"It's not over," I say, and my voice is fierce. "We are Hollister Wilderness Logistics, remember? We don't quit because things break. We figure it out."
She just cries harder, shaking against me.
I hold her in the snow, ignoring the cold seeping into my knees. I rub her back, making shushing noises, feeling the wet heat of her tears soaking through my layers.
And as I hold her, something clarifies with terrifying simplicity: the mission doesn't matter. The caribou doesn't matter. None of it does.
If I could snap my fingers and fix that antenna, I wouldn't do it to save the expedition. I'd do it just to stop her from making that sound.
I would burn the whole forest down if it kept her warm.
"Come on," I say softly, when the sobbing starts to subside into hiccups. "We're not fixing this in the snow. Let's go to the tent."
"I can't," she whispers. "I can't look at it."
"Then don't look at it. Look at me."
I pull back enough to cup her face in my gloved hands. Her eyes are red, her nose is running, and she looks completely broken.
"Look at me, Aris."
She blinks, focusing on my face.
"We are not done," I tell her. "I have baling wire. I have pliers. I have a soldering iron in the emergency kit and a solar battery to run it. The sat phone's at the bottom of the river with the generator—that we can't fix. But the antenna, we can. I have fixed snowmobile suspensions with paracord and hope. We are going to fix this."
"You can't fix the geometry," she whispers, but there's a tiny spark of desperate hope in her eyes.
"Watch me," I say. "Now up. Before we both freeze to the ground."
I help her stand. She's unsteady, drained. I keep my arm around her waist, taking her weight.
We walk back to the tent. I sit her down on the sleeping bag and wrap a blanket around her.
"Stay," I order.
I go back outside and retrieve the broken antenna. I gather my tool kit. I grab the solar battery.
When I come back in, she's sitting exactly where I left her, staring at nothing.
I sit cross-legged in front of her. I lay the broken pieces out on the tent floor between us.
"Okay," I say, picking up the pliers. "Physics class is in session. Tell me the dimensions."
She sniffs, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "The … the dipole elements need to be 48 centimeters."
"48 centimeters," I repeat, straightening a bent rod. "We can do that."
"The impedance match …"
"We'll bridge it," I say. "I'll strip the coax. We'll solder it directly to the boom."
We work for three hours.
It's delicate, frustrating work. My hands are too big for the tiny connections, but I force them steady while Aris holds the pieces, hers still trembling slightly.
We don't talk about the accident. We talk about the metal, the solder, the connection.
"Hold this," I say, pressing the hot iron to the wire.
