Icy Clutches

for a while.'

'Fine, then just do it,” Elliott Fisk said disagreeably, “before we all freeze to death. What's the difference? Who comes here, one person every ten years? Who's going to see a plaque, a bunch of polar bears?'

'Just like a dentist,” Pratt mumbled inscrutably to no one.

Fisk's pale eyes fixed him. “And what is that supposed to mean, if anything?'

'Just say the word ‘plaque’ and he comes unglued,” Pratt said amiably.

Tremaine looked at him, surprised. Did a dormant sense of humor actually lurk somewhere in that gaunt and dour frame?

'I am not unglued,” Fisk replied pettishly, “I just want to get on with the damn thing.'

Tremaine wanted to get on with it too. “Well, I'd say that wherever Mr. Tibbett—'

He was interrupted by a cry from Walter, who had been wandering aimlessly, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, kicking without point at chunks of gray, decaying ice. “Good God!' he shouted. “What in the world...'

The others turned to him to find him staring at the ground at his feet. On the wet gravel, lying among the softening pieces of ice that had fallen away from the glacier, lay a glistening ivory shaft of bone, six or eight inches long, broken roughly off at one end.

The thought leaped among them like a spark, almost visible in the whitish air. Once before, a few years after the tragedy, the glacier had disgorged some grisly shreds of the dead expedition members. Had it happened again? They stared, fascinated and appalled. Were they looking at a piece of James Pratt? Of Jocelyn Yount? Steven—

Shirley made a gagging noise. “Look, another piece,” she said, pointing. “Oh, God.” She shuddered and moved closer to Tremaine, presumably for support, but looming some three inches over him. “Are they...are they human? Can you tell?'

Tremaine shook his head. “I'm not sure. I believe they might well be. How horrible, how utterly horrible.” His heart was leaping with joy. It was too good to be true; he couldn't have dreamed up better publicity himself. Perhaps the publication schedule could be moved up to make the best use of it. He would have to call Javelin as soon as—

'Probably bear,” Pratt said offhandedly. “Plenty of ‘em around here.'

Tremaine glared at him. He didn't care for the bear hypothesis at all. “Mr. Tibbett? Do you know?'

'Me?” said Tibbett, who seemed to respond habitually in this disingenuous and annoying fashion. “Well, they could very well be bear, all right. And then again, maybe not. I'm not a naturalist myself,” he finished lamely (and unnecessarily), “I'm more in the administrative line.'

'Well, I'm a dentist and I've seen human bones before,” Fisk announced, “and I say those bones are human.” For the first time Tremaine almost liked him.

The matter was settled beyond doubt by Anna Henckel, who had been rooting in the glacial detritus while the others stared at the bones.

'Look,” she said flatly and held out a waterlogged, brown, ankle-height shoe, rotted and misshapen, the lugged sole curling away from the leather upper. “A Raichle boot,” she said.

When nobody, including Tremaine, seemed to grasp the significance of this, she added darkly: “It is the shoe we were outfitted with.'

'Still,” said Walter, who seemed thoroughly shaken, “what does that prove? Other people wear Raichles. Anyone could have thrown away a shoe, or—'

Grimly, Anna shook her head. “There is no mistake.” She dipped it so that they could look into the opening in the top. Inside, in a welter of rotten, dirty-gray wool, was a jumble of narrow bones.

Shirley shuddered convulsively. “How can you touch that?'

This was followed by a long, tortured silence, broken at last by the familiar, elegant baritone of M. Audley Tremaine.

'Will this cursed glacier,” he cried in a voice laden with passion, “never let their bones rest in peace?'

He glanced around, swiftly and surreptitiously. Had he overdone it? No, they all seemed genuinely moved. (Not the immovable Anna, of course.) What a line it would make in the book, what a marvelous scene. He didn't know about the “cursed,” though. A little too melodramatic? He'd have to think that through.

'I imagine we should bring these remains back with us,” Anna said, still holding the shoe. She looked at Tibbett. “Is there a suitable container on the boat?'

'Seems to me,” offered Pratt, “that we ought to leave ‘em where we found ‘em. Been here for thirty years. Don't see much point in moving ‘em.'

'Not much point?' Shirley was shocked. “Are you nuts, or what? This could be what's left of your brother, for God's sake! Do you want to leave it for the animals to chew on?'

'Bears been chewing on ‘em all this time,” was Pratt's unsentimental reply. “Don't see much point in moving ‘em now.'

'Jesus,” Shirley said, having recovered enough by now to speak out of the side of her mouth again, “can you believe this guy? Look, this could be my sister too, you know, and if it is, I don't want her lying out here anymore.” To Tremaine's amazement, her horsey face suddenly bunched up and reddened; tears spurted from her eyes. “Damn,” she said, and turned away.

Pratt shrugged and shifted his weight from one foot to another, looking abashed. “Either way,” he said around his pipe. “Dudn't much matter to me.'

'Mr. Tibbett, what is the proper course?” Tremaine asked, not overly optimistic about getting a definitive reply.