Melt (21 page)

“Go ahead,” she told him, observing his twitching lip. “You can say it.”

Encouraged, he sucked in a deep breath and said, “You look hot! Who knew you had an ass like that! You know I’m no Bible- thumper, but this morning I’m ready to fall on my knees and pray the gay away.” He swallowed, openly leering. “Curves! Sheffield has curves!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” she ordered.

He complied, saying no more, but she had caught him looking at her more than once with a covert sideways glance. Good, she thought, hoping Jordan would have the same response.

They hired a boat and pilot to take them up the coast to their destination. The sky was clear and the morning light so bright that Kelly could barely open her eyes without sunglasses on.

At the mouth of the fjord the floating ice became denser and the pilot slowed the engine, carefully steering to avoid collisions as Kelly took pictures. She knelt low on the deck to catch shots of water dripping off the sculpted edge of an iceberg, several strings of sparkling drops backlit by the sun and looking like a multistranded diamond necklace.

Her experience of this scenery was completely different today from what it had been last week when she and Nivi had paddled through this gorge. Today she could enjoy it and it was truly awesome.

As they approached the glacier, they veered left toward the moraine. Kelly mentally prepared herself for seeing Jordan. Her plan was to be cool and professional, cheerful and carefree, to reveal nothing of the hurt she carried in her heart or the feelings she had once worn on her sleeve.

Brian met them at the dock and helped Kelly unload her tripod, cameras and lens case.

“Jordan’s expecting you,” he said, walking with them toward camp. “You picked a great day for taking photos. Plenty of sunshine.”

“Hi, Kelly!”

She turned to see Sonja under the kitchen lean-to and felt an automatic wave of jealousy. She inwardly scolded herself and forced a smile.

Jordan emerged from her tent to greet them, dressed in Dockers and a long-sleeved polo shirt.

“Good morning!” she called cheerfully. “Welcome to Camp Tootega!” She gave Chuck a friendly hug. She turned her attention to Kelly and hugged her too.

If Jordan noticed how good Kelly looked, she didn’t show it. But she wouldn’t. Jordan never let her cards show. And that was exactly how Kelly would play her hand as well.

“How do you want to do this?” she asked.

“Maybe we could just chat for a few minutes,” Chuck suggested. “Get some of the basic questions out of the way. Then you can show us around.”

“Perfect. We can talk inside.” She indicated her tent.

“While you two are talking,” Kelly said, “I’ll take some shots around camp.”

Chuck followed Jordan into her tent while Kelly took her equipment and walked back downslope toward the dock, looking for a good view of the camp. Sonja was suddenly at her side.

“How’s your little friend?” she asked.

“Pippa’s doing well. She’s nearly recovered.”

“That’s great.”

Kelly put her equipment down and took some overview shots of the camp. With her camera in hand, she could ignore Sonja without appearing completely rude.

“There’s a nice view from up there,” Sonja advised, pointing to a ridge to the west. “You can see the camp with the glacier behind. Pretty cool.”

“Thanks,” Kelly said. “What’s the best way up there?”

“I’ll show you.”

Sonja, it seemed, wasn’t inclined to leave her on her own. She carried the tripod and led Kelly to a steep but manageable path up to the ridgetop. She was right. The ridge gave a photogenic view of Camp Tootega set against the Langenford Glacier with its blocky white and blue face. Kelly took some shots while Sonja sat cross-legged on a smooth slab of rock nearby. When she paused to change her lens, Sonja said, “You look great today.”

“Thanks.” Kelly dug in her bag for the lens and grabbed a wad of cotton cloth. She pulled out a rolled up pair of sweatpants. “I almost forgot I brought these back. Thanks for the loan.”

“You’re welcome.” Sonja winked, taking them from her. “You can get in my pants any time.”

Kelly eyed her critically. “Why are you coming on to me?” she demanded coolly.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sonja hopped to her feet. “You’re freaking gorgeous. Not to mention the only eligible lesbian in the country.” Sonja laughed.

“What about Jordan?”

Sonja looked startled. “Well, technically, Jordan
is
an eligible lesbian, I guess. But I think she’s more likely to mate with a polar bear than me. Or you. Or anybody else.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you—”

“I like her. I do. But it won’t do me much good. It’s okay to admire from afar. Well, you understand that. You once had a crush on her too, right?”

“Yes, but nothing happened.”

“Sure. Of course!” Sonja looked like the idea of something happening was outrageous. “Same for me. Nothing’s ever going to happen there. She’s impenetrable. There’s a reason she’s so comfortable here in the frigid Arctic. The Ice Queen, remember?”

Kelly held Sonja’s gaze, studying her to see if she was telling the truth. Or if she was just a player trying to ally herself with Kelly by pretending a shared defeat.

“So you’ve gotten nowhere with her?” Kelly asked hopefully, recalling the one treasured kiss she had received from Jordan. “Not even a kiss?”

Sonja laughed shortly. “No! All I’ve gotten is a lecture about staying in my place and the threat of being sent home. And, believe me, she means it.”

Kelly did her best not to reveal how welcome this news was. If true, it seemed that Jordan was less concerned about the feelings of her admirers than she once was. She had been so gentle with Kelly, her rejection so diffused by kindness that it had barely discouraged her. Maybe Jordan had grown harder with time. Maybe she had earned her nickname, a thought that made Sonja’s news both welcome and troubling. Even if Sonja had struck out with Jordan, it didn’t mean she was available to Kelly. Maybe The Ice Queen really was impenetrable.

After Jordan’s interview with Chuck, the clan of Camp Tootega lined up for group shots for the article. Kelly took several, then took a few with just Chuck and Jordan, enjoying looking at Jordan through her lens. After the shoot, the group went on a hike along the path of the glacier. Julie and Brian drove ahead in the ATV while the rest of them walked.

“We’ve placed three buoys on the glacier,” Jordan explained to Chuck. “We’ve got cameras mounted alongside at regular intervals as well. Stitching all that film together gives us a movie of the ice flowing.”

Chuck had his voice recorder clipped to the front of his jacket, as usual, recording the conversation. He didn’t take notes. He said that got in the way of listening.

“Here’s the first one,” Jordan said, halting at the edge of the glacier where an orange flag was clearly visible halfway across the ice. It protruded from the top of a teardrop-shaped device about the size of a beach ball.

“Kelly!” Chuck called, waving her closer. “Get a shot of that buoy.”

“It’s a Westgate buoy,” Sonja offered. “It’s named after Jordan because she designed it.”

Chuck turned an inquiring glance toward Jordan.

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “A lot of teams have gone to these now. They replaced the more fragile ones we used to use.”

“The Marquette buoys,” Sonja elaborated. “They were a piece of crap.”

“Oh, Sonja!” Jordan said, frowning her disapproval. “They were
not
a piece of crap. These buoys float up better under pressure, so they last longer. Grinding ice is pretty darn powerful and destroys a lot of expensive equipment.”

“She’s always telling us the cameras are worth more than all of us combined,” Sonja quipped.

“Chuck,” Jordan pleaded, “please don’t say the Marquette buoys are crap.”

Chuck laughed. “Don’t worry.” He screwed up his face and closed one eye. “Marquette? I think I know that guy.”

“I’m not surprised. He was a pioneer in this field. He worked in Alaska primarily, not in Greenland. He’s retired now.”

Kelly took several shots of the orange and white buoy embedded in the surface of the glacier.

“Now I remember!” Chuck blurted. “I met Marquette last year at a conference in Dallas. They were giving him an award, some lifetime achievement thing.”

“I heard about that,” Jordan said.

“I had a chat with him after dinner that night. I told him what I did, you know, spending the summers out here. I mentioned you, among others, as one of the scientists I’ve been following. He remembers you.”

Kelly was puzzled to see the sudden look of alarm on Jordan’s face, short-lived but unmistakable.

“Of course he remembers her,” Kelly intervened. “He was her mentor.”

“What did he say?” Jordan asked, her tone casual, but the look in her eyes suggesting anything but.

“He said you were one of the finest researchers in the field. He was glad to see how well you’d done.”

“Oh,” Jordan said, looking relieved, “that was nice of him.”

* * *

Jordan’s knees had gone weak when Chuck mentioned talking about her to Marquette. But Marquette had been the flawless professional, giving no hint of the scandal Jordan had caused him.

“What’s the purpose of the buoy?” Kelly asked.

Jordan shook off her anxiety. “The buoys are great. They have a transmitter that sends us their position at regular intervals throughout the day. We can track not only how fast and how far they travel, but since they flow with the ice, we can model the flow patterns as well. So far this summer we’ve calculated the speed of this glacier at ten meters per day. That’s five meters a day faster than last year.”

Chuck whistled. “Are you kidding? That’s nuts!”

“Yes, it is. Just galloping along.” Jordan appreciated Chuck’s experience, that he had taken the time and trouble to educate himself about his subject matter. She hated talking to journalists who knew nothing about the interview topic. It invariably led to mistaken conclusions she worried would be attributed to her. But Chuck had been on this beat for years and he understood the science better than most of her students.

“Why the huge jump in one year?” he asked.

Jordan continued walking. “Ice is extremely sensitive to temperature changes. One or two degrees can cause enough of a difference to start a cavalcade of events. You go slow and steady up to a point, you know, and then suddenly you’re past equilibrium and all hell breaks loose.”

Chuck sputtered. “Doesn’t exactly look like all hell breaking loose here, Jordan.”

“Maybe not to you. But ten meters a day, to me, is all hell breaking loose. The Jakobshavn Glacier, the big one in Ilulissat, is now moving at an unheard of thirty meters a day. It’s happening all over the country.”

He nodded. “Global warming.”

“Uh-huh. In addition to measuring the rate of travel, we’re also measuring the amount of meltwater coming off this glacier. We’ve discovered the same sort of increase there. A huge jump in water output. Some of the water that melts ends up creating a layer of liquid between the bedrock and the ice. It acts as a lubricant, making the ice move much more easily and therefore faster. So the more the ice melts, the faster it moves. It’s a cumulative effect.”

“Sort of changes the whole definition of the word ‘glacial,’ doesn’t it?” Chuck observed with an ironic smile.

“These glaciers aren’t acting much like glaciers these days. If this glacier maintained its speed and rate of melt, it could last for thousands of years more. But it won’t. It will recede at a greater and greater pace each year. It’s on an unstoppable course toward its demise.”

Kelly was in full view in front of them, lining up her shots. Jordan couldn’t help admiring with an almost painful longing her perfect ass encased in those teasingly tight jeans. That can’t be the best outfit for climbing over rocks and crawling into tight spaces, she decided. But it did provide some terrific sightseeing for Jordan.

“What about the interior ice?” Chuck asked.

“It’s more stable, but it’s melting faster too. The smaller it gets, the faster it melts because the ice sheet reflects less of the sun’s radiation, so the temperature in the vicinity rises and accelerates the process. Who knows how long it will last at this rate.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t like to hear a scientist say ‘who knows.’”

Jordan shrugged. “Too much of this is new territory for us. It may already be too late to stop it. Even if we were able to completely halt the rising temperature at this point, which doesn’t seem likely, it wouldn’t reverse the process. When the ice is gone, we’re looking at a seven meter rise in sea level and a climate none of us can predict. Many scientists believe we’re past the point of no return.”

“Do you agree with that conclusion?”

Jordan hesitated. “Let’s just say I prefer to live in a place with a little elevation.”

“I’d like to walk out on the glacier,” Kelly called, jogging toward them.

“You’ll have a chance to do that further up,” Jordan said. “Believe me, it’s worth the wait. We’ve got something very special to show you.”

Kelly nodded and went back to her work. As she squatted beside the glacier to take a shot across the surface of the ice, the denim across her rear end stretched so tight a flea could have used it as a trampoline. Jordan tore her gaze away to glance at Chuck, who smiled roguishly.

After another half hour of walking, Jordan heard the noise she was anticipating, running water, lots of it. Back home, this sound would signal the approach of a waterfall, as it did here. But this was a waterfall unlike any Jordan had ever encountered and she was excited to be able to show it off.

Their ATV Curly was parked up ahead where the others awaited their arrival.

“Oh, my God!” Jordan heard from the front of their group as Kelly made it there ahead of them. Hearing her, Chuck took off at a trot to catch up, moving surprisingly nimbly for his size.

Jordan approached the spot where they stood, knowing they were both blown away by the sight as she had been when she first saw it. In front of them was a fifty-foot wide bottomless blue pit carved deep down into the ice, so deep they couldn’t see the bottom. Across the pit, about thirty feet below the surface of the glacier, was a massive stream of meltwater emerging from a hole in the ice and freefalling into the pit.