“All right,” she said sullenly. “A summertime stroll.”
“A summertime stroll, yes.”
They slipped on light thermal wraps, hoods, gloves. The temperature was mild for this part of the world: several degrees above freezing. The Antarctic was having a heat wave. Chalk’s polar hotel was only a few dozen miles from the Pole itself, lying “north” of the Pole, as all things must, and placed out toward the direction of the Ross Shelf Ice. It was a sprawling geodesic dome, solid enough to withstand the rigors of the polar night, airy enough to admit the texture of the Antarctic.
A double exit chamber was their gateway to the ice-realm outside. The dome was surrounded by a belt of brown bare soil ten feet wide, laid down by the builders as an insulating zone, and beyond it was the white plateau. Instantly, as Burris and the girl emerged, a burly guide rushed up to them, grinning.
“Power-sled trip, folks? Take you to the Pole in fifteen minutes! Amundsen’s camp, reconstructed. The Scott Museum. Or we could go out for a look at the glaciers back the other way. You say the word, and—”
“No.”
“I understand. Your first morning here, you’d just like to stroll around a little. Can’t blame you at all. Well, you just stroll all you like. And when you decide that you’re ready for a longer trip—”
“Please,” Burris said. “Can we get by?”
The guide gave him a queer look and stepped aside. Lona slipped her arm through Burris’s and they walked out onto the ice. Looking back, Burris saw a figure step from the dome and call the guide aside. Aoudad. They were having an earnest conference.
“It’s so beautiful here!” Lona cried.
“In a sterile way, yes. The last frontier. Almost untouched, except for a museum here and there.”
“And hotels.”
“This is the only one. Chalk has a monopoly.”
The sun was high overhead, looking bright but small. This close to the Pole, the summer day would seem never to end; two months of unbroken sunlight lay ahead before the long dip into darkness began. The light glittered brilliantly over the icy plateau. Everything was flat here, a mile-high sheet of whiteness burying mountains and valleys alike. The ice was firm underfoot. In ten minutes they had left the hotel far behind.
“Which way is the South Pole?” Lona asked.
“That way. Straight ahead. We’ll go over there later.”
“And behind us?”
“The Queen Maud Mountains. They drop off down to the Ross Shelf. It’s a big slab of ice, seven hundred feet thick, bigger than California. The early explorers made their camps on it. We’ll visit Little America in a couple of days.”
“It’s so flat here. The reflection of the sun is so bright.” Lona bent, scooped a handful of snow, and scattered it gaily. “I’d love to see some penguins. Minner, do I ask too many questions? Do I chatter?”
“Should I be honest or should I be tactful?”
“Never mind. Let’s just walk.”
They walked. He found the slick footing of ice peculiarly comfortable. It gave ever so slightly with each step he took, accommodating itself nicely to the modified joints of his legs. Concrete pavements were not so friendly. Burris, who had had a tense and pain-filled night, welcomed the change.
He regretted having snarled at Lona that way.
But his patience had snapped. She was strikingly ignorant, but he had known that from the start. What he had not known was how quickly her ignorance would cease to seem charming and would begin to seem contemptible.
To awake, aching and agonized, and have to submit to that thin stream of adolescent questioning…
Look at the other side, he told himself. He had awakened in the middle of the night, too. He had dreamed of Manipool and naturally had burst from sleep screaming. That had happened before, but never before had there been someone beside him, warm and soft, to comfort him. Lona had done that. She had not scolded him for interfering with her own sleep. She had stroked him and soothed him until the nightmare receded into unreality again. He was grateful for that. She was so tender, so loving. And so stupid.
“Have you ever seen Antarctica from space?” Lona asked.
“Many times.”
“What does it look like?”
“Just as it does on maps. More or less round, with a thumb sticking out toward South America. And white. Everywhere white. You’ll see it when we head for Titan.”
She nestled into the hollow of his arm as they walked. The arm-socket was adaptable; he extended it, making a comfortable harbor for her. This body had its merits.
Lona said, “Someday I want to come back here again and see all the sights—the Pole, the museums of the explorers, the glaciers. Only I want to come with my children.”
An icicle slipped neatly through his throat.
“What children, Lona?”
“There’ll be two. A boy and a girl. In about eight years, that’ll be the right time to bring them.”
His eyelids flickered uncontrollably within his thermal hood. They gnashed like the ringing walls of the Symplegades. In a low, fiercely controlled voice he said, “You ought to know, Lona, I can’t give you any children. The doctors checked that part out. The internal organs simply—”
“Yes, I know. I didn’t mean children that we’d have, Minner.”
He felt his bowels go spilling out onto the ice.
She went on sweetly, “I mean the babies I have now. The ones that were taken from my body. I’m going to get two of them back—didn’t I tell you?”
Burris felt oddly relieved at the knowledge that she wasn’t planning to leave him for some biologically whole man. Simultaneously he was surprised at the depth of his own relief. How smugly he had assumed that any children she mentioned would be children she expected to have by him! How stunning it had been to think that she might have children by another!
But she already had a legion of children. He had nearly forgotten that.
He said, “No, you didn’t tell me. You mean it’s been agreed that you’re going to get some of the children to raise yourself?”
“More or less.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t think it’s really been agreed yet. But Chalk said he’d arrange it. He promised me, he gave me his word. And I know he’s an important enough man to be able to do it. There are so many of the babies—they can spare a couple for the real mother if she wants them. And I do. I do. Chalk said he’d get the children for me if I—if I—”
She was silent. Her mouth was round a moment, then clamped tight.
“If you what, Lona?”
“Nothing.”
“You started to say something.”
“I said, he’d get the children for me if I wanted them.”
He turned on her. “That’s not what you were going to say. We already know you want them. What did you promise Chalk in return for getting them for you?”
The spectrum of guilt rippled across her face.
“What are you hiding from me?” he demanded.
She shook her head mutely. He seized her hand, and she pulled it away. He stood over her, dwarfing her, and as always when his emotions came forth in the new body there were strange poundings and throbbings within him.
“What did you promise him?” he asked.
“Minner, you look so strange. Your face is all blotched. Red, and purple over your cheeks…”
“What was it, Lona?”
“Nothing. Nothing. All I said to him … all I agreed was…”
“Was?”
“That I’d be nice to you.” In a small voice. “I promised him I’d make you happy. And he’d get me some of the babies for my own. Was that wrong, Minner?”
He felt air escaping from the gigantic puncture in his chest. Chalk had arranged this? Chalk had bribed her to care for him? Chalk? Chalk?