McCabe looked up. "No. That's Mount Grace. I knew I'd seen that silhouette before. To the south of it is the glacier where they launched the Byrd Land South Pole traverse in '60. When you fly out in that direction you put the glacier on the right and McKinley on your left. Then it's open ice until you hit the Executive Committee Mountain Range."
Vaughn spoke for the first time. "How soon can we take off again?" he asked Brothers.
The pilot was chewing on the end of his bushy mustache. "Ah, well, mate, the plane, it can take off right now. The problem is the pilot. I just put in eight nonstop hours and I could use a couple of hours to rest. How about in four hours?"
Tai could tell Vaughn wasn't happy about the delay. She half expected him to try and order the pilot to take off immediately. Vaughn sighed and looked around the table. Smithers and Burke had not said a word, but simply listened to the discussion.
"All right," Vaughn said. "It's presently 3:15 P.M. local time here. We take off at seven-fifteen. The-"
"What about darkness?" Tai interrupted. "We won't be able to find the place in the dark."
Logan laughed. "There is no night in the summer down here. The sun gets a little lower on the horizon, but it never sets."
"As I said," Vaughn continued, "I want everyone gathered in this room ready to go at six. That will give us plenty of time to make it down to the plane and be in the air at seven-fifteen. Are there any questions?"
Tai saw McCabe looking at Logan, his eyes full of questions about the two people in military camouflage, but the man had the common sense not to say anything in front of Vaughn.
Vaughn looked over at her. "I'm going to get some sleep. I'll see you all at six."
He left the conference room then, but reappeared almost immediately, his duffel bag over his shoulder.
"Where are you going?" Tai asked as he placed his hand on the door leading outside.
"I'm going to sleep outside. I'll be on the lee side of the building when you want me." With that he stepped out, and the door slammed shut behind him.
"You brought a weird man with you, Tai," was Logan's only comment before he turned to his crew and to give some more instructions.
Tai tugged on her parka, grabbed her backpack, and went outside after Vaughn. She found him on the far side of the building, digging in the snow. He briefly glanced up at her, but she said nothing, watching him.
After completing the slit in the snow, he removed the bungi cord from around a Therm-a-Rest pad and laid it down on the bottom of the trench. Unscrewing the valve on the top corner, the pad quickly expanded to full size, about an inch and a half thick, by a foot and a half wide, by six long.
Then he pulled out his sleeping bag. It was compressed inside a stuff sack, and he released the cinches and unrolled the bag. Vaughn then stretched a poncho across the top of the trench, fixing down the ends with snow, leaving an opening just large enough to crawl in. All done, he put the shovel down in the hole along with his bag in a place he had dug out near the head.
"Why are you sleeping out here?" Tai finally asked, unable to restrain her curiosity.
Vaughn looked up at her. "It takes about four days to acclimatize to a radically new environment. Or at least it takes me four days. Besides, I hate sleeping that close to a bunch of people. I'm a very light sleeper, and the slightest noise wakes me up." He smiled. "Hell, tell the nature lovers in there that I'm just loving nature."
"What's that?" Tai asked as he started to slip into a thin bag.
"It's a vapor barrier, or VB liner, that goes inside the sleeping bag," he explained. "The liner keeps my perspiration inside it. Makes for a damp sleep, but it's better for me to be damp than the bag. I can dry out. I might not be in circumstances where I can dry the bag out, and a wet sleeping bag will kill you here."
He proceeded to slide all the way in until the only thing visible from the trench was his face. Tai leaned over. "I guess I'll build my own snow trench."
"Good idea," Vaughn said.
"I need to send a sitrep to Royce first."
Vaughn looked at her. "Sure that's a good idea?"
"Let's not get into that," Tai replied.
"Whatever," Vaughn said, and shut his eyes.
Tai walked a dozen yards away and pulled out the small satcom radio from her backpack. She knelt in the snow, opened the small satellite dish and oriented it, then hooked the radio to it. She checked to make sure she had a clear bounce back from the Milstar satellite, which was just on the northern horizon.
Using a pen on the small keyboard on the radio, she summarized their situation and their intent to search for the Citadel shortly. Then she broke the gear down and put it back in the pack.
Tai went inside the base to the bunk room where their gear was stored. No one else was around. She opened one of the weapons cases, pulled out a 9mm pistol, loaded a magazine in it, and slid it in one of the pockets of her parka. She took a second one out and did the same, putting it in the opposite pocket. Then she pulled out her air mattress and sleeping bag from her duffel bag. As she turned for the door, it was thrown open. Vaughn stood there.
"The mess hall now!" he barked, and was gone as quickly as he'd come.
Tai rushed to the mess hall to find Vaughn leaning over an unconscious Brothers. The pilot was slumped in a chair, his clothes covered with melting ice and snow.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I found him outside, lying in the snow, just like this." Vaughn was checking the pilot's bare hands for frostbite as he spoke. "Another five minutes and he'd have frozen to death."
"How'd you find him?" Tai inquired.
"I heard a noise. Sounded like the main door slamming shut. I don't know." He shrugged. "Something just didn't seem right, so I got up and checked."
As Vaughn explained, the other members of the team filed in until all were assembled.
"So what happened to him?" Logan wanted to know. "Did he fall and knock himself out?"
Vaughn shook his head. "I don't think so." He broke open a medical kit and pulled out some smelling salts, waving them under Brothers's nose. The pilot gagged briefly, and then his eyes flickered open. He reached up for his head and moaned. Tai stepped forward and looked. A large purplish bruise was visible through the thinning hair on the back of the pilot's head.
Vaughn moved around to face Brothers. "What happened?" he asked.
Brothers tried shaking his head, but the pain got the better of him and he held still. "Shit. I don't know. I was going to take a piss and was in the corridor when someone whacked me on the back of the head. That's all I remember."
Six sets of eyes met, flickered to one another and then back to Brothers. The silence lasted almost a full minute, and then Vaughn asked, "Was anybody awake when he left?"
The three other men shook their heads.
Vaughn turned to Tai. "When I came in, all three were in their beds and appeared to be sleeping. You were in your room. The three people from Earth First were all accounted for also."
"That leaves you, then, doesn't it?" Logan observed.
Vaughn shrugged. "Then it would have been pretty stupid of me to have rescued him, wouldn't it?"
Tai decided to take charge before things went totally to shit. "Are you able to fly?" she asked Brothers.
He nodded carefully. "Aye. I don't think I have any permanent damage."
"Then we leave now." Vaughn turned to Smithers and Burke. "Get your gear ready to go. We leave for the plane in fifteen minutes."
Logan gestured at Brothers. "What about whoever knocked him out? I don't think it was chance that it was the pilot who was attacked. Somebody is trying to stop us from getting to this Citadel."
"And that's why we're leaving right away," Vaughn replied. "You have as much of an idea who did it as I do. But if we wait around here any longer, whoever it is will have a chance to do something else. I don't want to give them the opportunity. Let's load out."