Danzig stirred in the shell and raised his head. �We there yet?� he mumbled.
�Almost,� Michael said.
Now he could see the American flag, so stiffened by the wind that it looked flat.
�But since you're awake,� Michael said, �what do you say to get the dogs to stop?�
�Try whoa.�
�Try
it?�
�It doesn't always work. Pull back on the lines, hard, and step down on the brake.� Michael glanced down at the metal bar, with two claws, that served as the brake, and prepared to step on it as soon as the sled got within a hundred yards of the kennel. He didn't anticipate a swift stop.
From the ocean side, he could hear the distant roar of a snowmobile, and he couldn't help but compare it to the smooth, natural whooshing of the sled. As a photographer�somebody who relied
upon all the latest gizmos�he knew he was in no position to throw stones at technology. Hell, if it hadn't been for airplanes, he'd never have gotten here, and if weren't for digital cameras, he'd be fumbling with a lot of frozen, broken, and scratched film. But the noise of the snowmobile, which looked like it would arrive back at the base just about as he did, was an intrusion nonetheless, like a power mower breaking the perfect quiet of an August morning. He wondered, as he watched it zip across the ice like a black bug skittering across a tabletop, if Darryl was on board, loaded down with fresh specimens.
The kennel was at the back of the station, beyond the quad where the dorms and administration modules were set up, back where the labs butted up against the equipment sheds and generators. Even though the generators were placed as far away from the dorms as possible, there were still many nights, if the wind was down, when Michael could hear their constant thrumming. When he'd complained about it at breakfast one morning, Franklin had said, �Worry about it when you
don't
hear that racket.�
The dogs cut a narrow path past the ice-core bins and the botany lab, past the garage where the Sprytes and snowmobiles and augers were housed, and on toward the kennel, across a winding alley from the marine biology lab. Michael shouted �Whoa!� to almost no effect, and pressed with both feet on the brake. He could feel its steel claws digging into the permafrost and slowing the speed of the sled, but they weren't slowing it enough for a soft landing. He shouted again and leaned back, with all his weight, on the mainline, until he saw the brush bow, at the front of the sled, lift an inch or two, and the dogs gradually wind down. Kodiak stopped straining against the harness and fell into a trot, and the others immediately followed suit. The blades coursed almost silently across the snow and ice, until the sled pulled up to the kennel�an open shed with a hayloft above, illuminated by a glaring, white light. From the happy reaction of the dogs, it looked to them like the Ritz.
�Nice job, Nanook,� Danzig said, hoisting himself up and out of the shell. �What's on the meter?�
Sinclair had heard the sled arriving�the barking of the dogs, the runners cutting through the snow. But he didn't dare to open the
door to see what was out there�for all he knew, a guard might be posted right outside.
There were no proper windows, either, but he did see a narrow glass panel running just below the flat ceiling, close to the door, and he quietly drew a stool over to it. He stepped up on the stool�his socks, still damp, squishing on its seat�and tried to peer outside. The noise of the dogs was quite close. But the window was so encrusted with snow and ice, he could barely see anything. On his side of it, however, there did appear to be a handle of some kind�like a crank�and when he turned it, the bottom of the window lifted, pushing some snow out of its way. He cranked it again, and now he had a couple of inches through which he could see. The blast of wind, despite the narrowness of the aperture, was forbidding.
He saw an ice-packed alley, with a team of wolfish dogs prancing through it. There were two men on the sled�one, in a bulky, hooded coat, was driving, and the other, wearing a necklace of bones around his neck, was riding in the carriage. The sled ground to a halt inside a wide-open barn�brightly lighted, even though it appeared to Sinclair to be midday outside�and the man in the sled clambered out. Sinclair could not hear what the men were saying. But his attention was drawn instead to the back of the dog pen.
His chest was there. The one that had contained the cache of bottles.
The men pushed their hoods back and lifted some sort of heavy dark spectacles from their eyes. The driver was young�maybe Sinclair's own age�tall, with longish black hair; the other man, with a full beard and wide Slavic cheekbones, was older and stocky. Neither of them wore anything that suggested a uniform, or national allegiance, of any kind, but that was little help. Sinclair had known soldiers, so weary and so encumbered with gear, that by the time they arrived at the front, they looked more like a band of hooligans than Her Majesty's own.
The bearded man was untying the harness lines�Sinclair was reminded of his own horses and carriages, back at his family's estate in Nottinghamshire�while the driver filled a stack of bowls with food from a sack. One by one, the dogs were tied to stakes, spaced a few feet apart; their eyes were riveted on the bowls as the young man dispensed them. While the dogs devoured their meals, the bearded man hung his overcoat on a wall hook�he had some other
coat on underneath it�where Sinclair saw a motley assortment of other garments, hats and gloves and even a pair of those green spectacles, also hanging.
More and more, he knew that he would have to raid that barn. There was food (even if it was only considered fit for dogs), there was clothing � and there was his chest.
�What do you see?� Eleanor whispered.
�Our next objective.�
He climbed down from the stool and began to put his own clothes back on.
�Are they dry yet?� Eleanor asked. �If they're not dry ��
He lifted his saber out of its scabbard�it stuck for a second, before sliding free�then slid it back in again. He hoped he would not have to draw it, but it was best to know, that if things came to such a pass �
�What do you want me to do?� Eleanor asked, her voice not only soft but weak. He knew she hadn't really tested her strength yet�for that matter, neither had he�but he wondered if she would be fit to travel, as they would no doubt have to do, and especially in what appeared to be the same hostile climes they had last encountered.
�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.
