Surviving Antarctica Read Online Free PDF Page A

others?”
    “Loafing.”
    “Loafing?”
    “Some nights we sabotage. Some nights we work for Her Royal Highness the Secretary of Entertainment. And every night we loaf.”
    “What do you do when you loaf?” Steve couldn’t imagine a job that included loafing.
    “Play cards. Sleep. Read.”
    Steve willed his voice to sound normal. “What do you do when you sabotage?”
    “It depends. We can’t do much. We have tobe very careful. But for every series”—Chad paused—“one of us volunteers.”
    Steve’s heart thudded. Volunteers to do what?
    Chad picked up a remote and punched a button. All the televisions came alive with scenes from a clinic ward. Chad touched the controls and a camera zoomed in on a sleeping child’s face. A girl. She had a slight smile on her lips. Her open arms made her look completely defenseless. Steve wanted to hug her.
    “Polly Pritchard,” Chad said.
    Chad touched the zoom lens for the camera aimed on the second bed. A tough-looking African-American boy lay asleep. “Robert Johnson.”
    Steve had seen kids like this on the streets. Even while he was asleep, the boy’s hard life showed in his scarred face and his leanness. Steve had the feeling that if he made a sound, the boy would leap up in an instant, ready for anything.
    “The kids are heavily sedated,” Chad said.
    “Because of the corneal implants?”
    “Of course.” Chad smiled. “Just a bit of department trivia. The implants are always placed in the contestant’s left eye.”
    Chad seemed to be in such a talkative moodthat Steve decided to risk the question that had been bothering him. “Why aren’t contestants told about the implants?”
    Chad turned toward the next kid’s screen. This boy was about the same age as the other two, fourteen, so he was much too old for stuffed animals, but he held his chubby arms as if a teddy bear were in his grasp. He had long brown hair and long brown eyelashes. Steve couldn’t say why, but the boy looked kind.
    “Andrew Morton.” Chad identified the boy before answering Steve. “How long do you think Hot Sauce could keep the implants secret if she told the contestants?”
    Steve thought about the celebrity-hungry contestants on
Alamo Historical Survivor
, and the answer to Chad’s question was obvious. “She gets away with so much.”
    Chad shrugged. “If the night shift had its way, she wouldn’t.”
    Maybe he
was
a night-shift man, Steve admitted to himself reluctantly. The poor kids already had enough problems. No one should be allowed to lie to them.
    The next screen showed a girl whose long black hair fell over the hospital sheets. She had a broad face and yellowish skin.
    “Grace Untoka.”
    Steve guessed that she was a Native American.
    Chad turned toward the remaining camera. “Last is Billy Kanalski.” Billy had brown hair like Andrew’s, but he was smaller, leaner. He tossed his arm over his head and his whole body shuddered; then he fell quiet.
    “They should wake up early tomorrow,” Chad said.
    Steve still couldn’t believe that when the kids woke up, although they wouldn’t know it, they’d have miniaturized camcorders in their eyes. “When do they leave for Antarctica?”
    “Tomorrow night,” Chad said.
    “What are we supposed to be doing?”
    “Well, we call this the ‘test period.’ Since we don’t start the actual show until the kids reach the ship tomorrow night, we’re supposed to be”—Chad continued in an exaggerated voice—“‘monitoring the kids to make sure that the implants are working properly.’ Of course, since the kids are lying in clinic beds with their eyes closed, this is an absolutely stupid assignment. When they wake up, we can quickly tell if the implants are working. After that, we monitor them loosely until they arrive at the ship.” He shrugged.
    “So what are you going to do?”
    Chad nodded as if he understood that Steve was asking a bigger question than what he was going to do tomorrow or the next day.