ICEBOUND By Dean Koontz

“How do you feel?” Brian shouted above the shrill wind.

Lin stared at him uncomprehending and tried to sit up.

Brian pressed him down. “Be careful! You don’t want to fall.”

Lin turned his head and stared at the darkness from which the snow streamed ever faster. When he looked at Brian again, his pallor had deepened.

“Are you badly hurt?” Brian asked. Because of the thermal clothing Lin wore, Brian couldn’t determine if the man had any broken bones.

“Some chest pain,” Lin said barely loudly enough to be heard above the storm.

“Heart?”

“No. When I went over the edge … the ice was still rocking … from the wave … the cliff face was slanted. I slid down … and landed here hard on my side. That’s all I remember.”

“Broken ribs?”

Lin took a deep breath and winced. “No. Probably not. Only bruised, I think. Damn sore. But nothing’s fractured.”

Brian removed the coil of rope from around his neck. “I’ll have to make a harness under you arms, across you chest. Can you tolerate that?”

”Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“So I’ll tolerate it.”

“You’ll have to sit up.”

Groaning, Lin eased cautiously into a sitting position, with his back toward the cliff and his legs dangling in the void.

Brian quickly fashioned a harness, tied a tight double knot over Lin’s breastbone, and got to his feet. He reached down and helped the injured man to stand. They turned in place to put the sea and the murderous wind at their backs. Dry, almost granular snow snapped against the wall of ice, bounced from it, and spun against their faces.

“Ready?” Roger called from twenty feet above.

“Yeah. But take it easy!”

Lin clapped his hands rapidly, loudly. Platelets of ice fell from his gloves. He flexed his fingers. “Feel numb … all over. I can move my fingers … but hardly feel them.”

“You’ll be okay.”

“Can’t feel … toes at all. Sleepy. Not good.”

He was right about that. When the body became so cold that it encouraged sleep to maintain precious heat, death could not be far away.

“As soon as you’re topside, get into the sled,” Brian said. “Fifteen minutes, you’ll be as warm as toast.”

“You got me just in time. Why?”

“Why what?”

“You risked your life.”

“Not really.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, wouldn’t you have done the same?”

The taut line was pulled upward, taking George Lin with it. The ascent was smooth. At the top of the precipice, however, Lin got stuck, with his shoulders past the brink and the rest of him dangling in the wind. He was too weak to pull himself to safety.

Roger Breskin’s years of training as a weight lifter served him well. He left the snowmobile and easily manhandled George Lin the last few feet onto the top of the iceberg. He untied the harness from the man’s shoulders and threw the main line down to Brian.

“Check with you … soon as … George settled!” he shouted. Even though his voice was wind-tattered, the anxiety in it was evident.

Only an hour ago, Brian couldn’t have conceived that Roger—rock solid as he was, with his bull’s neck and his massive biceps and his powerful hands and his air of total self-reliance—might ever be afraid of anything whatsoever. Now that the other man’s fear was evident, Brian was less ashamed of the terror that knotted his own guts. If a tough sonofabitch like Roger was susceptible to fear, then even one of the stoical Doughertys might be permitted that emotion a few times in his life.

He picked up the main line and harnessed himself to it. Then he untied the safety tether at his waist, loosened the other end from the piton, coiled it, and hooked it to his tool belt. He plucked the flashlight from the ledge and also fastened it to the belt. He would have salvaged the piton, too, if he’d had the means and the strength to pry it out of the ice. Their supplies, the fuel, and the tools were priceless. They dared waste or discard nothing. No one could predict what scrap, now insignificant, might eventually be essential to their survival.

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