Page 51 of Under Story

This was an unusual offer. A lab tech was expected to support other people’s research, not to pursue their own.

“Are you saying that because you believe what happened in March, or because you care about me?”

“Both,” said Gloria, stubbornly.

Laurel was Gloria’s last hire: she retired one year later. Laurel and Eli hosted a celebratory, mushroom-themed potluck. By then, Gloria couldn’t stand for long periods. Laurel put a lawn chair in the shade garden, where she sat amid the native prairie plants. Unlike most professors of her stature, Gloria’s ego was not obvious, but Laurel knew that it existed. She looked queenly in that scene of black-eyed Susans, and she did not seem to mind the length of her receiving line.

After everyone else left—including Eli, who had gone indoors to relieve the babysitter—someone knocked on the door to the garden. Laurel opened it with a flourish. There stood a surprise guest: Tess, visiting from the Netherlands. She held a suitcase and a box of black licorice, having come straight from the airport.

Gloria was delighted. They sat beside the firepit while Tess described Utrecht: the De Haar Castle, which she believed was haunted; the Oudegracht, with its wharf sellers and underground tunnels; and the Botanic Gardens, where she liked to go to think. The Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute, Tess’s employer, hosted the world’s largest collection.

“I’m so happy for you,” Laurel said.

And she was. Laurel envied Tess’s position, but she didn’t hold it against her. She had never had Eli’s confidence, his sense of being meant for something great. If a grant proposal was rejected, Eli took the news as an affront; Laurel assumed that she simply wasn’t good enough. Still, when Gloria left to retrieve a new bottle of wine, Laurel shrank from the pity in Tess’s expression.

“How’s it going,” Tess asked, “taking over for Samir?”

“Oh,” said Laurel, “it’s fine.”

Tess nodded. “It might just be for now.”

“That’s what Gloria says. But I can’t think like that. It’s too hard to hold both doors open.”

They turned in after midnight. Gloria tutted as Laurel blinked back tears (“I’ll be retired,” she said, “not dead”). As time went on, though, Laurel felt relieved that Gloria no longer worked in the Rhizotron. She rarely returned to her experiment. The successful results still haunted her, but she couldn’t bear another failure. Besides, there was always someone who needed a return processed or an incubator cleaned.

“Maybe there’s a silver lining,” Maisie said, later that summer. They sat in her backyard with Hazel, Silas, and Maisie’s second child, baby Frankie. “Academia can be so up its own…”

She pointed at her backside, and Hazel, watching, said, “Butt.”

Laurel tried to be rational. Maisie was right: being a researcher meant navigating department politics and oversized egos, competing for funding and publication. Besides, the lab couldn’t function without a technician. She was contributing to scholarship, even if it wasn’t her own. But when the department made a new hire—or when she visited Eli’s faculty office—the humiliation overwhelmed her. Two years later, Laurel left for Antarctica. She felt little further anguish. The defeat had already happened.

Eli enters the library five minutes late. Laurel and Nita wait at the back table.

“One of the IceCubes trapped me in the stairwell,” he says, harried. “Nita, thank you for entertaining this.”

Nita smiles, brief but genuine. “Off the record, you’re welcome. On the record?”

Eli pulls out a chair. “We’ve never even met.”

Nita doesn’t waste time. “The big secret is that sneaking a dive at McMurdo is alarmingly straightforward. The dive locker has all the equipment, and anyone can go inside. Cape Evans is only fifteen miles away, but getting there takes almost two hours; you have to use a PistenBully, which can drive over snow. There are always a handful parked next to the locker. We leave the keys in the ignition.”

“That seems way too simple,” Laurel says.

“Well, the dive won’t be. You’ll have to wait until summer for warmth and light; I’d recommend October. To avoid the field trainers, you can use an open dive hole at night. But you’ll need to physically prepare. The cold is unlike anything you’ve experienced, and you have to build tolerance. Crank the shower to some ungodly temperature and breathe. Add cardio and strength training, too. That’ll teach your body to use oxygen efficiently. Laurel said you have dive experience?”

“In warm water. We aren’t certified for ice diving,” says Eli.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Nita squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again, she retrieves a spiral-bound document. “This is the McMurdo dive guide. Memorize it. You’ll be using different gear: dry suits, from the locker. Make sure they fit at the wrists and the ankles, especially on Laurel. McMurdo only keeps a few women’s suits on hand. The rest are unisex, but dive equipment is made for men.”

“Is that true?” asks Eli, stricken.

Squinting at him, Nita sighs.

“Beneath the suit,” she continues, “layer up with heavy-duty polypro and fleece. You can find undergarments at Skua. Now let’s talk about the terrain.”

It’s easy to picture Nita as the captain of an expedition ship, her instincts sharpened by crisis. Laurel writes quickly to keep up.

“The area that Laurel calls the basin is roughly the same size as the Arc. They’re both one hundred and twenty feet wide, sixty feet deep in the middle,” says Nita. “Because you aren’t used to the cold, you’ll need to be as quick as possible. Are you both confident swimmers?”