by Ted Mark
I tried to raise my head, but she wouldn't let me. She didn't want to relinquish this new thrill to which I'd introduced her. Which would have been all right with me except for one thing: Poli had gone a bit overboard with her seal-oil perfume in this particular area. I was damn near asphyxiated before her body was finally seized by a long, drawn-out tremor which ended with the heartiest laugh yet.
Then she let go and held her arms open. Her eyes were shining with wonder as I came into them. We made love more conventionally, and she enjoyed that, too. But when it was over, she kept sliding my head down her belly again until I obliged her and repeated the first act.
And so the long arctic night passed, alternating between one form of love- making and the other. In the morning, Ungilak came to wake us. When he had done so, he conveyed to me by gestures his concern as to whether his poor excuse for a wife had given me any satisfaction. I gestured back with great enthusiasm, and he nodded, pleased that this humble offering had met with my approval. He patted Poli on the head to show his praise for her having done well.
Poli had something she wanted to show him, too. She pulled him down beside her excitedly, and drew his head to her breast. He pulled away, puzzled. She raised the pelts covering his chest, and then chattered some words to explain the kiss she bestowed there. Ungilak shrugged and pressed his lips to her breast. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and she giggled approval. Then she pulled the skins from her legs and pushed his head farther down. She pointed at me and chattered some other words. Ungilak raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips where she indicated. She held him there and soon her laugh sounded out once again. Only then did she release him.
Poli turned to me as Ungilak got to his feet, and I gathered she was thanking me for enlarging her erotic horizons. She tugged at Ungilak and said something to him. Then he too thanked me politely. But I could see his heart wasn't in it. He tried to hide it, but he obviously thought I was some kind of nut or something. Why else would I humor a woman with an orifice meant to consume polar bear steak and other arctic goodies? Surely, the look he was trying to hide seemed to say, it was foolish to make her laugh in this way when a man could laugh along with her while making love more conventionally. But I guessed that Poli would find a way of overcoming his skepticism.
There wasn't time for her to try that morning, though. Ungilak was kept too busy preparing for the journey ahead. At first I tried to help him load up the dogsled, but I could soon see I was more in the way than being helpful. So I strolled down to the shoreline, where I found Olga.
She was staring out toward the sea. I followed her glance and saw a ship which seemed to be lying at anchor quite far out. "I thought they left yesterday," I remarked.
"That's not our ship," Olga replied.
I took another look and saw that she was right. "Who is it, then?" I asked.
"I wish I knew. All I know is that it's not ours, and that means it's probably dangerous to us."
I was still mulling this over a while later when Ungilak came to tell us he was ready to shove off. Olga and I bundled up in the sled while he harnessed the dogs to it. Then he kissed Poli and we waved goodbye to her as Ungilak hopped on the back runners and cracked his whip over the sled dogs.
The thing about sled dogs is that the lead dog is the only one who ever gets a change of scenery. Not that there is much in the way of scenery in Franz Josef Land. Pack ice, an occasional glimpse of moss or lichen, the knowledge that there are fox and polar bear farther inland, and the sea stretching out to the horizon – that sums up the view. Which is one reason why the ship paralleling our dogsled course along the coastline was the most interesting thing in sight.
The other reason was our wonder at why it was following us. The question became academic when Ungilak made close to a right-angle turn and headed inland. The ship couldn't follow that course.
Still, Olga and I kept looking back over our shoulders at it. The coastline was almost out of sight when we saw two longboats from the ship reach the shore. Olga had Ungilak stop a moment and pointed out to him what we had seen. His keen eyes studied the activity of the dots back at the shore, and then he commented to Olga.
"He says," she translated for me, "that there are four men with a sled, dogs and supplies. It will take them about half an hour to get loaded, hitch up the dogs, and start out to follow our trail. That will put them about two hours behind us. Ungilak thinks we'll be able to lose them when we go through the glaciers." Olga pointed to a low ridge of ice mountains.
We started moving toward them now, with Ungilak riding the runners behind us and lightly flicking his whip over our heads at the dogs pulling the sled. It was cramped, bundled up in the sled that way, but we didn't feel the cold too much with those heavy bear pelts covering us. It was dull, too, and it was as much from boredom as anything else that I decided this might be a good time to try to pump some information out of Olga. I figured if I could keep her talking, she might drop some clue to prove that she was really Dr. Nyet.
"How did you happen to join S.M.U.T. in the first place?" I asked for openers.
"My mother was a whore," Olga told me simply.
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"That's all right. I don't mind talking about it. I was born in a brothel in Paris. I was named by a white Russian, a steady customer of Mama's who may or may not have been my father. I grew up in the brothel. I ran away when I was thirteen. That was the day Mama tried to put me to work. But I'd made up my mind a long time before that never to be a whore like Mama. I'd seen what it did to her and to the other women there. Old before their time, too jaded to enjoy sex or anything else – I wasn't going to let that happen to me. So I ran away."
"Where did you go?"
"Not very far. I stayed in Paris. I lied about my age and got a job. It was as a clerk in an office. I went to school nights and studied shorthand and typing. By the time I was sixteen – they thought I was twenty-one, of course – I was secretary to one of the senior executives in the firm. It was an import-export outfit, and there were promotions availabe to girls who could speak the Scandinavian languages and qualify as translators. So I went back to school again and took language courses. I found I had a real knack for languages; they came very easily to me. By the time I was really twenty-one, I was the top translator in the company and they were sending me on assignments all over the world. They imported furs, and one of these assignments took me into the interior of Greenland to deal with the Eskimo fur-trappers. That's where I picked up their language. The tongue Ungilak speaks is just an offshoot dialect of what I picked up there."
"You still haven't told me how you came to join S.M.U.T.," I reminded her.
"Shortly after I came back from Greenland, the company opened a new office in New York. A large staff of translators was to operate out of that office. I was put in charge of them, and so I located more or less permanently in New York. But I didn't know a soul there outside of the people with whom I worked, and my position sort of set me apart from them. I was lonely, and I had nothing to do with my spare time. Then one day I read an article on S.M.U.T. in one of the Sunday supplements."
"And so you joined."
"Yes. I still remembered Mama, you see. And all those other poor unfortunates who sold themselves. I knew the harm that sex could do. S.M.U.T. was doing something about curtailing that harm. So I volunteered my services to them."
"They must have put a very high value on them, considering how much they trust you," I observed.
"They do now, yes. But not at first. In my early days with S.M.U.T., my value to them was pretty much restricted to translating. I was given foreign language books which are circulated in the U.S. to check for pornographic content."
"And did you find much?"
"I'm afraid so," Olga said with the true zeal of the believer in censorship. "Particularly in books from my native land. With such reading material available to them, it's no wonder so many French girls end up like Mama!"
I could have tak
en issue with that. My O.R.G.Y. experience has indicated that most girls who read such things didn't end up like Olga's mother. And most girls who landed in brothels didn't have time to read such things en route.
But I was supposed to be as fanatic about the rightness of S.M.U.T.'s cause as Olga, and so I only nodded understanding and prompted her to continue. "How did you happen to be assigned to that brothel?" I asked her.
"Mr. Crampdick knew about my background – having grown up in a place like that, I mean. He asked me to volunteer, and I did. I guess he thought I'd be more able to cope with it and not lose my faith in the rightness of S.M.U.T. than some of the other girls who volunteered."
"Didn't it bother you? Feeling about sex and brothels the way you do, I mean?"
"Yes. It bothered me. But it was worth it if I could be instrumental in closing down such an establishment. Besides, Crampdick provided me with the means of making it sufferable."
"What do you mean?"
"He gave me a hypodermic and some drugs. It was a local anesthetic. I gave myself an injection in the loins before going to bed with a customer. So you see, I never had to feel a thing. There was nothing sexual about it for me. I was simply performing a mechanical act for S.M.U.T. Even the first time, the night I lost my virginity, I didn't feel a thing. It was only a technicality, and as far as I'm concerned, I still am a virgin."
"Of course you are," I assured her. "And was it Crampdick who sent you to Hammerfest after the fiasco at the bordello?" I asked.
"Why, no," She looked at me curiously. "Mr. Highman sent me. I thought you knew that."
"I wasn't sure whether he did it directly or through Crampdick," I told her smoothly.
"Oh. Well, he did it himself. Crampdick brought me to see him just after the night of the blackout. It was the first time I ever met him. He's such a self-effacing sort of man, Mr. Highman. All that time I was with S.M.U.T., and I never knew he was the one in charge. And I was impressed with the way he was so concerned about my safety with that awful vice gang after me. I was so grateful to him for making it possible for me to serve S.M.U.T. at the same time I was running away. But don't you think this is a strange part of the world for S.M.U.T. to have an outpost? I mean, there aren't any people here, so how can they carry on their campaign against libertinism?"
Was she putting me on? I couldn't tell. If she was Dr. Nyet, she couldn't be as innocent of S.M.U.T.'s real purposes as she seemed. But if she wasn't, she could be completely sincere and chances were Highman wouldn't have told her any more than he had to in order to use her. In which case she might just be following his instructions in all innocence.
"Did Highman tell you what was in the package you were sent here to pick up and deliver?" I asked.
"No. Do you know what it is?"
"Yes. But I guess he had good reasons for not telling you."
"Well, I'd certainly never question Mr. Highman's reasons. It must be awfully important if that man back on the boat was killed because of it."
"Must be." I figured I might as well let her go on thinking that was the reason for Vlankov's death. If she really didn't know any better, I could only hope that the lead Vlankov was following was valid and pointed toward Dr. Nyet.
"And that other ship following us must mean it's important, too," she added. "How do you suppose they managed it? I didn't see them while we were aboard our own ship."
"Radar, probably," I told her. "It wouldn't be hard."
Ungilak pulled the sled to a halt, ending the conversation. We were at the foot of the snow ridges, and the sky was turning to deep gray. It was time to make camp for the night.
Ungilak unhitched the dogs, unloaded the sled, and turned it over, angling it against the hillside for a makeshift lean-to. He indicated that Olga and I should crawl under it while he bedded down with the dogs a little distance away. Survival in the Arctic depended on those dogs, and although he was too polite to have ever put it into words, Ungilak's actions said that he was more concerned with their care than our comfort. He handed us large chunks of raw blubber for our dinner and indicated that we should cut it into chewable pieces with our knives. But he labored patiently at cutting the blubber up for the dogs, and it wasn't until they had been fed that he himself ate.
By that time we could no longer see him or the dogs across the blackness of the night. Olga and I crawled up under the sled – keeping a respectable distance between us – and went to sleep. When I woke up, it wasn't blackness but a dazzling whiteness that was just as impenetrable which greeted me. I blinked, but the whiteness remained. It had started to snow during the night and it was still snowing – an ivory powder pouring down from the sky, with no particular force, but steadily and unceasingly.
Olga was also awake. We discussed the snow, neither of us sure how it would affect our journey. After a while Ungilak crawled under the sled to join us and put an end to our speculations.
He told Olga how he evaluated the situation and she translated his words for me. We couldn't travel through the snowstorm. It would be too difficult for the dogs to pull a full sled. We would have to wait where we were until it ended. We would have to hope that no winds sprang up to turn it into a full-scale blizzard. And we would have to pray that it was over before we started running seriously short of food.
So it began. With a flurry of snow, not too heavy, but steady – steady! – a snowfall no worse than the average winter storm back in the U.S. That's how it started. Only such a snow back home lasts a day or two, maybe three, four at the most, and then it's over. But this snowfall didn't end. The days dragged by and still the snow fell. A week passed. More. We couldn't be sure. Olga and I lost track.
Ungilak stayed with the dogs, but came to us with food regularly. Hardtack and blubber – a monotonous diet, but it kept us alive. And then the day came when Ungilak brought us half the rations he normally doled out. He explained the situation to Olga.
"He says we have only enough rations left for a few days," she translated for me. "It has been one day since he fed the dogs. If he feeds them now, there will be no food left for us after tomorrow. So he intends to kill one of the dogs and let the others feed off the carcass."
"And then what?" I asked.
"He doesn't know. He says it is in the laps of his Eskimo gods."
Those gods must have been asleep on the job that night. I was asleep myself, and so was Olga, when starving terror stalked through the white hell of night and invaded our shelter. One of the sled dogs had chewed through the leather strap by which Ungilak had tethered him and now he came looking for food. Hunger pushed him toward the smell of warm, living flesh, and when the dog traced the scent to its source, he went berserk.
Olga's scream awoke me. Only that fact that she had huddled under the bearskins against the cold so that they completely covered her saved her from instant death. The dog was going at the skins claw and fang, bent on ripping out her throat.
Ungilak had left a flashlight with me and I'd carefully conserved the batteries. Now I reacted to that first scream by turning it on and shining the beam at Olga. Even in that brief moment, the beast had torn her coverings to tatters. His snarling jaws were inches from her face when I sighted my gun and fired three times in rapid succession.
The beast's head flew apart, and his blood spurted over Olga. The shots brought Ungilak on the run. Behind him the other dogs scented the fresh blood and set up an excited howling. Ungilak took one look at the dead animal and turned his attention back to the other dogs. But it was too late for him to try to cope with them. The starving animals had gone berserk, and now the pack of them had pulled free from where Ungilak had tethered them and was making for the scene, howling and slavering as they came.
Ungilak grabbed up Olga and motioned for me to follow quickly. We moved away from the sled lean-to as the pack descended on it. Ungilak said something to Olga, and she repeated it to me.
"They have gone wild now, and there is no bringing them back under control. If there had been time, he would
have taken the body of the dead dog and cut it up and fed it to the others. That way they might not have turned into such mad beasts. But there will be no holding them now."
I shined the flashlight on the pack of dogs and saw just how horribly right Ungilak was. A couple of them had torn loose from the main pack, but the rest were still loosely tied together, and they kept getting tangled up with one another. They had thrown the sled over now and fallen on the carcass of the dead dog. They ripped out his insides and set about devouring him, flesh, bones, fur and all. Inevitably, two of the dogs got into a fight over a chunk of the carcass. Snarling, they attacked each other in a battle to the death. The other dogs circled them, watching warily. One of the fighting dogs managed to get a grip on the other's neck. The crunching of jaws was audible, and then he swung the victim around by his broken neck and flung him from him. When he landed, the other dogs descended on him and tore the body to pieces. Then they turned back to the winner of the fight. He was still weak from the battle, and they made short work of killing him.
With three carcasses to feast on, the pack became less savage toward each other. Olga and I both had to turn away from the awful spectacle of their cannibalism. Ungilak, however, seemed unaffected by it. He watched until they'd gorged themselves and then huddled together amongst the bearskin blankets we'd left behind to take advantage of each other's body warmth against the cold. When they were quiet, Ungilak spoke in a voice that was sad and very weary.
"He says now he must kill the dogs that are left," Olga told me.
"But why? How will we ever get out of here if he does that?"
Olga exchanged some more words with Ungilak and then got back to me. "He says it will be easier to kill them now than to wait until they become ravenous again. When that happens, he says, they will attack us with all their fury and it will be much harder to fight them off. They have had a taste of blood now, and they are no better than wolves. They won't hesitate to kill us after they have slept. So Ungilak must kill them first. After that, he will leave their bodies for food for us and go on by himself to the settlement to try to bring back help. He says the journey is too arduous for us while the storm continues – impossible without a sled and dogs. Our only chance of survival is for him to go for help."