“As I told Dr. Armstrong, make a list. I will get everything you need, if it’s at all possible.”
Sighing, Jason looked down at the papers in his lap. No sense arguing; Bloch and Wu clearly meant to keep the find to themselves for now. He’d survey the lab and make a list of anything that might prove helpful. Who knew, perhaps the army would deliver.
Never mind that what he really needed was a state-of-the-art research lab like they had at Cornell or CalTech. What could he do at the base that Nick hadn’t already done? Jason chewed his lip and looked out the window at the white-white-white land flowing endlessly below. The ’copter cast a long shadow to their right, the only feature in this impossibly bleak landscape.
Slowly the reality of what Bloch had told him sank in. Could the metal be from a spaceship? It seemed incredible. Impossible.
And yet, when he had touched that bubbled, half-melted bit of metal, no other explanation seemed to fit.
* * * *
An hour later, the ’copter came in low over what Bloch described as their “permanent base.” Jason had only a few seconds’ look at three long, low buildings arranged to form a triangle before the helicopter settled onto a snow-crusted landing pad between them. The sun, its red-gold edge already dipping below the horizon, vanished behind fifteen-foot-tall steel walls, though its glow bathed a giant satellite dish atop one building in spectacular colors.
Bloch touched his arm and pointed toward what looked like an airlock in one building. “Put on your hat and gloves,” he said, voice crackling over the radio. “ We don’t have far to go, but it’s well below zero here. We’ve already had a couple of frostbite cases. Bring the papers, leave your gear. I’ll have it brought to your quarters.”
Jason nodded, took off the headset, and pulled on the goggles, heavy ski mask, insulated gloves, and heavy parka that Milos Pappas had given him back at the Amundsen-Scott Station. The station had a good supply of thermal gear abandoned by former researchers. That, plus three unopened packages of thermal underwear, insulated leggings, and several used-but-clean sweatshirts, now supplemented the cold-weather gear he had brought from home.
General Wu had already climbed out and was striding briskly toward the building. Bloch stepped down, gave Jason a hand to the ground, and led the way toward the door.
The entered a room about the size of an elevator. Here Bloch pulled off his ski mask, and Jason did the same. Next they went through a second door, into a room lined with benches. Hot air gushed in from wall vents. It felt like the blast of heat furnace after the bitter cold outside. Jason’s eyes started to water, and he blinked and rubbed at them. Parkas, ski masks, boots, and other gear had been hung on hooks or stowed on high shelves.
Then the stench hit. A sour mingling of human sweat, old food, body odor, and other smells Jason couldn’t begin to identify.
“God!” he gasped, covering his nose with the ski mask. He took a step back. “What the hell is that—”
“In a day or two, you won’t even notice,” Bloch said flatly. “Living in close confinement, in a sealed environment, there’s little you can do about the smell. It’s far worse on submarines, trust me. At least we vent in a little fresh air here.”
He finished hanging up his gear and waited while Jason did the same. Then he led the way into a corridor barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. Fluorescent light panels glowed overhead, revealing pale gray walls and flooring. There were no windows.
“Grim little place you have here,” Jason observed. No wonder Nick killed himself.
“It’s built for practicality and survival,” Bloch said. “This building houses your lab, as well as our offices, the communications room, the rec room, and the mess hall.” He nodded toward the left. “Sleeping quarters are in the next building over—and yes, everything is connected. You don’t have to go outside. Not that you’d want to, in this weather.”
What have I gotten myself into? Jason thought. I must have been crazy to agree to this.
Block stopped in front of a steel door. Someone had written “LAB” on the wall beside it in black magic marker. He pushed it open, reached inside to thumb a switch, and fluorescent lights began to flicker on.
“Welcome to your new lab,” he said.
Jason went in. It was a tiny room, maybe eight feet square, crammed with a pair of work tables, a battered old laptop, and a jumble of equipment that looked like it came from a salvage yard.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jason said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Army Corps of Engineers
Special Operations Base, Antarctica
General Wu pulled off his ski mask as he entered the mouth of the ice tunnel. It lay inside the third of the three prefab Army buildings. His breath plumed in the air as he looked around. Heaters kept the tunnel—and the building behind him—at a steady twenty-eight degrees. The third building existed solely to provide sheltered access for workers entering and leaving the tunnel. An cargo-container-sized airlock on the building’s outer-facing wall also provided access to the ice-field a hundred yards from camp, where mini-bulldozers dumped debris from the tunnel excavation.
Corporal Menendez had been waiting for him beside one of their golf carts. She straightened and saluted as she noticed him..
He returned the salute. “Status?”
“Sir. We recovered three more pieces of metal—I had them moved to the lab—and two more are accessible and can be dug out. One of the recovered pieces shows signs of machine-work. It may be part of an airlock. And…” She hesitated.
He settled into the passenger seat. The cart rocked once, then steadied.
“Spit it out,” Wu said. “What couldn’t you tell me over the radio?”
“We found something else.”
“Damn it, found what? I don’t have time for nonsense, Corporal!”
“Some…thing. A…a creature, I guess you’d say, frozen in the ice. It’s…it’s…” She shuddered, looked away. “You can’t see it too clearly, but what you can see—I’m sorry, sir. It’s like something out of a nightmare.”
Wu felt a stab of panic as he remembered the report he’d read at the Pentagon. Remembered how the 1938 researchers found an alien creature frozen in ice and thawed it out, only to have it come to life. Nineteen million years frozen, and it came to life!
He had never dreamed they would find one of those alien things here. He felt his jaw tighten. It had to be contained. And then it would have to be destroyed. No chances.
He said, “You didn’t dig this creature out, did you?” Somehow, he kept his voice steady.
“No, sir.”
“Good.” He gestured down the tunnel. “Drive. I want to see it.”
Menendez accelerated, and as the golf cart hummed down the incline and into the tunnel, ice closed in on every side. It glistening faintly. Ahead, puddles of illumination from arc lights broke the darkness every thirty yards.
“It it blocking the tunnel path?” he asked.
“Partly, sir. But we can go around it. And—if you don’t mind—maybe I can cover it with a tarp.” Quickly she added, “Most of the men find it unnerving.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” He chewed his lip. Probably a good idea. The fewer people who saw the thing, the better. Less to deny later, if necessary.
When they turned at the first switchback, Wu realized he hadn’t seen any workers yet. Nor could he see any in the stretch of tunnel ahead. Just more arc lights and orange-glowing electric heaters.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
“At the discovery site, sir. They all wanted to see it.”
He nodded. Understandable. The team had been working for two months with no real discoveries beyond a few small lumps of alien metal to break the monotony. Of course they’d all want to check out a frozen alien monster. In their place, he would have done the same thing.
Corporal Menendez turned at the second switchback, and Wu spotted fifteen or so people at the end of the tunne
l. All work had ceased, but the gathering didn’t have a festive atmosphere. If anything, it struck him as overly hushed, subdued…almost funereal. Anything but happy.
The engineers called to each other and snapped to attention as Menendez pulled the golf cart to a stop. Wu climbed out, and the crowd parted silently, clearing a path to the rough-hewn, vertical wall of ice at the end of the tunnel. There, a section roughly a yard square had an inch-deep channel etched around it. For a second, it reminded him of a picture frame. And it framed…what? He squinted. All the arc lights had been angled away; he couldn’t see much, beyond a dim, shadowy hulk buried perhaps eight or ten inches within.
Frowning, he swept his gaze over the whole team. No one met his gaze. Didn’t they want to see their discovery? Even those two civilian geologists looked pale and unsettled.
“Flashlight,” he said, sticking out his hand. Was it really that bad?
When someone handed him a heavy steel flashlight, he flicked it on and pressed the lens against the milky ice, angling the beam first up, then down, then across. Definitely something. Could that be…a head? He squinted, shifting the beam up a few inches. Possibly a head, but something like a mass of worms covered it. Then his light caught a gleam of red, and he focused on what might have been an eye. It seemed to be staring straight at him.
His stomach churned, and he almost dropped the flashlight. He took a step back, looked around at his men. Now he understood. They felt it, too. An overpowering, visceral urge to destroy the thing. To smash it, burn it, grind it to dust. It was a primitive, from-the-gut reaction, an absolute need to see it dead and gone.
Skin crawling, he snapped off the flashlight and forced himself to walk back to the golf cart at an unhurried pace. No doubt about it. This had to be a Thing like the one from the 1938 report.
And it had to be destroyed.
“I want it left strictly alone,” he told Menendez, but he made sure his voice carried to every man and woman present. “We’ll swing the tunnel to the left and go around it. No one is to touch this wall or dig an inch closer. I want a guard posted day and night to make sure. This—this sea lion or whatever it is—must remain in place until further notice.”
“General?” said the blond geologist. What was his name? Garvin? “We were talking about cutting it out. That isn’t a sea lion. With a find like this, shouldn’t we—”
“No!” That sounded too sharp, too panicked. He cleared his throat, then added in a normal tone, “It’s several million years old. It may be carrying bacteria or viruses that could prove dangerous to modern life. I’ll bring in a hazmat team to deal with it.” With flame throwers, if necessary. “No point taking chances.”
He glanced around at the Menendez and the men. “I think we’ve all had enough for today. Let’s knock off early and head back up to base. I’m declaring a holiday. I think we still have a keg of beer in storage. Let’s have some fun.”
As expected, the workers cheered. Even so, they seemed strangely subdued.
He hopped into the golf cart. Menendez called orders, picked an unfortunate soldier for guard duty, assigned another to cover the thing with a tarp, and then climbed back into the cart. In silence, she drove for the surface.
CHAPTER FIVE
PFC Hector Dobbs scuffed at the ice floor with the toe of his right boot as everyone else started the long trek up to home base. Just like that bitch Menendez to pick him for guard duty. He’d miss most of the fun. At least she’d only given him a four-hour shift.
He pulled a battered old .mp3 player from his breast pocket, thumbed earbuds into his ears, and pressed the play button. It might not be as fancy as an iPod or iPhone, but it played nearly two days of audio without recharging, and that’s what counted out here.
As Metallica blasted his eardrums, he gave Menendez the finger—though she’d probably already reached the surface—played air guitar for a few seconds, then climbed onto the mini-bulldozer and shifted until he found a comfortable position on the worn plastic seat. Better than standing or sitting on the ice. Like that Thing would be going anywhere…or like anyone would want to dig it out.
So cold…
Those two civvies doing make-work on the walls had wanted to dig it out. They’d gotten real hard-ons when that big chunk of metal turned up, whooping and hollering about aliens and UFOs. Yeah, right. Fucking aliens. It had to be some kind of seal or walrus.
He yawned. Although two layers of thermal underwear normally kept him pretty comfortable down here, it seemed colder than usual today. He glanced up the tunnel, at the pools of light dotting the way toward the surface. Nothing moved.
So cold…
His gaze fell on the closest of the half dozen industrial heaters. Its heating elements glowed faintly reddish-orange. They needed a few more of those babies.
As Kirk Hammett riffed through “The Day That Never Comes,” Dobbs’s mind started to drift. Metallica faded. The tunnel blurred. He closed his eyes.
So cold…
He barely noticed as he pulled out the earbuds and dropped them on the seat, climbed down from his perch on the mini-bulldozer, and crossed to the closest of the gently whirring heating units. Without thought or hesitation, he grabbed the handles, tilted it back, and wheeled it toward the end of the tunnel. The heater’s bright yellow power cord unspooled behind him with a faint whir.
After dragging aside the tarp, he pointed the heater toward the Thing in the ice, twisted the knob to “High,” and then returned the mini-bulldozer. As he settled back into his seat, he closed his eyes and drifted back toward sleep, lulled by the sound of dripping water and the faint snap-crack-snap of warming ice.
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