to the port.
The truck had appeared to be carrying military grade weapons.
Higher authorities were called in to take over the case. And the three policemen would have nothing further to say on the matter.
From Deadline Hollywood:
The Academy announced today that Sandra Piper’s name would remain on the ballot for the Best Actress Oscar. There had been suggestions (surely not from studios and press agents tied to competing actresses, heaven forefend!) that the actress’s bizarre suicide would send a bad message to movie lovers and especially young fans. The statement reads in part, “We believe that an Academy Award is given for the work, and only for the work, and should not be affected by the tragedy that took this great talent’s life.”
Comments:
QxT: Sandra Piper was a great lady and a great actress. Shame on those who are trying to prophet from her death.
KeyAgrippa: She was nuts. That’s who we want to show off as a symbol of Hollywood?
Book Guy: Tragedy my ass. She was murdered. I don’t know how. Yet. But I knew Sandra, we worked together on UTD. No way she killed herself, she had everything to live for.
Seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen miles south and a bit east from the watery grave of the Doll Ship, where bloated, bleached-out bodies still fed indifferent fish, a very different sort of vessel was roaring across very different waters. The Navy called it an LCAC—Landing Craft Air Cushion—a hovercraft some eighty-eight feet long and forty-seven feet wide.
This LCAC was no longer part of the US Navy; it was privately owned, and it had been extensively modified with more efficient turbines, tougher skirts and integrated de-icing systems.
It was one of two in active service in Antarctic waters. The craft were used to carry large cargos ashore and, just as critically, to remove garbage, and to do so in weather that would swat a helicopter down onto the ice.
Environmentalists were determined to keep Antarctica “green,” despite the fact that green was rarely seen on the ice.
The LCACs shuttled back and forth between shore and a refurbished Navy-surplus amphibious assault ship now called the Celadon . Celadon being a shade of green. (Her sister ship was the Shamrock .) The LCACs were the Jade Monkey and the Emerald—again, shades of green. But the LCACs were in fact painted white and gray with splashes of rescue-orange.
The particular LCAC arriving in a whirlwind of salt spray and noise was the Jade Monkey, skippered by Imelda Suarez. Suarez—no one called her Imelda—had a four-person crew and a cargo of booze, diesel fuel and a massive electrical generator covered by a tarp, as well as a climate-controlled steel container filled with potatoes, apples, fresh spinach, grapes and oranges. The box was painted with the logo of Whole Foods, and indeed all the produce was organic.
For the old-timers the very idea that fresh fruit and meat could be almost (not quite) year-round was astonishing, and it caused quite a bit of grumbling about how easy things had gotten.
It was nearing summer in Antarctica and there in McMurdo Sound the thermometer showed a pleasant twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. The wind was a noticeable but manageable eighteen knots. The sun was shining. This time of year it shone pretty nearly all day. All in all about as pleasant as you could ask for at McMurdo.
The Jade Monkey floated over the water and up onto gravel, its big black rubber skirts all puffed out and vibrating like a trumpet player’s cheeks. Suarez powered down and the vehicle came to rest with a disgruntled wheeze of engines and a long, slow fart as the air cushion bled out.
Imelda Suarez was twenty-eight years old, five feet seven inches tall, dark-skinned, weather-beaten but pretty in the right light. She had worked for Cathexis Inc., owner of the Celadon and her two LCACs, for three years, two as skipper of the Jade Monkey .
It was grueling, brutal, often boring but occasionally terrifying work. Suarez had never lost a cargo, she had never lost a crewman, and she had kept that spotless record by never underestimating the A-factor. The Antarctic factor. The capacity of the most alien of all continents to complicate or obliterate the schemes of homo sapiens .
Antarctica was always out to kill you.
But the advent of the Cathexis era had changed life on the ice. In the old days the bases that dotted the rim of the continent had been cut off for as much as ten months out of the year. Aircraft get a bit unsafe in high crosswinds. LCACs do, too, but these specially modified versions could make a forty-mile run from the Celadon in all but the worst conditions—and in emergencies, even then.
All of which was extremely useful, because McMurdo Base—MacTown, as it was known—was growing more rapidly than just about any place on Earth. There was oil under the ice and offshore. With the Middle East in turmoil even the greens admitted that oil exploration on the ice was a better option than fighting wars to maintain supplies from volatile countries.
MacTown, which had once been full of nothing but scientists, academics and support staff—generally from cold lands like Alaska and Montana and Maine—was now home to a whole lot of people from Texas and Louisiana. The same evolution was occurring at British, Russian, Aussie, Kiwi, Chinese, Japanese, Chilean and Argentinian bases. The effort to locate oil and develop the technology to survive the harsh environment was big, well-financed and in a hurry. And they could afford oranges that cost fifteen bucks apiece to bring in from Wellington or Tierra del Fuego.
Suarez stepped out of her cockpit, nodded at her chief, who was in charge of matters from this point, stretched up onto her toes, hefted a rather heavy shoulder bag and headed up the long gravel slope into MacTown. Solid ground, ground that was not bucking and vibrating like the deck of the Jade Monkey, felt oddly uneven and unsteady. She headed toward the new admin building where Cathexis Inc. had a small wing of cubicles—nothing but a bunk and an electrical outlet, really. This was her third trip of the day and Suarez was required by company policy to grab a minimum six hours of sleep. LCACs did not want to be steered by sleepy pilots. LCACs steered by sleepy pilots had a tendency to flip over.
She was intercepted on her way up the road by a tall, not-bad-looking man with a full beard, sunglasses and a big grin. Jim Tanner was Lockheed security. Lockheed ran McMurdo. But it was well known that Tanner was former Naval Intelligence. And it was widely assumed that he was the US government’s eyes and ears on the base. Or at least, one set of eyes and ears.
“Well, hello there, Suarez. Whatcha got in the bag?”
“What, this bag?” Suarez asked innocently.
“Wouldn’t be contraband booze, would it?”
Suarez stopped, unzipped the bag and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. “Huh,” she said. “I wonder how this got in there? And look, it has a twin. You here to help me destroy the evidence, Jim?”
Alcohol was sold at McMurdo, but it was also rationed. Nobody begrudged you a drink, but there were supposed to be limits.
“I would like nothing better.” Tanner took one of the bottles, held it up to read the label. “Ah, the Macallan 16. You’ve grown and matured, Suarez. You have grown and matured.”
“If you’re nice to me and let me get to sleep eventually, I’ll share.”
Tanner handed her back the bottle, grinned, looked away a bit sheepishly and said, “Sadly, I am here in an official capacity.”
Suarez’s eyes narrowed. “Your official official capacity? Or your unofficial official capacity?”
His