“Wouldn’t want you to think I’m trying to sway anybody about my niece’s job ap with your company . . . it’d be at that new satellite radio station UpLink just launched,” he said innocently. “Her name’s Patricia Miller, super kid, graduated college with honors. A communications major. Her friends call her Trish.”

Nimec looked at the back of his head.

“Trish.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sure she’ll get a square evaluation.”

Evers nodded again.

Nimec moved to a window as they descended through wisps of scattered, patchy clouds. Soon the ocean came into sight beneath the Herc’s nose, its calm ice-speckled surface resembling a glass tabletop covered with flaked and broken sugar cubes.

“Looks like a dense ice pack down there,” Nimec said. “That how it is the whole way to the coast?”

“Depends,” Evers said. “In summer months the floes tend to cluster around the mainland in a circular belt, then give way to open water. What you’re seeing’s actually a moderate distribution. The big, flat blocks are tabular bergs that have broken away from the ice shelf. They’re very buoyant, lots of air trapped inside them, which is why they reflect so white. An iceberg with darker blotches and an irregular form is usually a hunk of a glacier that’s migrated from inland and rafting mineral sediment.”

Nimec kept studying the ice-clogged water. “How big is ‘big’?”

“An average tab is from fifty to a hundred fifty feet tall, and between two and four hundred feet long. Take a look out to starboard, though, and you can see one I’d estimate goes up over three hundred feet.”

Nimec spotted the iceberg out the window, surprised by its illusory appearance.

“Wow,” he said. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Bear in mind the visible mass of a berg is maybe a third of what’s below the water. That’s by conservative measure. Sometimes the base is nine times as deep as the upper portion is high.”

“Tip of the iceberg.”

“Exactly,” Evers said. “I’ll tell you something . . . it’s been a little over three years since my Air Guard unit took over Antarctic support ops from the Navy’s Squadron Six. The Ice Pirates. They’d been hauling supplies and personnel to the continent for a half century, got disestablished because of spending cutbacks. About a year later I’m transferred to Cheech from our home base in Schenectady, New York. The twenty-first day of March, 2000. That very day NOAA polar sats pick up the largest iceberg in recorded history calving off the Ross Ice Shelf. A hundred and eighty-three miles long, twenty-three wide. Twice the size of Delaware. And of the previous record holder.”

Nimec released a low whistle. “And you’ve been hoping it was just a coincidence ever since.”