" The hardship, the storm…" Olstad started to say. Then he shrugged. " Upton must have been mad rather than obsessed to have done all this merely in order to discover one useless little island."
A cold stab went through me remembering the veins of caesium ore. Something of what I was thinking must have been in the minds of Helen and Sailhardy, too. They both watched me as I stayed silent. Who, I asked myself, except
Upton with his highly specialised knowledge shared by per220 haps four other scientists in Sweden and Cambridge, could identify the veins for what they were-pollucite, Upton had called it-the bearers of the world's most priceless metal? Who among ordinary scientists was capable of placing pollucite and caesium? If we kept silent, who would know-I myself had seen a score of islands in the Southern Ocean streaked white from other causes. The savage current and perpetual fog-belt made access itself to Thompson Island hazardous into the bargain. Once the first flush of its rediscovery had passed, would Thompson Island not sink back into oblivion again-provided the secret of the caesium were kept?
" Useless?" I echoed.
Olstad shrugged again. " Perhaps it has some value as a harbour for whalers, but what else, with the risks? Bouvet is close, but few catchers use its anchorage."
I was about to say something about global strategy, the importance of the Cape of Good Hope sea route, and flights over the South Pole, but I saw the look in Helen's eyes.
" Yes," I said slowly. " Thompson Island seems to have only a certain limited value as a whalers' harbour."
Sailhardy inclined his head as if listening to the distant ice.
Helen reached up and touched my arm. " Old John
Wetherby would have liked it that way," she said.