Because the flights that carried away the discard arrived with irregular frequency during austral summer—and in winter months arrived not at all—the volume produced by CC’s inhabitants often exceeded the storage capacity of the milvans. At such times, all retro except segregated toxic chemical, medical, and biological waste was brought down into designated utilidor chambers, which allowed for its interim cold storage in conditions that prevented decomposition and posed no threat to health or the environment.

In practical terms, frozen human remains met the definition of retrograde to the letter.

Nimec turned to see the strapping figure of Ron Waylon come up beside him. They exchanged a serious glance. “How’s it going at the dome?” Nimec asked.

Waylon made an indeterminate gesture with his shoulders.

“It’ll be a while before I can tell whether we can get the pump back in action.” He offered a bleak smile. “Wish I’d known what was in store when I went and bragged about us being good at patching things up.”

“Say we can’t get it running,” Nimec said. “What then?”

“Good question,” Waylon said. “I’ve ordered a replacement unit, but the whole system’s manufactured to spec in California. The components have to be assembled, shipped, installed, and operational before our freshwater reserves run out.” He shook his head. “It cuts things awful close.”

“Maybe closer than we can stand?”

“Maybe,” Waylon said. “And that’s with crisis usage restrictions in place. No way around it, sir, we’re in a scrape.”

Nimec grunted, then stood in quiet thought.

“Okay,” he said. “What about those volunteers I wanted?”

“The men should be down here soon,” Waylon said. “They’re getting a Delta out of the garage to move the bodies out to the airstrip.”

“You hear anything from the comm tech . . . Huberman, that his name . . . ?”

Waylon nodded.

“Clay Huberman,” he said. “He verified the transport aircraft are on their way. A pair of de Havillands out of Punta Arenas.”

Nimec looked at him. “That’s Chile. And aren’t those planes little eight seaters?”

Waylon nodded again.

“Twin Otters,” he said. “They’re flown by a private Canadian outfit that specializes in polar aviation, does a lot of contract work for NSF. Everything from ferrying around researchers to rescue operations. The crews really know their stuff. Brought that doctor out of South Pole station last winter—”

“That’s not the point. The 109th Guard was supposed to handle this from Christchurch. We were expecting a Herc. I asked for Captain Evers . . . he’s somebody we can trust.”

“I know, sir. But the weather’s still spotty around Herbie Alley—that’s out on the South Sea between Black Island and White Island—and it doesn’t look like anybody’s going to be able to take off from Cheech for another couple of days.”

Nimec dropped his eyes to the body bags and then raised them back to Waylon’s face.