Michael had already seen the board—the last entry said something about a ground terrain exploration in Dry Valley One.
“And when you get back—safely—check it off on the board. I do not appreciate having to do a bed check to make sure everybody’s tucked in for the night.” He paused, then smiled at the thought of something. “You’d be surprised what I find.”
Michael couldn’t imagine anything too salacious. Looking around the commons, which was sparsely populated just now, there were a couple of tables where the service personnel were sitting—all youngish men in blue uniforms—and a couple of others where the scientists were concentrated. It wasn’t any harder to spot them there than it had been to pick out Darryl at the Santiago airport. They were a small eccentric crew, one with a long gray ponytail and wire-rimmed specs halfway down his nose, and a couple of stout blond women with broad shoulders who looked like bit players in some Norse legend. Murphy must have been following his gaze, because he said, “We call the scientists beakers.”
Michael got it. Beakers, as in lab equipment.
“But they don’t mind. They call us grunts.”
“And you don’t mind?” Charlotte said.
“We sure as hell do,” Murphy said, in mock protest, “but we are slow to take offense.” Then, more seriously, he said, “We all have to rely on each other down here, and we all know it. Without us grunts running the place, keeping the diesel generators going and the lights on, and the meals cooked, and the U-barrels removed—that stands for urine, by the way; all human waste has to be contained and transported out of the Antarctic—the beakers wouldn’t be able to get a thing done. And without them…” he paused, as if unsure how to complete the thought. “Oh, yeah, without them, the rest of us wouldn’t be stuck out here in the back of beyond in the first place.”
“Sounds like the perfect arrangement, if you ask me,” Darryl said.
“Spoken like a true beaker,” the chief said. “Now, get settled in your quarters for the night. Tomorrow, you’ve all got a long day at snow school.”
Charlotte and Darryl and Michael exchanged puzzled looks.
“And don’t forget to bring your mittens.”
Murphy moved on to join his grunts at their table—several of them had turned around to get a better look at the newcomers—and Michael and Charlotte and Darryl were left like the new kids in the high-school cafeteria. The beakers were absorbed in their own conversations, or ate intently with their heads hung low over their plates of franks and beans and corn bread (one had a sheaf of computer printouts spread across the table in front of him).
“Weird, isn’t it?” Michael said, indicating the scientists. “We’re now in a universe where they’re the cool kids.”
Darryl laughed and said, “I’ve waited for this my whole life. If you’ll excuse me,” he said, getting up, “I believe I heard someone say ‘isopod’ over there.”
As Charlotte and Michael looked on, Darryl fearlessly traversed the linoleum floor and made a seat for himself at the picnic-style metal table where the blond women, wearing untucked flannel shirts, were debating something. For several seconds, the conversation seemed to stall, and Michael started to wonder if he should go and rescue his friend. But then Darryl said a few things Michael couldn’t make out, hands were shaken, credentials loudly declared, and as if he had passed some secret initiation process, Darryl was immediately welcomed into the club. For the next ten or fifteen minutes, Michael and Charlotte gave him time to bond with his new buds, then got up and dumped their trays. Michael caught Darryl’s eye, and Darryl quickly wrapped up some entertaining anecdote about a nematode—to much laughter—before rejoining them.
“Great bunch,” Darryl said, as the three of them buttoned up for the brief journey back to their quarters.
“You looked like you were a hit,” Michael said.
“It was a new crowd,” Darryl replied, with a modest shrug, “so I could trot out my best material.”