Hayes thought that it looked like the creature had been frozen very quickly, flash-frozen like one of those mammoths up in Siberia you read about. Because it looked… well, almost startled like it had been caught by surprise. At least that’s what he had been thinking, but the more the ice melted and the more of that head and those five leering red eyes he saw, the more he was thinking it looked pissed-off, arrogant, superior, something. And whatever that look was, it sure as hell was not friendly.
You wouldn’t want to meet this fellah on a good day, Hayes thought, let alone with that evil look about it.
And thinking that, he just couldn’t imagine how something like it could have walked. For it was debased and degenerate, the sort of thing made to crawl, not walk upright like a man. But according to what Gates told Bryer, it stood and walked, all right.
“That’s some sort of wing there I’d bet,” Holm said, indicating an arched tubular network like bones on the thing’s left side that were folded-in on themselves like an oriental fan. Even folded, you could see the fine webbing of mesh between the tubes. “And another over here. Certainly.”
“Jesus, you mean it could fly?” Lind said.
Gates scribbled something in his notebook. “Well, at this point we’re opting for some sort of marine adaptation… maybe not wings, but possibly fins… though until we can actually examine them, I’m only guessing.”
In his mind, Hayes could see that thing flying around like some sort of cylindrical gargoyle, dipping down over sharp-peaked roofs. That was the image he had and it was very clear in his mind for some reason as if it was something he had seen once or maybe dreamed about.
“Has LaHune see it yet?”
Gates said he hadn’t, but that he was very excited about the prospects of the discovery. And Hayes could almost hear LaHune saying just that, Gentlemen, I am most excited about the prospects of this monumental discovery. Yeah, that’s exactly how he would have said it. Hayes shook his head. LaHune, he was some kind of guy. Dennis LaHune was the NSF administrator who ran Kharkhov Station, summer and winter. It was his job to keep things running, make certain resources were not wasted, keep everything on the straight and narrow.
Yeah, Hayes thought, resident ballbuster, bean-counter, and NSF ramrod. That was LaHune. The headmaster lording over this clutch of unruly, free-thinking students as it were. LaHune had more personality than your average window dummy, but not much.
Lind said, “I can’t believe he hasn’t come to see what we have out here. You would think it was his job.”
“C’mon, Lind,” Hayes said. “He’s got more important shit to be doing like counting pencils and making sure we’re not using too many paperclips.”
Gates chuckled.
The water that melted off that irregular block of ice was being collected in buckets, tagged for later study. Drip, drip, drip.
“Gets under your skin, don’t it?” Lind said. “Just like that movie… you ever seen that movie, Hayes? Up at the North Pole or maybe it was the South, they got this alien in a block of ice and some dumbfuck throws an electric blanket over it and it unthaws, runs around camp sucking everybody’s blood. Think that guy from Gunsmoke was in it.”
Hayes said, “Yeah, I saw it. Was kind of trying not to think about it.”
Gates smiled, set his digital camera aside. With his big shaggy beard he looked more mountain man than paleontologist. “Oh, we’re unthawing our friend here, boys, but it won’t be by accident. And don’t worry, this creature has been dead a long, long time.”
“Famous last words,” Hayes said and they all had a laugh over that.
Except Lind.
They’d lost him somewhere along the way.
He stood there staring at the thing in the ice, listening to the water dripping and it seemed to have the same effect on him as the call of a siren: his eyes were fixed and wide, his lips moving but no words coming out. He stood there like that for maybe five minutes before anyone seemed to notice and by then it looked much like he was in a trance.
Hayes said, “Lind… hey, Lind… you okay?”
He just shook his head, his upper lip pulled up into a snarl. “That fucking LaHune… thinks he’s in charge, but doesn’t have the balls to come and look at this… this monster. Bastard’s probably on the line with NSF McMurdo, bragging about this, telling them all about it. But what does he know about it? Unless you stand here looking at it, feeling it looking back at you, how can you know about it?”
Hayes put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, chill out here, Lind, it’s just a fossil.”
Lind shrugged off his hand. “Oh, is that all it is? You telling me you don’t feel that thing looking at you? Jesus, those eyes… those awful red eyes… they get right inside you, make you feel things, make you want to do things. You telling me you can’t feel it up here?” He was rubbing his temples, kneading them roughly like dough. “Can’t you feel what it’s thinking? Can’t you feel it getting inside your head, wanting to steal your mind… wanting to make you something but what you are? Oh Christ, Hayes, it’s… those eyes… those fucking eyes… they unlock things in your head, they…”
He paused there, breathing very hard now, gasping almost like a fish that was asphyxiating. There was sweat all over his face and his eyes were bulging from his head, cords straining at his neck. He looked to be on the verge of utter hysteria or maybe a good old-fashioned stroke.
“You better get him back to the compound,” Gates said.
They were all staring at Lind, thinking things but not saying them. A clot of ice dropped from the mummy and Hayes stiffened at the sound. It was enough, by God, it was more than enough.
He helped Lind with his parka and led him to the door. As Hayes made to open it, Lind turned and looked at the scientists. “I’m not crazy, I don’t care what you think. But you better listen to me and you better listen good.” He jabbed a shaking finger at the mummy. “Whatever you do, whatever any of you do… don’t stay in here alone with it, if you know what’s good for you, don’t stay in here alone with it…”
Then they were out the door.
“Well,” Bryer said. “Well.”
The wind clutched the hut like a fist, shook it, made the overhead lights flicker and for barely a second, they were in the dark with the thing.
And by the looks on their faces, they hadn’t cared for it much.
4
There were a lot of camps at the South Pole. Collections of pitted bones scattered over the frozen slopes and lowlands like sores and contusions on the ancient hide of the beast. But only a handful of them were occupied when winter showed its cold, white teeth.
Kharkhov was one of the few.
Just another rawboned research station, its numerous buildings like meatless skeletons rising from the black ice, shivering beneath shrouds of blowing white. A desolate and godforsaken place where the sun never rose and the wind never stopped screaming. The sort of place that made you pull into yourself, roll up like a pillbug and hold on tight, waiting for the night to end and spring to begin. But until that time, there was nothing to do but wait and languish through the days that were nights and keep your mind occupied.
What you didn’t want to do was to think about ancient, hideous things that had been exhumed from polar tombs. Things that pre-dated humanity by God knew how many millions of years. Things that would drive you mad if you saw them walk. Things with glaring red eyes that seemed to get inside you and whisper with malevolent voices, filling your mind with reaching, alien shadows.