“Another useless march in the freezing cold, why the fuck do they keep making us do this?”

I usually don’t swear out loud, not least to Bill, my roommate in the dormitory.

“It’s the third this month,” Bill replied in his usual matter-of-fact voice.

“Every time we’ve been sent out, it’s just been some stupid animal that got lost, injured or rutting another. Why they think ETV’s are out there is beyond me.”

Bill turned slightly towards me, but still watching his foot placement in the late-spring sour ice. “You’ve heard the reports of the odd gravitational signatures in the solar system. Nothing like them in the databases”

“pff, probably just bad sensors. If aliens were real, would they really want to come to Svarlbaard? Jesus, you can’t even get laid here, much less get a decent coffee. You’re telling me this is a highlight of the solar system?”

“Knock it off and watch where you’re walking,” Bill grabbed my elbow and pulled me away from a patch of ice thining in the arctic sun. “We’ve just got to get over that swale, then we can radio all-clear and head back."

I grudgingly nodded and carefully picked my way across the melting ice-field. In the three years I’ve been stationed here I still can’t appreciate Spring in the arctic. Winter has its majestic loneliness, with the four months of darkness, wind and snow. But mostly darkness. We kept busy running on the base’s indoor track, trying to get mesages out and news in despite the intermittent wifi, and drinking in the commons with the other slugs assigned here. Summer had the glories of the brief yet verdant greens and the neverending sun and ball games outside in the makeshift field. Autumn was busy with the with the winter preparations in the fading sunset. But Spring was just the transition, and careful where you step.