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son?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘You’re from Boston, like the rest?’ Jake asked.
    ‘Yeah,’ Cody confirmed and looked back at the sun’s distant glow, ‘Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You?’
    ‘Cali,’ Jake replied.
    ‘Jesus, that’s an environment change.’
    ‘Your file said you’ve got a daughter?’ Jake asked as they stared at the distant glow.
    ‘Three years old,’ Cody replied, and felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips despite the cold. ‘Maria.’
    Jake nodded slowly as they stood together. ‘And you came here?’
    ‘This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, to get to Alert and do this research.’
    ‘Ice is getting thinner,’ Jake replied. ‘Ice breakers are getting through easier. There’s no reason to believe that the science is urgent.’
    ‘Climate change isn’t urgent?’ Cody almost laughed.
    ‘Your presence isn’t,’ Jake replied.
    Cody turned to look at the older man, letting his hood conceal his expression a little. ‘Why are you giving me a hard time about being here?’
    Jake smiled. ‘I just like to know who I’m working with is all.’
    ‘You’re working with a bunch of people who like being stuck a couple of thousand miles away from pretty much everybody else. That should tell you something.’
    ‘It only tells me the how, not the why,’ Jake countered. ‘I’ve worked in places like this plenty of times before and believe me it can be hard on folk. Sooner or later there’ll be a bust-up of some kind. Just make sure it’s not you, okay?’
    Cody looked at Jake for a long moment before replying. ‘Sure.’
    Jake gave Cody a thick gloved pat on the back, then turned and trudged away toward the observatory.
    Cody let out an irritated breath onto the frozen air and watched the cloud of vapour spiral away from him. The last thing he wanted was to babysit everybody else. Christ, escaping company was half the reason he’d travelled all the way out here. The vast, empty expanses of the Arctic plains seemed to draw away from him as his brain began to calculate just how far away civilisation was. How much he had done. Why he had done it. Whether or not he should have.
    ‘Yo’, Cody!’
    The voice rolled across the ice from far behind him and Cody turned to see Bethany standing in a pool of light on the observatory steps with her thumb and forefinger pressed to the side of her head as she pointed at him. Then she tapped her wrist and gestured to the observatory.
    Cody gave her a thumbs-up and started off through the snow.
    ***

3
    ‘She’s beautiful.’
    Bethany walked past Cody as she left the observatory’s communications room, smiling broadly.
    The heat in the interior of the building felt almost tropical as Cody pulled off one of his three sweaters and walked into the room. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, which read just after three in the afternoon as he sat down in front of a monitor and looked straight into his daughter’s big, brown eyes.
    Maria Ryan was the cutest bundle of perfection that Cody had ever laid eyes on, and now the sight of her after just a couple of weeks away caused sharp needles of pain to pierce the corners of his eyes as his throat twisted upon itself.
    ‘Hi honey,’ he managed to rasp as he reached out and touched Maria’s face on the screen.
    ‘Daddy!’
    She was sitting in her mother’s lap, writhing and giggling as she saw her father’s face. A satellite relay-connection to a base called Eureka, several hundred nautical miles to the south, allowed researchers stationed at Alert to make video-calls to their families once a week, provided adverse weather didn’t scramble the transmissions. Now, with clear skies outside he could hear Maria’s laughter and excitement as she scrutinised his image on the screen in their Boston home. They spoke for a few moments until he heard his wife’s voice.
    ‘C’mon Maria, wave goodbye to daddy now.’
    Maria shook one hand at the screen in a gesture that could as easily have