The Pole of Inaccessibility

  ***

  “Beardmore, Beardmore, Beardmore. This SR32, how copy?” the words spoke out over the radio.

  Barry, the Navy weatherman assigned to the expedition, was at the console monitoring traffic in between observations that he called into McMurdo every hour when flights were anticipated. He had been on round-the-clock operations, snatching naps between the hourly calls, and was bleary from sleep deprivation. The voice brought him back to alertness and he was grateful for it, a momentary distraction from the monotony of his fatigue.

  “Got you all fivers, Doc,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. He had a carefully developed reputation of always having a joke ready, but since they were almost uniformly all bad ones, he came to be treated as if it were he that was the joke, which was not his intent.

  “Barry,” Dr. Daniels said, “is Dr. Atkinson there?”

  “Probably somewhere,” Barry replied, trying to be helpful, but without actually helping.

  “Yes, well, I can tell you to an absolute certainty that he is somewhere,” the ancient professor told him pointedly. “But the question is, where he is EXACTLY?”

  Even over the radio, Barry comprehended that Dr. Daniels was in no mood for word games and asked him to stand by.

  “I’ll go get him,” Barry said.

  “Good,” Daniels replied. “No, wait. Barry, are you still there?”

  “Let’s see, it’s been almost half a second, where do you think I’d be?” he asked, without keying the mic. Then he said, “Still here, Doc.”

  “Good. Try to call McMurdo first. Tell them that we have a situation, and to try and get everybody together as soon as possible.”

  “Who’s everybody?” Barry asked.

  “Everybody they would want to have on hand if something really serious happened.”

  “Gotcha,” Barry said.

  After calling into McMurdo and rattling the cage of another weary weatherman who was at the communications console there, and who was handling Barry the same way that he handled everyone else, which Barry refused to tolerate, he went out into the frozen sunshine that burned his tired eyes. He found Dr. Atkinson unpacking his Alpine snowmobile with Alistair and Jake.

  “Dr. Daniels wants you,” Barry said. “He sounds pretty worked up.”

  “Worked up, is he?” Dr. Atkinson said with the voice he used for dismissing students' petty concerns. “Daniels isn’t one to get worked up so easily.”

  “Maybe not,” Barry told him, “but he is now. He had me round up everyone in McMurdo to stand by for a relay.”

  “Humph,” Dr. Atkinson said, showing that he was not going to get excited after being dismissive of the idea that Daniels was. “That is somewhat irregular, I must say. Indeed. I suppose we had better go see.”

  The three went into the hut, leaving Barry to follow, which he did after rolling his eyes and shaking his head. But he then went quickly before any of them could get to the radio, which he considered his domain.

  “SR whatever you are, ah…32; this is Beardmore. How copy?” Barry said into the mic.

  “I copy you just fine,” Dr. Daniels answered. “Does McMurdo copy me?”

  “Don’t know. Let’s see,” Barry said. “Break-Mac Center, this is Beardmore. How copy?”

  “Copy all, copy all Beardmore,” the voice reciprocated.

  “Then you copy SR32?” he asked.

  “Negative,” was the reply.

  “Well then, what the hell was with the copy all?” Barry raged at the unkeyed microphone before slipping back into his professional radio voice. “Roger, Center. Please be advised that I am now acting as relay. Please stand by.”

  “A-firm. Standing by,” the voice said.

  “Go ahead, Doc,” Barry told Dr. Daniels.

  Everyone by the console settled down to listen. When he finished, they all sat in stunned silence.

  “Barry, please give me the microphone,” Dr. Atkinson said.

  “I’ll do it,” Barry said.

  “No. I am the chief scientist on station; that makes me senior NSF person on location. Let me talk to McMurdo.”

  “All right,” Barry said, not wanting to give it up.

  “Arthur, are you there?” Dr. Atkinson asked, seeing if Dr. Fredricks was at the other end of the conversation.

  “Yes, Stephen,” a voice replied. “I’m here with the Captain.”

  “Good," Dr. Atkinson said. Then he took a deep breath and told of the events as he had them from Dr. Daniels.

  When Dr. Atkinson finished relaying his story, everyone with him sat in silence waiting for a response. When one didn’t immediately come, he gave the mic back to Barry, who was incapable of sitting and waiting for a reply, so he began to speak.

  “McMurdo,” he said into the mic. “Dr. Daniels is currently departing his location to begin rendering assistance. Over.”

  By emphasizing the word ‘over’, he was implying that he expected someone to respond.

  “Roger,” a new voice answered. “Copy en route to render assistance ASAP. Over.”

  “We’ll need to get something going from here, too,” Jake told Dr. Atkinson.

  “Beardmore, you need to get a team moving from there, too, over,” the radio announced.

  “That’s A-firm,” Barry replied.

  “I’ll go get Susan and the Lieutenant and take them with me. You should stay here and coordinate,” Jake said to Dr. Atkinson.

  “Susan?” Dr. Atkinson asked. “Why?”

  “Because she is far and away the most experienced climber in camp,” Jake told him. “After me, of course.”

  Dr. Atkinson thought about that for a moment.

  “So you anticipate that you may have to go in?”

  “We know they are a little ways down now. Dr. Daniels should be able to get them out on his own, but who knows what happens between now and then.”

  “Yes, I see your point,” Dr. Atkinson said. “All right, but be careful.”

  “Always,” Jake assured him.