The unveiling, p.7
The Unveiling, page 7
Percy lifted his binoculars to his face. He gasped. “Careful now,” he whispered. “Follow me. We don’t want to spook it.”
They formed a ragged line behind him. The support boats killed their engines. You could see something happening, some kind of struggle, the sound traveling over the water. He took them to within twenty feet.
Striker couldn’t believe the size of its teeth, the prehistoric menace of its bullet-shaped head. The thing didn’t seem to care if they were watching. If anything, it ramped up the show.
The unlucky penguin was fluttering its flippers, determined to live, but even if it got away, at this point it would be pretty messed up, just another Adélie burger served up for someone. A few scavengers floated overhead, waiting to see what would happen.
Finally the leopard seal finished the deal. The Adélie hung limp in its terrible jaws. Bon appetit! thought Striker. Percy was pointing to the spot where the leopard seal went under, the Adélie grasped in the seal’s ripping teeth, the kind of teeth you don’t expect on an animal with the word seal in its name. A seal is supposed to be cheerful and fun, a red-and-white-striped ball balanced on the end of its perky black nose. But this is pure uncut nature, baby, life unvarnished and serrated. Percy is telling them you don’t see this every day up close and personal, a leopard seal breaking its prey’s back by savaging it on the water, the way a dog will sometimes get hold of a rope and smack it from side to side on the ground, beating the thing to death, the penguin a chew toy. Then a flash of light fills the sky, the air like a city sidewalk heaped with trash, the heavens roaring as if on fire and there isn’t time for Striker to close her eyes—she’s doomed to watch someone’s kayak fly up and smash Percy in the back of the head, yes, that Percy, indestructible Percy, golden Percy who crewed for New Zealand in the last Olympics, Percy of the broad chest and muscled neck, Percy of the other night in the sauna who did this thing with his index finger until she screamed, Percy who was telling them to put down their goddam phones and really look, to have a true and direct experience of the moment, please mates, this is gaga! the front of his face reiterating that the leopard seal is the area’s number-two predator and then something in his eyes registers as wrong, his skull caving in, letting the light in, the day tossed in a blender, and Striker doesn’t really remember the rest, won’t remember the rest even though she is a being who loves turbulence, the feel of your stomach flipping, going so far as to seek it out, that sensation of being unmoored, centerless drop down on your hands and knees, girlfriend and yet after the rest is over and she finds herself on the other side of this, even then she might refuse to acknowledge it this place ain't gonna give you a choice because even with your eyes closed thanks to the 24-hour Antarctic sun, the worst can
read 12:14 p.m. Overhead the sun sat slightly off center. Under normal circumstances the setting would have been heavenly. Instead, she had to swallow an urge to scream.
She was floating on the Southern Ocean, thirteen million square miles of bone-chilling blue. She could see all the way to the horizon, out to the very edge of the world. It was disorienting. Each time she gazed over the endless water, weights and counterweights deep inside her shifted out of synch.
“Hello,” she shouted. “Anybody out there?”
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
No answer. Just a silence so deep it hurt her ears. Where had she experienced a quiet like this before?
That’s right. At that start-up in Midtown with an inner room that cost a few million. The room billed itself as the quietest spot on earth. It was designed as a space where architects and builders could come try out different materials, experiment with ceiling heights, windows, brick thickness, HVACs. Striker once spent thirty minutes tousling with one of the company founders on the rubber floor suspended over a series of sound-absorbent panels. The founder had talked her into it by saying it was a one-of-a-kind rush, the heart audible with every thrust, an aliveness you had to experience to believe, like jumping out of a plane without a parachute or snorting a line of coke all the way from New York to Mexico. He’d put his hand over her mouth. Within seconds a terrible silence blossomed inside her head, the feeling of being a hundred feet underwater, her ears starting to pop. That’s true silence, he said. A grave wouldn’t be that quiet.
And now the whole blue world had become that deathly silent room in Midtown. Striker imagined the scene from the air. Miles and miles of ocean studded with roving belts of ice. And somewhere in all that vastness, she would appear as the tiniest spark of yellow, the redness of her kayak like the flame of a single candle burning in an empty stadium, the vacant sky leering at her, this lowly speck of dust hungering for something, anything to hold on to.
Nobody has ever been this alone, she thought. The ocean surrounding her boat was a glassy blank free of ice, the water smooth as steel. It probably had something to do with the currents. She could only hope some lonely iceberg would drift her way, a companion to keep her mind from shattering.
“Percy? Jane?” she yelled. Weird. Why, of everyone in existence, would she call for the old woman with the helmet of silvery hair?
It didn’t matter. With every second, she could feel herself disappearing. The air smelled brisk like early spring. A faint breeze stirred the water, drops raining off her paddle each time she lifted it. For a dizzying instant, she couldn’t even recollect the specifics of her own face. To make it all worse, her sunglasses were gone.
“Hello,” she screamed. “I’m here, I’m right—”
An unexpected sourness filled her mouth, the taste like sucking on dirty coins. What if somebody is out there, she thought, just not anybody I want to know? She peered around at the incalculable nothingness. Everywhere the water gleamed an unnatural blue.
Striker remembered an expert on the Yegorov claiming the oceans were the last unexplored realms. Was this the reason humans were content to let the sea remain a mystery? Subconsciously it reminds us we’re expendable, she thought, microscopic flotsam roiling in the gut of the universe. If you were tired enough, a message like that could be comforting. Might as well give up, it said. No one will blame you. She pushed the thought down and went back to searching for signs of rescue.
“This can’t be happening,” she whispered. She had no proof hers wasn’t the only human consciousness left on the planet. She recalled a philosophy class she’d taken as an undergrad. The professor admitting that the greatest questions of philosophy still had yet to be solved. Who are we? Is there a god? How do we know who we are without others around to reflect our personhood back at us? In the middle of the talk, she began to panic, her breath growing ragged as the blood pounded in her throat.
What would it feel like to be dead?
In the lecture hall, she could hear someone hyperventilating. She knew the one struggling to breathe was her. Something small and dark was stirring behind her ribs. She worried she might scream.
It was nonsensical, like dividing by zero. Whether you acknowledged it or not, every human had the capacity to transform in a flash from everything into nothing, the whole human race acting like that moment would never arrive. There will come a time not of my choosing, she thought, and on that day this power to blink out of existence will be fulfilled. She’d grabbed her things and rushed out into the noise of the city. It was only there she could breathe again.
The polar light bounced around unimpeded. Striker shielded her eyes with her hand. Could the sun already be damaging her vision? Even a pair of cloth goggles like the kind Percy had described would’ve been better than nothing. From horizon to horizon, the indifference of Antarctica swallowing her whole.
I have to get out of here. It was dawning on her that agoraphobia was the flip side of claustrophobia. The same feeling of being obliterated either by too much space or not enough of it. How long did it take the dead to realize they were dead? What part of her would even perceive the difference?
Desperately she scanned the landscape. Her gaze raking the emptiness until her vision burned. She could hear a voice begging please. The earth was pummeling her with her own insignificance. Finally her eyes snagged on something.
A band of icebergs was migrating her way. Her mouth flooded with hope. Beyond them she might find the others or maybe with a little luck the Yegorov. She might even run into one of those giant cruise ships with five thousand passengers, the ship floating like a white city.
If there was nothing beyond the ice but more emptiness, there was a strong possibility she would zero out. Don’t take your ass past go. Do not collect $200. Already an inner void was rooting in her chest. The feeling like falling off a cliff. Arms pinwheeling through space. She placed her feet on the footrests in the front of her boat and locked her eyes on where she was headed.
“Wait for me,” she begged.
It was like sailing on glass. Each stroke of her paddle sent her flying. She knew she was making remarkable time. Already she could see the distant icebergs zooming up to meet her. Any tiredness had drained from her body. She had never felt so alive, so purposeful, arms driving her kayak over the silky water. This is what the earth will smell like without life, she thought. It was beyond pristine. She could hear someone breathing hard, their heartbeat filling the universe.
Striker couldn’t be sure how long it took to reach the ice. If it was ten minutes or ten years. When she finally arrived, the unbridled panic she’d been experiencing suddenly flooded with awe.
It was like drifting through a sculpture garden.
The icebergs ranged in height from a few feet to more than thirty. The scale of their size struck her as relatable and human, unlike the alien vastness she’d encountered out on the open sea. All around her the ocean glittered, the ice immaculate. One slipped past shaped like a giant heart, both lobes ethereal and pearly. Her own heart surged. It’s a sign, she thought. Just get to the other side. She began working her way through.
Within minutes she remembered the time she’d gone into the dunes while on location in the Sahara. She had wanted to see to the edge of the desert, but with each one she crested, there was another dune blocking her view. Dune after dune after dune. The desert light starting to change. The certainty growing that she was the last woman on earth. Eventually one of the crew came racing over the sands on an ATV. She waved him down and almost cried when he stopped.
Overhead the Antarctic sun burned feverishly. At least she didn’t have to worry about night falling. Percy had said it was 52°. Sweat trickled down her back. She was already realizing how quickly the light could burn your retina. If it did, she would see only white, the day an appalling blank. Her backside was starting to ache. She considered slipping off her life jacket and sliding it under her bum, but it would take too much time and every second mattered. I bet everyone’s waiting on the other side of this, she thought. I’m coming. Please don’t leave without me.
Striker paddled toward a small, tabular berg shaped like a mausoleum. It’s just your size! She tried not to dwell on it, but the longer she stared, the clearer the vision became. There were the mausoleum’s doors flanked by decorative columns, a series of gargoyles scowling from the roof. She couldn’t help envisioning herself entombed in it, mind cast outside time. The fear of dividing by zero began to creep up her throat. She paddled harder.
Of course you’re a nervous Nellie. This place wants to eat you alive.
She searched the ice, hoping for another glimpse of the enormous heart. Any friendly face was better than nothing. When she finally spotted it, it looked misshapen. The heart’s left lobe sagged as it slogged along.
Everywhere she turned the white world sat watching. Icebergs like sentinels, silent as wraiths. In the near-total quiet her ears popped, the feeling like being entombed deep underwater. What earlier that day had seemed delightful now felt imposing. It was the perfect scenario to trigger a case of extra man syndrome. She imagined the ghostly figure cloaked in furs gliding by Shackleton’s side during his ascent on South Georgia. His mind on the verge of breaking.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed something creeping up behind her. “Just what I need,” she said out loud, desperate for a laugh. “Another backseat driver telling me to make a left.” Slowly she turned to look.
The water gleamed, polished as glass. The way it glistened made her shudder.
See? Nothing is following me, she told herself, though her heart wouldn’t stop trembling.
Then the ocean began to swirl.
It’s just currents, she mused. Warm air, cold water colliding. All the same she ramped up her pace but only just a little. Paddling like a bat out of hell would’ve been a signal to whatever was out there, like running away from a bear. The skin tightened on the back of her neck.
A sudden thunderclap shook the day. Please let me be far enough away from it, she thought. In the distance she could see where the gutted lobe of the deformed heart had broken off and crashed into the water. Within seconds waves slammed her kayak. In the tumult, a massive slab of ice rose straight up out of the ocean, blocking her path. Slobber dripped from the iceberg’s fangs, the tips of its icy hackles glittering.
Urgently Striker squeezed her eyes shut and paddled backward. It’s just a trick of the light. There is no hungry wolf looking to crush my throat. Stop thinking like a five-year-old. She took a deep breath.
“When I open my eyes, it’ll all just be ice again.” Cautiously she took another look.
The wolf was gone.
It was only then Striker noticed the thirty-foot wall of ice keeping pace with her kayak. Where a pair of eyes should be, two blurry hollows glared. The iceberg looked disproportioned, top-heavy. The slightest breeze could send it toppling. The waves would swamp her boat, lungs flooded with seawater. She spun around in all directions, eager to retreat a safe distance. But retreat was impossible.
She was surrounded by it. 360° of ice. Everywhere icebergs trapping her like an animal in a pen. The air turned frosty. Echoes began to form. She could feel the day rip open, a presence entering through the tear. (Or did it seep out of the ice?) Something had taken a seat behind her. Its breath chilled her neck. Look, a voice rasped in her ear. It’s just the wind, she told herself. All the same, she leaned over the side of her kayak and peered into the deep.
A face stared back.
Even at the edge of sanity, she recognized herself in the water. Brown eyes bulging with fear. She spit the coppery taste flooding her mouth into the ocean. Her spit hit the reflection smack dab in the middle of its forehead.
A hand shot up out of the sea. It waved, fingers wrinkled and bloodless.
Striker screamed and stabbed at the water with her paddle, kept stabbing, trying to push her way through.
The ice barely moved.
“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered. “It was only a mangled penguin.”
Guess again.
Percy had claimed Antarctica was riddled with bodies, that someday even the suicides would have their moment in the sun. It was a place where nothing ever decomposes. History lurking beneath the surface. She imagined Seaman Oates reappearing from his long white walk, skin charred from the sun and cold. His blackened hand wordlessly beckoning her to join him.
From underneath the water something knocked on the bottom of her boat. Two slow taps, then two fast. Her mind went blank. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck came alive.
God be troubling the water.
Between two towering icebergs she spied a sliver of blue. She knew it could be a trap. Once inside, the ice might shift, crushing her in its terrible jaws. What other choice did she have?
Striker shot into the narrow sliver just in time to hear the top-heavy iceberg topple over. Everywhere the thunder of ice colliding. Even as she sped away, a familiar tingle warmed the back of her neck, the feeling of an ever-present gaze watching as she fled.
The wind picked up but remained gentle. Her shoulders ached, backside numb. She was drifting toward a magnificent blue arch, loose pieces of ice straggling behind it like a ragtag army. Despite Antarctica suddenly turning on her, Striker couldn’t help but admire the frozen archway. Once it had probably been a solid ball of ice. Over geological epochs the ocean had carved out the sphere’s interior, creating this spectacular formation. The same elements at work that had sculpted the desert monoliths in Monument Valley. Wind and endless time.
A cry pierced the silence. Her stomach dropped. She sat listening, willing her ears wide open. She could hear voices growing closer. There was something eerie about their timbre, the cries as if a crowd of people were moaning.
“Hullo!” someone called. It wasn’t all in her mind. Somebody was out there. Even in her wildest dreams she never would have conjured up a voice with such a flat midwestern vowel.
Striker flexed her tired fingers. She took up her paddle and started toward it. “I’m coming,” she shouted. “Where are you?”
The blue arch was still visible in the distance when the other kayaks came into view. Among the whiteness the red burned like drops of blood. A pang of regret detonated in her chest. She’d been hoping for anyone else, even that freaky kid and her light brown dad, but you get what you get. Their matching old-person Him and Her sunglasses flashing like shields covering half their faces.
“Well hullo there,” boomed the Baron.
“A better greeting might be, what the hell happened and where is the Yegorov?” said Striker. She knew she sounded angry but in truth relief was flooding her every synapse.
“You say potato, I say po-tah-to,” shrugged the Baron.
“Are you for real?” she said.
“Of course we’re real,” pooh-poohed the Dame. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
This is not happening, Striker told herself for the millionth time. She blinked hard, trying to reset her vision. Jane and Robert Foley sat floating before her looking pretty much as they had earlier that morning—two rich geezers in vulcanized rubber, their expressions as though waiting for someone to bring them a highball. How could they be so chill? Weren’t they petrified by the idea that this carnival ride might lead straight to hell?
