The Thing (21 page)

"Thanks, but I've got cooking to keep an eye on." He skated off toward the kitchen.

Fuchs sat at the lab desk, pouring over an open book. Several other volumes lay open nearby, stacked like steamed clams. The soft light from the reading lamp illuminated the open pages but not his thoughts, which were filled with confusion and worry.

Macready poked his head into the lab.

"How's it going, Fuchs?"

"Nothing yet." He looked up from the book. "I had one thought, though. If the dogs changed because something they swallowed took control of them from the inside out, we'd better see to it that everyone prepares his own food and that we eat out of cans. Not that I don't trust Nauls, but anyone could get to a pot of stew."

"Gotcha. Good idea, Fuchs. Keep at it." He nodded toward the open tomes on the desk. "I don't know how much longer the guys are going to hold together."

"Right." The pilot disappeared and Fuchs turned tiredly back to his work.

The siren howled above the wind outside the compound, signaling the end of a twenty-minute work period. Sanders extricated himself from the trash dump. At least it didn't smell. It was too cold for that.

Palmer joined him and they headed for the entrance together. He was carrying a large piece of engine.

Sanders eyed the machinery curiously. "What's that for, man? You going to work on it inside?"

"No. Just the opposite," Palmer told him. He grunted, trying to shift the heavy metal higher in his arms. "It's Macready's idea. So nobody goes for any unauthorized jaunts."

"Oh." The radio operator nodded sagely.

Macready was waiting for them. He held the door open as the two men staggered into the corridor flanking the main supply rooms. Childs was working nearby, selecting a new tip for the big torch.

Palmer staggered over to the mechanic and dumped the heavy section of engine. "Whew! Heavy mother. Hey, Childs? Where's that magneto from chopper one?"

Childs looked up from his searching, inspecting the new tip he'd chosen. "Ain't it out there?" He closed the storage bin and started up the corridor.

Palmer yelled after him. "No, it ain't out there, wise-ass. Would I be asking if it were?"

A hand touched his shoulder. "Move it, Palmer, or we're going to be late," Macready reminded him.

Norris arrived and dumped radio parts next to the section of engine. Macready locked the door and they all hurried after the mechanic.

"I heard you and Childs talking," Macready said to Palmer. "Something missing?"

"Ahhh . . . skip it. Not important." He pushed back the hood of his parka, began unsnapping the coat. "I'm starving. What's for supper?"

"Whatever you feel like."

Palmer frowned at him. "I don't like the sound of that."

"You probably won't think much of the taste, either. It's our new dining policy. Serve yourself and save."

"Save what?"

"Yourself. Canned food only until Fuchs can come up with a foolproof test for thingism. Unless you want to chance ending up like the dogs."

"Oh, yeah, I get it," Palmer replied. But the prospect of living off canned food instead of Nauls's hearty meals for an unknown period of time was just one more development that added to the general misery infecting the outpost.

"Start taking those snowmobiles apart next, okay?" Macready instructed him. They turned a bend in the corridor, leaving the supply room far behind.

"I'm sorry, guys." Nauls skated over to the crowded stove where cans of various colors and sizes were heating. "Macready's orders."

"That's all right, Nauls," Fuchs assured him. "It's for everyone's own good."

"Yeah, I know that. I just hate to see everybody having to down that canned slop instead of my cooking."

Childs made an elaborate display of masticating a spoonful of his own meal, then said thoughtfully, "Actually, I hadn't noticed much difference." He ducked the spoon the cook heaved at him, laughing good-naturedly.

Nauls still had some food to prepare. He checked the tray with more than usual care, since it was all he had to do now other than making certain no one broke the stove or cut himself on a can opener.

Besides which he felt a little guilty about Blair. Most of them were starting to. The biologist might've gone crazy, but even though his head was in the wrong place, his heart wasn't.

Meat loaf, potatoes, English peas, bread and butter . . . all present and accounted for. The others toyed with their cans and watched enviously as he slipped foil over the tray and then slid it into an insulated polyethylene container. Nauls donned his outside gear and skated toward the nearest exit. He paused there to remove his wheels, then opened the door and put his head into the wind.

It was his second tour in Antarctica, but men who'd done three times that assured him you never got used to the polar winter. It was one thing to go to bed while it was still bright and sunshiny outside, in the summertime. That was easy to cope with. But he didn't like waking up to total darkness. It made you think the world had died.

As he neared the toolshed he thought he could make out a new sound over the wind: a distant pounding.

"Take it easy, man," he muttered toward the shed. The need to go outside had killed whatever compassion he'd been feeling for Blair. It was
cold
.

"I got your goodies. Old Nauls wouldn't forget you. Man, you don't know how good you got it, everybody else slopping out of cans. Got your own private chef."

He halted outside the door. The pounding from inside was very loud. He paused uncertainly, then put the tray down and peeked through the tiny window set in the door.

Blair was making the noise, all right, but with a hammer instead of his fists. The hammer was a small, light-duty model. It wasn't heavy enough to break through the thick boards the cook and Macready had installed over the windows.

But Blair wasn't trying to break out. He was nailing new boards over the door from the inside, and though his medical experience was somewhat more than limited, Nauls could tell by the expression on the biologist's face that he was far from cured.

"Hey," he shouted, "what are you doing, man?"

"Nobody's getting in here!" Blair yelled hysterically. "Nobody. You can tell them all that."

Nauls shook his head dolefully and raised the hinged slat that had been cut in the base. He pushed the covered tray through the opening.

"Well, who the hell you think would want to get in there with you? Not me, man."

The tray came shooting back out. It slid across the icy walkway and turned over. Polyethylene and foil split and food came flying out, some of it staining Nauls's coat.

"Now why'd you go and—"

"And I don't want any more food with sedatives in it!" Blair screamed. "I know what you're up to. Don't think I don't. You're all so clever. And if anyone tries to get in here . . . I've got rope. I'll hang myself before it gets to me."

"Yeah? You promise?" Nauls turned and picked up the rejected tray. He started back toward the compound, grumbling under his breath.

Time passed, but not slowly. You could feel the tension, though everyone did his best to conceal it from his neighbor. Everyday tasks provided welcome relief. They took one's mind off the horror that might still be lingering over the camp. Jokes were forced, as was the laughter that greeted them.

Outwardly, everything seemed normal, but suspicion and paranoia colored every word, every movement. Suspicion, paranoia, and a desperate fear.

Palmer was working on the second snowmobile. He'd removed all the spark plugs from both, dismantled the carburetors, removed and concealed the gas filters.

Now he was taking the engines off their mountings. They would go into the locked storage room, along with the vital components of the helicopters and the tractor. The mounting bolts and screws would be hidden elsewhere.

Macready was taking no chances. He was at work in the balloon tower with a kitchen knife, methodically slashing each of the huge, uninflated weather balloons into uninflatable strips. There was no telling how long they might have to remain isolated before Fuchs could come up with a new test.

It was unlikely, but a half-frozen gull or man-o-war bird just might drop into camp. It would better to take no chances. Birds could not be pursued.

He finished the last of the balloons, then lingered over the tanks of hydrogen stored nearby before deciding there was no need to empty them. There was nothing in camp their resident thing could surreptitiously combine to make a suitable envelope out of.

The stereo in the kitchen wailed, its vibrant, undisciplined music easing the tension with the unconcern of a world that seemed a million miles away. Nauls hummed as he removed the dishes from the washer and stacked them neatly on their proper shelf.

Childs sighed. One hand scratched at an ear. The other flipped the pages of a thick magazine. The industrial torch, its new tip gleaming, lay close at hand.

Clark, Copper, and the station manager dozed on the couch nearby. The effects of the morphine would be wearing off soon. Norris would be around to redose the trio, Childs knew.

Clark stirred, rose and mumbled thickly at the guard. "Gotta go to the can, Childs."

Making a face the mechanic put down the magazine. He half-carried the dog handler to the far end of the room and opened the door for him.

"Be quick about it." Clark staggered into the head. A few seconds passed and the lights began to flicker. Childs looked around worriedly.

They went out completely for a second, then came back on. "Oh no," the mechanic muttered. "No . . . not now, man."

When they winked out the second time it was for good. Along with the light something else had vanished: a mechanical breathing so soft and steady you quickly learned to ignore it. The purr of the generator.

"Childs!" That was Nauls, shouting from the kitchen. "That a breaker?"

"No," Childs told him. "Breaker would have gone out instantly. There wouldn't have been any flicker. Listen, don't you hear it?"

"Hear what, man?" came the reply. "I don't hear anything."

"That's what I mean. The generator's gone. You got the controls for the auxiliary there in the hall next to you. They're opposite the door from the kitchen. Get to 'em." He stumbled around in the darkness, cursing as he bumped into the card table. "Where's that damn flashlight?" Something fell from the table and hit the floor. Magazine, probably.

"You fellas okay over there?"

A giggle came from the couch, edgy and fearful.

"Cut that out, Copper." Childs hesitated. The flashlight should be in the corner, on a shelf. He started feeling his way along the wall. "Nauls, what's taking you so long? It's straight out the door."

"I know," came the nervous reply. "I found it. I'm working on it right now, but nothing's happening!"

"That's impossible, man." He reached the shelf and felt among the books and games. No flashlight.

Turning back to the center of the room he shuffled carefully back to the card table. "Okay, Clark. Out of the john right now."

"It's shorted out or something!" Nauls was yelling at him from down the corridor.

Childs ignored the cook's lament. He wanted a response from the bathroom. "Clark. You hear me, Clark? You come on out of there! Now."

When there was still no reply forthcoming, Childs felt around the table until he located the torch. It flared to life with gratifying speed. Blue fire filled the recreation room with ghostly but adequate illumination.

He started toward the john, but something half seen made him pause and turn the torch toward the couch.

"Where . . . where's Garry?" The station manager had disappeared. Copper was staring numbly at the empty cushion next to him. He and Childs were now alone.

"Well, shit." The mechanic groped for the portable siren and switched it on, thankful for the batteries that powered it.

Palmer looked up from the now invisible snowmobile he'd nearly finished dismantling. Macready and Sanders pushed a path out of the trash dump and exchanged a glance with the assistant pilot. Soon all three of them were loping toward the nearest entrance, making their way by flashlight through the long night.

Childs twisted and spun at every little imagined noise, trying to keep the torch between himself and the darkness. "Where are you, Garry? Don't you move an inch, Copper." The doctor giggled again, loudly. It did not improve the mechanic's already shaky state of mind.

"Nauls, bring me a goddamn flashlight!"

The cook abandoned the useless control box and returned to the kitchen, feeling along his familiar cabinets until he reached a particular drawer. His hands moved among the contents, picking up spoons and spatulas and ladles, everything except what he was searching for.

"Somebody's taken mine. I can't find it!"

"Clark! "Childs turned the torch toward the bathroom. "You coming out of there or you want me to come in after you?"

Macready, Sanders, and Palmer stumbled into the hallway, bumping into each other as they fought to get their bearings in the unexpectedly dark corridor. Macready closed the door behind them. Their flashlights provided the only illumination.

"What's happened?" Macready called out. When the outside lights had gone he'd expected some trouble inside, but not this utter, complete blackness. "Anybody know what happened?"

"Macready . . . that you?" It was Norris.

"Yeah! Palmer and Sanders are with me. What the hell's going on?"

"I think it's the generator," the geophysicist replied. "There's no power to anything, the lights included."

"What about the backup?"

"Beats me. All I know is everything's out."

Macready turned to his assistant. "All right, Palmer, let's get down there."

"Macready!"

"That you, Childs?"

"Yeah. I'm still in the rec room."

Macready's thoughts were racing. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, man. But Garry's missing."

"Oh shit." The pilot thought a moment. They had other priorities right now. "Well . . . hang on!"

"Gee, thanks." The mechanic's voice was cheerless as it floated down the corridor. "What about power?"