“Fireplaces,” said the Tech Titan. “What were they burning?”

  “Often it was the actual wood of their ship,” said Percy. “Sometimes they rendered the fat from the animals they killed. We know from some of their surviving journals that a male elephant seal could keep a cabin lit for weeks at a time.”

  “Always the male,” said Kevin.

  “Think of the stink,” said la Grande Dame.

  “But think of the stories you’d have to tell,” said Striker, slipping back among the group. It was her first contribution to the conversation. La Grande Dame threw her a look that seemed to ask who had given her permission to speak.

  “These folks here got lucky,” said Billy Bob, pointing at the hole in the ground. “They made it out. But what about all the other parties stuck on these islands? Any of them make it home?”

  Percy sucked in his cheeks, steadying himself to deliver the bad news. “Some did, a lot didn’t,” he said. “You got your starvation, your hypothermia. Explorers even died from scurvy, which is not one of the more pleasant ways to go.”

  “Do tell,” said the Dame, intrigued at last by something Percy had to say.

  “Scurvy causes severe joint pain. Your gums get dark and spongy, your teeth fall out, then old wounds start to reopen.”

  “Reopen?”

  Without being asked, Billy Bob decided to field this one. “Any time you injure yourself, the body repairs the injury site with collagen that it then has to keep producing in perpetuity in order to keep the wound sealed,” he said. “Without vitamin C, the body stops making collagen. No vitamin C, no more collagen. No more collagen, and old wounds lose their adhesion and start opening back up.”

  The Texan obviously had some kind of medical training. Striker wasn’t sure if this made her feel better or worse.

  Now that the gruesome cat was out of the bag, the group let loose.

  “Is it true your teeth can shatter just from the cold?” asked the quietest dad.

  “You mean because of that show on Netflix?” said Percy.

  The dad nodded. “There’s an episode where the guy’s teeth explode out of his mouth like bullets.” The brown dad shook his head, embarrassed by the question. “What?” said the quiet dad. “The show’s based on real life.”

  “A hundred years ago sailors probably had crap teeth to begin with,” said Percy. “In extreme temps I could maybe believe it’s possible for severely compromised enamel to crack.”

  “What about cannibalism?” asked Kevin, ratcheting up the gore factor.

  Percy made a face. “There’s always a bit of that in the histories, but you don’t have to get that dramatic. First, you got your basic bargain-brand accidents, like falling down a crevice, or worse, getting scalded by a geothermal vent.”

  “Cool,” said Mikey.

  “Definitely not cool,” said Percy. “Remember these islands are volcanic. There’s all kinds of seismic activity going on. It’s rare, but Antarctica has a million tricks up her sleeve. Earthquake, avalanche, poisonous gases.” He peered theatrically around at the group. “Not to mention your run-of-the-mill human nature.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked la Grande Dame.

  You could see Percy deciding which fork in the road to take; was he going to go dark or keep it Disney? “I’m sure you can imagine,” he said. “Men in tight quarters with nothing to do.”

  “I know what they do in prison,” said the Baron. “You mean that?”

  “I would think if you wanted to have a chance of surviving down here, you’d have to cooperate,” said Taylor. Kevin stood beside his wife and nodded.

  La Grande Dame threw her head back, braying with laughter.

  “I’m with her,” said one of the dads.

  “What’s so funny about cooperating?” asked Taylor.

  “Nothing,” said the Dame, regaining her composure. “I’ve just seen my fair share of men.”

  “Here here!” sang a second father.

  Now it was the Baron’s turn to nod. Striker couldn’t figure out if he was agreeing with his wife’s assessment of 50% of the population, or if he was admitting that he himself was indeed a rapscallion who wouldn’t lift a finger should the going get tough.

  “Let’s just say Antarctica in the early 1900s wasn’t for the faint of heart,” said Percy. “When expeditions got stranded, their number-one enemy was mayhem. Squabbles escalating. Someone ending up with their head bashed in. Men sailing off the deep end.” Percy decided to take the dark fork after all. “After a few months of solid night, some of the more sensitive ones often decided to take the off-ramp.” He looked around to see if the detour was too much.

  “You mean suicide,” offered Kevin.

  Striker hadn’t thought of that one. Death by your own hand.

  “Suicide suicide,” sang Lucy in her monotone. The way she said it, it sounded like a dare.

  Percy shrugged. “These islands are littered with bodies,” he said. “One of these days, thanks to global warming, the ice will cough ’em all back up.” From his tone of voice, he seemed to be implying he was only the messenger, don’t blame him. “Mark my words,” he said. “Soon even the suicides will get their moment in the sun.”

  “Happily, some of us will be long gone by the time that happens,” said the Baron. Anders scowled at the old man but kept quiet.

  “No, really,” said Percy. “Nothing stays put down here. The ice is constantly shifting as it slides toward the ocean. It’s like a conveyor belt. More than a hundred years ago, Robert Scott’s body was interred in the ice. A century later, it’s very possible his body has been carried out to sea, that the earth itself has given him a proper seaman’s burial.”

  “How poetic,” yawned the Dame.

  Kevin couldn’t seem to let it go. “How did people off themselves down here? What was the number-one method?”

  “Really, honey?” said his wife.

  The Baron also seemed to lean in, eager for the answer. Striker could tell Percy was regretting bringing it up.

  “Exposure. The most famous example is Seaman Oates.”

  The youngest dad tittered.

  “Oates was with Scott on the final push to the pole. Guy probably already had a serious brain injury from falling down a crevasse.” Percy took a long swig from his water bottle. “Anyway, he knew he was holding the group back. He gets up one morning, says he’s going out and he may be some time, then walks out of the tent. That’s it.”

  “Suicide!” shouted Lucy in what was clearly some sort of outburst. Did the kid have Tourette’s? One of the dads put his hands on her shoulders but the child twisted free.

  “Yeah,” said Percy. He tried to lighten the mood. “All I can say is, do me a solid and try not to die down here. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork.”

  Suddenly the Baron let out a womanly shriek. Something came crashing down out of the sky. A fishy stench filled the air.

  “Bird attack!” yelled the youngest of Lucy’s dads.

  The group scattered as a single skua began divebombing them, the bird everywhere at once. Within seconds the Baron was halfway down the beach. Kevin took to hiding behind the stony ruin, leaving his wife exposed. Even Percy seemed caught off guard. The Dame simply sat down in the middle of the commotion and made herself lower than the rest of the group excluding the youngest dad, who was splayed flat on the ground while covering his head. Only Billy Bob stood swinging at the sky. Later Striker would notice that his dry suit had a series of even slashes running down both forearms.

  Then the day filled with frenzy as other skua joined the attack, the birds’ wingspans nothing to sneeze at, hooked beaks mini scimitars. It was a scene straight out of Hitchcock, the sky roiling above their heads. There was nothing else to do but run.

  In the chaos, nobody noticed Lucy slip down into the preservation site and pull something out of the rubble, then zip it up in one of her pockets. Nobody, that is, but Striker. She watched as Lucy scrambled back up out of the hole, her face stony like she hadn’t just been pawing around a World UNESCO heritage site. Silently the child patted her front pocket.

  Striker had seen what the child pilfered. She was surprised the kid had even known what it was. Or maybe she didn’t.

  It was an old tuning fork, the kind you gently rapped on something to make it vibrate and give you a pitch. The object elongated like a Y. The dull metal flashing in the daylight.

  What happens on Paulet Island, stays on Paulet Island, kid, thought Striker. Now it’s my turn. When I do something bad, you keep it zipped. Capiche?

  You mean like the stuff you did in the sauna with Percy? He’s married, you know.

  Says who, thought Striker, nobody’s put a ring on it.

  Lucy didn’t bat an eye. What’d Ama used to say? You only see what you wanna see.

  You keep her name out of your mouth, child, but then Striker was running away from the skua along with everyone else.

  Later, when she had time to reflect on it, Striker chastised herself. Fun is fun, she thought, but girl, keep it together. Her little inner dialogues were a crutch, these imaginary conversations that kept her entertained during life’s duller moments, but here she was in Antarctica, goddammit! You’d think Antarctica would be entertainment enough.

  They slouched their way back to the boats, their sheepish hearts racing. Some of them were ashamed of having ceded ground to a bunch of creatures weighing less than four pounds; others were already imagining how they’d spin the tale once they got home, telling friends and coworkers they’d bravely fought off a flock of Antarctica’s most bloodthirsty predators, were lucky they hadn’t lost an eye or worse in the war.

  Something about the bird attack launched Kevin on another hypothetical foray into cannibalism. He was trying to convince the youngest dad that technically you could eat human flesh and nobody had to die. The human body had plenty to spare.

  “How exactly would that work?” asked the dad. He sounded skeptical but open to the possibility.

  “I’m starting to think you guys didn’t have enough for breakfast,” said Percy.

  “Stephen King’s got a story in Night Shift,” said Kevin, “about a doctor stranded on a desert isle with nothing but a mountain of cocaine.”

  “It’s in Skeleton Crew,” corrected the middle dad. “And it’s heroin.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” said Taylor.

  But her husband kept on with his thought experiment. “The guy starts amputating parts of himself bit by bit,” Kevin explained. “He stays alive—”

  “Stop!” Taylor shrieked.

  “In 1961, Leonid Rogozov surgically removed his own appendix,” said little Mikey brightly. “Isn’t that right, Dad?”

  Jesus, thought Striker. Kid’s some kind of Rain Man.

  “You nailed it, son,” said Billy Bob. He patted his child on the head. “Rogozov was part of a twelve-man Soviet team sent down here to build a research station. He was the only doctor in the group when he came down with appendicitis.”

  “My dad could take out his own appendix if he had to,” said Mikey. It was the weirdest flex Striker had ever heard.

  “That’s enough,” said Bobbi Sue, the finality evident in her voice. “Now let’s enjoy the scenery.”

  They all let it go, chastised. When a mom speaks, people listen, Striker thought.

  For the second time that morning, they passed the libidinous elephant seal, the guy still slugging around the beach hungry for some action, his smaller seal cousins still whapping each other with their flippers, everywhere the Adélie penguins shuffling like little Charlie Chaplins out for some air.

  Percy was off talking to the support boats on his walkie-talkie. He had his back to them. An Adélie hitched up to Taylor as she was getting in her kayak. The bird was out of synch with the others, its movements twitchy, the area around its eyes red and inflamed. Everything about it just seemed wrong.

  “Aw, look at this little guy,” Taylor cooed in her octave-above-middle-C voice. “Honey,” she called to her husband. “Get a picture of me and my new friend.” She crouched down to fit her and the penguin in the frame.

  “Smile,” called the youngest of the dads. The bird turned its raggedy head toward Taylor and opened its beak. “No, with your eyes,” cracked the dad, just as the creature emitted what sounded like a wet cough.

  “Whew,” said Taylor, waving a hand in front of her face. “Somebody needs a breath mint.” The bird began thrashing itself against her.

  “Hilarious,” said Kevin. “The little guy’s in love with you. It’s trying to get a leg over.” Bobbi Sue shot him a disapproving look. “What?” he said. “It’s nature.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what’s going on,” said Striker. She was sitting in her kayak and had already snapped her spray skirt in place, locking herself in.

  The bird turned and made a beeline for her boat. Striker realized she’d been breathing out of her mouth this whole time to avoid the stink of the penguin rookery. She felt her sinuses unexpectedly fill with the stench of trash.

  The Adélie hopped up on the front of her kayak. Up close it smelled of rot, of drowned things left beached on the sand. It was staring her right in the eye, gazing from beyond time and space. Striker couldn’t breathe. The greasy smell of shit glazed everything.

  The bird knew absolutely. It knew about the things she herself didn’t dare to know. The disparate memories she still couldn’t piece together even decades later. Like the hole in time in the room under the stairs. The trail of bloody breadcrumbs. The sound of children singing, something dripping in the water in the toilet bowl. Striker’s throat closing up like a flower. The dreadful door swelling open then shut, blocking the rest out.

  The Adélie unlocked its beak. Striker couldn’t help but peer inside. She was trapped. There was nowhere else to look. The moment like being down on your hands and knees by the side of the bed, then lifting the edge of the blanket and peering into the monstrous dark.

  Redness as far as she could see, a fiery hell housed inside the small bird. For an instant there was nothing else in existence besides this eternal burning. She could have reached out and touched the void, probed it with her fingers, but once you handle damnation, there is no going back. She knew this was only a preview, an intimation of the journey ahead. The next time she encountered the void, it would be the only road forward. It would swallow her whole and take its time breaking her down into nothing.

  She threw both arms over her face.

  From the bird’s mouth the stench of acid and death and fish, things that burn. A red chum spraying from its gullet. Even with her hands up, Striker felt it land on her lips, a hot mist.

  Percy kicked the bird off the kayak. He picked up a rock. Striker heard the sharp crunch as he crushed its head. She kept her arms locked over her face.

  “You okay?” he said. He was breathing hard.

  She lowered her arms in time to see him pull a plastic bag from his backpack and quickly stuff the bird’s body in it. She checked herself.

  There were no red droplets stippling the sleeves of her dry suit. She had imagined it. The day once again blue and white, everywhere the terrible everyday smell of the rookery.

  “Little critter wasn’t right in the head,” said Percy, as he sealed up the bag.

  “But I’d imagine down here you gotta be on the lookout for disease,” said Hector, Lucy’s brown father. “A bird flu could wipe out thirty thousand birds in under a week. Not to mention what it could do to your guests.”

  “That’d be bad for business,” said la Grande Dame, cracking her neck.

  “You think it was sick and not lovelorn?” said the Baron.

  “Same difference,” said the youngest dad, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

  “There’s no bird flu down here,” said Percy. “It’s too cold.”

  “You mean it used to be,” said Anders under their breath.

  Percy looked Striker over. “You’re okay,” he stated as a matter of indisputable fact. Striker could only nod. She wished it were that easy. Overhead, the Antarctic sun like a spotlight.

  They shoved off, defeated. It was a quarter past noon. Overhead the sun sat a few degrees beyond vertical. As they were only a day or two past the southern solstice, Striker wasn’t sure if the sun would remain fixed in the sky for the next week or if this far from the pole it inched along as the day progressed without ever slipping below the horizon, the sky forever some shade of blue.

  Except for the commotion at the very end, it had been a pretty decent first outing. They were promised mulled wine with lunch. Some of them could already feel the warmth of their cashmere-lined slippers. Striker was anxious to get back. After the incident with the penguin, she was craving a long shower. The smell of hot trash was an added reminder that she needed to take her meds. It had been too long, plus the Antarctic air might be triggering. Just take the damn things already, Riley kept telling her in the first few months after Striker got the prescription. Who cares if the doctor said you’re one of the lucky ones—why be a hero?

  “Congratulations,” said Percy as the group paddled back toward the support boats. “You survived. We’ll try to head out at least once a day if the weather’s good.”

  Little Mikey pointed at something in the distance. “What’s that?”

  “My boy’s got eagle eyes,” said Billy Bob. “Someday he’s gonna see a wide receiver open at fifty yards.”