The Mystery's afterhold had become a makeshift hospital. The entire South Pole crew had required treatment upon returning, but now only Kosta, Lombardo, Oppenheim, and Andrew remained belowdecks.

Outside, the crew pounded on the ice that trapped the ship. Captain Barth's voice was clear through four feet of hull: "Put your weight into it, men!"

Andrew wanted to rise up and help — step outside, grip an ax in his frostbitten palms, and hack with the best of them. He was different now. The trip across the continent had changed him. He wasn't the kid they thought he was: the expedition leader's stepson. A dreamer. A bookworm. A sixteen-year-old landlubber playing sailor.

But he couldn't very well prove it in the afterhold.

Andrew had learned the unspoken lessons of the sailors. Every day was a battle — position and planning, strategy and tactics. Life was about survival. Using the enemy's strength to your advantage. Trimming you sails against a strong head wind, lowering them before a storm. Finding shelter under a pressure ridge and warmth in a cave of solid ice. Learning never to repeat your mistakes.

Andrew had fought his battle and lost. He had collapsed a leading dog sledge across the continent, with no reliable navigation and a partner who could neither speak English nor walk.

The sledge had traveled onward without him, 200 yards before reaching the Mystery. If his stepbrother, Colin, hadn't found him, Andrew would have frozen, his body preserved forever in an ice cap that would push northward and eventually send him, encased in an iceberg, out to sea.