Dan Simmons - The Terror

Best stopped. His eyes were completely unfocused, mouth still open, a glisten of saliva on his chin. He was looking at something not in Sir John’s cabin.

“Go on,” said Sir John.

Best’s mouth worked but no sound came out.

“Continue, seaman,” said Captain Crozier in a kinder voice.

Best turned his head in Crozier’s direction but his eyes were still focused on something far away.

“Then…,” began Best. “Then… the ice just rose up, Captain. It just rose up and surrounded Lieutenant Gore.”

“What are you talking about?” snapped Sir John after another interval of silence. “The ice can’t just rise up. What did you see ?”

Best did not turn his head in Sir John’s direction. “The ice just rose up. Like when you can see the pressure ridges building all of a sudden. Only this was no ridge – no ice – it just rose up and took on a… shape . A white shape. A form. I remember there were… claws. No arms, not at first, but claws. Very large. And teeth. I remember the teeth.”

“A bear,” Sir John said. “An arctic white bear.”

Best only shook his head. “Tall. The thing just seemed to rise up under Lieutenant Gore… around Lieutenant Gore. It was… too tall . Over twice as tall as Lieutenant Gore, and you know that he was a tall man. It was at least twelve feet tall, taller than that, I think, and too large. Much too large. And then Lieutenant Gore sort of disappeared as the thing… surrounded him… and all we could see was the lieutenant’s head and shoulders and boots, and his pistol went off – he didn’t aim, I think he fired into the ice – and then we were all screaming, and Morfin was scrambling for the shotgun and Private Pilkington was running and aiming the musket but was afraid to fire because the thing and the lieutenant were all one thing now, and then… then we heard the crunching and snapping.”

“The bear was biting the lieutenant?” asked Commander Fitzjames.

Best blinked and looked at the ruddy commander. “Biting him? No, sir. The thing didn’t bite. I couldn’t even see its head… not really. Just two black spots floating twelve, thirteen feet in the air… black but also red, you know, like when a wolf turns toward you and the sun catches its eyes? The snapping and crunching was from Lieutenant Gore’s ribs and chest and arms and bones breaking.”

“Did Lieutenant Gore cry out?” asked Sir John.

“No, sir. He didn’t make a noise.”

“Did Morfin and Pilkington fire their weapons?” asked Crozier.

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

Best – strangely – smiled. “Why, there was nothing to shoot at, Captain. One second the thing was there, rising up over Lieutenant Gore and crushing him like you or me would crush a rat in our palm, and the next second it was gone .”

“What do you mean, gone ?” demanded Sir John. “Couldn’t Morfin and the Marine private have fired at it while it was retreating into the fog?”

“Retreating?” repeated Best, and his absurd and disturbing smile grew broader. “The shape didn’t retreat. It just went back down into the ice – like a shadow going away when the sun goes behind a cloud – and by the time we got to Lieutenant Gore he was dead. Mouth wide open. Didn’t even have time to scream. The fog lifted then. There were no holes in the ice. No cracks. Not even a little breathing hole like the harp seals use. Just Lieutenant Gore lying there broken – his chest was all caved in, both arms was broke, and he was bleeding from his ears, eyes, and mouth. Dr. Goodsir pushed us away, but there was nothing that he could do. Gore was dead and already growing as cold as the ice under him.”

Best’s insane and irritating grin wavered – the man’s torn lips were quivering but still drawn back over his teeth – and his eyes became less focused than ever.

“Did…,” began Sir John, but stopped as Charles Best collapsed in a heap to the deck.

From the private diary of Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir:

4 June, 1847 -

When Stanley and I stripped the wounded Esquimaux man naked, I was reminded that he was wearing an Amulet made up of a flat, smooth Stone, smaller than my fist, in the shape of a White Bear – the stone did not seem to have been carved but in its natural, thumb-smoothed state perfectly captured the long neck, small head, and powerful extended legs and forward motion of the living animal. I had seen the Amulet when I’d inspected the man’s wound on the ice but thought nothing of it.

The ball from Private Pilkington’s musket had entered the native man’s Chest not an inch below that amulet, pierced flesh and muscle between the third and fourth ribs (deflected slightly by the higher of the two), passed through his Left Lung, and lodged in his Spine, severing numerous Nerves there.

There was no way that I could save him – I knew from earlier inspection that any Attempt to Remove the musket ball would have caused instant death, and I could not stem the internal Bleeding from Within the Lung – but I did my best, having the Esquimaux carried to the part of the Sick Bay which Surgeon Stanley and I have set up as a surgery. For Half an Hour yesterday after my return to the Ship, Stanley and I probed the wound front and back with our Cruelest Instruments and Cut with Energy until we found the location of the Ball in his Spine, and generally confirmed our prognosis of Imminent Death.

But the unusually tall, powerfully built grey-haired Savage had not yet agreed with our Prognosis. He continued to exist as a man. He continued to force breaths through his torn and bloodied lung, coughing blood repeatedly. He continued to stare at us through his disturbingly light-coloured – for an Esquimaux – eyes, watching our Every Movement.

Dr. McDonald arrived from Terror and, at Stanley ’s suggestion, took the second Esquimaux – the girl – into the rear alcove of the Sick Bay, separated from us by a blanket serving as a curtain, for an Examination. I believe that Surgeon Stanley was less interested in having the girl examined than he was in getting her out of the sick bay during our bloody probing of her husband’s or father’s wounds… although neither the Subject nor the Girl appeared disturbed by either the Blood or Wound which would have made any London Lady – and no few surgeons in training – faint dead away .

And speaking of fainting, Stanley and I had just finished our examination of the dying Esquimaux when Captain Sir John Franklin came in with two crewmen half-carrying Charles Best, who, they informed us, had passed out in Sir John’s cabin. We had the men put Best on the nearest cot and it took only a minute’s Cursory examination for me to list the reasons why the man had fainted: the same extreme Exhaustion which all of us on Lieutenant Gore’s party were suffering after ten days of Constant Toil, hunger (we had had virtually nothing to eat except raw Bear Meat for our last two days and nights on the ice), a drying up of all moisture in our bodies (we could not afford the time to stop and melt snow on the spirit stoves, so we resorted to the Bad Idea of chewing on snow and ice – a process which depletes the body’s water rather than adds to it), and, a reason most Obvious to me but strangely Obscure to the officers who had been Interviewing him – poor Best had been made to stand and report to the Captains while still wearing seven of his eight Layers of Wool, allowed time only to remove his bloodied Greatcoat. After ten days and nights on the ice at an average temperature near zero degrees, the warmth of Erebus was almost too much for me, and I had shed all but two layers upon reaching the Sick Bay. It had quickly proved too much for Best .