Terminal Freeze

“Lava,” murmured Marshall.

“The anger of the dark gods was terrible. They bellowed and shrieked, and again and again the mountain spit fire. Their violence was such that the sky was rent from horizon to horizon and the heavens bled. For thousands of years they raged. But Anataq had sealed them in too well, and at long last they grew weary. The mountain no longer belched red fire. The heavens no longer bled.”

Until now, Marshall thought. With such a legend as part of his belief system, it was no wonder Usuguk had grown agitated at the return of the strange, crimson-colored northern lights. It was remarkable to think that the man had been able to work at this base at all-in particular, to work with such a terrifying and dangerous creature. But then, he reflected, Usuguk had been young and full of doubts about his people’s traditions. Too bad it had taken such a shocking episode to transform him.

“And the kurrshuq?” he asked. “You called it the guardian of the forbidden mountain.”

“Once the gods of darkness were imprisoned in the mountain, Anataq called on the kurrshuq to guard it, to make sure there was no escape. The kurrshuq are creatures of the spirit world, not gods but powerful beings who do not deign to involve themselves in the ways and lives of the People. For many years, a group of them guarded the mountain. But slowly, very slowly, the darkness of the imprisoned gods corrupted them as well. And they became evil things.”

“Eaters of souls,” Marshall said.

The Tunit’s eyes darted toward him momentarily, then looked away again.

E Level was even more crowded with cast-off detritus than the higher floors had been, and completely dark, and their progress slowed considerably. Gonzalez led them past mechanical spaces and an auxiliary control room, then stopped at an electrical chamber just beyond. Motioning the others to wait, he stepped inside. Marshall watched as he opened an electrical panel, twisted a series of heavy fuses into place, then closed it and threw a fail-safe switch. He grunted his satisfaction, stepped back out into the corridor.

“The north wing should have juice now,” he said.

They passed a series of smaller rooms, then turned right at an intersection. Ahead the passageway ended, barred by a heavy hatch, dogged and padlocked. Marshall glanced a little uneasily at the unlit red bulb above it, at the warning sign that barred all save those with the proper clearance.

Gonzalez glanced back at Phillips. “You guard our six while I try to get this open.”

As Marshall watched, the sergeant opened the heavy dogs with the monkey wrench, one at a time, the cleats squealing in protest after half a century of disuse. After freeing the last cleat, Gonzalez pulled a huge key ring from one pocket. It took half a dozen attempts to find the correct key. Lock open, Gonzalez grasped the circular hasp and pulled the hatch toward him. It opened with a low pop. Powdered rubber rained down from the nearly mummified gasket, and stale air eddied outward, freighted with a desiccated mustiness.

Beyond lay utter blackness. “It’s like looking into King Tut’s tomb,” Logan muttered. Marshall knew what he meant: nobody had so much as looked through this hatch in fifty years.

Gonzalez felt around the inside wall and snapped on a switch. There was another series of pops as some of the overhead bulbs failed. But enough lights still worked to illuminate a narrow metal hallway, receding back into dim space. They all stepped through and Gonzalez shut and dogged the hatch behind them.

“Looks like a pretty secure redoubt to me,” Sully said, nodding at the heavy hatch with approval.

Gonzalez shook his head. “That thing got past us once before-I still don’t know how. And this wing has ventilation ducts and service ports, just like the others.”

They moved slowly down the corridor toward the first set of open doors. To Marshall, the air tasted of dust, overlaid with a coppery, metallic tang.

Gonzalez stopped at the nearest doorway, flashed his light inside. The beam revealed two wooden desks with old-fashioned manual typewriters: a forward office of some kind. A half-written memo was still visible in one of the typewriters, the yellowed paper curled around the platen. Gonzalez withdrew the light and they moved along to the next doorway. He glanced inside and Marshall heard him catch his breath sharply.

Marshall stepped up for a look. A vast storm of some dried dark liquid covered the floor and arced over banks of what appeared to be electrical equipment in wild trajectories. In one corner stood a coupling apparatus, burned and half fused.

“The electrical room,” said Usuguk in a monotone.

“They didn’t even bother to clean up the bloodstains,” said Sully.

The sergeant snapped off his light. “Can you blame them?”

They continued down the narrow corridor, turning on lights as they went. There were labs full of oscilloscopes and black, boxlike devices, some on tables and in racks, others still in their wooden crates.

“This must be the sound equipment,” murmured Faraday.

They stopped at a control room of some sort, with a mixing console and a variety of amplifiers. Gonzalez’s flashlight revealed that the far wall was of glass, overlooking a small soundproofed studio.

Beyond, corridors led off to the left and right, and past this intersection the central hallway ended in another heavy hatch. Gonzalez opened it, shone his flashlight within, and snorted in surprise. He snapped on the light. Marshall followed the others in-then immediately stopped.

They were standing on a narrow walkway-a catwalk, really-that spa

“My goodness,” breathed Faraday. “It is an echo chamber. No doubt to be used for testing the sonar device.”

“If they’d gotten that far,” replied Sully.

“True. I suppose the experiments were conducted elsewhere once this place was sealed up.”

Logan leaned in toward Marshall. “Only one exit.”

Marshall glanced around. “That’s right.”

“Echo chamber. Is that what it looks like to you?”

“Yes.” Marshall turned to look at the historian. “Why. You don’t think so?”

Logan paused. “Actually, no. It looks more like Custer’s Last Stand to me.”

48

Very slowly, the thing resolved out of the blackness. Striped shadows flexed to the motion of muscled flanks. Ekberg stared in horror as-creeping inch by inch into the half-light, like a swimmer emerging from a dark pool-outrageous and terrible details gained form. The huge, shovel-shaped head, covered with short black hair, coarse and glistening. The overhung upper jaw, fronted by an array of huge fangs and flanked by two tusks, behind which-horribly-hung hundreds of narrow, razor-sharp tendrils, like the vibrissae of a walrus. The wide mandible, small and set back by comparison yet anchored to the skull by a massive hinge of bone. And-most shocking because she had seen them before, at least a lifetime before, encased in ice-the unblinking eyes that stared back at them with a mixture of lust and malice.

“Christ,” Conti murmured beside her. “Christ. It’s magnificent.” Slowly-very slowly-he aimed the camera, armed the Record button, and began to film.

Wolff was standing right behind him. He began to raise his gun, but he was shaking so badly Ekberg could hear his teeth rattling. “Emilio,” he said in a strangled voice. “For the love of God-”

“Quick, Kari,” Conti interrupted in a whisper. “Sound.”

But Ekberg could not move. She could only stare.

Moving so slowly she could not be sure it was even moving at all, the thing began its approach down the dappled hallway. Its massive forelegs were bowed slightly, like a bulldog’s, tapering to bulbous, hooflike paws barbed with cruel talons. It was fully visible now, the length of a young horse. The line of its back tapered from high broad shoulders down to squat, powerful haunches matted with coarse hair. She stared, mouth agape. Then, almost unwillingly, her gaze returned to the mouth: the curved fangs; the countless, unutterably hideous mass of tendrils that hung down behind them. She noticed that the tendrils did not just shake gently in time to the monster’s steps, but seemed to slither among themselves with independent movement…