Terminal Freeze (13 page)

The physics and life-sciences lab was a converted sheet-metal shop on B Level. It wasn’t really much of a lab, Marshall thought as he stood just inside the doorway, surveying the laptops, microscopes, and other equipment strewn across half a dozen worktables: basically, it was just enough for the most essential day-to-day analysis and observation until they could get their data and samples back to Massachusetts.

In the rear of the lab, Faraday and Chen were huddled over something, backs to him, their heads almost touching. Marshall threaded his way between the tables toward them. As he approached he saw what they were studying so intently: a rack containing a dozen or so small test tubes.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he said.

The two straightened up and turned toward him with the swift, guilty motions of children caught doing something forbidden. Marshall frowned.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

Faraday and Chen exchanged glances.

“Analyzing something,” Faraday said after a moment.

“So I see.” Marshall glanced down at the test tubes. They were filled with different colored liquids: red, blue, pale yellow. “Seems to have captured your full attention.”

Faraday said nothing. Chen shrugged.

“What is it?” Marshall asked bluntly.

In the pause that followed, he looked around the nearby tables, more carefully this time. Faraday’s eight-by-tens of the inside of the vault were scattered across one; they were now covered with circles and arrowed notations in grease pencil. On another table, a plastic bin full of what appeared to be wood chips sat beside a stereo-microscope.

Faraday cleared his throat. “We’re examining the ice.”

Marshall glanced back at him. “What ice?”

“The ice that the cat-the creature-was encased in.”

“How? That ice melted away long ago. And the resulting water would be contaminated, useless as a scientific sample.”

“I know. That’s why I retrieved the samples from the source.”

“The source?” Marshall frowned. “You mean-from the ice cave?”

Faraday pushed his glasses up his nose, nodded.

“You went back to the cave-in this storm? That’s crazy.”

“No, I went last night. After our meeting in the RASP room.”

Marshall folded his arms across his chest. “That’s
still
crazy. In the middle of the night? That cave’s dangerous enough at the best of times.”

“You sound just like Sully,” Faraday replied.

“There might have been polar bears wandering around.”

“I went along,” Chen said. “With one of the rifles.”

Marshall sighed, leaned back against one of the tables. “Okay. Mind telling me why?”

Faraday blinked at him. “It’s like we discussed at the meeting. Something’s just not right about this.”

“I’ll say. We’ve got a thief in our midst.”

“That’s not what I mean. Things aren’t adding up. The sudden thawing, the creature going missing, the kerf marks…” He pointed at the plastic bin beside the microscope. “I took some samples from around the edges of the vault hole and examined them at 40x. There’s no question about it: those marks were made
from the inside out,
not from somebody sawing in from underneath.”

Marshall nodded. “A minute ago you said I sounded like Sully. What did you mean by that?”

“When he heard I went up to the cave, Sully went ballistic. He said it was a waste of time, that I might as well throw the samples away.”

Marshall didn’t reply immediately. He recalled how dismissive Sully had been about this theory-and about the photographs in general. While Faraday might have been foolhardy to collect the samples in the first place, it seemed a scientific given that, once obtained, they should be analyzed. He thought again of what Conti had said about Sully.

Chen glanced at Faraday, then nodded toward the wood samples. “Tell him the other thing.”

Faraday smoothed the front of his lab coat. “When we examined the chips under the microscope, we also found samples of matted hair and a good amount of dried, dark matter caked to the sharper edges.”

“Caked?” Marshall repeated. “Was it blood?”

“I haven’t analyzed it yet,” Faraday said. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, as if thinking better of the idea.

“Go ahead,” Marshall said. “Tell me the rest.”

Faraday swallowed. “Those kerf marks…” he began. “I don’t know. Under the scope they don’t look like they were made by a saw.”

“What, then?”

“They appear to have been more…natural in origin.”

Marshall looked from Faraday to Chen and back again. “Natural? I’m not following.”

This time it was Chen who spoke. “Not sawed through. More like
chewed
through.”

The silence that followed this was much longer.

“How on earth can you expect me to believe that, Wright?” Marshall asked at last, trying to keep his voice from betraying his deep skepticism.

Faraday cleared his throat again. “Listen,” he said, his voice lower. “When I know something for a fact-
if
I know something-I’ll tell you. I won’t hold it back. I just don’t want any more flak from Sully.”

“Sully,” Marshall repeated thoughtfully. “You know where he is?”

“Haven’t seen him for hours.”

“Okay.” Marshall eased himself away from the table. “If you learn anything, you’ll let me know?”

Faraday nodded. With a final, searching look at the two men, Marshall turned and slowly made his way out of the lab.

Jeremy Logan ventured carefully along the narrow corridors of E Level. It had taken him almost ninety minutes of exploring to reach this, the lowest level of Fear Base’s central section. As he’d penetrated deeper into the base, he’d found the passages cluttered with increasing amounts of shadowy detritus: desks piled atop one another, tools, pieces of ancient electrical equipment, decaying boxes filled with vacuum tubes. It was as if all the unused clutter of the base had literally sunk to the bottom over the years.

C Level had been primarily comprised of support services for the men originally stationed at the base: food-preparation areas, laundry, tailoring. D Level held the quartermaster’s office and countless storage spaces, along with several repair bays. Unlike the suffocatingly warm upper levels, the chill down here was pronounced. The unpleasant smell of the base-inescapable even on the upper levels-was significantly worse. Logan wrinkled his nose at the musky odor.

E Level was a jumbled mélange of secondary spaces and mechanical systems. The ceilings were even lower here than elsewhere, and heavily veined with pipes and cabling. Most lightbulbs had been removed from their fixtures, and those that remained no longer worked. Logan moved slowly from room to room, his flashlight licking right and left, right and left. Many of the objects were covered with old tarps, well preserved in the cold dry air. He wondered when someone had last been this deep inside the base. It was like stepping into a time capsule.

He stopped in what appeared to be an auxiliary control room, a fallback in case the primary systems upstairs became inoperative. The black screens of the monitors and oscilloscopes winked back as his light passed over them. The silence was complete. On a whim, he switched off the flashlight. Instantly, unrelieved blackness engulfed him. He hurriedly switched the light back on. He moved out of the control room and down the corridor, wishing he’d brought along some spare batteries, or preferably a spare flashlight: it wouldn’t do for the one he was using to fail.

He passed several more cramped rooms, their doorways yawning rectangles of black, before the corridor ended at a T intersection. He stopped, trying to get his bearings in this confusing military labyrinth. If he was correct, the passageway to his left was headed more or less south. He turned right and continued on.

Within twenty yards the passage ended in a heavy metal door-hatch, really-windowless and dogged shut by thick cleats. A red bulb in a narrow cage was set into the ceiling above it-unlit, like the rest on E Level-and a sign screwed into the adjacent wall: WARNING. AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY. F-29 CLEARANCE REQUIRED.

Logan read the sign once, then again. Then he let his light play over the metal hatch. Taking a step forward, he put a hand on the nearest cleat, gave it an exploratory tug. It held fast. Looking closer, he saw that even if he could undog the cleats it would make little difference: a heavy padlock had been snugged through a hasp on one side of the hatch.

Suddenly, Logan turned. Back to the hatch, he stabbed his light down the corridor. The base was deathly still. He hadn’t seen anybody for nearly an hour and a half. And yet he was sure-completely and utterly sure-he had just heard something.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

No response.

He stood there, motionless save for the hand probing with the flashlight. Was it one of the film crew, searching for the missing carcass? Nobody would be foolish enough to drag it all the way down here-or to extend the search this far.

“Who is it?” he called. Again, silence.

He might as well head back. He’d found what he’d been searching for, yet could go no farther. The hatch was sealed. Taking a deep breath, he started forward, then stopped again, uncomfortably aware that he was in a dead end. There was no other way to get back to the surface except down this corridor. Where the sound had come from.

Then he heard it again: a tread, the sound of a footfall. Then another. And then a form stepped out into the intersection. Logan ’s light swiveled to it like a magnet. It was Gonzalez, the sergeant in charge of the base detachment.

Logan swallowed, felt limbs that had suddenly grown tense now relax a little. He composed his face into a neutral mask.

Gonzalez came toward him slowly, his own Maglite held loose in a burly hand. “Out for a morning constitutional,” he asked as he approached.

Logan smiled.

Gonzalez let his light drift over Logan ’s features. “You’re Dr. Logan, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What are you doing down here, Doctor? Are you looking for the creature, too?”

“No. Were you following me?”

“Let’s say I was curious why anybody would be down here.”

Logan debated asking how he’d found out. He decided the sergeant probably wouldn’t tell him.

“So what were you looking for?” Gonzalez asked.

Logan aimed a thumb at the hatch behind him.

Gonzalez frowned. “Why?”

“That’s the north wing, right? The science section?”

Gonzalez’s expression grew guarded. “What do you know about it?”

“Not much. That’s why I’m down here.” Logan took a step forward. “You wouldn’t have a key on you, by any chance?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t use it. It’s unauthorized, off-limits. Even to me.”

“But scientific work went on there, right?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to answer that.”

“Look, Sergeant, I came all the way up here just to learn more about what happened beyond that door. I learned about this from sifting through a pile of recently declassified papers. It piqued my interest. I’m not a spy, and I’m not a journalist. Isn’t there anything you can tell me?”

Gonzalez didn’t answer.

Logan sighed. “Okay. What if I tell you what I know? In the 1950s this base was used not only as an early warning system. Scientific work was going on here, as well. Whether it was research, or experiments, or what, I don’t know. But something went wrong-something that shut down the work prematurely. Does that jibe with what you’ve been told?”

Gonzalez looked at him from behind the flashlight-a long, appraising look. “All I ever heard was rumors,” he said. “From the guys stationed here before me.”

Logan nodded.

“The northern wing is built deep inside the natural declivity here, basically intended as a support structure for the rest of the base. That hatchway leads to its upper level.”

“The
upper
level?”

“That’s right. The northern wing is completely underground. I don’t know what was inside except that it was top secret.” Gonzalez hesitated, then-despite their remote location-lowered his voice. “But word was that some strange stuff went on.”

“What kind of strange stuff?”

“No idea. The guys here before me didn’t know, either. One of them heard that a bunch of scientists got mauled by a polar bear.”

“Mauled?” Logan echoed. “In the north wing?”

“That’s what he said.”

“How did a polar bear get down here?”

“Exactly.”

Logan pursed his lips. “You don’t know if anybody talked to these scientists?”

“No idea.”

“Where did they bunk?”

Gonzalez shrugged. “C Level, I think. Anyway, there’s extra berths there that no military ever used.”

There was a brief silence before Logan spoke again. “From the background research I’ve done, it seems neither of the other two early warning bases had any detachments of scientists.”

Instead of replying, Gonzalez pointed at the warning bolted to the wall.

“What’s F-29 clearance?” Logan asked.

“Never heard of it. Now, Doctor, shall we head back upstairs?”

“One last question. How often do you come down here?”

“As little as I can. It’s cold, it’s dark, and it stinks.”

“Then I’m sorry to have put you to the trouble.”

“And I’m sorry you came all the way up here for nothing.”

“That remains to be seen.” And Logan gestured. “After you, Sergeant.”

Marshall strode down the corridor toward Conti’s quarters, Penny Barbour at his side. He’d wanted to bring along more of his fellow scientists, if only for a cosmetic show of numbers-to display a solidarity that, in fact, did not exist-but it had been impossible. Sully’s whereabouts were still unknown. And Marshall hadn’t wanted to disturb Faraday and Chen from their analysis. And so, ultimately, it had come down to him and the computer scientist.

As they stopped before the door, Marshall became aware of a murmur of conversation in the room beyond. He glanced at Barbour. “Are you ready for this?”

She looked back. “You’re going to do the talking, luv. Not me.”

“But you leveled with me, right?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Okay.” Marshall raised his hand to knock.

Just as he did, one of the voices on the far side of the door grew abruptly louder. “It goes beyond decency!” Marshall heard Wolff say. “I absolutely forbid it!”

Marshall rapped on the metal door.

Instantly, a hush fell. Ten seconds went by before Wolff’s voice sounded again, calm this time. “Come in.”

Marshall opened the door for Barbour and stepped in behind her. Three people were standing in the center of the elegant room: Conti, Wolff, and Ekberg. Marshall stopped, looking at them. Conti was very pale, and Ekberg’s eyes were red and puffy. Both of their gazes were cast downward. Only Wolff stared back at Marshall, his narrow face inscrutable.

Marshall took a deep breath. “Mr. Conti, the deadline you imposed still has an hour to run. But I don’t need any more time.”

Conti looked up at him briefly, then looked away.

“I’ve spoken to my colleagues. And I’m convinced that none of them had anything to do with the cat going missing.” This was mostly true: Barbour had almost bitten his head off when he’d asked if she knew what happened to the cat, and if Faraday was responsible he wouldn’t be in his lab now, studying its disappearance. Marshall still hadn’t found Sully-and the climatologist had been acting a little strange-but Sully surely couldn’t have acted alone.

Conti didn’t answer, and Marshall continued. “Furthermore, I find your bullying tactics and intimidation insulting. And this insistence that somebody sabotaged your show-that there’s some conspiracy to force you into leaving the site-borders on the paranoid. Go ahead and make your revised documentary if it will help soothe your vanity. But if you say, or intimate, or allege anything about me or my colleagues that in any way deviates from pure fact, you and Terra Prime can expect to hear immediately from a large and very angry group of lawyers.”

“All right,” said Wolff. “You’ve made your point.”

Marshall didn’t reply. He looked from Conti to Wolff and back again. He realized his heart was hammering and he was breathing hard.

Wolff continued to look at him. “Now if there’s nothing else, would you mind leaving?”

Marshall returned his gaze to Conti. At last the director looked up at him, nodded almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t even clear whether he’d heard a single word of the exchange.

It seemed there was nothing else to say. Marshall glanced at Barbour, gestured toward the door.

“Aren’t you going to tell them?” Ekberg asked, very quietly.

Marshall looked at her. The field producer was looking from Conti to Wolff, a haunted expression on her face.

“Tell us what?” Marshall asked.

Wolff frowned, made a small suppressing gesture.

“You can’t keep it secret,” Ekberg said, her voice louder now, more self-assured. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”

“Tell us what?” Marshall asked.

There was a brief silence. Then Ekberg turned toward him. “Josh Peters. One of our PAs, assistant to the supervising editor. He was found outside the security fence ten minutes ago. Dead.”

Shock lanced through Marshall. “Frozen?”

At this, Conti at last roused himself. “Torn apart,” he said.