as he spread his arms wide. ‘What are you two talking about?’
‘Look around, young man. Use your eyes. What do you see?’ Viola demanded.
Obediently, Simon studied the table and its occupants. Including himself, there were five men, and two women, all, as far as he knew, part of this expedition. A low murmur of conversation rose from the group. Simon caught a few isolated words—tents, pH meters, experimental design—but he knew this wasn’t what Viola meant. Assorted doughnuts and sandwiches, in various states of demolition, sat on the table with the drinks. Five drinks. ‘Ah-ha!’ Simon declared with a flourish.
‘Well, Holmes?’ demanded Viola.
‘Only the men are drinking.’
‘Very good. Why?’
‘Alas, my dear Watson,’ said Simon, entering into the spirit, ‘it’s all too clear. From the few facts before me I can only deduce there are limited toilet facilities on the aircraft.’ Simon produced his conclusion with more confidence than he felt.
‘Well done,’ Viola congratulated. ‘I deduce you are someone who can use his eyes and his brains at the same time. We’ll make a scientist of you yet, young man.’
‘It’s Simon to my friends, Young Man only to Old Bags.’
‘Touché.’ Viola snatched up a tired-looking sandwich. After eyeing it doubtfully she shrugged and took a bite. She grimaced. ‘Very dry. I’ve never had a sawdust sandwich before. I don’t recommend it.’ She tossed the rest away. ‘Have you met everyone, Simon?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Come over by me and I’ll give you a run-down.’ Viola detached herself from the group clustered around the table and with a conspiratorial index finger motioned him to join her.
‘You’ve met Anne and Tony?’
‘Yes.’
Viola snorted. ‘I don’t know what’s come over Tony lately—he used to be a great guy even if he wasn’t much of a scientist. But Anne’s worth ten of him, scientifically and personally. She’s a darn good limnologist no matter what that dried-up Jeff Jost says. Jeff’s the shadow over there in the corner. He’s with the Geological Survey. His type gives civil servants a bad name.’
Simon appraised Jeff—a florid fifty-year-old with the figure of a pear and the expression of a prune. Another charming companion, he thought sourly. Damn Sylvester. Would he be any better off with this lot than he’d be at home?
Viola’s fingers bit into Simon’s arm as she hunched herself even closer, grey eyes flashing. ‘See that tall man beside Jeff? The one with his nose in the air?’
Simon nodded. This was the autocratic man who had questioned the Warrant Officer. In Simon’s opinion, the white goatee was a trifle overdone.
‘That’s Eric Karnot. Birds. He’s quite good, though I’d never tell him so. His opinion of himself is already overinflated. He’s followed his feathered flocks all over the globe, taking photos and writing monographs. I hear he’s even done one of those glossy coffee-table books about tropical birds. Very elegant, I understand. Eric’s the golden boy of Bellwood College.’ Viola paused to give Simon time to admire his classic profile.
‘What and where is Bellwood?’ Simon asked. ‘I’d never heard of it until my brother-in-law mentioned this expedition.’
‘Not surprised—we’re a small university. We have a reasonable reputation although Eric’s really the only “name” professor we’ve got. Bellwood owes its reputation to him. And Wally Gingras.’ Here Viola indicated the slovenly figure beside Eric Karnot. The contrast between the latter’s crisp, fashionable appearance and Wally Gingras’s unkempt person was startling. It was hard to believe they represented the same species.
In response to Hollingford’s raised eyebrow, Viola chuckled and continued in her penetrating whisper. ‘He isn’t your idea of a bright light? Dung’s his thing.’
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Wally’s a world authority on microbial ecology or “dung decomposition” in arctic habitats. A very erudite field, I assure you.’
‘No kidding.’ Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Simon studied Wally again. He was a short man, with greasy, yellow-grey hair hanging in lifeless hanks over his threadbare shirt collar. Thick lenses made his pale blue eyes bulge forward, and across the bridge of his bulbous nose a wad of adhesive tape held his glasses together. Simon guessed Wally to be about fifty-five and imagined he could smell him from where he was standing, fifteen or twenty feet away. Hope I don’t have to share a tent with him, Simon worried.
‘Isn’t it strange how so many people’s personalities match their field of expertise?’ Viola nudged Simon to regain his attention.
‘After that comment, I’m forced to ask what you do,’ Simon remarked.
Giving a crack of laughter, Viola poked his chest with a bony finger. ‘Mammals in general, musk oxen in particular.’
‘And what should I infer from that?’
‘Whatever you like, Young Man!’
Three hours later, Simon felt on the point of physical disintegration. Ever since the engines of the Hercules transport plane revved up, his body had vibrated like jelly in an earthquake. His very molecules were resonating in unison, about to finally split apart. And it wasn’t just the vibration. The sound waves themselves took possession of his brain.
Simon forced himself to re-examine his surroundings. He and his fellow sufferers sat strapped in web ‘seats’ slung just inches off the dull green metal floor. The accommodations could have been designed by the Inquisition’s Torquemada during a particularly bad attack of indigestion. The looming bulk of the tank three feet in front of him effectively eliminated any leg room. Fortunately, numbness had finally set in and his legs no longer felt cramped, but whether he would ever walk again was debatable. When Viola gave him a cheery wave from her comfortable seat in the assistant navigator’s chair he forced a smile in response. So much for equality!
Only a lucky few had been issued earplugs and Simon wasn’t among them. His eardrums were on the point of implosion.
To distract himself, Simon studied the young woman, Joan Winik, seated beside Viola. She hadn’t been part of the group in the canteen. A pain in the ass—wasn’t that how Viola had described her? She appeared anorexic and somewhat grim. Her long dark hair hung in a loose pony tail and, on her, the escaping tendrils looked messy rather than sexy. Maybe it’s those straight black eyebrows which make her look so angry, Simon decided, and the rude message on her sweat shirt. She dozed in her comfortable seat.
Simon groaned and shifted position, but he didn’t dare get up again, not after the last fiasco. When his leg cramps were at their worst, he had joined Private Schmidt in a stroll between the women’s seats and the freight. Pacing the six steps permitted in each direction, he fiddled idly with a steel funnel hanging from a string.
The private tapped him on the shoulder and said something.
Simon shook his head. ‘I couldn’t hear you. Speak louder!’
‘Stop
