“Tell me something, Doc,” he said, pulling off his cigarette. “Be honest here. Do you think I’m losing it? No, don’t answer that too quickly. Ponder it. Do that for me. Because sometimes . . . I can’t read you. You no doubt know that some of the boys around here see you as some sort of ice-princess, a freezer for a heart and ice cubes for eyes. I think it’s some kind of wall you put up. A sort of protective barrier. I figure a woman like you that spends a lot of time marooned in camps full of men has to distance herself some way. So, really, I’m not judging you or insulting you in any way. But, like I say, I can’t read you sometimes. I wonder if maybe you’re thinking I’m a whacko or something, but are too polite to say so.”
He felt her hand slide into his, felt her long fingers find his own and grip them like they never wanted to let go. But she didn’t say anything. He could hear her breathing, hear the clock ticking on the shelf, the wind moaning through the compound. But nothing else.
So he said, “Sometimes I say things, I start spouting off about things, theories of mine, and you just don’t say anything. And I start to wonder why not. Start to wonder if maybe this all isn’t in my head and I’m having one of those . . . what do you call them?”
“Hysterical pregnancies?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“No, I don’t think you’re crazy. Not in the least. Sometimes I just don’t say anything because I need time to think things over and other times, well, I’m just amazed by a man like you. You’re so . . . intuitive, so impulsive, so instinctual. You’re not like other men I’ve known. I think that’s why even when we had no real proof about those aliens, I believed what you said. I didn’t doubt any of it for a moment.”
Hayes was flattered and embarrassed . . . he’d never realized he was those things. But, shit, she was right. He was a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy. Trusting his heart over his brain every time. Go figure.
“Tell me something, Jimmy,” she said then. “Nothing’s happened really since you plowed in that wall. Nobody’s been coming to me for sedatives, so I’m guessing our contagion of nightmares has dwindled in direct proportion to you freezing those things back up. But what about you? Have you had any dreams?”
“No. Not a one. I shut my eyes and I sleep like I’m drugged. There’s nothing. I don’t think I can remember having such deep sleep . . . least since I quit smoking dope.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Not having dreams? It’s a good indicator?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. My brain tells me we’re in the clear, maybe. But my guts are telling me that this is the calm before the storm. Whenever I try to talk to anybody here, I don’t know, I get a bad feeling from them. Something that goes beyond their avoidance of all this . . . something worse. I’m getting weird vibes from them that weren’t there before, Elaine. And it makes me feel . . . kind of freaky inside.”
He was having trouble putting it into words, but the feeling was always there. Like maybe the lot of them had already been assimilated into the communal mind of those things. That they were already lost to him. Whatever it was, it made his guts roll over, made him feel like he could vomit out his liver.
“Good. I’ve been feeling that way all day . . . like there’s nothing behind their eyes,” she admitted. “And all over camp . . . well, something’s making my skin crawl and I’m not sure what it is.”
Hayes stubbed out his cigarette. “I’m willing to bet we’re going to find out real soon. Because this isn’t over. I know it isn’t over. And I’m just waiting for the ball to drop.”
35
When the ball did in fact drop the next afternoon, Hayes was lucky enough ... or unlucky enough ... to have it pretty much drop at his feet. He and Sharkey and Cutchen had decided on a plan of attack which was to do absolutely nothing. Just to go about their jobs and to not even mention what had happened before and what might be happening now.
But to keep their eyes open and their minds, too.
For Hayes, there was always work to be done. The energy supply at the Kharkhov Station was supplied by no less than five diesel generators, two wind-turbine generators, grid reactive boilers, and fuel-fired boilers. All of which were run through a central power station control system. Most days he pretty much sat at his computer in a booth at the power station and studied read-outs, crunched numbers, and made sure everything was operating at peak efficiency. But then there were the other days that demanded physical maintenance. And today was one of those.
He was glad for it.
Glad to climb into his heated coveralls and get some tools in his hands. Get dirty and sweaty and cold, anything to be doing something other than letting his imagination have full reign.
He shut the diesel generators down in sequence, changing their oil and putting in new fuel and air filters. He tested fuel injection nozzles and drained cooling systems. Inspected air cleaners and flame arrestors, checked the governors. When he had the generators back on-line, he went after the boilers. He checked fuel systems and feed pumps, he reconditioned safety valves and inspected mercury switches, recorded gas and oil pressures, checked the cams and limit controls. Then he shut down the wind turbines and made physical inspections of their alternators and regulators. He spent most of the day at it.
It was demanding, time-consuming work.
And when he was done, he was sore and aching and pleased as always after putting in a hard day’s work. There was something about a day of manual labor that steadied something in the human beast. Got it on an even plane. Maybe when the muscles woke up, the intellect shut down and that always wasn’t a bad thing.
Especially at the South Pole.
And especially that winter.
Finally, though, Hayes called it a day and climbed into his ECW’s, which consisted of a polar fleece jacket and wool pants, wool hat and mittens, balaclava and goggles. As soon as he stepped out into the winter darkness, the winds found him. Did their damnedest to either carry him into that black, brooding sky or knock him flat. He took hold of the guylines and never let go.
Cutchen’s prediction of a Condition One storm became a reality. The wind was rumbling and howling and moaning, making the structures of Kharkhov Station shake and creak. The snow came whipping through the compound, obscuring everything, knocking visibility down to less than ten feet at times. Three-foot drifts were blown over the walkways. Snow-devils funneled along the hard-pack.
Hayes struggled along, the wind pulling at him, finely ground ice particles blasting into him. He could see the security lights outside the buildings and huts and the blizzard made them look like searchlights coming through thick fog. They glowed orange and yellow and murky, trembling on their poles.
As he followed the guylines to Targa House, he suddenly became aware that faces were pressed up against the windows. He wasn’t sure at first, but the nearer he got, yeah, those were faces pressed up to the frosty windows.
Was his plight that entertaining?
The wind shifted and he heard what he first took to be the muted growl of some beast echoing across the ice-fields, then he realized it was an engine. He stopped and looked into the wind, snow spraying into his face. He could see the lights of the compound . . . the far-flung huts and even the meteorology dome . . . but nothing else. The blizzard hammered into him and nearly knocked him over like a post . . . and then it died out some, still howling and screeching, but sounding like it was old and tired now and in need of a rest.