Beyond the Ice Limit

9

THE R/V BATAVIA had “crossed the line” with all the silliness and concomitant ceremony that passing the equator entailed, which Gideon had retreated from with alacrity. For the past fifteen days, since leaving Woods Hole, life on board the Batavia had been dull: seasickness alternating with bored overeating, reading, watching Game of Thrones in the ship’s theater, playing backgammon with Alex (where he was now about a hundred games behind), and trying not to drink too many cocktails in the evening.

Although by now he had met numerous scientists and many of the ship’s other major players—nattily dressed Ship’s Chief Engineer Frederick Moncton; Eduardo Bettances, dour and formidable chief of security; and Warrant Officer George Lund, who seemed intimidated by everything and everybody—he had made few friends on board. Most of the crew were ex-navy, with crew cuts and pressed uniforms—not Gideon’s type at all. And the various scientific and technical teams were too busy preparing for their upcoming duties to do much socializing. Glinn was as remote as ever. Gideon and Garza, despite the recent thaw in their relations, remained wary of each other. The only one he really liked—liked far too much—was Alex, but she had made it clear that while she, too, enjoyed his company, shipboard romance was out of the question.

But there was one character aboard ship who, over time, began to intrigue him: the ship’s doctor, Patrick Brambell. He was like a gnome, a devious old fellow with a head as shiny as a cue ball, a small face, sharp crafty blue eyes, and a stooped way of slinking about the ship, like a ghost. He always had a book tucked under one arm and never appeared in the mess hall, apparently taking his meals in his room. The rare times Gideon had heard him speak, he’d detected a soft Irish accent.

What intrigued Gideon most of all was that, aside from Glinn and Garza, Brambell was the only member of the expedition who had been on the Rolvaag when it sank. Gideon had the nagging sense that Glinn and Garza were withholding information about the shipwreck, perhaps even lying about the fate of the Rolvaag in order to secure his nuclear expertise. For this reason, Gideon decided to pay Brambell a surprise visit.

So one muggy tropical afternoon, he made his way to the crew quarters and, making sure Brambell was in his room, knocked on the door. At first there was no answer, but he knocked again, loud and persistent, knowing the devious old coot was holed up inside. After the third knock, an irritated voice finally responded. “Yes?”

“Can I come in? It’s Gideon Crew.”

A pause. “Is this a medical issue?” the voice filtered through the door. “I’ll be glad to meet you in the sick bay.”

Gideon didn’t want this. He wanted to beard Brambell in his element.

“Um, no.” He said no more; the less explanation, the less Brambell would be able to find a reason to say no.

A soft rustle and the door unlocked. Without waiting for an invitation, Gideon pushed in and Brambell, taken by surprise, automatically stepped back. He was holding a Trollope novel in one veined hand, his finger marking where he’d been reading.

Gideon took a seat, uninvited.

Brambell, his wizened face wrinkling with annoyance, remained standing. “As I said, if it’s a medical issue, the clinic is the proper place—”

“It’s not a medical issue.”

A silence.

“Well, then,” said Brambell, not exactly defeated but resigned, “what can I do for you?”

Gideon took in the large room. It astonished him. Every single inch of wall space, even the portholes, had been covered with custom-built shelves, and those shelves were completely lined with books, all kinds of books, the most eclectic range imaginable, from leather-bound classics to trashy thrillers to nonfiction books, biographies, histories, as well as titles in French and Latin. As his eye roamed the collection, the only type of book he did not see in evidence was medical.

“This is quite the library,” said Gideon.

“I am a reader,” came the dry voice. “That is what I do. Medicine is a sideline.”

Gideon was impressed by this frank announcement. “I guess, being on a ship, you get a lot of time to read.”

“That is the very point,” said Brambell in his high, whistling accent.

Gideon clasped his hands and looked at the doctor, who was eyeing him curiously, no longer irritated—or at least, so it seemed. The doctor put down the book. “I see you are a man who has come to me with a purpose.”

Gideon already sensed that Brambell would respond well to directness. He knew when a person could not be socially engineered, and the ship’s doctor was just that person.

“Glinn says he’s given me the full story on the sinking of the Rolvaag,” said Gideon flatly. “But something tells me he left part of it out.”

“That would be like him.”

“So I’m here. To hear the story from you.”

Brambell gave a small smile, grasped the arms of what was evidently his reading chair, and eased himself down. “It’s a long story.”

“We have all the time in the world.”

“Indeed.” He made a tent of his fingers and pursed his lips. “Do you know about Palmer Lloyd?”

“I met him.”

Brambell’s eyebrows shot up. “Where?”

“At a private mental institution in California.”

“Is he insane?”

“No. But I’m not sure he’s sane, either.”

Brambell paused, considering this a moment. “Lloyd was a curious man. When he learned that the world’s largest meteorite had been found on a frozen island off Cape Horn, he became determined to have it for the museum he was building. And he hired Glinn to retrieve it. EES bought their ship, the Rolvaag, from a Norwegian shipbuilding company. It was a state-of-the-art oil tanker, but they disguised it to look like a shabby old tub.”

“Why an oil tanker? Why not an ore carrier?”

“Oil tankers have sophisticated ballast tanks and pumps, which would be necessary to stabilize the ship. Not only was the meteorite the largest ever, but it was incredibly dense—twenty-five thousand tons. So Glinn and Manuel Garza had to develop elaborate engineering plans to dig it up, transport it across the island, load it on the ship, and bring it back and up the Hudson River.” He paused again, reflecting. “When we arrived at the island, it was surely one of the most godforsaken places on earth. Isla Desolación: Desolation Island. And that was when things started to go wrong. To begin with, the meteorite was not a normal iron meteorite.”

“Manuel told me it had ‘peculiar qualities.’ I’d say being an alien seed is peculiar enough.”

Brambell smiled mirthlessly. “It was a deep red in color, made of a material so hard and dense that the best diamond drills wouldn’t even scratch it. Indeed, it seemed to be composed of a new element with a very high atomic number. Perhaps one of the hypothesized elements in the so-called island of stability. This of course made it far more interesting. It was gotten aboard ship with great difficulty—but successfully. But as we started for home, we came under fire from a rogue Chilean destroyer. Glinn, through a typically brilliant stratagem, managed to sink the destroyer. But the Rolvaag was badly damaged herself and a storm came up, with a heavy sea. The meteorite started to shift in the hold, the cradle becoming more and more damaged with each roll of the ship.” He glanced at Gideon. “You know about the dead man’s switch?”

“I know that Glinn refused to use it.”

“That was the damnedest thing. Even when Lloyd himself was begging Glinn to throw that bloody switch, he wouldn’t do it. He’s one of those men who cannot fail. For all his talk of logic and reason, underneath Glinn’s as obsessive as they come.”

Gideon nodded. “I understand the captain went down with the ship.”

“Yes. What a tragic loss.” Brambell shook his head. “She was an extraordinary woman. Sally Britton. When Glinn refused to activate the dead man’s switch, she ordered an abandon-ship, which saved dozens of lives. She insisted on remaining aboard. Then the meteorite broke free, tore a gash in the hull, and there was a huge explosion. Britton died, but Glinn was somehow blown free and survived. A true miracle. He’s a cat with nine lives.”

Gideon did not go into the story of Glinn’s previous crippled condition, or how he had been cured. “And you? How did you survive?”

Brambell went on in the same dry, jaunty voice, as if he were describing something that had happened long ago to someone else. “After the explosion, most who survived found themselves in the water, but there was a lot of floating debris and a couple of drifting lifeboats. Some of us were able to get aboard the lifeboats and make our way to an ice island. We spent the night there, rescued the next morning. But a number of people froze to death on the island in the darkness. As a doctor, I tried my best—but I was helpless against the overwhelming cold.”

“So Glinn really was responsible for all those deaths.”

“Yes. Glinn—and the meteorite itself, of course.” Brambell glanced around at the walls of books. “It was only later that McFarlane figured out what the thing really was.”

“Glinn mentioned McFarlane to me, but there wasn’t anything about him in the briefing files. What was he like?”

Brambell gave another of his half smiles. He spread his hands. “Ah yes. Sam. He was a good soul, a bit rough around the edges, sarcastic, blunt. But a fellow with a good heart. Brilliant, too, one of the world’s experts on meteorites.”

“I understand he survived.”

“Survived, yes—but scarred. Bitter, angry, haunted—or so I’ve heard.”

“And you? You’re not scarred by what happened?”

“I have my books. I don’t live in the actual world. I am imperturbable.”

Gideon looked at Brambell. “I have to ask: given all you know about Glinn and his limitations—and all the horror you went through—why did you agree to return for this expedition?”

Brambell laid a veined hand on the book. “Plain old curiosity. This is our first encounter with an alien life-form, even if it’s just a big mindless plant. I couldn’t say no to the chance to be part of that discovery. And—” he patted the book—“in the meantime, I can read to my heart’s content.”

And with that he smiled, rose, and offered his hand.