LITMIR.BIZ

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airborne I worried about controlling both my stomach and the Zodiac at the same time.

      I kept the Zodiac into the wind, the waves marching at me, slinging their crests into my eyes and blinding me, the icy water sluicing down my face and finding its way past my raingear to my skin. I was very cold; my hands almost blue and stiff like talons as they gripped the throt–tle. I looked up the side of the ship, which looked like a gigantic box perched on a hull, and saw Martha’s neon pink rain suit. She was waving down at me as if I was arriving in the calm of dusk for a cup of tea. Beside her I could see Duncan gripping the rails of the ship, as if by brute force he could lower it down to rescue me. Terry was there too and she looked as scared as I felt. This had not been the plan when we had talked and I guess she felt responsible for the predicament I found myself in.

      I looked back at the crane, its guts hidden from me by the height of the ship. It was stationed on a rear deck and its arm was now swinging back over the ship where it had just deposited the last Zodiac, back out over the water to get me. Slowly the rope with the hook and bosun’s chair attached was played out and I watched as it flayed in the wind like a wild thing. What it could do to my head I decided not to imagine. Where was the hook supposed to go? I looked down at the floorboard and saw a triangular series of ropes with a large, strong, con–fidence-boosting ring on it. The hook would go there first and then I would secure myself into the boson’s chair, in case the hook didn’t hold. I wouldn’t have much time to let go of the engine and secure the hook before the boat would be taken away by the wind and the waves.

      I made my first approach but when I let go of the engine to grab at the hook, rusty and lethal looking, it swung out of my reach and by the time it swung back the boat had drifted too far away. The next time I aimed the boat twenty feet in front of the hook, grateful that the ship’s leeward side sheltered me somewhat from the waves and the wind. I made a grab for the hook with one hand while hauling up the ring with the other and stag–gered as a wave nearly threw me off balance. My hands were so cold they had no feeling and seemed like clumsy hunks of meat, but I got the hook through the ring and waited for the rope to lift and hold firm. Then I lurched back to turn off the engine. I could feel the Zodiac groan–ing under me as the rope began to lift her and I struggled back to get into the bosun’s chair.

      It occurred to me that this was probably the limit of the captain’s ability to hoist up the Zodiacs and that any weather more severe would be out of the question. They didn’t want to lose any tourists after all, and I wondered who would bear the brunt for what was happening to me.

      I tried to keep my mind off the fact that I was slowly ris–ing in the air but I kept seeing myself that first horrifying time, years ago, standing frozen on the side of a moun–tain pass unable to go up or down as I stared hypnotized at the wide expanse of mountain dropping away beneath me on both sides. It had happened so fast. One moment perfectly comfortable, the next a raging agoraphobic par–alyzed by fear; and it had never gone away. Now I was swinging wildly in the air, attached to a ship that was rolling and pitching like a drunk in search of the can.

      The Zodiac swayed in the wind, the crane bucked with the ship, and I slowly rose. The crane began turn–ing me into the ship before it should have and I could see the rust spots on the ship’s side and the water crawling down to find the sea again. Suddenly, sickeningly, the Zodiac lurched violently and the floorboards supporting my weight gave way to air. I was swinging on the bosun’s chair, the Zodiac tilted upwards and swinging beneath me, its stern pointing straight down at the sea. I swung into the side of the ship. The force of impact took my breath away and I felt the Zodiac bouncing off the ship below me. I swung out again, away from the ship, and felt myself rapidly rising. I guessed that the crane opera–tor was trying to get me high enough fast enough so that I wouldn’t bash into the side of the ship again, or I fer–vently hoped so. I looked down, which was a mistake: the churning water mirrored my stomach. I thought I could hear people yelling and suddenly the water below me vanished and was replaced by a wildly moving deck strewn with ropes, Zodiacs, and several crewmembers struggling to control the rogue Zodiac and the spinning contraption that I had become.

      I felt strong hands grabbing at me and voices asking me if I was okay. I wasn’t, of course. My stomach, too long denied, surrendered at last.

Chapter Four

      I woke with a start. Bad idea. My stomach lurched and I groaned. I could hear a deep rumbling in the bow of the ship, somewhere near me, in fact. It awoke some long ago memory and I knew it was the anchor chain rumbling through its tunnel, winching round its drum, coming home to lodge its anchor at the bow of the ship, snuggled in against the hull, held there by the chain, held there by the winch, held there by the brake. The ship was waking up, the almost imperceptible sound of its engine coming alive, revving up as the ship’s crew took her out to sea.

      I looked at the clock on the table beside my bed: 4:30 p.m. I’d only been asleep an hour. Light streamed in from the porthole and I caught some flashes of sun through the swirling fog. A good sign, I hoped. Maybe the sun would chase the wind away and with it the waves. I’d been on board less than two hours and it felt like two weeks. How was I going to get through nine days of lectures if I felt like this every time the waves acted up? I was grateful that the motion of the ship had calmed down, but it felt like I was riding a sleeping mon–ster, breathing gently. I felt like tiptoeing to keep it asleep and prayed it didn’t have nightmares.

      I’d been given a cabin of my own, I guess because I was a lecturer, or female, or both. But it was a really nice cabin so they must have run out of crews’ quarters for me. They couldn’t bunk me in with any of male lectur–ers, and from what Terry had said I’d deduced that I was the only female member of the expedition crew, on this trip anyway. Except, of course, for her. I wondered where she was sleeping. The cabin was well laid out with every conceivable space being put to good use. It was actually two rooms: a tiny outer cabin leading to an even smaller bedroom. There were two beds in the bedroom along two walls, with built-in drawer space under both. The porthole was in a prime location over my bed, and you could open it and stick your head out. I gingerly got to my knees and looked out. I could see land, grim, stark, barren, colour–less, and, by the motion of the ship, I figured the portside; where I found myself, had to be the worst place to be.

      There was a loud knock on my door and before I could answer it flew open to reveal Martha, dressed in full expedition regalia, including the khaki pants with fif–teen pockets, the Tilley hat and down vest, the regulation binocs and the fifteen pounds worth of camera and video equipment hanging off every corner of her body, and an apple in her mouth. But it was what she was carrying in her arms that was alarming. It looked like the entire con–tents of a pharmacy and a bookstore combined.

      “Cordi. Jesus girl, you look awful.” She dumped the contents of her arms onto the table under my porthole and then plopped down on the end of my bed, jerking me against the motion of the waves and causing a small revolt in my stomach.

      “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

      “All you have to do is get your sea legs. Nothing to it.

      You’ll be right as rain tomorrow, but I’ve got lots of anti stuff to get you through the worst.”

      I was hoping the worst had already happened.

      She got up and rummaged through her vials of pills throwing me Gravol caplets, time release, multiple strength tablets, suppositories, and drink crystals. She hauled out various coloured wristbands and stood guard while I chose a pair and put them on, their little plastic cups digging deep into my wrists like tight socks.

      “That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” said Martha as I protested and began to take them off.

      “Leave ’em on, Cordi, leave ’em on. You won’t notice them in five minutes, I guarantee it.”

      “Yeah, right. That’s because my hands will be numb.”

      She fished out a bunch of sugary looking globs. “If you want to go natural instead

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