“What are you doing here?” I said.
“There’s not a ship scheduled to visit Port Lockroy for two days,” said Vivian.
“So the captain said we could spend the night on the Allegra,” said Iris. They both wanted to talk so badly that they were like racecar drivers jockeying to cut each other off. It must have been from the lack of anyone else’s company.
“How are you going to get back?” I asked.
“There was a change of plans involving Nick—” Vivian started.
“That’s why there’s no afternoon excursion.” Iris finished.
“The Allegra has to take him to Palmer,” Vivian said.
“So we’ll end up crossing paths with the next ship to visit Port Lockroy, and Vivian and I will transfer to that—”
“The cruise companies like to keep it hush-hush, though—”
“They like to give the passengers the impression they’re all alone in the vast Antarctic Ocean so these crew transfers are only ever done in the dead of night—”
“And you’ll be pleased to know we’ve showered!” said Vivian, and they both burst into giggles, ending the talking derby.
“I’m really sorry if I was rude,” I said.
I turned to Dad, but he was heading down to the bridge. I didn’t call after him because Dad knows my strategy for Risk, which is to occupy Australia at the outset. Even though Australia is small, there’s only one way in and out, so when it comes time to conquer the world, if you don’t have Australia, you go in and your armies get trapped there until your next turn. Then the next player can gobble up the single armies you’ve left in your path. I had the three of us quickly pick our colors and distribute our armies before Dad came back. On my first four turns, I yoinked Australia.
Playing Risk with these girls was so fun because in my whole life I’ve never seen two people happier. That’s what a hot shower and peeing in a proper toilet will do. Vivian and Iris told me a funny story about how one day they were sitting at Port Lockroy between cruise ships and a huge fancy yacht pulls up and it’s Paul Allen’s yacht, the Octopus, which he and Tom Hanks got off and then requested a tour. I asked the girls if they got to shower on the Octopus, but they said they were too afraid to ask.
The freckled lady who called me rude at Port Lockroy sat down with a book and saw me and Vivian and Iris laughing like we’d known one another forever.
“Helloooo,” I said to her like a big smiling cat.
Before she could respond, the voice over the PA said, “Well, good evening.” He was announcing a bunch of whales on the starboard side, which I’d already seen. A few more “Well, good evening”s came and went, announcing a photography lecture, and then dinner, and then March of the Penguins, but we didn’t want to stop the game, so we took turns running plates of food from the dining room up to the library. With each announcement, Dad would pop up and give me the thumbs-up through the window, and I’d give him the thumbs-up in return. The sun was still blazing, so the only way to judge the passage of time was by the people trickling out of the library. Pretty soon, even Dad stopped appearing, and it was just the three of us playing Risk. Hours must have passed. It was just us and the cleaning crew. Then there seemed to be another “Well, good evening,” but I couldn’t be sure because of the vacuum. Then sleepy-eyed passengers with parkas over their pajamas appeared on the deck with their cameras.
“What’s going on?” I said. It was two in the morning.
“Oh, we must be at Palmer,” Vivian said with a hand flutter. It was her turn, and she actually thought she was about to seize Europe.
More people appeared on the deck, but I couldn’t see over their heads. Finally, I stood on my chair. “Oh my God!”
There was a little city, if you’d call a bunch of shipping containers and a couple corrugated metal buildings a city. “What is that place?”
“That’s Palmer,” Iris said.
Palmer was short for Palmer Station. When Nick said he was packing, and when Iris said we were dropping Nick off at Palmer, I figured it was to count penguins on some island.
“That’s where Nick is stationed for the next month,” Vivian said.
I knew all about the three places in Antarctica where Americans can live. They are McMurdo Station, which looks like an awful dump with about a thousand people. There’s, of course, the South Pole, which is way far inland and impossible to get to, with twenty people. And Palmer Station, with about forty-five people. All three are populated by scientists and support staff. But I had checked the chart room and asked the captain: the Allegra never stopped at Palmer Station.
Still, here we were.
“Are we getting off?” I asked the girls.
“Oh, no,” Iris said.
“Scientists only,” Vivian added. “They run a very tight operation.”
I dashed out onto the deck. A few Zodiacs streamed back and forth the two hundred yards between our ship and Palmer Station. Nick was heading away from us on a Zodiac stacked with coolers and food crates.
“Who are those people coming aboard?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s a tradition.” Charlie the naturalist was standing next to me. “We let the scientists at Palmer come aboard for a drink. “
I must have had quite a look on my face, because Charlie quickly added, “Nope. People apply five years out to get to Palmer. Beds and supplies are extremely limited. Moms from Seattle don’t end up there on a whim. I’m sorry to be like that. But, you know.”
“Bee!” whispered a wild voice. It was Dad. I figured he was asleep because it was two in the morning. Before I could speak, he was shepherding me down the stairs. “I started thinking when your ID didn’t scan,” he said, his voice all trembly. “What if Bernadette got off the ship but she didn’t scan out? Her ID card would show she was still onboard, so everyone would naturally conclude that she had disappeared from the ship itself. But if she got off the ship somewhere and didn’t scan out, she might still be there.” He pulled open the door to the lounge, which was filling up with some pretty ratty-looking people, scientists from Palmer Station.
“Neko Harbor was the last place Mom got off,” I said, trying to put it together. “And then she got back on.”
“According to the scan of her ID card,” Dad explained again. “But what if she slipped off the ship later? Without scanning out? I was at the bar just now, and some lady went up and ordered a pink penguin.”
“A pink penguin?” My heart started quaking. That was the drink from the captain’s report.
“It turns out the lady is a scientist at Palmer Station,” Dad said. “And the pink penguin is their official drink.”
I searched the faces of the new arrivals. They were young and scruffy, like they could all have worked at REI, and full of laughter. Mom’s face wasn’t among them.
“Look at that place,” Dad said. “I didn’t know it existed.”
I kneeled on a window seat and peered out. A series of red walkways connected the blue metal buildings. There were a dozen electricity poles sticking up, and a water tank with a killer whale painted on it. A gigantic orange ship was docked nearby, nothing like a cruise ship, but more like one of those industrial types that are always in Elliott Bay.
“According to the woman, Palmer Station is the plum assignment in all of Antarctica,” Dad said. “They have a chef who was trained at the Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake.”
Below, Zodiacs were coming and going between our ship and the rocky shore. There was an Elvis mannequin in one of the Zodiacs, which the naturalists were videotaping to much hooting and hollering. Who knew. It must have been some inside joke.