Page 127 of Under Story

Pippa peers up at Laurel. For the first time, she is bookless and looks interested.

“Me, too,” says Laurel.

“No, you didn’t.”

Pippa’s curiosity turns to indignation. Laurel has done her the same insult as the other patronizing adult passengers. The thunder in her gaze reminds Laurel of Harry Cooke. As his child, after all, Pippa must have raised him.

And now Laurel hears Harry’s voice.

“Pippa?” he calls, and Laurel’s throat closes.

Pippa’s nose twitches at the sound, but she doesn’t reply. Instead, she walks toward Laurel.

“I know you’re lying,” she says. “Say the truth.”

They face each other. Laurel looks at Pippa’s small, set mouth and the bangs that sweep her lashes. Harry Cooke is known to entertain a carousel of girlfriends. For the first time, Laurel wonders who Pippa’s mother is.

“What if I told you that there are two universes, not one, and that I come from the other?” Laurel speaks very quietly. “What if I said that the portal is here in Antarctica?”

Pippa’s eyebrows lift. There is a reason, Laurel thinks, that you can tell the truth to a child. They’ll believe you.

“I’d say,” Pippa whispers, “that you shouldn’t tell my dad.”

Laurel hears Harry’s boots crunching through snow. She flattens herself against the dive hut.

“There you are,” says Harry, to Pippa. “Planning an escape?”

If he takes one more step, he’ll see Laurel.

“No,” says Pippa. “I thought I saw a book on the ground.”

Laurel could have kissed her.

“Oh.” The interest fades from Harry’s voice. “Well, leave it there. You have plenty of books already.”

—

Laurel hurries toward the ice pier. Eli is looking for her. His shoulders are clenched, and his expression is frantic: without cell phones, she had no way to tell him she was safe. When he sees her, he puts a hand to his chest. Only then does he raise his brows in query. Laurel shakes her head.

Eli turns slightly away, as if to absorb this news in privacy. When he faces her again, Laurel sees a flash of despair, of failure and ferocious disappointment.

Then he nods. When she joins them, he holds her close. Back on the ship, his hand doesn’t leave hers.

In the days that follow, the atmosphere on the Astralis changes. A subtle tension, built over weeks at sea, is dispelled. People mingle in new combinations. The influencer leaves her ring light in her room. When a minke whale surfaces, no one reaches for their phone.

At dinner, Laurel joins a queue of passengers and realizes that she’s spent the trip judging them. Maybe her irritation with their covetousness, their perceived self-absorption, reflected her frustration with herself. Haven’t Laurel and Eli been tourists in this universe, as set on acquisition—in their way—as Harry Cooke? There was one thing they wanted: Silas. For years, they’ve been trying to extract him.

One afternoon, the Astralis passes a fusing glacier. It looks so fragile. Healing, Laurel thinks. Smaller pieces float nearby, ebbing closer. The larger seams have just knitted together. As they turn to leave, a software CEO wipes his eyes. That evening, he sits with an investor and a biologist, brainstorming an app to incentivize water conservation.

At the bar that evening, Laurel chats with the actress, who confides that she splurged on the cruise to research a major film role.

“I could have just read about Antarctica. Watched YouTube videos. But it’s different, being here—so my performance will be different. I think people will be able to feel that,” she says. “Maybe it’s absurd to think that I could make a difference. But maybe people leave the theater caring more about this place.”

Before their final leg at sea, the Astralis stops at Macquarie Island. Birds wheel overhead: the petrel, which appears to run on water before launching; the crescent-shaped fork-tailed swift; and the wandering albatross, which can fly for years before descending. Because this is mating season for the albatross, strict rules are established: passengers may only observe the birds from afar.

They tumble out of the ship, loose, giddy. Macquarie Island is halfway from Antarctica to New Zealand, but it feels tangibly different. The temperature hovers in the forties. Tussock grass grows six feet tall. There is, too, a native ruby-headed orchid, and a preposterous giant cabbage whose roots were boiled and pickled by explorers.

Laurel finds that she’s nervous—she doesn’t know what mating season means here—but the afternoon passes without incident. The passengers see a convention of gentoo penguins and hear the roar of elephant seals. They come upon the albatrosses from a distance, while walking back to the ship.