“Already called,” the captain says. “They’ll try.”
“They’ll try?” Grim asks, anger showing through on his usually impassive features. “What the hell do you mean they’ll try? We have sixty-five people on this ship, in addition to your crew. Students. Teachers. Women. They need to do more than fucking try, Cap.”
“The closest team that could help is a Japanese ship that can only break through ice that’s three to four feet thick,” Captain Rosteen explains. “It’s impossible. Everything around us is at least twice that now.”
“And the storm that’s closing in on us,” Dr. Larnyard says wearily. “It’s already all around. The visibility in the surrounding areas is too low for anyone to fly in safely.”
Even as he says it, wind whistles violently beyond the porthole, rocking the ship. The Antarctic shows us what a capricious bitch she can be—placid one moment and violent vengeance the next. A thump jerks the ship dramatically.
“Shit,” Captain Rosteen says, moving over to check the tilt meter. “Ship just went three degrees to the right.”
He runs from the cabin and we follow. Dread sinks to my belly like an anchor dropped overboard. The wind, silent just hours before, wails high-pitched screams all around. Up on deck, the three degrees on the tilt meter is more obvious, setting the ship slightly askew. A cluster of ice floes jostling for position have formed a pointy steeple and pierced the side of the boat.
The captain searches the sky crowded with ominous clouds and looks up at the stars imploringly, like they might pose a solution where there apparently is none. He says the words we all hoped we’d never have to hear.
“We’ve been hit.”
28
Lennix
“Don’t leave a street unturned,” I tell the volunteers sitting around the cheap wooden table in Nighthorse campaign headquarters. “We need to get as many eligible voters to vote early as possible. Inclement weather, long lines, voter suppression tricks onsite the day of—all well-documented barriers for our demographic on voting day. Let’s get as many of them to vote in advance as possible.” I pause to smile. “Vote for us, of course.”
The small team comprised mostly of student and elderly volunteers laughs at my tiny joke. I try to keep morale high. Have to. We are in the fight of our lives with a strong incumbent still in the lead, according to every poll.
Last week, Mr. Nighthorse asked me to help with our voter drive. We’re about six weeks away from the election, and we may be behind, but we gain ground every week. By election day, I believe we can not only eliminate the sitting congressman’s lead, but overtake him.
“Okay,” I say once the laughter and chatter die down. “Let’s get out there.”
Everyone has their assignments and grabs clipboards already loaded with absentee ballot forms so if people want to complete them onsite, we’ll literally take the forms and mail them in for them.
I’m grabbing a clipboard, too, ready to hit my assigned streets when Kimba walks in. She started working with the campaign a few weeks ago. I know she believes in Jim, but I think more than anything she didn’t want to be apart from me. After four years of college and inseparable friendship, I don’t want to be away from her either.
“Have you seen the news?” she asks, her face troubled.
“News about what?” I ask distractedly, checking to make sure I have my forms, buttons and campaign signs to give anyone who wants them.
“It’s Maxim.”
A droplet of ice water cuts down my back. I haven’t heard from him. That was fine. We agreed to that. I knew that, though a tiny part of me has been marking off the days until his expedition is over and, according to his voice mail, we can talk. I haven’t let myself consider the dangers he was potentially facing. No news has been good news.
Until now.
“What about him?” I ask, trying to keep the panic from my voice.
Kimba picks up the remote, turns the TV on, and flips through a few channels until she reaches CNN.
Antarctic expedition team trapped in deadly storm
Deadly?
Trapped?
The headline appears above a line of photos, and I recognize David and Maxim immediately. The words and images are a one-two punch to my solar plexus. I can’t breathe and I’m choking.
“A dangerous situation is unfolding in Antarctica,” the reporter says with the appropriate amount of professional graveness. “A team researching climate change in the southern hemisphere finds themselves caught in a storm of imperfect conditions. Their ship has been hit and is sinking. They’re thousands of miles from civilization and hundreds of miles from shore. Extreme winds have assaulted the area, and low visibility makes flying in to rescue them nearly impossible.”
I collapse into a rolling chair and fold shaking hands in my lap. I’m not sure I can do this again. When they found Tammara’s body, there was barely time to cry, to attend the funeral and console her family. If I think too long about how she died, I’ll wonder if Mama died that way, too. If her body was so carelessly used and then discarded, but unlike Tammara’s, never found. I pushed grief aside, old and new, the demands of the campaign as much a distraction as a necessity.