Hard Line - Pamela Clare Page 0,8

your name.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Thor Isaksen. Just call me Thor.”

Named for a Nordic god. Well, he probably had an ego to match.

“I have to go. We’re having a memorial service for my best friend.” She managed to make the words sound casual.

His brow furrowed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Was he or she the person whose body they loaded onto the plane today?”

She stared. “You saw them load her onto the plane?”

He nodded. “Unless it was someone else.”

Patty wouldn’t have to stay on ice all winter after all. She was going home to her family. That should have come as good news.

Then why did Samantha suddenly feel so bereft?

Tears filled her eyes. “Excuse me. I need to get ready.”

She hurried down the hall toward the A1 berthing area and her room, leaving Thor behind her.

3

Thor made his way with Jones and Segal to the B1 Lounge, his thoughts on Dr. Park, the woman he’d met earlier. She had walked out of the building with the big telescopes, so she was probably an astronomer. She couldn’t be much older than thirty, her face youthful and pretty, her skin clear. Her long pale blond hair had been tied in a knot and was held in place by a pencil. She’d been crying, her blue eyes rimmed with red. She hadn’t known they’d sent her friend’s body away, and he felt bad to have been the one to tell her.

Thor knew how much it hurt to lose a friend.

“Anyone else feel like we’re on the Moon?” Jones asked.

Segal glanced around them. “Or a space station?”

“I know what you mean,” Thor said.

He had to respect the people who’d designed and built this place. It was a sophisticated facility, intended to support science despite the harshest climate on earth. It had a hydroponic greenhouse, a science lab, offices, a large gym, a weight room, a sauna, a medical facility, a post office that was open in the summer, a machine shop, and a metal-working shop. There were also massive unheated storage facilities that they called service arches. To reach the arches, one had to go down an icy, unheated, four-story stairwell they called the Beer Can because of its cylindrical shape and metal walls.

They hit a bottleneck outside the B1 Lounge, people moving through the door in silence, the mood somber. The lounge was a good place to hygge—get cozy—filled as it was with overstuffed sofas and chairs. There was a pool table close to the door, a large television on one wall, a dartboard, and a small kitchen in the back.

During their tour, Hardin had told them the lounge could serve as a life raft in dire emergencies. It had its own communications and computer center and its own power plant. It also had thick doors that sealed tight.

Thor went to stand in the back with Jones and Segal, leaving the seats for the others. They’d come to the service only because Hardin wanted to introduce them. They were the new kids in town, and Hardin wanted to do whatever he could to dispel any rumors and lessen tensions about their presence here.

Thor spotted Dr. Park sitting close to the front, her eyes puffy from crying, the pencil still in her hair. Hardin knelt beside her, his hand on her shoulder, the two of them speaking quietly together. Then Hardin got to his feet, an image of a smiling woman with short dark hair appearing on the TV screen.

“As you all know, we lost Patty three days ago. I thought it would be good to come together to remember her. We’ll create a shrine for her in the ice tunnels, so think about what should go there. But before we start, I wanted to introduce the three newbies standing in the back. The satellite crash is a secret, which, naturally, means we’ve all been talking about it. They’re here to retrieve some sensitive components, and then they’ll fly back to the States.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” someone muttered.

“They’re flying out to the crash site now? That’s crazy.”

Hardin pointed to the nearest person. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves—just your name and what you do here.”

“Kazem Hamidi. I’m an astrophysicist at the BICEP lab.”

“Nick Pappas, astrophysicist, IceCube.”

“Bai Zhang Wei, astrophysicist, IceCube.”

Dr. Park went next. “Samantha Park, astrophysicist, South Pole Telescope.”

“Kristi Chang, station RN.”

“Greg Martin, astrophysicist, BICEP.”

Thor did his best to catch their names and retain them, but being introduced to almost fifty people at once was a bit much.

Afterward, Hardin met Thor’s gaze.