I admired the lack of bloodthirsty creatures. “Nice.”
“The big blowers go on when sensors notice someone approaching,” Tom said. “But the fans are always blowing a light breeze through the walkway, away from Tanaka. It’s a determined bloodsucker that makes it all the way in.”
“And if they do?”
“Well, that’s why we keep frogs, of course.”
“What?”
Tom ignored the question and pointed to my cap-and-veil ensemble. “Out in the world this will keep most of the small ones away from you. The bigger ones, the ones near water, are the ones you want to look out for. They smell your breath, they come right for your face.”
“How big are they?” Aparna asked.
“The bigger ones you don’t swat. You punch.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Aparna said after a minute.
“The air here is thicker and has more oxygen in it than it did on Earth when we had insects with a meter-long wingspan,” Tom said. “You’re the biologist, you tell me.”
Aparna sighed. “Punchable insects, okay, got it.”
From ahead of us, the first of Gold Team had made it into Tanaka, and cheering had started going up. We all looked at Tom.
“That’s Red Team,” he said. “The people we’re replacing. They are very happy to see us.”
We cleared the walkway and were immediately confronted by several dozen people cheering us, wearing festive shirts over their jumpsuits, straw hats of various sorts, playing ukuleles and guitars, and holding up drinks. Presumably, Red Team.
When all of Gold Team had made it up the walkway and stripped off their insect caps, there was a dramatic shushing, and then Brynn MacDonald stepped forward to a man in a particularly loud shirt, wearing a particularly ratty straw hat, holding a particularly large drink.
“Brynn MacDonald, commander of KPS Tanaka Base Gold Team, here with my team to formally relieve KPS Tanaka Base Red Team,” she said.
“Joao Silva, commander of KPS Tanaka Base Red Team,” the man in the loud shirt and terrible hat said. “I am formally relieved you are here!”
Silva reached up and put his ratty-ass hat on MacDonald. A wild cheer went up from both camps. Silva and MacDonald hugged, and then Silva took off the terrible shirt and presented it to MacDonald, who put it on, apparently signaling the transfer of authority.
With that, members of Red Team surged forward and welcomed their counterparts, handing over hats and shirts and musical instruments, but not drinks. I was personally accosted by a friendly chap who gave me a ukulele, a straw boater, and a polyester shirt with parrots on it. “It is you,” he assured me, gave me a hug, and wandered off.
“You know how to play that thing?” Kahurangi asked me. He was clad in an orange shirt with white bucking broncos on it, and a straw trilby.
“Not a clue,” I assured him.
“May I?”
I handed the ukulele to him. He started playing it like he’d been playing all his life, which maybe he had. He smiled when he saw me looking at him play. “I debated about whether to bring mine. I decided against it, and I regretted it almost as soon as we left.”
“I’m glad they had one here.”
“More than one, it looks like. I can teach you how to play, if you want. In our I’m sure voluminous free time.”
“I’d like that,” I said. Kahurangi grinned and then wandered off, playing as he went.
I turned back to Tom, who had been festooned with a sombrero and a loud shirt with kittens. “So, there’s two teams at Tanaka Base, and we rotate?”
Tom shook his head. “Three teams. Each team has a six-month stay, offset three months with the other teams.” He pointed at the now de-hatted Red Team. “Red Team has been here for six months, and they’re about to get three months off back home.” He waved farther into the base, where I could see other KPS personnel. “Blue Team arrived three months ago to relieve us so we could have a three-month break, and will be here for another three months. Then they will be relieved by Red Team, who will be returning. Every team works with every other team for three months. That way Tanaka is always fully staffed and there’s always continuity.”
I pointed at Tom’s kitten shirt. “And this? We do this every three months?”
“You have something against loud shirts and ugly hats?”
“Yours are loud and ugly. Mine, on the other hand, are quite fetching.”
“We just do it when we arrive and leave. The middle transfer, we keep things running while the other two teams do their transfer. Like Blue Team is doing right now.”