Dark Winter

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Bob, I've got a problem."

Norse looked at Abby quizzically, his powerful fingers splayed to hold down something he was writing on his desk as if it might somehow blow away, the cursive letters hidden as he did so. In an instant he went from the distraction of his thought to focusing intently on her, a cautious smile on his lips, alert, ready. Once again she felt his peculiar magnetism. There was a strength to him that she found disquietingly alluring, and with his hair coming back he was more handsome than ever. There was also a strain to his gaze now, the kind of weariness she'd noticed in Rod Cameron. A pain to his slight smile. The Pole wore on you. It was wearing on all of them.

She'd seen it in the others, of course, a closing up like the petals of a flower at dusk. Nancy Hodge had retreated to BioMed, taking her meals there and tending to the burnt Clyde Skinner. For the first time since arriving on station she'd locked its door, insisting that anyone else needing help must knock first.

Several of the men had camped in the library like a squad from an occupying army, sprawling on the couches in sullen encampment while they watched a marathon stream of fuzzy video movies, a distracting blur of car chases and explosions and half-dressed women that they napped through in depressed exhaustion. Their talk was in monosyllables, their concentration wandering. Mostly, they tried to sleep.

Linda Brown was allowing the galley to slip toward disorder, a glacial backlog of unscrubbed pans grinding toward the sink, their food consumed without being logged.

Gina Brindisi was lost in old letters in her room.

Dana Andrews was typing in the computer room at a terminal that didn't work, its hard disk shorted out in the Comms room explosion, explaining the clack of the keys was helping her memorize the damning report she planned to write when everything was over.

And the greenhouse had been clear-cut. Abby had gone there after Lewis's exhausted return, confused by his discoveries and seeking inspiration for what to do next. Instead she found its benches covered with a brown carpet of withered leaves: Lena Jindrova had snipped the yellowing plants off at their base or hauled them out of their hydroponic tanks, leaving them dry and dead. The last greenery had been snuffed out.

Fearing for Lena's well-being, she'd found the young woman sitting in a corner of the galley with coffee, staring morosely at the station dartboard, which had been covered with some kinds of paper.

"We are either leaving this place or we are dying," Lena explained dully when Abby asked what had happened to the plants. "I didn't want them suffering from neglect."

"Plants don't suffer."

The young Czech used her finger to cut patterns into a coffee ring on the Formica of the galley table, alarmingly depressed. "Do you think not, with no sun and no warmth? Do you think these pretty plants are happy way down here, in the dark and the cold?"

"The dying is going to stop, Lena."

"I do not have that feeling. It is just beginning, is the feeling I have."

"We're going to learn what's going on," Abby insisted. "People are going to come together over this."

"No, people are abandoning hope. Did you see the board there?"

"Somebody covered it."

"No more games. No more matches with the Kiwis. Because no more radio, because the fixing is not going so well. So Dana and Carl got drunk last night and taped their research proposals to the board and threw the darts at them. They have given up because we are alone down here and we are forgotten."

"We aren't forgotten! I'm sure the rest of the world is wondering what happened to us. Trying to contact us. We'll get Comms up and running."

"No, we are forgotten. We are not people to them, I think. Just some name. Some file. Some record. We are trapped down here and so now I am done with my plants."

Name. File. Record. And with that Abby suddenly had an idea what to do. How to follow up Lewis's discovery. So now she was in the office Norse had taken over from the dead Cameron, trying to mask her own nervousness in approaching the enigmatic psychologist, trying to act casual in seeking something that could save them all.

Norse looked at her warily. "I hope you're not here about Lewis. I know you don't believe he's guilty but keeping him in the sauna is the only thing keeping him safe."

"No, it's not about Jed," she said. "I know you have no choice. I'm not sure myself that he is who he says he is." She watched Norse closely when she said this but he showed no reaction. If the man was a liar, he composed his emotions like a schedule. "My problem's more mundane," she went on. "I've got a toothache."

Norse frowned. Dental problems could become a real hazard in the isolation of the Pole. Everyone had thorough exams before coming down because bad teeth could produce either agony or, in summer, an expensive evacuation. "Have you talked to Nancy?"

"Yes, and she suspects it might be a problem with a loose crown. She needs to see my X rays. Apparently they're in the office here."

"I thought she had her own set."

"The one she has is fogged. Maybe it went through an airport detector."

"And there's another here?"

"Yes." Nancy knew that Cameron's old office had a storage closet that included a complete set of dental X rays for every winter-over at Amundsen-Scott base. They were required of all American personnel in Antarctica. One reason was to screen for problems that could be crippling in a remote camp. Another, more morbid rationale was to have on file a means- if aircraft crashed and bodies were burnt- of identifying the dead. For safe redundancy, two sets came down, one sent by medical authorities and the second hand-carried by the winter-over.

"I don't even know where they are," he confessed. "Haven't had time to poke around."

"Nancy said Rod kept them in boxes in the closet."

He glanced over his shoulder at a storage closet behind him. "You want me to find them?"

"I'll get them."

He looked at her speculatively. Here was an opportunity to repair a relationship, perhaps. She'd been avoiding him up to now. "Okay."

The woman nodded her thanks.

"We've been through some rough times, Abby," he tried. "It's important we all come together in a situation like this."

"I know." She looked a little impatient. She'd said her tooth was hurting but he couldn't help but plunge ahead. Abby, his failure with her, represented a rare defeat. It gnawed at him.

"I realize you've been upset about Lewis but I don't know what else I can do for him until we get Comms up and running and some of this sorted out. I… I know I came on a little strong with you at the party. I wonder if we could at least be good friends."

She swallowed. "We are friends, Bob. Just not that kind of friend."

He got up from his desk and moved around to her. "The group worries me, frankly. It's weaker than I was expecting. I'm trying to hold people together but there's a real chance someone's going to get in a fight or try to run away or get emotional and do something dangerous. The beakers are the worst because they have the least to do, now that the grid is down. If there's trouble I'd like to be able to count on you."

"Of course you can."

He took her right hand in both of his, enclosing it. The grip was not tight but the power there was unmistakable. It emanated from him like a force. "If anything bad happens I'd like you to stay by me. I'm thinking of assigning pairs, a kind of buddy system, and I'd like to partner with you. Boy-girl, mostly- I think each gender has its strengths and could help look after the other. And I know it's a little sexist, but I'd like to think I could help protect you in a crisis. Do you understand what I mean?"

She smiled more bravely than she felt, actually confused by what he meant. What crisis? "I guess so," she evaded. She needed to get to that box. "I would like to know you better, Bob. That's one reason I came down for the winter, to get close to people. With Jed locked away I'm learning how important that might be."

He was looking at her with an intensity she found unnerving. She wished he'd sit back down. "Are you?"

Abby pulled out of his grip. "But not right now, not with a toothache. Let me get Nancy to look at this and decide what we can do. After I get fixed maybe we can talk. Maybe you can tell me more about yourself. I'm very curious. You're kind of mysterious, you know."

She got a glimpse of his annoyance at her elusiveness and then his face masked over. "Everyone's mysterious. Even to themselves."

"Well, my mystery is my own dental work. I'm going to dig out that file."

He shrugged, stepping away. "Of course. I hope Nancy can help. Get you a painkiller or something." Obviously dissatisfied, he sat down and went back to writing. It looked personal, like some kind of diary.

Abby went around the desk and into the storage closet, finding the cardboard box that Nancy had described. Lifting it down, she began rifling through it, praying he wouldn't come help. She could feel him glance over occasionally to watch her. "I'm surprised you can think to write after all that's happened," she called. "Even concentrate. What is it?"

There was a long silence. Then a shuffling of paper. "A narrative of an important time," he finally said. "Explaining things to myself."

"That's what writing does, doesn't it?"

"That and explaining things to the world."

She found what she was looking for, slipped it into her own file folder, and put the box back. "It's too bad Clyde was burnt in the explosion," she commented as she went back past his desk, clutching the X rays. "The repair work would go a lot faster with his expertise."

"Awful," Norse said. He straightened a little. "Yet disaster can bring out the best in people as well. It's a kind of test, I think. Being cut off from communication from the outside world has forced us to rely a little bit more on ourselves. Like you and me. It's terrible to say so, but the trauma has given a real edge to my research."

She smiled. "Hoping for the worst?" She tried to keep it light, without any edge to it. "Shrink nirvana?"

"Sounds awful, doesn't it?" He shook his head at himself. "I find myself in an awkward position between participant and observer. Victim and beneficiary."

"Our leader, now."

"No, no. Camp counselor, maybe."

"Our director."

His look was sardonic. "No matter how well you plan things, everything comes out differently. You make things up as you go along."

"And how do you know where you're trying to go, Bob?" She seemed genuinely interested.

"I'm a psychologist. Inside instead of outside. Soul instead of stars. At some fundamental level I'm not sure they're all that different. The goal of any life is to justify yourself to yourself. Or at least explain yourself."

"That sounds like what a shrink would say."

"That's what an honest man would say."

She left and he watched her go with a concealed hunger: her slim back, the nape of her neck, the curve of her hip, that coy primness he wanted to possess and violate. Her presence was tormenting him like a hunger, inflating his desire. The more she put him off, the more he wanted her.

But he couldn't let that interfere with the experiment. Couldn't let that interfere with himself! Still, Norse allowed himself the luxury of pondering her for a while, considering their encounter. She'd been more receptive this time, he thought, as if she were thawing. Ice Cream! Getting Lewis out of the way had helped. Getting rid of him entirely would help more. Too bad there was just one more Spryte, but he needed to reserve that for himself… Norse imagined triumphing with her, he her only hope of survival, getting her to do the things he needed. Too bad she had a damn toothache.

Maybe in the end they could leave together.

He looked at what he had just written. I acted on the best plan I had at the time.

Adaptable, yes. But always a step ahead. Always a step ahead.

It really would be quite the brilliant paper. He took up his pen again.

It wasn't until later, much later, that another possibility occurred to him and he stood up from his desk, suddenly alarmed.

"Damn her!"

He wrenched open the closet door, threw down the box Abby had pawed through, and flipped frantically to his own folder, cursing as he did so. He opened it.

His dental X rays were gone.

She was taking them to Nancy Hodge.

There were red droplets on the snow between the galley and BioMed, a bright disturbing trail that announced more trouble. Abby followed them at a trot, the X rays in her mitten. The door to the sick bay was locked and she groaned inwardly. She remembered that the increasingly paranoid Nancy Hodge was locking herself in, and the need to knock was maddening. Every second seemed vital. Norse was no fool, and Abby feared he'd come storming out from his office at any moment. She needed Nancy to make the X ray comparison so they could get the others to help.

"Nancy, open up!" She pounded anxiously with the flat of her hand.

There was a pause, then a reply muffled by the door. "I'm busy."

There wasn't time to be busy! They had to learn the truth about Norse! Abby hammered on the door again, impatient and irritated. "Hurry up! It's an emergency!"

"I've got an emergency in here!"

"Nancy, please!"

She heard a muffled oath and the bang of something being shut, then the quick clump of footsteps. The door opened and Nancy looked out, her eyes looking tired and harassed. "You'll have to come back later. I'm treating Gina."

"Please, I've got to talk to you now."

"Abby, I've got blood all over the place in here."

Abby stepped up to the level of BioMed and peeked past Nancy to the examining room beyond. Clyde Skinner was lying on the lone bed, his eyes bandaged. Gina Brindisi was sitting on the table, her face white and scared looking, her pants on the floor. One of her legs was smeared with blood, a slashing wound on her calf looking partly sewn up. "My God, what happened?"

Nancy looked back over her shoulder at Gina. "She tripped over some damn pike or battleax Calhoun made. We're all going to poke each other's eyes out with those things. It's crazy. I've got to finish up these stitches to stop the bleeding."

"Can't we talk for a second first?"

"Abby, she's leaking all over the damn table! Are you hurt or sick?"

"No."

"Then come back later." She started to close the door.

"Wait!" Abby thrust her boot inside, preventing its closure. "It's about everything that's happening!"

"I'm trying to patch up everything that's happening! I'll talk to you later!"

"Please!"

Nancy was annoyed now. "Get your foot out of my door! Damn you and damn this place anyway!"

Abby was thinking furiously. How much time before Norse figured out what she was up to? She couldn't wait until later, not if she was going to try to get into Norse's room for more evidence. She needed to be in two places at once! And now Nancy was distracted.

"Listen to me!" Abby hissed urgently. "Listen, or we're all going to die!" Her determination interrupted Nancy's impatience, piercing the doctor's anger. For just a moment the medic was listening. "Norse is not Norse," Abby insisted in a low voice. "Do you understand? Bob is not Bob. He's someone else, some impostor, and that means he could be behind all this craziness that's been going on. I can't come back later, I have to find the one thing that will convince the rest of you, so I'm going to send Jed over here instead, okay? I'm going to send Lewis. He can explain."

Nancy looked wary, curious, fearful. "He's locked up."

"I'm going to let him out. It's important. Nancy, you have to trust him. You have to trust me. It's our only chance."

The doctor shook her head. "I don't trust anyone anymore."

Abby thrust the folder of X rays at her. "These are Norse's dental X rays. You've got another set here. I need you to compare the two as soon as you stitch up Gina. Hurry, before Bob comes!"

"Abby…"

"Just do it! You'll see! I'm going to send Jed to fill you in and then I'm going to come back if I find what I think I'll find. Then the three of us will go to the others."

Nancy took the folder uncertainly. "I don't understand…"

"Just look at the two sets! See if they match! Please, Nancy, I think you're our last chance!"

"Last chance?"

"To get away from the Pole alive."

Lewis darted across the snow under the dome like a wraith for what he hoped was the last time, carrying as a crude defense one of the ice axes he'd used as a grappling hook. He had descended like a spider back into the dome the night before, pausing on the roof to untie the hook from the rope and thrust it in his belt. Then he doubled the rope around one of the framing braces on the dome. Its ample length allowed him to descend back into his imprisonment on the doubled line and then retrieve the entire rope by pulling on one end, reeling it in until it slipped out of the dome brace and fell down on the snow. He hid the rope behind Comms and tucked the axes in a maintenance closet near the sauna. Then he'd waited in his cedar jail in an agony of impatience, anxious to see if Abby could figure a way to follow up on the mystery.

She'd finally come to him panting like a sprinter, gasping out the tale of her acquisition of Norse's X ray and its delivery to Nancy Hodge. The doctor had been too busy to listen, Abby said hurriedly, because she was bandaging up Gina, but now Nancy was waiting for him in BioMed and Abby was about to pursue a hunch about what she might find in Norse's room. It was all hunches now, a gamble that they could save all their lives by uncovering the truth about one. Yet what if he was wrong? Then the only alternative might be the kind of desperate escape Tyson had resorted to, stealing the other Spryte and setting off for McMurdo. Probably dying in the attempt.

Now he looked around carefully to avoid interception but, surprisingly, no one was around. Eating? Moping? Arguing? Maybe Norse had started some kind of bizarre encounter group. He slipped into the archway, surprised at how easy this was, and went to the door of the medic's module. He reached for the freezerlike door handle and stopped. It was hanging askew, its lock apparently broken. Hadn't Nancy said they didn't lock the sick bay? Why was it pried open now? Hesitantly, he knocked.

No reply. The door creaked open a quarter inch.

"Nancy?"

No answer.

He pounded harder. "Hodge? You in there?" Again, silence. "It's Lewis! We need to talk!"

Then a faint moan. "Help…"

It was Clyde Skinner.

"For God's sake, help…"

Where was Nancy? He shoved open the broken door and stepped inside, shutting it against the cold. "Clyde?"

"Who is it? Who is it?"

It was Skinner, all right, the burnt radioman. He was lying in the sick bay bed with his face swathed in bandages, blind and helpless, clutching his sheets.

"It's Lewis. I've come to help."

"Lewis?" His voice betrayed dread. "You set the bomb."

"No, I didn't, Clyde. Someone's setting me up."

The man lay quietly, looking afraid.

"What happened? BioMed was locked. Where's Nancy?"

"You've come to kill me, too, haven't you?"

"No! No, no. I'm trying to help. What the hell happened?"

"Where's Abby?"

"I don't know."

"Nancy told me to talk only to Abby."

"Well, where's Nancy?"

"I don't know, I don't know. There was a noise, like something breaking, and Nancy yelled, someone inside, and then lots of banging around, and then it went quiet. I thought you'd all abandoned me. I thought you'd left the station and left me behind."

Lewis glanced around. BioMed was a mess. There was blood all over the examining table: Gina must have really been cut. More ominously, drawers hung half open, cabinet doors were swung wide, and medical supplies had cascaded onto the floor. Notebooks had spilled a glacier of paper. The place had been ransacked. Where the hell was Nancy?

The storage door in back was cracked open.

He went to the entrance and tried to push open the door, but something was blocking it. He shoved enough to get an arm through the opening and turned on the light to see what was in the way.

Legs.

Lewis felt a sick dread. He pushed harder and something heavy skidded aside, allowing him to squeeze through. He stumbled inside and looked down in grim confirmation at Nancy Hodge, her eyes rolled back and mouth open, a hypodermic needle jutting from the back of her neck. A set of X rays was resting on her body. He knelt and glanced at a manila folder. It read, "Abby Dixon."

The assailant was still confusing the trail.

He felt vainly for a pulse. Their doctor was dead. There were no obvious cuts and bruises, but not even junkies injected themselves in the nape of the neck. It was obvious that someone had crept up behind her and injected her. Killed her before she could talk about the X rays. Killed her before she could talk about Norse.

No escape. No radio. And now no doctor.

No proof.

He glanced around. X-ray records were upended and the storage cabinet against the rear wall had been shoved aside, exposing a metal panel screwed to the wall, scratched and dirty. Lewis slowly stood. They were doomed. Except… someone had been searching BioMed. And that searching meant maybe Nancy had hidden the two sets of X rays. What if Norse hadn't found them yet?

Another faint tremor of hope. The shifted storage cabinet appeared to hold nothing but medical supplies. The panel behind it required a screwdriver. So he moved out into the main sick bay and began his own search.

"What's going on? What's happening?" Skinner asked from his bed, his voice fearful. It wasn't just his pain. It was agonizing not to see.

"Nancy's dead, Clyde."

"Oh my God!" he moaned. "Not her, too!"

"It wasn't me who killed her. You have to believe that."

Skinner was silent.

"Did you see anything?"

"Is that a joke?"

Lewis grimaced. "Sorry."

"Dead how?" His tone was hopeless.

"An injection. Maybe murder. Was Norse here?"

"No voice. Just funny noises. Like what you're doing now."

"But who was it? Who was here before me, Clyde?"

"I don't know." There was a tremor in his voice. He was afraid.

"Think! I might need your help!"

"Please don't kill me, Lewis. I didn't see anything."

"Christ." He gave up on Skinner and turned to the drawers. The room didn't take that long to search. Nothing. "He took them," Lewis muttered.

"Took what?"

"Something Nancy had."

"Does it matter?"

He stood, despairing. How could he convince the others? "It matters because it means that I am well and truly screwed." He looked back at Nancy's body, frustrated and depressed.

"And that's the first intelligent observation you've made since you came here," a different voice said.

It was someone at the doorway. Lewis turned.

Norse!

The psychologist stepped inside and turned to address a group of men behind him. "We finally caught him in the act," he announced.

Pulaski, Geller, Calhoun, and Perlin followed, crowding one end of BioMed. A posse rousted from the videos in the library, bleary and belligerent. The open door let in a freezerlike chill, the spilled papers shifting in the draft. Abby's X rays slid off Nancy's still chest with a sigh. "It wasn't me," Lewis tried.

"It's never you, is it, Jed?" Norse replied softly.

Lewis picked up his ice ax in instinctive defense, trying to buy a moment's time, composing what he had to say. But before he could speak, Pulaski shot forward in sudden assault, the cook's flying tackle hurling Lewis backward against a set of wall shelves, the air whooshing out of him and the ice ax spinning into a corner. The shelves gave way, crashing down around his head. Dimly he realized Geller and Calhoun and Perlin were charging, too. "Wait!" he yelled.

Pulaski butted his face with his bald head, bloodying Lewis's nose, and one of the others struck him in the stomach. Lewis couldn't breathe. He feebly tried to rise but the cook gripped him in a wrestling hold, twisted his arm, and expertly flipped him onto his belly. Other strong hands caught his wrists and ankles and twisted electrical cords around them.

They'd trailed him to BioMed. Waited while he scampered across the snow. Crept up while he was discovering the body.

Geller grunted and stood up, stepping over Lewis into the storeroom beyond. "Nancy's dead!" he confirmed.

Lewis had been hit so hard he was seeing stars. It was difficult to think. "No," he wheezed. "I found- "

"Clyde, you all right?" Calhoun asked Skinner.

"What's going on? What's going on?"

"It's Doctor Bob," Norse said. "We caught Lewis preparing to kill you."

"Oh my God. Where's Abby?"

"We're looking for her, too. You seen her?"

Skinner said nothing. He was shaking with fear.

"She comes here, you notify us, okay?"

The blind man went rigid, as if waiting for a blow.

Norse crouched by Lewis's head, looking disgusted. "Who let you out?"

"X rays…"

"It was Dixon, wasn't it?"

"Ask Clyde…"

"Jed Lewis," he said solemnly, "by the emergency powers confirmed to me by the agreement of our peers in an emergency situation, I place you under arrest for the murder of Nancy Hodge."

He was choking, trying to get the words out. "Bastard…"

"And for the murders of Gabriella Reid, Rod Cameron, Harrison Adams, and Mickey Moss. Perhaps manslaughter for the flight of Buck Tyson. For the blinding of Clyde Skinner. For terrorism and emotional assault, for theft and false witness, for stalking and betrayal. You've jeopardized the very existence of Amundsen-Scott station."

Lewis's lower face was a mask of blood, his throat hacked, his ribs sore. "Lie!"

Norse stood. "You all saw it," he told the others. "We caught him in the act this time. He broke into BioMed after I'd ordered Nancy to lock it for her own safety. But we're not savages. We're going to have a trial."

"What can we do with him even if he's guilty?" It was Gage Perlin, looking at the trussed Lewis with frank fear. "He already busted out of the sauna. It's like he never stays put. He gets out, and something happens."

"It's my fault this occurred," Norse said. "I wouldn't listen to the rest of you. I wouldn't act when the rest of you wanted to. I wanted to go slow. But this time I am going to listen to you. This time we're going to end this nightmare once and for all."

"No," Lewis coughed. "He's not- "

Something in Norse snapped. He kicked Lewis, knocking the wind out of him again. It was as if he were furious with himself for having been blinded by the man's ruses. "Shut up, Lewis! Just shut up!"

He turned to the others. "We need to locate Abby- find out what her role was in all this."

Lewis closed his eyes and spit out some blood. He writhed helplessly on the floor, his cheek on cold linoleum, his vision a cluster of white polar boots. Abby, he thought, don't let them do this to you, too.