***
“Terra Nova?” Susan asked Jake. “By dog sled?”
“It gets better,” Jake said, allowing the anticipation to grow.
“Well, what gets better?”
“Frodo’s with him,” Jake said, expecting this tidbit of intelligence to cause a sensation.
“The Green guy?” Lt. Richards asked.
“As green as they get,” Jake said triumphantly.
“When?” Susan asked.
“Already gone.”
While Jake continued to fill in the Lieutenant on the rest of his visit to Scott Base, listened to intently by Connie and Walt with whom they had been rejoined, Susan found a chair that was apart from the others and sat down to consider. Her field season had been diverted, her grant was dissipating with the loss of precious time, data was not being collected... The result of the data was to make a compelling argument for preserving the pristine places of the world, starting with the most pristine of all, the Antarctic. Now, it appeared as if that argument was moot. Politics, not preservation, would stymie the exploitation of the southern continent. It was a victory, but a weak one, since it would not be an encompassing shift in attitudes that would have a cascading effect on other future plans to despoil the resources of the Earth.
And the victory was not hers, not really. She had a role in the exposing of the plot, but that was about it, and that, she had to admit, bothered her. It had never occurred to her that ambition played a part in her motivation. She contrasted herself with Lieutenant Richards. He performed his role in a plan that he had no love for, even seriously disagreed with; from pure disinterested loyalty. That was his job, and he did it. Before now she would have thought him a mindless automaton, a cog in the machine, but in getting to understand him better was able to see that he too had a higher motivation, a willingness to sacrifice something he considered precious, if something even greater can be saved in the future; and to do so without ambition.
That became an example for her, and she concluded that there was still yet a role for her to play that could result in something positive coming out of what, to her, had to be considered a failure. An act of compassion, which was not the sort of thing that came naturally to her, would make up for some of the loss.
“Steven said that Thumper told the Captain the Russian was already there, at Terra Nova. I wonder why he did that?” she questioned aloud.
“I’m not sure having reasons for things is that guys’ strong suit,” Jake cautioned with an air of authority on the subject.
“We’ll have to make them think he was lying, that they actually went to South America,” she continued.
“You think anyone is going to believe us?” the Lieutenant said, sounding somewhat plaintive. Until recently, everything he said was not only believed, but considered highly valuable.
“No, but actions speak louder than words. We’ll make a diversion.”
Walt nearly jumped out of his chair.
“I’ll do it!” he said. “What do you want to do? We could steal a plane. Do you want to steal a plane?”
“Oh my God,” Connie said, exasperated. “Thank Heaven you don’t know how to fly one.”
“You do, don’t you?” Walt asked the Lieutenant. “You’re in the Air Force, you work for NASA! You can do it.”
The Lieutenant saw Susan looking at him with a questioning look.
“Yes, I could,” he told them, guardedly, “but I am not going to be hijacking any aircraft.”
Walt looked dejected.
“Well,” Jake said in a tone of equanimity, “we don’t actually need to steal one. “
“We don’t?” Walt said, now fully engaged in whatever it was that was going on.
“No. What we need is for theirs to not fly for a couple of days.”
“That’s easy,” Walt said. “I’ll do it. Can I do it?”
“Walt, please,” Susan said, trying to settle her grad student down. “What then?”
“We go fishing for Red Herring. Send them on a goose chase. Make them believe that the Russian has gone somewhere onto the peninsula on his way to Chile so that they look there, while we intercept him on the way to Terra Nova with a plan to get him off the continent.”
“What kind of plan?” Susan insisted.
“Damn, woman,” Jake chastised her sternly. “Do I have to think of everything?”
“You don’t have one, do you?”
“Not yet,” Jake admitted.
“Well, I do. It seems pretty clear that whatever I do or say, everyone is going to believe the opposite. Is our gear still out on the cargo line?” Susan asked Jake.
“If we had fuel, we could leave right now.”
“Oh! Oh!” Walt said, holding his hand up as high as he could, as if he was in a classroom and had the answer to a particularly difficult question.
“Young man,” Jake said, usurping Susan’s position as the professor. “I believe we have hit upon a challenge commensurate with your skills. Proceed.”
Walt looked at Susan for an instant, giving her an infinitely brief opportunity to contest the order, and when she didn’t take it, he bolted out the door. Connie watched with open mouth his exit, and then turned toward Susan for a brief instant herself, before she too dashed from the room.