anderson is only the first.
“Eric, we know. We know what we’re dealing with. And we’re trying to deal with it, step by step. We want you with us.”
It is Stanford, surprisingly. Heller hadn’t seen him. Speaking calmly, moving forward. Stanford, Anderson’s lab boss, maybe hoping to make the most of their relationship.
“I’m no pioneer,” says Anderson, in tears now. “I’m no traveler into the unknown. I don’t want to go with you! I’m just a guy. I don’t have the stuff for the journey ahead.”
He’s been thinking, Eric. He’s been brooding. He’s overwhelmed.
“Put down the knives, Eric. We need you. We need each other.”
“We’re all that’s left!”
“Eric, we don’t know that. Yes, there seems to have been a catastrophe, but we don’t know the extent of it. We’re . . . we’re having a communications problem . . .”
Eric looks at Stanford, smiles, dazed. “A communications problem? That’s what you’re calling it? You see the delusion? It’s T3! You’re suffering from T3! Massive T3!”
“Well, Eric, maybe it is massive T3, and everyone on Earth is fine. What about that idea?” Hobbes now too is moving cautiously toward him but doesn’t get too close.
Doctor Calloway is there as well. Heller can see him moving cautiously, stealthily toward Eric. From this angle, and from the bend in his arm, Heller senses the doctor is holding a hypodermic.
“Put down the knives, Eric. We’re a team. We’re in this together. You’re our brother. You’re our son.”
Eric slashes the air again. But Heller can see it has no heart. It is defeated. The feeling has been lost. He sees that Eric will not be hurting anyone.
He realizes it’s a chance to establish some authority. His helpfulness. To make a deposit in the bank of his trustworthiness. He walks past Stanford, past Hobbes, straight up to Eric. Looks him in the eye and holds his gaze on him.
He figures that if Eric is looking back at him—if there is human connection between them—Eric will not do anything.
You’re not going to hurt me, Eric. You’re not going to hurt yourself. We’re in this together. You’re not going to, Eric. Not right now. Not today.
Eric holds out the two steak knives toward Heller. Doesn’t move them. They’re no longer slashing the air. They’re immobile. Held high. Symbolic only, thinks Heller, for an instant. Heller reaches a hand up for each one, like a handoff, and Eric yields them easily, effortlessly. Lets
Heller take them. Like passing cutlery at a table.
Eric crumples to the floor.
Doctor Calloway is right there, plunging the hypodermic into him.
42.
Eric Anderson’s freak-out only puts everyone further on edge. The anxiety hangs above, hums underneath, every moment. Every meal. Every nonmorning morning. Every nonevening evening. Every bedtime. The night comes to stand for what they can’t see. What is lurking, waiting, everywhere to the north of them. The answers that they all sense will only be further questions. Eric Anderson, rather than being crazy, has had a completely sane reaction. His reaction is an unfortunate by-product of thinking perfectly clearly. The perfectly logical extension and expression of a completely reasonable anxiety and fear. Simply given vent. Fully expressed. In a way that is not socially desirable.
It occurs to Heller more than once. It seems perfectly logical, increasingly likely: Maybe they are never going to know what happened up there, across the seas, on the other continents. Maybe they are never going to know the cause.
If they survive—most of them, some of them, a few of them, any of them—and they have no way to learn what has happened, then they might very well never know their own past. They’ll be starting over. The slate wiped clean, tabula rasa.
All these highly educated scientists and technicians. Thrown into a situation in which they have most in common with a primitive, ancient tribe. Focused on survival, carving out a functioning society.
Not knowing what happened. Doomed to ceaseless, useless speculation, and soon after, not bothering with speculation at all. Shutting it down, pushing it aside, burying it from consciousness in order to concentrate on the present, on survival only.
It’s fascinating, if you could get perspective. If you could somehow step outside yourself for a moment and imagine a forthcoming civilization founded not on knowledge but on a lack of knowledge. On not knowing. Would explanatory myths eventually sprout? Explanations based solely in the imagination—would they come to stand in for facts? For “fate”? For “reality”?
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