Polar Quest

She took a deep breath and sank into herself. In her mind’s eye, Annja could see the sword hovering in space, waiting to be used. Annja reached for it and touched the handle. A jolt of energy seemed to surge through her body as it always did when she prepared to unsheathe the blade.

The dull glow extended from the sword blade up her hands and wrists now. Annja watched it spread farther. Can I will this to cover my body? she wondered. On cue, the glow spread farther up her arms until she could feel the prickliness of its energy encompassing her entire upper torso. Annja willed it farther down toward her cracked rib. The energy seemed to vibrate and then pulse.

Annja continued to breathe deeply, feeling the sword’s energy flow through her entire body now like the pulsing effect she’d heard mentioned in relation to ki energy in Japan.

The sword glowed brighter and the energy seemed to increase.

Annja could feel a more powerful flow rushing through her body. She started to sweat and then shiver as alternating currents flowed through her.

And then the glow of the sword started to diminish.

She opened her eyes in the darkness of her room. Her side didn’t ache nearly as much as it had only moments before. Perhaps her pain medicine was finally kicking in.

Or perhaps the sword had helped heal her.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been aided by the mystical blade. Or by the strange plane of existence where it resided.

Thank God I have that, Annja thought. Otherwise, there was no telling how much of a liability she’d be to Zach and Dave on the mountain.

She yawned and took a deep breath.

It was time to sleep.

And time was already ticking toward her three-o’clock wake-up call. The last thing she wanted was to be sleepy tomorrow when they set out.

She had a lot of questions for Zach.

And she intended to get some answers.

“JUST A CRACKED RIB.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“For all that trouble and you only managed to bust her rib up? What’s the point of doing something if you can’t even manage to carry it out all the way through?”

“We tried.”

“You didn’t try hard enough. And now you’ve got the marshal’s attention, haven’t you?”

The man from the bar listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, well, he’ll get a bunch of descriptions. We could be any two guys down here.”

“In the summer, that would be fine. But how many people are in town right now?”

“Maybe two hundred.”

“Exactly my point, you idiot. Two hundred lowers the odds substantially, doesn’t it? All the marshal needs is one good description and at the very least, he’ll want to talk to you.”

“He can’t hold us on any charge, though. No one saw us try to take her out. No witnesses.”

He heard a sigh on the telephone. “That doesn’t matter. You’ve drawn attention to yourselves. And the marshal will be keeping an eye out now for potential troublemakers.”

“We can take her right now. Go to her place and break in. I know where she’s staying.”

“The idea, you louse, was to make it look like an accident, albeit a bizarre one. Now you want to go charging in and just kill her? That’s not exactly the most intelligent thing to do, now, is it?”

“I guess not.”

He heard another sigh. “You guess not. How wonderful.”

“So what do you want us to do, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? But I thought—”

“No,” said the voice in his ear. “You didn’t think. You didn’t think at all. And that’s why this simple little matter has suddenly become infinitely more complicated than it ever had to be. You and your partner there will do nothing more against her. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tomorrow, when she and the two others leave, you will follow them. Covertly, mind you. I don’t want them knowing you’re tracking them.”

“Then what?”

“Follow them out to the dig site. Make sure they get there intact and that nothing happens to them.”

The man frowned. “You want us to make sure they’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Obviously. You get them out there intact. Once they’re on the site, their attention will be focused elsewhere.”

“Okay.”

“At which point,” the voice on the phone said, “I will be able to ensure none of them ever returns to McMurdo Station.”

8

When Annja’s alarm clock erupted at three o’clock, she moaned and wanted nothing more than to slam the snooze bar down and sleep for another year. Her dreams had been mostly scattered images of her past adventures and how many injuries she’d sustained throughout them. It felt as if she’d been reliving the greatest hits of her past rather than enjoying the deep levels of sleep that would heal her.

Despite the reckless smorgasbord of dreams, Annja woke with her rib feeling much better than it had when she’d gone to sleep. She probed around the injury and decided that it must not have been as bad as she’d feared.

“That’s something, anyway,” she said to herself as she gingerly got out of bed. Her feet touched the warm carpet and she padded into the bathroom.

Once there, she carefully stripped off the tape around her midsection. The deep purple that had colored the bruised area last night was now a light yellow. Annja frowned. Was it really possible that the sword had healed her?

She started the water for her bath and watched the clouds of steam fill up the bathroom. Annja added some soap and waited as the bubbles blossomed in the water, rapidly filling the entire tub.