"Where are we?" he asked Heiden. For all his recognition of the white wall of mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see in any direction, he could have been on the moon.
"New Schwabenland," the captain replied. "The newest part of greater Germany."
The immediate need was to go ashore, Drexler announced. The Schwabenland was the first vessel of the Third Reich to visit the southern continent, and a formal claim was paramount. They'd anchored in a bay bounded by two-hundred-foot-high glacial walls that the geographer, Feder, promptly named after their home port of Hamburg. Occasionally a chunk of ice would break away from the glacier face with a crack like a cannon shot, crashing into the dark clear water and bobbing away through the echoes of its own turbulence. A rocky point of land jutted from the southwest corner and it was there that they rowed in a lifeboat, the ever-silent mountaineers pulling at the oars. The boat crunched onto a beach of rocky cobbles and the passengers splashed through the shallows to mushy snow and granite outcrops. A gull-like skua flew overhead, shrieking a protest of prior occupation.
Feder had brought a movie camera, which he proceeded to erect on a tripod. Greta had her silver Leica. Drexler carried a small Nazi flag tied to a boat-hook pole. Since there was no breeze to flaunt the swastika, he had one of the soldiers hold the flag outward while Greta snapped a picture. Then he ushered Heiden in front of the movie camera, pulling down the captain's parka hood so that his steel-gray Prussian features were clearly visible.
"We claim this land for the German Reich in the name of Adolf Hitler," the captain proclaimed, his voice thin in the immense landscape. "May its challenge and resources inspire the German people for generations to come!"
Schmidt stumbled off to peer at small stains of lichen on the rocks. "Life at its most elemental," he muttered, scraping some off.
There was also a colony of Adélie penguins nearby, and a trio of avian ambassadors waddled across the snow to inspect these curious goings-on. "Look, they're already dressed for the New Year," Greta exclaimed in delight. Indeed, the penguins looked like a delegation in tuxedos.
"They're welcoming our protection and administration," Drexler said, winking. He strode toward the birds, which scuttled away warily. "Thank you for your hospitality, we bring you civilization in return," he said, bowing. Then he stood erect and gave a stiff-armed salute. "Heil Hitler!" Greta laughed and snapped his picture.
Hart sighed and walked over to inspect the penguin colony. There were hundreds of birds jockeying for nesting position on the bare dirt that had emerged from surrounding snow. The rookery smelled rank from bird excrement, which stained the area reddish brown. Periodically a group of the birds would walk or belly-slide to the water's edge, hesitate, and then follow a leader, their awkwardness instantly changing to grace as they glided away like sibilant torpedoes.
Greta came too, clicking away with the Leica. Hart felt slightly irritated with her for photographing the Nazi posturing and then reminded himself it was her country. She was oblivious to his mood, delighted at being ashore again. He slowed to wait for her to catch up.
"They look like little people," he said to her.
"This is their nesting time. No one knows yet where they go in winter, but in summer they swim to places like this to breed."
"It's funny to see them pause at the water's edge like we might, as if it was too cold."
"They're not pausing for the cold. They're checking for leopard seals. The leopards lurk just below the surface, looking upward for the silhouette of a penguin before they strike. Stay away from the edge yourself, if you venture onto the pack ice."
"Yes, ma'am," Hart said, mock saluting. "So why are the penguins clustered here?"
"They use pebbles to build their nests and return year after year to rookeries that have a supply of them. You can see them quarreling over the stones now."
Hart watched. Some penguins were simply searching the ground for rocks but others eyed the cache of their neighbors. Sometimes they'd stage a raid and snatch a pebble to much tumult and squawking. Often their own supply would be raided by still other penguins at the same time. It was a pointless competition that seemed, well, very human.
"They're not very bright," the pilot said.
"No, they're little more than hormone boxes, driven by instinct. Skuas and the gulls are the brighter birds. They'll work as a team at breeding time, one bird distracting a parent penguin from its egg while the other snatches it. But there are so many penguins that I guess enough survive."
"If only they'd cooperate with each other."
"Sometimes they do. See there? That penguin is giving his pebble to another. He's probably a male, demonstrating his attention to a female. Romantic, yes?"
Hart grinned. "The rocks we humans give are usually prettier. But yes, they seem to imitate us."
"That's why biology is so fascinating. I see us in them."
"Even krill?"
She laughed. "It's hard to love krill, which drift in the ocean like aimless clouds. But whales? We know so little about them, except their magnificence. Did you know some can dive more than an hour, more than two kilometers deep?"
Hart wondered whether she'd learned that from the book Jürgen had given her. With a slight air of irritation, he gestured toward the political liaison and his men, inspecting a nearby glacial fissure. "What do you think of them claiming the whales' home?"
She shrugged. "Such a claim lets people like me do science. And Jürgen says that if Germany doesn't act, some other nation will. In fact other nations have. The British, the Norwegians, you Americans, the Argentines, the Chileans… everyone planting flags."
Hart nodded reluctantly. "I suppose you're right. Still, Drexler seems so… arrogant about it all. Germany this, Germany that. So damned serious."
"He just made a joke with the penguins— he's not as severe as you think. And you're pretty intense yourself. No talk of home or family or sports. Do you know what I think? You two don't like each other because you're too much alike. Both loners, both rigid in your opinions, both interested in… well, very alike." She flushed a bit.
Hart was miffed by the comparison. "I just find him… self-important. Claim this icebox? For what? No one can really live here. The weather is fine today but wait for the first storm. The darkness of winter. It's insane."
"Then why are you here?"
"To explore. To fly. Not to give a Hitler salute to penguins."
"Maybe Jürgen can see humor where you can't," she retorted. "He's not so bad if you'd get to know him. And he befriended me. I had a… a mentor, a professor, who was killed in a car crash, and I had no support in my career as a woman, no means to establish myself at a university, and then I met Jürgen and suddenly I was offered this job in Antarctica… God, the opportunity! I could have kissed him! And he's sincere in his dreams. You never listen to him with an open mind."
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Kiss him?"