Terminal Freeze

41

The air in the life-sciences lab seemed to freeze. For a long moment, everybody in the room simply stared at Usuguk. For his part, the Tunit stood close to the doorway, motionless, his sealskin boots and his parka of caribou skin and blanket cloth in stark contrast to the drab metal walls and prosaic instruments.

“You,” said Marshall, surprise thickening his voice. “You’re the eighth scientist.”

“That is what they called me,” replied Usuguk.

Across the room, Logan frowned. “What do you mean?”

For a long time, Usuguk said nothing. His dark eyes looked at each of them in turn. Then they focused on a spot beyond all of them, a spot that to Marshall seemed far, far away. “I am an old man,” he said. “May I sit?”

“Of course.” Marshall hurried to get him a chair. The shaman lowered himself onto it, placed his medicine bundle on his knees.

“I was a specialist,” he said in his uninflected accent. “Army specialist. I grew up a hundred miles from here. In the old days, my people lived in a settlement near Kaktovik. I lived with my cousin’s family. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father starved to death when I was six, out on the ice, looking for caribou. I grew up foolish, full of quiniq. Back then, sitting for hours at a breathing hole, waiting to spear a seal-it was not enough for me. I did not respect the old ways. I did not understand the circle of beauty, the glamour of the snow. An army recruiter came through Kaktovik once a year, full of talk of far places. I had learned your language; my arm was strong. So I enlisted.” He shook his head slowly. “But I spoke Inuit; I spoke Tunit. So after six months at Fort Bliss they sent me back here, to this base.”

“Was the base operational?” Marshall asked.

“Ahylah.” The Tunit nodded. “All except the north wing. That was still being completed. It had to be built below the level of the snow.”

“Why?” Logan asked.

“I do not know. It was a secret. For tests. Some experiments with sonar.” Usuguk paused. “The army put several of us Tunits to work, digging out the ice for the north wing and placing supports. All Tunits knew the mountain to be a bad place where the evil gods dwell. But we were few, and poor, and the money of the kidlatet-white man-was hard to resist. My uncle was one of the workers. It was he who found it.”

“Found what?” asked Marshall.

“Kurrshuq,” Usuguk said. “Fang of the Gods. The Devourer of Souls.”

The others exchanged glances.

“What exactly is kurrshuq?” Logan asked.

“It is that which you have awakened.”

“What?” Sully spoke up. “The same creature? That can’t be.”

The Tunit shook his head. “Not the same. Another.”

Marshall felt surprise burn its way through him. Was this possible?

Silence settled briefly over the group. “Go on,” Sully said at last.

“It was encased in ice in a small crevasse at the base of the wing,” Usuguk continued.

“Probably frozen by the same phenomenon,” Faraday murmured.

“My uncle was very agitated. He came to me. And I went to Colonel Rose.”

“The base commander,” said Logan.

Usuguk nodded. “No one else was to know. My uncle had me tell the colonel that the army must leave the spot at once. It was forbidden ground. And the kurrshuq was its guardian.” He paused. “But they did not leave. Instead the colonel sealed off the crevasse and summoned them.”

“Them?” Marshall repeated.

“The special scientists. The secret scientists. They arrived before the new moon. Two cargo planes, their bellies full of strange instruments. These were all placed in the north wing, under darkness.”

“So the north wing was re-tasked,” Logan said. “Its original purpose set aside while the new discovery was examined.”

“Yes.”

“What of your uncle?” Logan continued. “The other Tunits?”

“They left immediately.”

“But you stayed.”

Usuguk bowed his head. “Yes. To my everlasting shame. I told you I had little use for the ways of my tribe. And the scientists needed a helper, someone who understood the operations of the base. Someone who could also act as-as protection. Since I already knew of the kurrshuq, I was selected. They were kind to me, included me in their work. They called me ‘the little scientist.’ One of them, the kidlatet called Williamson, was interested in…” He paused, apparently hunting for the word. “In sociology. I shared with him some of the legends of my people, our history and beliefs.”

“And what of the…the creature?” Marshall asked.

“It was cut very carefully from the ice, taken from the crevasse, put in a freezer in the north wing. The scientists were to study it, measure it, then thaw it. But it soon thawed itself.”

“Thawed itself?” Sully repeated.

“Of course.” Usuguk shrugged as if perplexed by Sully’s incredulous tone.

Marshall and Faraday exchanged glances. “It was alive?” Marshall asked.

“Yes.”

“And it was hostile?”

“Not-not at first. Kurrshuq is a crafty demon. It plays with you, like the fox cub plays with a vole. The scientists were intrigued. Once they had recovered from their fear, they were intrigued.”

“Their fear?” Marshall asked.

“The kurrshuq is terrifying to behold.”

Logan pulled out a leather notebook. “Will you describe it?”

“No.”

Another brief silence.

“Tell us what happened,” Marshall said. “To the scientists.”

“As I told you, it pretended to humor us. Pretended to be friendly. The scientists continued their observations and tests. They tested its strength and speed. They grew more and more excited-especially by its ability to defend itself. They talked of testing its intelligence, of finding ways to-what was the word they used?-of weaponizing it. But on the third day it chose to do the will of the evil gods. It wearied of toying with us. One of the scientists, the kidlatet named Blayne, was testing its…its instinct for the hunt. What they wanted it to hunt they would not tell me. He had a tape recorder, with the sounds of animals in distress-marmots, snowshoe rabbits. When he played the tape, it grew angry. It tore him to pieces. We heard his screams and came running. When we arrived his body was all over the audio lab. And the kurrshuq was asleep on the floor, Blayne’s head between his forepaws. It had eaten his soul.”

Marshall glanced at Logan. The historian had a small leather notebook open and was writing furiously.

“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.”