“You sure we can’t call it a night?” she said to Lawson. “I mean, we know how to build igloos now. Do we really have to sleep in ’em?”
Lawson cocked his head, and said, “I’m afraid so; we’re just following the chief’s orders. Ever since that beaker—excuse me, I mean the geologist from Kansas—got lost and died out here, Murphy’s required a full day and night of snow school for all new arrivals.”
Darryl stood up and slapped his arms around himself to get the heat going. “So, who’s sleeping where?” he said. “It looks like one of the dorms will have to be coed.”
“Right you are,” Lawson said, in keeping with his apparent philosophy of complimenting them on anything, no matter how obvious, that they uttered. “Michael, why don’t you share with me? I made this first one with extra leg room.”
Each one of them picked up a subzero, synthetic-fill sleeping bag from the sled, said good night, and while Michael waited for Lawson, flashlight in hand, to squirm his way inside, Charlotte, in her great big green parka, waited for Darryl to go into the other one.
“Least he won’t get seasick in there,” Michael said, and Charlotte just nodded. Her eyes were fixed on the hole in the snow as she held the rolled-up sleeping bag.
On a hunch, Michael said, “Don’t even think about trying to walk back to the camp. It isn’t safe.”
She glanced over at him, and he could tell he’d read her mind—or at least her inclination.
“Come on in, anytime,” Lawson called out in a muffled voice.
“See you in the morning,” Michael said, before scrunching down, pushing the sleeping bag into the hole, and crawling in.
It wasn’t a long tunnel, but it was a tight squeeze. Lawson was, like Michael, over six feet tall, but the guy was built like a rubber band, and Michael wished that he’d provided just a little more leeway. The ceiling grazed his head every inch of the way, and to make any progress he had to dig the tips of his boots into the snow, then shove himself forward with the front of his body supported on his elbows. He didn’t suffer from claustrophobia but that would have been a terrible time to develop it; his entire body was stuck in the snow, his lips were wet with flakes, and the sleeping bag he was pushing ahead of him blocked out nearly all the light from Lawson’s flashlight. When it finally popped through, it was like a new world; Lawson shoved the bag out of the way and helped pull Michael in.
“Best thing about it,” Lawson said, “is that you don’t need a fridge.”
Michael crawled in and got to his knees; the roof was only a few feet high, but the walls—firm and already slicked with ice from the condensation of their breath—were wide enough apart that, if he let his feet protrude into the tunnel entrance, he’d be able to lay out his bag to its full length. Lawson had covered most of the floor with insulated sleep mats.
But it was the light inside that truly stunned him. The flashlight beam was angled upward, and it sent twinkling rays of light in all directions. The walls seemed to glow with a glistening blue-white sheen, and a few errant flakes of snow, fallen from the roof, idly turned in the air, like diamonds on display. Michael felt like he was caught inside a snowball.
“The roof will drip a bit during the night,” Lawson said as he shimmied down into his own sleeping bag, “especially around the blowholes. It’s nothing to worry about, but I’d suggest you drape the waterproof flap of your bag over your face.”
Lawson lay back, and loosely threw his own flap over his head. “Like this,” he said, his breath puffing up the fabric.
Michael unrolled his bag, and even though he managed to bang his head on the ceiling three or four times during the process, laid it out. He took off his boots, leaving on the wool socks and boot liners, then scrunched his parka, as Lawson had done, into a pillow. But the hardest part was squinching himself down into the bag with so many other layers of clothing still on. In the closed space of the snow dome, he got a good whiff of himself, and it wasn’t a pleasant smell. He wedged himself down, a little at a time, until his feet hit the bottom of the sack. Lawson had already stuck the end of his own bag into the tunnel, but there was just enough room left over for Michael to extend his legs without playing footsie. He put his head back on the balled-up parka and stared up at the curved ceiling, wondering if the whole thing might not cave in at any second. Instead, a big single drop of ice water dangled from the roof, then landed with a splat on his stubbly chin. He’d been shaving less and less in recent days, in anticipation of just such events as these, when any protection, even whiskers, might come in handy. He brushed the droplet away with the back of his glove, then fumbled for the sleeping bag flap to drop over his face.