Beneath the Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

unit. The
cargo-crate dormitories had arrived in the same way. Very little
assembly was required. Griffin James had overseen the installation,
but Sachs Engineering employees did the
work. The assembly team left three days prior to Perry’s arrival.
Perry had made sure a bonus check was waiting for each man upon his
return to the States.
    “Yeah, I keep pouring it down,” Perry
replied.
    “It’s one of the best ways to battle
altitude sickness. You should be drinking three or four quarts per
day. And your urine output should be copious and clear.”
    “I don’t talk about urine output until the
second date,” Perry said, smiling. “I’m fine, but thanks for the
concern.”
    Gwen and Griffin, despite their objections
to the project, had decided to stay. Perry was glad. It would have
been difficult to replace them on such short notice.
    “The work is going okay?”
    Perry nodded. It made his head hurt more.
“It’s grueling, but the Seabees are tough, and my men are used to
adverse conditions. The Chamber should be finished soon—two or
three days more, if the wind doesn’t get worse.”
    “I’ll confess to being impressed,” Gwen
said, pushing back a strand of dark hair. “It’s a big structure,
and a handful of men are piecing it together in less than a
week.”
    “That’s the advantage of
modular construction. All we have to do is match part A to part B and—voila!—instant
dome. Well, almost instant. Besides they’ve built this
before.”
    “They have?”
    “Three times. We did it as practice. Three
teams working in thirty-minute shifts. It’s almost second nature to
them.”
    “Including the cold?”
    Perry sat up and rubbed his eyes. “No, not
the cold. That was one thing we couldn’t duplicate. If we had had
time, if we weren’t racing the onset of Antarctic winter, we might
have trained on-site at altitude and in the cold. I did make them
wear gloves while working so they could get used to handling the
tools. They hated it.”
    “I bet no one is complaining now.”
    Perry laughed. “If they are, I haven’t heard
it.”
    “You never will. The men respect you. That’s
easy enough to see. I doubt they’d dare disappoint you.”
    “They’re good men, every one of them.”
    The conversation lulled, then Gwen said, “I
suppose I should apologize for my behavior, and for my brother’s.
We’re . . . passionate about our science.”
    “No apology needed,” Perry said. “You
expressed your opinion, and it was heard. We need you here. I’m
just sorry we didn’t get off to a good start.”
    “It doesn’t matter now. Time can’t be
unwound.”
    “Where is Dr. James?”
    “In his quarters, reviewing what little
information we have on this area. He’s opinionated, gruff, and
often rude, but he is also brilliant.”
    “He just needs to know that we are not the
bad guys. We’re cautious, and we’re good. Things will be done
right.”
    “I hope so. You may be destroying something
very nearly perfect. Did you know, Mr. Sachs—”
    “Please, call me Perry. I would be much more
comfortable.”
    “Very well. Perry, did you know that
pollution has found its way down here? We’re only a few hundred
kilometers from the South Pole, yet we can find traces of human
pollution. The largest creature native to Antarctica is a fly, the
wingless midge, which grows to only twelve millimeters—less than
half an inch. Beyond that, there are microscopic animals such as
nematodes and tardigrades, but that’s it. A great deal of life
comes to Antarctica—penguins and sea lions, for instance—but they
are not native to the land.”
    “I do know that,” Perry replied. “We’ve made
it a priority to leave this area as clean as we found it. All waste
is collected and packaged for removal. Even the buildings will be
removed. I can promise you we won’t leave a single candy wrapper
behind.”
    Gwen studied Perry. He
felt as if the biologist had put him under a microscope. “You haven’t told us