the Edgeway group's radio beacon, and Gorov had plotted a perfectly straight course that intersected with the estimated path of the drifting iceberg. On the surface, the
The satellite tracking gear rose from the sail behind the bridge and opened like spring's first blossom. The five petal-form radar plates, which quickly joined together to become a dish, were already beginning to gleam and sparkle with ice as the snow and sleet froze to them; nevertheless, they diligently searched the sky.
At three minutes past the hour, a note from Timoshenko was sent up to the bridge. The communications officer wished to inform the captain that a coded message had begun to come in from the Ministry in Moscow.
The moment of truth had arrived.
Gorov folded the slip of paper, put it in a coat pocket, then kept his eyes to the night glasses. He scanned ninety degrees of the storm-swept horizon, but it was not waves and clouds and snow that he saw. Instead, two visions plagued him, each more vivid than reality. In the first, he was sitting at a table in a conference room with a gilt-trimmed ceiling and a chandelier that cast rainbows on the walls; he was listening to the state's testimony at his own court-martial, and he was forbidden to speak in his own defense. In the second vision, he stared down at a young boy who lay in a hospital bed, a dead boy rank with sweat and urine. The night glasses seemed to be a conduit to both the past and the future.
At 5:07 the decoded message was passed through the conning-tower hatch and into the captain's hands. Gorov skipped the eight lines of introductory material and got straight to the body of the communique.
YOUR REQUEST GRANTED STOP MAKE ALL SPEED TO RESCUE MEMBERS EDGEWAY EXPEDITION STOP WHEN FOREIGN NATIONALS ABOARD TAK ALL PRECAUTIONS AGAINST COMPROMISE OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL STOP SECURE ALL SENSITIVE AREAS OF YOUR COMMAND STOP EMBASSY OFFICIALS IN WASHINGTON HAVE INFORMED AMERICAN GOVERNMENT OF INTENT TO RESCUE EDGEWAY GROUP STOP
At the bottom of the decoding sheet, Timoshenko had written two words in pencil: RECEIPT ACKNOWLEDGED. There was nothing to do now but act upon their new orders — which they had been doing anyway for the past half an hour.
Although he was not at all sure that sufficient time remained in which to get those people off the iceberg, Gorov was happier than he had been in a long time. At least he was
He stuffed the decoded message into a coat pocket and sounded two brief blasts on the electric diving horns.
By 5:30 Brian had been in the snowmobile nearly an hour. He was suffering from claustrophobia. “I'd like to go out and walk.”
“Don't rush yourself.” Rita switched on a flashlight, and the sudden brightness made her eyes water. She studied his hands. “Numb? Tingling?”
“No.”
“A burning sensation?”
“Not much any more. And my feet feel a lot better.” He saw that Rita still had her doubts. “My legs are cramped. I really need to exercise them. Besides, it's too warm in here.”
She hesitated. “You face
“Good enough.”
She pulled on her felt boots and then worked her feet into her outer boots. She picked up her coat from the bench between them. Afraid of working up a sweat in the warm air, she hadn't been wearing all of her gear. If she perspired in her suit, the moisture against her skin would leach away her body heat, which would be an invitation to death.
For the same reason, Brian wasn't wearing his coat, gloves, or either pair of boots. “I'm not as limber as you are. But if you'll step outside and give me more room, I think I'll manage.”
“You must be too stiff and sore to do it yourself. I'll help.”
“You're making me feel like a child.”
“Rubbish.” She patted her lap. “Put your feet up here, one at a time.”
He smiled. “You'd make a wonderful mother for someone.”
“I already am a wonderful mother for someone. Harry.”
She worked the outer boot onto his somewhat swollen feet. Brian grunted with pain when he straightened his leg; his joints felt as if they were popping apart like a string of decorative plastic beads.
While Rita threaded the laces through the eyelets and drew them tight, she said, “Well, if nothing else, you've a wealth of material for those magazine pieces.”
He was surprised to hear himself say, “I've decided not to write them. I'm going to do a book instead.” Until that moment his obsession had been a private matter. Now that he had revealed it to someone he respected, he had forced himself to regard it less as an obsession and more as a commitment.
“A book? You'd better think twice about that.”
“I've thought about it a thousand times the last few weeks.”
“Writing a book is an ordeal. I've done three, you know. You may have to write thirty magazine articles to get the same word count as a book, but if I were you, I'd write articles and forget about being an 'author.' There isn't half as much agony in the shorter work as there is in the writing of a book.”
“But I've been swept along by the idea.”
“Oh, I know how it is. Writing the first third of the book, you're almost having a sexual experience. But you lost that feeling. Believe me, you do. In the second third, you're just trying to prove something to yourself. And when you get to the last third, it's simply a matter of survival.”
“But I've figured out how to make everything hand together in the narrative. I've got my theme.”
Rita winced and shook her head sadly. “So you're too far gone to respond to reason.” She helped him get his right foot into the sealskin boot. “What is your theme?”
“Heroism.”
“Heroism?” She grimaced as she worked with the laces. “What in the name of God does heroism have to do with the Edgeway Project?”
“I think maybe it has everything to do with it.”
“You're daft.”
“Seriously.”
“I never noticed any heroes here.”
Brian was surprised by her apparently genuine astonishment. “Have you looked in a mirror?”
“Me? A hero? Dear boy, I'm the furthest thing from it.”
“Not in my view.”
“I'm scared sick half the time.”
“Heroes can be scared and still be heroes. That's what makes them heroes — acting in spite of fear. This is heroic work, this project.”
“It's work, that's all. Dangerous, yes. Foolish, perhaps. But heroic? You're romanticizing it.”
He was silent as she finished lacing his boots. “Well, it's not politics.”
“What isn't?”
“What you're doing here. You're not in it for power, privilege, or money. You're not out here because you want to control people.”
Rita raised her head and met his gaze. Her eyes were beautiful — and as deep as the clear Arctic sea. He knew that she understood him, in that moment, better than anyone ever had, perhaps even better than he knew himself. “The world thinks your family is full of heroes.”
“Well.”
