"Great," Steinhauer said. "Just great."
Graylock scowled at the grousing private before saying to Lerxst, "Brain damage? Death? It sounds as if the risks of this "fusion" far outweigh the benefits."
"The alternative is death," Lerxst said.
"For you, maybe," Pembleton replied. "As soon as we have enough snowshoes to go around, we"re going south."
"Or north," Graylock said. "Whichever way the equator is."
The Caeliar turned his inscrutable visage toward Pembleton. "How far do you think you"ll get? Shall I draw you a map of what lies ahead?" Lerxst hadn"t raised his voice, but there was something smug and angry in his manner. "This is an island, Gage, more than a hundred kilometers from the nearest major continent. You and your friends can no more flee from your predicament than we can from ours."
Pembleton looked at Graylock. "Your call, sir."
The lieutenant"s brow tensed, and a V-shaped wrinkle formed between his thick eyebrows. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "To h.e.l.l with rank for a minute," he said. "This is all of our lives on the line. We"ll put it to a vote, a show of hands. Who wants to risk becoming a Caeliar meat puppet?"
A look around the room revealed not a single raised hand.
"All right," Pembleton said. "Who votes to look for a way off this island?" He lifted his own arm, and four others reached for the drooping fabric ceiling.
Graylock nodded, and they put their arms down. "The ayes have it," he said to Lerxst. "Escape, five; meat puppets, zero."
"Please reconsider, Karl," Lerxst said. "If we don"t join together now, while my people still have the strength to control the process of the fusion, we might never have another chance."
"Sorry," Graylock said. "We"ve made our decision."
"Then both our peoples will die," Lerxst said.
The Caeliar envoy stood and walked out of the shelter. As he exited through the overlapping flaps of the shelter"s portal, a gust of subfreezing air slipped past him and momentarily cut through the pungent miasma of body odor, bad breath, and mildew.
Graylock got up, tied the flaps closed, and returned to the heated rocks with the other survivors. He reached forward, picked up the makeshift cooking pot, and poured himself a bowl of bitter bark soup. He had a worried look on his face as he confided to Pembleton, "If Lerxst is telling the truth about this being an island, we"re in big trouble."
"Relax, sir," Pembleton said, pretending to be confident. "We"ll be fine. After all, you"re an engineer, aren"t you?"
Exhausted and perplexed, Graylock replied, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Pembleton shrugged. "So there"s an ocean. How hard can it be to make a raft?"
The lieutenant sipped his soup and winced. "Harder than you think, Sergeant. A lot harder."
"Didn"t Thor Heyerdahl cross an ocean on a raft?"
"Yes, he did," Graylock said. "But that was the Pacific in high summer, not an arctic sea in deep winter. Also, Heyerdahl built his raft in Peru, where he had access to the right kinds of wood and fabric. At the rate we"re going, we"ll probably end up drifting out to sea on ice floes, like dying Inuit."
Pointing in the direction of Junk Mountain, Pembleton said, "Do you want me to go get Lerxst and bring him back? Should we just give up now and ask the Caeliar to mulch our brains and put us out of our misery?"
Graylock sighed. "No."
"Then we"d better start thinking of ways to stay warm, dry, and afloat," Pembleton said, "because the only way we"ll survive until spring is if we get off this island."
"Let the inner edges slide over each other as you step," Steinhauer said, coaching Graylock. "And roll your foot a bit when you lift it. Exaggerate your stride a little."
Graylock did his best to turn the young MACO"s directions into actions, but he continued to stumble and teeter as he trudged across the snow-covered plain by the fjord. "Scheisse," he said under his breath. "I feel like I"m drunk."
"It takes some getting used to," Steinhauer said. "Of course, if you think going forward is hard, wait until it"s time to learn how to turn around."
Glaring in frustration, Graylock muttered, "I can hardly wait." He took another halting step forward, supporting his weight with two walking poles. The snow settled under his feet.
"Right now, it"s harder because you"re breaking a trail," Steinhauer said. "It"ll be easier when you"re following." He watched Graylock make a few more clumsy lunges and said, "Sir, stop a second. Watch me." Graylock halted and turned his head to observe the private, who moved in gliding strides. "As you finish each step," Steinhauer said, "pause a bit before you put your full weight on the shoe. It helps smooth the snow and pack it better for the person behind you."
Nodding, Graylock said, "Okay. Noted."
"Give it a try," the MACO said.
The engineer did as Steinhauer had said, easing into each step, keeping his eyes on the terrain ahead so that he could train his muscle memory to feel when his stride was correct. After a few minutes of exhausting pushing against the wet snow, his movements became more graceful, though still tiring.
"Now you"re getting it," Steinhauer said. "Hold a second. It"s time to learn how to turn."
Graylock was grateful for a chance to stop, even if only for a minute. He was the only one of the survivors with no previous experience at snowshoeing, so he had committed himself to an intensive training regimen. Once he mastered the basics of the skill, the only barrier to the team"s departure would be Crichlow"s fever.
Steinhauer shuffle-stepped alongside Graylock. "When you have a lot of room to turn around, like we do here, the easiest thing is to walk a wide semicircle," he said. "But in a forest or on a slope or narrow trail, that might not be possible. In those situations, you"ll have to do a kick turn, like so." He lifted one of his snowshoes high off the ground while keeping the other firmly planted. Then he set his lifted shoe down at a right angle to the other, and brought the second one up and set it down parallel to the first. In a few kicks, he had done an about-face. "It"s hard on the hips," he said. "And it"s easier with poles than without. Use them to keep yourself steady."
As Graylock emulated the MACO"s athletic leg lifts and turns, he strained a muscle in his groin, stopped, and doubled over. Through gritted teeth, he said, "I hate you."
"Wait till tomorrow, when your whole body starts aching," Steinhauer said. "Then you"ll really hate me. Breathe a minute, then we"ll head back to the slope near the shelter, and I"ll teach you how to use kick steps to make climbing easier."
Graylock squatted and watched his breath form white clouds while he waited for his pain and nausea to subside. He had almost recovered his equilibrium when he saw someone in the distance, standing outside the shelter and frantically beckoning him and Steinhauer to return.
Steinhauer made a few comical hop steps sideways and placed himself directly in front of Graylock. "I"ll break the trail back, sir," he said. "Are you ready to move?"
"I"m fine," Graylock said, masking his lingering discomfort. "Move out. I"ll be right behind you."
The MACO cut a fast path across the open snow, and Graylock did his best to keep his eyes on the man"s back and his feet in the smooth rut Steinhauer"s snowshoes had carved. Just as the private had said minutes earlier, following a trail was far less taxing than breaking one. Less than two minutes later, he aped the young German"s sidesteps up the slope to the camp. Once they were in the cleared area around the fire pit, they unwrapped the snowshoes" crude bindings from their boots and hurried inside the weather-beaten, ice-covered shelter.
As soon as Graylock was inside, he saw Pembleton and Thayer hovering over Crichlow, who was deathly pale and breathing in short, weak gasps. Graylock freed himself from the bulky layers of fabric in which he had wrapped himself for the afternoon of outdoor training. Wiping cold sweat from his beard, he said, "Sergeant. Report."
"He"s dying," Pembleton said. "We tried keeping him warm and cooling him off. Nothing works."
Graylock frowned. He"d feared the worst a few days earlier, the morning after Lerxst had left their camp. Crichlow"s symptoms had been steadily worsening, and without a doctor or the hand scanners, they"d had no idea what was wrong or how to help him. They"d fallen back on the basics: keep him warm, dry, and hydrated, and let him rest. It hadn"t helped.
Crichlow had always been pale, and his face had always had a gaunt and awkward quality. Now, despite the wiry scraggle of beard whiskers on his chin and upper lip, he looked almost skeletal. Lying on his back, partly mummified in his bedroll, he stared up at his comrades with dull eyes that lay deep in their sockets. His lips parted, and a weak tremor shook his jaw as air hissed from his mouth. Everyone leaned closer to hear him as he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "Kiona..."
Thayer reached out and pressed her palm to his face. "I"m here, Eric," she said.
"Sorry, love," Crichlow said.
She shook her head. "For what?"
He was looking in Thayer"s direction, but his eyes didn"t seem to be focusing on her, or on anything else. "For my part," he rasped. "For what...we did to you."
His apology made Thayer wince. She hadn"t spoken to any of the MACOs since the failed attempt to commandeer the control center of Mantilis, but she had confided to Graylock her fear and her resentment of them-Pembleton in particular, since he had been the one who"d pulled the trigger and maimed her.
"Not your fault, Eric," she said. "You"re the only one who didn"t point a weapon at me."
"Still...sorry."
She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "No worries."
A reedy breath pa.s.sed from his lips, and then he was perfectly still. For a moment, the only sound was the low cry of the wind and the snapping of loose fabric on the outside of the shelter. Steinhauer and Pembleton both touched forehead, chest, and each shoulder with their right hands. Thayer reached over and nudged Crichlow"s eyelids closed.
Pembleton wasted no time on sentiment. "Steinhauer," he said, "sanitize Crichlow"s gear, and parcel it out to the rest of the team. When you"re done, we"ll take him up by the rocks and bury him in the snow."
"That"s it?" asked Graylock. "We"re just going to toss his naked body in a drift?"
Steinhauer and Thayer both turned away and pretended to be busy with other tasks as Pembleton replied, "What would you prefer, Lieutenant? Should I dump him in the fjord?"
"He deserves a proper burial," Graylock said.
"I agree," Pembleton said, "but the ground is frozen solid, and we"re short of food. We need to save our strength for the trip, not waste it digging a hole."
"What about a funeral pyre?" asked Graylock.
"We"re low on firewood, too, remember?"
Graylock sighed and nodded. "I know. It just feels heartless to throw him aside like this."
Pembleton replied, "Heartless would be carving him up as food. But since we don"t know what killed him, we can"t risk it." He pulled the flap of Crichlow"s bedroll over the dead man"s face. "After we put him outside, we should break down everything but the main shelter and get ready to travel. We need to be on the move by daybreak tomorrow."
"So soon?" asked Graylock.
"We"re losing light every day, sir," Pembleton said. "At this rate, we"re looking at G.o.d only knows how many months of night, starting in just a couple of weeks. If we aren"t floating to warmer climes by then...we"re finished."
A few days later, during their journey south, the survivors pa.s.sed another interminable night huddled for warmth inside a crude shelter, which they had insulated from the wind by burying it inside a snow drift.
Rows of metal poles and sheets of taut fabric lashed together kept their fresh excavation from imploding on them while they slept. It didn"t keep the cold out, though. Drafts of air so frigid that they felt like razors slipped through gaps in the shelter and always seemed to find Kiona Thayer, no matter how deep in the huddle she hid herself.
Tucked in that cl.u.s.ter of bodies, hidden in the dark, she stayed close to Karl Graylock, her fellow officer. She relied on him not just for heat but to act as a barrier between her and the MACOs, whom she still viewed with anger and anxiety.
Though she had never been attracted to Graylock, the tickle of his beard on her shoulder was a comfort as he wrapped himself around her. She dreaded awakening each morning to another day in exile with Pembleton and Steinhauer. At night, she dreamed of the only thing she truly cared about any longer: Earth, home soil, so far away now, farther than she"d ever imagined it would be.
Memories of Earth haunted Thayer"s every waking moment, so she tried to spend as much of her time as possible asleep. Growing up in Quebec, she had often thought of herself as being acclimated to the cold, perhaps even impervious to it. This world"s arctic circle had taught her differently. Now the bitter wind was the enemy, and sleep"s gray realm was her only haven from the constant discomfort of numb fingers and toes.
Some of her dreams took her to tropical locales; others put her fireside in her father"s home, outside Montreal. She often dreamed of being back aboard the Columbia or in training on Earth or reliving her first day on campus at Dartmouth. Sometimes she was young again, and sometimes she was her current age but revisiting a past chapter of her life, like a tourist.
The one detail that was consistent in all her dreams, however, was that her left foot was whole. And that made it all the more terrible to awaken to her scarred, mangled extremity, which now required mechanical reinforcement.
She was running through tall gra.s.s in a Vermont apple orchard with her older sister, Winona, when a hated voice shattered the moment. "Up and at "em," Pembleton barked, his baritone voice filling the tent. "Only five hours of light today! We can"t waste a second of it. Everybody up! Let"s go!"
Quebecois epithets flew to her lips and no further.
Breakfast barely qualified as a meal. Steinhauer lit a small fire to reheat some weak broth they had saved from their last boiled rodent of several days earlier. They also drank as much wretched bark tea as they could swallow, because Graylock had noted that Crichlow, who had made a point of spurning the foul-tasting beverage, had been the one to grow sick and die.
"No more," Steinhauer said after half a cup. "One more drop, and I swear I"ll vomit."
"Drink it," the engineer said. "Quinine tastes terrible, too, but it helped people fend off malaria."
"I think you only make us drink this p.i.s.s to take our minds off the cold," Thayer said between lippursing sips.
Graylock smiled at that. "Is it working?"
"No," she said.
Minutes later, all traces of their camp had been cleaned up, stowed away, and hefted onto their backs for the continuing march toward the equator. Steinhauer returned from checking and collecting the traps, which he put out each night in the hope of snaring a few more small rodents to sustain them another day. That morning, unfortunately, he returned empty-handed. He packed away the traps, and Pembleton led the team onward, into a landscape concealed by dense, spinning flurries of falling snow.
The quartet moved in single file, with the three men taking turns as trail breakers, sometimes in shifts as short as five minutes. Thayer slogged along behind them, doing her best to keep up but knowing full well that she was slowing them down.
The survivors hugged the coastline rather than try to scale the rugged slopes and peaks of the barren arctic landscape. As a result, their journey often seemed to entail long periods of little to no forward progress, as they trekked parallel to their course, and occasional periods of backtracking, when the sh.o.r.eline switched back around one body of water or another.
A few hours out of camp and less than two hours shy of nightfall, they found themselves circ.u.mnavigating a frozen, narrow fjord. When it was Graylock"s turn to take the lead, he started breaking a trail across the ice sheet.
Pembleton shouted ahead, "Lieutenant! What the h.e.l.l are you doing? Trying to get us killed?"
"It"s less than a kilometer across," Graylock said. "But it"s got to be at least nine kilometers long. It"ll take hours to go the long way around, but if we take the shortcut, we can reach those trees and still have time to set traps before dark."
Despite the fact that Pembleton was swaddled in layers of fabric that looked like a portable tent, his contemptuous slouch was easy to detect. "That"s a salt.w.a.ter fjord, Lieutenant," he said. "There"s no guarantee it"s frozen solid all the way across or that the ice is thick enough to hold your weight. If you feel like taking a bath in water that"ll shock you dead in less than thirty seconds, be my guest, sir."
Graylock reversed course with a series of kick turns and waved Pembleton ahead on the original trail around the fjord. "Lead on, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir," Pembleton replied, moving down the desolate sh.o.r.eline, breaking a trail through the snow with smooth but flagging strides. On either side of the fjord, high cliffs of bare, black rock ascended into the violet sky.
From the back of the line, Steinhauer said, "I would give anything to be on Earth right now."
"Right now, it"s around 4500 B.C.," Pembleton replied as he fell back behind Thayer and let Graylock take the lead again. "You"d be living in the Neolithic period."
"That"d be fine," said Steinhauer. "Someone in Sumer is inventing beer about now."
"That"s right!" Graylock hollered back from the point position. "Mein Gott, I could use a beer."
Trying to distract herself from the acidic churning and pathetic growling of her empty stomach, Thayer asked, "What about agriculture and written language? The Sumerians are inventing those about now, too."