William Dietrich: Dark Winter

"Winter-overs have been known to explore. Big Brother left on the last plane, you know. Except for moi. Which reminds me." Cameron beckoned him down the hall and pointed toward the shared bathroom. "Our biggest shortage is melted water. That means the most onerous rule concerns the showers. No more than two a week, two minutes of running water each. You wet, turn it off, soap, turn it on, rinse off. We're sitting on seventy percent of the world's fresh water but it's so hard to melt we might as well be in the Sahara. It's rationed." He stopped, listening. They could hear the clumping sounds of someone inside.

"No shower for three or four days?" Lewis leaned back in exaggeration.

"It's so cold and dry you don't sweat much here." He was talking to Lewis but his attention was on the door. He sounded distracted. "Or if you do, people get used to it."

"Splendid."

The door opened and a lumbering bear of a man shambled out, naked except for a towel around his waist, his hair wet. He was bearded, hairy, and huge, a veritable Sasquatch. He stopped in surprise at their presence. "What's this, a line to pee?" The voice was deep, the eyes hard and squinty.

"Just rising to join us, Buck?" Cameron's look was of dislike.

The man scowled. "Just cleaning up after trying to make some room for all the crap that came in."

"We had trouble getting the plane off on time."

"It got off."

"We're both stuck here now. I need you on time."

"It got off. And I need you to stop nagging and let me do my job." The two men held their gaze for a moment, a mutual glare, and then the big man's slid away and he looked past the station manager. "Who's this?"

"The new guy, Jed Lewis. Getting the tour."

"Another beaker fingie? Great." He didn't offer a hand. "You getting the Ten Commandments from Ice Prick? Learning how to fill out work requests?"

There was an undercurrent of resentment that Lewis felt unsure how to respond to. What was the beef of this guy? "Just looking."

"Well, don't look the fuck at me." The man pushed past them, lurching down the hall, his fist clutching his towel to maintain some dignity.

"Buck, we're on a team," Cameron said after him. "Lewis here is part of the team."

The bear turned. "It ain't a team, it's a caste, and it's beaker glory on G.A. frostbite. If I could have waved goodbye to this zoo I would've been on time for that." He sized up the newcomer, who was wondering what G.A. meant, and pointed a stubby finger. "You watch your ass around here, Lewis, because it's cutthroat island among the beakers whenever someone throws grant crumbs our way. You got any sense, you'll look out for Number One. And don't pay any attention to all the brown-nosing, middle-management, ass-kissing bullshit, either." His finger swung to Cameron. "I'll take a fucking shower when I fucking want to." He went in one of the rooms and the door slammed.

The station manager was looking after the man unhappily, his mouth working as if he were still deciding what to say.

"Who the hell was that?"

"That was Tyson. Our mechanic." It was a mutter.

"The guy they said was sulking?"

"Don't pay any attention to him." Cameron shook his head unhappily. "He fought to get hired down here and has bitched about it ever since. He's a malcontent and a loser." The station manager frowned at his own candor. "He'll come around." Cameron glanced at his watch, suddenly losing interest in the tour. "Listen, I'll finish showing you around tomorrow, including where you work. You'll be up for it then. For now, just take it easy, try to get used to the altitude, get over the jet lag, and unpack. Okay?"

"Is that guy having a bad day, or what?"

"Every day's a bad day for him."

Lewis went back to his room, sat on his bunk, and scratched the frost, watching a strip peel off under his fingernail. Pulled into the path of heat, the crystals began to melt. Welcome, fingie.

He decided to remain philosophical. First of all, he'd volunteered for this. Walked out of his oil patch job and straight into unemployment in a fit of righteous environmentalism and self-doubt. It was a miracle he'd met Jim Sparco and fit his emergency need for a polar research assistant. A miracle he'd been given a purpose again. There was no question he was meant to be here. Expertise, desire, and opportunity had all neatly fit.

And second, he knew, sailors, inmates, and astronauts had certainly endured worse. Despite the spongy outer wall, his room was toasty enough- except that he couldn't use the word toast. That was Antarctic slang for burn-out, that late-season time when the monotonous lack of color and smell and sound and variety left a winter-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?"