Karl Johanssen thought it best to leave the thing where it lay, but in this one instance the skipper overruled him. Captain Nyberg was eager to find another way to make the voyage profitable, so he ordered the sailors to load the object onto a sledge and use a dog team to drag it back to camp. It took five men and fifteen dogs a full day to fulfill the captain’s wishes, but when they were finished, the shining metal coffin was stored in the warehouse, among the barrels of whale oil waiting to be loaded into the ship’s hold. In just a few weeks, moderate temperatures would slowly free the Emma from the icy prison of the frozen bay. Then the crew could return to Norway and claim the reward for twelve long months of labor.
But hours after the object was brought into their camp, Karl was jolted out of his narrow sleeping bunk by the sound of screams. Yanking on boots but leaving his coat, Karl dashed across the icy street to the warehouse. The doors were ajar, and one of them had been torn off its hinges. In the center of the room Karl found four dead men—more than dead, they were ripped apart, and their heads and spinal columns had been severed and removed. More ominous, the strange coffinlike object was now wide open and empty, and inside the drafty warehouse, mingled with the smell of freshly spilled blood, was a dank, reptilian stench.
Back outside, and shivering on the street, Karl discovered mammoth, bloody footprints leading out of the warehouse and across the street. The crimson spoor formed a path right up to the rough wooden building where the sailors bunked. There, at the door, he saw a ghostly shape shimmering in the frigid air. Before he could shout a warning, Karl watched some invisible force smash down the door and surge into the sailors’ quarters. He heard cries of surprise and panic—then fear and agony—from inside the building. There was a single shot, then a severed human hand flew through the door, still clutching a small pistol.
Finally, Karl watched as a sailor flew toward the window, his nightshirt bloody, his face a mask of terror. The man’s eyes met Karl’s for a split second before a silver blur slashed across his naked throat. Then bright red arterial blood coated the glass, and Karl could see no more.
Choking down his panic, Karl ran back to the warehouse and searched for a weapon—anything to defend himself. Finding none, he sought escape instead. Karl knew it was certain death to go outside without protection from the elements, but when he tried to remove the coats from the dead men, he found them torn and soaked with blood—blood that would freeze in an instant. Finally, Karl wrapped himself in a dirty canvas tarpaulin and stumbled out the back door, slipping down an icy slope that led to the whalebone-littered beach. There, among the skeletons of sperm, minke and blues, he hoped to find shelter enough to protect him until whatever it was that had emerged from that silver coffin returned to the hell from which it had come.
A tremor under the ice woke Karl Johanssen from a dreamless sleep. With the perpetual twilight sky above, he could not know how long he’d been unconscious. But the canvas that covered him glistened with ice, and his limbs refused to respond to his brain’s commands. More ominous, Karl could not even feel the cold that had seeped into him while he’d been unconscious. Instead, it almost seemed as if a languorous cocoon of warmth enveloped him—a sure sign that he was freezing to death.
It took all of his willpower, but Karl forced himself to stand. Without a proper coat, even the heavy canvas was not enough covering to retain his body heat. A fire might save him, but he dared not risk attracting the invisible demon that had slaughtered the camp. And anyway, he had nothing to burn. Karl knew from experience that if he did not find warmth in less than an hour, he would be dead. He could never cross the frozen bay and make it to the ship in that time. Which meant he had to return to the camp and hope that the thing that had murdered his crew was gone.
With leaden footsteps Karl crossed the field of bones. Shards of shattered whale ivory clattered under his feet with each step. Finally, he reached the icy slope that led to the camp. With raw, blue-veined arms and black fingers swollen to the size of sausages, Karl hauled himself out of the boneyard. He crawled across the snow, rising only when he reached the cover of the buildings.
Cautiously approaching the greenhouse, where he hoped to find food and warmth, Karl discovered a scene of carnage. First he noticed that most of the windows were broken, the paltry array of herbs and vegetables frozen solid. Then he spied a bloody handprint frozen on a pane of glass. Finally he saw the near-frozen body of a whaler. The man lay in the middle of the greenhouse floor, among shards of shattered glass. Like the corpses Karl had found in the warehouse, this man’s head and spine were missing.
Turning, Karl moved down a narrow alley between two structures. At the end of the corridor, he tripped over a sledge and tumbled into a pile of dog harnesses.
Snarling jaws snapped at his face, and Karl jumped backwards. The mad dog’s tether went taut just before the creature’s fangs closed on his throat. Eyes black and terrified, the dog howled and pulled at its leash.
Karl got to his feet and staggered to the mess hall. His shoulder hit the door, and it flew open with a slam. Inside a fire still burned in the hearth, oil lamps glowed, and simmering pots steamed and boiled over on the cast-iron stove. The long tables were set for a meal, but the mess was empty—hastily abandoned, by the look of things. Turning, Karl slammed the door and lurched into a table.
He was ready to slump into a rough wooden chair when he heard movement behind him. Whirling, Karl thought he saw a black shape moving across the mess hall. Cautiously, he squinted into the shadows.
With a snarling hiss, something emerged. Karl saw the slavering jaws and the eyeless head and reeled backwards, tripping over a bench. Whimpering, he watched the black nightmare stalk him, long tail swishing back and forth like that of an angry cat.
Karl crawled backwards, his eyes locked on the evil thing. Finally, his back struck a seemingly immovable object. Turning slowly, Karl looked up to find another demon towering over him. Humanlike but not human, the creature was clad in armor from head to toe, its face covered by a metal mask. With a quick backhand, the humanoid monster threw the human aside.
Crashing into the tables, Karl felt his rib cage and the bones in his frostbitten arm shatter. Moaning with agony and the certainty of death, he crawled into a corner, where he lay forgotten as the twin horrors began to tear one another apart, piece by bloody piece.
CHAPTER 2
Weyland Industries Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System Receiving Station, New Mexico, Present Day
Whistling tunelessly, Francis “Fin” Ullbeck tipped his Boston Red Sox cap to the bored guard, then whisked his access card through the magstripe reader, punched in his code, and waited for clearance. When the security doors hissed, then yawned, Fin squeezed his considerable bulk through the opening and sauntered along the climate-controlled tunnel.
On the other side of the wide, tinted windows that lined this concrete tube, the high desert of New Mexico shimmered under the ruthless assault of the afternoon sun. A forest of radar dishes stretched for miles across the sandy plains and red-brown hills, their faces tilted toward the heavens. Out there on the desert floor, temperatures topped out at 106 degrees with near zero-percent humidity. But on this side of the glass and concrete, the temperature was a cool and constant 72 degrees.
Fin grinned when he spied a gangly, long-limbed man approaching from the opposite direction.
“Headley, my man. Leaving so soon? Do that and you’ll miss the maestro in action.”
“Shift’s over,” Ronald Headley replied dully.
Unlike Fin, whose skull appeared rather small on his short, rotund body, Headley’s defining feature on his flagpole form was his oversized cranium—an ironic trait, considering his name. Consequently, Headley was the only technician working in the Telemetry and Data Monitoring Center who didn’t have a nickname. In everyone’s opinion, “Headley” was just too perfect.
“So, Headley… did you manage to move that Air and Space Museum reject out of my bad old baby’s orbit?”
Headley nodded wearily.
Fin blinked in feigned surprise. “You mean that relic actually responded to your command?”
“Come on, Fin, GO7 isn’t that old.”
“Headley my man, when GO7 was launched, Miami Vice was the hottest show on television and I did my homework on a Kaypro.” He patted Headley’s back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to drive a sports car—someday, when you’re all growed up.”
Headley ignored the slight. In his view, Fin Ullbeck mainly got through life by projecting an attitude of smug superiority peppered with “jovial” disdain. Headley had long ago resolved to treat such insufferable behavior as a genetic malfunction—along the lines of a cleft palate or stunted arm.
“Hey, Fin. Don’t forget the big show at 1400 hours—”
“I know, I know! Just keep it to yourself, man,” said Fin, shushing him. He eyed the overhead security camera anxiously.
“Well, got to go,” Headley called over his shoulder. “Happy motoring.”
Scratching the scraggly beard that covered his double chin, Fin continued through the tunnel until he reached a second set of climate-controlled automatic doors. Beyond that barrier, an elaborate air filtration, cooling and purification system double-scrubbed the air to protect the computers from sand, plant pollen and ordinary dust. The entire facility was built over a five-foot-thick concrete foundation as near to earthquake-proof as human engineering could achieve. Insulated, soundproofed walls muted the whisper of wind on sand and the occasional howl of coyotes baying at the moon.
Beyond those doors the computer-lined Telemetry and Data Monitoring Center was staffed by a dozen scientists and technicians. All of them looked up as Fin entered the room. He smiled and flexed his pudgy fingers.
“Daddy’s here. Let’s get this show on the road!”
Flickering on walls and on desk consoles, high-definition television screens digitally projected data gathered by dozens of surveillance satellites. Generated by radar or microwave transmissions, by ultraviolet light, thermal imaging or simple photographic equipment, this data was gathered, assessed and sorted by multimillion-dollar Kray computers.
Fin tipped his baseball cap to Dr. Langer. The day supervisor scowled and turned his back.
Tossing his cap on the console, Fin flopped into a groaning office chair and spun in a half circle to face the largest and most advanced workstations in the entire complex. Every bit of data collected by Big Bird’s array of scanners could be accessed from this single station. More importantly, the ergonomic keyboard and joystick in the center console controlled PS12's propulsion system.
Cracking his knuckles, Fin emptied his pockets to create a mound of Snickers, Milky Ways, PayDays and Baby Ruths on the desk. With a keystroke, he activated the console and began to type. Minutes, then an hour, passed as Fin fed information into Big Bird’s telemetry computer. Finally, he activated the large HDTV screen above his workstation and slipped a hands-free communications unit over his head.
“This is Waystation One, Waystation One, commencing scheduled telemetry alteration for satellite P as in Peter, S as in Santa, One-Two. That’s PS12 moving in five minutes from right…. Now. Stand by to receive data stream.”
Fin flipped a switch and sent Big Bird’s coordinate changes to computers at dozens of space agencies, observatories and satellite tracking facilities all over the world.
“Data confirmed, Waystation One. Good luck,” a voice announced into Fin’s ear.
Ready now, Fin grasped the joystick and pickled the activation switch. Thousands of miles above the earth’s surface, the propulsion system aboard satellite PS12 came to life. Back on Earth, Weyland Industries technicians strained at their workstations to watch the self-styled “Master of Telemetry” in action.
Legend had it that both Microsoft Game Studios and LucasArts had courted Fin to design game systems for them, but the “Game Shark,” Fin’s nickname before he’d come to Weyland Industries, had found a new passion during his years at M.I.T.—satellite technology. In the end, the National Video Gaming League’s highest scorer ever had chosen a lower-paying position at Weyland’s TDMC because management had let him achieve an entirely new level of kicks with his joystick by driving the big satellites.
And Fin had never lost the skills he’d honed as a dedicated game player. Now, through barely perceptible movements of his hand, he skillfully inched two-and-a-half tons’ worth of orbital mass out of its current orbit and into a new one—an orbit that would take the Big Bird satellite cruising over the bottom of the world. Each subtle move of Fin’s hand was followed by minutes of gazing at the figures dancing across the tracking computer to see if the satellite needed any adjustment. Sweat beaded his forehead as Fin hunched over his console, eyes focused on the telemetry data that continually poured in. Occasionally his white-knuckled fingers twitched, gently moving the joystick to one side or another. Throughout the intense ordeal, Fin’s eyes never left the screen.
Finally, after two hours of toggling the joystick, Fin sighed and sat up, blinking his eyes as if he had just awakened from a long sleep. He stretched his arms and tilted back his chair.
“Mission accomplished,” Fin announced into the communicator. “PS12 is in its new orbit. Systems are running normally. Nothing to do now but sit around and wait.”
Fin tossed the hands-free on the desk and checked his watch. It was almost time. Fingers flying across the keyboard, he activated Big Bird’s onboard sensors. As the satellite began its assigned task of deep-mapping the Antarctic continent from orbit, Fin propped his feet up on the console, snatched a candy bar from the pile, and tore at the wrapper with his teeth. Munching chewy nougat and crunchy peanuts, Fin touched another button. A television screen near his foot came to life.
“Right on time,” said Fin with a sigh of satisfaction. On the monitor, the black-and-white credits for Universal's 1943 classic Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man began to roll.
Sixty-two minutes later—just as Bela Lugosi’s Frankenstein monster was about to square off against Lon Chaney, Jr.’s, Wolf Man in the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle—a blinking red light interrupted Fin’s much anticipated downtime. He bolted upright in his chair and switched off the television, to activate the main HDTV monitor above his console. A real-time digital image shot by Big Bird filled the big screen. Fin studied the flickering picture for nearly a minute, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
“Oh my God,” Fin gasped at last, his legendary cool shattered. Then he whipped his head around and called over his shoulder, “Dr. Langer! Over here, quick. Take a look at this.”
“What is it?” the day supervisor demanded.
Fin’s gaze never left the screen as he replied, “It’s the data stream coming in from PS12.”
“Where is she now?”
Fin triple-checked the satellite’s navigational data before answering. “She’s right above Sector 14.”
Dr. Langer blinked. “But there isn’t anything in Sector 14.”
Fin pointed at the image on his monitor. “Well there is now.”
Over Fin Ullbeck’s shoulder, Dr. Langer saw a series of interlocking square shapes—perfectly symmetrical and, if PS12’s sensors were correct, very large. Too large to have formed naturally.
“What are we looking at?” Langer asked.
“Thermal imaging,” Fin replied immediately. “Some kind of geologic activity tripped the heat-sensitive sensors, which activated the cameras. Then Big Bird’s computers alerted me.”
Dr. Langer studied the image. The shapes mimicked precisely the look of man-made structures as seen from high earth orbit. But that, of course, was impossible. Nothing existed in Sector 14, unless you counted polar bears and penguins. So if those interlocking shapes really were structures, then they were built a long, long time ago—which made this the most important archaeological discovery of the twenty-first century, perhaps of all time.
“Wake them up,” said Dr. Langer.
Fin rea
ched for the phone, then paused. “Who?”
“Everybody…”
As he spoke, Dr. Langer’s eyes never left the screen.
CHAPTER 3
Mount Everest, Nepal
Climbers had two ways to ascend the Khumbu Ice-fall. The sensible route up the four-thousand-foot frozen waterfall was with Sherpa “icefall doctors.” These expert mountaineers would scout ahead, lay aluminum ladders across deep crevasses, plant anchors, and string rope so that climbers could proceed with some amount of caution—accompanied, of course, by their experienced Sherpa guides.
The reckless way to conquer the single most hazardous site on Everest was to go onto the ice alone, stake out a point at the base of the waterfall and start your ascent, placing your own anchors and stringing your own ropes as you went, hoping there weren’t any deep crevasses that needed bridging. In this type of climb, anyone who became trapped by an ice slide, buried by an avalanche, or swallowed by a crevasse that opened then closed without warning (all pretty much daily occurrences on Khumbu) would likely remain frozen in place until global warming thawed the entire planet.
This was how Alexa Woods chose to make her ascent.
After hours of hard climbing, the young woman’s lone slender form appeared as a mere speck on the vast, shimmering wall of ice. Buffeted by fifty-mile-an-hour winds, she now dangled less than a hundred feet from the icefall’s summit.
With a controlled swing of her leanly muscled arm, Lex buried the head of a Grivel Rambos ice axe into the frozen waterfall. As the blade bit into the ice, water trickled around its head, reminding Lex that underneath this icy shell, tons of fresh water poured off the mountain. Nearly half the fatalities on Everest occurred right here on the Khumbu’s shifting wall, but she did not let this thought linger or break the rhythm of her climb. For Lex, the universe and all its stressful potentialities had condensed themselves into a few economical motions—swing the axe, kick the crampon, pull on the rope and move up. Every move was calm, deliberate and careful.
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