"He thinks that's what the best people do. And I admit he's got a weird charm. I don't really blame you for leaving with him at the dance. I don't have a claim to you, either. We just never seem to get very far."
"There's just been too much going on."
"Too much pressure."
"Bob and I talked about that picture of Mickey's. He's easy to confide in. A talker. A professional. Charismatic, even. He invited me to take a bottle of wine and to go talk, so we did, but then he came on to me."
"You're an attractive woman, Abby."
"I wasn't offended. I didn't think it was some breach of professional ethics. It's not like I'm in therapy. But when he began touching me I stiffened up, no matter how hard I tried not to, and this terror- this irrational terror- took over. I broke away and he accused me of being dishonest, with him and myself, and I saw something…" She shivered. "Suddenly he looked very analytical. It was so dispassionate he frightened me. Like his warmth is a disguise for his cold. So I left, looking for you, but you'd left the dance, too, and then I found you…" She looked hopeless. "I pushed you away."
"We both screwed up."
"Yes."
"We wound up with the wrong partners."
"Yes."
"So forget about it. It's over. This is the first day of the rest of whatever." It amused him to quote Doctor Bob.
She looked depressed. "You're so much better at getting over things than I am. All men are."
"That's not really true."
"You function. Compartmentalize. I can't even function."
"Women get paralyzed. Men go out and do something stupid. Start wars and things. I'm not sure one's better than the other."
Abby grinned ruefully. "I guess what I'm admitting is that I would like to kind of start over. Now that the bad stuff is past, or at least I hope it is. That I'd like to know you, just so I can tell myself I know somebody on station in some kind of meaningful way."
He looked at her with hope. "Can't you sense how alike we are? I'm incompetent, too. I got into rocks because they were as unlike people as anything I could find. Then I joined this industry that seemed to be just about money, disposable conscience, and transience. Nobody belonged anywhere, it was all just oil. Ruthless competition. So then I ran away from that. I ran here, to the Pole."
"To become the fingie. The outsider."
"If Buck Tyson hadn't run away I'd have gone nuts from being ostracized. His disappearance saved my winter." Lewis studied her, trying to decide what to do. He wanted to kiss her again but feared it would drive her away. He wanted to take her in his arms and feared she'd evaporate if he did that, too.
"Can we make it through?" Her voice held doubt.
"That analytical hardness you saw in Bob Norse isn't entirely a bad thing. He's held things together by staying levelheaded. He's trying to prove we can all sail to the stars."
"I was bad to him, too."
"Abby, did it ever occur to you that you weren't bad to anybody? That it's your prerogative to have doubts, to say no, to change your mind?"
She shook her head. "No. You're supposed to be nice."
"You're supposed to be honest."
"You're supposed to be some mix of those two things and that's where I always foul up." She flopped backward on the mattress, her hands over her eyes. "I know I make things harder than they are."
He laughed at her. "I'll say."
She lay there, her hands over her eyes, her legs stretched out and stiff, her chest rising and falling. He slid off the couch and knelt beside her. She didn't move. He bent, admiring the sculpture of her ear, the barest down on her cheek, wondering if he had the right to kiss her again after what had happened. Still she didn't move. So he kissed her, lightly, brushing her lips.
She slid her hands down to cover her mouth, her eyes watching him with deep seriousness but without surprise. Then she reached up to put her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her, and kissed him again, fully this time. It was sweeter than with Gabriella, less wanton and more affectionate. Softer. He held her, going again to her cheek and neck, and she cuddled into him, shivering slightly as he nuzzled her. He was content for the moment to just hold her, his fingers on the fine bones of her back. Ivory on a piano.
They lay quietly for several minutes. Finally she spoke. "What are we doing down here, Jed?"
He was drowsy in her heat and embrace. "Trying to understand the universe," he mumbled. "That's what Mickey Moss said. Buck Tyson argued for realism. He said everything but the paycheck is a pose."
"To come so far?" She sounded doubtful. "To a place this bitter?"
"We're adventurers, Abby. People are driven."
"No." She shifted restlessly. "We misplaced something and we've come down here to find it. We came down here to take it back home. Our real home."
"Misplaced what?"
"Hope. That we can make things right again."
He lifted on one elbow, looking at her lazily, more contented at her quiet intimacy than he'd have guessed, more contented than at any time since he'd come to Antarctica. "Make things right how?"
"By finding the best in ourselves."
He grinned. "I'm starting to find the best in you. Let's explore some more."
She considered, then rolled away. "No. Not yet. Not now."
He fell on his back, the picture of rejection. "Forget what I said about the honest part. Go back to nice."
"Let's make sure we truly like each other first." She was too shy to say love.
"Now, there's the difference between men and women."
She laughed ruefully at herself. "I am a complete tease, aren't I?"
"No, but I'm not sure you recognize how attractive you are. The effect you can have on men."
"That's sweet. I'll remember that."
"So let me kiss you again."
"No." She held out her hand to pull him up. "Come on, Enzyme. We've started over, and we'll see how things go. Doctor Bob sent us for a reason."
"Dang." He looked wistfully at the mattress.
"People store stuff upstairs. Oddball stuff that they've smuggled down and then don't want to bother taking back. Musical instruments, obsolete stereos, leftover hobby kits, ancient laptops, even a Foosball set. Our mission is to bring back something fun."
"Even if it's other people's stuff?"
"It becomes our stuff when we sign on, like an inheritance. We share it."
"Like Santa Claus?"
"Maybe we're anti-Claus, since we're at the South Pole. Gathering data is fine, but we've got to have something more at the end of the day, right? That's what our shrink said. Bring it back to the others. Become The Waltons. Or Little House on the Prairie."
"Oh, yuck." He looked around. "Instead of hauling stuff out of the attic, maybe we should just have a party out here. Not a scientific instrument in sight."
"It's too small to fit everybody and we need everybody right now. We need to lighten up the galley."
"I've still got a hangover from the last party." He looked at a ladder that led to a trapdoor and shook his head. It reminded him uncomfortably of the entrance to the underground base. "It's got to be freezing cold up there, Abby. Let's pass for now and just go back to what we were doing."
"No. We'll never get to it." She stood. "I'll go first." She marched to the ladder and pushed up on the trapdoor, letting it fall over and bang down with a thud on the plywood floor above. Light from below gave a pillar of pale upward illumination but the room, jammed with junk, was mostly shadow. "I need a flashlight."
"You're letting in the cold," Lewis grumbled, feeling the draft. He went to his parka to get a light.
Abby glanced around as he fetched it, letting her eyes adjust. It was fun, like peeking into Santa's workshop. There were boxes, a guitar case, an improbable single-speed bicycle. Old skis and snowshoes, skates and a runner sled. What could they bring back for the others? There was a trombone: That might be fun. In one corner something white and shapeless hung like an old dress, moving slightly in the column of warm air that was wafting up from below. Next was a broken Universal gym, a driving wood, an unstrung racket… It was bitterly cold in the unheated upper floor, a deep freeze as effective as a time capsule. Frost spotted the boxes but there was no rust, no decay. It was too dry.