“My cheeks are frozen,” the professor complained, rubbing at her skin with both hands, trying to restore the circulation. “And my toes.”
“Frostbite, Thea,” Ryan said, having to raise his voice almost to a shout to counter the howling banshee wind. “Colder it gets, with the chill factor, as well, you got less and less time. Get down around minus fifty and you lose blood flow in about ten minutes to exposed flesh. Frostbite and gangrene in a few hours.”
One of the other sec men had wandered a little ahead, returning from the blizzard. “Could be something ahead,” he yelled. “Like a cavern.”
“That’s a miracle,” Thea Gibson said, almost weeping in her relief.
“Man who counts chickens before they hatch ends up with a handful of broken shells,” Trader said, but only Ryan heard him.
“WE’RE READY TO SEE you now, Miss Wroth,” said the shy little scientist. “Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long out here.”
“All right.”
“Where is your colleague?”
“Mildred bad a migraine headache and she’s gone back to her room for a lie down.”
“Perhaps I could send along someone to”
Krysty shook her head. “No need. She didn’t want to be interrupted. Said so herself. Can we get started?”
“Of course, of course.”
THEY STOOD TOGETHER, eight strong, in the arched entrance to the cave, peering into its black, soundless deeps. They were just out of the main force of the snow, though flakes still whirled around them.
“Go inside there and check it out, Brunner,” Thea Gibson ordered, pointing into the blackness with her rifle, in case there was any misunderstanding about what the sec man was supposed to be checking out.
“Not on my own.”
“Take Moore with you and Cooke. Hold each other’s hands in the dark.”
“Should’ve had lights,” Brunner complained. “Stinks inside here.”
Ryan sniffed. The man was correct. There was a strong musky scent, like rotted meat, overlaid with a more bitter smell that reminded him of urine.
The three sec men disappeared inside, talking quietly to one another for comfort.
Ryan slowly took the Steyr SSG-70 off his shoulder and readied it for action. At his side, unbidden, Trader did the same with his Armalite.
Thea Gibson saw their movements and hesitated. “Think there’s trouble in there?”
“Does a bear shit in a cave?” Trader asked.
A deep-throated roar came from the pitch-dark ulterior, followed instantly by a scream and the thunder of one of the Mossbergs.
“Best give ourselves some room here,” Ryan suggested, leading the way quickly out onto the ledge, barely ten feet wide, into the worst of the snowstorm.
There was another shot, and a repeat of the reverberating roar, so deep and angry that it felt as though it shook the marrow of the bones.
Brunner appeared first into the blizzard, sliding and slipping, almost dropping the scattergun. “Quick, after us!” he screamed. “Got Cooke!”
Moore was next, weaponless, his head thrown back, eyes staring, as though he were finishing the hundred-yard dash. His mind wiped by fear, he never even checked his stride, running across the snowy trail and clear over the edge, falling soundlessly into the abyss below him.
“Get ready,” Ryan shouted, kneeling and leveling the rifle. Trader and the woman followed his lead, the surviving sec men watching them, frozen by terror.
“Here it comes,” Trader warned.
The dark bulk loomed from the cave mouth, and they all opened fire.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Krysty had once seen a brief snippet from an ancient vid, so ancient she thought it might have been in black and white without any color enhancement. A young person had been standing in front of a circle of judges, all perched up at high benches, being interrogated by them.
She felt rather like that as she was shown into a white-walled laboratory by the shy little scientist. A clock on the wall told her that it was already twenty minutes to two. Through a long, narrow window Krysty could see that there was a serious blizzard raging outside, and her thoughts turned to Ryan. She tried to feel how things were, but could only receive a number of confused, jumbled images, mostly overlaid with blurring whiteness. But at least there was no sense of danger.
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