"This is Jennie, Phil," Davey said in a placatory—and slightly patronising—voice to the woman, as if he was edging around a dangerous dog that was threatening to bite him. "She's an old friend of Paulo's, staying at the ice hotel. She's just come to visit us."

Phil ignored him, her eyes set on Paulo. I shrunk into the sofa. To her I was the dog, and someone had just brought me into her living room to do a shit on the carpet.

"Can we talk?" She said to Paulo. She had an Antipodean accent, her talk more like tok. I guessed she was older than me, older than Paulo even, possibly late 30s or early 40s. She was pretty though, no question, even with no makeup and in her shapeless Antarctic clothes, her light afro hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.

Her request to Paulo was less a question, more a demand.

Paulo glanced at me uneasily and said, "Be right back."

Davey puffed out his lips as they left, sharing an eyebrow raise with Stephen.

"Back on the fuckin' drama train again," Davey said wearily. He looked at me. "Like you said, being out here. Intense."

"Don't take it personally," Stephen addressed me, conciliatory. "It wasn't directed at you. Those two are working through some... issues right now. I'm sure they'll sort it out before summer comes round."

"They fucking better, or I'm going to turn into Jack Nicholson in The Shining," Davey said. "They shouldn't allow couples out here. It's not fair on everyone else."

"They're not a couple I don't think, not any more." Stephen frowned at Davey. "And maybe we should let Paulo talk to Jennie about his own affairs, eh?"

"Aye yeah, they're not a couple," Davey replied sheepishly.

I blinked, feeling terribly uncomfortable, trying to take it all in. Had Paulo just broken up with his girlfriend? And now they were stuck out here, on top of each other, for the next five months? Shit, that sounded horrible.

No wonder he was so miserable all the time. He obviously wasn't as good at hiding his heartbreak as I was.

And why did I feel jealous? That's one for the sisterhood, right there.

"Maybe I should go," I said uncertainly, making to get up.

"No, no," Stephen motioned me to stop. "The food is almost ready. They'll be fine. Honestly."

"Philomena's alright," Davey said. "Despite what you just saw. She's under a lot of pressure at the moment, like. Not just him. The job... she's been out here the longest of us all, nine years now. And this is her last winter. They have to dismantle the radiometer at the end of the season. The project's over. It's been her life for a decade, and she's very... specialised. I don't think she knows what she's going to do next. Stressful, like."

I nodded. That gave me sympathy for Phil—if anyone, I should know about involuntarily acting like a psycho—but it didn't make me any less scared of her.

Unfortunately I couldn't leave unless either Paulo took me back to the hotel or one of these guys volunteered to, which didn't look forthcoming.

"I'll check on the supper, okay?" Stephen said, trying to smash the tension in the room through sheer cheeriness of tone. "I bet it's time to eat!"

***

Paulo came back just as we were serving dinner—a very basic pasta bake—looking weary and drawn. Stephen gave him a supportive squeeze on the shoulder, and Paulo nodded, taking a plate.

"Sorry," he said to me, sitting down. "She's had some issues with her data readings today. She shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"Still playing up?" Davey said, spooning pasta onto his plate.

Paulo nodded.

"While we mostly sit round all day getting bored," Stephen said to me, pointing to himself and Davey with a pasta-laden fork, "These guys are doing the work five people would be doing in summer. It's a big load to carry."

"Oh." I nodded, glad to be able to change the subject from Phil. "What are you working on, Paulo?"

Paulo swallowed a mouthful of pasta and said, "Humpback whale behaviour patterns. Mostly migration, filial relationships."

I nodded, my mind straining back to the stuff he'd taught us in my Polar Environments course.

"I thought you said whales left Antarctica in the winter," I said. "Aren't they migratory?"

"Yes." Paulo looked surprised. "Did you remember that from the course, after all this time?"

I nodded. "I remember a lot of it," I admitted. "It was my favourite."

Paulo looked pleased and I felt myself blush.

"Garcia was a good teacher, then?" Stephen asked, grinning at Paulo.

"Yes." I nodded. "Really good. It was that got me interested in Antarctica. It's his fault I'm here, really."

Stephen and Davey laughed, but Paulo's smile fell.

I bit my lip, wondering if I'd been too gushy. I didn't want to act like I was in love with him or anything considering the Philomena situation, and maybe favourite class was an obvious shorthand for crush on the teacher.

"So why are you here in winter, if the whales aren't?" I quickly asked.

"It's very interesting, actually," Paulo said. "You're right, humpbacks do migrate. But for the last few years, there have been some that haven't. It's unprecedented, but they're starting to stay." He nodded enthusiastically, stabbing his pasta with his fork. "So I've been staying too, try to figure out what's going on."

"Wow," I said. "That's amazing. What do you think it is?"

He shrugged. "Climate change? Overfishing? It's hard to say. Maybe it's just that this place is a... a refuge for them. The last place they've got, as they keep getting marginalised."

"Wow," I said again. "That's depressing."

"Yeah," he said. "I suppose. Everything is unpredictable down here, nowadays. The sea ice changing, the marine resources... even the penguins. We've lost two birth cohorts of Adélie penguins in the last few years. Every single chick wiped out. That was pretty depressing."

"It's all fuckin' depressing down here," Davey said, chewing on his pasta. "You wanna talk to Phil about climate change—that's the stuff she's recording with the radiometer. Atmospheric chemicals."

"Or heavy metals, or the ozone hole," Stephen said. "It's like Antarctica is a litmus for all the problems of the world. The global ecosystem is totally falling to pieces, and we're the only ones can see it burn."

"Like the Night's Watch and the Whitewalkers," Davey said.

"Davey's been re-reading Game of Thrones while these guys are working." Stephen smiled.

"I don't think we're the only ones can see it," Paulo said. "It's all there. The evidence is there. We've lost 70% of insects in Europe over the last twenty years, did you see in the news? The environment is screwed." He had a slight Scottish accent when he said screwed, I realised, incongruous amid his lilting South American vowels. He must have learned it in Edinburgh. It was strangely adorable.

"We're not the only people getting this information," Paulo carried on, his cutlery discarded. "We're just forced to think about it. Forced to look."

"Because you're scientists?" I asked.

"Because we've got fuck all else to do." Davey laughed. "There's no distractions down here. No-one to see, nothing to do... no YouTube, no Netflix, rationed Facebook. We only have the internet a few hours a day, and then it's dial-up speeds and we're supposed to just use it for transferring their data. There's only so many times you can read Game of Thrones. So you're forced to think about the state of the world."

"You only have the Internet a few hours a day?" I asked.

Paulo nodded. "Yeah, because of satellite placement, over the horizon. The time changes too, so it can be nine to eleven pm or two to four am, depending on the day. That's why it took me so long to reply to your message." He looked down at his plate, suddenly shy. "I tried to get hold of you when I saw it, before connectivity slipped out again, but I couldn't."

"Oh," I said.

That explained both the twelve messages, and Paulo taking such a long time to reply. I was starting to feel like a total hysterical dork for assuming it actually meant he was a) unhinged b) a gangster and c) about to kill me.

The pasta was gone, and there was a clattering of plates as Stephen started to clear up.

"So what data do you record on the whales?" I asked Paulo as they bustled around us.

"They're tagged," he said, "and we have sensors in the bay, running all the time. I have to go out and check the sensors every day, and sort the data inputs to send back to Cambridge, which I do from my office here."

"Cool," I said.

"We even have recordings of their sonar calls," he said. "It's beautiful. Would you... do you want to hear?"

I bit my lip and nodded, inexplicably blushing again. Paulo has changed since we started talking about the whales. He was lighter, sincere, more like the dreamy teacher I remembered.

"We get lots of whales up in Shetland," I said. "Where I'm from. Whalsay—my island—it means whale island."

He smiled, genuinely. "I always wanted to go up there, when I was in Edinburgh. I never got the chance."

The back of my neck prickled with pleasure, and I swatted at it, embarrassed.

We left Stephen and Davey clearing the dishes, and headed down one of the bright, echoing corridors again. I was starting to acclimatise to the heat in the research station, and the thought of going back to the privations of the ice hotel made my heart sink.

Paulo pressed a code into a little box, opening a door onto another corridor with a beep. He looked warily to the right as we passed through, his footfalls lightening.

I followed his gaze and saw a door marked with

Oates Research Station
Microwave Radiometer

Radiometer—that must be Philomena's lab. She could easily be in there. I quickened my pace.

"Here," Paulo led me into another office, his relief palpable as he closed the door. It was dim, the only light coming from the twinkling displays on the banks of computer screens spread across the back of the desk. He sat down in front of it, pulling up a chair for me.

"This is a time-lapse of the humpbacks' movements," he said. "I can go back... six years."

A monochrome figure appeared on the central screen, which I immediately recognised as a map of the world's oceans.

"Each red line is the journey of a whale," he said.

Long red lines drew themselves all over the ocean, like the steady mark of an artisan.

"Wow," I said. "They're so straight."

"They're amazing navigators," Paulo said eagerly. "We still don't know exactly how they do it. They can sense the earth's electromagnetic radiation." He clicked on the mouse, zooming in to the bottom of the picture.

"Now... look here," he said. "And what happens when we hit 2013."

Smaller, more contained red lines started to form patterns like petals in the Antarctic sea.

"They're staying." Paulo put out a finger, traced the growing lines curling round each other on the screen.

I watched the artistry of the whales' dance playing out on the screen, entranced. The petals were denser now, like a carnation.

"Do you want to hear the calls?" Paulo said, swizzling on his seat to face another screen. I have the sound files here—"

I watched the red whale-flower bloom on the map, thinking of New Leith, of those old wooden whalers, those wool-clad men from Scotland, Shetland and Orkney. Cold men. Hard men. Adventurers.

Vikings all.

I thought of a different red flower, also made of whales, staining the pristine blue of the Antarctic sea.

I watched the carnation bloom.

The lines, so swooping and sure, began to wobble. The edges frayed, the symmetry lost.

Then the image froze.

Paulo said nothing, his attention on the other screen.

"Wait," I said to Paulo. "What happened then?"

"That's the end of the data-set." He switched it off. "We're up to the present day."

"But before that." I frowned. "Why did the lines go so strange?"

Paulo shrugged, his face tired. "I don't know. There's been an irregularity in the data for the last few weeks. I don't know if it's the whales themselves, or some fault in my tags. That's what I need to find out. But with just me up here... if there is a fault, all the data—all our work—it's invalidated. Destroyed. Unless I can work out what it is, I'll be letting the whole team down. Letting the whales down."

He rubbed his eyes. "What with worrying about this, and then Phil..." he glanced at me, then awkwardly glanced away, obviously embarrassed to have mentioned her. "I've barely been able to sleep for weeks."

I nodded, my heart breaking for him. What a burden, to be trapped out here, alone with his dying relationship; his work—and the world—falling apart around him.

I pictured Suzie, her glib commitment to happiness and gratitude. How being positive, feeling good, was the ultimate goal of her existence, both practically and spiritually, above all else.

All the yoga and meditation and #thinkpositive in the world would mean nothing in this scenario, I thought grimly.

Then it hit me.

Suzie.

Of course.

That was it.

My eyes opened so wide my eyeballs could have slipped down onto my cheeks.

She's been right all along.

"Paulo," I said, my voice choked. "I think I know what might have happened to the whales."

What I didn't say was that I also thought I knew something else.

That the same thing had been killing people, too.