Lincoln Child - Terminal Freeze

“The scientists left without touching the body and returned to their quarters to talk. Some said that the creature should be killed immediately. Others said, no, it was too valuable a find. Maybe, they said, the death of Blayne was an accident. The creature was confused, acting in self-defense. They agreed to continue their study.”

“Williamson, the one interested in sociology,” Logan said, looking up from his notebook. “Did he discuss this with you?”

Usuguk nodded. “He asked me many questions. What my people knew of kurrshuq, why it was here, what it wanted.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him the truth. That it was the guardian of the forbidden mountain. That the Devourer of Souls could not be killed.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He spent a lot of time writing in his little book.”

Logan rummaged in his pocket, pulled out the faded journal, passed it to Usuguk. The Tunit opened it carefully, turned the yellowed pages, passed it back with a nod.

“‘The Tunits have the answer?’” Logan quoted. “Perhaps it was a question-not a statement.”

“What happened next?” Sully asked.

“The next day, when we went back in, I was armed. It acted…differently. It was unresponsive, hostile. When the scientists pushed it, it attacked.”

“It killed them all?” Sully went on.

“No. Not…not at once.”

“How, then?”

As he talked, the Tunit’s gaze had slowly lowered. Now he suddenly looked up, fixing them one after another with eyes haunted by memory. “Do not ask me,” he said, voice trembling. “I do not wish to remember.”

The room fell silent. Slowly, Usuguk let his gaze return to the distant point. His face relaxed, grew resigned once again.

“Did you shoot it?” Marshall asked as gently as he could.

Usuguk nodded without looking at him.

“What happened?”

“The bullets annoyed it.”

Now Logan spoke. “How did you get away?”

“It was…stalking us. Those who remained alive tried to escape the north wing. It cut us off, once, twice. At last there was only me and Williamson. We were hiding in the electrical room, not far from the north wing exit hatch.” His speech slowed, became halting. “It came out of the shadows…Williamson screamed…it leapt on him…he tumbled backward onto an electrical coupling…there was great light and smoke…I ran as quickly as I could out of the north wing.”

There was a long pause in which nobody spoke.

“Colonel Rose sent for a special team,” Usuguk continued at last. “When we returned to the north wing, we found the kurrshuq, still lying on Williamson’s body. It no longer moved.”

“Dead,” Sully breathed.

Usuguk shook his head. “It chose to move on. To leave its corporal being.”

“What did they do with its body?” Marshall asked.

“The body vanished.”

“What?” Sully asked.

“They returned later with a body bag. By then it was gone.” The Tunit looked at them in turn. “It is as I told you. It chose to return to its spirit form.”

Sully shook his head. “Probably crawled off to die. They were in a hurry to close the place, cover up the whole incident-I’ll bet they didn’t look too hard for it.”

Marshall looked at the shaman. “And you? What did you do?”

“I left the military. I took a few from my village who would listen and started a new community, out on the ice. We strove to live the old, true way of my people, the way they had lived for thousands of years, before the kidlatet came. I left the things of the physical world behind.”

Sully wasn’t listening. “Don’t you see?” he said. “It’s susceptible to electricity. That’s its Achilles’ heel. We need to get word to Gonzalez.”

The Tunit looked up quickly. “Have you heard nothing I told you? This is not an animal. It is of the spirit world. You cannot kill it. That is the reason I came back-to tell you this. You did not listen to me the first time. You must listen now. Because I speak the truth. I am the only one who lived.”

Sully did not respond. He walked across the room, picked up the radio Gonzalez had given him.

“There is a second reason I came back,” Usuguk said, turning to Marshall. “The creature you found. You said it was larger than a polar bear, did you not?”

Marshall nodded. “That’s right.”

“The creature the scientists cut from the ice fifty years ago was the size of an arctic fox.”

There was a shocked silence. For a moment, nobody stirred. Then Sully raised the radio, pressed the Transmit button. “Dr. Sully to Sergeant Gonzalez. Do you read me?”

The radio buzzed static.

Sully tried again. “Sully to Gonzalez. Do you read? Over.”

More static.

As Sully tried again, Usuguk rose from the chair and came over to where Marshall and Faraday were standing. “After you came here-when the sky rained blood-I feared you had wakened another,” he said. “That is why I warned you all to leave. I am a shaman. I have one foot in the physical world, and the other in the spirit world. You must believe that I understand these things.”

“Another,” Marshall repeated. He was still having trouble taking it in.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised,” said Faraday. “Game theory predicts that the least optimal result is the one most likely to occur.”

“The size of a fox,” Marshall said. “And it killed seven men.”

Usuguk nodded. “Now do you believe me? This kurrshuq is an even more important spirit. It will not leave as the last one did. You cannot kill it. You cannot conquer it. You can only leave. There is still a chance it might allow that.”

“But we can’t leave,” Marshall said. “There are too many of us for the Sno-Cat. We’re trapped here, by the storm.”

The Tunit looked at him with glittering eyes. “Then I am very sorry for you.”

“It’s supposed to be this rough?” Barbour asked through gritted teeth. “The ride, I mean?”

“Nope. Normally they cover the winter road portages in a layer of ice. But we’re making our own road. Just grab the ‘oh, shit!’ handle.”

“The what?”

“That stabilizer bar over your door.”

Barbour reached up and took hold of the horizontal metal bar, then glanced at Carradine. The cab of the big truck was so large that the man was actually out of reach. It seemed his hands were constantly moving-over the steering wheel, to the gearshift, to one of the innumerable buttons on the dash. She had never ridden in an articulated lorry before and was astonished at how high off the ground they were-and just how rough it was.

“Have to keep our speed down to thirty,” the trucker said, omnipresent wad of gum bulging one cheek. “Don’t want to damage the trailer coupling. We’ll have to slow down even more when we reach the lake, but at least the ride will be smoother then.” He chuckled.

Barbour didn’t like the sound of that chuckle. “What lake?”

“We’ll have to cross one lake on the way to Arctic Village. Lost Hope Lake. It’s too wide, can’t be avoided. But it’s been nice and cold, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Why do you think they call it ice-road trucking? On the regular winter road, 80 percent of the route is over ice. The portages only count for 20 percent of the trip.”

Barbour didn’t reply. Lost Hope Lake, she thought. Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its name.

“We’re lucky we’ve got this wind,” Carradine went on. “It keeps the snow cover down, helps me find the most level route across the permafrost. We have to be very careful-can’t risk getting a blowout, all those people back there without heat.”