Dark Winter

by William Dietrich

  Lewis sat in a chair with his hands and feet tied, Pulaski standing over him. The geologist was bruised, dried blood on his face his hair in an unwashed tangle. His look at Norse was of sullen amazement, anger, and disbelief, but he once more felt overmastered. The fear and the hostility the others directed against him was as heavy and oppressive as the stickiness before a thunderstorm. He’d become the new Tyson.

  “We don’t have any communications,” Norse went on. “We obviously don’t have a proper jail. What we do have is a seductive, glib psychotic who has not only killed our only medical doctor but has been mocking us and toying with us from the beginning.” The psychologist looked intently at the others. “We’re ten thousand miles from home, stranded without help at the darkest, coldest place on Earth. A quarter of us are already dead. A determined saboteur could doom us all. It’s time for the group to come together, for the group to decide how we’re going to get rid of a murderous infection.”

  “He’s lying,” Lewis spat, his voice thick and slurred after Pulaski’s head butt. “He’s not who he says he is! He’s the one who’s psychotic. Ask him who he really is.”

  Norse ignored this. “No one was fooled more than I was. No one liked Jed Lewis better than I did. I was his first friend! I ran with him in the Three Hundred Degree Club! But we found him today with the body of Nancy Hodge and with that even I had to admit I’d been wrong about our fingie. Did we see him kill her? No. But we have to act on what we know, and what do we know?”

  “We know he has a connection to every bad thing that has happened on this station,” Molotov growled.. “That All this started when Lewis came.”

  “I was looking for the X rays, dammit! Ask him about the X rays! That’s the key to this whole thing!”

  “We know it was Mr. Lewis who put a value on that meteorite,” Norse went on, “and that shortly afterward the meteorite went missing. He apparently saw where Doctor Moss hid it. Was he the thief? I can’t prove it. You’ll remember that Cameron told Jed about the abandoned base and that he talked about it to us. Mickey Moss died down there. Does that prove anything? No. Does it disprove anything?”

  “He went last when we crawled to that pit where we found Mickey,” Geller remembered. “The farthest from that hole. Like he knew it was there.”

  “He sent the e-mail!” Dana shouted.

  “Listen to me,” Lewis groaned. “Norse came to New Zealand at two different times. You’re listening to an impostor.”

  They looked at him with disbelief. Their attention was on Norse and his recital. They’d stopped listening, because they wanted their nightmare to stop.

  “Dana’s right,” the psychologist went on. “Remember what happened. Harrison Adams finds someone has sent Moss an e-mail about the meteorite from Jed’s computer in Clean Air. I thought a killer would be more careful than to use his own machine, but perhaps not. During a blizzard Lewis leaves his post despite orders from our station manager to stay there. Adams disappears at the same time. Who finds his body? Lewis. Who’s holding a cut heat tape? Lewis. And here’s where I made my mistake. I proposed a simple quarantine instead of confinement while we investigated the situation. I wrongly focused on Tyson. And so who asks to meet with Rod Cameron, who continued to investigate the two deaths? Lewis. And Rod ends up dead.”

  “I never even saw Cameron! I never went to the fuel arch!”

  Norse looked grimly at the group transfixed by this history. He was reciting what they knew. He was preaching to the choir. “It wasn’t until later – too late, in fact – that I was exploring Rod’s office after the explosion and found this letter.” He held up a sheet of paper with Lewis’s signature on it, the same one he’d showed Abby. “It promises that Rod can save his career if he lets Lewis have the meteorite. He thought Cameron might have it, and was still determined to get it any way he could.”

  “It’s a forgery! He tricked me into signing that!”

  Norse passed the letter around.

  “We thought it was Tyson, but wasn’t it with Lewis’ arrival that our animosity towards Buck began to grow? Did Jed foster that? Frankly, it’s difficult to remember. But Tyson fled because he feared he couldn’t get a fair hearing, not with Jed Lewis in this group. And now he too is probably dead.”

  “I had nothing to do with…”

  “So we welcome Lewis into our little fraternity. We party. Something goes wrong between him and Gabriella. And again, he is on hand for the discovery of the body. Such a remarkable coincidence! The cut-up magazine to make a note, the ashes in his room: we’ve been through this already.”

  “Think!” Lewis pleaded. “Why would I lead you to my victims?”

  “You’re not the first murderer to do so, Jed.” Norse’s observation was dispassionate, sad.

  “Shut up and let Bob finish,” Pulaski added. “Then it’s your turn.”

  “So we lock him up,” the psychologist resumed. “But before we can ask the authorities back home what action we should take, our communications center explodes from an apparent booby trap, blinding one of our key individuals. Yet despite all this a young woman - someone Lewis has been seducing from the beginning and who has apparently been blinded herself by infatuation - springs him from his cell. Now she’s disappeared, and with good reason. Within minutes, hours at most, our medic is dead as a result of Abby Dixon’s romantic foolishness. And again, Jed Lewis is discovered with the body. Is Abby an accomplice? Or has he now killed Abby Dixon as well?”

  “I told you he’s a bloody psycho,” Dana muttered.

  “This is admittedly circumstantial,” Norse went on, weaving the prosecution case. “Lewis has been careful to cover his tracks and to strike unobserved when his victims are alone, or at least when any witness is too blind to identify him, like poor Clyde. Yet sometimes victims can strike back from the grave. Nancy Hodge was drugged but before she died she pulled out the one piece of identification that pinpoints her assailant. There was a folder on her body.”

  “Yes, Abby’s,” Lewis said impatiently. “Does that make her the killer?”

  “Nancy was smart and the murderer was in touch much of a hurry to look at the folder,” Norse went on. “It was a grave mistake. Because when we looked at the X-rays...” He glanced at the cook.

  “They were Jed’s,” Pulaski concluded quietly.

  The group began to buzz like a disturbed hive. What had Lewis been mumbling about X-rays? Jed felt dizzy. The cook pulled out the film of his teeth and it began to be passed around the room like damning proof. Everything had gone horribly wrong.

  “I’m sure you can appreciate how embarrassing this is for me,” Norse said sadly. “I came down here thinking I was a pretty good shrink. I thought I was a decent judge of character. I bet that Jed Lewis could be trusted. I told Rod he could be trusted. I stuck up for him when the rest of you were suspicious. But I was wrong, dead wrong, and I mean dead in the most literal way. I don’t expect you to forgive me. All I ask is that we act, and act now.”

  “Act how?” Gina Brindisi said in a small voice.

  Norse took a breath. “Jed Lewis appears to have directly or indirectly killed six people. Maybe seven, if he’s butchered Abby. It’s not for me to say if we know that beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s for you. But for our own survival and piece of mind, we can’t wait out the winter. We can’t wait for distant rescue. The final say has to be a group decision, but...”

  “You want to execute him?”

  Norse looked at Gina sadly. “I don’t want to execute anyone. None of us does.”

  “But what then?” Geller asked. “Where can we keep him?”

  “I want Antarctica to do it.”

  There was a long silence as they realized what he meant.

  “You mean put him outside the dome,” Pulaski clarified.

  “Where he can sabotage even more!” Dana objected.

  Norse shook his head. “I want him tied out on the snow until he can’t do us any more harm. If we remove most of his clothing it won
’t take very long. It’s not that cruel a death. He’ll shiver, and go to sleep. And none of us have to be the executioner.”

  They looked at Lewis uneasily: hateful, fearful, sad.

  “He’s a shrink, dammit!” Lewis shouted. “He’s playing with your minds!”

  “All this trouble started when Jed Lewis arrived,” Norse summed up. “I predict it will end when Jed Lewis is no longer a factor. I don’t want to risk anyone else. We’re facing a catastrophe and have only each other to rely on. I won’t do it alone, but I’ll do it with you. I’ll do it together, as a group, in unity. And then it will all be over.”

  “If we freeze him can we reopen the station?” Mendoza asked. “Get back to work?”

  “We can if you believe he’s your killer.”

  “Listen to me,” Jed groaned. “Norse is not Norse! He’s an impostor! He’s manipulating you! He’s playing with the station for some kind of sick experiment!”

  “Is that so?” Pulaski said. He shook his head, wondering what fantasy Lewis would weave next.

  “I called out to learn about him and nothing adds up.”

  “You dialed up from the sauna?” Geller said derisively.

  “No,” Lewis said. “I got outside the dome, went to Clean Air! I started the generator at the emergency camp and rerouted some power...”

  “Bullshit. The dome’s sealed.”

  “I went out through the vent hole, at the top.”

  “How? With a stepladder?” It was a scoff.

  “I used one of Jerry’s balloons. Ask him, one’s missing.”

  They turned to Follett, who looked puzzled. “A balloon?”

  “To carry a rope up to the top of the dome. I know it sounds crazy but it worked.”

  “How did you get my balloons?”

  “I stole one,” Lewis said, less desperation in his voice now. At least they were paying attention.

  “So you are a thief.” It was flat confirmation.

  “To get out!”

  Follett waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t believe a word you say.”

  “Go count!”

  “Count what? I’ve lost track of my balloons! It proves nothing!”

  “Damn right it doesn’t,” Geller said.

  “You’ve heard Bob, now hear me,” Lewis insisted. “Everything he’s told you has been twisted around. There’s a psychologist named Robert Norse who got lost in New Zealand. Who died, I think. And our Norse followed him and took his place and came down here to, to…”

  “To what?” Pulaski asked.

  “I don’t know. To screw us up somehow. But that’s not the real Norse.” He pointed to Bob.

  “Who is he, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The others groaned. Norse had a pitying smile.

  “No, listen! He came to Auckland after the real Norse had disappeared on some hike or climb. Gabriella had the date. Nancy Hodge was going to compare the dental X rays Norse sent in advance to NSF with the ones this impostor brought down with him. But when I went to see her she was already dead! Think! Why would I kill her?”

  “Because maybe you are the impostor,” Molotov said slowly. “You, the geologist doing weather, which makes no sense. You who show up at the last minute. You, who knew about the value of the meteorite. You, whose X rays are on the dead body.”

  “Norse planted them there! Why would I leave them there?”

  “Because we found y8ou before you looked at them,” Geller growled. “Just like Bob said.”

  “What Jed has just told you is completely absurd,” Norse added unnecessarily.

  “He’s looking for some chance to escape,” Dana said. “Some chance to kill again.”

  “Dammit, I’m trying to save the rest of you!”

  “Then where are these X rays you claim incriminate me?” Norse demanded. “Let’s see this supposed proof!”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted more quietly. “I don’t have them.”

  “And I don’t have them, either. I looked for my X rays after we captured you and they’ve disappeared. Very convenient, isn’t it, for you to remove any chance for me to prove my own innocence? Your whole story is tissue, Lewis. I don’t even believe you got out of the dome.”

  Inspiration struck. “Really? Because I can prove that part to you! The rope I used is hidden in the snow behind Comms! Would I have put a rope there if I’m not telling the truth? Go out to a working computer like I did? Use the satellites like I did?”

  “And look for what?” Mendoza said. “People with the same common name?”

  “Just do it and draw your own conclusions, Carl.”

  Norse looked uncertain. “Maybe you planted that rope as an alibi.”

  “Come on, you know that’s crazy! I didn’t plan this! Look, let’s go out into the dome if you don’t believe me!”

  There was an uneasy silence. They wanted it over. They just wanted it to be him.

  “Let’s look,” Steve Calhoun the carpenter finally said, standing up. “I’m not exposing anybody until I’m certain. I don’t know what a rope proves, but if it’s there we can at least see if it’s long enough.”

  “It’s long! I doubled it, in a loop, so I could pull it back down!”

  “Maybe long enough to hang you, if it comes to that,” Pulaski warned.

  “If I’m telling the truth, will you look into the rest of it?”

  They were wary, but here was something easy to check. The assembly pulled on parkas and boots and went outside, circling behind Comms.

  “There! I buried it there!”

  Several moved forward and dug with their mittens. Nothing.

  Lewis was confused. “No, it was there somewhere! Dig more!”

  He watched with growing hopelessness as they dug and kicked.

  The rope was gone.

  “Everything you’ve ever told us has been a lie, hasn’t it?” Pulaski said quietly. “All this slaughter for a damn meteorite?”

  Lewis felt dizzy. He was exhausted from fighting them. Everything he tried made things worse. He slumped on his knees on the snow. “Then ask Abby,” he groaned.

  “We can’t find Abby,” Dana said.

  “Please. Lock me up if you don’t believe me. Just check out Bob before you put me out in the cold.” His gaze flickered from one to another, looking for an ally. Several looked away.

  “We tried that,” Geller told the others. “And every time we do, another of us winds up dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  They unwired and unbolted the smaller door that led to the dome ramp, breaching their fortress for this one grave duty. Then they filed upward to the plateau like a hooded procession of monks, Lewis bound and hobbled. Everyone was there because Norse insisted that everyone be there, that they make this decision together, that they unify as a group. “When we explain that we did this to save the station, it has to be unanimous,” he told them. “Beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Several looked sick. But they came along.

  The night was green and gold and red, a shimmer of auroral light caught by the Earth’s magnetic field. Lewis was going to die under the colors of Christmas. The stars had added their illumination to the starlit glow of snow and the plateau was a silver mirror of color, a spangle of galaxies. They glittered above and glittered below, like the spark of Mickey’s neutrinos. The survivors marched on a platter of stars.

  A long metal tube used for ice coring was solemnly screwed into the snow at the South Pole stake until it was as rigid and strong as a fence post. They would tie Lewis there. The temperature was almost a hundred degrees below zero again, the air still. “It’s kinder than what he did to our friends,” Pulaski told the others, to help stiffen their resolve. “He’ll go quickly and then it will be over.

  They wrestled Lewis out of his parka and slit open his wind pants, the pain of the invading cold instantaneous. They disregarded his wince. Their souls were as frozen as the Pole now, their mood vengeful. They’d had enough. They
were going to extinguish their own fear.

  “You’re killing an innocent man,” Lewis gasped as the cold hit him. “When I’m gone it will all start again and then this will be on your conscience, too.”

  “Can’t we gag him?” Geller asked.

  “He’s trying to divide us,” Mendoza added.

  “No, let him talk,” Norse said. “Let him predict. So that when it does end, after he’s gone, you can all take heart in the knowledge that you did the right thing.”

  They looked at Lewis, waiting for him to say more, and in the end he didn’t know what more to say.

  When they lashed him to the coring tube it burned through his thermal undershirt like hot iron. He writhed against it, struggling to think, already in mental shock, the absurdity of his dilemma overwhelming. He’d come to the bottom of the world for companionship, and his companions were about to kill him. He’d come for purpose, and instead found death. The sky was the most glorious he’d ever seen and he was about to see nothing ever again.

  It was insane.

  He wanted to weep, but his tears had frozen too.

  “How long will it take?” Lena Jindrova asked, her voice trembling.

  “He’ll be lucky to last half an hour,” Pulaski replied.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” she whispered.

  Norse put his arm around her. “It’s right if we do it together.”

  The coring tube was high enough that it was impossible for Jed to slip his bonds over the top of it. They stood in a semi-circle around him and watched for a moment, sickly fascinated, but he was beginning to shiver and no one wanted to see the kind of end all unconsciously feared.

  “Please don’t leave me out here,” he begged.

  “Do we really all have to be out here?” Gina Brindisi asked.

  “It has to be unanimous,” Norse said. “So there’s no finger-pointing afterward. So we can come together afterward.”