Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

When he got to the wooden trellis in front of the door, he had to hang on until a particularly powerful gust of wind had passed, then he swung himself up the ramp and into the lab. Ackerley had rigged up a double sheet of thick plastic to stop the drafts from the door, and once Darryl had parted the curtains, he found himself in the familiar heat, humidity, and bright light of the lab. I should come here more often, he thought- it's like a vacation to the South Seas.

“Hey, Ackerley,” he called, while stomping his feet on the rubber mats. “I need some salad fixings!”

But the voice that answered him wasn't Ackerley's-it was Law-son's-and it came from behind some metal partitions. Darryl shrugged off his parka and hat and gloves and goggles, draping them on a rickety coatrack fashioned from a whale's bone, and went in search of Lawson.

He found him on a stepstool, tending to a cluster of ripe red strawberries hanging from a latticework of misting pipes. All around his head there were other clumps of gleaming wet fruit, and on tables there were clear containers holding a veritable jungle of other plants-tomatoes, radishes, Bibb lettuce, roses, and, most wonderful of all, orchids. The orchids came in a dozen different colors, from white to fuchsia to golden yellow. They rose up on strangely tilting stalks that looked like the legs of cranes.

“What are you doing here?” Darryl asked. “Isn't that Ackerley's job?”

“Just helping out,” Lawson said, noncommittally

“It's like Hawaii in here,” Darryl said, putting his face up to the bright, warming lights that were mounted in the ceiling above the pipes. “No wonder Ackerley hates to leave.” Darryl eyed a particularly succulent-looking strawberry and said, “You think he'd mind if I tried one?”

Lawson glanced down from the stool. “No. Go ahead.”

Darryl reached up and plucked the lowest of the hanging berries, then popped it into his mouth. Uncle Barney turned out a lot of good food from the commons galley, but there was nothing to beat the flavor of a strawberry fresh from the vine.

“Where is he, by the way?”

Lawson shrugged. “Ask Murphy.”

That seemed odd to Darryl. Why would Murphy know? And it was also odd that anyone else was there when Ackerley wasn't; he was a lot like Darryl in that way-he didn't like strangers roaming around his lab when he wasn't there.

Come to think of it, the place didn't look right, either. Usually it was spic-and-span. But off to one side, Darryl could see a clumsy path where a couple of cabinets had been overturned, spilling dirt and lichens and moss samples onto the floor. A broom and dustpan leaned up against one of the racks, along with a black plastic garbage bag that appeared to be full of refuse. What's going on? Has Lawson been appointed the new assistant gardener?

Darryl tried a couple more conversational gambits, but he got the distinct impression that Lawson wanted him out of the lab. Normally, the guy was pretty friendly-even, at times, positively gregarious-but not today. Maybe he wasn't happy about his new duty and just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Darryl thanked him for the strawberry and put all his gear back on. Sometimes it felt like he spent half his time at pole just taking off and putting on the same layers of clothing.

Leaving the botany lab, he slogged toward the main quadrant, holding tight again to the guide ropes. The snow was so thick in the air it was hard to see more than a few yards ahead, but when he approached the administration module, he saw Murphy and Michael, their own heads down, forging their way across the concourse and toward some of the storage buildings. He'd have called out to them, but he knew his voice would be obliterated by the wind. Instead, he just followed in their path. They were heading for one of the ramshackle sheds, where they unfastened the padlock on the corrugated steel doors, then slipped inside.

Darryl's curiosity was aroused. Never, he thought, present a scientist with a mystery that you don't then expect him to try to solve.

Darryl sidled into the shed, and after whipping off his snowy goggles, looked around. He was in a kind of anteroom, but even it was filled with crates of kitchen and camp supplies. There was another pair of steel doors just beyond, and they were open, too- leading into what Darryl guessed had once served as a huge meat locker and storeroom.

He stepped inside, then stopped dead when he saw Murphy whirl around on him, with a gun extended. Michael was armed, too, with a speargun.

“Mother of God, what the fuck are you doing here?” Murphy said in an urgent whisper.

Darryl was still too shocked by the weaponry to reply.

Michael lowered the spear, and said, “Okay, what's done is done. Just stay back and be quiet.”

“Why?”

“You'll know in a minute.”

With Murphy cautiously leading the way, they moved down an aisle stacked ten feet high with boxes and crates until they rounded a corner and Darryl saw a long wooden crate marked MIXED CONDIMENTS: HEINZ and, above it, inexplicably hanging from a thick pipe, a bloody handcuff.

“Shit,” Murphy muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.”

What the hell were they looking for, Darryl wondered? What had they been expecting to find? For a second, he wondered if Danzig had returned. Hadn't the speargun through the chest sent him safely to the bottom of the sea?

“Ackerley” Murphy said, in a slightly raised voice. “You in here?”

Ackerley? That was who they were looking for? In there, of all places? If so, what the hell were they so afraid of? The man was as harmless as one of his cabbages.

There was a scratching sound, like a pen on paper, and they crept toward the next aisle. It, too, was empty, but the scratching sound grew louder. Murphy, the gun out in front, moved to the next aisle, and there they saw Ackerley-or a close facsimile of him. He was gaunter than ever, his ponytail loose and hanging down like a dead squirrel on the back of his neck. Draped around his shoulders, he wore a shredded plastic garbage bag. He was sitting on a crate of Coca-Cola, and all around his feet there were empty soda cans and various papers-printed invoices, ripped from the boxes-that he had been scrawling on. With a clipboard on his lap, he was scribbling on the back of another one even then, working with the concentration of a physicist straightening out an especially complex equation.

“Ackerley,” Murphy said, and Ackerley, his little round spectacles creeping down his nose, said, “Not now,” without looking up.

Murphy and Michael exchanged a look, as if to say What next? while Darryl simply looked on, aghast. What had happened to Ackerley? His throat, partially revealed under the plastic bag, looked ravaged, and the wrist of his left hand, which limply supported the clipboard, appeared broken and bruised. Flakes of blood crusted the skin.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked, in a deliberately innocent voice.

“Making notes.”

“About what?”

Ackerley kept writing.

“What are you writing about?” Murphy repeated.

“About dying.”

“You don't look dead to me,” Darryl said, though it wasn't entirely true.

Ackerley finished a sentence, then slowly raised his eyes. They were red-rimmed, and even the whites were tinged a pale pink.

“Oh, I am,” he said. “It just hasn't taken yet.” His voice carried a low, gurgling sound. He took a swig from an open can, then just let it drop from his hand.

Murphy had allowed the barrel of the gun to drift toward the floor, and Ackerley gestured at it.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

Murphy quickly raised it again, and Ackerley let the last paper waft to the floor to join all the others.

“I've numbered them,” he said, “so you'll be able to follow along.”