The Thing Page 3

"You're the boss, boss." Norris headed toward the door. "Anyway, he's probably ripped. Palmer'll have to go anyhow."

  Despite familiarity bred of constant repetition, it took Norris several minutes to prepare himself to go outside. Slogging along beneath sixty-five pounds of extra clothing, he made his way toward the outside door.

  Wind hammered at his face as he pulled the door aside. Instinctively, he held his lips apart so the saliva in his mouth wouldn't freeze them together. Ice particles rattled on his snow goggles.

  Maybe Bennings was right. It seemed as he started up the stairs that the wind had let up slightly. Windchill factor had fallen from the rapidly fatal to the merely intimidating. Of course they had yet to experience a real winter storm. They were still basking in comparatively mild autumn weather.

  His destination was a shack one hundred yards from the main compound, connected to it by guide ropes and a wooden walkway. A hundred yards on foot in the Antarctic seems like a hundred miles, even when the hiker is blessed by the presence of a visible destination.

  He emerged from the stairs leading down into the central building and started along the boardwalk, his gloved hands sliding easily on the familiar slickness of the guide rope. A few icicles drooped from it and broke off as his sliding fingers made contact with them. He used the rope not only to guide himself but to pull his way up the slight slope. Here arms had to compliment legs that had a tendency to go on strike after even brief exposure to the bitter cold.

  It was comfortably warm inside the shack, which had double walls and radiant electric heat. Macready kept it as tropical as regulations would allow. He hated the cold, hated it even worse than Sanders. Isolation he didn't mind. The mitigating factor was the pay, which was astounding.

  He took the ice cubes from the little refrigerator and dropped them into the glass. Amber liquid of impressive potency sloshed around the cubes.

  "Bishop to knight four," said a calm voice that wasn't his.

  He sipped at the whiskey and walked over to the table holding the game. A large gaily colored Vera Cruz sombrero hung from his neck and bounced gently against his back. He bent to duck the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  The shack was small, individualistic, and furnished in contemporary unkempt. Garry called it a pigsty. Macready preferred the description "lived-in". It was a point the station manager didn't press. Macready did his work. Usually.

  Several large posters of warm places provided interior color. Naples, Rio, Jamaica, Acapulco, one blonde, and two redheads. It was hot enough in the shack to make you sweat.

  The electronic chessboard on the table was larger than the average model. Macready sat down and chuckled over his opponent's bad move.

  "Poor little son of a bitch. You're starting to lose it, aren't you?"

  He thought a moment, then tapped in his move. The machine's response was immediate.

  "Pawn takes queen at knight four." Electronically manipulated pieces quivered slightly as they shuffled across the board.

  Macready's grin slowly faded as he examined the new alignment. Someone was pounding on his door. He ignored the noise while brooding over his next move, finally entering the instructions.

  Again pieces shifted. "Rook to knight six," said the implacable voice from the board's internal speaker. "Check."

  The pounding was getting insistent. Macready's teeth ground together as he glared at the board. He bent forward and opened a small flap on the side of the playing field. Colored circuitry stared back at him as he dumped the remnants of his drink over them. Snapping and popping burst from the machine, followed by a flash of sparks and very little smoke.

  "Bishop to pawn three takes rook to queen five king to bishop two move pawn to pawn six to pawn seven to pawn eight to pawn nine to pawn to pawn to pawnnizzzzfisssttt*ttt* . . ."

  Macready listened until the gibberish stopped, then rose and stumbled toward the door, mumbling disgustedly to himself.

  ". . . Cheating bastard . . . damn aberrant programming . . . better get my money back . . ."

  Carefully he cracked open the door. Heat burst past him, sucked toward the South Pole. Norris pushed through and past him, a rush of snow following like a white remora.

  "You jerking off or just pissed?" the geophysicist growled, slapping at his sides. "Why the hell didn't you open up?"

  Macready said nothing but gestured toward the still smoking board. "We got any replacement modules for these chess things down in supply?"

  "How the hell would I know? Get your gear on."

  The chess game was suddenly forgotten. Macready regarded his visitor with sudden suspicion. "What for?"

  "What d'you think for?"

  "Oh no." He started backing away from Norris. "No way. Not a chance. Huh-uh . . ."

  "Garry says—"

  "I don't give a shit what Garry says." Outside, the wind howled. To Macready it sounded hungry.

  Childs had one of the big torches out and was keeping it close to his body as he melted ice from the helicopter's rotors and engine cowling. Of all the outside jobs, melting off machinery was one of the most pleasurable. At least you could keep yourself defrosted along with the equipment.

  The wind howled around him as he worked. He glanced skyward. Despite Bennings's assurances he didn't envy whoever had to take the chopper up. No one would, unless Copper insisted. Childs smiled to himself. Plump old Doc Copper usually got his way. Because once he proposed something, none of the other macho types could very well back out without looking silly.

  He turned his attention back to the nearly de-iced copter and cut frozen water from its landing gear.

  The little cluster of heavily dressed men resembled a group of migrating bears as they wound their way through the narrow corridor leading toward the helicopter pad. They were already starting to sweat, despite the special absorptive thermal underwear. The clothes they wore were designed to be comfortable at seventy below, not seventy above.

  Dr. Copper carried a medical satchel. It was made of metal and formed high-impact plastic and could hold anything up to and including a portable surgery. Its standard color was yellow, but Copper had personally spray-painted it black. He was a bit of a traditionalist.

  Macready was studying a flight chart printed on a plastic sheet and grumbling nonstop, his own mental engine already flying over their intended route.

  "Craziness . . . this is goddamn insane . . . I don't know if I can even find this place in clear weather . . ."

  "Quit the griping, Macready," Garry ordered him. "The sooner you get out there, the sooner you're back."

  "If we get there," the pilot snorted. "It's against regulations to go up this time of year! I'm not supposed to fly again 'til spring. I'll put in a protest. Regulations say I don't have to go up in this kind of weather."

  "Screw regulations," Copper told him. "Records indicate there are six guys out at that Norwegian station. Two nuts from six guys leaves maybe four crawling around on their bellies praying for help. Antarctica's like the ocean, Mac. First law of the sea says you help a fellow mariner in trouble before you think of anything else."

  "I don't mind helping 'em," Macready insisted. "I just don't want to end up crawling around with them when we go down."

  Garry glared at him. "If you aren't ready to make an occasional risk flight in bad weather then why the hell did you volunteer for this post?"

  Macready smiled, rubbing a thumb and finger together. "Same reason a lot of us did. But I can't spend it if I'm dead."

  "Look, Macready, if you're going to keep on bitching, Palmer's already offered to take the doc up."

  Macready gaped at the station manager, incredulous. "What are you talking about? Palmer? He's had maybe two months training in those choppers! Fair weather training."

  "Four," Palmer corrected him defiantly from the rear of the pack. "A little blow doesn't bother me."

  "Little blow." Macready shook his head. "Hell, when you get stoked, Palmer, the end of the world can't bother you. But maybe the
doc isn't as interested in dying happy as you are, pothead."

  "So then you take him up and shut up," Palmer shot back.

  "Ahhhhh! " Macready made a rude gesture and turned to face Bennings. "What's it like out there, anyway? Forty-five knots?"

  "Sixteen," the meteorologist told him.

  "Yeah, and the horse you rode in on," Macready snapped. "Sixteen for how long? You can't tell, this time of year. In five minutes it could be fifty."

  Bennings nodded agreeably. "Possible."

  "So what do we do?" Copper halted next to the outside doorway. The roar of the wind penetrated even the double-thick, insulated barrier.

  "So you open the door," Macready growled, out of arguments, "unless you want to try and walk through it . . ."

  Childs was waiting for them, and gave Copper a hand up into the cockpit of the chopper. The doctor carefully secured his bag behind the seat. Outside the plexiglass bubble, blowing snow was already beginning to obscure their view.

  Macready slid in next to him and began flipping switches and examining readouts on the console. The one readout he didn't bother to check gave the current exterior temperature. Once it fell below zero, he no longer cared what it said. And since it was always below zero it was the one instrument in the choppers he could usually ignore.

  He tightened the sombrero's string beneath his chin. It hung outside his polar parka, incongruous against his back. Childs had thoughtfully activated the prewarm. Good mechanic, Childs. Macready trusted him. The engine had been heating up for thirty minutes. It ought to start.

  He hit the ignition. For a moment the reluctant rotors strained against fresh ice. Then they began to spin. The engine revved with comforting steadiness.

  "Hang on over there, doc," he told his passenger. "This isn't Disneyland."

  He pulled back on the controls. The chopper lifted, swung sideways for an instant, then began a steady climb into the sky. Macready held it steady, then sent it charging northeast over the white landscape. It slid into the wind, fighting the gale like a salmon returning upstream. Macready was too involved with the controls to consider throwing up. He couldn't. Not in front of the unruffled Copper.

  The doctor relaxed back in his seat, rechecked his seat belt and shoulder harness, and studied the passing terrain. He appeared to be enjoying himself. Macready cursed him, but silently.

  Several pairs of eyes watched through temporarily defogged windows from the rec room as the helicopter shrank into the distance. Clark rested his palms against the glass as he stared. Between his skin and the outside were three layers of special thick glass and two intervening layers of warmed air. The glass was still cold to his touch.

  "Mac's really taken it up, huh?"

  Bennings was feeling his leg, having to force himself not to scratch at the healing itch. "Copper volunteered to check the Norwegian camp for wounded, and Garry concurred."

  "We could have used the dogs," Clark said, slightly hurt that he hadn't even been considered. "It would've been safer, in this wind."

  "Safer, yeah," agreed Bennings, "but ten times as slow. We could get a major storm in here any day now. This way they'll be back in a few hours."

  A thick bandage padding the hip where the bullet had entered, the husky trotted into the room. He padded happily between the tables and chairs, hobbling only a little on the damaged leg.

  This is damned insane, Macready thought to himself as he lifted the copter over an ice ridge. The engine protested, but only for a second or two. A few boulders atop the ridge showed through the snow. Buried baldies, Macready mused. Funny how you could get lonely for something as common as grass. He grinned slightly. Except for Palmer and Childs's imports, of curse.

  The gale had lessened considerably since takeoff and he had to admit that flying had become almost pleasant. It was starting to look like they'd make it without any real trouble

  The chopper's cockpit heater whined loudly. Macready had it set on high. As far as he was concerned, that was the only setting it possessed. Copper was uncomfortably warm, but said nothing. He'd stand the overheating to keep the pilot happy.

  Macready glanced over at the plastic map set in the holder on the console. "We ought to be closing on it, Doc, if the coordinates Fuchs and Bennings gave us are right."

  "This isn't the Arctic, Mac. Camps don't float around on ice floes down here. It'll be where it's supposed to be." He suddenly pointed down through the bubble. "There, what's that?"

  Smoke was visible directly ahead, and it didn't come from somebody's chimney. There was one central, dense column and several smaller sudsidiary plumes. Too many. The wind made the smoke curl and dance in the Antarctic evening. Soon the sun would vanish altogether and the long South Polar night would settle over them.

  Macready encircled the half-buried camp. Up close the smoke seemed unusually thick, almost tarlike. It billowed skyward from hidden sources. There was no sign of movement below. Only the wind moved here.

  "Anyplace special, Doc?"

  Copper was leaning to his right, staring solemnly through the bubble. "You pick it, Mac. From the looks of things I don't think it much matters."

  The relaxed wind gave Macready no trouble as he carefully set the copter down. He cut the engine and switched over to the prewarm to keep it from icing up. The rotors slowed, their comforting whine fading to silence, blending into the mournful wind. Macready unlatched the cockpit door and stepped out. His first glance was for the sky. It showed cobalt blue, save for fast-moving clouds. There was no telling how long the break in the weather would last. They'd have to hurry.

  They slogged toward the camp. A large, prefabricated metal building loomed directly ahead. It was full of gaping holes not part of the original design. Macready searched but couldn't locate an intact window. Broken glass shone like diamonds in the snow.

  Smoke rose from the surface. Like their own camp, most of this one should be snuggled beneath the ice. It looked like the ground itself was on fire.

  Individual pieces of equipment burned with their own personal fires, melting their way into the ice and eventual extinction. A flaming ember whizzed by and both men instinctively ducked, even though fire here was usually a welcome companion. But conditioning dies hard.

  Copper said nothing, just stared. Macready's thoughts were a flabbergasted blank. The place looked like Carthage after the last Punic war.

  This wasn't what they'd expected. Not this total devastation. Macready turned and went back to the helicopter and thoughtfully pocketed the ignition key.

  Eventually they located the source of the main blaze and also the reason for the unusually thick column of smoke. It rose from what appeared to be a makeshift funeral pyre. Books, tires, furniture, scrap lumber; anything that would burn had been heaped together outside the main building and set on fire. Discernible among the rest of the inorganic kindling were the charred remains of several dogs and at least one man. Mounds of black goo that might have been asphalt or roofing sealant burned fragrantly among the rest of the debris.

  A small gasoline drum lay on its end nearby, its cap missing. A larger fuel oil drum squatted off to one side. Macready checked the smaller container first, then the larger. Both were empty.

  He glanced to his left. Was that only the wind whispering in his ears? He exchanged a look with Copper. The doctor's face was pale, and it wasn't from the cold.

  Macready made another trip back to the copter and opened the door. The shotgun slid easily out of its brackets behind the pilot's seat. He made sure it was loaded, took a box of shells from the compartment beneath and shoved them into his pocket, then hurried to rejoin Copper.

  The doctor glanced sharply at the gun, whose purpose was so different from the instruments he carried in his satchel. But he didn't object to its presence. It seemed small enough insurance in the face of the violence that had ripped this camp.

  They started in toward the center structure, or rather what was left of it. Glowing embers continued to waft past them. One latched onto Ma
cready's shirt-sleeve and he absently batted it out.

  The door was unlocked. Macready turned the latch, stepped back, and used the muzzle of the shotgun to shove it inward. It swung loosely and banged against the interior wall.

  Ahead lay a long, pitch-black corridor. There was a switch just inside the doorway. Copper flipped it several times, without effect. He pulled a flashlight from his coat and aimed it down the corridor.

  "Anybody here?"

  No answer. The beam played off the walls and floor, revealing a tunnel little different in design and construction from those back at their own compound.

  Only the wind talked to them, constant as it was uninformative. Copper looked to the pilot, who shrugged.

  "This is your party, Doc."

  Copper nodded, and started in. Macready followed and moved up beside the older man.

  Their progress was slow because of the debris that filled the corridor. Overturned chairs, chests of equipment, loose wires, and cannisters of gas and liquid made for treacherous walking. Once Macready nearly went over on his face when his feet got tangled in an exploded television set. Copper winced, then gave the pilot a reproving look.

  "Maybe I ought to carry the gun?" He extended a hand.

  Macready was angry at himself, "I'll watch it. It won't happen again. Just watch where you point that flashlight."

  Copper nodded, and tried to keep the beam focused equally on the floor and corridor ahead. It was as cold in the hallway as it was outside.

  "Heat's been off in here for quite a while," he said.

  Macready nodded, his eyes trying to pierce the darkness in front of them. "Anybody left alive would've frozen to death days ago."

  "Not necessarily. Just because this one section is exposed and heatless doesn't mean the whole camp's the same way. Your shack has its own heat, for example."

  "Yeah, but if the generator went out I'd be a popsicle in a couple of hours."

  "Well, they might have portable propane heaters, then."

  Macready threw him a sour look. "I love you, Doc. You're such a damn optimist."

  Copper didn't reply; he continued to play his flashlight beam over floor and walls. The wind wailed overhead.