dead. This place is the easiest place in the world to sabotage. Any of us could kill all of us in about three nanoseconds. And then they send down a shrink? How does that make you feel?'
Lewis tried to smile. 'That I better stay friends with Pika.'
'You better believe it. Some idiot shut off the heat the other day. It was this little guy who got it back on.' Tyson nodded in approval.
'Don't touch my machines,' the small man mumbled. He didn't look at Lewis, just mildly kept eating his food.
Lewis wondered what his story was. 'Okay.'
'Just leave my machines alone.'
It was quiet for a moment.
'So you're the new weather dude, correct?' Tyson finally asked.
'Yeah.'
'So how do you like the magic kingdom?'
'It's pretty interesting.'
'Damn right it's interesting. Absolutely fucking fascinating. For about three days.' Tyson snorted. 'After that, it's Groundhog Day. You seen that movie, where they repeat the same day over and over?'
'I've seen it.'
'That's winter at the Pole.'
'Don't listen to Buck too much,' Geller said. 'He whines like a mosquito.'
'I whine because that fucker Cameron, and the bureaucrats he fronts for, won't get off my back. Have you seen our work schedule? Do this, do that, blah blah blah: More work on that list than you could do in three winters! Give me a fucking break. They're just showing off.'
'Buck believes the world is out to get him,' Geller interpreted.
'Screw you. It is out to get me.'
'Carries a chip like a cross.'
'I carry the station, man. I do the shit. You know how many people work here?' he asked Lewis.
'How many?'
'About half.' Tyson laughed again.
'So what are you doing down here?' Lewis asked Tyson.
'What's that supposed to mean?' He took it like a challenge.
'It's volunteer, right? You wanted to come, right?'
'Hell yes, it's volunteer! Until they spend six thousand bucks getting each of us down here with no replacements in the pipeline. Then it's like, 'Oh, you don't care for our little utopia? Seems we've lost your return ticket until next October. Gosh golly darn. Have a great winter.' '
'It'll go faster with a positive attitude, Buck,' Geller advised.
'It'll go faster when Cameron lays off me, man. Maybe I can't quit, but I don't have to jump through his work-schedule hoops, either. They may not like me, but they can't touch me.' He grinned. 'Not down here.'
Pulaski had found them a pet. By treaty, animals weren't allowed in Antarctica in order to preserve its pristine environment. Unaware of this agreement, a small slug had smuggled its way onto the continent in a head of freshie lettuce. Lena, their greenhouse horticulturist, adopted the creature and put him in a jar with clippings from the hydroponic tanks. She called the slug Hieronymus and announced he was good luck. She was a botanist on green card from the Czech Republic, and to her everything seemed charmed in this new world. 'I feel that all the time I am on vacation,' she told Lewis.
'Someone should have told you about Hawaii.'
'And now we have a pet!' she enthused.
'Somebody said something about a dome slug,' he remembered.
'Those are people. That's what you become if you don't get outside.'
'And if you do get outside?'
'Then you are a… Popsicle!' She smiled at her own knowledge of the word.
With some ceremony the slug was designated the official mascot of the Amundsen-Scott drill and dart team, which designated itself the Fighting Gastropods. Twice a week the loose assemblage played a match with the New Zealand winter-overs on the coast, keeping score by crackling radio. The Kiwis relied on their countryman Dana Andrews to keep the Yanks honest as they reported score. A caustically humored redhead with the build of a fireplug and an opinion on everyone, Dana complied. The Americans at McMurdo lent their own monitor, who hiked over to the New Zealand base for the matches in return for Kiwi beer.
Lewis was invited to join. 'We're a classier team now that we have a mascot,' Geller told him. 'There's a real status to it now.'
'I'm not much on darts.' He sat down to one side as they shoved aside tables in the galley.
'You can't be any worse than Curious George,' coaxed another woman. Gabriella, her name was, and she was a more effective recruiter, as sensual as Dana was stolid. She was slim, dark-haired, her skin the color of butterscotch, her eyes large, and her mouth arrested in a wry curl. She moved with a self-conscious liquid grace. Not pretty like Abby so much as alluring. Dangerously so.
'I suppose not,' Lewis agreed, watching while Geller put three darts wide of the bull's-eye.
The maintenance man was frowning at his own volley when Gabriella brought Lewis to the line. Geller gave them a knowing look. 'I see you've managed to let yourself be drafted. You found this dame persuasive?'
The woman gave Lewis a glance.
'More so than you,' Lewis allowed.
'That isn't even a compliment,' Gabriella complained.
'I like the mascot.'
'That's no better! I hope you're more adept with darts than words!'
In truth, Lewis had never played the game. But he was determined to socialize down here and so he threw, managing to hit the board. Then he watched as Gabriella toed the line and cocked her slim arm, the dart balanced in her fingers like a feather. She was a male magnet and knew it, reeking of femininity and pheromones. 'Who is she?' he murmured to Geller as they watched.
'Gabriella Reid, gal Friday. She does berthing, assignments, time cards, records, and all that administrative crap. Not to mention keeping men on red alert.'
'I heard that, George.' She didn't seem very offended, arching her body up on her toes as she threw.
'We call her Triple-A,' Geller whispered after she threw a near bull's-eye and went out of earshot to retrieve the dart. 'Anybody, anytime, anywhere.'
'Ouch.'
'She'll put out for you if you want. Looking for love in all the polar places. Easier to warm up than Ice Cream.'
'Ice Cream?'
'Abby Dixon. We keep the ice cream here outside and it comes in so rock-hard we have to microwave it to eat it. The joke is that Dixon needs thirty seconds in the box, too.'
'She seemed friendly enough.'
'Everybody likes Abby. She's just not as friendly as our teammate there. Abby's got a boyfriend somewhere and pretends it still matters at the Pole.'
Gabriella took aim again. She could tell they were watching her, talking about her, and thrived on it.
'Reid's really a good kid. Fun-loving. If you're looking for that kind of thing.'
'I'm still getting over altitude sickness.'
Geller laughed.
Gabriella hit the bull's-eye again.
'She's good,' Lewis observed.
'Coordinated,' Geller said, loud enough for her to hear.
The woman pulled the dart out. 'Coordinated enough to keep my thumb out from under a hammer, which is more than I can say for you, George.'
'I know. I worship you, babe.'
