The Last Hunter - Descent (Book 1 of the Antarktos Saga) (9 page)

I smile back at her. In a matter of minutes I’ve managed to speak to the freakiest man I’ve ever met, stare down a room of drunks who all seem to know who I am and initiate physical contact with a girl that I now suspect will kiss me before I leave this continent.
I’m changing
, I think. And while I’m not sure where my newfound confidence is coming from, I like it.

8

It’s morning and I’m lying on my back, staring at the bare plywood ceiling five feet above my head. I’m in the top bunk of a fairly uncomfortable double-decker bed. Dr. Clark and my dad slept on cots. My mom and Aimee share a bunk bed across the room. Mira is sleeping below me. I’ve been lying here all night, thinking about the people in the tavern, about the bartender calling me Ull, about what the day will bring. For the second night in a row, I spent the last eight hours with my eyes open.
How many hours have I been awake
? I wonder.

“Forty-eight,” I say to myself.

I’ve had trouble sleeping before, but nothing like this. And it’s not even my horrible thoughts that are keeping me awake. I’m simply not tired.

I slide out of my sleeping bag and dangle my feet over the edge. My mom is wrapped up in her sleeping bag, still wearing her parka. Aimee too. Dad is buried beneath his blankets. I have no idea what he’s wearing. Dr. Clark is sound asleep. Looks to be dressed in a thick sweater. I look down at my legs. I’m wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. I shed my outer layers last night. I wasn’t hot, just itchy.

I should get dressed before Mom sees me
, I think. She wouldn’t be happy to see me dressed like this. And I don’t want her to know I’m not cold. She’d probably think I had a tumor and catch the next flight home. Since it hasn’t come up, I don’t think Dr. Clark has told my parents yet. He probably knows they’d send me home, too. Besides, if they can keep secrets from me for thirteen years, I’m entitled to keep a few of my own.

I can’t see Mira, but I know she’s asleep because she snores. They
all
snore. Even if I was tired, I doubt I’d have slept through the noise, any more than I could sleep with a pack of squealing pigs.

The ladder leading to my top bunk squeaks like a tortured lab rat. Using it will only wake everyone up. Without thinking I push off the bed and fall to the floor. I land on my toes, bend at the knees and stop in a crouching position next to Mira, who has a red-hooded sweatshirt up over her head. The agility and silence of my leap brings a smile to my face.

Like a ninja
! I think.

I gather my clothes and tiptoe to the open space by the door. The room’s only window is on the door. I can see dirty snow on the ground, a bright blue metal shipping container, and a frozen puddle of something foul that can only be vomit. A sense of frustration builds quickly. This is not the Antarctica I came to see.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m opening the door and stepping outside. I breathe deep. The air is fresh. The sun, just peeking over the horizon, makes me smile. But it’s not enough. I need to—

A hand on my shoulder startles me.

Dr. Clark steps around me, fully dressed for frigid conditions, but still hopping up and down, rubbing his arms. Steam pours from his nose and mouth with each breath. I exhale hard and see nothing. Dr. Clark notices, too, but says nothing about it.

“Spoke to a few people last night,” he says. “Seems you’re something of a legend around here. More than a few stories about your birth have been shared around the fire on cold nights over the past thirteen years. And there are a
lot
of cold nights here. A few people—the ones with functioning brains—are happy to see you back. The others, not so much. If we weren’t heading out to Clark Station Two today, we might even have trouble on our hands.”

I’ve heard everything he said, but the only thing that really registers is ‘Clark Station Two’. Before I can ask about it, Dr. Clark continues.

He steps in close. “The point is, put on some clothes.” He shoves a jacket into my hands. “If anyone saw you out here like this, like it’s the middle of the summer, there would be no doubting the stories of your birth.”

“I thought I should be proud of being strange,” I say, sounding a bit more obtuse than I meant to.

Dr. Clark looks both ways quickly like we’re dealing drugs. “Not. Here. People disappear all the time on Antarctica and no one questions why. People get lost in whiteouts. Drunks get buried in snow. It happens. If these people decide a sneeze from you could sever this ice shelf and carry them all into the ocean...”

He doesn’t have to finish. I know what he’s saying.
I
could disappear.

“You would find me,” I say.

He takes my shoulders in his hands. “Solomon, listen. When people go missing in Antarctica, they’re usually not found. If they are, they’re frozen solid.”

“But that can’t happen to me.”

His voice gets louder. “You’ll be as stiff as the rest of them if you’ve got a knife in your back.”

This gets my attention. I’m looking both ways now, too.

“You’re changing. We both know it. I saw you jump down from the bed just now. You didn’t make a sound. You were in complete control of your body.”

This fills me with pride.

“I also saw you fall at my house. I’d never seen a more clumsy kid.”

This turns my eyes to the ground. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want you to be embarrassed, but if I have to embarrass you now to keep you alive, I will.”

I nod, convinced.

But too late. I sense movement to the side. I suck in a panicked breath and turn. But Dr. Clark has sensed it too. He steps closer, obscuring my body with his. He pulls open the door and shoves me inside. The door slams shut as I fall to the floor. I land in a heap, still holding my clothes and the coat Dr. Clark gave me. I look up into the eyes of my mother, father, Aimee and Mira. The way they’re looking at me, like I’ve just stepped out of a flying saucer, tells me everything Dr. Clark said is true.

I start shaking like I’m freezing. “I—I forgot where I was,” I say. “Went outside.”

My father shakes his head and pulls me to my feet. “That’s our Schwartz.”

Not any more
, I think.

9

The ride to Clark Station Two is long. Nearly two hundred miles. We’re traveling at a steady twenty miles per hour. If we don’t stop we’ll make it there in ten hours, and that’s assuming there are no mountains or fissures in the way. That’s a full day’s drive in a cramped Sno-Cat cabin. There are four cats in our train, each carrying people and supplies. Each is driven by a member of Clark’s research team, who arrived a month earlier to oversee the construction of Clark Station Two. Dr. Clark said, “They’re the brawn to our brains.” I like that—
our
brains. The woman behind the wheel of my Cat is named Collette. She has the same hourglass figure as my mom, but is twice as thick and nearly a foot taller. She’s also twice as loud and likes to tell jokes I’m certain my parents wouldn’t appreciate.

But my parents aren’t here. They’re in one of the other Cats catching up with an old friend named Steve Wright. Seems he was part of the original expedition too, but like my parents and the Clarks, had a child—a son named for his father—and hasn’t been back since. Steve said he didn’t invite his son along because he felt the trip would be too dangerous but then quickly explained that his son was something of a risk taker. “He’d get himself killed on this continent,” the man said.

My thoughts drift to the real reason behind our visit to Antarctica, revealed to me just before our Sno-Cat journey began. Clark Station Two was built for the express purpose of an anthropological excavation about a mile from Clark Station One.

Before being forced to abandon Clark Station One, Dr. Clark had found what he believed was the remnants of an ancient wall protruding from the ice. It could turn out to be a random pile of stones, but Dr. Clark felt certain there was more to it. And if he was right...if he was right it would redefine the way we think about the world. A human civilization would have lived on Antarctica before it was frozen over, perhaps before the continent was located at the South Pole. What excited me most about this idea was that it would mean I really did have some kind of geographic ancestry—that I wasn’t the first and only Antarctican. The idea fascinated me, and I hoped Dr. Clark would make the discovery during the month my family would be part of the team.
A month is hardly enough time
, I think. I’d prefer to stay here for much longer, maybe forever, continuing Dr. Clark’s work.

A loud laugh from Collette snaps me out of my reverie.

Sitting next to the jovial woman is Mira. She’s in the front seat, so there won’t be any toe touching going on, but I now find her to be a calming presence. In fact, I’m looking forward to exploring and documenting our discoveries together.

Actually, the closer we get to Clark Station Two, the calmer I get. My eyes close a few times, but I don’t want to miss the views. I force myself up into a sitting position. Collette has finished her newest joke, something about a horse, and it must have been especially rude because Mira is just smiling uncomfortably.

This seems like a good time to change the subject, so I ask, “How far is the new Clark Station from the first one?”

Collette gives a quick half turn of her head, looking back at me like she forgot I was here. “The boy speaks!”

Now that she mentions it, I realize I haven't really said much of anything in the past three hours. Not that she’s given anyone a chance to speak. But I don’t recall laughing at her jokes, either.

When she realizes I’m not going to take the bait and offer myself up for teasing, she asks, “What’s your interest in the first Clark Station? It’s nothing but a sheet of white, just like the rest of this frozen desert.”

Despite my doubts about Collette’s intelligence, she has accurately described the climate here. The bitter cold saps all the moisture out of the air, turning it into snow or ice. This makes it one of the driest environments on Earth. And the coldest.

I see Mira about to reply and cut her off. “Just curious.” I can tell Collette has no knowledge of my birth or the strange events surrounding it. If the story has been kept from new additions to the crew, it must have been at Dr. Clark’s request. And he’d been right about keeping it quiet. “My parents worked there,” I add.

Mira is squinting at me, but then seems to understand. “My dad did, too...obviously, I guess.”

Collette gives Mira a look like she’s a pitiful wet cat. “Really,” she says, her voice oozing sarcasm.

I’m starting to not like Collette, but I press her for information. “So you haven’t been there?”

“I’ve been there, all right. Clark Station Two is only about five miles beyond Clark Station One. I’ve driven over the site more than a dozen times. Like I said, nothing but snow. Ain’t nothing left.”

“Nothing at all?” I say.

“Unless you're some kind of physicist who can see things no one else can.”

“Well, we already knew
you
weren’t a physicist,” I say, immediately wondering if she’ll take insult at the comment. The look of horror on Mira’s face supports this concern.

But the thick woman guffaws. She holds up her hand. It’s hard to see as we bounce over a series of ice heaves, but the one detail I’m sure she wants me to see is hard to miss. Her hand is covered in grime and a layer of black sludge is trapped beneath her fingernails.

 
“A mechanic,” I say.

“Damn straight,” she replies, and then launches into a joke about blond mechanics.

I tune her out, thinking about what she said. But my exhaustion suddenly catches up with me. I feel myself lolling over like I’ve been drugged. I hear Collette’s loud voice fade like she’s walking away. Then nothing.