SESSION 9 -- INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Once the German planes landed, it became clear that Miss Lexington had indeed invited the 17 men to "help" with scientific exploration. The Germans seemed friendly, and asked a confused and bewildered Moore to speak up about what they could do to help. Questioning of Lexington revealed that the Germans had offered her supplies in exchange (most of which the Starkweather / Moore expedition was already providing) for travel across the mountains in her Bell aircraft.

It also quickly became clear that the German expedition was significantly better funded than either the Lexington or Starkweather/Moore expeditions--upon arrival, they set up two 40' radio towers and a series of *very* nice tents.

At the subsequent meeting of the camps, the Germans informed the Starkweather/Moore expedition members that they were on a time schedule exactly 12 hours shifted from that of Starkweather and Moore. Hence, the two parties could work 12 hours shifted as well, and exploration of the cave (which they seemed very keen to see) could happen around the clock. Moore suggested that a liaison from each camp would work with the other, so that everyone could be fully informed of progress all the time; Catherine and Winchester were selected for the first night's watch with the German camp.

At that point it was time for the Germans to retire for the night, and a dazed Starkweather/Moore crew walked back to their own camp, trying to figure out how best to proceed. (It goes without saying that no one trusted the Germans in the slightest.) They decided to attempt to finish excavation of the tents, and split into teams to do so.

Wallace and Driscoll had the honor of discovering Lake's tent, though they found not much of interest inside it. The tent was messy, with clothing strewn everywhere and the cot in pieces. Unspent shotgun shells and bullets were in a pile in the corner; a pair of rubber over-boots had been sliced neatly in half lengthwise. The tent poles had also been snapped. They also found a small, delicately carved wooden pipe--it had a plaque on the side reading 'P. C. Lake'.

Rachel, Green, and Fiskarson were not so lucky. While their tent was in very good condition from the outside (only 3 small holes at the top, surrounded by slight burn-marks), the inside was significantly more disturbing. The entire floor was covered in a thick layer of frozen blood; the two cots were "floating" frozen in it, at least 4" deep. Green, doing some quick calculations, figured at least 10 bodies would have been needed to produce so much blood. Rachel decided that Moore should be told, though she would encourage him not to enter the tent.

Catherine and her beaus excavated another tent, which had become filled with snow. There were gashes and tears in the lee end of the tent, which may have been the reason why snow had gotten in. Removing the snow, she found the door flap almost entirely torn off. Cots were upside down, and light clothing was strewn about. The only artifact of interest was a small brown notebook under one of the cots, with all the pages torn out. Inside the cover was written: 'Ex Libris Gedney'.

The tent left for Betsy, Moore, and Gunnar, while not as macabre as the one Rachel excavated, was sufficiently disturbing. The first strange phenomenon occurred to them while still excavating; after the first 1 1/2 feet of excavation, the by then familiar ice / snow / ice pattern changed into a solid mass of hard, chunky, frozen snow. After a moment, Gunnar furrowed his brow and declared that someone had buried the tent; the snow had been shoveled. It made for easier excavation, and soon they had unearthed the tent, which was completely collapsed. The guide wires had been cut, and the tent had small slices at the corners and along the top. Moore and Gunnar held the tent up for Betsy while she went in and investigated.

Inside, it appeared that someone had been vigorously shaken while leaking. Signs of a great struggle were all over, and a large number of personal effects remained. A hat belonging to Daniels and wallet belonging to Orendorf identified the tent owners. The tent was filled with a pungent sea water smell, the metallic scent of blood nearly overwhelmed by it. The poles for the tent were cut extremely cleanly.

Not anxious to have Moore see the inside, Betsy briefly described the scene and gave him the wallet. Awkwardly, Moore suggested they see how everyone else had done. After instructing the Australians to continue a meticulous search and cataloging of the contents of Lake's tent, he moved on to the tent which Rachel had been overseeing. Though she warned him, Moore insisted on looking anyway. Unable to handle the sight, he ran back to the camp and the safety of his tent, where Rachel kept watch lest he suffer from hypothermia.

At lunch, the group received notice of the remaining tent--things inside had been shaken up, and bits of sextant were everywhere, but nothing grisly had been found. After the group had eaten lunch, Rachel brought some to Moore's tent. After learning of the time, he left his tent and walked straight to the radio tent, where he discovered Betsy and Shaftoe unsuccessfully trying to give a report to LaRoche. He fixed the signal, and let LaRoche know what was going on. After a little while, LaRoche patched Starkweather through, and Moore told him about the Germans and Lexington's involvement. Much blustering occurred, and Starkweather insisted that they keep the Germans away from the camp and he would be there as soon as he could (potentially the next day). Moore said he would 'do what he could'.

Shaftoe spent the afternoon looking for Hopewell, and then getting him to look at the strange radio. The rest of the group continued excavation for the afternoon; Betsy accompanied Rachel and Green back to the blood tent, to chip away at it and discover what it could be hiding. Wallace, Packard and Cruz continued with the excavation of Lake's tent. Catherine joined the rest of the crew to attempt and excavate the remaining pumpkin specimens. It was hoped that with the dogs (who had recently arrived on the Bell), work would be faster.

Work at Lake's tent was tedious and (from a mystery-solving perspective) unfruitful. At the end of the afternoon, Wallace and crew had accumulated a large amount of clothing and not much else.

Under the blood, about 1 1/2 inches down, the tent was layered with clothing. A hand was also found--cut cleanly off around 2 inches below the wrist. Rachel, upon seeing it, decided that she really needed to cook lunch rather than excavate further, leaving the tent to Betsy and Green. They noticed stains on the inside of the wall--blood, of course, but also stains far too dark and orange to be blood. It smelled and tasted (!!) like the Pentaforms. The clothing was labelled in some cases, and the owners of the tent were Brennan and Carol.

Radio work proceeded; they eventually discovered that someone had replaced the capacitors with some other approximately appropriate part (from a motor). Though potentially feasible in theory, Hopewell declared that it really couldn't have made a sound; Shaftoe must have heard the wind.

The pumpkin specimen excavation did not proceed as quickly as hoped; the dogs would go no closer than 50 feet from the mounds, no matter what the handlers did. Still, the remaining specimens were excavated, and the damaged specimens in the biology tent replaced with more intact (though not perfect) creatures. There were green soapstone stars on three of the hillocks. The hillocks with the soapstone carvings had an interesting snow pattern; the normal snow / ice / snow / ice pattern continued about halfway down, then a thick layer of odd snow--it was almost Styrofoam like, but flexible. Then the soapstone carving, and a clear shaft down around the Pentaform. Those Pentaforms without stone carvings had shafts partially filled in, and the snow was normal. After excavation, it became clear that all of the specimens were fairly uniform in size (with slight differences), but identical in color.

At around 3PM, the planes landed for the night; conditions at the barrier camp were cloudy and they couldn't land.

At dinner, noisy conversation and speculation about the specimens prevailed. Sykes, trying to raise the increasingly gloomy mod of the expedition, proposed a toast to the scientific success of the expedition; with help from Green's cabinet, merriment reigned, at least for a short while. Eventually, the Germans arrived and Rachel and Shaftoe showed them around before handing them off to Winchester and Catherine.

Betsy and Bryce began dissection anew; examining a bit of the internal 'filling' under a microscope, Betsy concluded that the Pentaforms were animals rather than plants; her guess was a highly evolved predator native to a shallow sea.

That night, the Germans did some excavation of Lake's camp. They sank holes near the planes, leaving them as a "present" for Moore. Seemingly possessing a significant amount of knowledge of the camp, they knew exactly where to look; they examined all of the tents, and had ice knives and equipment seemingly tailored for just such excavations. They found the dog corral; dogs had been used for meat, their skin and musculature removed. Under a mound of snow near the medical tent, they found a pile of dark cloth. Coats had been cut up and re-sewn (with wiring!) in an odd way. Underneath the cloth were a large number of wedge-shaped indentations.

After opening more mounds, they made their way to the cave. Under Catherine's watchful eye, they continued excavating the cave in the direction started by the Lake camp. Though they found nothing large, it was interesting to note that they found a fair number of fish fossils.

The next day (2 December 1933), Meyer requested Moore's presence at Lake's camp. Germans were waiting there upon Moore's arrival (along with our heroes and Meyer). They led the puzzled group to the hangar, which they were excavating. The canvas had remained intact, and within a few hours the ice was removed. Meyer lifted the canvas to show Moore a revolting sight.

The first impression washing over the party was the smell--that same sea smell with metallic undertones with which they had become too familiar. They then noticed the contents--remnants of messy dissection. The expanse of the floor was huge, covered with organs, tendons, veins.... all laid out in patterns. After studying for a moment, it is noticed that the remains are dog remains; there are dog-shaped spaces on the floor, surrounded by dog parts expertly removed and laid out in patters. Skins of two dogs could be seen; the brain of a third dog had been carefully laid out in paper-thin slices. The dog-shaped spaces were discolored and uneven ice. Eventually, the horrified group noticed larger sections of discolored ice, where humans had lain before removal (presumably by Dyer). The floor was covered with wedge-shaped indentations.

Meyer and Uhr, watching their charges, exchanged glances, and then Meyer approached Moore. Speaking quietly, he said "Herr Professor, I have information you should read--it may help you to understand. Join me in my tent?" Moore nodded, dazed, and wandered off with Meyer.

Shaftoe, noticing further mental deterioration of his leader, angrily accosted Uhr. Uhr, impassive, declared that the German team had met the Starkweather/Moore team with 'all of the frankness and honesty we were ourselves presented with'....

After a few more minutes of argument, Shaftoe went out in search of Moore, and found him returning to his tent with something under his jacket.

Several hours later, at lunch, Moore pulled aside our heroes (and only our heroes), and handed them a manuscript. Obviously shaken, he told them that it was Dyer's account. He begged them to read it and tell him what they thought; then indicated a wish to go and 'see old friends'. Shaftoe accompanied Moore to the cairn as the rest of the group began reading the manuscript.....