Dinner Rose in Antarctica
...
The clutch of what looked like shipping containers were about halfway down the rise where the landing pad sat at the end of the Solvay ridge that formed the backbone of the island.
The snowmobile had stopped outside a large block of three boxes all sitting side by side and joined together with what appeared to be rubber gaskets between them, but Danial directed them toward another unit that was a large military looking Quonset hut of corrugated steel that, had they known it, was a senior citizen as far as Antarctican buildings were concerned having been delivered in the seventies and was now on its fifth deployment. This time around, it was the headquarters and recreation building. Off to one side was a couple more buildings, including the equipment shed with the generators built into one end.
"He's in there," Danial pointed the way and they all followed.
2.
As it was still morning, Doctor Hamilton Rose met them in the following costume: a white tuxedo with matching top hat, bow tie, and gleaming white shoes with spats. He was holding a white walking stick with silver knob and ivory highlights. He was, to coin a word, as over the top as he could be without being the reincarnation of either Napoleon the Great or Liberace. Or perhaps both. At once.
The man wearing the suit was as elegant as his clothes. His face reflected neither classical madness nor pomposity. His hair was nearly as white as his jacket, his eyes were clear and focused, and his overall bearing was a man who was sophisticated and utterly satisfied with everything he had done since he was old enough to know what he wanted to do. He would have been perfectly at home in a more regal setting, but he was here, and he enjoyed making the impression he made. Tomorrow, in an insulated jumpsuit he would be out checking monitoring equipment and getting water quality readings from offshore sensors, but this morning, he was, as the flower in his lapel insinuated, Dinner Rose.
The new crew members walked in the door and took in the sight.
"Well come!" Doctor Rose said expressively to them and bowed slightly with a tip of his hat. "Welcome, indeed! Come in, come in! We have hot tea, wine, something stronger! Please. Please." His grand sweeping gesture and double action speech pattern did not belong in the nearly fifty year old military surplus building. But there it was.
