George Chesbro - The Beasts Of Valhalla

"Shit," I said, then turned when I felt a shivering, leathery hand touch my shoulder.

?

WHAT FUCKING SHIT

"We've got problems, babe," I said, shouting in order to be heard over the roar of the engine. Not the least of our problems was that the cells in my battery pack had to be changed fairly frequently, and I knew that the intense cold had to be draining them rapidly; keeping my body temperature at a minimum of eighty degrees in zero weather required a lot of battery power. And I wondered how long Golly, still a jungle animal despite her fur coat, could last.

I wondered how long Garth could last. I wondered if my brother was already dead, from further cellular explosion or from exposure. I had to find out, and in any case had to prevent Stryder London from getting Garth-dead or alive-to Siegmund Loge.

Twenty minutes later I emerged from a copse of trees. I turned off the engine, stood up and looked out over the beginning of the six-hundred-acre steppes; before me was nothing but a vast, windswept ocean of snow-angry now, tossing from the gelid breath of what I feared was an approaching storm. Somewhere out in that frozen ocean were my brother and his captor; the difference was that the captain of that ship knew where harbors, if there were any, could be found.

Golly patted my shoulder, and I turned to look at her; she was shivering, and her yellow eyes were clouded with misery. Her hands were trembling so violently that she could barely manage to work the keyboard of her computer display screen.

GOLLY FUCKING COLD

"I know, sweetheart. Me too. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to get even colder. Just hang in there. I'll try to find a place where I can build a fire."

MONGO FUCKING BRAVE

"You're fucking brave, too."

GOLLY LOVE FUCKING MONGO

"The feeling is mutual, babe."

GOLLY FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

"You mean you're cold?"

GOLLY FUCKING COLD

GOLLY ALSO FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

"You mean 'wrong'?"

GOLLY FUCKING WRONG

GOLLY ALSO FEEL FUCKING FUNNY

I still didn't understand what she meant, but it didn't really make a difference. What was important was how I felt-and I felt cold. Dangerously cold. My batteries were starting to fail.

I was growing sleepy.

Shhh.

Sometimes gestures, even empty ones, are important; I slowly turned back to face the steppes, held Whisper aloft and in front of me like a talisman of defiance.

One fucking cold and funny-feeling gorilla and one dwarf in imminent peril of falling into permanent hibernation were up against a super-soldier operating in his own neighborhood.

I swallowed hard, grimaced at the sudden numbness in the tip of my nose and the bitter aftertaste of burnt chocolate in my mouth. Then I turned on the engine and, with Golly hugging me for mutual warmth, slowly headed out into the steppes.

At dawn, I knew I was in a lot of trouble.

The wind had died down, but as the sun rose the field of snow before me became a blinding glare of luminescence that leaked into my eyes around the edges of my smoked glasses, causing me considerable pain and just about blinding me. I was very cold, and it was a constant battle to keep my eyes open and absorbing the pain. I shut off the snowmobile, turned to Golly.

The gorilla was a picture of wretchedness as she shivered and huddled against me, and I knew just how she felt.

"I'm sorry, Golly," I said through chattering teeth. "If it's any consolation to you, Stryder London has to be just as cold as we are. We have to keep going as long as Stryder London; if we don't, I'm afraid we may never find him."

If I hadn't lost him already-which seemed a pretty good possibility.

GUFLLY CKIN C LD

"What?"

I Y FUGHKCG C?OL

My first thought was that the computer, even with its atomic battery, was malfunctioning in the cold. I reached out to touch Golly's face-and almost lost a finger when she snapped at my hand. I pulled back my hand and stared into the yellow eyes-which now seemed murky, their light dim. Her lips curled back from her yellow teeth, and a low snarl came rumbling up from deep in her chest.

Golly was feeling funny all right, I thought, and a rogue gorilla suddenly gone stupid and nasty wasn't exactly what I needed at the moment; I certainly wasn't going to mess with her.

Cursing softly to myself, I slowly turned around and started up the engine. I was almost glad to see that the wind had risen again, for in the gusts I could see better-or, at least, without pain-than I could against the glare.

I'd gone about fifteen yards when I bumped into the back of London's snowmobile.

Shhh.

With Whisper in one hand and my machine pistol in the other, I leaped out of my snowmobile and waded forward through the snow, ready to put a bullet through the first thing that didn't have hair and moved.

Half frozen, disoriented in the swirling snow and very much afraid, I ducked down and looked around me, half expecting at any moment to see Stryder London emerge from the gusts to put me out of my misery.

A dark shape went past me, but it wasn't Stryder London. Golly, growling and slapping at the snow on the ground and in the air, was wallowing away from the snowmobile.

"Golly!" I shouted, struggling after her. "Don't go away! We have to stick together! If I can find something to burn, I'll start a fire!"

I managed to reach her, wrapped my fingers in her fur-and ducked just in time to avoid having my head torn off my shoulders as her arm swung around. I sat down hard, couldn't have escaped if I wanted to as she hovered over me, eyes bloody with rage. Then she shivered, turned around, and disappeared in the swirling snow.

Golly-who had saved Garth and me by throwing Obie Loge down the waste chute into Mount Doom and had then come down to help me-was going to freeze to death in a very short time unless I could get her back with me and start a fire.

Dangerous or not, I had to try and save her.

Fighting against the desire simply to lie down and go to sleep, I struggled forward toward the spot where Golly had disappeared, swinging my shoulders back and forth to gain momentum, pumping my knees up and down, thinking that being a dwarf in a snowstorm is a real pain in the ass.

Then, suddenly, it was as if I were looking through a window in the storm, and what I saw through the window, twenty yards ahead, were the bare, skeletal shapes of trees-lots of them; Golly, whatever her mental state, had known where she was going. Whimpering with both cold and delight, I half ran, half swam through the drifts and fell on my face inside the shelter of the trees.

Protected by the natural windbreak of the forest, I could see. Lying still on my belly, hugging the frozen loam of the forest floor, I looked around; there was no sign of Stryder London. Already I felt warmer.

"Golly!" I shouted as I got to my feet. "Come here! I'm going to start a fire!"

Nothing.

I ran around for a while, shouting her name, making a lot of noise. I knew that I might attract London as well as Golly, but that was the point of the exercise. Even if I hadn't been dependent for my life on a battery pack that was rapidly draining, I knew now that I could never hope to track down Stryder London. I suspected-desperately hoped-that I had one last, secret weapon in my arsenal, one that had apparently gone unnoticed even during the extensive biotesting; if anyone had detected what I considered to be my most horrible symptom, it had never been mentioned to me. To use it against Stryder London, I had to be in physical contact, and if I couldn't find the Warrior leader, then he would have to find me.