He was dead. Grofield took his machine gun, but kept away from the body. On the floor near the overturned chairs, though, he found fur-lined caps and gloves and four more clips of ammunition for the machine guns. He carried these back to the garage and put them on the floor there, then took the guard under the armpits and dragged him into the corridor and into an empty storage cubicle to the right. He went back and got the laces out of his shoes and used them to tie the guard’s ankles and wrists together. Then he shut and locked the door and went on to investigate the rest of the building.
It was beautiful. All the supplies were stored in here, food and drink, cleaning supplies, cans of gasoline and oil, light bulbs, everything. He found a can opener, opened a can of beef stew, and ate it cold, with his fingers.
For the half hour after that he was very busy, searching in room after room, picking out the things he thought he might want, carrying them to the garage and leaving them on the floor there. When he was finished he had assembled canned food, waterproofed matches, gasoline, blankets, and a flashlight. He then pulled one of the skimobiles over and began loading it up. It had two seats, one behind the other, and he loaded the equipment onto the rear seat and the floor, lashing it all on with rope, everything but one machine gun and the flashlight. He checked the skimobile’s gas tank, and it was full. He pulled on his gloves and was ready.
There was another button on the inside wall, beside the door. Grofield pushed it and the door slid up and he rolled the skimobile out into the snow. He pushed the outside button to shut the door again, then started the skimobile’s engine, shifted into forward, and the little snow scooter obediently snicked off, gliding over the snow he’d had so much trouble with before.
He took a long curve around to the right, away from the cluster of buildings, and then just went straight. From time to time he’d look over his shoulder to be sure he was still headed away from the lodge, but otherwise he squinted into the faint starlit darkness ahead, traveling over rolling snow hills, all alone, without even trees around to keep him company.
If only he knew what the North Star looked like, he could do his purposeful traveling right now, but he was no navigator. He’d have to wait until the beginning of dawn. As soon as he saw where on the horizon the light first appeared he would have a good approximation of which way was south. Until then, travel would be pointless.
Except to keep clear of the people at the lodge, of course. That’s why he was headed outward now. He could be going due north for all he knew — he hoped not — but the important thing was that he was going away. It would be morning before they could really begin to track him, and by then he’d be on his way south, clear of that crazy bunch forever.
Ken would still be a problem, of course, but a problem that would keep for a while. Sufficient unto the night, etc.
After a while he stopped. The last couple of times he’d looked back he hadn’t seen their lights at all, there were too many intervening snow dunes. He should be far enough away now to be safe until dawn.
He’d stopped in a low spot, protected from the slight icy breeze. He got two of the blankets, lay them down on top of one another in the snow, stretched out on top of them, and rolled himself in them, covering himself completely from the bottom of his feet up to his nose. His fur cap was pulled down low, covering ears and forehead, and he lay on his side, curled up slightly, and waited for morning.
Twenty-One
Gunfire.
Grofield had been dozing, warm and comfortable inside his cocoon of blankets, his stomach working away contentedly on another can of cold beef stew, and only gradually did he become aware of the faint sounds, rattle and chatter and brief bark.
He sat up, frowning, listening. The sound was far away, and it came in spurts, with uneasy silences in between. A battle of some kind, an honest-to-God battle.
Where else but at the lodge?
Grofield pushed away the blankets and got to his feet, and now he could see a murky red smudge on the horizon, far away in the direction from which he’d come.
What now? Were they burning the place down?
Could it be Ken? Rescue? Had the sons of bitches put a transmitter inside his body after all?
He didn’t know, under the circumstances, if the idea was repulsive or not.
In any case, he had to know what was going on. It might be nothing more than a falling-out among the members of that charming bunch back there, but whatever it was there was just a chance there was advantage for him in it.
He folded up the blankets, tied everything onto the skimobile again, slung the machine gun over his shoulder, started the engine and headed toward the flickering red glow on the horizon.
After he’d traveled a couple of minutes he came up over the top of a snow dune and all at once could see the fire. It was huge, one entire building was aflame, one of the two dormitory buildings, and in the red light Grofield could see confused activity around the other buildings, rushing about, savage but incomprehensible motion.
He steered to the right, angling around the buildings, trying to see without being seen. It turned out he had been directly opposite the lake where their plane had landed yesterday afternoon, and when he’d circled far enough to see the lake there was another plane there now, its single floodlight glaring toward the front of the lodge, outlining it in white light, with the red flames behind it and to its left.
Was it really Ken? There was no one at all in the floodlit area in front of the lodge, all the activity taking place behind it, in the uncertain red light of the fire. The plane, in the darkness behind its light, was just a black blur with no legible markings. But if it wasn’t Ken, or some of Ken’s associates, it was surely somebody who’d attacked Rahgos and Pozos and Company, and Grofield’s feeling right now was that any enemy of that bunch was a friend of his.
Maybe. There was no point being foolhardy about it. Grofield therefore didn’t approach the plane directly but angled off behind it, the skimobile chugging away across the snow-covered ice on a long curve that would bring him to the plane from the rear.
The skimobile wasn’t exactly silent, its engine being perhaps a little more quiet than a power mower, but the racket from behind the lodge more than covered the noise of Grofield’s approach. Aside from the roar of the flames back there, a surprisingly loud and threatening sound, there was the intermittent crackle of gunfire, and occasional shouts and yelps and screams from the people involved. Under all that noise Grofield made his wide circle out across the lake and came in from behind the plane, seeing it now silhouetted against the spotlit shore. It was either the same two-engine cargo plane he’d come up here in or another one just like it. If it was the same one, what would that mean? Intramural combat, maybe.
He was almost to the tail of the plane when two men came running around the corner of the lodge, pistols in their hands. They ran toward the plane, bent low, though no one pursued them so far as Grofield could see, and as they neared the plane another man swung down from the open door midway in the fuselage and hurried forward to meet them.
That one was familiar, the one who’d been in the plane. The silhouette rang some sort of bell with Grofield, he wasn’t sure why. The three men stopped near the wingtip and conversed quickly with one another, shouting to be heard, waving their arms. The language wasn’t English. Grofield was no expert, but it seemed to him the language was at least similar to the one spoken by the man who’d killed Henry Carlson.