The rain, that ceaseless wet that was winter along the shore of the sound here in the northwest, fell in a hissing torrent across the University yard. Allen Garrison leaned on the sill of the tall window of his cluttered room and looked out into a gray night. Gray because of his mood. Gray because of the rapidly slimming prospects for his completing the quest that had occupied most of his entire adult life. And, in a concession that Allen made to the simple physics of the situation, gray because of the rain and the inadequate flood lights installed to beat back the night for the safety of the students on campus - flood lights he was happy to use for the security of the gear he had staged in three great heaps in the center of the sodden lawn.

Allen leaned forward with his lean grizzled hands pressing against the window frame at either side. Looking away from the bright lights he could see a reflection of an old man. The old man had short gray hair in a slightly longish crew cut that almost looked punk in its wildness though Allen wouldn't know punk though he routinely encountered them on campus and at Pike's Place market in Seattle on his occasional trips to discuss dahlias with a friend who worked there. The old man used to be a little over six feet tall but even with the spiked hair was lucky if he could stare down a five eight free safety who really didn't want to be in on of the few labs that Allen still taught at the college. He taught the labs to stay real , to be in touch , and just to keep an eye on the undergraduates for promise . He'd found one or two such students over the years. He'd need to find another soon and he thought maybe he had. Behind the spartan steel rims of his bifocals his eyes studied the old man for a few more seconds. He noted that his beard, which he normally kept short and neat, could use a trim and that his teeth which he had always neglected, at least as far as several dentist friends of his were concerned, were still good, and then turned away.

His self-examination in the dark glass complete, he studied the heaps with even more care. The tarps looked secure, every edge was carefully weighted, the whole collection was roped down and Allen was confident that the precious tents and other boxes of specialized acoustic gear were safe. He wasn't so sure about the students and he didn't really care. He looked away from his supplies and peered into the shadows at the edges of the university yard. The weather was truly miserable and it was getting late.

Behind him in the midst of his campus world - a world far removed from the safety of students or any other university concerns lay a rumpled bed in which he had lain unable to sleep for much of the last several nights. He always found it difficult to sleep as the departure time for an expedition drew near. The preparation for this trip had been similar to the preparations of every other trip he had made. The long process of teasing, wheedling and ass-kissing to line up sponsors, to locate or build what he needed to accomplish his scientific objectives - to just get all the little and not so little everythings that had to be dealt with ready was over. Allen could write a book on the science of doing science. In fact he had just come back from a symposium at the Arctic Lab in San Diego where he had delivered a paper on just that. The auditorium had been full of eager young engineers who wanted to do , to learn and to just know everything. Allen had dished it out and they had sucked it up. There had been one or two that he thought might be on to something good, that might actually accomplish something worthwhile. A few of the researchers that he felt might have that promise would be joining him on this trip. But one thing Allen knew was that none of these young tyros would have anything like the compelling reason that he had for doing Arctic research - none of them had really been there in the way he had so many, many years earlier.

Yes, all that really remained now for Allen and the rest of his crew was to get on with it. Even though the arrangements had been pretty much routine this trip was not. After too many years of so many similar trips Allen knew this was the last. Allen hoped that somehow this last trip would bring closure to his Arctic efforts. Sometimes even simple science was so hard but the Arctic had always been more than science to Allen - much more than science for more years than any of his colleagues realized. Allen shrugged and, dropping into the seat next to his bed, picked up the book he had been rereading. In a few short minutes he was back in the South Seas with Ahab.