Dark Winter (37 page)

"You can't rationalize without information," Norse corrected. Now he looked directly at Lewis. Suddenly he was the teacher, a lesson about to become apparent. "I've led you through this speculative exercise to demonstrate the dangers of jumping to conclusions, but I've also done a little investigation of my own. Since the shock of finding Gabriella I've considered all the possibilities you just voiced, thought of all the ways a murderer might leave clues. Everything we know is circumstantial, but in our desperate situation maybe that has to be enough. Wade?"

Pulaski stood up. He had positioned himself between Lewis and the door. The cook stood with his legs apart, as if bracing for attack, and looked somber, even sad, his new spear his staff. "You all know what good little recyclers we are," the cook began. There were smiles and a few snickers. They were supposed to separate all trash into labeled containers in the cold of the dome. Miscreants who dropped things into the wrong bin brought a regular outburst from Linda Brown, who was in charge of the recycling program. She'd threatened to kill one or two. Hyperbole, of course, but the bins had been one more source of casual tension. "We have no incinerator at the Pole. We have no dump. Everything that flies into the Pole eventually flies out of it. Every bit of garbage we've generated this winter is still here."

He paused. They were quiet, waiting.

"The sign around Gabriella's neck was made from letters cut from a magazine. So I looked in the paper bin for its source. What I found at the bottom was this." He held up a copy of a popular science and environmental journal. "It has an article on meteorites." He flipped it open, showing ragged pages. "And a lot of letters cut out from the middle."

Norse was looking at Lewis. "And where's the cover, Wade?" he asked the cook. "Where's the address label that will tell us whose magazine it was?"

"It was Jed!" Dana gasped. "I've seen him read that. We all have!"

"From the library…" Lewis objected.

"Torn off and missing," Pulaski said. He nodded at Dana. "So I checked Jed's room. Couldn't find a thing except…"

"Yes?"

"There were ashes in the soup can I'd given him the first night to use as a chamber pot. He'd never bothered to give it back."

Lewis stood up, his head dizzy, dumbfounded by a combination of outrage and fear. He was being set up. "That's a lie," he choked. Everyone was looking at him. Even Abby looked confused.

"I've bagged them for lab analysis in the spring," Pulaski said, holding up a baggie. "Maybe the lab people can tell if they came from the magazine stock. In the meantime…"

"This is absurd, those ashes could have come from anywhere."

"I saw you reading it!" Dana yelled.

"The magazine must have been stolen- "

"See! This is what I am telling you!" Molotov shouted. "Lewis, Lewis, Lewis! Every time it is Jed Lewis!"

"The hell it is!"

"What do you propose we do, Alexi?" Norse asked quietly.

"If there is only one more Spryte, then I agree, I don't want to give it to a murderer. If we cannot send Lewis away, then I do not want him wandering around. We need to lock him up. I don't trust him."

"Dammit, I'm being framed! That's no proof!"

"There is no proof of your innocence, either."

"Guilty until proven innocent, right, Alexi?" Lewis said heatedly. "Like Tyson? Is that how you did it in the gulags?"

The Americans shifted uncomfortably.

"Prove that you did not do it," the Russian insisted. "Everyone saw you with Gabriella. No one saw her since."

"I did not cut up that magazine," Lewis insisted. "Wouldn't I hide it? Would I leave the ashes in my own damn room? Think, dammit!"

"This is what we are doing, thinking about what has happened!"

The silence was thick, a congealing presumption of guilt.

"So we put him in the sauna," Pulaski suddenly summed up. He'd thought this through. "Just to be safe. It's our thickest box. We can put a crossbeam outside the door. We keep him locked down until this is resolved. He's right, it isn't proof, but we can't prove he didn't do it, either. Or anyone else. So I say safety is priority one. No more wandering around. No one leaves the dome. No one even goes down the archways to the generators or the fuel. We block up the entrances so no one can exit the dome and no one can enter. We search every inch of this aluminum beanie. We watch each other. We enter a state of siege."

"That sounds like a police state," Mendoza said.

"No, Carl. A state with police. A citizen militia. Us. So no one else has to die."

Mendoza frowned, considering it.

"Another thing," Pulaski said. "That means the science goes on hold."

"NSF isn't going to like that," Norse pointed out.

"Fuck NSF. If they're not getting their data, maybe they'll figure out some way to resolve this thing. Send in an FBI agent like we've talked about. Get us the hell out of here. Something."

There was a murmur of approval. Enough was enough.

"This is a radical decision to lock Lewis up," Norse said. "To lock the rest of ourselves in. I think it has to be a group decision."

"What about our work?" Lewis protested. "I thought we were all down here for the research. What about Jim Sparco's data? Global warming? We won't get anything done with what you're proposing!"

"And I say no more victims," Pulaski responded. "No more sacrificial sheep. This is a state of emergency until we can get out of here, get help, get something. If we block up the entrances no one can get us from outside. None of us can wander off to be picked off. We arm everybody. I train everybody. If a killer strikes, I want it to be a fight. I want noise. I want screaming. I want the attacker so bloody punctured with wounds that there's no question who did it. And then I want to fry him myself." He looked at them fiercely.

"It's liable to feel a little claustrophobic," Norse cautioned.

"Winter's already claustrophobic," Pulaski said. "Better claustrophobic than dead." Most of the others nodded. It was time to bar the door. It was time to pen Jed Lewis. The geologist looked around for support and saw none. Abby was looking morosely at the floor, outnumbered, alone, and confused by doubts.

"You can make a fight of it or you can cooperate," Pulaski told him. "I'm not saying it's you. I'm saying we won't know it's not you until we remove you as a variable. Like we tried to do at Clean Air."

"Except he goes in the storm when Harrison dies," Molotov said. "Calls Rod when Cameron dies."

Slowly Lewis sat down, dizzy with fear.

"Another thing," Geller said. "I say no more censorship. No more e-mail cancellation, no more radio silence. It's time the world knows what's going on down here, not just the bureaucrats at NSF. It's time we screamed bloody murder."

"Damn right!" Dana said.

"I understand what you're saying." Norse looked uneasy. "I know we need help. But before we get on the horn, hollering our heads off, let's cool the jets a minute. We've got a new polar base planned. We've got a hundred million dollars riding on how these events are characterized in the media. If you guys get on the net and start yelling for your mothers, it's going to sound like Charles Manson."

"So?" Geller asked.

"The whole polar program could be in jeopardy."

"And with our lives at stake, how many of us give a rat's ass about the polar program right now, Doctor Bob?" Pulaski demanded.

Norse waited, letting the question add weight. "I don't know," he said softly. "How many?"

People shifted uncomfortably. "It's survival, Doctor," Dana said quietly.

"What do you propose to say to your friends? Who can help you? What good is it to contact them right now except to worry them needlessly?"

"I'll bet they're worried already by not hearing from us," Dana said.

"I'm just suggesting we give NSF a chance to handle this."

"Screw that," said Geller. "They should've parachuted an investigator in the minute Mickey disappeared. They've left us swinging in the wind. I say we tell the world what's going on."

Norse's eyes polled the room. They were against him on this one.

"All right," he surrendered. "Broadcast your panic. Destroy this station. Maybe that's what the killer wants."

"We're bottled up," Pulaski said defensively. "We need release."

"You're also professionals. I thought."

The two men looked at each other.

"I can't stop you," Norse said. "I know that."

Pulaski hesitated. He was a cook, not a beaker. Norse had unconscious rank. Norse was looking at a bigger picture. "Okay, then how about this," he said reluctantly, looking at the others. "We have leverage, people. Leverage! It's like Doctor Bob says- we broadcast this in the right way and we can turn this station into a fiasco. Too unstable. End all funding for it. Close it up and send it packing. And that's our stick with NSF! Let's call them, and tell them what we've discussed, and give them twenty-four hours to figure out a way to get us out of here. I don't care if it's the space shuttle or a dog sled, we deserve to go home. And if they can't do that, then we talk about this to the world. The world! Let the chips fall where they may."

"Twenty-four hours isn't much time," Norse said.

"They've had time and done nothing."

The others nodded.

Norse took an unhappy breath. "All right. Deal. Let me talk to them on the phone when the satellites come in view. I agree, they need to know how antsy we all are. I'll talk to them about Lewis, about Tyson, about everyone. Let me think of what I want to say and we should be ready to phone in"-he looked at his watch- "an hour, say."

"I want to hear what you tell them," Geller said.

"And I don't want to talk as a committee. They'll get a babble and things will be more confused than ever. Give me a chance, okay? A chance to save the winter. One day. Clyde Skinner will be helping and he can listen. Okay, Clyde?" Skinner was their radioman.

He nodded.

"Meet me there in an hour to fire things up," Norse said.

It was enough. Everyone appeared to agree on this compromise.

"Jed goes into the sauna, at least for the time being. And Cueball, why don't you start figuring how to lock us in, like you said? Our world shrinks down to this dome. Spaceship Pulaski." Norse looked at them and took a breath. The group was still under control. If nothing more happened, maybe they could make it.

"I'll do my best to resolve this thing," Norse promised.

The explosion was so muffled that at first it was more puzzling than alarming, sounding in the galley like a flat, mysterious whump. Then the alarm began ringing. Fire! It was the one deadly threat they constantly drilled for: In the dry air of the Pole, combustibles could flash into fire like gasoline, and liquid water to douse them was in chronic short supply. Reaction was instantaneous and automatic. People jerked to their feet, chairs toppling over, a coffee cup spilled. This was no overcooked pig, it was the real thing! Not bothering to dress, they crashed out the galley door and sprinted for assigned extinguishers and hoses. There was a haze in the air of the dome.

"Where's it coming from!" Pulaski yelled.

Smoke was drifting out of one end of Comms, he saw, its aluminum wall bulging like a blister. The radio room! The cook called for help and then waved their dead run to a halt, feeling the outside of the metal module for heat before cautiously opening a door. A gust of smoky gases rolled out, stinking and ominous. From inside came an agonized screaming.

"Christ," Pulaski muttered, shining a flashlight into the murk. "What more can happen? Was Doctor Bob in there?"

Everyone looked around. Norse was nowhere to be seen.

Gina Brindisi had the presence of mind to run around the end of the building to a crack where the building had split like a swollen can, and then spray fire retardant through the hole into the communications center. Pulaski, Geller, and Calhoun donned fire masks and pushed into the corridor, squirting halon and hunting for survivors. The screaming was horrible. When they reached the radio room it was dark and smoky, illuminated by spurts of sparks. Puffs of chemical from the extinguishers made the last orange flames snuff out and then their flashlights and headlamps swept the wreckage. Pulaski dropped to the floor, groping for Norse, and touched a body. A wounded man was writhing in agony with his hands over his face, his skin burnt off from an explosion of acid. The cook gripped the man and leaned close, peering through his mask. It was Clyde Skinner, their radioman.

"I'm blinded!"

"What happened, what happened?" Pulaski kept shouting the question through his mask but it was obvious Skinner was in no condition to answer. What breath he could suck in was used to scream.

"Oh my God, I can't see!"

The communications center was destroyed. Its bank of lead batteries had exploded, shattering the equipment and spraying the room with acid. The explosion had caught Skinner full force, dissolving his face. It was almost unlucky he was alive.

Nancy Hodge pushed into the room, took in the wreckage at a glance, and knelt beside Skinner. She looked sickened. "Where the hell is Bob?"

"We don't know."

"Well, help me get Skinner to sick bay! We've got to wash him!"

The trio of men lifted the radioman and carried him out to the cold and clear air of the dome. Someone came at them with a bucket to douse Skinner and wash the acid, but Hodge stopped it. "Not here! It will just freeze on his face!"

"I'm blind! Oh, how it hurts!"

Everyone was looking at him in horror. "He'll be begging for more morphine than we have," Nancy said. "More relief than we can give him. Go on, get him into sick bay!"

Skinner's screams faded like a disappearing train as they carried him off.