If the production did indeed send a full unit to Antarctica, Gabor, the principal cinematographer, would spend the entire shoot complaining about the cold. My lenses, he’d moan. Anti-fogger no good. Get me special lens made from tears of baby. Yeah, he’d milk it for all it was worth, the hardship, the horror, his novelistic Czech sense of drama on full display right up until the moment he bagged his third Oscar. There was so much beauty down here, all you had to do was point and shoot. Any dolt could get it on film. It was exactly what the director was looking for, but pulling off filming this far south would be a herculean undertaking. It would cost someone an arm and a leg. Before she’d left on the flight down to Buenos Aires, the producer had called her up, slyly hinting that she should enjoy herself but not come back with too many workable location shots. “I’m not made out of money,” said the man practically made out of money.

  Only three days ago she’d been standing on a train platform waiting for the F while watching a woman throw bits of donut to a rat down on the rails. And now this, a landscape without cars and exhaust and litter, people pushing and shoving. The distant island they were heading to was carpeted with small specks like pepper. Hundreds of penguins zipped about on the island’s rocky crags, little black birds in their feathery tuxedoes visible as far as the eye could see. She floated past an iceberg, its sheer sides ten feet tall, the snow stained pink with guano, proving their stubby little legs could navigate even the steepest terrain.

  As the group closed in on the island, the glassy waters surrounding Paulet subtly shifted in color. The shade wasn’t exactly cobalt, more like bice, something a celebrity might name their kid. The head designer Margo would practically shit herself. Bice was Margo’s ideal color. Slatey yet bright, a color you could play up in moments of joy, then turn around and temper when the violins rolled in. The design team would take one look at Striker’s images and begin salivating.

  “Is that the mainland?” Taylor shouted from a few hundred feet in the lead, pointing at what appeared to be a white mountain in the distance.

  “No, that’s a tabular iceberg that split off from B-15, one of the first real monster bergs scientists began tracking,” said Percy.

  “You sunk my battleship,” called out the youngest dad.

  Percy ignored him. “B-15 broke off the Ross Ice Shelf back in 2000. Originally it was three hundred by forty kilometers, or about the size of Jamaica.”

  “Ya, mon,” said the young dad.

  Percy continued unfazed. “Think about it. B-15 contained enough water to fill Lake Michigan,” he said, “but most aren’t that big.”

  To Striker, the white mass in the distance looked vast enough to be the prison barge on which the world’s dead were put to sea. She lowered her camera. Over the next ten days, there were bound to be other magical locations, other chances to capture the one image that would launch a thousand union crew members south. Later just for fun she’d shoot a couple of rolls using her Holga. Digital was her primary tool, but there was a magic to film. She felt a small thrill each time she got an envelope of photos back from the developer. Nowadays it cost a small fortune, but nine times out of ten the shots you weren’t sure would turn out proved to be the best of the bunch.

  “You couldn’t ask for a better day,” called Bobbi Sue from her side of paradise.

  “That’s true on every level, hun,” replied Billy Bob.

  “Yeah, because consumerism vis-à-vis climate change is melting the poles,” lectured their teen, “making both the Arctic and Antarctica more accessible to increased fossil fuel extraction.”

  Shizer, thought Striker. Who brought along the president of the junior Marxists society? Anders trailed along in their parents’ wake, the grimness of their being radiating out in every direction. “It don’t get no better than this,” Striker imagined Billy Bob telling his first born as he raised an Old Milwaukee in his fist.

  Precisely! It was Christmas Eve day. They were in Antarctica paddling around on the Southern Ocean as flocks? schools? shoals? of penguins skimmed effortlessly over the water. Teen angst aside, it was all pretty cool.

  Percy was pointing at something on the island. The Tech Titan and her husband were still visible in the distance, Lucy and her dads trailing behind, the Dame and the Baron peacefully bringing up the rear thanks to their beefy Russian muscle. The red of the groups’ boats was a stark contrast to the colors of the landscape, their yellow dry suits flaming suns.

  Suddenly there was a roar and a thundering crash. Striker wasn’t the only one who jumped at the noise. Percy whipped his head around, scanning the landscape. The support boats zoomed into the frame. A series of hands shot into the air, each one pointing, Percy’s radio crackling with voices. Finally they all agreed on the source.

  Several hundred yards away an iceberg had calved, the berg the size of an apartment building. Striker could see where a large chunk of ice had hit the water, the iridescent spray still clouding the air, a rainbow spangling the day.

  The kayakers watched as the wave action raced toward them. For the first ten seconds it looked like it would never reach them. Toward the end they could see how fast the water was still moving, how big the initial wave must have been.

  “We’re okay,” Percy called. They were far enough away that by the time it hit, they bobbed about pleasantly, merely children playing in a bathtub. Like its more famous sister Time, Distance also heals all wounds, Striker thought. She was kicking herself for not getting it on film. By the time she’d heard the crack, the ice had already come down, breaking off the berg as if sparked by a controlled explosion.

  “See what I mean?” said Percy. “You gotta give nature her space.”

  “Like a woman,” muttered Kevin.

  “I thought you said that was rare,” said the Baron from his position at the front of his tandem. There was something imperial about his posture that called the Ptolemies to mind, the way he leaned back in his seat plus the fact that he hadn’t bothered to bring a paddle, leaving his tandem mate Alexei to do all the work.

  “Ten years ago I could go weeks and weeks without seeing an iceberg calve. Now? It’s practically on the hour.” Percy started to say more, then decided against it.

  Anders raised a hand. “Could the earth’s increased tilt affect the seasons down here?”

  The youngest dad began singing in a growly voice reminiscent of Eartha Kitt. “I feel the earth. Move. Under my feet.”

  The teen remained undeterred. “We’re drawing too much water out of the planet’s aquifers,” they explained. “It’s disrupting the rotation of the planet.”

  “For the time being, things here are copacetic,” said Percy, but he was obviously blowing off the question. “Now let’s go check out the island,” he added.

  Anders scowled. Give the guy a break, kid, Striker thought. Somebody that easy on the eyes can’t be expected to know everything.

  The kayakers followed their guide into land, the youngest dad practically glued to his hip. The distant iceberg now missing half its face. The thing openly staring at them as if to say j’accuse!

  Without too much effort, the group paddled into shore. Paulet ­Island was only a mile in diameter but within that mile there was a lot going on. Vadim and Alexei stayed with the boats, the two of them getting a break from playing gondolier to the Dame and the Baron. When Percy wasn’t looking, Vadim pulled out a cigarette and a beat-up lighter. He noticed Striker looking and grinned. Someone paved paradise, dropped in a parking lot, she thought. She wondered if the landscape inspired any awe in the two men or if this day out was just part of the grind called making a living.

  The beach was a long, stony strip of land running hundreds of feet along the ocean. It was an easy spot to come aground, the coarse brown sand teeming with wildlife. Everywhere the various local species vied for space as they sunned themselves in the Antarctic summer. Carefully the group picked their way among the smorgasbord of creatures lying on the shore, animals with no aversions to humans as there weren’t ever enough people around to grow wary of.

  Texas Mikey asked the first question. “Who owns this place?”

  Striker thought it was a funny question coming from a kid, but his parents oooed and aaahed as if their child were some pint-sized Carl Sagan. Mikey smiled angelically then picked up a rock. Bobbi Sue paused her adoration long enough to ease it out of her son’s hand before he could chuck it at the wildlife. A hundred years ago the first men to set foot here had probably done the same thing in a need to draw blood and feel all-powerful, only their moms weren’t around to stop them.

  “In 1959, a dozen nations signed a treaty stating that Antarctica should only be used for science and that nobody owns it—it belongs to everyone.” Percy waved a hand over the landscape like a game show hostess showing off a new car. “Antarctica is the only landmass ever discovered by Anglo-Europeans with no native inhabitants.”

  “What about them?” said the Baron, pointing at a pair of penguins who were staring quizzically at the tourists.

  “I meant no native people,” Percy clarified.

  “Don’t be dumb, Robert,” said the Dame.

  Percy continued. “The other pole was a vastly different story,” he said. “The first two men to the North Pole, Peary and Henson, even fathered children with Inuit women.”

  “Then I guess they weren’t the first men there,” remarked Taylor.

  “Wasn’t Matthew Henson African American?” asked Anders.

  Percy nodded. Striker didn’t know why the teen had posed the question. It seemed clear they already knew the answer. She couldn’t help but think the teen had asked it for her sake. Like hey, Black person! Did I mention I’m an ally?

  “I thought there was an American base somewhere down here,” said Lucy’s brown dad.

  “There is on the mainland,” Percy said. He explained that several countries had Antarctic research stations, some even making territorial claims, but at the end of the day, all claims were nonbinding and unenforceable. “You Yanks will be interested to know—”

  “We’re all Yanks,” said Anders sadly.

  “—that the US makes no territorial claim to any part of Antarctica, which some foreign governments interpret as an underhanded claim on the whole continent.”

  “USA! USA!” chanted Kevin.

  “More than a hundred years ago, things were a lot different,” said Percy. “Hunters from all over the globe sailed down to places like the Shetland Islands or South Georgia and decimated the fur seal populations.” He pointed at a group of seals lying on the sand. “Look at those guys,” he said. “They’re easy targets. Last century, a single boat could wipe out a ten-thousand-plus seal colony in under a week.”

  Anders delivered a one-word pronouncement on the history of the fur trade. “Greed.”

  “Rubbish,” said the Baron. “It’s called ingenuity.”

  “How does wearing fur make the world a better place?” asked the teen.

  “It makes the ladies of the world more pleasing to the eye,” said the Baron, at which point Bobbi Sue ushered her child along.

  “We’re still allowed to wear vintage fur, right?” whispered the youngest dad to his husband.

  A baby fur seal lay picturesquely on a rock as though it were school photo day, its eyes perfectly circular, like something straight out of a Japanese comic book. It was obvious Texas Mikey would’ve given anything to pet the little fuzzball, but Percy shook his head and reiterated his speech about cross-species contamination and protecting the ecosystem. He went on to explain the difference between a Weddell and a fur seal. To Striker, the distinction between flipper length and muzzle shape felt nitpicky.

  She was surprised by the abject pettiness of these animals, groups of them acting every bit like human sunbathers as they tossed and turned, throwing sand at their neighbors to dissuade them from putting up an umbrella, the crabeater seals glistening in their silver pelts like mammoth anchovies.

  “Look at that.” The youngest dad pointed at a quivering mound.

  “It’s like Jabba the Hutt but with flippers,” marveled Kevin.

  The group stood mesmerized as the beast slugged its way down the beach. Percy warned them to always give the elephant seals their space. A bull male like this one could weigh more than four tons, he said, often crushing younger seal pups as they hauled themselves around on shore, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes on purpose. Striker watched as the mammoth creature lumbered about, moving its tremendous body by undulating along as if doing the ’80s dance move the Worm, its tumescent nose like some kind of misplaced genital.

  “Give that one an extra wide berth,” Percy repeated. “The big guy might be in the mood for some lovin’, which makes him super dangerous.”

  “Who doesn’t like it rough?” growled the youngest dad. Bobbi Sue shot him a look, but the dad just smiled.

  “Sure, you can outrun him,” continued Percy, “but you don’t want to rile him up. Last year a tourist had his leg broken in multiple places.” He winced at the memory. “And if an elephant seal starts rolling over again and again,” he warned, “get outta there. That means it’s pissed.”

  “Carry on and Godspeed with the fornication, my good man,” said the Baron, nodding at the elephant seal as he passed by. Striker couldn’t tell which was the hornier species, the marine animals or them. The presence of the youngest dad made it a tough call.

  But if Paulet Island belonged to anyone, it was the penguins. The island was home to a massive Adélie rookery, thousands of birds constructing threadbare nests consisting of a few pitiful rocks on which they laid their speckled eggs. The luckier ones among the newly hatched fledglings had their small gray heads stuffed up their parents’ throats, the adult birds regurgitating a white paste that would help their offspring grow quickly in the Antarctic summer, everywhere the adults standing around gagging on their young.

  There’s a metaphor here, thought Striker, but lucky for me, I’m not a poet.

  She picked her way among the rocks, the landscape stained with the fishy stench of penguin guano. The smell was unbearable. If she breathed too deeply, she was afraid it would coat her nose and throat and stay with her for the rest of the outing, the vulcanized rubber of her dry suit permanently fumigated by it. Most of the group put on a brave face. Only la Grande Dame openly pinched her nostrils shut as she strolled about like the queen of England reviewing the troops. Downwind of the colony, loose feathers billowed in the breeze, a gentle snow.

  “Oh my god,” said one of Lucy’s non-brown dads, waving his hand in front of his face. “I feel like someone’s boa got caught in a fan.”

  Striker had to hand it to the little critters. She was impressed by their mobility. The stubby little birds were all over the place. On the beach, on the rocky outcrops, on the slopes of the tiniest volcano that rose a few hundred feet in the air, a stony pimple smack dab in the middle of the island. Even far inland, the landscape was rife with rivers of birds coming and going like trails of ants hundreds of feet from the water, their shabby nests located on the most unforgiving terrain.

  As if reading her mind, Percy explained that waterfront real estate was at a premium, and that the unlucky birds who had arrived late for the breeding season were forced to build their nests up in the hills closer to their enemies. Because the penguin chicks were starting to hatch, the air was filled with clouds of skua, large brown birds with hooked beaks, the better to tear apart small fluffy creatures. Percy’s voice clicked into nature boy mode. He explained that the skua made their home in the cliffs, the birds a dark presence forever watching for the weak, the unattended, the ones who would go easily without much of a fight.

  “Paulet Island’s actually a dormant cinder cone volcano,” he said. “The whole Antarctic peninsula’s a series of volcanic islands. In a couple of days, we’ll sail inside the most famous caldera, Deception Island.” He pointed to Paulet Island’s small cone rising in the distance. “A caldera forms when a volcano erupts and then the cone collapses. Basically it’s a fancy word for the crater. Around these parts, if the cone collapses low enough and the volcano was mostly undersea, the ocean floods in.” He explained that cinder cone volcanos were the most common type of volcano and also the smallest. Generally their slopes ran 30° to 40° and consisted of cinders, also known as scoria, which were loose rocks ejected from the volcanic vent when an eruption occurred.

  “But don’t worry, this one’s not dangerous,” he said. “You’re standing on one of the safest spots in the entire world.”

  “So what’s the most dangerous animal down here?” asked Kevin. He looked like he was researching something dark, a chain of black thought bubbles rising from his forehead.

  “Man,” said Anders in a small voice.

  “Don’t I know it,” said Lucy’s infatuated dad.

  “The largest native animal on Antarctica is a one-centimeter wingless midge,” said Mikey, reciting the factoid from memory as if performing his lines in a Christmas pageant. Striker had seen the same show on the Discovery Channel. Regardless Bobbi Sue beamed proudly.

  “That’s true on land, but in the water orca are definitely the most dangerous,” said Percy, “though no worries—we won’t see them up close.”

  “I was promised whales,” soliloquized the Baron. Everything he said was delivered as though the guy were holding forth with himself, the Baron the star in his own biopic.

  “Chill,” said Percy. The brown-skinned father of Lucy laughed. Striker also laughed but on the inside. It was probably the only time the word chill would ever be directed at the Baron. “You’ll see whales,” Percy said. “This morning there was a pod of humpbacks off the starboard side.”

  “At what time exactly?” asked the Baron.