<<< Epilogue >>>
“Tango Whiskey Zulu seven-three-seven base calling Remote Two. Over.”
Raoul picked up the mic in the snow tractor’s cab, then winked playfully at his companion and titular boss. “Cut out the fancy radio chatter, Sergei! We’re the only ones on this frequency and you know it.”
“Base is merely observing proper communications protocol, Remote Two. Over.”
“Sergei, would you think back over the eight months we’ve been on station here and tell me when was the last time you heard anyone else on this frequency?”
“Um…never, actually.”
“So if you want to talk to me, just pick up the microphone and call me by name, okay?”
“As you wish, smart panties.”
Rebecca’s amused snort didn’t deflect Raoul’s attention from their verbal sparring. “The term is ‘smarty pants’ and I’m not one. And just so you’ll quit mangling your English, Rebecca and I are about a mile or so from base. How’s the weather in your neck of the woods?”
“There are no woods in Antarctica, oh great white wizard Gandalf.”
“Sergei, I’ve told you a hundred times not – “
“My sincere apologies, my dangerous friend Raoul. Be that as it may, there are still no woods on this entire continent.”
“Fine! How’s the weather in your neck of the ice shelf?”
“It is cold.”
Raoul rolled his eyes and sighed. Before he could compose a scathing retort, Rebecca reached for the microphone and took it. “Sergei, this is Dr. Connors. Please give us a report on the current meteorological conditions at your location and the immediate forecast. And use the units you’d use if you were a meteorologist in Kansas.”
Sergei’s voice turned more formal. “Of course, Dr. Connors. The current temperature here is twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and trending downward to a predicted low of eleven degrees below zero by local midnight. The wind is fairly steady at an average of thirty-two miles per hour with occasional gusts reaching fifty-one miles per hour. Sundown is scheduled for nine-seventeen this evening, which is one hour and thirty-one minutes from now. Be advised that there is a severe storm predicted to begin tonight and which is forecast to persist well into tomorrow. Details are posted on the whiteboard in the common area.”
“Thank you, Sergei.” She released the mic button, again grateful that the man didn’t care that she hadn’t quite received her official doctorate yet. “What’s our ETA, Raoul?”
He glanced at the instruments and peered ahead into the white gloom. “Assuming we don’t find any new cracks or holes in the ice, we should be back in the relative warmth of the shelter in ten minutes or so.”
“Good.” She thumbed the mic again. “Remote Two on course, estimated arrival at the shelter garage in no more than ten minutes.”
“We copy your message, Remote Two. The hearth fire is lit and the brandy is exhaling on the mantle.”
Raoul shook his head and took back the mic. “The brandy is breathing, Sergei, not exhaling, and I’m not even sure it should be doing that.”
“Then I will perform mouth-to-glass resuscitation on it as soon as I complete this pointless and time-consuming radio call.”
Raoul and Rebecca shared a laugh as he keyed the mic again. “I’ll let you go – wait, did the supply chopper make it in today?”
“Yes,” Sergei replied. “They have restocked our larder and provided fresh cleaning supplies, toothpaste, a number of new toothbrushes, a container of movies to replace the ones they took back with them, a few specialty food items, and a case of Raoul’s favorite bath soap. And before you ask, I will also tell you that they sent us reading material in the form of news and sports magazines, a number of professional journals for those few among us who can comprehend words of more than three syllables, and an outsized bound stack of newspapers.”
Rebecca took the mic again. “Sergei? Can you tell what newspapers are in the stack?”
“I will look.” For several long moments, the only sounds came from the whine of the wind, the rumble of the tracks against the ice, and Raoul shifting gears once to traverse a small ice ridge. Then Sergei’s voice returned. “It appears that most of them are issues of the Daily Planet, of Metropolis, New Troy. Mixed in with those are a few from the London Times, the Chicago Tribune, and at least one from the New Orleans Daily Picayune, of all places.”
“Thanks, Sergei. Just to whet my appetite, what’s the lead story on the top paper in the stack?”
Another moment passed. “According to the Daily Planet, dated nine days ago, it appears that a Mr. Clark Kent and a Ms. Lois Lane have married. Without reading the accompanying article, I cannot tell you why this event merits being on the front page of the newspaper.”
Rebecca and Raoul exchanged knowing looks. He took the microphone from her slack hand. “Roger, base. Remote Two out.”
He hung up the mic and drove in silence for a moment. “Becca?” he finally ventured. “Are you okay with this?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. At least, I think I am.”
He waited another few moments. “Any regrets?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. A few, I guess.”
“Then again, too few to mention, right?”
She turned sad but dry eyes to him. “Do you want me to break into Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ right here in the tractor?”
Raoul chuckled. “No, let’s save it for karaoke night. I just wanted to know if this was going to make you miss the Monopoly tournament tonight. The Dangerous Boys – that’s me and Harry Potter, aka Philip Knowles – are going to kick yours and Laurie’s butts all over the board.”
“The Dangerous Boys against the Dangerous Girls. It’ll be an epic struggle.”
“An epic massacre, more likely.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Them’s fightin’ words, hombre.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled. “But I ain’t no pilgrim, see? I can handle a shootin’ iron or a Community Chest card with anyone on this continent.”
Rebecca snorted a laugh. “I hope the supply chopper brought some movies that aren’t bad Westerns. We could all use a dash of Marx Brothers or even some sloppy romance.”
“Speak for yourself, little lady. I always get a kick out o’ the hero savin’ the girl and kissin’ his horse just before galloping off into the sunset at the end.”
“At the end or on the end?”
“As long as it’s a horse, who cares?”
She shook her head in mock exasperation. “Even after all these years, I still don’t understand you sometimes.”
“It’s a guy thing, Becca. You’re not supposed to understand.” The tractor slewed to the left around a huge ice boulder. “There’s the shelter. Ah, home sweet home.”
She sighed. “About time. I’m getting hungry.”
“Well, that’s a good sign. They tell me that women who pine over lost loves don’t eat very well.”
She slapped him on the arm, an assault made completely ineffective by the amount of insulated clothing both were wearing. “Smart panties.”
He gave her a mock glare. “Oh, no, don’t do that! Sometimes I think Sergei mangles his English on purpose just to hear you quote it back to him.”
“Maybe he does. But I’m still hungry.”
Raoul maneuvered the tractor past the enclosed snow shed and into the garage and honked the horn. A face appeared in the window at the far end of the structure and waved, then the overhead lights came on and the outside door began sliding down. Rebecca picked up her data storage module and unlocked the cabin door as Raoul shut down the tractor’s motor.
Laurie Culpepper, the expedition’s mechanical genius, leaned her head into the garage. “Hey, guys, how’d she run?”
Rebecca jumped to the metal garage floor with practiced ease. “Pretty well. The transmission seemed fine when I drove it, and Raoul didn’t complain. But now there’s a funny noise in the right track, a loose link, I think. You can take a look at it first thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” queried Laurie. “Why not tonight?”
Raoul stepped out, secured the cab door, and leaped down behind Rebecca. “Because you’ll miss the Monopoly tournament, that’s why.”
Rebecca added, “And because Sergei says there’s a storm coming in tonight. We’re probably going to be socked in for a couple of days, so unless the storm breaks early we’re going to spend the time analyzing the new data we’ve collected and reading the material the chopper brought in. There’s not that much more for eight people to do when we’re weather-locked into a shelter not that far north of absolute South.”
“The rest of them can always watch the women clobber the men at Monopoly,” responded Laurie. “That should me leave plenty of time to figure out what this thumb-fingered monkey broke on my tractor.”
“The problem with the track isn’t too serious, Laurie. It probably won’t take you an hour to fix it, even if you have to change out one of the links.”
“I’m glad you have such a high opinion of my skill level, Raoul.” Laurie put a gloved hand on the offending track as if reassuring the vehicle that she wasn’t angry with it. “I don’t suppose you can tell me which link it is, can you?”
Raoul lifted his head in mock long-suffering. “Do I have to do all your work for you? All I can tell is that it’s on the right-hand track and that it only happened when half of the track was on the ground.”
“Which half?”
“The half with the bad link, of course.”
Laurie crossed her arms and leaned against the tractor. “Boy, I’m sure glad I didn’t take the offer to maintain boats and scuba gear for that expedition off the Bahamas. I’m sure I would’ve gotten bored with all that sun and warmth and intelligent conversation.”
“Like you’d know an intelligent conversation if it licked you on the nose.”
“I know what dumb sounds like. You’re so apt in demonstrating it.”
Rebecca left them tossing friendly barbs at each other and headed to her quarters. After she changed into lighter clothing and took care of the physical necessities, she went to the common room and found the bound stack of newspapers untouched.
Her knife made quick work of the cords securing the papers and she picked up the issue on top. The photo on the front page showed a very handsome Clark Kent in a very modern tuxedo and a beautiful Lois Lane in a white wedding dress smiling at each other as they left a church building. The photo included a number of other people in the background. Rebecca picked out Jimmy Olsen, himself quite elegant in a tux, standing beside a short, attractive black woman with a narrow waist and shoulders like a linebacker. She thought she recognized Lois’ sister Lucy dressed as the maid of honor, too. And she spotted Clark’s parents at the top of the steps to the church, arm in arm and glowing with two of the brightest smiles in the shot. She could only assume that the older couple stepping down in front of them were Lois’ parents.
She didn’t recognize the rest of the faces in the picture, guessing that they were probably there for social or professional reasons. She mused that the value of their combined wardrobe might have funded her current expedition for half a year. But there was no reason to complain. Digger Enterprises, the company started by the late Lana Lang-Kent to funnel money to scientific endeavors, was footing half the bill for their twelve-month sojourn at the bottom of the world. Clark didn’t know that she knew he was the one who’d made the decision to release the funds, and she renewed her decision not to tell him. She didn’t want him to think that she believed that he would be playing favorites.
She lifted the paper again and looked closer. They look great, she thought. And they look like they’re really in love.
Rebecca thought about Raoul’s question. Did she have any regrets? Did she believe that not marrying Clark was a huge mistake? She could have been Superman’s wife, yet she’d walked away from that opportunity to finish her doctorate and kick-start what she believed would be a brilliant career as a world-renowned marine biologist.
She thought about it for several moments, then decided about her regrets. She regretted leading Clark on. She regretted not breaking off the relationship sooner. She regretted hanging on to the fantasy of having Superman at her beck and call.
And she regretted being so committed to her career that she didn’t think she had the time to marry any man for love.
She sighed and folded the paper under her arm, then set off for her quarters to hide it under her pillow. They wouldn’t miss one newspaper when there were dozens more to read. And she’d bring it back tomorrow. Raoul – also known as Gandalf of the Dangerous Boys – would understand. Philip – also known as Harry Potter – had some idea of her relationship with Clark, and Raoul would further explain it to him if necessary.
And how did she feel about Lois, the woman who’d married the super man Rebecca had given up?
After a long moment of contemplation, she decided that she was happy for Lois. After Mr. Luthor was killed by his ex-wife – the woman who’d sent the man who’d almost killed them on that boat – Rebecca had been afraid that Lois would blame herself. But she hadn’t, or at least she had come to terms with her part in his death. And now, it seemed, she’d finally found real love.
Rebecca began composing her congratulatory letter in her head. She’d apologize for not writing sooner and hope they understood that Antarctica didn’t have any good gossip periodicals. She’d tell them both how happy she was for them, how much she hoped that they’d have a good life together, and how she hoped that she could meet their kids someday. She didn’t have to tell them that she owed her life to them. They knew it, but they never acted as if it was important or that she owed them anything.
Of course, she did owe them, and it was very important to her. It was just as important to her as her continued friendship with each of them, even more important than Clark’s financial support of the expedition, and by extension, her continued professional success.
She looked as deeply into her heart as she dared and decided that yes, she really was glad that Clark and Lois were husband and wife. They truly deserved each other. They had overcome shared tragedies and heartaches to become fast friends, and now they had extended their love beyond that point. And she knew she could never have been the wife Clark deserved. She was too wedded to her career. It was fitting that he marry Lois, in more ways than one.
She sighed as she closed the door to her quarters. If she didn’t make it to dinner, Raoul would make some excuse for her. Tonight she wanted – no, she needed – to spend some time alone. And some of that time would be spent reading about the very newsworthy wedding of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
The sense of loss she’d felt when she’d walked out of Clark’s apartment for the last time came back, but not as powerfully as she’d expected. Maybe she really did believe what she was telling herself.
Even if she didn’t truly believe it, she knew that she wished only happiness for Clark Kent and Lois Lane-Kent. The author of the piece obviously didn’t know about Clark’s comparatively modest wealth, but he’d nailed Lois’ economic status. She and Mr. Asabi were the joint heirs of Mr. Luthor’s wealth, and they were busily cleaning up the Luthor empire. Apparently that task was what had delayed the couple’s wedding for over half a year, else they would have married about the time Rebecca had left for Antarctica.
A sudden tear surprised her. It wasn’t envy, she decided as she wiped it away, nor was it sadness for her own loss. It was a tear of melancholy happiness for two of her best friends, for the joy that they felt that she might never experience.
Then again, neither of them could cajole a male emperor penguin to let them examine the egg his mate had entrusted to his care. And she was sure neither of them had watched a solitary penguin outwit a hungry leopard seal. She had done both of those things a number of times, had indeed done many more such things, and the thought gave her a warm sense of accomplishment.
The strains of Bonnie Raitt’s Greatest Hits wafted along the corridor. She wondered if Raoul knew the association she’d make with a couple of those songs, then decided that it didn’t matter. Her life was fine, Clark’s life was wonderful, and Lois’ life was fantastic. Life in general was as it should be.
Hunger made its existence known to her once again and begged to be taken seriously. She folded the paper and slid it under her pillow. The she stood and stretched. It was almost time for supper, and she hoped that Laurie wasn’t cooking again. As brilliant as she was with machinery, she was equally inept in food preparation. Philip was by far the best cook in the outfit, although Rebecca herself was no slouch.
But it didn’t matter. Tonight, Rebecca would eat whatever was placed before her. And she’d enjoy the time with her friends and co-workers, do her best to clean the boys’ clocks in the Monopoly tournament, and then go to bed and sleep the sleep of the exhausted. Tomorrow – well, tomorrow she’d go back to work.
It was a good life, one that was all hers. And it would be enough.
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