But despite the frustration and the earsplitting noise, the call had done them all a lot of good. Even bad news was better than no news at all; the absence of contact had been oppressive, even frightening. Now they were back in contact, with another scheduled coms to look forward to. And the idea that they were not the only ones in Antarctica suffering problems was comforting too, X saw. Misery loves miserable company; and there they were, right under Misery Peak.
So when Jim said, “What are we going to do? How are we going to get to Shackleton Camp?”
Carlos just waved a hand and said, “Let’s not worry about that yet. First let’s get a big hot meal inside us, and I’ll finish finding out exactly what we have here. Then we can decide what comes next. Also we might learn more from our next coms, although,” he glanced at the radio and frowned, “we will see.”
Wade and Ta Shu and Elspeth dug into the e-bags and got two more Coleman stoves set up on the broad shelf running down the side of the cabin, boiling water for stew and more hot drinks. “We will eat hoosh,” Carlos declared. “We will eat hoosh, like Shackleton and Scott!”
“Like Amundsen,” Ta Shu corrected. “We are Footsteps of Amundsen expedition.”
“Fine. Norwegian hoosh. Chunks of reindeer,” cackling as he inspected the antique package labels of the food in the e-bags. Watching him it occurred to X that Carlos was happy not only to be back in contact with McMurdo, but also to have heard that his had not been the only operation in Antarctica targetted for attack. Now he didn’t have to take it so personally. Although even when he had been taking it personally, at no point had he seemed to feel that they themselves were in terrible trouble being out here alone. For X, and he suspected for most of the rest of them, it was like being marooned, a kind of protracted death sentence. But for Carlos this was home—dangerous, but not terrifying. It was nice to have him there.
Val had gone into the little storeroom behind the passenger compartment to check on her hurt client, and X followed her to see if there was anything he could do. When he got to the doorway she was leaning over the man’s handsome head, her own tilted to listen to his breathing, a look of deep concern on her face. She looked up at X and he stopped, raised a hand: “Sorry,” he said softly, “didn’t mean to intrude.”
“You aren’t,” she said quietly.
“So,” X said. “He, he means a lot to you,” gesturing at the man.
“What?” she said. Then she understood him, and looked so surprised that X knew immediately that his suppositions had been wrong. And indeed she was staring at him now as if he were completely insane. X raised his other hand so that both were up, palms out, as if to ward off a blow.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean …”
“Oh X,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re such a …” She couldn’t find the word.
X ducked his head, sighed. It was true.
“How’s he doing?” he said, to change the subject.
She looked back down at the man. “It looks like he’s just sleeping now. The thermometers show his core temperature is about ninety-four. Anyway the bag is just barely heating him now.”
Carlos appeared behind X. “How is he?” He came in and looked at the console’s numbers. “That’s good. Slow and steady rise. Pulse and blood pressure okay.” He stared at the man’s face. “Hello! Hello!” He shook his head. “Still out. Well, come on,” gesturing at the other room, “hot drinks, and dinner is on the table soon.”
After their meal Carlos and X geared up again, and went out and made a really thorough search through the wrecked station. They found no further food supplies. “Hmm, hmm,” Carlos muttered as they returned to the hovercraft. “At Bernardo O’Higgins we always kept a big cache of food and supplies buried out in the snow, in case of fires in the winter. Here I should have done the same. I was thinking more about Mohn Basin, I must admit. And it is hard to believe that the transport system could break down this badly for so long, in this day and age. In the future we will have to remember.”
“What about now?” X asked.
“Well, what do we have. Four, no five e-bags … nine people …” He thought about it while they hurried across the gangplank to the shelter of the hovercraft. “We should probably get ourselves down to Shackleton Camp.”
“That’s a long walk.”
“Beats starving. Besides, we may not have to walk.”
“What do you mean?”
Carlos pounded the side of the hovercraft.
“Do you really know how to drive it?”
“Yeah sure. I think so.” A broad grin for X, a slap on the shoulder; then they were back inside, which, though it was around zero Fahrenheit, still felt distinctly warm and comfy. It would be nice to get to Shackleton Camp without having to leave such a refuge, that was for sure.
“I think we should try the hovercraft,” Carlos said to the others when they were settled back in the cabin, downing another mug of hot lemonade. “It’s fully fueled, and that’s more than enough to get us down to Shackleton.”
“Do you know how to pilot it?” Val asked.
“Yes. I have watched them pilot it many times, and copiloted, and it is not difficult. It does take two people, but I can tell X how to do the copiloting, and do the main piloting myself.”
“X?”
“X has seen it piloted too, so he has the most familiarity with how it works. Right?”
X nodded. “The copilot just operates the lifters and the outriggers. Most of the trip he doesn’t do anything at all.”
Val looked dubious; the rest of her group looked hopeful. “How much food do we have here?” she asked.
“We have five e-bags,” Carlos said. “With nine people, that’s enough for a week, maybe ten days if we go hungry. It’s not bad, but it sounds like we are not high priority in McMurdo. It might not be enough.”
“We could wait and see,” Wade said, “and when we only had a day or two left, go on down.”
“Yes, we could. But by that time Shackleton Camp may have been evacuated. Then we would be low priority again. I would rather do something now. And also, you have this man who is warmed up but not really conscious yet. I don’t know what that means, but …”
Val nodded to herself.
“It would be good to get him to McMurdo soon,” Jim said.
“Yes it would,” Val agreed.
Jorge and Elspeth seemed willing. Ta Shu merely watched them, as if it were not his call to make.
“We should get down there,” Val finally told her group.
“I don’t think we can walk it,” Elspeth said.
“No. But we have the hovercraft.”
She looked at each of them in turn, and they nodded their comprehension. They had already been through a lot, X saw, and they trusted Val.
“Tell you what,” Carlos said, “I’ll start up the hovercraft, and we’ll take it for a trial run right here outside the dock, make sure we know what we’re doing. If it looks good to you, we can go for it.”
So X and Carlos went forward to the controls, and sat in the two pilots’ seats, and looked around at the intimidating banks of control consoles. At that moment it looked to X like the inside of an airplane cockpit. He had watched Geraldo and German pilot the craft to Mohn and back, but that, he saw now, was not enough.
As they went over the controls together it became clear to X that they had an unspoken agreement not to discuss the many banks of toggles, switches, gauges and dials of which they were completely ignorant. They focused instead on the few things they knew which were crucial for running the thing: ignition, steering wheel, thrust throttles, lifter controls, outrigger deployment toggles. X nodded as Carlos named everything. The lifters and outriggers were the copilot’s only responsibilities. They seemed manageable.