Troubling a Star Page 6

  “They didn’t really want the Falklands,” Aunt Serena said. “Whoever has the Falklands has a sizable slice of the Antarctic pie.”

  I undoubtedly looked as dumb as I felt. Aunt Serena turned to the back of the album and pulled out a small black-and-white map. In the center was the South Pole, and raying out from it to a large circle were lines forming triangular wedges.

  “It really does look like slices of pie,” Adam said. “Very valuable pie. And the Falklands do give Great Britain a hunk that the Argentineans would like to have.”

  “And so would the Vespugians,” Aunt Serena said, “though they’ve had the sense not to go to war for it. I feel a lot less secure about Vespugia than I did when El Zarco was president.” She turned back to the pictures. “That’s Government House.” She pointed to a rambling white building. “You’ll like Rusty and Lucy Leeds, both of you. Rusty’s mother was an old school friend of mine, and we’ve kept in touch, partly because of Cook and Seth.”

  The snapshots meant a lot more to me, now that I’d actually be visiting the places pictured.

  We had tea, and then Adam and I walked out to the car. He said, “What I’d really like to do is just go straight to LeNoir Station and get going on my research, but this is a once-ina-lifetime trip, so I shouldn’t be impatient. It means a lot to Aunt Serena, and Port Stanley is one of the ports of call. I’m glad we’ll be going to the same places. It will be fun to compare notes.”

  It wasn’t nearly as hard to say goodbye to him as it would have been if I hadn’t had the very real hope that I’d see him at LeNoir Station.

  Finally, one night the next week, when I was reading in bed, Mother and Daddy came in to me.

  “Vicky,” my father said, “you really do want to go on this trip to Antarctica?”

  “I do.” I put my book down. I knew my parents weren’t wildly enthusiastic about my going that far away, and right in the middle of the school year, too.

  Daddy touched my shoulder gently. “It is enormously generous of Aunt Serena.”

  Mother added, “We want you to go, Vicky. I’m managing to squash all my protective mother-hen instincts.”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “Yes, and a responsible sixteen. But Antarctica is a very long way away.”

  My father sat in my desk chair. “Your mother and I agree that a chance like this is not likely to come again, but remember, there’ll be nobody your age on the Argosy. You’ll be by far the youngest, probably the only young person—”

  “I know that, Dad. It’s okay. I don’t underestimate the older generation. I’ve talked more with Grandfather and Aunt Serena than I ever have with anyone my own age.”—Except Adam, I thought, but did not add.

  My father smiled. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. Make the most of every minute of it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I mean, really, thanks a million.”

  “Thank Aunt Serena,” Mother said.

  Preparing to go to Antarctica was far more on my mind than Christmas. I had to get a passport, and that was exciting in itself. Then there were shots, most of which I wouldn’t get till early January: tetanus, and finally, just a couple of days before leaving, a gamma globulin shot because of hepatitis. Aunt Serena told me I had to be very careful not to drink the water in San Sebastián, not even use it to brush my teeth, and I shouldn’t eat any fruit or salad or anything that wasn’t cooked. Once I was on the Argosy, the food would be safe.

  I got a wonderful long letter from Adam. The postmark was San Sebastián, and the envelope was dirty and looked as though it had been through one of our post-office machines that tend to rip mail. But the letter itself was not torn.

  Dear Vicky:

  It’s so hot here in San Sebastián that I’m dropping beads of sweat onto the page—not tears. December is midsummer here. I’m enjoying poking around this city and realizing how much more I would be enjoying it if you were with me. I’m having fun listening in on conversations people don’t realize I can understand. This is a strange place. It’s quite obvious that it’s no longer the democracy it was under El Zarco. There are too many soldiers with automatic weapons for my liking. They seem ready to shoot, and one of them for no reason that I could see simply stopped me from walking down what looked like an ordinary street.

  Tomorrow I’m going to the pyramids, and I’ve been assigned a soldier to accompany me. I don’t know why. I can go by myself perfectly well. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s as though they don’t want people to see everything. I remember my dad talking about feeling the same way during a trip to Russia when the KGB was in power in the Soviet Union. I’m not sure it’s that bad here, and I guess soldiers and guns are common in any country where there’s a dictator. I’m very glad Cook will be with you. Despite his monastic otherworldliness, he’s also a very with-it guy, and you’ll be fine with him. His Spanish is good—a little more classical than mine.

  I paused, letting the pages drop in my lap, wishing momentarily that I was taking Spanish at school. Then I read on.

  You’ll be here in another month. Yay! Seeing everything I’m seeing. I’m looking forward to getting to the Falklands, not just to see Seth and the Leedses, but to get my first glimpse of penguins.

  I hope everything is okay with you, and I feel really terrific that you’re coming to LeNoir Station. I look forward to showing you around. Not that there’s much to see, but maybe we can ride an iceberg together.

  Love,

  Adam

  My heart soared. And then, probably because I didn’t need it, I got asked to the Christmas dance, and by a reasonable guy who played soccer and was in my Shakespeare class. But, on the whole, school seemed pretty peripheral. I did my homework, but most of my mind was on Antarctica. Nanny promised to keep notes for me, and she’d also let me know all the gossip. But I was in a hurry each day for school to be over so I could get on the bus and go to Clovenford to Aunt Serena’s. Usually I stopped off in the kitchen to see Cook.

  “I’m glad you’re having this trip, Miss Vicky.” He was stirring something on the stove that wafted a delicious odor into the room.

  “I’m too excited to tell you how excited I am. And I’m very glad I’m traveling with you. Can’t you just call me Vicky?”

  Cook gave me his most monkish look. “In this day and age of instant intimacy, it isn’t bad for you to be treated with a little formal courtesy. If I am old-fashioned, you will have to humor me.”

  “Shouldn’t I call you Mr. Cook, then?”

  The crown of his head, where it was bald, caught the light. He flashed me a smile. “Cookie is fine. Perhaps when we’re traveling I’ll be less formal.”

  “Okay.”

  “After I leave the ship at Port Stanley, Benjy Stone will take charge of you. Benjy is the penguin expert, and a good friend of Seth’s and mine. And then, at the end of your trip, I’ll meet you at Puerto Williams—that will be the Argosy’s last port of call for this voyage.”

  “How will you get to Puerto Williams from Port Stanley?” I asked.

  “Seth has a fifty-foot stinkpot he bought from an old friend in the Pacific Northwest. He sailed it from Seattle all the way to the Falklands, so I can promise you she’s a seaworthy ark. The Portia, Seth’s boat, has been in very rough waters and weathered many a storm.”

  “I’ll get to meet Seth!”

  “Of course, Miss Vicky, in Port Stanley. I say ‘of course’ and I hope it will be of course, but Seth is more reclusive than I ever was, and since his accident with the seal he’s been more so, and sometimes he does not see anybody, and that can even include me. I’ve written him about you, so I’m hoping we’ll find him in one of his more gregarious moods.” He smiled at me, turning from the stove. “I’m considered an odd character hereabouts. Seth is considerably odder.” He turned back to the stove. “Your Aunt Serena’s waiting for you.”

  “Just a sec. I had a letter from Adam, and he didn’t seem to like Vespugia. At least, not San Sebastián.”

  “I
t’s changed since the coup. As a Falklander, I’m always uneasy when freedoms are taken away. But the Vespugian pyramids are extraordinary, and we’ll be in San Sebastián only a couple of days. It will, at the least, be an interesting experience for you.”

  Stassy had the tea cart all ready for us. I sat in my usual chair and noticed that Aunt Serena had the album on the table between us open to a snapshot of a woman standing near a group of penguins, black and white and smaller than I’d expected.

  “Is that you?” I asked. The woman was wearing what seemed to be the uniform in that part of the world, a hooded parka, the hood thrown back to show beautiful dark hair; and pants and high rubber boots. She looked not at all fragile, but still recognizable.

  “It is, indeed, with rock-hopper penguins on New Island in the Falklands.”

  “It’s amazing to see penguins and sheep wandering about together.”

  Stassy came in with a plate of warm cinnamon toast. “Madam can tell you a great deal about penguins, Miss Vicky.”

  “Probably more than she wants to know at the moment.” Aunt Serena bit delicately into a piece of toast. “But she is going to Antarctica, and I am merely preparing her for what she’s going to see. Cook does not always offer adequate explanations.” She pointed to a picture of what looked like hundreds of penguins. “Too bad the photographs are so small you can’t see their feathers.”

  “Do penguins have feathers?” I asked. “From the pictures I’ve seen, I’ve always thought of them as sort of leathery.”

  “Not at all. They have beautiful, dense feathers. They are birds, after all.”

  “But they can’t fly.”

  “No, they can’t fly. But they are birds. If it has feathers, it is a bird.”

  As Stassy left us, Aunt Serena said, “This is very much an in-between sort of year for you, isn’t it, Vicky? Are you being patient with yourself?”

  “Patience has never been one of my virtues. Ask my parents.”

  “I’ll make up my own mind, thank you. This is a growing time for you. Learning what and where your place is. Learning patience while you finish your education.”

  “Then what?” I demanded.

  “That is what you need patience for.”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s worth it, Vicky, because I believe you do have the poet’s ability to see through the clouds to the light beyond.”

  Nobody’d ever said anything that nice to me before, nobody I trusted like Aunt Serena.

  “Antarctica should be a good place for poetry,” she said. “Do you know whether or not you get seasick?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t get carsick. And sometimes the ferry from the mainland to the Island can be pretty rough. But I guess I’ve never been tested.” There was one half piece of toast left on the plate. The kids at school have a superstition that if you eat the last piece of something you’ll be an old maid—even in a day when the words “old maid” are pretty much obsolete. I ate it anyhow.

  She said, “The Drake Passage, between South America and Antarctica, is known as the roughest water in the world, and having taken the passage, I believe it. But I think you’ll be fine. Do you have a lot of homework today?”

  “Some. If it’s okay, I’ll go up to the attic and get it done.”

  “I enjoy thinking of you sitting on that old green sofa. Say goodbye to me before you leave.”

  “Of course.”

  The homework took less time than I’d expected. I memorized a few of those dates my history teacher insisted on, then went to one of the boxes of Adam II’s books and pulled out The Jungle Book. I started to read “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” an old favorite, which I thought Rob would enjoy. I turned the page and there was a sheet of paper, the thin kind you used to have to use for airmail. I looked at it, and was compelled to read on.

  Dear Cookie,

  Oh, how I wish you weren’t off at the monastery being a monkey! Plans are nearly complete for this new excursion to Antarctica, and I am being beautifully politic, planning to spend two weeks at the Brazilian station, two weeks at the Vespugian, on to the Argentinean, and so forth. If the Gued-ders know that I suspect them, I am in deep trouble. El Zarco wants me to see if he is correct in his assumptions of what they are up to, and get word to the U.S., to the UN, so they can be stopped before irreparable damage is done. When that first atomic bomb was exploded at Alamogordo, no one knew quite what a tiger had been unleashed. But we know more now. And we know more about the part the Antarctic ice cap plays in the world’s weather. No matter what riches are underneath it, if another ice age is started no one will be able to enjoy the riches. But greed is always nearsighted.

  You will be desperately missed. Have you thought that, without you, we might have to eat penguins? Penguins are wonderful creatures, and it is probably one of their safeguards that they are so unpalatable. Thinking about penguin stew is a digression from my real concerns. I haven’t told the others just how far I think things have gone at the Vespugian station, things that have to be stopped. The camouflage is beautiful. They have collected every kind of starfish found in Antarctic or sub-Antarctic waters, and they have two fine marine biologists at the station. Cookie, I wish you were here to advise me, because—

  There the letter broke off.

  I felt cold.

  I shouldn’t have read it. It was private. But it gave me an idea of what might have been in the letter that caused Cookie to behave so strangely.

  I shut the unfinished letter in the book. I needed to think. If Adam II had neither completed it nor mailed it, perhaps he didn’t want anybody to know what he had written. Perhaps I had blundered into a secret that had better stay a secret. On the other hand …

  I went downstairs and out to the kitchen, grateful to find Cook alone. “Cookie, why did Adam II go back to Antarctica on the second expedition?”

  “It’s an addictive place. Very few people go only once.”

  “But about his death—was it an accident?”

  Cook turned from the sink, leaving the water running. “What makes you ask that?”

  “I don’t know. I just wondered.” My words sounded lame, and my voice drifted off.

  Cook turned the water off. “The exploitation of Antarctica has been a concern for a long time. After his first expedition, Adam managed to prevent drilling for oil on the peninsula, and he was not loved for that by those who were ruled by greed.”

  “Who?”

  “At that time the Communists were the enemy, but they were by no means the only enemy.”

  “You mean, ‘We have met the enemy and it is us’?”

  “That’s always part of it. Did Madam say anything to upset you?”

  “No, oh, no.”

  “Suspicions are ugly things, Miss Vicky. Accidents do happen in that wild and nearly empty space.”

  “But do you think Adam II’s death was an accident?”

  He did not answer me. The silence grew between us. Finally he said, “Go say goodbye to Madam, and I’ll call Owain and tell him you’re ready to go home.”

  When I got home, there was another letter from Adam waiting for me, and that pushed my anxiety about Cook and Adam II out of my mind. The envelope had the Falklands address, but inside he had written “San Sebastián, Vespugia.”

  Suzy was helping Rob with his arithmetic homework, sounding bossy. But she’s good at arithmetic and Rob’s lucky to have her help. Anyhow, she wasn’t paying any attention to me, and Mother was studying the open page of a cookbook, so I slipped quietly into my room and shut the door.

  Dear Vicky,

  I’m mailing this from the Falklands. I’m told mail service is more reliable there. San Sebastián is certainly another world, though you can tell it’s the end of the twentieth century by the pollution. However, they’re handling it well. Trees are being planted, and people are allowed to drive six days a week. Then they have to take a day off, buses as well as cars. New York would do well to do the same.

  The soldier who w
as my guide to the pyramids is named Esteban and he’s an oboe player and will be playing in the San Sebastián Symphony when he’s out of the army. Everybody has to serve two years. He thinks Vespugia is the most wonderful country in the world. He’s a cousin of the present dictator, Medex Guedder, and believes he’s an enlightened despot who will bring Vespugia out of the dark ages.

  I paused. From what I’d learned of the history of Vespugia, it did not seem to have been in the dark ages under El Zarco.

  Esteban was an excellent guide at the pyramids, which looked just the way they did in Aunt Serena’s pictures, but bigger and more mysterious. I climbed to the top of the tallest one and there was a magnificent view of the entire complex, at least the part that’s been excavated. Some of it is still covered by jungle. It was worth seeing, despite the heat and the bugs, just for the architecture. The stones aren’t huge, like the ones in the Egyptian pyramids. These are small enough so they could be carried by one or two people, and you can see how these enormous edifices could have been built by a civilization that didn’t have any machinery.

  That evening Esteban took me to a coffeehouse where some of the younger soldiers hang out. Several played guitars, neat stuff, and then Esteban played his oboe. He’s really terrific, classical things mostly. He’s eager to get out of the army and back to his music, full-time.

  This is a really tiring trip, I just want to warn you. Be prepared. “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” Hamlet.

  All the best,

  Adam

  There was something wrong with this letter, and not just the warning words at the end, or that he’d signed off with “All the best,” instead of “Love.” It was chatty and informative, like the other letter, but there wasn’t anything in it especially for me, except maybe the warning, and I wasn’t at all sure what he was warning me about. I might not have paid it any attention if it hadn’t been for the letter I’d just read of Adam II’s.