There was quiet.
'Strong people die, too,' Nancy finally amended.
'In any event,' the station manager went on, 'we're getting our winter off to a stressful start and it's at times like these that the group has to hang together. Together!' He looked at Tyson worriedly. 'It's hard to lose anybody, but especially Mickey. Damned if I know what happened. Could have been illness. Could have been an accident. Could have gotten lost. You probably have your own ideas. I pray to God he'll just show up, but we all know how cold it is outside.'
Several faces turned to check the television monitor. The temperature was sixty-one degrees below zero. A rising wind had pushed the chill factor to minus ninety-two.
'Why don't you tell us what this is really about, Rod?' a voice demanded. It was Harrison Adams, the astronomer. 'As a scientist, I don't believe in coincidences.'
'What does that mean?'
'The rumor is that Mickey found a meteorite in the ice. Someone apparently took it. He demands an investigation. Then he disappears. I mean, come on.'
'What are you saying, Harrison?'
'That five million dollars makes this more than a simple missing person.'
There was a murmur through the crowd as speculation suddenly became baldly stated fact.
'Five million what?' Pika asked in confusion.
'Take your ear protectors off once in a while, doofus!' Geller chided.
'Now, hold on,' Cameron cautioned. 'We don't know that.'
'Do the arithmetic,' Adams said. 'That's what it comes out to if this meteorite is really a chunk of Mars or the moon, and our fingie isn't blowing smoke. Right? So that's my question. What do we know? Not that Mickey had a heart attack. Only that we're missing a stone that some people- irresponsibly, I might add- have wildly speculated might be worth a lot of money. Next thing we know, boom. Mickey's gone.'
'Jed Lewis just gave a professional opinion.'
Adams swung to look at the fingie. 'It's an amateur, unscientific, seat-of-the-pants opinion and this problem started when Jed Lewis stepped off the plane.'
'That's not fair, Doctor Adams.' It was Norse. 'Our meteorologist was asked to give a geologic judgment, based on his professional background, by Doctor Moss himself.'
'That's right,' Cameron said. 'There's no evidence that anything's connected.'
'And no evidence it isn't,' Adams said.
'Jed said he was searched,' Nancy Hodge spoke up. 'What did you find?'
'Nothing,' Cameron replied.
'Several of us were searched,' Norse chimed in. 'Including Mickey. Nothing was found.'
Abby, Lewis noticed, had turned her face to the floor. Something was wrong. Had something been found?
'I want to emphasize here how little we know,' the psychologist went on. 'We don't know if the meteorite really had value. We don't know if it was lost or stolen. We don't know what happened to Mickey. Any conclusions at this point are premature.'
Cameron looked at the psychologist with gratitude. Maybe Norse had his uses. An excited buzzing broke out among the group.
'So now what?' Gabriella finally shouted.
Cameron took a breath. 'Now we decide what to do. Together. In trust.'
'The only problem being that one of us may be a thief. Or worse.' It was Pulaski.
'Exactly,' said Norse, and heads turned back to him. 'So a more realistic option is to work together in temporary distrust. To scrutinize each other carefully in order to get all bad blood out of the way.'
'How do we do that?' Geller asked.
'Our real problem is lack of information,' the psychologist said. 'We're afraid because we don't know. Accordingly, I have a proposal to make. It's unusual, but this is an unusual situation. It has to be a group decision, not imposed from above. I was skeptical when Mickey himself first proposed it but it might be the quickest way to reinforce our belief in each other.' He paused, his eyes polling the group, seeking permission to broach an idea. Physically and in personality, he was a more commanding presence than Cameron. His shower idea hadn't broken Tyson, but the mechanic's defiance was cracking. Norse seemed to have a better idea what to do.
'Go ahead, Doc,' Geller prompted.
'I propose a broader search,' Norse went on. 'Not of the station, where we've been looking for Doctor Moss, but of our rooms, to look for the meteorite. I suspect we'll find nothing, but any discovery that would clarify this situation would help. Finding nothing, in contrast, might reassure each of us about each other.'
'Our rooms are the only bloody privacy we have,' objected Dana Andrews.
'I sympathize,' Norse said. 'I propose to limit the searchers to two people, myself and Doctor Hodge. I'll check the rooms of male personnel, she the female. As we've said, I've already been searched: I'm not asking anyone to undergo anything I haven't already experienced. We'll do it now, while the rest of you wait. If anything is locked, we ask for your keys. What we discover remains entirely confidential unless it has some bearing on the disappearance of Doctor Moss or the meteorite.' He glanced at Cameron. 'Agreed?'
'No!' Tyson yelled. 'I don't want some self-appointed shrink searching me!'
'That's because you've got more phallic objects in that armory of yours than a nymphomaniac in a nunnery, bathing boy,' Geller scoffed. The others laughed.
'Fuck you.' Tyson glowered, his belligerence immediately returning in response to mockery. He was always ready for a fight.
'Nobody's afraid of a man who showers more than a teenage girl, Buck.'
'Yeah? Try me sometime.'
'My creditor friends tell me even the biggest goon can slip in the shower and not get up, if he stays in too long.'
The group stirred uneasily at this threat.
'Enough, enough,' Cameron said. The station manager was trying to look stern but was fighting the start of a smile at this needling Tyson was getting. The mechanic looked uncomfortable and scowled, avoiding anyone's gaze. It wasn't easy being toast.
'Is this going to work?' Alexi Molotov interjected. 'You would have to be stupid to steal a meteorite and hide it in your room, no?'
'Who said people were smart?' Norse replied.
'You would be even more stupid to find the meteorite and not keep it for yourself,' said Hiro. 'Perhaps we should check the pockets of our two doctors at the end.' The others laughed nervously. 'Perhaps they hunt for themselves.'
'You agree to a strip search, Doc?' Pulaski asked lightly.
'Only if you can hide a meteorite in there,' Norse replied. Laughter again, the tension breaking slightly. 'Look, everyone can come along but the idea is not to embarrass anyone. Nancy and I are used to handling things in confidence. We're trying to eliminate suspicion, not create it. Trust us, this once, so you can trust each other.'
With glances, the group polled itself in uneasy silence. Tyson looked angry but said nothing. Lewis had no sympathy for anybody. I've already been probed, he thought. Now it's your turn.
Adams spoke up. 'I agree to this search,' the astronomer said. 'I have nothing to hide. But I think we also need to start using our heads as well as our feet. Maybe Mickey left other clues. Electronic ones. If I could get his passwords I could examine his hard drive.'
Carl Mendoza wryly smiled, as if there were something more behind this idea than Adams was admitting. Geller smirked. Cameron looked questioningly at Abby, their computer technician.
'I have them,' she said in a quiet voice. 'It's privacy, again.'
'I guess I'd draw the line at our hard drives,' Norse said uneasily. 'That's like reading our thoughts. We do need some privacy.'
'I'm not talking about our files, I'm talking about Mickey's,' Adams said. 'I worked with the guy. Maybe he left a note. This is an emergency, dammit.'
'It's for his own good,' Mendoza added guilelessly.
