”My God,” Buyanov whispered.
They stood, motionless, watching him, for a long moment. Buyanov stared back.
Gradually sense returned. These, Buyanov realized, were undoubtedly the snow devils, the arctic ghosts, that had taken the soldiers. When he understood that, he expected to die within seconds of that first sight.
Then he saw that they weren’t approaching him. They weren’t killing him. They were just standing there.
They had gutted the dog, but she had undoubtedly attacked them. They had almost certainly killed or captured the missing soldiers, but they, too, had presumably intruded where they weren’t welcome.
Buyanov hadn’t done anything to anger them, had he? They were going to let him go, he told himself; that was why they hadn’t killed him. He hadn’t meant them any harm, so they were letting him go.
He scrambled to his feet, shoving the dead dog aside, and backed slowly away.
They didn’t move.
Buyanov bowed awkwardly. “Thank you, my lords,” he said, stumbling over the unfamiliar pre-Soviet words. He had never before in his life called anyone “lord,” had never heard the term used except in satires and historical dramas, but what else could he say to these creatures, these ice demons?
He turned, trying to decide whether to walk or run. He took two short steps, trying to maintain some trace of dignity, then glanced back.
The nearest of the demons took a step closer. It moved swiftly, with an appearance of immense power. Its face was hidden by its mask, unreadable, but Buyanov read hostility in the way it stood, the way it moved; he ran.
As he neared the station he began shouting, “Open the door! Help! Help me!” He slammed into the door, too hysterical to work the heavy hatchlock mechanism at first, and pounded on it with both fists.
A moment later the door swung open, and two worried faces peered out at him.
”Sergei!” someone said. “What happened?”
”We saw the dog roaming the corridors,” another said.
Buyanov staggered in, and the larger of the two men caught him as he fell, exhausted from his panicky run.
”Get that door closed,” the man holding Buyanov called to the other. “It must be sixty below outside!”
”Anatoli,” the other man said as he slammed the door, “look! What’s that on his coat?”
”Looks like frozen blood,” the man holding Buyanov said. “Sergei, what happened?”
”Devils,” Buyanov gasped. “Devils on the ice. I’ve seen them, Dmitri!”
The other two exchanged worried glances.
”We’ve got to warn the oth-” Buyanov began.
He was interrupted by a loud booming as something slammed into the door from outside.
”What was that?” Anatoli shouted.
Then all three men froze at the sound of tearing metal. An instant later the gleaming tip of a jagged blade punched through the door.
”But that door is steel,” Anatoli said. “Ten centimeters of steel!”
All three knew that to be true; the door was a massive slab of solid metal, designed to withstand the mightiest storm-or the explosion of the pipeline itself.
It didn’t seem to matter; the jagged blade sliced down through the door slowly, sawing back and forth, like a knife through hard cheese.
”My God!” Dmitri said.
”Warn the others!” Buyanov said. He rolled off Dmitri’s knees, caught himself against the wall with one hand, and started to get to his feet.
As he did the ruined door slammed open, and there were those things. Buyanov moaned.
”Devil!” Anatoli said.
Then, without warning, moving faster than human eyes could follow, the foremost of the three creatures rammed a spear through Anatoli’s chest. Anatoli crumpled; with his lung pierced he couldn’t even manage a dying scream.
For an instant everyone remained frozen, Anatoli hunched over the blade that had killed him, the other two staring in shock.
Then the initial shock passed.
”Bastards!” Dmitri shouted. He ran for the nearest alarm box.
One of the creatures ran after him, moving inhumanly fast, so fast Buyanov could not properly follow the motion; as Dmitri’s hand reached for the alarm handle the thing’s hand slammed down on the top of the Russian’s head.
Dmitri staggered and fell to his knees, still reaching for the alarm handle. Buyanov watched, still too astonished and terrified to move.
The thing swung its other hand back, and two curving, crooked blades snapped into place, extending from its wrist past its clenched fist.
Still holding Dmitri’s head with one hand, the creature plunged the pair of curved blades into Dmitri’s back.
Dmitri convulsed, jerking wildly, then collapsed limply into death-but in his final spasm his hand closed on the alarm handle and yanked it down.
Buyanov saw all that just before a taloned, yellow-skinned hand smashed across his face, knocking him to the floor. He looked up and screamed.
The last thing he saw was the approaching sandal as the thing set one foot on his face; then the creature leaned its full weight on Sergei Yevgenyevich Buyanov and crushed his skull as if it were the shell of an annoying beetle.
Chapter 13
Galyshev had decided to pay another call on Sobchak, and was just stepping into the geologist’s workroom when the alarm sounded.
The superintendent looked up, startled.
”What the hell is that?” he demanded.
”An alarm,” Sobchak said.
”Why?” Galyshev asked sharply. “Something wrong with the pipeline?”
”Nothing that shows on my equipment,” Sobchak said, looking around at the ranked gauges. “But I’ve lost the feed from the sensors at the east door.”
”Something’s breaking in over there?” Galyshev demanded, tensing.
”I don’t know,” Sobchak said, staring at the meters. “I can’t tell.”
”Well, then I’ll find out for myself!” Galyshev turned and charged out of the room, heading for the passage back to the main part of the complex.
Sobchak watched Galyshev go, then looked at the equipment again.
He didn’t have any real surveillance equipment-this was science, not the KGB-but when this monitoring station had been set up they’d had the possibility of accidents, or sabotage, in mind. There were thermo-sensors and barometers and rem-counters and even microphones scattered through the entire complex, along with the seismic monitors. The theory had been that if the pipeline burst, or a fire started, the station’s scientists would be able to track the effects through heat, pressure, radiation, and sound.
Sobchak reached over and turned on all the interior monitors, one by one. Last of all he turned on the speaker for the microphones in the east corridor.
He immediately turned the volume down; the screams were deafening.
”My God,” he said. He looked at the other readings, trying to understand.
Sobchak judged that something big and hot had come in through the east door and was moving down the corridor, deeper into the station-the temperature and barometric pressure at the sensors nearest the door were dropping steadily, as if the door was open or even gone, but at the next set the temperature was higher than before.
And the radioactivity levels in the east corridor were running about twice what they should be, still harmless, but inexplicable.
The screams, too, were inexplicable-and terrifying.
Sobchak was a man of science. He didn’t believe in arctic ghosts. All the same, he got up and closed the door of his workroom, and locked it.
”To keep in the heat,” he told himself. “That’s all, to keep in the heat.”
He looked around and noticed that he’d left his coat and boots out in the anteroom-he didn’t like to have them in the workroom; the equipment was packed in so tightly that they got in the way. He didn’t open the door to retrieve them, though. They could wait out there.