All Personnel must DEGOMBLE before entering dome.

Ben translated. “They want us to brush off the powdered snow.”

True took the opportunity to slap the back of my headgear clean of debris. “Wouldn’t want ye tae mess up the dome, Dr. Wallace.”

“True, if you’re that unhappy being here, then just go home. Or catch the return flight back to Davis and carry on with the Swede. I really don’t need a 260-pound babysitter with an attitude.”

The big fella thought for a minute, then grinned. “Nah, I’ll stay. Maybe Dr. Liao needs tae be degombled, ye think?”

“By you?” Ben blurted a sarcastic half-laugh. “Pal, she’s so far out of your league you can’t even see the playing field.”

“A hundred dollars against your thousand says we bed together at least once before the mission is through.”

“Done!” Ben shook True’s hand. “I’ll say this for you Highlanders—you aren’t afraid to go down swinging.”

“And I say him that’s born to be hanged will never be drowned.”

Having degombled, we entered the dome.

The temperature inside was a balmy thirty degrees, the air warmed by portable blowers, the ice covered by plywood sheets. Mobile lights pointed up at the domed ceiling, cabled to power generators that lined the periphery.

Ming had organized the facility into quadrants. Accommodations for her crew and the dozens of participating scientists were relegated to Tent City, an assortment of colorful nylon tents clustered by nationality. The smallest were single crawl-ins; the largest were six-person walk-ins with extended porches and multiple storage areas.

A mess station was set up next to the living areas. Crates held frozen microwavable meals, and coffee and hot beverages were available around-the-clock, provided one supplied his own mug and utensils. Folding tables and chairs accommodated diners and poker players. A row of port-a-potties lined the dome wall next to a supply trailer and first-aid tent.

The last two areas were devoted to science. Mission Control consisted of two long rows of folding tables that held three computer stations, a rack of video monitors, and a half-dozen crates on skis supporting the generators that supplied power to the Valkyrie units. An Army tent erected behind the command post doubled as a meeting area and Ming’s sleeping quarters.

The last quadrant was almost completely occupied by a portable lab contained in an inflatable Level-3 containment bubble.

These four sections, each of which occupied about half an acre, surrounded a much larger central work area of exposed ice cordoned off by neon-orange fencing. Towering two stories above this site stood a gantry designed to hold our submersible.