over with an Antarctic stare, the mood of the condemned, and the social skills of roadkill. They'd warned him about it at the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, the agency that employed him. Toast, toasty, toasted, crouton. Not a nice thing to be. So let's just say warm. Cheery. Anticipatory. Nervous. And someday, even if not toast, perhaps depressed, bored, loopy, horny, hungry, sleepy, and dopey. They'd warned him of all those things, the list sounding like a casting call for Snow White.
At least he had his own room, a polar luxury. The winter-overs had cheered and whooped when that last LC- 130 roared away, its engines burning so rich in the cold that they left four black streaks of soot on the snow. The departure meant independence, room, a tiny cell of privacy. Lewis understood the reaction. They were beginning! The plane lifting off left him feeling both trapped and satisfied, newly secure. He'd made it! All the way to the South Pole! Every problem he'd ever had was temporarily gone, lost across a no-man's-land of ice. Every relationship was a fresh start. With just twenty-six souls, every person was important. Vital. Even that grump Tyson. Lewis had an important job with clear parameters, unique opportunity, and no everyday hassles for the next eight months.
No escape, either. No backing out.
He liked the finality of it.
'My fellow fingie!'
Someone new filled the door of his room, smiling. Clean-shaven, but a skull as distinctive as the cook's: close-cropped stubble except for a darker Mohawk streak on top. Despite this bizarre choice he was a handsome man a decade older, Lewis judged, late thirties, with bright blue eyes that flicked curiously around the barren chamber like a detective's. Nothing much to see yet, of course, so they came to rest on Lewis. 'Robert Norse.' He put out a hand. 'Recent arrival and resident shrink.'
The two men had to stand at the foot of the bed in the cramped quarters, squeezed too close. 'Jed Lewis.' He took the offered hand, hard and dry.
Norse pumped vigorously. He looked fit, muscular, his frame erect with an almost military tautness. There was an intense energy to his friendliness. His teeth were perfect, his eyes assessing, his smell of aftershave. The scent made Lewis realize how little there was to smell at the Pole besides what people brought with them. By the end of the winter he'd know everyone's smell, he supposed. Their voice, ticks, expressions, inflections, and flaws. Their past and intended future. It had to be a psychologist's paradise.
'Except everyone calls me Doctor Bob. Nicknames are endemic here, and you'll get one, too. I only arrived a week before you.'
Lewis looked pointedly above Norse's brow. 'A psychologist? So explain the haircut, Doc.'
Norse smiled, running a hand along the crown of his head. 'I got this at McMurdo on a dare. Polar plunge sort of thing. Supposed to add to solidarity. I'm hoping it helps me fit in. Be one of the gang.'
'Isn't that the kind of thing you do in junior high?'
'People try to fit in from preschool to the mortuary, without exception, instinctually. Basic monkey behavior. Everyone wants to belong without ever asking why. You do want to belong, don't you?'
'I guess.' Lewis thought about his answer. 'I want my life to stand for something. I'm willing to join a team to do that.'
'An idealist!' Norse grinned. 'And you think before you talk! A self-examined man!' He nodded. 'I'm impressed. Maybe.' He pretended to consider the issue. 'Or are you simply a joiner? A conformist? A follower? Is the way to self-realization through society? Or inside yourself?'
'I've got a feeling you've got the answer.'
'I came down here to get the answer. And being a shrink is like being a cop or a priest or a journalist. Everyone tenses up. So I have to adopt camouflage.' He knocked the top of his skull. 'A haircut. And, unlike tattoos, this goes away.'
'We'll probably tattoo each other, too. The cook said we've volunteered for prison.'
Norse nodded. ' 'Then the Philistines seized him,' ' he suddenly recited, ' 'gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again…' '
'Say what?' Norse was quite the gabber.
'Story of Samson. Ever read it?'
'I think I caught the movie.'
'Instructive story. Watch out for Delilah.' He winked.
'Is there something religious about this place? The cook asked about my name.'
'Oh no. Just literate.'
Lewis sat on his bunk to get some space. The guy seemed friendly enough, but he didn't know what to make of a psychologist. Especially one who so blandly gave himself away. 'I heard about you. I was told you'd want to analyze me.'
Norse took half a step back, as if exposed. 'Really? Analyze what?'
'That I'm a geologist in a place with no rocks.'
'A geologist? On an ice cap?' Norse nodded sagely, considering, and then leaned forward like a mock confidant. 'I'm sure the Freudians would have something to say about that. So. Why are you in a place with no rocks?'
'Because it has no rocks.' Except it did, of course, but Norse didn't need to know that.
'I see.' Norse mulled this over. 'Makes perfect sense. Like a shrink in a place with no complications. You're quite sane, aren't you?'
'I'd appreciate a professional opinion.'
'Ah. That will cost you. And I didn't bring a couch. So…' He thought. 'Do you have a piece of paper?'
Lewis looked around.
'Wait, I think I've got one.' Norse pulled out a sheet of folded paper from a pocket inside his sweater. It was blank. 'I carry this around to make notes. Dumb idea, because it scares the hell out of people when you do. Anyway, sign your name. Instant handwriting analysis.'
Lewis was curious and did so, handing the paper to Norse. The psychologist studied it. 'Oh dear. My quick and dirty judgment is that you'll fit in with our group quite well.'
Lewis smiled. 'So what are you doing here, Doc?'
'Me? I'm using us all as guinea pigs for a future trip to Mars. The Pole is like a spaceship, NASA hopes. Communal. Also confined, hostile, and dark. Months of isolation. How does that make us feel?'
'I feel nauseated.'
'That's the altitude. Took me three days to adjust. Some never do- I think it was your predecessor who rotated out a few weeks back. And mentally? I'm still adjusting. Will be for eight months, I suppose. That's why I dropped by. Antarctic veterans have one perspective, newcomers another. I'm hoping you'll share your observations as the winter goes on.'
'Observations of what?'
'Whatever goes on.'
Lewis shook his head, bemused. 'I heard the power went out.'
'Somebody goofed, which was great for me because it injected a variable.' Norse smiled. 'It's like having a lab where I didn't have to build the rat maze. I was planning a briefer visit but I got delayed in New Zealand and then the medic, Nurse Nancy, said she could use some help over the winter. I had a sabbatical leave, an opportunity to observe… The fates conspire, no?'
'So that's what's to blame.'
'Yes, destiny.' Norse said what Lewis had just thought. 'Destiny and free will. A little of both, I think. And we're the two newcomers here, you and me. Right?'
'I guess so.'
Norse nodded. 'So, Jed. I want to be your first friend.'
Lewis met most of the others at dinner, a confusing blur of fresh faces. Twelve scientists and technicians and fourteen support workers to keep them alive. Lena Jindrova, their greenhouse grad student, was the youngest, at twenty-three. The oldest was the man Lewis had been quietly sent by Sparco to meet, sixty-four-year-old Michael Mortimer Moss. The astrophysicist wasn't in the galley and no one seemed surprised.
'Mickey Mouse is determining the fate of the universe,' an astronomer named Harrison Adams told Lewis
