Icy Clutches

life.” His eyes rolled up. “Alas, poor Yorick.'

'I think Dr. Oliver's right,” Parker said.

'Why? What is there to be gained? What—'

But the ranger knew how to get his supervisor's attention. “We'll have to submit a recovery report on this. How will it look to Washington if we can't put down that we instituted a systematic search for remains?'

'I just told you—'

'With equipped, professional park-ranger personnel.” Tibbett sagged. “All right, all right. Let's get it done. What do you suggest?'

'Jesus Christ,” Parker said abruptly, looking at the empty Hostess box. “You ate one of those donuts?'

'I get hungry when I work,” Gideon said. “It wasn't that bad.'

'Yeah, but still—'

'Owen, this is serious,” Tibbett snapped. “Now what do you suggest?'

Parker grunted good-naturedly. “Bill Bianco's taking the glacier rescue class up Tarr Inlet for tomorrow's field training. Why don't Russ, Frannie, and I hop a ride on the boat? They can drop us off at Tirku and pick us up on the way back. It'll give us a good three hours or so to look around.'

'Fine,” Tibbett said, sighing. “You have my approval.'

'You'll probably want to come too, Dr. Oliver,” Parker said.

'I sure do.'

Tibbett made fluttery motions with his hands. “Just a minute. I don't know about that. We have to be careful here. Our insurance provisions wouldn't cover anybody who isn't on official government business.'

'Well, what the hell would you call this?” Parker asked, then added, “sir.'

'Well, I don't...Gideon, would you say it's absolutely necessary for you to be present?'

Gideon leaned forward. “Absolutely,” he said earnestly. “If they do find some more bones, it'd be extremely important for me to observe the contextual and relational conditions firsthand.'

It would also beat hell out of spending the day moping through the rest of the Alaska Geographics.

* * * *

The resident manager of Glacier Bay Lodge had been doubtful about the wisdom of opening the Icebreaker Lounge from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. each day with only two small groups staying at the hotel. Servicing a bar for a total of twenty hotel guests, Mr. Granle thought, was likely to be a losing proposition. As it turned out, he was wrong. The members of M. Audley Tremaine's group were on all-inclusive expense accounts and drank accordingly. The Park Service people were not on all-inclusive expense accounts, but they drank like it anyway. For the second evening in a row, there wasn't an empty table, and most people were on their second rounds, a few on their third.

M. Audley Tremaine himself was holding court at the bar, oozing urbane charm. In attendance were a tipsy, wisecracking Shirley Yount, who had obviously started her cocktail hour in her room, and half-a-dozen star-struck park rangers in jeans and sweaters. Anna Henckel, Walter Judd, and Gerald Pratt made an unlikely trio at a table by the big window looking west over the cove. Anna, reading from a sheet of paper, was grimly and methodically ticking off points. Judd, not overly responsive, chuckled and joshed. Pratt, between them, was leaning back out of the way in his chair, Seven and Seven in one hand, pipe in the other, equably gazing over their heads at the clouds obscuring the Fairweathers, and himself off somewhere in clouds of his own making. Elliott Fisk was nowhere to be seen.

Most of the other tables were taken up by park rangers in groups of two or three, and Julie and Gideon had been lucky to find a table of their own near the stone fireplace.

'You want my honest opinion?” Julie was saying.

'Of course I want your honest opinion.'

'I think you're...well...'

'Inventing things?'

'No, not inventing. Reaching...exaggerating. It's natural. You're at loose ends, and you're bored, and I just wonder if your imagination isn't getting the better of you.'

Gideon leaned back in the comfortable captain's chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed them at the ankles. He'd been wondering the same thing himself. “Maybe so, but I'm not exaggerating that break in the mandible.'

'I don't mean that you're exaggerating the physical facts, I mean that you're exaggerating—inventing—well, the—'

'The cause of them?'

'No, not the cause. The—'

'Antecedents. Determinants.'

She sighed and picked up her white wine. “How am I supposed to argue with you if you keep telling me what I mean?'

He smiled at her. “Are we arguing?'

'No, we're just—I guess we're just—'

'Speculating. Deliberating. Conferring.'