Nauls shook his head dolefully and raised the hinged slat that had been cut in the base. He pushed the covered tray through the opening.
"Well, who the hell you think would want to get in there with you? Not me, man."
The tray came shooting back out. It slid across the icy walkway and turned over. Polyethylene and foil split and food came flying out, some of it staining Nauls's coat.
"Now why'd you go and—"
"And I don't want any more food with sedatives in it!" Blair screamed. "I know what you're up to. Don't think I don't. You're all so clever. And if anyone tries to get in here . . . I've got rope. I'll hang myself before it gets to me."
"Yeah? You promise?" Nauls turned and picked up the rejected tray. He started back toward the compound, grumbling under his breath.
Time passed, but not slowly. You could feel the tension, though everyone did his best to conceal it from his neighbor. Everyday tasks provided welcome relief. They took one's mind off the horror that might still be lingering over the camp. Jokes were forced, as was the laughter that greeted them.
Outwardly, everything seemed normal, but suspicion and paranoia colored every word, every movement. Suspicion, paranoia, and a desperate fear.
Palmer was working on the second snowmobile. He'd removed all the spark plugs from both, dismantled the carburetors, removed and concealed the gas filters.
Now he was taking the engines off their mountings. They would go into the locked storage room, along with the vital components of the helicopters and the tractor. The mounting bolts and screws would be hidden elsewhere.
Macready was taking no chances. He was at work in the balloon tower with a kitchen knife, methodically slashing each of the huge, uninflated weather balloons into uninflatable strips. There was no telling how long they might have to remain isolated before Fuchs could come up with a new test.
It was unlikely, but a half-frozen gull or man-o-war bird just might drop into camp. It would better to take no chances. Birds could not be pursued.
He finished the last of the balloons, then lingered over the tanks of hydrogen stored nearby before deciding there was no need to empty them. There was nothing in camp their resident thing could surreptitiously combine to make a suitable envelope out of.
The stereo in the kitchen wailed, its vibrant, undisciplined music easing the tension with the unconcern of a world that seemed a million miles away. Nauls hummed as he removed the dishes from the washer and stacked them neatly on their proper shelf.
Childs sighed. One hand scratched at an ear. The other flipped the pages of a thick magazine. The industrial torch, its new tip gleaming, lay close at hand.
Clark, Copper, and the station manager dozed on the couch nearby. The effects of the morphine would be wearing off soon. Norris would be around to redose the trio, Childs knew.
Clark stirred, rose and mumbled thickly at the guard. "Gotta go to the can, Childs."
Making a face the mechanic put down the magazine. He half-carried the dog handler to the far end of the room and opened the door for him.
"Be quick about it." Clark staggered into the head. A few seconds passed and the lights began to flicker. Childs looked around worriedly.
They went out completely for a second, then came back on. "Oh no," the mechanic muttered. "No . . . not now, man."
When they winked out the second time it was for good. Along with the light something else had vanished: a mechanical breathing so soft and steady you quickly learned to ignore it. The purr of the generator.
"Childs!" That was Nauls, shouting from the kitchen. "That a breaker?"
"No," Childs told him. "Breaker would have gone out instantly. There wouldn't have been any flicker. Listen, don't you hear it?"
"Hear what, man?" came the reply. "I don't hear anything."
"That's what I mean. The generator's gone. You got the controls for the auxiliary there in the hall next to you. They're opposite the door from the kitchen. Get to 'em." He stumbled around in the darkness, cursing as he bumped into the card table. "Where's that damn flashlight?" Something fell from the table and hit the floor. Magazine, probably.
"You fellas okay over there?"
A giggle came from the couch, edgy and fearful.
"Cut that out, Copper." Childs hesitated. The flashlight should be in the corner, on a shelf. He started feeling his way along the wall. "Nauls, what's taking you so long? It's straight out the door."
"I know," came the nervous reply. "I found it. I'm working on it right now, but nothing's happening!"
"That's impossible, man." He reached the shelf and felt among the books and games. No flashlight.
Turning back to the center of the room he shuffled carefully back to the card table. "Okay, Clark. Out of the john right now."
"It's shorted out or something!" Nauls was yelling at him from down the corridor.
Childs ignored the cook's lament. He wanted a response from the bathroom. "Clark. You hear me, Clark? You come on out of there! Now."
When there was still no reply forthcoming, Childs felt around the table until he located the torch. It flared to life with gratifying speed. Blue fire filled the recreation room with ghostly but adequate illumination.
He started toward the john, but something half seen made him pause and turn the torch toward the couch.
"Where . . . where's Garry?" The station manager had disappeared. Copper was staring numbly at the empty cushion next to him. He and Childs were now alone.
"Well, shit." The mechanic groped for the portable siren and switched it on, thankful for the batteries that powered it.
Palmer looked up from the now invisible snowmobile he'd nearly finished dismantling. Macready and Sanders pushed a path out of the trash dump and exchanged a glance with the assistant pilot. Soon all three of them were loping toward the nearest entrance, making their way by flashlight through the long night.
Childs twisted and spun at every little imagined noise, trying to keep the torch between himself and the darkness. "Where are you, Garry? Don't you move an inch, Copper." The doctor giggled again, loudly. It did not improve the mechanic's already shaky state of mind.
"Nauls, bring me a goddamn flashlight!"
The cook abandoned the useless control box and returned to the kitchen, feeling along his familiar cabinets until he reached a particular drawer. His hands moved among the contents, picking up spoons and spatulas and ladles, everything except what he was searching for.
"Somebody's taken mine. I can't find it!"
"Clark! "Childs turned the torch toward the bathroom. "You coming out of there or you want me to come in after you?"
Macready, Sanders, and Palmer stumbled into the hallway, bumping into each other as they fought to get their bearings in the unexpectedly dark corridor. Macready closed the door behind them. Their flashlights provided the only illumination.
"What's happened?" Macready called out. When the outside lights had gone he'd expected some trouble inside, but not this utter, complete blackness. "Anybody know what happened?"
"Macready . . . that you?" It was Norris.
"Yeah! Palmer and Sanders are with me. What the hell's going on?"
"I think it's the generator," the geophysicist replied. "There's no power to anything, the lights included."
"What about the backup?"
"Beats me. All I know is everything's out."
Macready turned to his assistant. "All right, Palmer, let's get down there."
"Macready!"
"That you, Childs?"
"Yeah. I'm still in the rec room."
Macready's thoughts were racing. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, man. But Garry's missing."
"Oh shit." The pilot thought a moment. They had other priorities right now. "Well . . . hang on!"
"Gee, thanks." The mechanic's voice was cheerless as it floated down the corridor. "What about power?"
"Palmer and I are getting on it." He started running up the corridor.
The flashl
ight beam seemed weak and on the verge of failing as the two men stumbled down the short flight of stairs leading to the generator room. At the bottom Macready hesitated, turned and searched the darkness with the light.
"Sanders. Where's Sanders?"
They examined the stairway together, then the floor and walls of the generator room. Sanders was gone.
Palmer took a step back the way they'd come and asked unenthusiastically, "Want me to go look for him?"
"No. Not now," Macready said impatiently. "We've got to get this mother going first, then we can go looking for people."
They approached the silent mass of metal. It squatted like an armored dinosaur in the middle of the floor. The smell of diesel, thick and noxious, was everywhere. But it was fading rapidly.
Palmer used the light, inspecting components. The beam lingered on an open space near the base.
"The fuel pump's gone." Panic cracked his voice. "You've got to get up to Supply and find another unit, Mac. If we don't get this thing started soon it'll freeze up on us and we'll never get it going."
"What about the auxiliary?"
"I know what's been done to this. I don't know about the other."
"You sure about the pump? That's all that's missing?"
The flashlight beam retraced its path across the generator. "I think so. I don't see anything else. This is really Childs's department."
"Childs is busy," Macready reminded his assistant. "Hang on. I'll be back as fast as I can."
"You want my light?"
Macready glanced at his own feeble beam. "No, you keep it. Make sure nothing else has been jimmied." He turned and rushed up the stairs, heedless of tripping in the near dark.
Palmer just waited. It occured to him that he was all alone in the lowest, most isolated area of the compound.
Hell, get your mind on something else, he told himself.
Holding the flashlight tightly in one hand, he lay down on his back and edged under the generator. At least he could make sure everything else was ready to go.
Of course there was always the chance Macready might not return for a while. He might get distracted. Or something might distract him. Palmer furiously began tightening screws, regardless of whether or not they were loose.
Childs paced the rec room floor, swatting his sides to keep warm. The temperature was falling rapidly, the Antarctic night leaching the heat from the compound despite the multiple layers of insulation designed to keep it at bay. The torch lay on the card table, adding a little heat, its blue glow barely reaching to the corners of the room. Copper sat by himself on the couch.
At least he'd stopped that infernal giggling, Childs mused gratefully.
Macready charged out of the supply room, juggling his flashlight and a new solid pump unit, and promptly careened off another body.
"Who . . . who's that? Who goes there?"
There was no reply. The dim silhouette hurried off down the hallway.
"Sanders? That you? You flipped out again, man? It's okay . . . it's me, Macready. Hey, who . . ."
A dim voice drifted up from the other direction. "Mac?" Palmer sounded anxious. "That you, Mac? Where the hell is that pump?"
"Coming!" He threw a last look down the hallway, but saw only darkness. Then he was running for the generator room,
So intent was he on protecting the fuel pump that he nearly fell in his haste to get down the few stairs. Palmer's light beckoned from beneath the generator. Macready dropped to his knees and put the unit close to the other pilot. Palmer backed out and joined him in tearing at the box.
"This going to do it?" Macready asked him. Palmer was studying the exposed unit.
"It's not the same."
"Hell." Macready started to rise. "I'll go look again."
"No, no," Palmer grabbed his arm and held him back. "I mean, it's made by a different manufacturer than the missing unit. It'll fit."
Macready breathed a sigh of relief. "Shit, Palmer, don't do that to me."
"Hold the light for me, will you?" Palmer reached in and grabbed his own flashlight and handed it to Macready. Then he wormed his way back underneath.
"A little higher, Mac." Macready raised the twin beams. Palmer's hands came into view. Their breath was already starting to freeze as the temperature continued to fall.
He held the lights as steady as he could while Palmer worked with increasingly clumsy, numb fingers.
"Somebody definitely messed with it." A hose clamp was slipped into place, tightened.
"We going to make it?"
"Hope so. Another fifteen minutes." Palmer was beginning to sound more confident. "Wonder what happened to the auxiliary. What I don't get is—"
He was interrupted by a violent, thunderous screeching. Macready froze. He'd heard that sound twice before now. Once on the tape salvaged from the Norwegian camp, and once far out on the ice. He thought of Bennings as his heart began to hammer against his ribs . . .
Macready had never been so glad to see anything happen in his life as he was to see the lights come back on. Palmer crawled out from beneath the now humming generator, wiping grease off on his pants.
"That should hold it for now, until Childs can get down here and bolt it properly. Where to?"
"Rec room," Macready told him tersely. He was reluctant to abandon the generator room, but had to content himself with slapping a heavy padlock on the door as they exited.
The rec room was crowded by the time they arrived. The congestion, the presence of human bodies, was comforting after the long minutes spent alone with the generator. Neighbor studied neighbor. Palmer, Nauls, and Sanders, spread themselves out as far as possible, putting distance between themselves and everyone else.
Norris and Childs were using nylon ropes to tie the doctor, Clark, and Garry to the couch. Macready cursed himself for not ordering it done sooner. Too late now. He forced himself not to think of what might've happened if he hadn't been able to come up with a replacement fuel pump for the generator.
As Norris and Childs worked on the three prisoners Macready fiddled with the little propane burners he'd scavenged from Supply. They'd be dangerous to operate, but he trusted the makeshift blowtorches more than any of the guns.
"Where were the flashlights?" Sanders was asking him. "What happened to all the flashlights, man?"
"Screw the flashlights," Macready growled at him. "Where the hell were you?"
"I . . . I panicked again, Mac. Just started running, trying to get away. I'm sorry."
"De nada. Forget it." He rose, hefted one of the small torches and looked over toward Palmer. "I think these'll work. One of your better ideas."
"Thanks, Mac. But when I was getting the burner tips out of Supply, I noticed, something else. It reminded me that I couldn't find the magneto from chopper one. There's tons of stuff missing. Cables, wire, microprocessor chips . . . all kinds of shit. I didn't think anything of it until I remembered the missing piece from the chopper."
"Now that's funny." Nauls stepped away from the wall. "I've been missing stuff from the kitchen, too. I didn't say anything about it because I didn't think it was important. I mean, what the hell would anybody want with a food processor?"
Macready surveyed the room, counting heads. "Anybody see Fuchs? Or hear him?"
Nobody had. That was clear from their expressions as well as the silence.
Childs was glaring at the station manager as he started to tie the man's arms behind his back. "Where did you go when the lights went out . . . chief?"
Garry was still woozy from the effects of the morphine. "Was dark . . . find a light . . ."
"You lying bastard."
Garry fought the ropes, struggled to his feet. His words were slurred. "I rather don't like your tone . . ." He reached up a free hand and grabbed Childs by the collar.
"You sit back down." The mechanic whaled the station manager with a powerful right hand. Garry managed to half duck the blow, put his head into the bigger man's chest, and threw his weight to one side
. The two of them fell backwards over the couch, almost taking Copper with them.
Macready and Norris dove in immediately, the pilot grabbing Childs and Norris wrestling with the dazed but still dangerous station manager.
"Easy, chief, that's enough. Take it easy!"
Somehow Macready managed to shove Childs to one side. "Stop it, man! You hear me? This is just what it wants. Are you fighting for it or against it?"
Childs was holding up a fist the size of a toaster; he stared blankly at the pilot as he digested the latter's words. The fist dropped slowly and the mechanic inhaled deeply. When he spoke again he sounded embarrassed.
"Sorry, Mac. I wasn't thinking." But he continued to glare at the station manager.
They were interrupted by a rumbling sound from above. High wind battered at the roofing. Macready glanced at the ceiling and released Childs.
"You all hear that?" He gazed around the room. "I checked Bennings's charts. That storm's going to start ripping any minute. So we don't have much time."
"Time for what?" Norris wanted to know.
Macready walked over to the card table and began distributing the portable blowtorches. He shoved the first one into Norris's stomach. "We've got to find Fuchs. When we find him, we kill him."
Sanders looked shocked, "Why?"
"If he was still one of us he'd have come back here by now. The lights have been on long enough. He hasn't . . . so that means that he can't, or doesn't want to because he isn't Fuchs anymore. If he has become one of those things, we've got to get him before he changes into . . . into whatever it can change into.
"Know what I think? I think it's tired of playing around. It knows we've got it stuck here, so there's no reason for it to keep lying low in hopes of stealing a copter or a snowmobile. The only way it can survive now is by making sure we can't finish it off. That means taking care of us. If it can't do that as a man, it may try doing it as itself.
"Remember, we've got less than an hour. I wish I knew how much less." He looked to his right. "Nauls, you and Childs and I'll check the outside shacks," He tossed torches to Palmer and Sanders.
"You two search the compound. Stay together."
Palmer turned a wary gaze on the radio operator. "I ain't going with Sanders."
The Thing Page 16