SSSD - Early rising

Waking up with Signe is a new experience. Alison has found herself in the arms of another woman before, but it’s always been women who are more or less the same size as she is. Signe’s powerful arms enfold her. Even muzzy from sleep, she has to recognize that feeling this safe and warm has to be a rare thing in the Antarctic.

But she’s also made up her mind about doing what… most people would probably agree is the right thing. The Americans are in distress. That couldn’t be more obvious. These four women who’ve been left behind are barely talking to each other, and their stress level isn’t just because of equipment failures. Something’s wrong, and they know it.

Stressed-out people, not communicating and not getting along, are going to be trouble anywhere. That goes double in Antarctica, where seemingly pedestrian things can be deadly.

So it’s with great regret that Alison extricates herself from Signe’s arms.

Signe murmurs something and opens her eyes. It’s cute. Just waking up and maybe in the throes of an orgasm are the only two times that Alison has seen this mighty Norwegian not fully in control of herself. Signe sees that Alison’s getting up.

“You should sleep in,” Alison whispers to her. Then she kisses her, keeping it tender and making it last. With a great effort, she tears herself away, dresses, and heads out.

Getting out of bed is her achievement; she’s not willing to add insult to injury by going through the agony of a shower, although she smells like sweat and musky womanhood. It’s fine. She’s not here to win a beauty pageant or be a princess. With messy hair and in rumpled, fragrant clothes, she shuffles through Outpost 51. It’s as still and quiet as it was last night, and no lighter. A couple of bulbs are out in the long hallway, so stretches of it are dark. That’s something that Alison can help with. She can’t operate fancy science equipment, but she can change a lightbulb.

She makes her way to the dining area, where Renee sits hunched at a table with a mug of coffee.

She jumps in surprise when Alison speaks.

“Can I have some?”

“Um,” Renee shakes her head. “Of course. Please.” She straightens up and tries to look welcoming.

Alison gratefully pours coffee and joins her.

She sips in silence for a second. It’s painfully awkward, but it shouldn’t be. What’s the point?

“So,” she says finally. Her ability to read people has been thrown off by the Norwegians, but it’s not gone completely. “Renee.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not Norwegian.”

Renee nods. “Right.”

“I’m an environmental science student at the University of Florida Gurlberg.”

Renee looks detached. “UFG. With that **** sorority?”

Alison smiles and nods. “That’s the one.” No need to tell Renee that she’s a sister in that sorority. “You ready to tell me what’s wrong?”

“We’re missing some stuff and it feels like…” Renee holds her mugs in both hands, gazing at the poster on the wall: Jean Claude Van Damme’s ‘Nowhere to Run’. “It feels like a lot of stuff has broken lately. More than usual. But that’s just…”

Alison knows what she means. But Renee and her colleagues are professionals. Are they as professional as the Norwegians? Alison is prepared to believe that they are not. But they also aren’t going to be hysterical amateurs. Bad luck often feels personal.

“Stuff breaks sometimes. It’s OK. What’s really going on?”

“It sounds bad no matter how I say it,” Renee says.

“I’ll try not to judge. And I don’t speak Norwegian, so I can’t tell anyone,” Alison assures her.

“Look. Four of us didn’t stay behind. Five did,” Renee says.

“Oh no. What happened?”

“Dr. Rochon. Janet. She wasn’t supposed to stay behind, but she did. And she was acting weird, but she was here and that was fine. She didn’t leave with the others. Bell asked her why she’d stayed, and she said that…” Renee rubs her face. “That she had to do a report or something. That she’d been asked to write a paper by the USGS. And that was weird because that should’ve gone through Margot. But it did make sense because she kept going back to the dig site. She was never here,” Renee adds, tapping the table. “And then we had our sat connection up, finally, for a moment. And Eliza saw a Facebook post.”

“What?”

“A Facebook post that Janet had made in Portland. Celebrating getting home to her family.”

“I don’t understand.” Alison is lost.

“Neither did we. I think Margot tried to talk to her about it, and then we couldn’t find her,” Renee says grimly, scowling at her coffee. “So if you think we’re acting weird, it’s because…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she was about to say that she doesn’t know what’s real.

Alison tries to make sense of it. One person imagining something or getting confused would be understandable enough, but all four of them?

“Are you sick?” Alison asks, a lump forming in her throat.

“Not as far as we know.”

A shared hallucination? If this doctor is posting to Facebook from the States, then she is not here. A prank with twins doesn’t fit.

“Do you guys drink as much as the Norwegians do?” Alison asks. It’s not the most tactful, but it seems like a fair question.

Renee snorts. “Not that much. We have a weed stash, but no. That’s not it.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“Good point. Hard to be sure of anything. Things got a little neglected. We went looking for her. Just like when I asked you to help look for Margot. Janet’s a little older than the rest of us, and she would go out alone a lot. We were so sure that she was out there in trouble, but she was really in Portland? But you can’t get from here to Portland in four or five hours.” Renee puts her face in her hands. “I don’t know. We need to get out of here.”

“We have our sat phone. We can relay something.”

“Yeah. I’m going to talk to the others about it. The next rotation isn’t for another two weeks. I don’t know if we’re going to last that long.”

“We have a doctor,” Alison says hesitantly. Niv is, in addition to being a military officer, a physician.

“Well, that’s not going to do us any good now. The storm will start again in two hours. Traveling isn’t safe. Especially when…” She groans. “I don’t trust everything not to break.”

Alison reaches over to gently rub Renee’s back.

The situation is bizarre. It doesn’t seem like there’s much that Alison can do to fix it, but there is an obvious way that she can help. Keeping up with this place with only four would be a challenge in the best of times. These Americans are not at their best. Alison can do things that will be helpful without being underfoot, and there’s no doubt in her mind that’s what she needs to do. The question is how to go about it, or rather with who? She knows that Signe will want to look at the American vehicles and generators to ensure that they’re in working order. That’s a worthwhile thing to do. But maybe someone a little more clearheaded needs to look out for the Americans themselves. If they’re all fraying the way that Renee is, that could be trouble.

Should Alison stick to Signe and focus on equipment?

Or go solo and focus on people?