Lewis himself was tired of being alone.
By the time he got back to the dome he was ravenous again. Geller was right: The polar cold almost snatched food out of your mouth. When Lewis yanked open the freezer door and stepped into the galley vestibule, he was salivating.
The galley was crowded and a table of beakers was almost full. Lewis, curious to sample the station's social spectrum, decided to sit with the some of the support staff who kept the place running. He plopped next to Geller, who was working on another mountain of food. Next to him was a smaller, quiet, mouselike man he'd noticed earlier, keeping his head down as he ate.
"A beaker joins the rabble," Geller greeted.
"Just trying to meet everyone."
"And your appetite's improved." He nodded at Lewis's tray. Stroganoff, fresh green beans, cobbler, all heaped high. Pulaski and Linda Brown could cook.
"I was on tour. The cold really burns up your reserves."
"That ain't cold. Sitting out eight hours in the wind trying to fix equipment some moron beaker busted-that's cold."
"Are there always no scientists at this table?" Lewis asked.
"Mostly. We get along great but they tend to eat with their own, we tend to eat with our own. They bitch about us, we bitch about them. Works better that way."
"I thought segregation was against the law."
"It ain't segregation, it's fucking high school." It was the growl of a new voice and Lewis looked up. The grump from the shower, Tyson. He sat heavily, spreading his arms and legs to claim a substantial portion of the table. His manner was one of fingie instructor. A heavily muscled forearm boasting a tattooed snake pulled his tray against his torso. A fork was held upright in his other fist like a flagstaff. He'd unconsciously made a tiny fort of his food. "Like the jocks and the nerds, remember? We got more cliques here than Hot Pants High."
"I think you're exaggerating a little, Buck," Geller said mildly.
"The hell I am. You got us, and you got the beakers, and you got the smokers, and you got the singles, and you got the women. The science side is all rank and show-off, with know-it-alls like Mickey Moss lording it over grad students and postdocs. And then even the tweezer twits get snobby when they want something done."
"Yeah, but everyone gets along. Better than anyplace I've ever been."
"We gotta get along, or we fucking die. But that don't mean people don't cluster with their own. Look around this room. Planet of the Apes, man. We're monkeys." The phrase jogged a memory. Hadn't Norse said something similar?
"Buck Tyson, resident sociologist," Geller introduced.
"Yeah, me and our new shrink." He nodded to Lewis.
"We met at the shower."
"Yeah, I remember. That wasn't about you. That was about Ice Prick."
Not exactly an apology, but not hostile, either. Maybe Tyson was okay. "You like to analyze?"
"I just see things like they really are. My day job is master mechanic. I make our go-carts go. You need a snow Spryte, a D-6 Cat, you come to Buck Tyson. But at night I think about our loony bin. Me thinking for myself makes some of the beakers nervous. You nervous?"
How to respond to that? "You like Doctor Bob?" Lewis deflected.
"I like where he's coming from. I like that he stays in shape. I talked to him already and I think he sees through the bullshit like I do. We're into the same shit: self-reliance. The importance of Numero Uno and thinking for yourself. He's got all these ideas from NASA about whether this place suggests what you need to make starship troopers. It's cool, what he's trying to do. Not the touchy-feely crap of the other shrinks that come down to The Ice." He turned to Geller. "You know what they did to a shrink at Vanda, over in the Dry Valleys?"
"No, what?"
"Ran over his gear with a tractor." Tyson laughed.
There was a silence, the others digesting this.
"I guess Buck is your nickname," Lewis finally said. "What's your real name?"
"James," Geller quickly interjected.
"Jimmy, you dumb fuck. You know I hate James. English faggot name."
"James Bond ain't a faggot."
"James Bond is the biggest goddamned English pansy there is! He carries a girl's gun and dresses like a fucking bridegroom! I like big guns, and big guys. I like guys who go it alone and kick butt. Like Clint Eastwood. And John Wayne. And Bruce Willis. And Rambo. And Ahhhnold. Except he married the fucking Kennedys."
"Everyone calls Tyson Buck because he's into knives," Geller explained. "And guns. And commando crap. And every other bit of militia weirdness."
"No, I'm not. I'm into sufficiency, which is more than a little important way down here." Tyson pointed his fork at Lewis. "Don't take this 'all for one and one for all' crap too seriously because when it's dark and blowing and people are freaking out, you gotta know how to take care of yourself. Right? The government likes to jabber on about our happy little commune, but in fact it's just a bunch of fucked-up overachievers. They may have a doctorate, but they manage to bring down every goddamn neurosis there is."
"Buck doesn't like people," Geller summarized.
"That's not true. I'm eating with you assholes. I even like some of the beakers like crazy Alexi, our Russian cocktail. He tells it like it is, 'cause he's out of the gulag, man. Hiro's kind of funny, like a Jap cartoon. But some of them are humorless know-it-alls, like Harrison Adams. Harrison. Not just Harry. Pompous twit. Or weirdos like Jerry Follett. I watch my backside around that faggot. Or Mickey Mouse out there in the Dark Side. Our head rodent needs his ears pinned."
"You're talking about Saint Michael," Geller said with humor.
"Pope Moss can kiss my you-know-what." Tyson turned to the other man at their table, who'd been eating silently, and clapped him on the shoulder. "The one you want to stay friends with is this guy, who runs the power plant. We try to keep him sober and sane."
The small man looked up like a blinking mole. He was balding, with pinched features and a brushy mustache. "Pika," he mumbled as introduction.
"What?" Lewis hadn't understood.
"Pika," Geller said. "Like the animal."
"What's a pika?"
"Sort of a rock rabbit," Tyson explained. "No one can stand to hang around with Pika 'cause he whistles while he works, like those dwarves. Remember them? Drives us all nuts, like Muzak. His real name is Doug Taylor but we call him Pika, which is sort of like a marmot. Critter that whistles?"
Lewis slowly nodded. "Got it."
"Pikas sort of squeak," Geller said. "But we liked the sound of the word."
"Makes sense to me."
"See, Mickey Moss can collect all the medals he wants to but what it comes down to is the guys like Pika," Tyson said. "We're at the outer edge of the envelope down here. They don't like to tell us that, but it's true. The generators stop, and we're dead. The well gets fucked up, and we're dead. A good fire gets started, and we're 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.