Whiteout!

We came to the wanigan quite suddenly. I doubt if I'd have seen it, but Scott and Herschel must have been able to judge the distance, or else the marker barrels gave them information, because they suddenly turned to the right, and as I followed, the flat orange rectangle of the safety wanigan loomed out of the dark. Drifted snow lay against it to a height of about eight feet, so that only the top couple of feet was visible. Herschel went quickly over to it and dug with his hands in the snow until he unearthed a shovel. Rank counted. He handed the shovel and the hard work to Scott, who obediently began to shift snow. It took only a couple of minutes, but enough for a chill feeling to begin, before most of the wanigan door showed, and we went in, slamming it behind us, and shutting out the noise. Inside, it was startlingly still and quiet. And Herschel said, 'My goddam feet must have been sweating in the Polecat ! Soon as we get some light around here, we'll have a nice, stinking, feet-rubbing fiesta.'

And we did. The air was full of the smell of feet as we sat on the floor in pairs, with the stove going warmly, rubbing. The same thing had happened to all four of us : there were eight pale heels, each of which began to tingle, then to burn as circulation crept back. There was no damage, nothing permanent, but like Smales's pork chop, it was another demonstration of power and vulnerability. It was also, I thought grimly, further proof of what Smales had said about minds working at only fifty per cent efficiency. Every man in the Polecat, all four of us, had known all about boot hazards, but the heater had been turned high and we'd revelled in it!

But now it was back to comfort. The safety wanigan was, to all intents and purposes, a large and well-fitted caravan and contained everything necessary to sustain the lives of four people for four weeks, including a wall-rack full of big bottles of liquefied gas. With the stove burning, I got a quick guided tour. As it happened, the wanigan we were in was a new type, recently oft the experimental list, and of a novel construction. Its walls were made of expanded polystyrene foam, sandwiched between layers of glass fibre. Foster was engaged on this very project, seeking better designs, but the principles of the thing were breathtaking. The glass fibre/polystyrene walls had tremendous thermal insulation properties, and a single kilowatt of heat was enough to maintain a temperature in the seventies, even if the hut were empty. With four men inside, heat was scarcely needed at all.

Foster said, 'See the implications?'

I shook my head. 'I see the value up here, yes.'

'Bigger than that,' he said. 'This thing's constructed of uniform panels. Floor, walls, roof, all uniform. They just bolt together. More panels, you make bigger huts, okay. But there's something you maybe haven't thought about. Polystrene beads are small. Not when they're expanded, but for transit. Glass fibre's light and can be compressed. And a little resin goes a hell of a long way. Now: you fill a big plane with barrels of beads and resin and bales of fibre. You put in the moulds and the styrene blower -that's the machine that expands the beads - and you can make* these panels anywhere. What'll shake you is how many.'

'Go on.'

'We can get enough materials in one Galaxy freighter right now,' Foster said, 'to build a camp for three thousand men.'

'Three thousand?

'Right on. What's that? Big village or a small town. Tell you who's interested, the United Nations, that's who. Think of the potential of this in a disaster area, floods, typhoons, earthquakes. One plane comes in and they start fabricating panels and in a few days you got three thousand people housed!'

I nodded, fascinated.

'And well housed.' Foster, talking about this project, was a changed man, full of enthusiasm. 'You go outside and kick the wall, the sound can't hardly be heard inside. Twenty people in a thirty-two-foot hut, sleeping ten each side, and you need no heating at all, even up here.'

Herschel interrupted good-humouredly, 'You gonna place your order now, sucker, or hold out till this hustler's taken you to a nightclub?'

'I think I'd buy,' I said.

He nodded. 'Me, too. I'm gonna try to build a house of this stuff home in Maryland if the regulations'll let me. Be cheaper than bricks and lumber. But before we build the house - ' He went to a radio set in the corner, switched on and called Camp Hundred. There was a lot of crackling static, but they answered.

'Wanigan Fifteen to Hundred. Polecat inoperative, repeat Polecat inoperative. We are sheltering Wanigan Fifteen. Inform Commander.'

'Roger Wanigan Fifteen. Stand by.'

Smales came on a couple of minutes later. There was no jargon from him. He said, 'Herschel, it's Barney. What in hell went wrong?'

'We ran out of gas.'

'Out of-Jesus Christ!'

Herschel said, 'We'll wait for the Swing, Barney. Ride on up with Milt Garrison.'

'Yeah, but he's got no neoprene on board. This Swing's all food and fuel and we're in a little trouble here.'

I felt myself stiffen.

Herschel asked, 'What trouble?'

'We lost another generator.'

It was an hour before I thought of it - that fifty-per-cent mind, 1 suppose. But it ought to have hit me earlier; it ought to have hit a three-year-old. I said to Herschel, 'Can you contact the Swing?'

'Sure. Be doing that real soon. Swing can't be more than ten miles off. We'll have to tell them we're here. They won't see the Polecat until they're two miles on. Remember, we walked here.'

'Look,' I said, 'we still have one way of getting to Camp Belvoir.'

He shook his head. 'Swing can't spare - ' He stopped then, looking at me, then grinning. 'ThatACVof yours is on the Swing, right?' But the grin faded almost as soon as it had appeared. 'No,' he said, 'can't risk that. It's not proven up here. Once the Swing's gone by you've fifty miles in the open.'

I said, 'She can do it. And unless we use the TK4, there's no way of getting the pipe up to Hundred. How long before the Swing reaches us ?'

He gave a little shrug of annoyance. 'Can't calculate it. They're ten, maybe twelve miles away. Best speed is three miles an hour -just like the old time Conestoga wagons on the plains heading West.'

'Progress,' I said.

'Sure. But they don't hold a speed like that. Every three miles the bulldozers uncouple to pull these safety wanigans out on top of the snow, so they don't get buried. Takes a few minutes every time. Then they got to couple up again. They stop to change drivers. Maybe they run across a new crevasse. Five to six hours if we're lucky. Could be twelve or fourteen if they have a rough stretch. Could be days if it's real bad.'

'For ten or twelve miles ?'

'I told you once before, Harry. There's been times it's taken six whole weeks to get a Swing up here.'

It would be quicker, I thought, for Smales to send another Polecat from Hundred. Or, for that matter, for Cohen to send one from Camp Belvoir.

Herschel said, 'No dice. No Polecats at Belvoir, only Weasels, and this time of year they're too small.'

'All right,' I said. 'But isn't there a spare tractor with the Swing?'