“Listen,” she said. “My decision has to be about the good of the whole base. If you wind up in a bad situation, getting you out of it becomes a priority. Which would mean putting more of our people at risk. I can’t allow it.”

“And how about Alan Scarborough and those scientists? Since when have they stopped being a priority?”

Megan sat in silence for perhaps thirty seconds, her gaze suddenly sharp.

“Alan wouldn’t want anyone doing something as unwise as what you’ve suggested,” she said in a tight voice.

There was another long interval of silence. Nimec straightened, lifted his hands off her desk, and stepped back from it.

“So we’re done, that it?” he said at last. “This place makes the call.”

Megan shook her head slowly.

“No, Pete,” she said. “I do.”

Their eyes momentarily clashed.

“Appreciate you telling me,” Nimec said, and abruptly turned away from her, leaving the office without another word.

Near Cold Corners Base, Victoria Land

Burkhart stood in an ice-sheathed elbow of rock and gazed through his binoculars as the rising, snarling gusts blew around him.

There, he thought. There it is.

He could see UpLink’s ice station in the basin below, perhaps a half mile to the north, its modular core elevated above the snowdrifts on mechanical stilts. Much closer to his position was the geodesic dome housing the critical life-support facility that had been marked for destruction.

Unseen beneath the neoprene face mask he’d donned in the worsening cold, a touch of a smile. He had emerged from the senses-numbing vacancy of the whiteout, reached his destination with the gale well at his rear.

He turned to the man who’d accompanied him onto the bluff.

“Go back to the others,” he said. “You’re to make camp in the lee slope, wherever its best shelter can be found. Shovel plenty of snow over the ground flaps of our tents. Be sure the flies are also secure.”

The man’s eyes widened behind his goggles, but he remained quiet.

“What’s on your mind?” Burkhart said.

The man hesitated.

“Tell me,” Burkhart said. “I’ll reserve my bite.”

The man shook his head.

“I don’t understand why we’d wait,” he said. “We’ve driven ourselves without halt to outpace the storm.”

Burkhart looked at him, wind clapping the sides of his hood.

“Langern, you’re mistaken,” he said. “We’re meeting the storm. Joining its attack. There’s actually much it can help us take care of, can you see?”

Langern stood a moment.

“Yes, I think,” he said. “But there’s danger in it—”

“No worse than in immobility.” Burkhart made a dismissive gesture. “Is anything else bothering you?”

Langern just shook his head.

“Then get moving,” Burhkart said. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Langern started across the snow, walking downhill to where the rest of the men had waited with the snowmobiles and equipment.