Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire by Christa Faust, Gabriel Hunt

made their way through icy winds down a narrow runway of smooth snow toward a growling ski-equipped LC-130.
    The pilot—Speedo—turned out to be a handsome, weathered sort with merry blue eyes and a troublemak-er’s grin. He was clearly thrilled to be breaking the rules. He helped the team unload three pallets of frozen Tater Tots to make room for their gear and did so with all the glee of a teenager preparing to sneak out after curfew. According to Rue, Speedo had some shadowy, possibly sexual ties to a prominent female senator, and was therefore un-fireable and able to get away with murder up here.
    “So,” Millie asked the pilot as they worked together to secure the gear for takeoff. “Why do they call you Speedo?”
    “What do you think?” he replied, heading for the cockpit. “I’m the fastest you’ll ever see. Maybe you’d better buckle up, son.”
    After he closed the cockpit door, Rue said, “Fast’s got nothing to do with it. I bet him once he wouldn’t run from the Heavy Shop to Crary Lab and back in nothing but bunny boots and his little bathing suit,” she said. “He won the bet. Everyone calls him Speedo ever since.”
    “So he isn’t fast?” Millie said.
    “I didn’t say that,” Rue said.
    The ride to the Pole was choppy and uncomfortable but otherwise uneventful, giving Gabriel and his teamtime to gawk out the windows at the awe-inspiring landscape below. It was 10:30 P.M. but the sun shone bright as noon across the towering blue glaciers and curious, surreal formations of windblown ice. At first they saw fat seals huddled together in writhing brown masses the size of football fields and large troops of penguins clustered around the edges of slushy holes in the endless frozen sea, but as they moved inexorably southward, deeper into the cold dead interior of the continent, living things became more scarce and eventually vanished altogether. The plane flew low over soaring white mountain ranges like giant carnivorous teeth and grim, dead valleys with no ice at all, just scattered stone and dry, barren dirt. Eventually the landscape flattened out to an endless stretch of frozen nothing. When they finally spotted the distinctive geodesic dome of Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Gabriel felt Velda grip his gloved hand, her long thigh pressing against his as she leaned closer to the window.
    Speedo put the big cargo plane down on the ice with a bone-jarring bump and rattle. Velda’s hold on Ga-briel’s hand tightened, then released.
    When Gabriel exited the plane, he was not prepared for the raw and brutal power of the wind. It leapt on him like a hungry tiger, tearing at his exposed face and nearly knocking him flat. He had heard that the South Pole was the windiest place on earth, but knowing it and experiencing it were two totally different things.
    On the long, frozen airstrip, the team was met by what appeared to be an enormous Yeti. He was taller than Millie, with a long, ice-encrusted yellow beard and featureless black goggles sticking out of the fur hood of a safety-orange parka.
    “Velda,” the Yeti cried in a heavy Scandinavian accent.Gabriel had to strain to hear over the roar of the engines and the howling wind. “We did not know if you would make it.”
    “Nils,” Velda shouted back. “It’s good to see you. How is Elaine?”
    “She is well.” Nils turned to Millie. “This must be Gabriel Hunt.”
    Millie smiled and shook his head.
    “Millie Ventrose,” he said, shaking the Yeti’s gloved hand. “That’s Gabriel.”
    The Yeti looked over and down. At six feet even, Gabriel rarely felt small, but standing between these two mountains could give any man outside the NBA a complex.
    “Pleased to meet you, Nils,” Gabriel said, sticking out a hand.
    When Nils took it to shake, Gabriel felt something odd and unbalanced in the other man’s grip. It took him a minute to realize that the last two fingers of the man’s glove were empty.
    “This is Rue Aparecido,”