Dark Winter (33 page)

His only hope was that the other fuel was good. How many cans could the fucker have doped? Tyson had no tubing to siphon the bad stuff out, and no drain hole. His only choice was to make his own. He opened the toolbox, took out a cold chisel-now, there's an appropriate name, he told himself- and placed it against the fuel tank. Then he swung with a hammer. It took a furious set of blows, which had the advantage of warming him, before he punched a hole through the dented tank. Diesel began running out onto the snow in a pulse like a cut artery, warmed by its proximity to the engine. Once it hit the snow it congealed.

What had Norse put in it? Water? Sugar? Some weird chemical shit?

He took out the gum, having to painfully bare his hand to unwrap it, and stuffed every stick into his mouth, chewing furiously. Then, slipping his glove back on, he began to break the other cans loose from the sled. Even if these worked, were there enough to get back to Amundsen-Scott? Would the others help him if he got there?

Cursing, clumsy from the cold, he got one top off after another. The wind kept rising, biting at him. Frantic, he left off for a minute to check the fuel tank. It was still emptying in a now-sluggish stream. He stepped up on the Spryte to look at the thermometer inside the cabin.

Eighteen degrees above zero. Heat was leaching from his survival capsule like gas from a balloon.

At last the fuel tank emptied. The area under the machine was slick with it, half frozen, a petroleum lake. He took the gum from his mouth and wedged it, steaming, over the hole he'd made. The gum wrapper went over that. Shit-poor work, but the cold instantly hardened his patch like putty.

Then he began lugging the newly opened cans to the opening and pouring them in. Diesel spilled on the side of the tank, streaming into the snow, and he didn't care. If he could light the damn diesel he'd get warm in a hurry, and that sounded almost pleasant right now. Baby will you light my fire…

He could hardly feel his damn feet.

But he couldn't afford a bonfire. He needed every drop to get back for a little counseling session with Robert Norse.

You saved 'em all, didn't you, Doctor Bob? Talked to me with sympathy just before you pushed me off the plank. So what's going to be your solution when there's another murder and you realize that, oops, Buck Tyson didn't do it? What happens to your tidy little social theories then?

At fifteen gallons he left off. Had to get the engine going before he froze. Once he had respite with the heater, he'd dump the rest in. That's if the engine started. If this crap wasn't as poisoned as the other batch. If just once in his pathetic life he'd get a single fucking break.

Tyson climbed in the cab and slammed the door. It was a relief to be out of the wind but the temperature inside was already close to zero. It was like escaping to a meat locker. Without hesitation he turned the key. Please. Please please me…

It cranked, stuttered, died.

He turned it again. The cab light dimmed as the engine labored.

And again.

Duh-duh-duh-duh.

He looked at the cab thermometer. Zero! Even with his body heat the temperature inside was falling like a rock. He needed heat, and fast.

It occurred to Tyson to use the radio. Not for rescue- there was no possibility of that- but just to inform Norse's many admirers at Amundsen-Scott base just how well and truly the psychologist had fucked over naive Dakota farm boy Buck Tyson. Wouldn't they like to hear about Norse's therapy in action? Of course, maybe they'd cheer that their ex-mechanic was about to turn into USDA-grade frozen- gee, the Doc sure took care of that little social problem- but they should at least know what their paranoia had led to, just to interrupt their slumber at night. And so he picked up the radio. Hello, this is your old buddy Buck and I'm about to die…

Click. Nothing. Not even static. He wormed under the dash. All the wires had been cut.

Checkmate, Jimmy. And you can't even flip over the game board, can you?

He flicked off all the lights and turned the key and cranked. And cranked. And cranked. There were a couple pops and snorts, just enough to give him a moment of cruel hope. But the damned engine wouldn't turn over. Wouldn't even properly fart.

Finally the batteries died. It was quiet and dark.

He turned on the flashlight kept close to his chest to avoid the cold draining its D cells and took another reading. Minus eight and still falling. Going for equilibrium with the great outdoors.

Well, this was it, then. His nowhere life had come to ground in nowhere.

He began to shiver.

Tyson knew his body would shake only so long. Then it would be out of energy like the Spryte's batteries, his core temperature dropping, a surrendering drowsiness taking over. How many hours of torture before that sleepy relief? Minutes, if he opened his coat. Which was worse?

Or he could find a match and try to light the mess outdoors. A quicker, more painful, pyre.

"What's it to be, Bucky? Fire or ice?"

Norse! Does that fucker have any idea what horror he's inflicted?

"Yep, Doc, you saved 'em all."

Tyson considered, trying to think clearly. If he didn't burn himself up, they'd find him someday. Maybe piece together enough to determine what had happened. Maybe even catch that slimy psychologist and make him pay.

Maybe. Or maybe give Norse a medal.

He slammed open the door, letting the last of his heat escape. Best to get it over with.

Then he closed the cab again and settled deeper into his parka, trying by muscle strength to control his shivering. He couldn't, of course.

One last peek at the thermometer. Minus twenty-eight and accelerating. Plunging downward to match the bottomless cold outside.

Even at the bottom of the world, solitude can be interrupted by the telephone. Lewis's at Clean Air rang with buzz-saw insistence, as harshly demanding as a baby's cry, and his guilt over ignoring Cameron's calls at the onset of the blizzard made him habitually pick it up now. His reverie of isolation, watching the lonely ice cap as fire lookouts once held vigil on their mountaintops, was shattered. "Lewis here."

"Got a minute?" It was Norse.

"I'm busy, Doc." The reply was sullen. The psychologist was the last person he wanted to talk to. He'd moved in on Abby. Started this mess, really. And it was beginning to annoy him that Norse carried his air of authority, of leadership, so easily. Annoy him that he'd let the man establish unspoken rank.

"You've been hiding out there."

"I've been working."

"Even the weather takes a break."

"Data to catch up on."

There was a pause as Norse thought about what to say. "Look, I called because I figured you might be sore about the other night. Abby, the party. Guilty as charged. Trouble is, she isn't attracted to me. I guess it caused some trouble. We were all drinking too much."

Lewis, his pride wounded, thought any apology was condescending. "You can dance with whoever you want. We weren't a couple. As near as I can tell, she doesn't like me, either."

"That's where you're wrong, sport."

Lewis was curious what had led Norse to say that and was not about to admit it. "And don't call me sport. Or friend, or son, or buddy, or sweetie. I don't like the Father Superior act."

"No offense meant." Norse's voice crackled over the phone. "Just trying to repair the damage."

"Why?"

"Because today's the first day of the rest of our lives. The post-Buck era. Remainder of the winter. All for one and one for all."

Lewis inwardly frowned, knowing he'd voiced the same thoughts. Had Abby repeated them to Bob?

"Look, how about a meeting on neutral ground?" Norse went on.

"What do you mean?"

"The KitKat Club after dinner tonight. I've got an idea to help continue patching things back together under the dome. There's a bunch of crap out there that people leave behind. Hobbies, toys, eccentric gear. It's stored there. Might be something good for morale."

"You're recreational director now?"

"I'm just trying to keep the station on keel."

Lewis knew he was sulking. "I've never even been out there."

"That's the whole point. It's the station's start-over place."

Lewis thought about it, fighting with his pride. "Who said I need to start over?"

"Okay, maybe I do." Norse waited.

"You're a manipulator, you know that? You manipulate people."

"Of course I do. Any effective person does. But that doesn't mean I'm not your friend. I'm trying to help, dammit."

"Help what?"

"Help the winter progress. Help make up for my own mistakes."

Lewis was mad at Norse because he was still mad at himself. "So why did you take her away at the party?"

There was a long silence. "Look, I said I fucked up, okay? I cut in on you, I came on to Abby, I was feeling cocky that people were turning to me, and high that Tyson had split. I was drunk. Conceded. But it was a game to me and Abby saw through that and she shot me down. She told me she liked you. I should have known better. I did know better. And I woke up hungover like everyone else and not feeling too good about myself. So now I'm trying to move on from here."

Lewis was silent. He was jealous of this man trying to hold things together. Jealous of Norse's glib rationalizations. Grow up, he told himself. He's trying to apologize.

"I'm a shrink and I've wound up as temporary, de facto… point man. Okay?"

Boss, Lewis thought.

"That's not a recipe for popularity, and I feel pressure like anyone else," Norse continued, "but we need each other and we need to get through the winter. Together. I think Abby really cares about you, Jed. She knows that other thing with Gabriella- she knows that was bullshit. So give me a chance to fix things. Manipulate, like you said. That's not always a bad thing."

Lewis sighed. "I just feel this whole winter I've been jerked around, with the meteorite and everything else. I'm tired of it."

"This isn't easy for me, either, you know. If you haven't guessed yet, I've got quite an ego. When push came to shove, she chose you. That stung. But you, me, her- all of us getting back together is the right thing to do."

"The right thing? I'm losing my bearings on that one, Doc."

Norse laughed at himself. "Okay. The best plan I have at the time." There was a click as he hung up the phone.

The KitKat Club was a two-story plywood balloon-launching shack, obsolete and abandoned, that an enterprising station carpenter had remodeled in his spare time into what he had jokingly proclaimed as "a penthouse pad of pleasure." Actually it was the top floor that had been turned into an unofficial storage attic for base personnel, crammed with cast-off junk. The bottom had been insulated, carpeted, papered with travel posters, and heated. While it was just three hundred yards from the dome, the building- named for the decadent nightclub in Cabaret- had become a place of physical and psychological separation and escape, the one refuge that didn't have a job attached to it. Neutral ground, Norse had called it. When its carpenter-creator left after one season, his shack became a place for parties, sexual trysts, verbal showdowns, and therapeutic solitude. Station managers like Cameron diplomatically ignored its existence because of its value as a pressure relief valve. Fingies were introduced to it after station and social acceptance. It was a perk, like visiting the abandoned base. Winter-overs thought of the KitKat Club, like the Pole itself, as theirs.

When Lewis arrived, Norse wasn't there. He flicked on the lights to look around while he waited. Small windows had been shuttered for the winter but smuggled incandescent bulbs behind a screen of colored paper, violating all fire safety regulations, gave the room a warm glow. There were two surplus single mattresses covered with unzipped nylon sleeping bags, a ratty and torn couch surplused from the dome, crates and a cable spool that had been liberated for tables, and makeshift shelves that held drifts of dog-eared books: Tolkien and Grisham, Shackleton and Byrd. A hot plate, an espresso maker, a small fridge. An old boom box and a shoal of CDs. The walls were a mosaic of posters, clippings, cartoons, and bumper stickers: He who dies with the most toys wins. It seemed unintentionally macabre after what had happened.

Maybe the psychologist would put him on the couch. He felt like he needed it about now.

He heard the crunch of snow outside and considered again what he wanted. Some kind of equality, he decided, some kind of mutual respect. An acceptance of who he was and an end to Norse's incessant observation. The shrink's real problem was that he didn't have enough real work to do and so dwelled on everybody else. With so many lost, they needed a reallocation…

"Hello?" It was Abby outside the door, sounding uncertain.

Just her voice was enough to get his heart to slip sideways off its track. Surprised, by both her presence and the strength of his own reaction, Lewis opened the latch.

She was startled. "It's you," she said, blinking.

"What are you doing here?" he replied.

Great beginning.

She glanced past him to see if anyone else was inside. "Bob…"

Of course, it was always Bob, wasn't it? "Come on in," he said gruffly. "We're letting out the heat."

It was too cold for indecision. She stepped inside and he shut the door. Abby took a deep breath, letting warmth settle back inside her lungs, and then looked at him warily. "I didn't know you'd be out here."

"I think we were set up by Norse. He sent us on the same mission."

"Mission?"

"To find some toys, right? I thought he was coming out, too, but…" Meet on neutral ground, Norse had suggested. He hadn't said with whom. Quite the matchmaker. "Look, I didn't plan this, but I'm glad you came out. Really. I'm surprised but… please don't go." Somehow he had to make things right.