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been a threat as a wave but for the broad smile between her bright red cheeks. ‘Bye daddy!’
    ‘Bye honey,’ Cody waved back, his own features aching with the smile plastered across his face.
    His wife, Danielle, lifted Maria out of shot and then reached out to the camera, tilting it back slightly so that he could see her face.
    ‘Hi,’ Cody said as the ache faded away.
    ‘Hi.’
    There was no passion in the response, as if she were reading from a script. Cody waited for more words to come forth but Danielle stared at the monitor as though she were looking at a painting.
    ‘How’s Maria been?’ he asked.
    ‘She’s good,’ Danielle replied, ‘been to her Gran’s this morning. She says hello.’
    The sound of Maria running up and down and singing to herself out of shot stretched another smile across Cody’s features. On the monitor he saw Danielle’s expression soften as she glanced at their daughter.
    ‘She asks after you every day.’
    Cody nodded and ducked his head as fresh waves of pain stabbed at his eyes. He dragged a hand across his face and took a breath that shuddered through his chest. Words spilled from within him as though escaping of their own accord.
    ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out here.’
    Danielle glanced down into her lap but said nothing. Her long brown hair fell over her face and she swiped it aside.
    ‘You’ll miss her birthday.’
    Cody felt a surge of anger seethe through his belly but somehow he managed to beat it back down.
    ‘I know I’ll miss her birthday. If I could change things, I would.’
    Danielle glared out of the monitor at him and bit her lip but said nothing. Cody took another deep breath of cold air.
    ‘Pack ice is building up and the winter storms are starting here. Communication might get difficult. Can you do me a favour?’
    Danielle stared at the screen. No movement or words.
    ‘Can you video Maria, maybe just a few minutes a week, and e-mail it to me? I know I can’t be there but I don’t want to miss too much.’
    Danielle nodded once. ‘Maybe you should have thought of that?’
    Cody felt his fists ball in his lap and felt his jaw aching again, this time for all the wrong reasons.
    ‘The military flights are rare and civilian aircraft even more so. Chances of me hitching a ride out of here early are zero. Besides, it wouldn’t do us much good, would it?’
    Danielle gave a dismissive flick of her eyebrows as she looked away from the camera. Cody’s anger finally spilled over.
    ‘You think that I chose this? You think that what happened was somehow my fault? You think I want to be stuck up here freezing my ass off?’
    ‘I don’t know what I think.’
    ‘Then how can you judge me?’
    ‘I’m not goddamned judging anybody!’
    Danielle’s voice was a harsh whisper as she tried to prevent their daughter from hearing the anger in their exchange. Cody reined himself in.
    ‘Five months,’ he said finally. ‘Five months and this will all be over, okay?’
    Danielle looked at him for a long moment.
    ‘This will be with us forever, no matter what we do or where we go. We’ll never escape it, Cody.’
    Cody lost patience. ‘Better that, than the alternative.’
    Cody reached out and terminated the connection on the computer. He dragged a hand down his face as though trying to wipe the slate of his life clean and then got up and walked out of the room.
    The lights in the living quarters were on, the windows black as though it were midnight. Cody mentally reminded himself that it was barely past three in the afternoon. This far north the pale twilight that passed for day lasted only a few hours, the pink and gold glow on the horizon swiftly fading.
    Bethany Rogers sat at a dining table with a series of charts in her hands, and tapped one with a pencil.
    ‘Best place for the new CO2 monitors is definitely out at the ice camp,’ she said. ‘There’s a slim chance that aircraft activity at the airbase could contaminate our measurements