The Thing

by Alan Dean Foster

  Total confusion reigned inside the compound. Its inhabitants were used to coping with hurricane-force winds and abysmal cold, with power failures and short rations. They were not prepared to deal with an assassin.

  Several of the men started throwing on outdoor clothing: parkas, down vests, insulated gloves. Their only plan was to get ouside and help Norris and Bennings. A few, mesmerized by the drama taking place out on the ice, simply stared through foggy windows as if blankly watching one of the several camp television sets.

  From the recreation room came the sound of triple paned glass shattering. It took several blows from the gun butt to break through the thick insulating panes. Then the muzzle of the .44 pointed through the sudden gap, steadied by two hands.

  Outside, the intruder was gaining on Norris and Bennings. Having finally managed to reload the rifle its owner raised it and took shaky aim. A shot sounded, slightly deeper than any that had gone before. The man's head jerked backward, his rifle firing at a cloud. He dropped to his knees, then fell face down into the snow.

  Norris halted his desperate backtracking, his chest pounding. He let go of Bennings's jacket. The meteorologist clutched at his wound and gazed in fascination at their suddenly motionless assailant. The injured dog lay close by, whining in pain. Across the veiled whiteness Childs cautiously rose to peer out over the top of the snowmobile.

  Once again the only sound that could be heard was the wail of the constant wind.

  Inside the rec room the rumble of confused voices had ceased. Men who'd been in the process of donning parkas stopped closing snaps and fighting zippers. Every eye had shifted from the scene outside to the station manager. Garry flipped open the cylinder of the Magnum and extracted the single spent shell, then closed it tight again, nudged the safety, and slipped the gun back into the holster riding his belt.

  The station manager grew aware he was the new focus of attention. Ex-Army, he wore the gun more out of habit than necessity. Sometimes an old habit could prove useful.

  "Quit gaping. Fuchs, Palmer, Clark . . ." he gestured toward the outside with his head . . . "you're already half dressed. Do something useful. Get out there and put out that fire."

  "Why bother?" Palmer was ever argumentative. He brushed long blond hair away from his face. "There's nothing else out there to burn. I've seen enough crashes to know that pilot didn't have a chance in hell."

  "Do it." Garry's tone was curt. "Maybe we'll find something useful in the wreckage."

  "Like what?" asked Palmer belligerently.

  "Like an explanation. Now move it!" He turned his attention to the youngest man in the room. "Sanders, see if you can find a replacement pane for the window."

  "That's Childs's job," came the quick reply. "I run communications, not repair."

  "Childs is out there. Hurt, maybe."

  "Mierda del toro," Sanders grumbled, but moved out of the room to comply with the order.

  The snowblower quickly subdued the flames, but they found no explanations in the seared cockpit of the chopper, and not much of the pilot, either. More of the men's attention was directed back toward the compound and the exterior digital readout, which provided a constant account of the temperature and windchill factor.

  Back in the rec room the rest of the men were gathered around the body of the berserk man who'd wielded the indiscriminate rifle. There was a neat hole in the center of his forehead. One or two of the men muttered quietly that Garry might've aimed for something less lethal. Bennings and Norris wouldn't have thought much of such complaints.

  Garry was going through the man's pockets, underneath the thick winter coveralls. He came up with a battered black wallet that contained pictures of a woman surrounded by three smiling children, of a house, some folding money, a couple of peculiar credit cards, other personal paraphernalia some of which was recognizable and some of which was not, and most importantly, an official-looking identification card.

  Garry studied it. "Norwegian," he announced tersely. "Name's Jan Bolen. Don't ask me how you pronounce it."

  Fuchs was standing next to the large relief map of Antarctica that dominated the far wall. He was the youngest member of the crew, excepting Clark and Sanders. Sanders ran telecommunications and Clark ran the dogs, but sometimes Fuchs felt inferior to both of them despite all his advanced learning. This country was kinder to such men than to sensitive assistant biologists.

  The body lay across a couple of card tables that had hastily been shoved together. Fuchs was the only one whose attention was on something else.

  "Sanae's clear across the continent," he told the station manager. "They couldn't have flown all the way from there in that copter. But they have a base nearby. Recent setup, if I remember the bulletin correctly."

  "How far is it?" asked Garry.

  Fuchs studied the map, using his thumb to plot against the scale. "I'd guess about eighty kilometers southwest."

  Garry didn't try to hide his surprise. "That far? That's a helluva distance to come in a chopper in this weather." Behind him Sanders was carefully fitting the heavy new glass into the gap the station manager had made.

  Garry turned his attention to Childs. Norris was seated next to him. Both men had calmed down somewhat since the attack. Childs was still picking ice out of his beard.

  "How you doing, Childs?"

  The mechanic looked up at him. "Better than Bennings."

  Garry grunted, glancing at Norris as he spoke. They all worried about Norris. "You catch anything he was saying out of all that raving?"

  Childs gave him a twisted grin. "Am I starting to look Norwegian to you, bwana? You been out in the snow too many times. Sure I caught what he said. He said, 'Tru de menge, halt de foggen.' That a help?"

  Garry didn't smile, shifting his questioning to the geophysicist. "How about you?"

  "Yeah, I caught something," Norris muttered angrily. "I caught that he wanted the better part of my ass to come apart. That was easy enough to understand."

  The station manager just nodded, turning a concerned gaze back to the body on the table. It was past giving him the answers he wanted . . .

  Everybody liked Copper. The doctor seemed so out of place at the station, with his ever present paternal grin and Midwestern twang. He didn't belong out here, serving the men who studied a frozen Hades. He belonged back in Indiana somewhere, treating little girls for measles and boys for scratches caused by falling off fences. He ought to be posing for a Norman Rockwell type painting to adorn some middle-class periodical.

  Instead, he plied his trade at the bottom of the Earth. He'd volunteered for the post, because beneath that Dr. Gillespie exterior lurked the heart of a mildly adventurous man. The others were glad he was around.

  At the moment he was working on Bennings's outstretched leg. Off in a corner of the infirmary, Clark the handler was mending the hip of the wounded husky. The single facility had to serve the medical needs of both dogs and men. Neither resented the presence of the other, and Clark and Copper often helped each other during more complex procedures. The men didn't care, as long as the medications didn't get mixed up.

  The meteorologist let out an "ouch" as the doctor moved the needle. Copper gave him a reproving look.

  "Don't 'ouch' me, Bennings. At least be as brave as the dog. Two lousy stitches. Bullet just grazed you. Hardly broke your precious skin."

  "Yeah, well, it didn't feel like it." The needle moved a last time and Bennings grimaced melodramatically.

  Copper tied off the stitching and helped the shaken Bennings swing his legs off the table. The meteorologist was still trembling, and not from the effects of the wound.

  "Jesus, what the hell were they doing?" he mumbled. "Flying that low, in this kind of weather. Shooting at a dog . . . at us . . ." He shook his head slowly, unable to make sense out of the madness that had intruded on an otherwise perfectly normal day.

  Copper shrugged, unable to enlighten his friend, He put the needle back in the sterilizer and turned it on. It hummed soft
ly. "Stir crazy, maybe."

  "Is that a medical diagnosis?"

  "Funny. I mean cabin fever, some kind of argument that exploded out of all proportion. We'll probably never find out exactly what caused it."

  "Garry will." Bennings sounded assured. "If I know him, he'll find out what the hell's going on or know the reason why. Give the man that. He's tenacious." He glanced down at his repaired leg, remembered staring down the barrel of the hunting rifle, and added quietly, "Also a helluva good shot."

  A sharp yelp made both men turn to look. Clark tried to comfort the injured animal, while glancing apologetically toward the others. "I'll be here a while yet. The shell's in pretty tight. I'd rather work it out carefully and save the leg. Let me know what they find out, will you?"

  Copper nodded, while helping Bennings limp out of the infirmary. Behind them the dog continued to whine in pain as Clark moved a light closer and continued probing for the bullet.

  Blair leaned against the entryway to the telecom room and ran a hand across his naked forehead. Dirt and sweat came away against his palm. You were always dirty at the station, with showers restricted to two a week. It was funny, really. You trod over thirty percent of all the fresh water on Earth and had to ration your showers because of the energy requirements.

  Damn the interruption, anyway. He had two papers to finish plus the regular weekly reports to file, not to mention a brace of ongoing outside experiments that needed constant checking. Ever since the funding cutback he'd been forced to manage with only Fuchs to help, though Bennings and Norris both had been good about trying to help out. But they had their own work to monitor.

  He chewed on the unlit cigarette and stared as Sanders manipulated dials and buttons. Static hissed from a overhead speaker. Blair had been listening to it rise and fall for ten minutes. Faint reception never won fair lady, he thought sourly.

  Finally Sanders turned to him, looking bored. "It's no go. Even if I could speak Norwegian. Even if I knew their damn frequencies."

  "Well, get to somebody." Blair was as frustrated by attack as everyone else. "Anybody. Try McMurdo again. We've got to report this mess before someone else beats us to it or we're liable to have an international incident on our hands. And you know what that would mean. Work interrupted while everyone troops off to file depositions and personal accounts."

  "Wouldn't bother me," Sanders was a couple months over twenty-one. No one at the station seemed to know how he'd obtained his position, or why he'd bothered.

  Probably the ads had made it sound romantic. Six months away from the sights and sounds (not to mention the warmth) of Los Angeles had changed the telecom operator's mind, and he made no effort to hide his unhappiness. He'd tell anyone who'd stop to listen how he'd been duped.

  But he was stuck with the job for a year. No wine, no women, and not much song. Certainly no romance. The girl friend he'd taken the job to impress was probably lying on the beach at Santa Monica right now, drinking wine and nestling into somebody else's arms.

  The coming winter would be harder on Sanders than most of them.

  "Try McMurdo again."

  Sanders sounded disgusted. "Who do you think I've been trying? Look, I haven't been able to reach shit in two weeks. I doubt if anybody's talking to anybody else on the whole continent. You ought to know what a storm like this does to communications."

  Blair turned away from the younger man and looked toward the narrow window set high in the wall across the hallway. Beyond the damp glass he could see nothing but blowing snow. The lower half of the window was already buried. Another month would cover it completely.

  "Yeah," he muttered resignedly, "I know . . ."

  The rumbling was subdued and steady, a sound not unlike the wind howling outside the station. But softer. It came from one of the many hallways that connected the multiple rooms and storage sections of the compound.

  Slowly it moved toward the recreation room. Ears took note of its approach, but none of the men assembled there bothered to turn toward it. The noise was well known to all of them and no cause for alarm.

  Nauls skidded to a flashy stop in one of the doorways and braced himself against the jamb. His legs shifted alternately as he balanced himself on the roller skates and stared at the others.

  "I heard" His eyes took in the body still lying on the card tables. "So what's it mean?"

  "Nobody knows yet," Fuchs told him. "You got any ideas?"

  "Sure." The cook grinned at the young biologist. "Maybe we at war with Norway."

  Palmer wasn't much older than Nauls. He'd finally gotten control of his hair. It hung down his back in a single fall, secured with a single rubber band. He smiled at the cook's joke as he lit up a joint.

  A funny smile, was Palmer's. He was something else with machinery and not a bad pilot, but from time to time he had a little trouble communicating with other human beings. Episodes from a slightly radical past (most during the sixties) occasionally rose up to haunt him, chemically as well as physically.

  He inhaled crisply, turning the smile on Garry. The two were social opposites, but they got along okay. In a place like the station, you had. to get along. Garry and Palmer did so because neither took the other too seriously.

  "Was wondering when El Capitan was going to get a chance to use his pop gun."

  Garry rebuked him with a stern look, and turned to face Fuchs. The biologist was still studying the large map.

  "How long have they been stationed there? You said you didn't think they'd been set up for very long."

  Fuchs walked away from the map and began rummaging through a box file. He pulled a card out of its middle. "Says here, about eight weeks."

  Dr. Copper entered the room. Bennings was right behind him, limping rather more severely than the wound demanded.

  Garry looked doubtful. "Relative newcomers. Eight weeks. That's not enough time for guys to go bonkers."

  "Bullshit, sweetheart." Nauls kicked at the floor with his skates, making the wheels spin. "Five minutes is enough to put a man over the edge here, if he doesn't have his head set on straight when he arrives."

  "Damn straight," agreed Palmer. He was beginning to look blissful. Garry didn't give a damn. Palmer did his work.

  "I mean," Nauls continued, noticing the remnants of the tobaccoless cigarette and connecting it with the expression now slowly spreading over the mechanic's face, "Palmer's been the way he is since the first day."

  Palmer's smile grew wider and he flipped a bird toward the cook.

  "It depends on the individual." Copper's tone was more serious than the cook's, though the sentiment was the same. "Sometimes personality conflicts combined with related problems engendered by confinement and isolation can manifest themselves with surprising speed."

  Garry considered this and spoke to Fuchs. "Does it say how many in their permanent party?"

  Fuchs glanced back at the half-extracted card and pursed his lips. "If this is up-to-date, they apparently started with just six. So there'd be four back at their camp."

  "That's not necessarily valid any longer," said Copper quietly. Everyone's attention shifted to the camp doctor.

  "Meaning what, doc?" wondered Bennings.

  "Meaning that we don't know when our two visitors went over the edge, or why, or if they had mental company. Even if they acted alone, guys as crazy as that," and he gestured meaningfully toward the motionless body on the card tables, "could have done a lot of damage in their own neighborhood before getting to us. Which might be another reason why Sanders can't raise their camp on the radio."

  "They might only be monitoring their own transmissions," Norris pointed out.

  Copper looked doubtful. "Every modern European speaks a little English. They'd at least acknowledge, I'd think."

  Garry looked back at the tables. "He didn't speak any English."

  "Stress of the moment," Copper suggested. 'At such times, people usually can only think in their native tongue."

  The station manager turned away, mut
tering unhappily. "If what you say is true about them doing damage to their own camp, there's not much we can do about it."

  "Oh yes there is," the doctor countered. "I'd like to go over there. Maybe I can help someone. Maybe I can even find some answers."

  "In this weather?"

  The doctor turned to the man standing closest to him. "Bennings? What about the weather?"

  The meteorologist considered. "I'd like to make a fresh check of the instruments, but according to the last readings I took the wind's supposed to let up a tad over the next few hours."

  "A tad?" Garry gave him a hard look.

  Bennings fidgeted. "Gimme a break, chief. Trying to predict the winter weather down here's like trying to find ice cubes in London. It's always a crap shoot. But that's my best guess, based on the most recent info."

  "What's your opinion of the doc's idea?"

  "I wouldn't care to do it myself." He moved to inspect the wall map. "But it should be a reasonable haul. Even taking the winds into account I figure less than an hour there, hour back."

  Garry mulled the idea over, not liking it much. But he desperately wanted some explanations before both the weather and official inquiries started to come in. Besides which, as Copper had pointed out, there might be injured needing help at the Norwegian station. What would the official reaction be if he didn't make an effort to help them?

  Palmer took the last hit off his joint. "Shit, doc. I'll give you a lift if—"

  Garry interrupted him sharply. "Forget it, Palmer." He turned back to Copper, who was waiting patiently for a decision. "Doc, you're a pain in the ass."

  "Only when I'm giving certain injections."

  "Oh hell." The station manager turned away to hide his smile. "Norris, go get Macready."

  A few easy laughs filled the room. Norris grinned at superior. "Macready ain't going nowhere. Bunkered in 'til spring. Who says humans can't hibernate?"

  "Neveready Macready," Bennings adde

  Garry looked bored. "Just go and get him."