Hard Line - Pamela Clare Page 0,23
the Three Hundred Club?” he asked out of the blue.
“It’s about putting your body through three hundred degrees of temperature shift.” Samantha had never seen the appeal of that. “First, you sit in a two-hundred-degree sauna and get hot. Then you leave the station naked except for boots, walk around the South Pole marker, and then head back into the sauna to warm up.”
He chuckled. “That sounds fun.”
“Why did you ask?”
“Some people are talking about doing it tomorrow night. I guess it’s supposed to get below minus one hundred. We Cobra guys were invited to join in. Have you done it?”
“No way.” Samantha laughed. “Patty did. My ancestors are Finnish—Park comes from Parkkonen—so I love the sauna. But streaking in the cold just sounds to me like a great way to get frostbite in sensitive places.”
The idea of being naked in front of the entire staff didn’t appeal to her either.
Thor chuckled. “If you’re hot from the sauna, it takes a while to feel the cold.”
“You’re going to do it?”
“Yes.”
She’d thought he was too focused on his job to do something so silly. But some part of her—the part that planned on watching—was excited about this.
Are you seriously going to gawk at his naked body?
Yes. Yes, she was.
They reached the stairs that led up to the SPT control room. She gave him a tour, explaining in basic terms the kind of research she did. “We’re looking at relic light— light from shortly after the Big Bang—by scanning space for a certain kind of electromagnetic energy. My work focuses mostly on galaxy clusters.”
He asked smart questions and understood more than she had expected, proof that he’d studied the sciences.
“Can we go up to the roof?”
He wanted to go outside again?
“Of course.” She led the way.
He stared up at the sky, clearly in no hurry to get back indoors. “I’ve never seen so many stars. Even in Greenland, the stars were never this bright.”
“The cold freezes the water vapor out of the air, and the atmosphere here is stable. That’s why it’s so clear. That’s one reason we do so much astronomical research here.”
He pointed with a gloved hand. “The Southern Cross. Musca over there. Tucana.”
She was surprised—and impressed. “Where did you learn your southern constellations?”
“When I left Sirius, I found I couldn’t go back to my old life. I traveled a lot. I spent some time backpacking in the Himalayas, Australia, and New Zealand. I met a Maori man who taught me how his people saw the sky. I tried to learn more.”
He hadn’t been able to go back to his old life.
What did that mean?
“I’d love to hear more, but I’m freezing my butt off.”
He chuckled, the sound almost enough to warm her. “Let’s get you back inside.”
She stayed just long enough to check the readouts, but exhaustion from the day’s ordeal caught up with her. Thor walked with her back to her room at the station, where she thanked him and wished him a good night. Then she brushed her teeth and crawled into bed. The last image in her mind as she drifted off was of Thor staring up at the stars.
7
Thor sat in the sauna’s heat with Jones, Vasily, Hardin, and Kristi, the station nurse, all of them naked apart from their towels, their boots waiting outside the door. The warmth felt incredible after the day’s frigid cold, loosening stiff muscles, releasing endorphins, making Thor sweat.
He had spent the day with Samantha at the Dark Sector lab, reading journal articles about the SPT and watching as she recycled the refrigerators that kept the telescope’s detectors cold enough to maintain the necessary sensitivity. The technology fascinated him. But now it was time for something completely different, something more up his alley—pitting himself against the elements.
Segal had volunteered to stay indoors to keep a watch on the package. “Go freeze your balls off if you want. I’ve had enough cold on this mission.”
A small crowd was waiting outside the sauna for them to exit, drop their towels, put on their boots, and head outside to the Pole marker and back.
Vasily scratched his hairy chest. “We Russians have a long history of the banya—what you call sauna. It keeps men healthy and strong.”
“Not just men,” Kristi replied.
Thor hadn’t missed the way she’d been looking at Jones.
“You Americans have so many women here. In winter, we have no women.”
“How very evolved of you.” Jones met Kristi’s gaze.
Nå, for helvede.
Well, damn.
The attraction was mutual.
Thor hoped Jones had the sense not to get