Or was he imagining things? Might they be not touchy but star struck, now that they grasped that they would actually be working directly with him for the next few days? Sometimes he forgot the impact that meeting a celebrity had on ordinary people. Absurd, really—he was quite the same as anyone else—but there it was, and he supposed it was up to him to do something about it. The better their initial relations, the better things would go later.
He pushed the remains of his buttered English muffin away, signaled for another cup of coffee, and got out his box of Dunhills. He lit up, sucked in a deep lungful of smoke, tucked a loose end of his paisley ascot into his shirt collar, and cleared his throat. “We have twenty minutes before we leave for Tirku Glacier,” he said, “and it occurs to me that there may still be some unanswered questions about just why we are here. If so, please feel free to ask them.'
He peered at them with warm sincerity and lifted his eyebrows to indicate that such questions were welcome. More than welcome.
Gerald Pratt's lean, weathered hand went slowly up. Everything Gerald Pratt did went slowly. In that way he reminded Tremaine of Pratt's brother James, killed in the avalanche in 1960. Physically, too, the resemblance was there if you looked for it: the bony nose—broken and poorly mended in Gerald's case—the long face, the lantern jaw. Was this what James would have come to if he'd lived? James, too, had sometimes been maddeningly measured in speech and manner, but there had been a spark, an intensity, flickering beneath that quiet surface. This the dark, gaunt, torpid Gerald lacked utterly. But Gerald was in his fifties, of course. James, his younger brother by a year or two, had never reached thirty. Ah, well, Tremaine thought with the tinge of melancholy that often came with his first cigarette of the day, there was something to be said for dying young.
He smiled tolerantly. “There's no need to raise our hands here, Mr. Pratt.'
Pratt lowered his hand. “I'm no scientist,” he said in the laconic, deliberate way that had already begun to grate on Tremaine's nerves. “Comes to that, I'm not much of a reader either. So...” His cheeks hollowed as he drew on his pipe. “So...” One cloud, two clouds, three clouds of nauseous, yellowish-brown smoke emerged in slow procession.
Tremaine made a conscious effort to keep from tapping his foot with impatience. The tolerant smile began to congeal. “Yes...?'
'So I'd appreciate it,” Pratt finally droned, “if you'd tell us just why we're here and what's expected of us. Sort of in a nutshell.'
'You didn't get a letter from Javelin Press?'
'I saw it,” Pratt said. “Didn't make a whole lot of sense.” He ran a hand through lank, black, thinning hair.
'Well, then, let me see if I can make it clearer.” In Pratt's case, Tremaine suspected, the problem was not awe, or touchiness either. The man was permanently out to lunch, that was all. “As you know, I am nearing the completion of a book on the Tirku botanical survey party of 1960. Until now I have never discussed those last fateful hours on the ice with complete candor. Now I think it's time to tell the story, the full human story, which no living person but myself knows. It is scheduled for publication in May of next year—1990 being the thirtieth anniversary of the expedition.'
He lifted his coffee and sipped. “The idea came to me that before I prepared my final draft it would be a good idea to review the material with people who might have some unique personal or scientific insights into it. Thus, some weeks ago, I asked my publisher about the possibility of gathering a small group together for that purpose. Javelin Press readily agreed, and here we are. As I mentioned last night, I will be reading the manuscript aloud over the next several days, and all of you will be free to make whatever comments or suggestions you care to, as I go along.'
'Mm,” Pratt said, sucking at his pipe and looking no less thoughtfully obtuse than he had before. He was wearing oil-stained orange coveralls. Yesterday, it had been oil-stained brown coveralls.
'I have great confidence in the value of the contributions to come,” Professor Tremaine said. “Dr. Henckel here was the assistant director of the project, of course, and I'm sure she will have much to offer. The same applies to Dr. Judd, here on my right, who is the only other surviving member. You, Mr. Pratt, and Ms. Yount next to you, and Dr. Fisk there, as close relatives of the three young people who lost their lives, are in a position to provide many insights into their personalities and characters, of which I could hardly be aware.'
He paused for a beat, as they liked to say in television. “I need hardly add that all of your contributions will be gratefully acknowledged in the book.'
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Anna Henckel stiffen at that. He was right, then. Still nursing that ancient and absurd grudge, was she? Well, he'd forgotten it long ago. Not that her savagely vindictive letters to the
He smiled again at Pratt. “Does that clarify things, Mr. Pratt?'
'I suppose so,” Pratt said with a shrug. He poked with a finger at his thin, dark mustache. “Tell the truth, though, I don't really see what I can add.'
There Tremaine agreed with him. He didn't see what any of them could add—for what he'd told Pratt hadn't been quite true. This gathering hadn't been his idea at all. It had come from Javelin Press; from their attorney. Javelin had been on the losing end of an invasion-of-privacy settlement not long before, and they were still skittish. The best way to avoid problems, the attorney had said, was to “co-opt potential adversaries by involving them in the developmental process.” If they chose not to participate, they would be asked to sign a statement so indicating. But they had chosen to participate.
At first Tremaine had thought it was a terrible idea, but as time passed he began to see some value in it. There were going to be some unsettling revelations in his book, and no doubt some—probably all—of these people were going to be upset. Better to deal with that before the book came out, rather than after. It might make for some unpleasant moments this week, but he could deal with that. He was no stranger to confrontation.
'Be glad to do what I can to help, though,” Pratt said around the stem of his pipe. Laconic he might be, but the man had a way of mumbling on. And on.
'Thank you.” Tremaine's crisp nod was meant to terminate the exchange.
'And whose idea was it to meet here, of all places?” Anna Henckel asked tartly. “Also yours, Melvin? To add a touch of sentiment?'
