Dramatis Personae
 ------------------
<p>
 As mentioned previously the BFE main camp is large, and actually feels
 much larger than it is. When the first contingent of Our Heros arrive,
 the camp is manned only by a skeleton crew of 24 people. Having
 nothing to do for much of the time, most people scarcely roam out of
 the corner of the complex with their bunks and the mess. The radio
 operators and administrators can occasionally be found making their
 way from one storeroom or another, and the dog handlers feed and visit
 the dogs two or three times a day, but aside from these infrequent
 chores the tunnels are by and large abandoned. The situation improves
 considerably when the Lake's Camp contingent returns: they number only
 nine, but they bring with them planes to maintain, clothing to repair,
 injuries to tend, geological samples to examine and classify, and
 rumors to spread. And importantly for many of Our Heros, they triple the
 number of English speakers among the Germans.
<p>
 The regular Germans are a fairly friendly lot. They seem to understand
 instinctively the semi-arrest under which Hopewell and Miles are
 placed, but shrug their shoulders and let their betters worry about
 such things. As far as most are concerned, there are now three new
 people with whom to play cards. Our Heros eat with them, sleep with
 them, and pass the time with them. They are accompanied wherever they
 go, but this seems to be regarded as a formality---a polite gesture,
 perhaps---and no effort is made to keep them from any place in
 particular (except the radio shack and the officer's quarters, of
 course).  Efforts are made to teach simple German phrases, such as
 "yes", "no", "another drink, please", "this food is crap", and "I am
 now going to urinate." (Although, from the uproarious laughter that
 erupt whenever one of Our Heros uses the last phrase, they come to
 suspect that the literal German they are saying means something quite
 different.)
<p>
 The arrival of the Lake's Camp party, and with them Rachel Van
 Buren(!), injects new life in the veins of the camp. Aside from
 dealing with the new arrivals, an effort seems to be made to clean the
 place up a little bit, make it presentable to women. There certainly
 seems to be more attention paid to personal hyenine, which was---as
 one would expect---lacking.
<p>
 However, it has other effects, too. Rumors had already been spreading,
 fueled by the accounts of those cooks who were in the room when
 Barmeister brought out The Things from the case. But now there are
 people in the camp who had actually seen a Pentaform with their own
 eyes! These people are, of course, celebrities, and their accounts of
 the wild sights at Lake's Camp are repeated, traded again and again,
 turned over, examined, and discussed with rabbinical intensity. From
 the tone of the arguments around the mess hall tables, there seem to
 be a fair number of Doubting Thomases among the crew. After Barmeister
 sets up the movie projector in the mess hall, however, and shows
 Hopewell's excellent aerial footage of the City to the entire camp,
 even the Doubters get religion.
<p>
 Another consequence of the arrival of Rachel and Betsy is that some
 among the men notice that Our Heroines don't seem to be under the same
 kind of arrest as Our Heros, and wonder why....
<p>
 Some personalities that make an especially vivid impression:
<p><ul>
 <li> Herr Josef Barmeister is, of course, one of the two leaders of the
   expedition, and your host for much of your stay. He seems to be in
   charge of the main camp, which entails coordinating the evacuation
   of Lake's Camp, Herr Falken's excavation teams, the two dog-sled
   teams out surveying, press releases, reports to the Expedition's
   sponsors, dealing with any and all personnel problems that
   arise---including finding arrangements for Our Heros---and the
   never-ending miscellaneous duties that arise when you are the only
   one who can make the decisions. He seems to be awake and alert for
   extremely long stretches of time during the evacuation, but twitchy
   and somewhat scatterbrained. He shows signs of having been and
   continuing to be under extreme pressure, and at times seems almost
   drunk with nervous energy. The crew seem almost wary of him, and
   avoid making sudden noises when he's around.
<p>
 <li> Herr Klaus Falken, on the other hand, is rarely around. An extremely
   intense and humorless man, he receives a fearful respect from his
   employees. He has a temper and displays it freely, as you all get to
   see, and seems to regard the expedition, the ice, the weather, and
   all technical difficulties as personal attacks against
   _him_. Fortunately, he is out with his exploration crew for much of
   the time.
<p>
 <li> Herr Rucker suffered severe injuries across the Mountains, and has
   evacuated to Buenos Aires by Zepplin along with the rest of the
   injured that can be lifted to it. Herr Baumann, the pilot, stays at
   camp. At a first impression he seems fine, but at nights he wakes up
   screaming. It also becomes clear that he cannot stand to be alone,
   and clutches frantically at anyone who seems to be about to leave
   him. Rational and lucid, aside from this, every time he sees one of
   Our Heros he goes pale, and begins to stutteringly apologize for
   leaving them at `zat place'.
<p>
 <li> Martin Brubacher is the camp photographer, and doesn't speak a word
   of English. He is one of the youngest men at the camp, if not _the_
   youngest: approximately the same age as Cole. Our Heros get the
   impression, however, that he has an advantage over Cole in the IQ
   department, being entrusted with such an important duty. He seems
   friendly enough, and although Fritz (the camp cat) will allow
   himself to be stroked by anyone who is properly obsequious it is
   definitely Martin that he has adopted as His Human. It is Martin
   that suffers the worst of Falken's temper when the film from the
   exploration planes suffers the mysterious fogging.
<p>
 <li> This probably makes Herr Ernst Hoffman into Martin's hero. Herr
   Hoffman is a tall, thin, and obviously cultured German gentleman who
   is on board as the expedition's primary occultist. A fluent
   English-speaker, he makes an effort to find Our Heros and put them
   at their ease. He is charming, disarming, and can make clever
   jokes in three languages. He is also intensely curious about what
   Our Heros saw and did across the Mountains, and he seems not to
   believe the official `manslaughter' story. In his interactions with
   Herr Barmeister and Herr Falken Herr Hoffman possesses an almost
   jedi-like equanimity, keeping the same casual,
   leg-over-the-chair-arm manner in the face of both Herr Falken's rages
   and Herr Barmeister's frenetic energy. With the arrival of Our
   Heroines, Herr Hoffman has graciously volunteered to sleep in the
   administrative room.
<p>
 <li> Herr Frank Uhr volunteered also, but remains in his bed under
   Doktor's orders. His burns, while not serious, have been complicated
   with a low-grade infection. He remains lucid, however, and eagerly
   chats with any of Our Heros who want to pay a visit. He is
   especially interested in anything they can remember about the
   murals---ja, ja, ja, he believes you, Betsy, but is good to check
   against memory of others, no?---and seems to approach the Pentaform
   writing as a child with a new toy.
<p>
 <li> Herrs Alan Hammel and Egon Auden make the bulk of the scientific
   staff, now that Rucker is gone. Herr Hammel, the physicist, is the
   classic German professor---down to the immense by immaculately
   groomed beard. Herr Auden, the biochemist, is a small but intense
   little man, who vaguely reminds Our Heros of a small but energetic
   dog. Their English is passable enough, and they show the signs of
   chronic boredom. Both have their daily routines of scientific
   experimentation, taking daily data for long-term studies of various
   arcana, but this still leaves a great deal of time. Herr Hammel
   spends his free hours in the library, catching up on his
   reading. Herr Auden, on the other hand, seems to suffer more without
   any outlet in which to channel his energy. Any of Our Heros who get
   even mildly drunk with another English-speaker will get to hear
   about Auden's efforts to recreate Michelangelo's _David_ out of
   snow-- efforts that went on to other and increasingly pornographic
   works of art.
<p>
 <li> Lastly, all of Our Heros get inspected at some point soon after
   their arrival by Doctor Panning, and get to meet both him and his
   friendly but monoglot assistant Peter Lang. Doktor Panning is what
   Our Heros have always imagined a country doctor would be like,
   except German. He's jovial, prone to wisecracks about his patient
   ("You too skinny! We put meat on your bones, no? I prescribe seal
   meat und pemmican. Good ting we have plenty.") His assistant has a
   similar demeanor, albeit limited by his inability to speak
   English. A bandage around his head indicates some kind of eye injury
   in his recent past---something not likely to engender faith in his
   medical abilities---but he has a knack of screwing up the rest of
   his face into comical contortions at which Our Heros can't help but
   giggle.
<p>

 Of course, this meager list doesn't even begin to encompass all the
 people Our Heros get to meet at the camp. Life passes pleasantly
 enough for Our Heros, as they settle into the rhythm of camp life and
 tolerate the watchful curiosity of ze Germans. The film and the
 stories from Lake's Camp make it clear that the weeks of idleness will
 soon be coming to an end, and many among the workers seem to
 superstitiously regard Our Heros as good-luck totems, responsible for
 this turn of good fortune, and to be carefully tended and
 protected. Of course, this may change come Christmas Eve, when the
 throaty roar of a Junker's engines rouses everyone from their
 festivities and draws them to the hangar just in time to see the only
 Junker at the camp take off and fly into the night...

<p><a href="bfecamp.html">BFE camp description</a>
<p>