“I want you to get dressed again,” he said, undraping her shawl from the stool where it had been drying, “and come with me.” She stood up, a bit unsteadily, and he wrapped the shawl, still warm from the grate, around her shoulders. She stepped into her shoes, and he bent down to button them for her.
“But perhaps we should wait, here?” she said. “Who's to say that we will be harmed?”
“A nurse,” he said, still fastening the shoes, “would not be-not if they have the slightest shred of decency. But a nurse with your peculiar affliction,” he said, standing and looking into her emerald eyes, “might prove to be another matter. How should you explain it to them?” He did not even need to elaborate on the additional problems that a British officer, also so afflicted, might face, should he fall into the wrong hands. If there was one thing that he had learned from his time in the East, one thing that he knew could be relied upon, it was the boundless cruelty of one man to another.
He had also learned to trust no one; if you prized your life at so much as a farthing, it was critical to do your own reconnaissance and make your own decisions. Otherwise, you could find yourself in dire straits indeed… riding, to take a wild example, straight down the barrels of a Russian gun battery…
When he had wrapped her as warmly as he could, he climbed up onto the stool, saw that the two men had gone, then, getting down, went to the door. He pried it open a crack-the wind came howling in to greet him-and then enough to step outside.
Looking to either side, he saw no one-only low dark buildings, made not of wood but of tin or some other metal-squatting, at intervals, along a barren concourse. The sky had the same burnished glow he remembered from the deck of the Coventry, when the snowy albatross had sailed onto the yardarm and watched, impassively, as he and Eleanor were grappled in chains and hurled into the freezing sea.
Eleanor tentatively stepped out after him, lifting her face to the sun; she closed her eyes, and to Sinclair her skin looked as smooth and white and lifeless as marble. Her long brown hair blew loosely around her cheeks, and her lips parted to take in the frigid air as if she were about to taste some rare delicacy. In a way, that's just what it was-windblown air, as cold and unsullied as a glacier, coursing across their exposed skin. Cold as it was-so cold it made their faces burn and their fingers tingle-it was the taste, and the scent, and the feeling, of being alive. For years-centuries, perhaps-they had been immured in their frozen cell, unmoving and untouched. But this, even more than the breaking of the ice, or the warming air from the grate, brought back that painful bliss of living. Sinclair didn't have to say a word, nor did she; they simply stood there, at the top of the snowy ramp, savoring the physical world-even one as hostile and intemperate as this.
One of the dogs across the way looked up from licking his bowl and let out a low growl. Eleanor opened her eyes and took them in.
“Sinclair…” she began, but he interrupted, saying, “There's a sled, too.”
“But where will we go?” Her eyes traveled down the dreary alleyway and off at the distant mountains.
“The dogs will know. Surely they're employed to go somewhere.”
He took her hand before she could offer it and started down the ramp. His boots were ill suited to the snow and ice and he found himself slipping several times. His scabbard clanged against the metal handrail, and he quickly looked about in alarm, but in the roar of the wind it was doubtful anyone had heard. They scurried across the passage, and into the glare of the shed, where they were separated from the dogs only by a wooden partition a few feet high.
As Eleanor leaned back against the wall-already she was exhausted, and her knees were shaking-Sinclair made straight for the clothing rack on the wall. He selected a long, billowy coat-it was as smooth as silk, but its fabric had no sheen-and forced Eleanor into it. It weighed much less than he thought it would, and was so big that she could virtually wrap it around herself twice. The bottom hung down onto the floor, and the hood, when he drew it up, fell around her face like a monk's cowl. But she had soon stopped her shivering.
“You put one on, too,” she said.
Sinclair took a shorter coat from the pile-it was red with a white cross on its sleeves and another on its back, and hung down to his thigh. But he did not know how to fasten it at first; there was a long ribbon of tiny metal ribs that ran down its front, and he pushed them together, thinking they might bind somehow, but they did not. Fortunately, he also found some metal buttons, under a narrow placket, that he found would snap together when pressed.
The dogs were restive, and done with their food. Several of them stood, staring, at Eleanor and Sinclair. And when he went to the food sack, one of them barked, no doubt thinking he was about to receive a second ration. But Sinclair dipped into the bag, and came up with a handful of rounded pellets, the size of shot, and put them to his own nose. The smell was vaguely horsey. He put one in his mouth; the taste was gritty but acceptable. He swallowed one, then the whole handful. They were crunchy but not nearly as hard as ship's biscuits.
“Here,” he said, holding out another handful to Eleanor. “They're not much, but no worse than army rations.”
But the smell seemed to upset her, and she turned away, shaking her head. Sinclair poured the pellets into one of the red coat's voluminous pockets. There wasn't time to argue about it now. He had too much to do.
He went to the chest at the rear of the pen and knelt beside it. The chains were gone, the hasp had been broken off, and the lid was barely attached. He raised it slowly, and inside found his sodden campaign coat, his stirrups, his helmet, a couple of his books- miraculously, still frozen solid and seemingly intact-and, finally, three unbroken bottles labeled, though illegibly, as Madeira from San Cristobal. He grabbed these first, wrapped them in the campaign coat, then carefully tucked the bundle into the shell of the sled. There were empty cargo bays, he discovered, running from the front of the sled to its rear stanchions, and he tossed everything else he could think of-his riding gear, his books-into them.
Finally, he dragged a sack of the food pellets toward the sled, and the dogs-now perhaps convinced that their provisions were being stolen-all stood up, on silent alert, at their neatly spaced stakes. That, or maybe it was just the odor he gave off. Sinclair had noticed that animals often became anxious in his presence… ever since Balaclava.
The lead dog-a massive creature with eyes like blue agate- barked furiously, and strained at his stake.
“Quiet down!” Sinclair urged, trying to keep his voice low but commanding. He prayed that the howling wind would keep anyone from hearing.
But as he lifted the bag into the sled, the dog leapt into the air, restrained only by the short chain running from its collar to the stake.
“Enough!” Sinclair declared. Eleanor was cowering against the wall, but Sinclair led her over to the sled and helped her to climb inside it.
“How will you ever harness them?” she asked, her voice nearly inaudible under the hood.
“The same way I've harnessed horses all my life.” Though, truth be told, he was wondering himself. He had not expected a rebellion. And he needed to quell the noise, immediately, or his whole plan would be for naught.
He came around the wooden partition and lifted the front of the harness-not so different from what was used on a coach-and-four-and shook it out. The other dogs studied him intently, but the lead dog, again, would have none of it. Barking loudly, he jumped at the intruder, but was yanked back to the ground by the buried stake. Instantly, he scrambled to his feet, spittle flying from his jaws, and leapt again-only this time the stake bent, then burst up out of the ground. Even the dog seemed surprised by it, shooting past Sinclair and banging his snout against the wooden wall. Wheeling around, and dragging the chain and stake, the dog charged at Sinclair, who managed to step to the side and parry the attack with one arm. The loose stake got snared on another one, still rooted in the permafrost, and in the few seconds it took for the dog to shake itself free, Sinclair dodg
ed behind the partition.
Eleanor shouted his name, but Sinclair warned her to stay in the sled. The dog started to come at him one way, but when he saw Sinclair retreat toward the rear of the pen, where the wooden stairs led to the loft, he changed his direction and ran around the other side. Sinclair was halfway up the steps when he felt the dog's fangs digging into his boot, ripping at the leather-oh, how he wished he had his spurs on now-and as he struggled up the last few steps, he had the dog hanging off his leg. With his bare fingertips, he clawed at the floorboards while kicking out at the dangling animal.
When the dog abruptly lost its grip and fell, Sinclair stumbled up and into the loft. The rest of the team was barking below, and as Sinclair turned around and braced himself, he could hear the loose dog's paws scraping for purchase on the narrow stairs; then he saw its huge head, eyes ablaze and jaws open, appearing at the top. He knew what he had to do, and as the dog hurled itself through the air at him, he drew his sword and met his enemy with the upturned blade. The dog yowled as its own weight and the force of its charge impaled it on the saber, pulling Sinclair's arm down with it. He fell beside the writhing animal, his wrist pinned below its neck. He pushed himself back, drawing the saber out as he went, but the weapon had already done its work. The dog, blood spurting from its wound and clotting the white fur, lay twitching on the straw-covered floor. He pushed himself farther away, out of reach of any last lunge, and waited for his own breath to return. There was a gurgling sound from the dog's throat, and now he could hear Eleanor's anxious cries.
“Sinclair! Are you all right? Sinclair!”
“Yes,” he replied, trying to keep his own voice down. “I'm all right.”
He looked at his torn boot, where the dog's spittle coated the leather, and he could feel his own blood seeping down his calf. The dog had bitten hard. He got to his feet and, stepping around the dying dog, went back down the stairs. The glaring white light, from some kind of globe he saw affixed to the ceiling, sent his own shadow lurching down before him. It was, most assuredly, a world of wonders-heat from smokeless grates, illumination from glass bowls, coats made of fabric he had never felt-but it was not altogether unrecognizable. No, he thought, as he wiped the scarlet stain from his hand, in its bloody essentials the world hadn't changed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
December 13, 7:30 p.m.
The moment Michael returned to camp, he hurried back to his room, switched some of his camera gear, and went looking for Darryl. He was on his way to the marine lab when he bumped into Charlotte on the snow-covered walkway.
“Welcome back,” she said. “Want to join me for dinner?”
“First things first,” he said, lifting the camera slung around his neck. “It's been hours since I got a shot of the ice block.”
“Then one more won't hurt,” she said, slinging an arm through his and dragging him in the opposite direction. “Besides, Darryl's in the commons.”
“You sure?” Michael said, digging in his heels.
“Positive,” she assured him, “and you know he doesn't like anyone in his lab when he's not there.”
Michael did know that Darryl was very territorial, but he would still have been willing to risk it-if Charlotte hadn't been clinging to his arm so insistently, and if he hadn't actually worked up quite such an enormous appetite on his journey to the whaling station. He told himself that he'd make it quick, then haul Darryl straight back to the lab with him.
On the short trip to the commons, Charlotte told him that she'd just finished attending to Lawson, who'd dropped some ski gear on his foot, but Michael was still having a hard time focusing. He had that itchy feeling that he sometimes got, the sense that he was missing out on something, and every time the camera thumped on his chest it only got worse.
“But I'll say this,” Charlotte confided, as they mounted the ramp to the commons. “I don't have a single soul in the sick bay. If I can keep that up for the next six months, this won't be such a bad deal, after all.”
In the commons, they ditched their coats and gear, then piled their plates high with beef stew, sticky rice, and sourdough rolls. In the Antarctic, salad just didn't cut it. Beakers and grunts were coming and going, and even Ackerley-a.k.a. Spook-who usually just grabbed a milk carton and some small cereal boxes and took them back to his botany lab, was sitting at one of the picnic-style tables with some of his cronies. Even though there were no hard-and-fast dining hours at the Point-no one would be able to keep them-the kitchen staff, headed by a grizzled old Navy cook who insisted on being called Uncle Barney, always seemed to keep things coming. No one, not even Murphy O'Connor, knew quite how the trick was pulled off.
Michael spotted Darryl before Charlotte did, nearly hidden behind a pile of rice and string beans, with his nose buried in some lab reports. He plopped his tray down across the table and Charlotte slid in next to him.
Darryl glanced up while dabbing at his mouth with a paper napkin. “Such a handsome couple,” he said. Then he tapped the papers. “These are the readouts from the blood sample in the wine bottle.” He said it as if that was what they had been waiting for.
“And this is what you bring to dinner?” Charlotte said as she snapped her napkin open.
“It's fascinating stuff,” Darryl said, but when he started to elaborate on the sources of the putrefaction, Charlotte stuck a sourdough roll in his mouth.
“Didn't your mama tell you not to talk about certain things at the table?”
Michael laughed, and once the roll was removed from his mouth, so did Darryl. “But, really, you would not believe the blood-cell ratios,” he said, starting up all over again, which Charlotte put a stop to by saying, “Michael, why don't you tell us about what you did today?”
Darryl gave up, broke open the warm bread and began to ladle in scoops of butter, while Michael regaled them with tales of the Norwegian station and piloting the dogsled back to camp.
“Danzig let you do that?” Darryl said.
Michael nodded, swallowing a particularly tough morsel of stew. “In fact, I thought I saw you coming back from the dive hut on a snowmobile.”
Darryl admitted that he'd been there. “But nothing I brought up in the traps was worth keeping this time. I'll try again tomorrow.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes-at pole, every meal was a sort of communion, a way to tell your body what time it was, a break in the unending day. There were many times when you had to stop and ask yourself whether it was lunch or dinner you were sitting down to, but Uncle Barney tried to make that easier for you by providing lots of sandwiches at lunch, and big hot entrees, like stew or spaghetti or chili con carne, for dinner. Betty and Tina had suggested candles be put out for the evening meal, but the grunts had overwhelmingly rejected that idea, in colorful language attached to the bulletin board outside Murphy's office.
Michael had tried to be patient, but before Darryl had quite finished with his hot peach cobbler, he said, “You are planning to go back to the lab tonight, aren't you?”
Darryl nodded, as he chased an errant slice of peach around his plate.
“Because I could always go on ahead of you,” Michael said, “if you don't mind.”
Darryl scooped up the peach, ate it, and said, “Gimme a break. I'm coming.” He crumpled up his napkin and tossed it on the plate. “I want to see what's up just as much as you do.”
Charlotte, sipping the last of her latte, said, “I'm in, too.”
After donning their coats and goggles and gloves, they were all barely identifiable, even to each other. In the Antarctic, people tended to recognize other people based on something simple-a colorful scarf, a stocking hat, a way of walking-because apart from that, everyone looked like big fat bundles of down padding and rubber and wool.
The night was uncommonly still, and the sun was veiled by a thin scrim of wispy clouds-all betokening serious weather to come. Their boots crunched on the ice and snow as they walked by the glaciology lab-they could hear the buzzing of a dril
l from inside the core bin-and approached the sled shed. Off in the distance, the botany lab, where the grow lights were always on, beckoned. It all reminded Michael of Christmas nights as a kid, when his parents would take him to midnight mass, and there was such an air of anticipation hanging over everything. Back then, he knew that something wonderful was waiting for him in the morning, and now he knew that something amazing was waiting for him in that low dark module just around the bend.
Darryl trotted ahead of them and up the ramp. So as not to keep the door open any longer than he had to, he waited for them to catch up before opening it-no one ever locked a lab at Point Adelie; it was a safety point laid down as law by the Chief-and the three of them ducked inside all at once.
The first thing Michael noticed, even before he'd unzipped his coat, was the wet floor. The marine lab often had spills-that was why the floor was a slab of concrete, with drains at regular intervals-but it was a lot wetter than usual. His rubber boots made a sucking noise as he stepped around the lab counter, where the microscope and monitor sat, and followed Darryl over to the side of the central aquarium tank.
Water was still dripping over its sides, the PVC pipes were still operating, as far as he could tell, but apart from the seawater, the tank was otherwise empty. There was no block of ice, and certainly no floating bodies. Chunks of ice drifted around like tiny bergs on the gently moving water, and the whole lab had a strong, briny odor. But Michael was puzzled-and frankly, a little pissed. Was this Dar-ryl's idea of a joke? Because if it was, he wasn't laughing. He, Michael, should have been consulted if the bodies were going to be relocated again.
“Okay-what gives?” he asked Darryl. “Did you tell someone to move them?” But from the stunned look he now saw on Darryl's face, he already knew the answer to that.
“Where are they?” Charlotte innocently asked, unwinding a long scarf from around her neck.
“I… don't… know,” Darryl replied.
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